Ch2 - Funeral (2)

“What the hell? ” Ren Yifei clenched his jaw.

This was his luck, Ren Yifei knew about it early on. 

Others may have a few positive encounters in their lives, as for him, he could never have such encounters.

Even if he didn’t know the cause and effect, Ren Yifei knew that he was definitely in a troublesome situation.

He rubbed his eyes to make himself sober- he had been shooting night scenes for the past two days so he was not in a good state of mind. Because of this, Ren Yifei decided to rationalise the current situation.

What was the cause? He doesn’t know. 

What should he do? He doesn’t know

Was it due to someone mistakenly letting an outsider in, resulting in betrayal? He doesn’t know.

How suffocating.

He held the card with trembling fingers, he didn’t know whether to get angry or feel remorseful. In conclusion, since things had already gotten to this point, saying anymore would be useless.

The only option now was to integrate into the surroundings.

To ensure survival, he must collect more information before deciding on what to do next. He looked elsewhere.

When he looked up, he saw the elegiac couplet in the mourning hall, which reads diligence and frugality, a virtuous wife and hard work. The black and white characters seem to form the face of an old woman.

The angle where he was located, facing the mourning hall diagonally with his back to the large courtyard, one side of the mourning hall could be seen clearly. 

There was a black lacquered coffin inside, surrounding it were brightly lit lights. There were a pair of middle-aged people who wore linen mourning clothes on the side. They should be the direct descendants of the deceased, probably their children.

The middle-aged couple looked like a husband and wife, probably the son and daughter-in-law of the deceased.

They were followed by two very young children. Judging from the age difference, they were the great-grandchildren of the deceased. The two children knelt on the ground, burning paper, their small faces flushed by the light of the fire.

To the left of the mourning hall were a group of monks who had been invited for the vigil, all wearing grey robes, knocking on the wooden fish and chanting; the sound was like a hum and almost inaudible. 

“Huh?” Ren Yifei’s gaze locked onto something, his attention was drawn to the top of a person’s head, a shiny golden word: ‘Monk’.

Along with this word was a young monk holding a candlestick unsteadily, or it could also be someone with a newly shaven head as there were no scars. He seemed to have knocked over a few candles and was now drenched in sweat and jumpy.

What was that shiny gold word? The player’s identifier?

While he was pondering over it, there was a loud bang, everyone was startled by the sound and turned their heads to look. 

In the yard in front of the mourning hall were two young people, no one knew when they got there. They were both wearing mourning clothes, one was lying on the ground eating dirt while the other calmly retracted their outstretched foot.

Of course, everyone pays attention to the overturned copper incense burner on the ground and not the foot.

“How could you knock this over? This is too careless.”

When it happened, a tray had fallen out along with the incense burner on the tray. The ground was covered with incense ash and the bamboo sticks left by the incense sticks. 

“My ancestor-” the middle-aged woman, the deceased’s daughter-in-law who had been crying inside, hurried out. Seeing the mess on the ground, her face paled and she patted her thighs irritatedly, “I let you brothers go to the temple to deliver water, why did you knock over the incense burner when you came back?!”

The young man on the ground had a hard time talking, he struggled to raise his head to look at these unkind people. His body shook uncontrollably.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

The person on the side who had pulled the stunt also got dragged into the scolding, “Mother, younger brother had been absent-minded all day long.”

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However, the two of them don’t seem to get along since the eldest grandson deliberately framed the other.

So, did the eldest grandson do this because of the conflicts between the ‘previous’ brothers, or was it aimed at… the ‘outlander’?

“You useless thing!” The middle-aged woman scolded the young man on the ground before turning around and shouted, “Xiao Mei, clean this up.” 

However, no one responded for a long time.

The woman became even angrier and found a quail-like girl with black braids and a pale face who was trying to run away.

“You little girl, why didn’t you answer me? I paid your mother three coins a day,” the middle-aged woman pointed at the mess on the ground, “You clean it up.”

“I will clean up immediately,” the girl was trembling, but her body was straight and her hands clenched into fists, she looked like an out-of-place modern person. 

After the middle-aged woman gave her instructions, she turned her head to bring the “second grandson” back to the mourning hall, she gave him a big slap on the back, “Go and pay respects to your grandmother.”

