The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 473 - 462: Funeral Procession

Chapter 473: Chapter 462: Funeral Procession

Manbao was led to the front by Old Zhou and Ms. Qian, while Taoist Shouqing held a ceremonial sword with a solemn expression, muttering incantations.

Whether or not he could truly call back the soul, he was quite dedicated. Manbao listened carefully and heard him chanting, "...Zhou Yin and his wife departed on a long journey in the past years and were lost. There is no place named to summon their souls back to their homeland for their ascension. With this sincere heart, I notify...summon the soul from thousands of miles to return to its native place, ascend early to immortality. Due to the unfulfilled causation, the cold soul becomes the spirit of the green waves..."

With a suave turn, Taoist Shouqing thrust his sword forward as though opening a path for the departed soul, his sharp gaze fixed on the main door as he dragged his sword all the way to the front of the shrine.

Old Zhou and Ms. Qian both watched the Taoist with keen eyes, and Manbao also stared at him with round, wide eyes.

Taoist Shouqing let out a breath, elegantly wiped away his sweat with a handkerchief and said, "The lost soul has returned; we can proceed with the funeral."

Ms. Qian suddenly burst into loud sobs, turning and throwing herself onto the coffin, beating the coffin lid and wailing, "Yin, Yin, how could you have such a hard heart, not visiting your sister-in-law even once in all these years? I raised you from a baby, even if you had come in my dreams once... "

The sweat Taoist Shouqing had just wiped away beaded up again.

Before Manbao could speak to him, she was grabbed by Junior Ms. Qian alongside Datou, who was dressed in filial piety clothes and holding a spirit tablet, and was pulled to the front to stand, "The time has come, raise the banners, proceed with the funeral—"

Ms. Feng and Ms. He quickly came forward to help Ms. Qian up, and in an instant, cries filled the air, Zhou Wulang and Zhou Liulang, long-absent, rushed in anxiously and took their places at the coffin, also calling out and crying loudly.

Whether they could shed tears or not, crying was the correct thing to do.

But Ms. Qian’s tears were real, even Junior Ms. Qian couldn’t help wiping away her own tears, her voice choked with sobs as she said some comforting words.

Old Zhou, clenching his smoking pipe, red-eyed, walked at the very front; as the sound of the suonas rose, everyone followed the coffin all the way to the village outskirts with cries that shook the heavens.

Yet the villagers were not so sorrowful, in fact, they were quite happy. With Zhou Yin’s honorable burial, the great weight that had been on many people’s hearts in the village was finally shifted aside.

Even Old Zhou and Ms. Qian, despite their red eyes, felt more happiness than sorrow in their hearts.

From this day onward, whenever New Year’s, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Dragon Boat Festival, and Double Ninth came around—times to honor their ancestors—they could openly burn incense for Zhou Yin and his wife and offer a table full of delicious food without having to sneak around like before, clandestinely sticking three sticks of incense at their graves or making up excuses just to weed around their headstones...

Their tomb was still chosen to be near a certain plot of land, but instead of being to the left of Old Zhou’s parents, it had been moved to the right. Manbao, with a confused expression, accompanied Datou to the grave with the coffin.

As the coffin was set in place, and then Junior Ms. Qian, wiping away tears, approached with the two children to the edge of the grave, "Come, you two cousins scatter the first handful of earth together."

Manbao blankly grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it onto the coffin. At everyone’s encouragement, Zhou Dalang and others personally covered the coffin with earth.

The Zhang family members watching from behind scoffed, found it all too fussy.

After the coffin was buried, Old Zhou’s family held another ritual at the grave, Taoist Shouqing leading the group around the mound for thirty-six circuits, reciting scriptures until the ritual was complete.

This time, Manbao also stood at the very front beside Datou, kneeling to kowtow to the departed souls. This time, however, all seven siblings of Zhou Dalang, along with a gaggle of sons and daughters, also knelt down, while only Old Zhou and Ms. Qian remained standing.

After all the children had kowtowed, Ms. Qian squatted down. Perhaps having cried too long, she couldn’t keep her balance and plopped down on the ground. Too weary to move, she burned joss paper and muttered in her heart: Rest assured, sister-in-law will raise Manbao well. She is as smart as you were, a very clever child. Please also bless her to be healthy and safe...

With the mortuary rites completed, everyone went home, leaving Old Zhou’s family behind until the end. Manbao tenderly supported her mother, and Ms. Qian, though her eyes were swollen, smiled relaxedly at her, "Mama’s okay."

These words comforted Manbao, who smiled widely, and on the way back, she curiously glanced at the new mound beside her grandparents’ and uttered with surprise, "Look, mom, someone cleaned the weeds on this mound. But it’s strange that there’s no incense."

Old Zhou’s family all broke into a sweat, but before they could invent an excuse, Manbao had already run back, pulling out three sticks of incense from Zhou Yin’s grave, and placed them at the equally fresh mound of the stranger’s grave.

As she had done in previous years, she repeated her parents’ instructions: "To whomever lies in this grave, whether uncle or aunt, you’re welcome to join my little uncle and aunt for a meal—the more ghosts, the merrier."

After some thought, to ensure she didn’t overlook her grandparents, for they always invited this strange mound’s occupant for meals when sweeping their graves, surely it wouldn’t be right now to invite this stranger and not her own grandparents, would it?

So she ran back again, pulling out three more sticks of incense from her little uncle and aunt’s grave and invited her grandparents to join the feast, reciting earnestly.

Old Zhou’s family watched as she bustled about, and when she was done, they walked her home by the hand.

Never mind, they were all one family after all, eating together was fine. Besides, Zhou Yin and his wife probably wouldn’t mind.

As they approached their house, they saw people from the village helping to clean up the dishes and furniture.

The dishes needed to be washed, sorted, and returned to their respective homes, and the furniture had to be cleaned. Naturally, this wasn’t something Old Zhou’s family could do by themselves, so neighbors usually helped out with the tasks.

Other relatives who were not part of the funeral procession, having no blood relation, had already left early.

Now, only the Zhang family members remained.

At the moment, they rummaged through the dishes as some village women brazenly scolded, "Stop digging around, you think there’s leftover food these days? Don’t break the dishes, or you’ll have to pay for them!"

The Zhang family members sneered, withdrawing their hands.

As soon as Old Zhou’s family came back, the Zhang family surged forward with an aggressive air.

Including the elderly and children, about forty people stood across from Old Zhou’s family, several older children pushed to the front. A woman shouted directly, "Zhou Jin, what’s with your kids? We came to partake in the feast, and then your two sons and their children beat up ours. What kind of behavior is this?"

Old Zhou glanced at the several children with bruised faces and torn clothes without even asking why his sons had fought. He frowned and waved his hand, "Alright, alright, we can talk about that later. We just got back from the graveyard. Are you really going to block our path right now?"

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