Daily Intelligence System: Financial Independence-Chapter 103 - 101: The Ancestors’ Graves Truly Emitted Auspicious Smoke! (2-in-1, Second Update!)

Chapter 103: Chapter 101: The Ancestors’ Graves Truly Emitted Auspicious Smoke! (2-in-1, Second Update!)

New Year’s Day.

There is a tradition of ancestor worship in Jiang Tao’s hometown.

Honoring the forefathers symbolizes not forgetting the grace of life and growth during the happiest festival of the year.

There’s no complicated ceremony, it’s simply visiting the graves.

Burn some spirit money for the ancestors, and bring some offerings. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Ancestor worship typically takes place between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m.,

when the yang energy between heaven and earth is strongest, enhancing one’s own yang energy.

After having breakfast at his parents’ house,

Jiang Tao, Jiang Wen, and his two nephews, Jiang Shijie and Jiang Shaojie, the four men of the family, set off to visit the graves.

His mother, Tian Xiaomei, busied herself at home lighting lanterns.

Xu Li and Jiang Bing took Jiang Xue to visit uncles and elders in the village to pay New Year’s greetings.

The ancestral graves of the Jiang Family Manor villagers are all in the farmland outside the village.

Mostly, they are in their own fields, or exchanged with others for their farmland.

Compared to the ever more expensive cemeteries in the city, where people lament that dying is unaffordable,

the rural burial grounds have stayed cheap for decades.

The piece of land where the Old Jiang Family’s ancestral graves are located was allocated to Jiang Tao during the family division, with a confirmed area of one mu.

However, he never farmed it, it was always his parents who did.

At the gravesite, they started the worship, with the old man first drawing a circle around several ancestral graves.

Jiang Tao and his two nephews busied themselves pulling offerings and stacks of bills that look like real currency out of their pockets.

In previous years, the spirit money used for grave visits had denominations in trillions or even quadrillions, even more outrageous than Zimbabwean dollars.

Over the years, the spirit money denominations gradually returned to normal.

They became five, ten, twenty, fifty, and a hundred units, looking real at a glance.

Once his father finished drawing and muttering,

Jiang Tao took out a lighter to start the fire, burning yellow paper and spirit bills.

This time, the ancestral graves truly emitted blue smoke.

After finishing ancestor worship, they returned home.

Today at noon, they still ate at his parents’ house.

Jiang Tao brought over fish, shrimp, and beef Xu Li bought at the market.

Old Jiang started preparing the dishes.

Jiang Tao said he had something at home and returned, nibbling on sunflower seeds.

It wasn’t just an excuse to be lazy.

He genuinely had something, and it was a big deal.

Last night, he stayed up resolving his cousin Xu Jiantao’s information.

He still hadn’t dealt with Old Sun’s information.

"End-of-life care..."

"How to care? Just a phone call for New Year’s wishes? Or..."

Returning home, sitting on the living room sofa.

Jiang Tao pulled out his phone to find Old Sun’s number.

After pondering for a while, he finally dialed Old Sun’s number.

...

Beijing, Pingchang District.

The Bai Gezhuang New Village District was festively decorated, and the New Year atmosphere was strong.

In building 79, room 101, a small guest room.

This room had its curtains drawn all year round, shrouding it in darkness.

There was no bed, no cabinet, only a small round table Sun Xiaobao retrieved from a trash heap.

At the moment, there were five chairs around the little round table, and four dishes on the table.

The only living person there was Sun Xiaobao.

The rest were four black-and-white memorial portraits.

"Dad, Mom, happy New Year to both of you! Wishing you all the best for the New Year."

Sun Xiaobao first offered a toast to his parents, poured a small cup, and drank it down the throat after New Year’s blessings.

"Son, happy New Year to you too, let’s have a drink together as father and son."

"Sun Thief, happy New Year to you too."

Sun Xiaobao toasted glass after glass, paying New Year greetings to his four deceased relatives.

On New Year’s Day, while other families brimmed with joyful reunions and laughter,

every year on this day, Sun Xiaobao chatted by himself with four portraits at home, though he wasn’t lonely.

"You must miss me, right?"

"Soon, soon, I’ll come down to meet you."

"A few days ago, I felt terribly unwell, went to the hospital for a check-up, and guess what?"

"Advanced liver cancer! Well! I don’t have many days left."

"The doctor said I won’t live more than two months, urging me to get hospital treatment."

"I say, what’s the point of treatment? Do you think you can cure cancer or what? Look at you guys bragging."

"In the end, money is spent, and people still die, isn’t that just wasting money!"

"..."

Sun Xiaobao rambled to himself from early dawn around 5 a.m. until he babbled on to past 9 a.m.

On this day every year, he said more words than he did in the whole year combined.

After more than four hours, a bottle of Maotai went down into his stomach.

He did not treat himself like a sick person at all.

In the final two months of his life, Sun Xiaobao was at peace.

He would eat and drink as he wished, living as comfortably as possible.

When the time came, he would go and report to King Yama.

"Let’s end today’s chat here, you all aren’t talking, I have no idea what else to say."

Having expressed everything he wanted, Sun Xiaobao sat blankly in his chair like a statue.

In his ears, he heard the thundering footsteps of a child running upstairs.

Listening to the joyous laughter of his old neighbors upstairs.

To say he wasn’t envious would be a lie.

But previously, Sun Xiaobao was at most envious.

Today, he suddenly felt an immense emptiness and loneliness, an overwhelming sense of solitude.

He had no family, no friends or relatives, not even a single person to wish him a happy New Year or say good year to him.

"Fifty-six ethnic groups, fifty-six flowers~"

The ringtone from the living room interrupted Sun Xiaobao’s thoughts.

After regaining his senses, carrying a small hope in his heart, Sun Xiaobao got up and went to the living room.

As if afraid that the caller would hang up from impatience, Sun Xiaobao practically sprinted over to the table to pick up his senior phone.