After returning home, it was already getting bright outside, and I fell asleep on the kang bed.

I hadn't been asleep for long when my mother woke me up.

She said we were going to pay respects to our ancestors.

It then dawned on me that today was the fifteenth day of the seventh month.

My head was still buzzing, my whole body ached, and remembering what happened last night, I was still somewhat unsettled, so I asked if I could skip it.

My mother said, "The whole village can skip it, but you can't."

"We've prepared incense and smoke for our ancestral graves, if you don't go pay your respects, people will say you have no conscience."

I had no choice but to force myself to get up.

This year, the Ghost Festival was taken very seriously in our family.

In addition to the usual offerings of incense, candles, paper money, and firecrackers, we also specifically bought a pig's head and tail, steamed mantou, and bought fruits and snacks.

My father even had flower wreaths, paper houses, paper clothes, and a paper television made by a specialist.

My father took me and Xiaoyong and carried all these things, and we set off.

The sky was overcast, with dark gray clouds pressing low on the horizon, making it hard for me to breathe.

Just as we arrived at the ancestral graves on the western side of the village, we heard a group of people arguing.

The Jin family and the Diao family were about to start a fight.

Xiaowen's father, Qing Shu, was shouting, "This dead woman shouldn't be buried in the ancestral graves, what are you trying to do?"

Diao Laiyin had already returned with his five sons, and there were several nephews standing behind them.

Diao Laiyin looked very aggrieved and said, "

Laiqing, what era is it now? You're still talking about this feudal superstition?"

Laiqing said, "

"I'm not discussing feudal superstition, but how did your Diao family's graves end up in our Jin family's land?"

Jin Dian, the main village of Jinzhao, was mainly made up of the Jin and Diao families, and their ancestral graves were both on this hillside.

The Jin family was on the east side, and the Diao family was on the west side.

In the Ming Dynasty, the two families moved here from the Da Huai tree in Shanxi, and their ancestral graves were established, and boundary stones were erected.

According to a feng shui master, this hillside has good feng shui, with the Jin family taking the auspicious position and the Diao family taking the wealthy position.

But whenever the Diao family expanded their ancestral graves, they would always encroach eastwards.

They always wanted to gain some advantage.

This time, they went even further and suddenly built a grave on the boundary line of the two families' ancestral graves.

When I walked over, I realized it was Qiuge's grave.

It had been said before that the Diao family buried Qiuge in an unmarked grave outside the village, but I didn't expect her to be moved back just before the Ghost Festival.

Although Qiuge's grave was built tall, for some reason, it felt lonely.

Diao Laiyin stood in front of Qiuge's grave, squinting his eyes and looking up at the hillside.

"Is it off again?"

He said again, "

"When it was being built in the middle of the night, I didn't see it clearly."

The others shouted, "

"Several of your daughters-in-law's graves are encroaching on our Jin family's land, move them back now!"

Diao Laiyin smiled bitterly and said, "

"The grave has already been built, why should we move it back?"

"Besides, Qiuge is my daughter-in-law, but she is also your Jin family's girl, shouldn't she have a spot in the Jin family's ancestral graves?"

After speaking, Diao Laiyin asked Shi Tou again.

"Shi Tou, Qiuge suffered during her lifetime, now that she's gone, can we build a proper grave for her, is it alright?"

Then he looked at us and said, "

"You are all Qiuge's uncles and brothers, don't you owe her this much?"

Diao Laiyin, being the village chief, was skilled in his words, and after finishing this speech, everyone kept quiet.

Xiaowen's grandfather, Village Director Jin San Ye, said, "

"Let's leave Qiuge here, let's all go up to the graves, don't delay any longer."

The two families stopped arguing and went back to their respective ancestral graves.

As we walked towards the ancestral graves, I felt my eyelid twitching constantly.