The second grandson was dragged away crying and shouting, two distorted lines formed on the ground caused by his feet.

Seeing that the second grandson was taken away, the eldest grandson became more and more arrogant. He followed along with the empty bucket, as he walked his hips would sway which looked a little strange.

Could there be a girl in that body? 

Hidden in the crowd, Ren Yifei held his hands. This introductory stage was very unfriendly to the beginners.

The mess on the ground was quickly cleaned and there was no longer anything unusual in the yard. Several odd individuals were gathered in the mourning hall, Ren Yifei looked over.

“A Liang, you play first, I’ll go look inside,” after some hesitation, he decided to go inside to investigate and test the restrictions for survival. If there was an opportunity in the future, he’ll try it again.

Ren Yifei’s courage had also been strengthened by the previous hellish stuff he saw. 

Under the bamboo hut, A Liang frowned looking at the cards, he spoke without turning his head back, “Then be careful not to bump into anything. Ask the grandpas if you don’t know anything.”

Ren Yifei looked back at him in surprise, unexpectedly, he had felt a little compassion from him.

“Where is it? What part of me looks unreliable?” he said as he slipped into the mourning hall.

The mourning hall was very big, there were so many people inside yet it didn’t look crowded. Sitting on the right were several elder people, and as soon as they saw Ren Yifei, they beckoned towards him, “A Fei is here.” 

Old people always prefer juniors with sincere eyes, they were happy to see him.

Ren Yifei tiptoed over. An elder took out a handkerchief, when he opened it, he revealed several bean cakes, “Here, take it. Why did you lose weight again? Don’t you eat enough?”

He asked again, “If you didn’t come today to play cards, what did you come here for?”

“I came to burn some paper,” Ren Yifei, like a well-behaved junior, took the bean cake with one hand and answered obediently. 

The old man sighed and patted his head with a wizened palm, “Your grandmother Chun Zhi didn’t give the candy that she got during the New Year in vain. Go ahead, get some paper copper coins from your auntie, and pray to your grandmother. This passing was too abrupt.”

Perhaps thinking of something to himself, the old man’s face showed sorrow.

Ren Yifei nodded, after receiving the snacks, he walked to the place where the paper copper coins were being burnt.

The paper copper coins were a kind of coarse joss paper with round copper coins stamped on it, used to burn for the dead. There were still some paper houses, cattle, sheep, sedan chairs and other things. 

Kneeling on the edge of the paper-burning copper basin were the two young men and the two children from before. The two children called the eldest grandson ‘father’, while the eldest grandson’s face was emotionless.

The three generations of this family knelt on the ground neatly.

An old mourning hall, full of strangers, with a coffin on the side and a dead person in it…

There are some things that were better left not to be thought of, the more you think about it, the more you’ll scare yourself. 

Ren Yifei was okay, how many times had he ‘died’. This time, he was just acting another role so he was not particularly scared.

However, the same couldn’t be said for others.

The person with the floating golden ‘second grandson’ on his head was trying his best to keep calm, however, he was still very frightened. Occasionally, he would subconsciously push the bridge of his nose. This shows that he used to wear glasses and has the habit of lifting them when he is nervous.

His eyes would shift, he trembled as his hands held onto the yellow paper shakily. He failed to light the fire several times and almost threw away the stack of copper coins that were in his hands. 

“You have to be sincere when burning paper, bad things will happen if you are disrespectful,” the middle-aged woman turned her head, her expressionless eyes looked straight at him.

The eyes didn’t look like the ones that would belong to a living person, it was like a drawing with no shadows floating on the surface of the face and the eyeballs were like holes that were hollowed out by worms.

“Ah!” the second grandson fell onto the ground.

His movements attracted the other people around him, they all looked straight at him with thin brows and pale faces that lacked any emotions. 

But further away, for example, the young people and the group of monks- they seem to not be aware of anything. They continued on playing cards and chanting, continuing to exist normally.

The second grandson shivered, his breath quickened as he let out a trembling cry.

“Save me…” whether it was his facial expression or his movements, his entire body was begging for help. However, the eldest grandson beside him just smiled as he kept his head down.

All of this was witnessed by Ren Yifei. 

