The Pentium Era - South to North

After the procession to the village was over, everyone followed the procession and rushed to the old village to watch the worship ceremony.

The ceremony to worship the ancestor was held in the open space in front of the Gong Temple. On the edge of the open space was a large tall jackfruit forest, with green jackfruits. The jackfruits were like silkworm cocoons, one next to the other, forming a circle. Strings, they don't look like they are growing out of the tree, but like they are wrapped around the trunk.

The land under the jackfruit forest has been leveled, and there are tables of wine and food. There are always nearly a hundred tables. After the worship ceremony is over, everyone will have lunch here, and it is shady.

In the open space in front of the Gong Temple, many people came. The sun above their heads was very strong. People were crowded in the crowd. They were sweating constantly. Their noses were filled with the stench of sweat and body odor, but even this could not stop them. Curiosity, and the courage to join in the fun, must be crowded here.

Zhang Xiangbei and the others held mineral water in their hands and wore straw hats on their heads. There were not many people wearing straw hats like them. Most of them had their heads pointed toward the sun, and some people simply went shirtless.

After being brought back from the village, the shrine with the father-in-law and his parents-in-law sitting was placed in the middle. In front of it was an offering table, on which were placed a whole sheep, a whole roasted suckling pig, and a whole chicken. There were offerings such as ducks and geese, and in front of them there were bowls of rice piled into peaks, and wine glasses filled with wine.

In front of the offering table is the incense burner. Behind the grandfather and his parents-in-law, there is a row of more than a dozen shrines. These shrines are not large in size, and the gods sitting in them have different shapes and appearances. No one knows who they are. These shrines are , they were brought here from the villagers’ homes to enjoy the honor of the ancestors and parents-in-law, and to accept the worship of everyone together.

The third father who presided over the ceremony was wearing a long coat and a Taoist hat in the summer. The back of the long coat was obviously soaked with sweat. The strange thing was that there was no sweat on his forehead or face. Someone handed him mineral water. He, he shook his head and refused.

The ceremony officially began. The third father recited a spell, and then asked everyone to kneel down. Everyone in the open space knelt down, and there was a large area. Everyone kowtowed to the uncle and his mother-in-law under the order of the third father. Xiaoqin and Of course his family also went, but Zhang Xiangbei and the others did not go and stood in the woods watching the fun.

Even standing in the woods, sweat still flows.

After everyone finished their obeisances, the third father-in-law began to dance and mutter words for a while, and then everyone started to line up and take turns to offer incense to the grandfather-in-law and his mother-in-law.

There were people lining up to burn incense over there. In the woods, the lucky lion began to walk between each table, tasting the food on each table. In this way, the food on each table was stained with Gongzu's "slobber" , everyone will be protected.

More people are walking through, looking at the dishes and wine on each table, and whispering to each other, because each banquet table here is prepared by its own person. The more tables there are, it means that the guests are coming. The more, the better the food and wine will be, and the more respect you will have.

With such a naked comparison, no one was willing to succumb to others and gave everything they had to make this banquet a high-end one.

Bao Tianbin and Zhang Xiangbei said that the rituals and procedures of the public ceremony are different in each place because of the different seasons. For example, in the first month, they usually worship the public first and then carry the public away. In the village, it’s summer now, and the people who carry the official can’t bear the burden, so they take advantage of the cool weather in the morning to walk through the village first, and then worship the official and eat the official meal. After eating, everyone is energetic, and they can worship again.

"This time in the afternoon, it will be lively. Those who can't bear it or dare not watch can leave first, and no one will blame you." Bao Tianbin said.

"Why don't you dare to look?" Xiang Nan asked.

Bao Tianbin smiled: "You'll find out later."

After Xiaoqin and the others finished offering incense, they came back and invited Zhang Xiangbei and the others to sit down. Everyone sat down. Some of the dishes on the table were familiar to Zhang Xiangbei and others.

Bao Tianbin and Zhang Xiangbei said that the current public cuisine has been messed up. In the past, every place in Hainan had its own characteristics. For example, Lingao and Ding'an served roast suckling pig and black pork, and the crater served goat meat. The main dish is black tofu, and Chengmai is a small scalper. Now that they are all available, everyone can eat everything and put everything on the table.

Zhang Xiangbei looked at the table. It was really rich. There were roasted suckling pig, steamed grouper, white-cut Wenchang chicken, boiled shrimp, steamed crab and mackerel, braised mutton and so on.

Bao Tianbin pointed to a plate of dishes and said to Zhang Xiangbei:

"However, here in Wenchang, there are two dishes that are indispensable. One dish is this, assorted dishes, also called family portrait. This dish has a saying: the whole family is reunited, relatives and friends gather together, and people, gods and ancestors have a big party together. ’, so it’s called Family Portrait.”

Zhang Xiangbei looked at the dish. There were green beans, bamboo shoots, carrots, mushrooms, meatballs, sausages, dried squid and other ingredients. This family portrait was a hodgepodge, similar to the eight-treasure dish in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The saying is similar. In the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, eight-treasure dishes used to be a must-have dish during the Spring Festival dinner, but now, it has been forgotten.

Every year during the New Year's Eve dinner, Zhang Xiangbei would listen to his grandma talk about how to make eight-treasure dishes. She said that every household used to make a large pot of eight-treasure dishes during the Spring Festival, and they would last for ten and a half months before guests came. When I was a child, this eight-treasure dish was indispensable, but now, even my grandma is too lazy to make the eight-treasure dish. She said that there are fresh vegetables there, which are nutritious to eat every time.

