Bombarding Cultivators with Cluster Artillery

Chapter 1833: Chapter 1801: Four Household Gods

The God of Stove left a warning and then disappeared.

Tu Sanyi’s face turned pale.

In this world, if the gods say one is not devout, it’s almost as if a death sentence has been declared, and it becomes nearly impossible to walk anywhere.

But the white rice at home can at most last until the harvest is ready!

If he continues to offer as much as when his parents were alive, in just two months everything would run out, leaving not even enough sweet potato rice for himself.

Tu Sanyi was just an ordinary young man, and thinking of all this made him tremble with fear.

Outside, as the sun rose in the east, the Great Sun had already shown its outline.

”Oh no!”

Tu Sanyi shivered.

No matter how terrified or scared he was, as the sun was about to rise, he instinctively began to do certain things, things taught by his parents since childhood, coming to mind as naturally as breathing.

Tu Sanyi went to his parents’ room again to fetch incense, paper currency, and white rice.

He hesitated for a moment but then bit his lip and still took out the same amount of white rice offered to the Kaoshan Village’s God of Stove, came to the front door, lit the candle, continuously kowtowed, and bowed to the two mighty and extraordinary portraits on the door panels.

”Bowing to Guangcheng Xuan Ge Jun, Evil Exorcism Iron Mace Lord”

”...In solemn grace the gods’ light resides, through door and window auspiciousness abides... Armor repels demons for home safety, golden whip brings fortune into the grand hall... Day and night patrolling, dispersing evil spirits, protecting descendants with health at dawn and dusk.”

Tu Sanyi recited continuously while scattering white rice with his hands.

The white rice fell into the fire, turning into strands of light blue smoke and dissipating, clearly consumed by the divine without any unusual phenomena emerging, nor was there any reprimand as from the God of Stove.

Tu Sanyi let out a sigh of relief.

The Door God is responsible for driving away evil, ghosts, and disasters, protecting the household’s peace.

If the home is without the offering to the Door God, at night, ghosts and monsters will surely come at the door and devour the heart, liver, and spleen of people clean.

It’s not that he was unaware of the severity.

It’s just that the white rice at home was already scarce.

Even if he doesn’t eat or drink, it’s useless, because he normally cannot afford white rice, often filling his belly with wild vegetables and sweet potatoes, and if lucky, catching loaches or grass carp. After offering most to the divine, a small amount of meat might be allowed, but it’s hard to encounter.

If it were only the God of Stove, by working desperately hard, perhaps he could grow a little more food to get through the year.

”Thank the Door God for your leniency...”

Tu Sanyi kept kowtowing.

This was still taught by his parents.

It’s said that Guangcheng Xuan Ge Jun and Evil Exorcism Iron Mace Lord were guards before the Emperor became a god, rendered many battle merits, and after the Emperor deified, he canonized them as Door Gods of the realm, enjoying endless incense fire.

All the incense fire for Door Gods throughout the world is enjoyed by these two gods.

That is to say, unlike the horse-headed human-bodied God of Stove in Kaoshan Village, in all places with stoves, these two gods have avatars, usually not issuing decrees.

After kowtowing to the Door Gods, Tu Sanyi went to the water jar to offer to the Well God, and then to the plot in front of the door to offer to the Field God and Field Lady.

These four, the Door God, God of Stove, Field God and Field Lady, and Well God, are collectively known as the ’Four Household Gods’, and every day the first thing mortals must do upon rising and washing is to offer to these four gods before the sun is fully up.

If a single god is not offered to, or an error is made during the offering, provoking thunderous anger from the divine, it will bring about terrible consequences.

With an anxious heart, Tu Sanyi made offerings to each of the four gods, and the tribute was the same amount of white rice.

Perhaps his devotion touched the divine, as there was no displeasure from any deity thereafter, not even from the distinctively conscious Field God and Field Lady or Well God, as with the Kaoshan Village God of Stove.

This moved Tu Sanyi greatly, and he silently vowed to work hard this year to increase all offerings to the four gods by next year, and thus increase the yin virtue for his deceased parents, so they might reincarnate well in the next life.

He lit the fire, quickly cooked some sweet potatoes and the wild vegetables picked the day before, shouldered a hoe, and headed out the door.

”Sanzi, going to hoe the fields today?”

Just as he left the house, an old man with a face full of wrinkles returned with a load of firewood, greeting him.

This was his neighbor, Mr. Zhou.

Unlike Tu Sanyi’s lonely family, Mr. Zhou had six sons, a robust and thriving family. They used to be close, but recently have grown distant, probably for fear that the funeral for Tu’s parents had exhausted his family’s savings and then he’d come borrowing money.

—In these times, everyone believes that if a grand funeral is held for deceased family members and offerings are made to the Four Directions Gods, the deceased will have a better next life.

Tu Sanyi is just such a person, and even more stubborn; he held many more funerals for his parents than others, borrowing from family and friends.

”Yes, Mr. Zhou.”

Tongue-tied and wooden, Tu Sanyi replied, unable to help glancing behind the old man.

Sure enough, he saw a girl with a red ribbon in her hair. She was pretty, following behind Mr. Zhou, holding a twig as if pretending she too was working.

The girl also looked at Tu Sanyi, her eyes full of disgust, and walked briskly away.

Tu Sanyi stole a glance at her, not daring to look longer.

This girl was Zhou Xiaocui, the most beautiful woman in Kaoshan Village, the only girl among the Zhou family’s dozens of sons, pampered since childhood and liked by many in the village.

Tu Sanyi, naturally, was no different.

When his parents were alive, he even asked them to propose on his behalf, only to be immediately driven out, making quite the scene.

But now his thoughts had changed.

”Such a pampered girl, unaccustomed to farm work, I can’t afford to support...”

Tu Sanyi accepted reality, forming his own plan in his heart: ”The family is poor, ordinary girls won’t look at me. After working for a few years and saving some grain, I might ask the village elder to match me with a widow. It should work out, and then I can start a family to keep the incense fire for my parents from dying out.”

With hopes for a better future, he arrived at the fields and began weeding.

The sun blazed fiercely in the sky, as if to burn skin away, yet he remained oblivious, working up a sweat, eagerly anticipating the harvest.

At this time, deep within his soul, a consciousness began to awaken.

”Something is off with this sun.”

”The sun contains a substance that burns the Divine Soul, causing the soul to continuously evaporate and turn into some material that drifts away, and this is why living beings here don’t survive past fifty.”

Jiang Ding watched silently.

What puzzled him was that beneath such sunlight, an ordinary person could only survive for two to three years at most, yet why were they still alive?

If he wanted the answer, he could simply search the soul of a deity.

But that would bring risks, and even a very small risk was unacceptable to him. The number of times he could act must be limited to one or two, such as when dealing with the Divine Son, while at other times, he would avoid acting personally if possible; that was his principle.

Jiang Ding was in no hurry.

As time went by, all the secrets of this world would naturally unfold before him.