Luo Yu'an fell into Shi Shen's chest, as if he was trapped in the whirlpool of his memories.
In the darkness, someone cheered loudly, and the voice was full of joy.
"Great! Great! Finally, a divine fetus is born in our Qin family!"
"In this way, we no longer have to worry about the invasion of ghosts and monsters. We can get the protection of the clan god, pray for everyone's safety and prosperity!"
"We will definitely get better and better, that's great!"
At that time, the Qin clan was just a branch of a big clan. There were very few people, forming a small village in the mountains. In this time of war and natural disasters, people were living in poverty, and even demons and ghosts appeared more frequently than before. If a child in the clan was not well taken care of, he might be sucked away by demons and ghosts, or even have his body taken away and eaten.
However, what is more terrifying than demons and evil spirits is famine. There is no cure for diseases, and no food grows in the fields. There are also vicious exiles who attack villages, rob food and women, and even bully nearby larger towns and villages.
But this branch of theirs gave birth to a divine fetus! A divine fetus is a god who has come to earth. They are born from a human's belly to prosper the family. At first, a clan with the surname Shang created a "clan god" using a divine fetus. Their clan leader received a revelation from heaven and learned how to mold a divine fetus into a clan god.
Once the ceremony is completed, the clan god will truly become a god on earth, and can guard the family for thousands of years. As long as they are in charge, demons and ghosts will not invade within a certain range, and no evil diseases will occur. People can pray to them and get the power bestowed by the clan god. Any clan with a clan god will definitely become a hegemony. Many of the big clans today come from this.
Therefore, when Qin gave birth to a divine fetus, everyone was ecstatic.
The so-called divine fetus has a strange fragrance on its bones that can ward off evil spirits. They are born knowing this, but they often have certain defects. The divine fetus of the Qin family was unable to move his limbs since birth and could only lie in bed every day.
Until the divine fetus reaches its teens and can be transformed into a clan god through a ritual, it is carefully cared for by its blood relatives and supported by the entire clan.
"The human body of flesh and blood will bind the divine fetus. As long as it grows up and becomes a clan god, and transcends the constraints of flesh and blood, it will be free." The clan god's biological father, the patriarch of the Qin clan, often said this.
The clan leader's wife, Pingxiang, was a gentle lady, but she would cry silently every time she heard her husband say this. Although the divine fetus would definitely be transformed into a clan god, the ceremony was so cruel and painful that she felt unbearable when she thought about her child going through such pain when he grew up.
The divine fetus is not only her child, but also the hope and future of the entire clan, and their god. Therefore, he is destined to have no name and can only be named after the god. However, Lady Pingxiang secretly gave her child a name - An, which means peace.
"Ann, how do you feel today?"
"An, your uncle's child was possessed by evil spirits yesterday. I gave him a strand of your hair. Today, the child is much better. Your uncle and his family are very grateful to you."
"An, thanks to you, our lives are better this year. No children in the village have been captured by demons, and the plague has not infected us."
"The crops in the fields are growing well. This year will probably be a good year."
She stayed with the child every day, taking good care of him and telling him about the relatives and friends in the clan. The child listened quietly to the bits and pieces of daily life.
"In addition to being our child, he is also our God. You shouldn't give him a name." The patriarch said this, and when he went to see the child privately, he couldn't help but call his name.
Compared to the complex emotions of An's parents and elders towards this divine fetus, An's brothers and sisters had simpler feelings. They were still very young and only knew that they had a younger brother. This younger brother was very cute, lying in bed unable to move, gentle and loving to smile, just like their mother.
Most people in the tribe were in awe of An, after all, they were very close blood relatives at that time, and there were not so many rules as in later generations. When relatives came to visit, they would go directly to An and greet him. The children in the tribe, in addition to An's biological brothers and sisters, and other cousins, would often lean on the wall to see the precious divine fetus that was hidden in the big house.
"That's my brother! What's the meaning of 'divine fetus'? It's so ugly!" The little boy was the first child of the patriarch and his wife, and he had a bad temper. He refuted his friends, but because of his mother's repeated warnings, he dared not tell others that his brother's name was An.
After he came home from playing with his friends, he would visit his younger brother and play with him. He once tried to quietly take his younger brother out of the room and take him outside to play, so that his younger brother, who had been in this room since birth, could see the outside world.
As a result, he was severely punished by his parents and was beaten until he could limp. However, he dared to do it again the next time. An, who was unable to move his hands and feet, was carried on his brother's back and saw the blue sky and green water outside for the first time.
His brother carried him on his back and ran wildly on a remote road. The lush grass and wild flowers on both sides of the road brushed against his drooping white sleeves. His brother showed a proud smile and excitedly introduced the things around him: "Look, An, that's rice. You know rice, it's the food we eat. It looks like this when it grows in the ground. And this, this is a flower, this is an ant, and this is a beetle! Oh - a big bug! Are you afraid?"
The little boy deliberately used the black beetle to scare his younger brother behind him, but An just watched with his eyes open, tilted his head slightly, and showed a puzzled smile.
The little boy chuckled. He hid the beetle next to his brother's pillow, saying that he wanted to give it to him as a gift to keep him company. When he was changing the child's clothes, a big beetle came out of the quilt. Mrs. Pingxiang screamed in shock, grabbed her eldest son's ears and beat him up again.
Even though his eyes were black and blue after being beaten, the little boy still refused to change his bad habits. Unable to take his brother out secretly, he just folded a lot of things and scattered them around his brother's bed.
"An, do you know what this is? This is edible, would you like to try it?"
"Brother! Don't give An random food! And don't put the sour ones in An's mouth!" The little girl who walked in from outside the door stopped her brother's actions.
