Chapter 501 — A Memorial Day Beyond Words

"I..." Gao Yang had broken out in a cold sweat across his whole brow, but after racking his brains he found that he truly could only understand—"he" had been dead seven hundred years, and apart from the first decade or so, generation after generation of Ansu's people had long since grown used to commemorating their ancestors on this day. In a world where true gods existed and most ritual festivals were bound up with the gods, this was likely the only ritual festival unconnected to any deity. What else could he do but understand?

"Fine, I understand, I understand," Gao Yang said, rubbing the space between his brows with a splitting headache. In that instant he suddenly felt that all his earlier worries had been pushed to the back of the line. "Let them celebrate..."

Hetty breathed a sigh of relief. She had been scared half to death just now—after all, though this festival was "in memory of the great progenitor" and in theory a matter full of glory, whether the progenitor himself, having climbed out of his coffin, still considered it worth commemorating was another matter entirely. Frankly, she did not think it was anything to be happy about—the whole nation gathering around bonfires to dance in memory of one's death day—and they did it every single year...

But she had barely let out that breath, not yet had time to draw another, when it was cut short by a sudden, vigorous voice: "Progenitor! Auntie! Ah, and Amber! There you all are!"

Hetty looked up and saw Rebecca come bounding over from the distance—and the very first thing she saw was the great armful of death's-bloom chrysanthemums clutched in that silly doe's hands...

In that instant she realized, clear and calm: oh no. This was the end.

In the space of that one dazed moment, Rebecca had already run up to the three of them. The girl first greeted Gao Yang cheerfully, then turned to Hetty: "Auntie! The Soul-Resting Festival is almost here—we missed it last year, so we should celebrate it properly this year, shouldn't we?"

Hetty lowered her voice, almost grinding her teeth: "Re-be-ca—"

Rebecca had not the faintest awareness that anything was amiss with the atmosphere: "Huh?"

Hetty opened her mouth, about to remind the girl of the origins of the Soul-Resting Festival, when Amber—who had been quietly watching from the side all this while—suddenly spoke up: "Speaking of which, how do members of the Cecil family observe the Soul-Resting Festival?"

Amber: excellent head of the Military Intelligence Bureau, spymaster, expert in espionage and sabotage, one of the chief architects of the textbook case of public-opinion warfare known as the "Lu'an Awakening." Her life possessed three great specialties: robbing graves, slipping away, and stirring the pot.

Rebecca walked straight into the trap, and began happily explaining: "Actually, most of it's the same as everyone else's—during the day you decorate the doors and the sills beneath the windows with death's-bloom chrysanthemums, so the ancestors can find their way home, and then at night there's a bonfire party, eating and drinking, dancing and such, and you set out an extra portion of food to entertain the ancestors' souls. At dawn the next day you gather up all the chrysanthemums and take them to the family graveyard, and that sends the souls back to the place where they rest..."

As she spoke, Rebecca turned to Gao Yang: "By the way, Progenitor, would you like to—eh?"

Gao Yang looked at Rebecca without expression: "Why don't you just hand me those flowers in your hand? Save you the trouble."

Rebecca: "..."

Gao Yang turned to Hetty, still expressionless: "It's one thing for the child not to have studied her history well—but has no one told her about the origins of the Soul-Resting Festival? And her the heir to the family."

At last Rebecca fully came to her senses. With a head full of cold sweat she snapped upright: "I—I know it! The Soul-Resting Festival was originally a memorial observance held in honor of the founding duke, Gao Yang Cecil, and it officially became a festival in Ansu Year 27..."

Gao Yang could not resist rapping the silly doe on the head: "So you did know all along!"

Rebecca rubbed the spot where she had been struck. "I just didn't react, Song..."

Gao Cen's face was one of helpless resignation: how could a天才 head capable of switching seamlessly between the fields of magic technology and mechanics be so bluntly straightforward in every other domain, as if its nerve endings had died off?

Reibeiyu, keeping one eye on the shifts in Gao Song's expression, hunched her neck. "Then... then maybe our family should just skip the Soul-Commending Festival this year... anyway, Ancestor Yan, you've come back to life too."

Yet Gao Yang did not give an answer right away. He merely gazed at the crowds in the street not far off, busy with their preparations for the Soul-Commending Festival, and suddenly a strange feeling welled up in his heart.

After a brief moment of thought, he finally broke the silence: "The Soul-Commending Festival... we should still have it. This year I'll spend it together with you all."

This time it was not only Hetty and Rebecca whose eyes went wide; even Amber, watching the scene from the sidelines, was startled. "Hah?! What kind of hobby is that?"

"A person who has already crawled out of the coffin has no need to be memorialized, but other souls... need comfort," Gao Yun said with a soft breath. "That fire in old Cecil... it's been two years now."