Sima
During the most chaotic period, some clans expanded rapidly and eventually turned into countries. The Sima clan was one of the more famous clans. They established the Jin State based on the Sima clan, which was also one of the most powerful countries at that time.
It is said that the god of the Sima clan is not a good person, but few people have seen him. The most famous and longest-lasting thing about this god is not his character, but a sentence he once said.
This ancestor once said: Our Sima family has liked salted fish for generations.
The term "salted fish" at that time meant people who lived from day to day without any ambition, who could not seize opportunities to turn things around, and who loved to enjoy themselves and were content with the status quo.
Of course, some people say that this is a false rumor spread by later generations. This sentence was not said by the Sima clan’s god, but by a king of the Sima dynasty.
When the Sima clan was at its most prosperous, it produced several powerful monarchs in succession. However, those monarchs, who were extremely intelligent and resourceful, liked ordinary women like salted fish. In short, they were mediocre. The records of these queens of Jin in history books are very simple.
There are rumors that these generations of monarchs were all influenced by their clan god, because their clan god happened to find a clan god wife he liked during that time, and when he blessed them, he accidentally passed on his own characteristics to them, thus causing them to have this peculiar preference.
Because of this sentence, there was a joke. It is said that there was a wealthy businessman who made his fortune by selling fish on the seaside. He heard that the emperors of Jin Dynasty liked salted fish from generation to generation. He didn't know the inside story and only understood the superficial meaning. He specially bought a lot of salted fish and went to Jin Dynasty to offer it as a gift. This incident was recorded in the Records of Jin Dynasty and was called "Fish Offering Incident" in history.
Shui
The clan god of the Shui clan is a woman, a guardian and pioneer with amazing courage. Unlike most clan gods who only protect the family but do not restrict the direction of family development, the Shui clan god has extremely strong control over the family.
The Shui clan also established a country called Yin. However, this Yin was different from other countries in that it was a country where women were respected.
There were five famous empresses in the Silver Kingdom in its 600-year history. They worked hard to govern the country, and the women under their rule had extremely high rights. At a time when women were generally oppressed, the Silver Kingdom was a holy place in the hearts of countless women.
To this day, the Shui clan has long since disappeared, but their former ancestral home, the Yinshui District, was also the place where girls received the highest level of education. In the annual Dongzhou Military and Political Conference, female officers from the Yinshui District alone accounted for one-fifth of the total number of female officers in the thirty-six states.
And because of various reasons, Yinshui District is rich in good men.
It's just that the god of the Shui clan has always been obsessed with building the country and the family. While most of the clan gods at that time had partners, the god of the Shui clan was an old bachelor, on par with several clan gods such as the Qin clan and the Luo clan.
You
The clan god of the You family was a "beauty in a bottle" when he was still a divine fetus and had not yet become a clan god.
Many divine fetuses are born with various physical defects. The appearance of the You clan god when she was born was particularly terrible and miserable. Most of her body was not fully grown. At that time, a witch doctor said that she had to be soaked in a bottle filled with potion to keep her alive. So she stayed in the bottle from birth until she was a teenager.
Because she only showed half of her body in the bottle, she looked extremely seductive and terrifying, and because of her status as a divine fetus, even the people who were responsible for taking care of her were afraid and did not dare to stay in front of her for long. She was trapped alone in the bottle, and was placed in an empty, gorgeous and quiet room.
When she was eighteen years old, she was finally made into a clan god. The clan members carried her out, placed her in an exquisite and gorgeous float, and paraded her through the city of You clan. It was a very lively scene, everyone was cheering and celebrating, it was the first time in her life that she saw so many people.
An accident happened halfway through the parade. A wealthy businessman in the city wanted to marry on this auspicious day, but the bride was sold to the old businessman by her family and she was unwilling to marry. The woman surnamed Chi was very fierce. On the wedding day, she found an opportunity to run away. She happened to meet the You family's flower car parade. She was wearing a red dress and bumped her head in front of the flower car, bleeding.
