PFC Chapter 233 Village Chronicle
Chapter 233 Village Chronicle
Chapter 233 Village Chronicles
The horses' hooves kicked up clouds of dust on the mountain path until Sifang Village gradually disappeared from sight, at which point Chu Ling thoughtfully withdrew his gaze.
"You find it strange too?"
Xie Yan stopped shaking the wooden box frantically, turned her face slightly to look at Chu Ling, and listened to the sound from it.
Chu Ling was immediately amused by his appearance, and after chuckling several times, he said seriously, "There is indeed something strange about it, but I don't know what's strange about it."
"let me tell you."
Xie Yan raised an eyebrow, rode his horse a little closer, lowered his voice, and said, "Naturally, the strange thing is that in just one day, we have encountered two 'dead men' in succession."
Chu Ling paused, his hand patting the fan ribs. At Xie Yan's prompting, he remembered the woman burning paper money he had encountered when he first entered the village.
Although I can no longer remember her face, her gaze, which seemed to silently express her resentment and anger, remains vivid in my mind.
A night wind howled from the mountains, not only blowing their clothes fluttering wildly, but also carrying Xie Yan's sigh far away.
"Jinlin's place is indeed extraordinary."
The place is unusual, the village is unusual, and even the people are unusual.
Night fell quickly and deeply, and even with the moonlight to guide the way, the mountain path remained dark and difficult to traverse.
The two found a place where they could shelter from the wind and rain and decided to spend the night there.
As the campfire was lit, the wooden box that Xie Yan had been holding in her arms and studying all the way was finally opened again.
The layers of tightly wrapped oil paper were removed, and by the firelight, the two finally saw what was inside.
An extremely old, yellowed, and damaged book.
And above it were written five large characters—
The Chronicle of Fujia Village
In the stillness, the two of them looked up at each other simultaneously.
The book looks very old; the paper is so fragile it seems like it would crumble at the slightest touch, but thankfully the handwriting is still clearly legible.
After a brief exchange of glances, Xie Yan raised the book in her hand and gently turned a page in the firelight.
A musty smell wafted over them, and a line of words caught their eyes.
"I now write this book to commemorate this event, to pass it down to future generations, so that they may see it and remember it."
Xie Yan turned the pages of the book, reading each word in a deep voice: "Fu Family Village was founded on the 23rd day of the eighth month of the fifteenth year of the Tiantai era..."
His expression shifted slightly, and he said thoughtfully to Chu Ling, "It seems that what is recorded here is the history of Fu Family Village."
"interesting."
Chu Ling added some more firewood to the fire in front of him.
The crackling sound of burning filled the air. Looking at the flames that had suddenly brightened a bit more, he narrowed his eyes slightly. "The village chronicle of Fu Family Village is actually in the hands of outsiders."
And now, it has been handed over to them again.
It seems that Grandpa Zeng from Sifang Village must know something.
However, for some reason, they did not say it directly, but wanted to use this book to subtly hint at something to them.
The two stopped talking and simply huddled together, intently turning the pages of the village chronicle in their hands.
The firelight illuminated their calm and focused faces. In the silent night, apart from the sound of the campfire burning wood, there was only the sound of turning pages.
This village chronicle is rather thick, filled with detailed records of all matters, big and small, concerning Fujia Village since its founding.
It covers everything, big and small, and contains a wide variety of information, making it quite overwhelming.
The two of them read ten lines at a glance, their flipping speed gradually increasing until they suddenly stopped after turning dozens of pages.
The page where the paper stopped contained only a few lines of text—
In the thirty-ninth year of the Yuanming era, Fu Zhaorong, the forty-fifth generation descendant of the Fu family, returned to his hometown.
He undertook large-scale construction projects to repair the village and bestowed many favors upon his clansmen.
In July of the same year, when Fu Zhao was paying respects at his ancestral graves, an earthquake struck, causing rocks to fall and tragically burying all the graves of the Fu clan.
Fu Zhao was devastated. To comfort his clansmen, he personally sought out a feng shui master and selected a new auspicious burial site.
On an auspicious day, he spared no effort and personally led his clansmen to relocate all the ancestral graves to the new site. He also led his clansmen in a sincere worship ceremony to comfort the spirits of their ancestors.
"I see. No wonder we couldn't find anything near Fujia Village. They've moved to a different place," Xie Yan sighed softly.
Even he was hearing about this for the first time.
"Where will the new location be after the relocation?"
The rustling sound of pages turning rang out again, as the pages quickly passed through Chu Ling's fingertips before suddenly stopping.
"Found it." He said in a deep voice, a slight smile playing on his lips.
The next day.
As dawn broke, the two followed the location recorded in the village chronicle and headed north.
Perhaps it was because the grave was in such a remote location, but as we walked along, the area became increasingly deserted, and even the once flat mountain path gradually became overgrown with weeds and rugged.
They walked and stopped along the way until the sun was high in the sky, when finally other people appeared on the road again.
It was a woodcutter resting by the roadside.
The woodcutter looked up and saw two people approaching. His expression clearly froze for a moment, and he spoke up before Xie Yan and the others could, "Where are you two headed?"
"If we go any further, there will be no road ahead."
"No way?"
Upon hearing this, Xie and Chu were both slightly taken aback and exchanged a surprised glance.
"Yes, you're from out of town, right? You probably don't know about the major earthquake that happened here more than ten years ago."
The woodcutter wiped the sweat from his brow, sighed deeply at the two men, and finally got to the point, "...and now we've blocked the road ahead too."
“Originally, this road would have been faster to get into the city, but it’s all blocked, so nobody uses it anymore. As a result, the villagers who used to live around here have gradually moved to other places.”
Xie Yan turned her gaze away from the mountain road ahead and asked, "How bad is the traffic jam up ahead? Is it really impossible to move at all?"
"Hiss—Actually, I've only heard my elders talk about it, I've never seen it with my own eyes."
The woodcutter scratched his head with a troubled expression, and after thinking carefully for a moment, he said, "But it is said that when it first collapsed, the government sent people to come and see it. They said that the whole mountain was shaken down and the fallen rocks and soil filled the road."
"Even Zhangjia Village at the foot of the mountain was buried. Fortunately, the villagers ran fast, otherwise they would have been buried too."
As the woodcutter spoke, he looked up at the sky again, then stood up, waved to the two men, and turned to leave with his half-person-high pile of firewood on his back.
"Although I don't know where you two are going, I advise you to change your route as soon as possible."
Watching the woodcutter's receding figure, the two did not choose to take a detour, but instead tacitly turned their horses around and decided to continue following the village chronicle's guidance.