CHAPTER 74: MUSHROOM VILLAGE 24

The ancestral hall was indeed just as Hao Shijun had said — the door was not locked, and standing outside one could already see the overgrown weeds in the courtyard inside.

Wan Qian stood at the entrance of the ancestral hall, feeling that it looked somewhat familiar, but she could not remember where she had seen it before. She could only attribute it to fate.

The middle-aged man pushed open the ancestral hall’s door but did not enter. He just stood at the entrance and said to Wan Qian and the others:

"When you go inside, you must be careful not to move anything inside the ancestral hall without permission. The arrangement of these things follows certain feng shui rules.

This ancestral hall is an old one — all the ancestral tablets have already been moved out. If you see any tablets inside, they must be a prank by some children. You don’t need to pay attention to them.

Since the old ancestral hall has been abandoned for a long time, it is inevitable that things inside are covered in dust. There shouldn’t be any new items inside. If you do see anything new, you can bring it out and hand it over to me — I will deal with it."

After explaining at length, the middle-aged man finally let them go in.

Hao Shijun wanted to tell Xie Jia and Wang Hui to stay outside, but before he could speak, Xie Jia had already stepped over the threshold and entered the ancestral hall.

Seeing Xie Jia go in, Wang Hui also followed inside.

On the contrary, Fang Minglan stood hesitating outside the ancestral hall for a long time before finally being the last to step inside.

The ancestral hall was built in an antique style, but it was clear that it had long fallen into disrepair.

The wooden structure by the door was mostly hollowed out by termites, and some glistening termite eggs were scattered on the ground.

A dust-covered plaque hung above the door, layered with gray-white cobwebs so thick that its inscription was unreadable. It swayed precariously, making you wonder if it might come crashing down at any moment.

The ground was overgrown with weeds, and it seemed as if no one had entered here for a very long time.

Inside the ancestral hall, it was especially quiet — it felt as though the slightest sound would be infinitely amplified.

Hao Shijun looked around cautiously.

Walking into the area where the ancestral tablets had been placed, they saw that a thick layer of dust had accumulated on the incense table at the front. The prayer cushions laid on the ground for kneeling during worship were all rotted away.

Behind the incense table was a wooden structure similar to a window.

There were six panels in total, symmetrically arranged in pairs, all currently open.

Behind the open panels was a series of long tables arranged in tiers for placing ancestral tablets in an orderly fashion.

Presumably, these panels were used to shield the tablets from dust and were only opened during festivals when people came to worship their ancestors.

Just as the middle-aged man had said earlier, all the ancestral tablets had already been moved out.

At the moment, behind those six panels, there was nothing but empty space.

Wan Qian aimlessly wandered around inside, but didn’t see anything special.

So she simply turned and went to the side room of the ancestral hall.

In that room, there was only a single table in the middle. The four walls were surrounded by spiderwebs and had not been cleaned for a long time.

Wan Qian suddenly noticed that on one of the walls, there seemed to be some black writing.

The ink marks were dense, but they were hidden beneath the grayish-white spiderwebs.

Curious, she stepped closer and tried to see what was written through the web.

"Song Panjun, wife Xu Fangqing, daughter Song Yueya..."

Wan Qian squinted her eyes, trying hard to make out the characters.

The words were all written in traditional Chinese, which made her head spin even more.

Suddenly, a calm girl’s voice sounded behind Wan Qian.

"That should be the clan genealogy."

Wan Qian turned her head and saw a thin and small girl wearing an especially old-fashioned high school uniform, her thick bangs covering her eyes.

It was Xie Jia, who had always been beside Hao Shijun.

"You can read this?" Wan Qian was a little surprised.

Xie Jia nodded lightly. Beneath her bangs, her eyes looked at Wan Qian — her pale, thin face carried a coldness completely inconsistent with her age.

Xie Jia said, "In some older villages in the past, the names of villagers would be written on the walls of the ancestral hall. This is the genealogy of this village."

Wan Qian remembered seeing this kind of thing in TV dramas and understood.

No wonder they say the smartest time in life is in senior high school.

After she finished university, there wasn’t much brain left — she wasn’t even as sharp as a high schooler anymore.

Xie Jia continued, "Usually in a place like this, there would also be a village chronicle recording major events in the village."

As she spoke, Xie Jia walked to the only table in the room.

Sure enough, there was a scroll of the village chronicle placed on it.

Xie Jia pressed her lips together, as if making up her mind, then reached out and opened the chronicle.

She started reading from the first volume. She read very quickly, scanning ten lines at a glance and taking in the general content.

What surprised Xie Jia was that although the villagers spoke of the God Worship Festival, there was no record of it in the chronicle at all.

Could it be that this so-called God Worship Festival has never existed since the very founding of this village?

Xie Jia kept flipping through the pages until she reached the last few.

[Year XX, locust plague.

The insects came suddenly. All the crops were eaten.

Among the mountains and fields, no grass on the soil, no sprouts in the ground.

Their traces were found, eggs laid on leaves, thus, they were burned by fire.

The insects were mostly destroyed.]

Xie Jia turned to the next page, which recorded the second year after the insect plague.

[Year XX, great drought.

Spring, 31 dan of seeds sown; Autumn, 5 dan harvested.

In the countryside, the starving people wailed, the winter snow sealed the mountains, and the food was almost gone.

Village chief Zhao Qian led out a dog, returned with food, and the villagers lived.

The dog was wounded.]

On the next page, it recorded the third year’s events.

[Year XX, great drought, locust plague.

The insect plague returned, nothing was harvested.

The insects ate grass, trees, and bark.

The dog died, no one could leave the village.

Then, as if by heaven’s grace, the dog carcasses do not rot but sprout mushrooms—safe for people to eat.]

Reading that last line, Xie Jia felt a wave of nausea rising in her chest.

What did this mean?

Did it mean that during the years of famine, the villagers survived by eating mushrooms that grew on the dog’s corpse?