Encountering such an ominous event, everyone present had a changed expression. Amid the clamor, the You family god in the bottle looked at the beautiful woman on the ground in her wedding dress as bright as fire, and asked, "Is she getting married today?"
The head of the You family said, "Yes, but now she is almost dead, I am afraid she can't get married."
After thinking for a moment, You Shishen said, "Why not marry me?"
"Would you like to?" she asked the woman.
The dying woman's ghost almost nodded, and then she became the wife of the god You, dying on the same day as her and being reborn from the ashes on the same day.
"They say you took pity on me because it was the first time I saw someone die in front of me, so you gave me the position of God's Wife and allowed me to be reborn. What do you say about that?"
"I think you look really good in your wedding dress."
"Tsk, because they have treated you like an antique for more than ten years, so you have little experience."
“But I feel that way now.”
This god and his wife have been together for a long time and have a deep affection for each other.
Xin
The Xin clan's homeland is in Bazhong, where there are continuous mountains, thousands of miles of green bamboo, and a land of outstanding people and talents. Not only are there many talented people, but there are also many non-human creatures. Thousands of years ago, there were many non-human creatures such as demons and ghosts.
It is said that the wife of Xin Shi Shen is a monster, a fierce beast in the bamboo forest that has transformed into a human. Xin Shi Shen is a strange woman, the only one among all the gods who did not follow the ordinary path and found a non-human creature as her partner.
Because the lover of God Xin loved bamboo, there were large tracts of bamboo forests surrounding the Xin clan's ancestral land. Every generation of the Xin clan would voluntarily and consciously plant more bamboo. Over time, when the Xin clan died out, the large tracts of bamboo forests were still well preserved and have become a famous tourist attraction and filming base for film and television dramas. There is also a panda protection base over two mountains next door.
Another thing to mention is that because there are large bamboo forests, people in this area relied on making and selling dried bamboo shoots for a living hundreds of years ago. Badi dried bamboo shoots are a centuries-old brand.
Zhang
The Zhang clan's ancestral homeland, Nanyue, did not participate in the turbulent power struggle like other clans. They quietly occupied Nanyue, not attracting much attention and keeping a low profile. Although there were not many people in this branch, every member of the Zhang clan had outstanding abilities.
If you see young men and women dressed in black, with stern faces and serious expressions in the mountains around Nanyue, they are the young people of the Zhang clan who are training themselves. Perhaps because their clan god is not very reliable, this group of people has extremely high requirements for themselves.
Generally, the clan gods of a clan would stay quietly in the shrine, but the clan god of the Zhang clan did not like to see people. The clan members often did not see him for many years. This clan god would randomly hide himself in a coffin underground and stay secluded for decades. He would never show up unless something major happened, and every time he got up from the coffin, he could not remember what happened before and his memory was extremely poor.
Once upon a time, the Zhang clan members thought that since their ancestor was so introverted and mute, he would probably be a bachelor for a thousand years like the clan gods of the Qin clan. But who knew that he suddenly found a wife, and she came to them on her own.
It was a dark and windy night. The criminal suspect Wu followed his family elders to rob a tomb and happened to dig out the Zhang god in a coffin. Wu thought he was haunted by a ghost for a while. After many frights, he finally figured out the situation and eventually married the Zhang god.
This is cause for celebration.
Zhu
At the beginning of his birth, Zhu's God liked to wear bright and colorful clothes. Although he was a man, he had a good-looking face and was a famous beauty. Because of his preference, many members of the Zhu clan also learned from him and loved to wear bright and colorful clothes. In the Zhu clan's territory, this almost became a trend.
Therefore, Jinchuan, where the Zhu family was located, was once the largest silk producing area. All kinds of silk fabrics and textiles, and all kinds of beautiful fabric patterns were produced here and sold everywhere. The people here were all proud of wearing bright clothes.
There was an embroiderer in Jinchuan. She was clever and deft. The god Zhu loved all the patterns and clothes she embroidered. As time went by, the god Zhu became more fond of her and hoped that she could become his wife.
