Living Paper

nostalgia/article

City God's tour is the most lively festival in the old city, there are gatherings everywhere in the first three days, and on the first day, Bai Zhun gets up early in the morning.

He changed into a silk gown with green bamboo patterns for a rare occasion, and sat in the courtyard of his home, watching the white smoke rising from the spire of the Town God's Temple.

Axiu brings a cup of tea, and puts down the teacup to make gestures with Bai Zhun. She wants to go to the streets with Xiaoyan, watch the city god's tour, and go to the temple fair.

Bai Zhun took a sip of tea and agreed, "I must be back before dark."

In a temple fair like this, there are always kidnappers and thieves, but Axiu is a strong woman who can even lift a refrigerator with both hands, Huo Zhenye is not worried at all.

He took out his wallet, counted a few coins and gave them to Axiu: "If there is anything you want to eat or play, just buy some, and treat your children to candy."

Axiu knew what money was, and Bai Zhun's money box was in the main room, so she opened it to grab something to buy, but she didn't have her own money, and she didn't have anything she wanted to buy.

She didn't reach out, but Bai Zhun glanced at it: "Put it away."

Axiu put the money in her tassel bag, changed into a new cheongsam, combed her hair, and went out.

"Let's go out and have a look too?" Huo Zhenye prepared for today for a long time, "I reserved a seat on the first floor of Langyuan. Let's watch Xuncheng upstairs without crowding."

The paper bundles for the meeting to welcome the gods have already been made, and they will stop in the temple and wait for the time to come, and then go on a tour with the statue of the city god.

Huo Zhenye had never cared about it before, only now did he realize that the City God's tour was a big event, and he published it in the newspaper early on to inform the people of the tour route.

On the first day, the people will wait along the road to offer offerings to the City God.

Bai Zhun hates crowds, he hates being crowded when he doesn't go out, and every year he never sees his own paper tie following the City God on tour.

"Don't go, it's too noisy."

"Go ahead, I bought a camera to take pictures for you." The paper bundle will definitely be burned, but before it is burned, you can always take some photos as souvenirs.

Bai Zhun put down the teacup: "Is there anything to see during the day?"

Huo Zhenye was taken aback, there was nothing to see during the day, so could there be something to see at night?

He supported Bai Zhun's wheelchair and smiled at him: "You just think you are going with me." He coaxed Bai Zhun into the car, drove to Sima Road, and stopped in front of the first floor of Langyuan.

The three-story building is made of glass windows, also known as the "Crystal Palace". This man Huo Zhenye booked the room closest to the road half a month in advance.

Bai Zhun sat down in front of the window, looking down from above, there were already many people standing on the side of the street, all holding baskets with offerings in their hands, and there were people drawing circles and burning paper at the intersection by the bridge.

The city god went on a tour to help the ghosts, which were specially burned for lonely ghosts.

There are too many people during the day, and at night, wild ghosts gather at each street corner, grabbing the paper money burned during the day and the meals offered.

Huo Zhenye saw that Bai Zhun was sitting by the window and looking downstairs, his brows were raised, he was a stubborn person, but he was obviously willing to watch in his heart.

"Dude, you go to Gongdelin and order a table of vegetarian dishes, and all the details in the building will be delivered."

The clerk took the money, and at a glance, he knew that there was room for a table. He nodded and went out, and quickly served tea and snacks.

The City God went on tour, it was very grand, there were boring gongs to clear the way in front, followed by two squads of Zaoli, as soon as the guard of honor came to the teahouse, Huo Zhenye raised his camera.

Bai Zhun tasted a piece of jujube yam cake, and glanced at Huo Zhenye: "It's a few miles away, save yourself some effort."

Huo Zhenye put down the camera: "Foreigners also celebrate Halloween. They call it Halloween. At night, people will dress up as ghosts."

When I first went to study abroad, I didn’t know it. That night there were foreign students running around the campus wearing white sheets, just to scare the East Asian students who didn’t know. Huo Zhenye didn’t believe in ghosts and gods.

Bai Zhun scoffed: "Tonight I will show you the ghost festival in China."

A group of executioners wielding big knives just passed by downstairs, followed by a group of female prisoners, all with disheveled hair, wearing prison clothes, all of them have good faces, and they don't look like good families.

The colorful cloth dry boat floats and sways past. The clam spirit wears a flesh-colored shirt inside and an embroidered bellyband on the outside. Two clam shells open and close, and the Eight Immortals cross the sea, and Wu Song fights the tiger.

Every time a team passed, it was a golden gong to clear the way, and it was very lively.

"These are all what the City God wants to see?" Huo Zhenye looked interesting, and pressed the shutter twice more.

Bai Zhun lowered his head and blew on the tea: "This is what people want to see."

