Annual Ceremony

Chapter 66 Winter Solstice (Part Two)

People are accustomed to referring to diseases that spread widely and are fatal within a short period of time as plagues.

Plagues are also commonly referred to as the wrath of the plague god or the punishment of the gods.

The reason God punishes must be because He has angered us. If we want to stop this divine punishment, we must find the source of the anger, repent to God, and ask for forgiveness.

In years of great disasters and plagues, even the emperor has to issue an edict of self-reproach to admit his mistakes to Heaven, let alone the common people?
Ordinary people have a narrow field of vision, and almost everyone will subconsciously turn their heads to look for the source of evil in the place closest to them.

Fearful people need comfort, and their fears need an outlet.

The celestial dog eclipsing the moon in March is a harbinger of misfortune, and the woman who loudly proclaimed the celestial dog theory to be false was clearly defying the will of Heaven—her arrogance and ignorance must have angered the gods and ghosts!

Once the seeds of discord were sown, someone brought up Zhenyi's past disrespectful behavior towards gods and Buddhas, including her "confrontation" with the wife of the Daotai who sincerely worshipped Buddha.

And then there was her deceased father, who, it was said, had once gone mad by destroying a temple.

With so many sins to bear, it's no wonder the plague first appeared in their royal family's clinic.

Wang Zhefu, Old Madam Dong, Yang Jinniang, Third Madam, Wang Jie... those wounds on the hearts of the Wang family, the wounds of life and death, have now all become some kind of ominous evidence.

In short, everything is “traceable”. This family must have been afflicted by some evil spirit, which is why they have repeatedly failed, been plagued by misfortunes, and even attracted a plague!
The blazing torches shattered the darkness of the night.

Shouts, arguments, smashing, and even the jingling of copper bells like those used for transporting corpses—all these sounds mingled and flooded into the Wang family courtyard. These sounds made the already unbearable night even hotter, as if black blood had been poured into a boiling oil pot, ready to be splashed onto people.

The Wang family was in a state of shock, panic, and chaos.

The chaos lasted for an unknown period of time, disturbing almost every household on the entire street.

The Qian family and many other scholarly families stepped forward to mediate, and government officials were also invited to come.

But in the end, about ten people carrying torches rushed into the second house's courtyard.

The drowsy Zhenyi was awakened by Ju Zi's almost ferocious cries, which Ju Zi had almost never made before.

"Get out of here! Even this beast is so wicked!"

Orange clung to a man's trouser leg and started biting, but the man kicked her away, sending her crashing down the stone steps.

Those people broke into Zhenyi's study, took out boxes and volumes of books and manuscripts, and even old bamboo slips, along with many old bronze instruments and wooden rulers, and threw them all into the courtyard, where they poured pungent kerosene on them.

Zhenyi dragged her weak body out of the bedroom. Seeing this scene, she felt as if she had stumbled into a nightmare, yet everyone's face was so clear.

Zhenyi thought back to the year her second brother had an accident, when she became depressed and fell ill. Her eldest brother had also pretended to burn books to scare her... But this time, before she could even rush forward, it was her eldest brother who grabbed her.

Zhenyi didn't understand, but she didn't care to understand; she resisted fiercely regardless of the consequences.

"Miss, Miss... Listen to this old servant, don't go, don't go!" Zhuo Mama, whose head was now completely devoid of black hair, also rushed over and, together with Wang Yuan, tightly embraced the seemingly insane Zhenyi.

"Second sister, if you want to hate someone, hate me... I'm the one who brought them here to burn it!" Wang Yuan said loudly in a hoarse voice.

Zhenyi paused in her struggle and looked at her brother's face in disbelief.

Wang Yuan, who always appeared carefree yet always managed to be smooth and worldly-wise, now had tears streaming down his face.

Zhenyi was bewildered, aggrieved, angry, and incredulous. Tears streamed down her face as she spoke: "Big brother, why... why?" "Second sister, listen to me..." Wang Yuan's voice trembled, his eyes filled with guilt, but even more so with overwhelming fear. He took his shivering hands and held his sister's slender, upright shoulders, shaking his head as he said to her in despair, "This time is different."

This is different from the last time when they pretended to burn the books.