But the woman rejected him. Although the Zhu God felt sorry, he did not force her. However, someone in the Zhu clan could not accept that the woman rejected him, so he secretly went to her and used threats and inducements, and finally forced the woman to death.
After the Zhu clan god knew about this, he burned his favorite brocade clothes with fire, and from then on he only wore plain white clothes. From then on, the Zhu clan members could only wear plain clothes for the innocent woman who died.
Because of this, the Zhu clan's deity was also called "White-robed Zhu".
Wei
When Wei Shishen was born, there were already several older brothers in the family, and the family was plagued by endless internal strife. His appearance exacerbated the situation.
All his brothers tried to win him over except his sixth brother Wei He, who hated him extremely, because he was also born with a disability. Wei He was rejected by his parents from birth, while the youngest brother was disabled in both eyes but was a noble divine fetus. Jealousy made his mind twisted.
When Wei He grew up and got married, he suddenly had a brilliant idea. He asked his wife to seduce the divine fetus. He wanted to embarrass the divine fetus and let the other family members see the divine fetus do something shameful - this was really a stupid and crazy idea.
Wei He's wife Fuqiu was timid and gentle, a woman with a gentle personality. She was forced by her husband to seduce the divine fetus, but she behaved properly and just regarded herself as a sister who took care of her younger brother.
Wei Shishen was aloof and aloof, indifferent to everyone. Fuqiu took care of him patiently and gently for a long time, and the two of them fell in love with each other without realizing it.
Upon discovering that his wife had fallen in love with his younger brother, Wei He was furious and demanded that her make their affair public. Fuqiu refused, and Wei He strangled her to death in a rage.
At that time, Wei Shishen was not yet old enough to become a Shishen, but because of the death of his beloved, he was forced to become a Shishen in order to revive Fuqiu. However, because Fuqiu had been dead for too long, he failed.
The woman he loved when he was a human left a vivid and gentle mark in his life, but she was like a flash in the pan and could never be caught up again.
The God of Wei was the most indifferent to his clan members among all the clan gods. He watched coldly as his family prospered because of his existence, and watched them decline overnight. In less than a thousand years, he and the entire Wei family perished together. He was also the clan god with the shortest existence among all the clan gods.
—Lotus Lotus, flowers bloom for a season.
Guan
Since he was a teenager, Guan Shishen wanted to see the world, but as a clan god, he had to stay in the tribe. At that time, a terrible epidemic broke out, and only if he stayed safely in the tribe could the tribe members feel at ease.
Unable to leave the clan, he could only quietly wander around the city every day, listening to the merchants from the south and the north talking about the customs and practices of other places. However, the people of Guan's clan were fierce, the land was barren, and there was no seaside, so few merchants from other places came.
One day, he met a young boy selling groceries. The dark-skinned and thin boy carried a large grocery box on his back and moved around like a snail, relying on his own strength to sell goods. Guan Shishen found it interesting and followed him for a long time, only to find that he was actually a girl.
"Why do you dress up as a man and carry a box around to sell groceries?" Guan Shishen asked as she sat lightly on her box.
The woman was not afraid and said to him, "I want to see more scenery I have never seen before."
"Unfortunately, I am a woman and I am alone. I heard that there is still a war in the distance, and there are evil spirits and thieves on the road. I can't go further to see."
A fellow traveler!
Guan Shishen patted his chest and said, "This is easy. You become my wife. When you have the power and don't have to be afraid of those things, you can go see the distant scenery for me. Then come back and tell me about it after a while. How about that?"
One of them dared to speak, and the other dared to believe it. In the end, the two of them really lived together like this for thousands of years.
The wife of Guan Shishen was named Lu You. After she became the wife of Guan Shishen, she really carried her grocery box again, set out from the Guan clan's land, and saw countless landscapes.