Those who put steel needles on top of the censer belong to gangsters, and those who pretend to be prisoners and are dragged away are gangsters. Everyone wants to atone for their sins in this life, but how can their sins be repaid so easily.

In the long queue, more than a dozen swordplayers jumped to the ground, and the steel knife scraped across their scalps. When they looked up and saw Bai Zhun by the window of the teahouse, they immediately stood still and saluted with fists in their hands.

Huo Zhenye saw it and asked, "Know him?"

Bai Zhun frowned: "From the fourth door." After being seen by the people from the fourth door, he couldn't be quiet again.

There was a burst of admiration in the street, and the paper offerings made by Bai Zhun followed behind the god's sedan chair. Each paper offering was as tall as the gods in the temple. The gods were majestic and majestic.

The people on the street bowed together and offered tribute to the City God.

It was the first time for Bai Zhun to hear such admiration, he threw a crispy broad bean into his mouth, although he felt that these people didn't understand the ingenuity of his paper tie, but he was not unhappy.

Huo Zhenye ran up and down and took many photos: "When it's washed out, put it in a frame."

This is the first time the two of them have made a paper offering together.After that, I will take photos every year and make a photo album.

"It's over, let's go." Bai Zhun yawned. It's time for him to take a nap. This tour of the city will last a whole day, and he will be busy at night.

As soon as Bai Zhun came home, he stuck into the spring bed and didn't get up. He slept until it was completely dark.

He lazily got up from the spring bed, rolled to Huo Zhenye's bed in a bamboo wheelchair, and pushed him with a bamboo stick: "Let's go out."

They drove to the southern suburbs, Huo Zhenye had never been to such a place before: "Where is this?"

"The Altar of Fierce Ghosts in the Southern Suburbs." At the beginning of the city's founding, altars of Fierce Ghosts were set up in all directions.

These days, one kind of life in the concession, another in the old city, even the City God can no longer enter the concession.

Bai Zhun set up an altar by the side of the road, set up an incense burner, lit long incense, and sprinkled out a handful of paper money from time to time.

"What is this worshiping?" Huo Zhenye raised his eyes and looked around. There was a deserted road in front of him, and woods behind him. There was not even the sound of insects and birds. It was empty and deserted, filled with night fog.

The corners of Bai Zhun's lips twitched slightly, and he poured out two ancient coins from his sleeve, and handed them to Huo Zhenye: "Then let you open your eyes."

Huo Zhenye didn't know why he took the ancient coins, so the Kaiyuan Tongbao was considered valuable, and it wouldn't be enough to make him open his eyes.

When he saw that Bai Zhun was staring into the distance, he looked down at the ancient coin in his hand again, as if he understood something, he raised the ancient coin to his eyes and looked out through the money hole.

On the deserted road in the southern suburbs that was empty just now, there was a long queue of people walking bustlingly.

Red and white lanterns came swaying, and the first eight ghost-masked men with big heads and thin bodies carried a big golden sedan chair and walked slowly in the middle of the road. The green-faced ghosts ran ahead beating gongs and drums, and the fang-toothed ghosts waved flags follow behind.

"The City God goes on tour, and all ghosts come to court."

Huo Zhenye took down the ancient coin, and there was still a bright moon and clear trees in front of him, and the surrounding area was still deserted, but the night fog was a little thicker.

He raised the coin again, and the scene in front of him changed again. The sedan chair of the gods was getting closer and closer, and the bull's head and horse face tied the evil spirit with iron chains, and slowly followed behind the golden sedan chair.

Only then did he know what Bai Zhun meant when he said that it was more lively at night.

Bai Zhunzha's paper offerings had been burned during the day to worship the gods, but now they appeared in the middle of the procession, but no one needed to carry them, and the gods walked around by themselves.

When the golden sedan chair was brought in front of him, Bai Zhun tossed out the yellow paper coin and put an incense stick in the small incense burner: "You also burn a stick."

Huo Zhenye lit the incense as he said, and when he looked up again, he saw a few familiar faces in the line.

Xihong put on a new cheongsam as she wished, holding a long silk ribbon in her hand, which was tied around Young Master Qiao's neck, and walked gracefully in the team.

Tailor Zhou was standing beside her holding the scissors, staring at her with the tip of the knife aimed at her neck.

Song Ying led a child and followed behind the team with a smile. This time she finally found her son.

Bai Zhun burned the paper he had made, watched the procession pass by, and the dead spirits received the things, happily following behind the ghost messenger.

When this team disappeared at the end of the ghost altar, Bai Zhun's long incense was also burned.

Huo Zhenye returned the two ancient coins to Bai Zhun.

"gave it to you."