This situation was unlike any other time I had ever encountered at home.

Zhenyi turned her head tremblingly, looking at those people, then at the few officials guarding the courtyard gate who were barely maintaining "order," and finally understood what was going on.

The kerosene was poured into her heart at the same time, and when touched by the torch, it ignited a raging fire that seemed to burn the heavens and the earth.

In the brief moment that Wang Yuan thought his sister had been frightened and persuaded to stop, Zhenyi suddenly rushed forward.

In the chaos of the crowd trying to stop her, Zhenyi fell to the ground. Zhuo's mother crawled to her knees and hugged her tightly with all her might.

The elderly Mrs. Zhuo was forced to exert tremendous strength in order to protect Zhenyi; it was the only way she could think of.

Zhenyi's face was buried in Zhuo Mama's clothes, and her angry screams were all buried inside. The enormous collapse wandered and collided wildly in this small area of ​​darkness, trying to break out a little exit and light, but it was destined to be in vain.

When Zhenyi was a child, she saved Zhuo's mother in a wheat field, and the little girl hugged the wounded Zhuo's mother.

That night, the matriarch and Zhenyi said that there are two kinds of evil in this world. One kind of evil is like that of Ji Wu, which is a foolish and clumsy evil. The other kind of evil can be hidden under the bright skin of sages and virtuous doctrines, so that you can not easily see that he is doing evil.

Zhenyi was terrified. She grabbed her grandmother's clothes and looked up at her, asking, "Grandmother, how can I see through this and avoid it?"

The grandmother did not answer.

At this moment, Zhenyi finally witnessed this second kind of evil with her own eyes, but even though it was enough to be seen through, it could not be avoided.

Summer has not yet ended, but winter has already arrived.

The manuscripts that were unearthed were piled up almost like a small mountain, taking up half of the courtyard. The fire distorted the already sweltering air, and the bright travelogues with cat paw prints turned to ashes, rising and floating up like scalding snowflakes.

Heaven and earth transformed into a furnace, where the flames of ignorance and evil burned fiercely, and Chastity was almost completely consumed by fire.

At that moment, the truth she had been searching for in confusion suddenly appeared.

Amidst the swirling ashes, Zhenyi seemed to have become one of the ashes about to dissipate. She leaned weakly against Mother Zhuo's chest, her unfocused gaze catching a glimpse of a constable's swaying black boots and the hem of his robe.

Through the corner of that robe that represented the majesty of the government, Zhenyi saw many more people who had never shown themselves before, their superiors, and their superiors' superiors. They gradually built up a high mountain, and the person on the top of that mountain wore a bright yellow dragon robe. He was the person closest to "Heaven," and all his edicts were regarded as the will of Heaven.

Zhenyi used to wonder if the emperor was really the one who had seen the "truth". But if he was, why did he allow the people to be ignorant? Why did he refuse to encourage astronomical theories? Why did he let his people wander in chaos?
This also prompted Zhenyi to ponder many times – her father established her heart, and her mother established her life; who was right and who was wrong?
At this moment, Zhenyi finally realized that her parents were not at fault; it was the world that was at fault!

Those rules that confuse her, make her feel conflicted, and that she can never explore further, are all because they are being controlled and distorted by humans!

The folly of the world is a poisonous fog, man-made, yet the creators claim it as divine will, so that people will willingly grovel in humility!
The will of Heaven is unfathomable, simply because once the truth is revealed, the mountain built with deception will collapse and crumble!
At this moment, this "divine retribution," tacitly approved by the government, nearly destroyed Zhenyi. However, this violence, ironically, became the most powerful evidence for Zhenyi's quest for truth. At this moment, she was absolutely certain—

The so-called Mandate of Heaven and the divine right of kings... are precisely the most despicable, shameless, vicious, and massive human deception in the past millennia!

With a mouthful of bright red blood, Zhenyi sank into endless, cold darkness.

Ignorance is a terrible thing; countless tragic events that seem absurd to modern people have actually happened.

The Qing emperors' attitude towards astronomy can be summarized as "superficial and half-hearted," all for the sake of feudal imperial rule. Correspondingly, the officials below them were not happy to see the rapid and uncontrolled development of astronomy under their jurisdiction.