Cypress Boat Floating

Tomorrow is the Dragon Boat Festival, and the capital city is starting to get lively.

People would make rice dumplings, drink realgar wine, pick mugwort leaves, weave five-colored bracelets, and hang up portraits of Zhong Kui at home to ward off evil spirits and ghosts.

The five-colored bracelets are made because snakes are most common around the Dragon Boat Festival. Once bitten by a poisonous snake, it is easy to die. After the Dragon Boat Festival, summer officially begins and there are more mosquitoes. In order to prevent them from being bitten by poisonous snakes and mosquitoes, people specially make this kind of five-colored bracelet for children, which contains insect repellent.

On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, because the palace also has to hold a blessing ceremony, most people would postpone the ceremony to the afternoon or morning, separating it from the palace's noon blessing ceremony, so as not to be disrespectful to the palace.

The blessing ceremony in the palace is different from the folk blessing ceremony. In the folks, the witches in their own village come to pray for the prosperity of the village.

The palace's prayers require the special invitation of a "fortune-teller" from a mysterious Miao village east of Da'an.

But in fact, the witches in the Miao village are not called witches, they are called spirit girls. The spirit girls are all young and beautiful girls, generally no more than 29 years old.

They are spiritual girls chosen by God at birth. They have the ability to communicate with God from birth. They can convey God's will and pray to God on behalf of people.

They are not with their parents since birth, but are brought up by the previous spirit girl. Spirit girls cannot get married, lose their virginity, or interact with others in their lifetime. They can only practice alone in the spirit temple.

The spirit girls in the Miao village are very popular among people in all areas of Da'an. Everyone knows that the spirit girls can communicate with the sky, so when they have some troubles, if they are capable enough, they will send people to the Miao village to ask the spirit girls to come out.

Every spirit girl is accompanied by an elder, who is the previous spirit girl. Basically, none of the spirit girls live past the age of 29. Those who survive become elders in the village. These elders are the ones who control the spirit girls. They decide where the spirit girls will go and convey the spirit girls' intentions to communicate with the heaven.

The tradition of inviting spirit girls from the capital to pray for blessings has been around for a long time. Since the establishment of Da'an, the Miao village has established this rule with their ancestors in order to protect their own safety.

Every year, whenever Daan needs help, they will send the spirit girl to help.

Da'an has been doing very smoothly over the years, and has not reached the point where it needs a spiritual woman to help, so they come every year when prayers are needed.

The spirit girls have to live and practice in the Miao village and cannot be exposed to too much worldly air. So Da'an made an agreement with the Miao village that the spirit girls would only come out to pray and listen to the will of heaven during the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival. They could stay in the Miao village alone at other times and Da'an would not disturb them.

The Miao village is naturally happy to do so. Spirit girls are very rare. Sometimes the next generation of spiritual girls only appears when the previous generation is about to die. This also leads to the Miao village's emphasis on spiritual girls.

In addition to the spiritual girl's blessing, most of the insect repellent pouches worn by the people are also made by the Miao village. The Miao village is located in the mountains and forests, where there are all kinds of wild beasts. For this reason, they also refined a medicine that can drive away these wild beasts.

There are even more rumors that the Miao people can control the wild beasts. It is also said that they have the art of witchcraft and can put a curse on people without them knowing, making them so obsessed that they will forget their families.

But it was just a rumor after all. No one had ever actually seen people from the Miao village carrying Gu with them when they went out. In recent years, as the trade level of Da'an has gradually increased, people from the Miao village could be seen everywhere in Da'an, but they were all doing business obediently, selling some anthelmintic drugs. No one had ever actually seen the so-called Gu worm.

There used to be a curfew in the capital, but night markets would be open on every important festival, such as the Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Spring Festival, and Lantern Festival.

On the one hand, it was to give the Miao people who had come from afar to Da'an an opportunity to trade. On the other hand, it was also to promote the economy of the capital, so that the people could make money and give those ladies who usually could only stay at home a chance to go out and play.

Although the temple fair before the Dragon Boat Festival is not as lively as that on the day, it is much more lively than usual. The vendors take advantage of the three-day night market to make more money. In addition to the short time during the day, they now even open the stalls at night. Some even do not rest at all, from the morning to the night market closing. When passing by, you can see that everyone's faces are tired but full of happiness.

For them, they would be very happy if they could earn a little more money to support their family.

After dinner, Ye Jianqing changed his clothes and went out with Lu Ci Qiu. The last time he went out to play with him was when they went to the market before the New Year.

This time it was more fun than going to the market.

There are many things to do at the temple fair, including releasing river lanterns, guessing riddles, making lanterns, and all kinds of small gadgets, which dazzled Ye Jianqing.