"And this, Mr. Zhang, what kind of dish do you think this is?" Bao Tianbin asked, pointing to another dish.

Zhang Xiangbei looked at the large plate of dishes, including fungus, potatoes, pickled bamboo shoots, shrimps, crabs, squid, cucumbers, celery, etc. It seemed that there was everything. Zhang Xiangbei said that there were too many things to distinguish.

"As long as you can't tell," Bao Tianbin said with a smile, "This dish is called mixed vegetables. You can put anything in it. The more mixed vegetables, the better. I haven't eaten mixed vegetables yet. I used to use mixed vegetables twice. The same ingredients are used by the same chef, and the mixed vegetables made today will be different from the ones tomorrow, depending on what ingredients are on hand."

Zhang Xiangbei laughed when he heard this. He thought that this miscellaneous dish was a bit similar to the ancestor Gongqi of the Hainan people. Anyone could respect him as a god and anyone could worship him. This was too casual.

Zhang Xiangbei smiled and looked at him towards the south. He didn't say anything. He felt that it was not good to say this in front of Xiaoqin and his family. Although they couldn't tell clearly, they were worshiping What ancestors, but it's always their ancestors, not yours.

Although the banquet was very vulgar and had a mountain style, the environment here, including the tableware, were all made of stainless steel plates and basins. The wine was Luzhou Laojiao Guojiao 1573, which costs more than 800 bottles, which is pretty good here. , but it uses disposable plastic cups, just like a food stall, but the dishes are really delicious.

Although Zhang Xiangbei was sweating profusely, he still ate with gusto.

While they were drinking and eating, vendors kept coming over to sell Qingliang and coconuts. Xiangnan asked for a coconut and some Qingbuliang. After eating Qingbuliang in the woods in midsummer, Xiangnan thought it could be used. Zhang Xiangbei’s words were so refreshing!

After eating until about one o'clock, I was full of wine and rice. The rice was chicken oil rice. Xiangnan kept shouting "delicious, delicious, this meal is so delicious."

The people in the woods left the table in twos and threes and walked to the open space in front of the Gong Temple. At this time, the sun was not as fierce as before at noon. Bao Tianbin looked over there and asked Xiaoqin:

"Ready to start?"

Xiaoqin nodded and said, "It's begun."

Zhang Xiangbei and Xiangnan didn't know what they were talking about at first. However, Bao Tianbin told them to leave and let us go over to watch the fun. They still stood up and followed them. They walked to the edge of the woods and stopped. The sun was shining brightly in the open space. Yes, there were a lot of people. The sun and the smell were a bit unbearable, so they didn't move forward into the open space and just stood here and watched.

The third father came out of nowhere, stood in front of the shrine, recited another spell, and immediately got out of the way.

Someone in the crowd screamed "Ah", and everyone looked over. A young man started dancing with some funny movements. Zhang Xiangbei looked like he was breakdancing. Bao Tianbin said to them:

"This is Gongzu's upper body."

In front of the young man, everyone moved out of the way. The young man closed his eyes and danced forward. When he reached the shrine, he turned around and continued dancing, as if he was sleepwalking.

Someone screamed "Ah!" again, and the crowd became commotion. Zhang Xiangbei and the others saw that this time it was a little girl with disheveled hair. At first, she kept shaking her head. Then he stretched out his hands and kept grabbing something in the air, with his eyes closed.

"Another top."

Xiaoqin said that Zhang Xiangbei almost laughed. He thought that in such a hot weather, Gongzu would not be idle. He was really busy. After doing this and that, he would also use the clone technique.

Someone was pulling the girl, her head was still shaking like a rattle, her hands kept grabbing in the air, as if she wanted to grab something to her chest, her feet were raised very high, and she stepped on them, as if stepping on something. He walked forward like a pickle, walked to the front of the shrine, turned around, and stood side by side with the young man in front of him. The two of them did not communicate and were obsessed with each other.

There was another commotion in the crowd, but this time there was no scream of "ah". It seemed that the one who was covered up was a whisperer. When the crowd dispersed to both sides, the middle-aged man's head suddenly turned to the left. Suddenly, he retracted and then suddenly jumped to the right, just like the head of a mole emerging from the hole in the game of whack-a-mole. Zhang Xiangbei really wanted to hit him on the head.

Then, people were being taken up one after another, and they were all dancing forward. In front of the shrine, seven or eight people stood side by side, all with their eyes closed, doing various strange movements, like a collective sleepwalking.

Zhang Xiangbei thought of two words, one was "dancing with demons" and the other was "acting like gods and ghosts". He thought, what's so interesting about this? It's better to go to a disco to watch people dancing.

Someone handed the young man who was the first to get up a piece of steel wire. This steel wire was as thick and long as a bicycle spoke, and one end seemed to be sharpened. Zhang Xiangbei saw that the young man took the steel wire and stopped dancing. Xiang Bei didn't know what he was going to do.

I saw him holding the end of the wire with his right hand, opening his mouth, and inserting the tip of the wire into his mouth. Then, his left cheek bulged. Before Zhang Xiangbei could see what was going on, the end of the wire, It had already penetrated through the cheek, and everyone cheered in unison.

"Ah!" Someone exclaimed. This time, it was Xiang Nan who made the cry. She was frightened by this scene.

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