On the way back, Bai Zhun fell asleep in the back seat of the car. Huo Zhenye covered him with a suit jacket, and played with the pair of bronze coins while driving, like a child who got a telescope, holding one in front of his eyes from time to time.

It can be seen from the hole of the ancient coin that there are wild ghosts squatting on the side of the street to grab food for offerings everywhere on the long street. Men, women, old people and children are all barefoot grabbing food.

Seen by Huo Zhenye, they all turned their heads and stood up, and surrounded the car with pale faces.

Bai Zhun turned over in the back seat, coughed lightly, the wild ghosts looked at each other, and scattered in fear.

"Drive your car and don't mess with things."

It was late at night when I got home, and when I opened the door, I saw seven or eight snack boxes on the table, all of which were pasted with red paper. Inside the paper box were birthday peach buns. , and the steamed green leaves are lined below.

Of the seven posts, all of them are birthday celebrations.

Except for Han Zhu from Sanmen who brought a basket of fresh peaches, the rest were cold snacks. Bai Zhun was a little hungry, but the longevity peach buns were already cold, not fragrant and soft, so he couldn't eat it.

Huo Zhenye picked up some birthday cards: "Today is your birthday? Why didn't you tell me?"

Bai Zhun entered the main room hungry: "There's nothing to say about it." The Ghost Festival is not a good day.

Huo Zhenye was thinking of a way in the room with his arms crossed, it was already midnight, where could he buy him a birthday cake?How could he be so deserted if he had known earlier that it was his birthday.

He went around the kitchen. There were eggs, vegetables and a handful of dried noodles in the refrigerator, barely enough to make a bowl of longevity noodles.

Bai Zhun put a yellow paper in front of the incense table with his own name written on it, lit a long-lasting incense, and saw that the incense burned quickly, and the incense ash fell down, and soon half of it was burned.

Bai Zhun stared intently at the stick of long incense, and tightly knuckled his fingers.

This is his life incense, light it every birthday to see if this year's is longer than last year's.

This is Qimen's business, catching ghosts and exchanging life.

Before the incense was lit, he smelled the strong aroma of sesame oil in the room. Huo Zhenye came in with a bowl. He leaned against the door frame: "It's a bit rotten, but it can still be seen that it's noodles."

A bowl of noodles, two small green vegetables, a poached egg, and a few drops of sesame oil.

Bai Zhun raised his eyelashes to look at him. After the master left, no one cooked longevity noodles for him.

Huo Zhenye thought that he disliked this aspect and was too bland, and he himself felt a little overwhelmed: "Why don't you take a bite? I mean, let's count it as a birthday. Let's make it up tomorrow and watch a movie for dinner?"

Bai Zhun sat down at the table, reached out to take it, picked up the tip of his chopsticks, picked up a noodle, although it was rotten, it was not broken, and he ate a long noodle into his mouth.

The incense stick in the stove in front of the desk sparked, and Bai Zhun turned around to look, the incense that was burning extremely fast was extinguished.

"Why didn't it burn, do you want another one?" Huo Zhenye asked.

"No, you go and open the box under the altar and put the incense in."

Huo Zhenye acted according to his words, he took off the long incense, and opened the red box, which was full of half-burned, unburned incense.

"Is it long?" Bai Zhun took another mouthful of noodles, but he didn't put it into his mouth after a long time, his hands tightening the chopsticks.

"It's long." Huo Zhenye replied casually, he grabbed a handful of incense sticks from the box, there were always fifteen or six sticks, and the one he took out just now was the longest among them.

Bai Zhun lowered his head to eat the noodles, his heart was slightly relaxed, it will be fine when it grows.

Axiu entered the room, handed Huo Zhenye a note, and told Huo Zhenye with gestures that it was the policeman from the arresting house who called the phone at the alley, and someone came to deliver the note.

Huo Zhenye held it in his hand, and it said "I'm asking for urgent matters, Wanwang will reply." The signature was in Tao characters.

This character is beautiful, so it must be a woman. Huo Zhenye thought for a while before he remembered: "Tao? Miss Tao? What urgent matter can she ask me? She has been searching here from the arresting room?"

"I'm looking for you, a psychic detective, maybe I want you to catch ghosts." Bai Zhun's life has grown by a day, and his life has increased by a few months. He is in a good mood and doesn't care about this dude.

Huo Zhenye breathed a sigh of relief: "It would be great if it was really like this, but don't let it be a blind date again."

"You still have a blind date with this Miss Tao?"

Bai Zhun picked up the leaves of vegetables with the tip of his chopsticks, and stared at Huo Zhenye. There was a little doctor in front and Miss Tao in the back. I didn't expect this dude to be quite likable.

The author has something to say: Bai Qi: Today is my birthday, and I sent [-] small red envelopes in the message