Linbiangui Village-Infinite Streaming Chapter 12

Pork Banquet Redux

“Then first tell me why the locals feed the fish with alligator snapping turtles?”

“You haven’t even written down my name yet. Does asking me now count as robbery?”

Wu Zeng dragged him over to the window, the movement as effortless as grabbing a small chick.

“Stop, stop, stop!” Uncle A Dong hugged his head and scurried back to the center of the room, looking warily at Wu Zeng, terrified that the man would strike again. “I really don’t know about that… The most abrupt things in this world are these two tourism projects. I don’t want to touch them at all, for fear that if I discover some secret, the problem will be solved, and then wouldn’t I be finished?!”

Uncle A Dong was truly a god-like existence, capable of spouting any kind of nonsense.

“And yet you still had the nerve to pretend to be the village chief for the sacrifice?” Chen Jin rolled his eyes at him.

“Those are two different matters. The person who was here before me was pretending every day, so could I just drop the ball after I arrived? Wouldn’t that expose me?” Uncle A Dong looked troubled. “Ask me something else, I definitely know that!”

“Are there others like you?” Chen Jin pondered briefly.

“I’m not sure about that… People with strong spiritual power like me have their own consciousness but disguise themselves as locals. But some people with weak spiritual power can’t even remember who they are. How would I know where they are?!” Uncle A Dong wailed, his body starting to twist.

He didn’t know this, and he didn’t know that. What good was he?

“Then why did you specifically target us?” Wu Zeng kicked him, signaling him to stand straight.

“You two are tall and strong, I was afraid you’d secretly kill me in the night!” Uncle A Dong gave a wry smile, adding to Chen Jin, “You kept staring at my screen, clearly thinking I was suspicious. Try to hide your peeking better, little brother!”

“Get to the point, stop wasting time!” Chen Jin, having been called out, immediately changed the subject.

“Let me think…”

A few minutes passed, and Uncle A Dong still hadn’t managed to squeeze out a single useful word. The two men were visibly growing impatient.

“Feeding the fish, feeding the fish! Right!” Uncle A Dong, anxious as an ant on a hot pan, suddenly had a flash of inspiration. “I don’t know why they use alligator snapping turtles to feed the fish, but I do know that the people who do the feeding are carefully selected from the village. They specifically choose the oldest person from a group of old men who are still able to work, and they pay this amount per month!”

Uncle A Dong held up eight fingers, and his thick lips uttered the unit of currency: “Thousand.”

In 2025, villagers in a remote mountain village might not even earn eight thousand a month. Calculated based on 2010, this income was indeed substantial.

“Do you know why they have to choose an old man?”

The two remained silent, waiting for Uncle A Dong to continue.

“Because the village has two sayings. One is that the alligator snapping turtle is fierce, and after an innocent, tragic death, it will punish those who harmed it. The second is that old men carry ghosts; they are people with one foot in the grave, accompanied by ghosts waiting to collect souls. The older the person, the more powerful the ghost! By having an old man handle the alligator snapping turtle, the fierce turtle and the powerful ghost counteract each other, making the old man safe,” Uncle A Dong said earnestly.

“Don’t doubt me, everything I’m saying is true.” Uncle A Dong rubbed the back of his head, grinning foolishly, and added, “Because I also went to be selected at the time, but I wasn’t older than that old man.”

“Is burial the main custom in the village? I checked the data before coming. A portion of the ethnic groups in Mengle Village used other funeral customs, but the information I found only briefly mentioned it and didn’t specify the form.” Chen Jin reviewed the materials he had on hand.

Funerals are an unavoidable part of human life, so whenever anthropological research is conducted, funeral rites are often indispensable.

“It’s mostly earth burial, I haven’t heard of anything else,” Uncle A Dong blurted out, looking like he hadn’t thought it through. He casually fanned his face with his hand, his eyes darting around, the implication obvious.

“Your name.” Chen Jin understood and immediately asked.

“Cha Ming Dong.” Uncle A Dong instantly beamed with joy.

Chen Jin took a pen from his bag and prepared to write on his palm, while Wu Zeng made no move.

“Oh, little brother, it’s not that simple. It has to be written with my blood to work. Let me do it, let me do it.” Uncle A Dong squeezed his previous wound open again, his eyes darting slyly. “How about both of you write it? I’ll tell you all my secrets.”

“I’m allergic to other people’s blood.” Wu Zeng raised an eyebrow, looking helpless. He immediately lifted his hands, keeping them far away from Uncle A Dong’s outstretched hand. “This arduous task can only be entrusted to student Chen Jin.”

“Don’t call me that!” Chen Jin frowned.

Chen Jin didn’t entirely believe Wu Zeng’s allergy claim, but he couldn’t say much. However, Wu Zeng was usually the one charging ahead; why was he shrinking back this time?

Uncle A Dong was wary of Wu Zeng and had no choice but to give up. He first squeezed a few drops of blood into a small bottle and handed it to Chen Jin, then continued to press his wound, forcing out three drops of blood onto Chen Jin’s hand.

The moment the blood touched the skin, it immediately spread out, then formed the three characters Cha Ming Dong on the back of Chen Jin’s hand. The characters seemed to have a life of their own, jumping and bustling around on the skin for a while, as if searching for a suitable position. Finally, they huddled on the side of his middle finger, trying to shrink themselves as small as possible.