“Auntie, I want to burn some paper for my grandmother,” Ren Yifei walked over and interrupted the sudden strange atmosphere.

He looked at the expressionless face with a smile, his tone implied closeness with the elder, no flaws could be seen in his acting.

The middle-aged woman in front of the coffin turned her head, took out a lot of paper and gave them to Ren Yifei, “Good boy, go say some prayers to your grandmother.”

As Ren Yifei received the paper, he noticed that there were a few scratches on the back of the middle-aged woman’s hand which had just been scabbed over. She instructed the child from before, “Xiao Wan, get out of the way. Make some room for your uncle A Fei.” 

The little girl stepped back a bit, giving up half of the praying mat.

Ren Yifei glanced at the second grandson before kneeling on the praying mat and began burning the paper money, one by one.

“Ah! Ah, oh…”

Because of the interference by this ‘NPC’, the tense atmosphere eased. 

“Tsk,” the eldest grandson glanced at the meddlesome NPC and then looked at the second grandson; consider this your lucky day.

The second grandson trembled even more, he hugged his knees and bit his fist, suppressing his cry and horror, only making short gasping noises.

The paper burning location was close to the coffin, close enough to smell a faint sour odour floating over.

How long does it usually take for a corpse to start smelling? Ren Yifei threw the joss paper into the copper basin while thinking about this question. 

With him were two equally quiet children.

These NPCs, both young and old, were all acting the same routine. How much of the film could be saved if the same acting skills were also used?

Ren Yifei pulled back his wandering thoughts and continued to observe these people: the eldest grandson looked absent-minded, the middle-aged couple dressed in mourning clothes were kneeling in front of the coffin, crying that their mother had passed away too suddenly and not giving them the chance to fulfil their filial piety.

“Huh, what’s that stench?” 

A voice echoed unexpectedly through the mourning hall.

Ren Yifei looked up, he saw a young woman with a bulging stomach, around her waist was a multicoloured rope and a white flower clipped in her hair. She covered her mouth in surprise before becoming extremely upset.

However, it was too late. Gold words appeared above her head- the eldest grandson’s wife.

Oh, the eldest grandson’s cheap wife is also here. 

The young woman was holding her belly, her posture was jerky and unnatural, her whole body was uncoordinated. Even Ren Yifei would not have such incoordination when pretending to be a pregnant woman.

This was the fifth player he had seen.

The first few were the monk, the second grandson, the eldest grandson and Xiao Mei. 

Compared to the monk’s and the second grandson’s obvious disturbance, the eldest grandson’s wife had only said a sentence. The NPC had yet to respond to her yet the golden words appeared. 

What did she do? She just said that it smelled.

Of course it smelled bad in front of the coffin. It was not an ice coffin, so on such a hot day, how could it not smell bad? However, because they were in a mourning hall, saying that it smelled bad was considered disrespectful to the dead, so…

Disrespectful?

In the ocean of information, Ren Yifei was able to catch a fish speeding by. 

The monk was not reciting scriptures and knocked over candlesticks, he had disrespected the dead.

The second grandson went to the temple to deliver water, yet when he returned, he knocked over the incense burner, he had disrespected the dead.

The eldest grandson’s wife covered her nose and said that it smelled bad in the mourning hall, she had disrespected the dead.

Ren Yifei thought about it before, with so many people at the scene, why were there so few marked people? Thinking carefully in that moment, perhaps the key to being exposed was not ‘behaving abnormally’, but rather, it was ‘disrespecting the dead’? 

Of course, ‘abnormal behaviour’ was also a risk.

The middle-aged woman stood up, she was dissatisfied with this daughter-in-law’s performance, “You come with me.”

The eldest grandson’s wife gritted her teeth, her expression was full of impatience and remorse. However, she still had to go.

Ren Yifei finished looking before continuing to burn his paper money; the eldest grandson and the eldest grandson’s wife, instead of fear, both seemed desensitised. 

They were experienced players.

The ‘monk’ and the ‘second grandson’ over in the distance seemed to have discovered something, carefully staring at the gold words.

The eldest grandson who was burning paper looked over at the ‘eldest grandson’s wife’ player, like looking at a pile of rotten flesh, he rolled his eyes. There was no telling what he was thinking of.

This was the difference between newcomers and veterans.