Every few years, she would return to the Guan clan's land and share what she saw along the way with the Guan clan god. She wrote hundreds of travel notes throughout her life, as well as a book called "A Hundred Clan God Records", which specifically recorded the clan god families she visited along the way and the rumors she heard about the clan gods.
"I went to the Luo Clan. Many of their clan members practiced martial arts and lived in Xingyun Mountain. I saw that they were very good at climbing trees and hunting. But for some reason, the Luo Clan members were afraid of water. Very few of them could swim. They were a bunch of landlubbers..."
"On the way back, I passed by the Qin family's territory. The head of the Qin family was worried that their clan god had no wife. He was afraid that their clan god would be lonely. He also asked me if there was any good candidate he could introduce..."
Qin
Qin Shuke, the head of a certain generation of the Qin family, was a very curious child since childhood. At the age of three, he dared to climb over the wall and climb into the shrine of the Qin family's important place to peek at the clan god.
At that time, he was still a fearless kid. Seeing that there was no scary and ferocious god in the shrine as the adults said, but only a young brother who was basking in the sun with his sleeves rolled up and smiling, he regarded this as his own little base, frolicking around everywhere, and even plucking all the camellia flowers in the yard.
"Oh, the child is so naughty."
The elder brother sighed, not looking angry at all.
After three-year-old Qin Shuke acted arrogantly, he suffered retribution that night. He woke up in the middle of the night because he had to pee urgently. He saw a white figure hanging by a red rope in front of his bed, floating in the air. He was so scared that he wet his pants. Later, that scene became a shadow in his childhood, and he could not forget it for many years.
"My dear, I am your great-great-great-great-grandson. How dare you bother with a child like me and go out of your way to scare me?"
"I was just playing with you."
When Qin Shuke grew into a teenager, he was no longer afraid of the family ancestor gods. He treated Qin Shuke as a lonely empty-nest old man. He often secretly went to see him and complained to him about some of the troubles of his youth.
"My parents are urging me to get married. How old am I? I have to get married. What's the point of finding a woman to have children? I will never get married and have children. It's too troublesome!" The young man vowed so confidently. Later, he met a girl he liked and finally married her. While feeling fulfilled, he suddenly started to worry about the lifelong affairs of his family's ancestor god.
For the next few decades, Qin Shuke was troubled by this matter.
"Has it not been so long since you, old man, found someone you like?"
Ujigami smiled but said nothing.
"Other clan gods have already found wives. You are no different. Why can't you? It doesn't make sense. Now there are only you, the Luo clan, the Shui clan... Anyway, only you can't find wives. Our Qin clan is big and powerful. If it gets out that you don't even have a wife, we, your children and grandchildren, will be so unfilial."
"You don't want to go out. Actually, everyone is living a good life now. It's okay for you to go out occasionally. How can you find a wife if you stay in the shrine all the time? Otherwise, I'll find some people to look for you?" Qin Shuke asked tentatively. That night, he saw a person hanging on the head of the bed. He relived his childhood nightmare and was so scared that he almost died young.
"Alas, Ujigami, I am old and I really can't stand being scared. I won't look for you. Isn't it okay if I don't look for you?"
After Qin Shuke became the head of the family, he had to worry about a lot more things, which led to severe hair loss. He could only wear a hat to maintain his dignity as the head of the family. Sometimes when he saw Shishen's thick black hair, he felt so envious.
Later, his hair gradually turned white, and he had almost no hair left to fall out. His teeth also fell out, and he became a dying old man.
"Oh, Ujigami, I have lived for decades without my Ah Ying by my side, and I feel lonely. How lonely would you be if you lived that long without anyone by your side? How would you spend that long time alone?"
Ujigami smiled slightly and stroked the child's lifeless eyes.
"I really hope you can find someone you like to be with you..."
After witnessing the death of another child, Qin Shi Shen raised his hand and returned to the shrine. He had spent a thousand years like this, and would continue to do so in the future.
The red single-petal camellia sways gently in the wind and snow. I don't know how many years later, someone will pick it.
(End of the first short story)