Although the temple fair was very attractive, she always remembered that the people from Xinri wanted to harm Lu Ci Qiu, so she didn't dare to leave Lu Ci Qiu's side.

However, Lu Ci Qiu couldn't bear to see her not having fun. Because of the marching distribution map, everyone had been tense for some time. He brought Ye Jianqing out to play just to make her relax, but now that she was following him all the time, it went against his original intention.

"Go and play. You don't have to keep staring at me." Lu Ci Qiu pushed her with amusement and told her to go and play.

Ye Jianqing stood beside him with high alert.

She was wearing a green men's suit today, with her hair tied up and a hairpin, looking very neat. Although she was not tall, she looked like a handsome man, which made the girls on the street cover their faces and secretly look at her.

"No, the temple fair is so lively. What if someone wants to harm you?" Ye Jianqing decisively rejected his suggestion.

It was my mistake that I got him injured last time. Today, no matter what I do, I can't let him get hurt again. If he gets hurt again, Lu Zhixing will beat me to death.

Seeing that he couldn't convince Ye Jianqing, Lu Zhixing thought about just taking her out for fun, it would be fun anyway.

"Then please accompany me for a good time." Lu Ci Qiu looked back at her with a bright smile on his face. Behind him, a Kongming lantern suddenly rose up. The dim light illuminated his face, which had become increasingly sharp this year, clearly.

Ye Jianqing was a little fascinated by the sight. Why didn’t he realize that Lu Ci Qiu was so handsome before?

Seeing her staring at him in a daze, Lu Ci Qiu's smile grew wider. He took her hand and walked forward. Ye Jianqing staggered behind him. After all, the other party was concerned about Ye Jianqing's height and did not walk with big strides. Instead, he took small steps at a time. Ye Jianqing was able to keep up.

After she came to her senses, Ye Jianqing silently laughed in her heart at herself for being a lovesick girl, being attracted by the looks of a younger brother. But she had to admit that Lu Ci Qiu was handsome, as if he suddenly met her aesthetic standards.

"Where are you taking me?" Lu Ci Qiu kept walking forward with no intention of stopping, and Ye Jianqing followed behind him and shouted loudly.

The people around her were so noisy that she couldn't even hear Lu Ci Qiu's voice.

"I'll take you to release sky lanterns." The people around her seemed to be quiet again, allowing her to hear Lu Ci Qiu's voice smoothly.

Ye Jianqing followed him, and the two of them walked to the moat, where many people were selling sky lanterns, river lanterns and other handicrafts.

Nowadays, because there are electric poles everywhere, people are not very fond of flying sky lanterns. Ye Jianqing, who abides by the rules, has never released a sky lantern before, so she is still looking forward to it. But when she thinks that the lantern might be blown away by the wind and cause a fire, she suddenly doesn't want to release it anymore.

"Let's put one out." While she was thinking, Lu Ci Qiu had already bought one and brought it in front of her.

Lu Ci Qiu seemed to be a child again at this moment, and he introduced to Ye Jianqing with a childlike innocence: "Before releasing the sky lantern, you should write down your wish on the sky lantern, so that the gods in the sky can see it and help you realize it."

Seeing his expectant eyes, Ye Jianqing didn't want to break his fantasy, so he took the lamp from his hand with a smile: "Customer 4 doesn't have a pen, how can we write?"

“Here.” It has to be said that everyone knows how to do business. Those small vendors selling lanterns basically have a brush there, and you can use it as long as you buy a sky lantern here.

Lu Ci Qiu pulled Ye Jianqing to the stall where he had just bought the lamp, picked up the pen they had prepared and handed it to Ye Jianqing.

Ye Jianqing took the pen and looked at the blank Kongming lantern. She had many wishes, but she didn't know which one to write.

She wants her parents to be healthy.

She wants Xiao to be nice to all the team members.

If she couldn't go back, she wanted to help Lu Ci Qiu find the murderer.

She wants to live a good life.

She wants to...

She wanted to... go back... back to her original world, back to her parents, and still be the beloved daughter. She wanted to return to the team and still be the captain that everyone relied on.

She's had enough of this damn ancient times. She really, really, really wants to go back.

As she thought about it, the grievance in her heart was suddenly magnified infinitely. Her eyes seemed to be unable to control themselves and began to accumulate tears. However, she was strong and did not want to let the tears fall. This would make her look so useless.

So she looked up.

The dark sky is dotted with stars, which are formed by people’s wishes. Are there really gods who can see them?

Are there really gods who can fulfill their wishes?

If so, could you please fulfill my wish?

I want to go back, but if that's not possible, then I'd like to give my whole life to keep my parents healthy.