As the second child, the older sister is much more sensible than her older brother. From a very young age, she would take the initiative to take care of her younger brother with her mother, and she was careful and considerate.
Once, she was wearing a camellia in her hair and found that her brother was looking at it and seemed to like it. She specially begged her father to dig up a few red camellias from the mountains and planted them in the yard. Her brother, who was lying on the bed, could see it through the wide open window by just turning his head.
"Do you like this flower, An? I heard there are more beautiful flowers in other places. Our place is still too remote. If we have the chance to go outside in the future, I will bring you other beautiful flowers."
During their traditional festivals, she would carefully weave blessing bracelets and distribute them to all family members, and each person could get two. Since she learned how to sew, she and her mother made clothes for the family. The clothes she made for her younger brother were especially comfortable because he could only lie in bed. Worried that he would feel uncomfortable, the sister would turn him over every day, comb his hair and wipe his face, like another mother.
Later, An had several more brothers and sisters. The newborn babies were pure and innocent, with big curious eyes, lying on his quilt and drooling. A heavy weight weighed on his heart.
The mother smiled at the children and said to him, "Ann, your brother thinks you smell good."
The younger brother who was crawling on the ground started to speak, then he could call his brother and walk. Like their older brother, they would often sneak out to see him and run around the room, making the floor stomping loudly and being extremely noisy.
The little sister was also very noisy. Because she was not in good health, she would often cry loudly when she was uncomfortable. She would only be quiet when she was with her brother who was a divine fetus. So when she was very young, she would often sneak into her brother's quilt and fall asleep beside him.
His family tried every way to be nice to him, out of love and even more out of guilt.
Finally, the days passed and it was time for the transformation ceremony.
People believed that the divine power of the fetus came from its bones, so they cut open the flesh and blood and took out the bones. The fragrant bones were ground into powder and mixed with soil from the Qin family's ancestral land to make ceramic statues.
People believe that human emotions and desires come from the internal organs, and that selfish desires cause God to fall, so the internal organs are removed.
People believed that filth came from blood, so they drained the blood.
…
Runes were embroidered on the skin, and the shrunken body that had lost its bones and blood was tightly wrapped with red thread, placed in a statue made of ashes and clay, and sent into a kiln for firing.
The clay with the divine bone added becomes lustrous white and takes a month of calcination in the fire before it takes shape.
Before that, when people made idols out of clay, they attached masks of ghosts and gods to the unfired clay idols. Masks with dignified expressions, masks with cold expressions, masks with kind expressions... one layer after another was pasted on the faces of the idols.
As he smoothed the masks, the witch chanted:
"May you be just and strict, may you be kind and generous... May your family prosper... May it continue for generations..."
During this month, the tribesmen held grand ceremonies and prayed devoutly. This is the month of the god's birthday.
What a painful experience that was—
The divine fetus is naturally immortal. Even if the body is destroyed, it will still be reborn, so it keeps growing and dying at the same time.
He heard his family members crying. His younger siblings were crying and saying they didn't want their brother to be the clan god anymore. They didn't even know what a clan god was. His older parents and siblings were silent and weeping.
The first prayers that Ujigami received came from family members, who cried and begged, "I hope Ujigami will never suffer again!"
"May Ujigami be free from pain."
"I hope Ujigami doesn't hold a grudge."
Becoming a clan god is indeed very painful, but as a human, An is willing to protect his family.
Before his parents died in old age and with white hair, they prayed and burned incense for him in the shrine; his elder brother had long succeeded as the clan leader, and with the protection and blessing of the clan god, he expanded the Qin clan's territory and turned the village into a city; his elder sister married into another clan, and every year when she came back, she would bring flowers grown there; his younger brothers and sisters also grew up slowly, got married and had children, and then grew old one by one.
The Qin clan has more and more members, but his family is getting smaller and smaller.
The shrine in the center of the gorgeous house became quiet, and there was no trace of his relatives. He sat upright on the altar, watching the long sun set in the west and fall below the altar, the sun and the moon alternated, and the four seasons rotated.
Time flies by so fast. In the blink of an eye, the child who once showed him a curious look has become a withered old man. Who is the old man kneeling in front of the altar? He remembered that it was the grandson of his youngest brother, who was already so old. Who is the child who was brought to the altar to ask for blessing? It was the child of his brother's branch, the ninth generation. Who is this child who is full of malice and is being taken to the shrine to ask for judgment? His eyes look a bit like his brother's. He must be his thirteenth generation child.
Generation after generation, more and more people worshipped him. He could no longer remember everyone clearly. All they left was a name. They still continued the habit of many years ago and provided him with food, because in the era when he was born, food was the most precious thing.
After the most difficult time, the Qin family has become a local overlord. The nearby city has moved to other places, but the shrine remains here, receiving incense and offerings. The house built by the best craftsmen with their life's hard work has gradually become old under the erosion of time. The traces of the former city are covered by forests, and the clan members have gone far away.
Now when the children come to worship again, he can no longer trace back who their ancestors were from the bloated genealogy.
It had been so long ago that even those red camellias had died of old age several times. Only for him, time had slowed down to a point where it was almost frozen.
Luo Yu'an woke up from the long memory of loneliness, feeling so uncomfortable that she couldn't breathe and couldn't stop sobbing. The emotions conveyed to her by the clan god were shallow, shallow melancholy and sigh, shallow joy and nostalgia. In the countless peaceful years, even if there was the painful birthday month of the god, he never resented it, because all the Qin clan members were children he watched being born and growing up, and they were a silhouette of his memory.
The discomfort that filled her heart now came from herself.
"Why are you crying like this?" Ujigami held up her face and caressed it like a child.