“Speak. What else do you know about funeral rites?” Chen Jin shook his hand. The characters were quite secure.

“I only heard about this, mind you, it might not be true, as I haven’t been here that long. I heard this while the vegetable-selling aunties were gossiping,” Uncle A Dong sat down, satisfied, and began to recall what he had learned earlier. “There was originally a group of Changlin people in the village, also a minority group. They used to live by the river, making a living by fishing and relying on water. Therefore, they believed that the soul returned to the water, and they mainly practiced water burial.”

“And then?”

“The Changlin people’s water burial focused on mountain lakes, because they believed that river water was unstable and would drift elsewhere, preventing the soul from truly returning home. But you’ve seen the water in Mengle Village, right? There are only those two small pools. If bodies were thrown in there, wouldn’t they rot and stink? So, about twenty years ago, the village office mandated a ban on this funeral practice and forbade anyone from mentioning it, thinking that after a few years, the old people would die off, and the young ones wouldn’t know about it.”

Uncle A Dong paused, then continued, “There’s an old woman at the head of the village who is Changlin. Her husband passed away right when the water burial ban started. This incident hit her quite hard. Since then, she’s become dull and listless, sitting motionless at her doorstep every day, staring at people passing by.”

Water burial, lakes. Besides the alligator snapping turtles, were there other additions to the carnivorous fish’s diet?

Chen Jin glanced at Wu Zeng, suddenly feeling that things were starting to make sense. He wondered if the other man shared the same thought.

Wu Zeng nodded in response, then said to Uncle A Dong, “What about this room door? We can’t just sleep with the door open, can we?”

“Hey, you…” Chen Jin was about to continue, but Wu Zeng interrupted.

“We’ll continue tonight.” Wu Zeng turned back, winked at Chen Jin, and then pushed Uncle A Dong out.

“I’ll clean up another room for you! I’ll go right now!” Uncle A Dong had wanted to run away the moment the writing was done, and now he got his wish.

“Do you have other rooms?” Wu Zeng looked at Uncle A Dong with a friendly smile, asking cordially.

“Of course…” Uncle A Dong patted his chest as he spoke.

“Do you?” Wu Zeng’s smile remained bright, but he squeezed Uncle A Dong’s back hard.

Uncle A Dong winced in pain and looked back. Wu Zeng was backlit, his expression terrifyingly grim, looming over him like a smiling ghost. “N-no… no…”

“You have such a large building, how could you not have any?” Chen Jin followed them out.

“Usually… usually no one stays here. I sold the furnishings from the other rooms. Otherwise, how would I live here? I can’t exactly go out and work…” Uncle A Dong’s words were three parts truth and seven parts fabrication.

“Open it up, let me see!” Chen Jin walked straight to the adjacent room.

Uncle A Dong looked left and right, and finally pulled out the key and unlocked the door.

It was indeed empty inside.

Chen Jin looked at Uncle A Dong in disbelief, then said in a heavy tone, “I’ll use something to block the door. You, don’t come in again.”

“Then why don’t you sleep in my room?” Wu Zeng pressed his advantage.

“There are only three people in the whole building. Whether you come or he comes, what difference does it make where I sleep?” Chen Jin dropped the sentence and returned to his room.

After an exhausting day, both physically and mentally, Chen Jin slept soundly until midnight.

Waking up late at night, Chen Jin checked his phone and saw a message Wu Zeng had sent hours earlier: “Want to go to the pig slaughter banquet with me tomorrow? [Cute emoji]”

Chen Jin didn’t reply, just turned off his phone and lay down.

Another half hour passed. Chen Jin, tossing and turning, got up irritably and replied to Wu Zeng: “Okay.”

Wu Zeng immediately sent six emojis: [Received] [Hard work] [Get some rest] [See you tomorrow] [Anticipation] [Heart heart].

The next day, the two left early, half an hour earlier than before. On the road, they encountered some individual travelers who had come on their own. The flow of people today seemed much greater than in previous days, and the whole venue was livelier.

The process on site was the same. Aunt Jiu was still helping make sausages. Her expression was dull and distracted. Her messy hair fluttered in the breeze, and she paid no attention, nor did she worry about accidentally adding extra ingredients to the sausages.

“Little brothers are back again!” Uncle Cai brought two more plates to the table. “Isn’t what we have here fun?”

“Absolutely! My brother and I don’t want to leave!” Wu Zeng replied with a smile.

“Come, give the returning customers some of the good stuff!” Uncle Cai turned and called out to the young man behind him.

The young man immediately brought the freshly mixed raw meat to the two of them.

“We can’t eat the raw stuff, my stomach isn’t used to it, I had an upset stomach all the way back home the day before yesterday!” Wu Zeng shook his head, picking up a piece of sausage from his bowl. “But this time, I can try your highly recommended sausage.”

“What? It doesn’t bother you anymore?” Uncle Cai wiped his hands on his apron, his eyes moving between the two of them.

“I tried the local sausage on the street that day.” Wu Zeng popped the sausage into his mouth, paused, and then continued with a look of satisfaction: “I discovered that the sausage in Mengle Village is truly different! Not only does it taste good, but even my sensitive stomach can enjoy it. Look, the filling is absolutely brilliant!”