Xuan Mo was really paying attention to the program showing on the TV . First off, sheās never seen anything like this before, and she also wanted to see exactly how amazing this program was to be able to garner the attention from the billions of people from this large country . Not only so, this was also a good chance to understand their culture .
She was able to analyse each performance item and each actor or actress in every possible manner, but she wouldnāt determine whether they were boring or not . If the viewers were to have a similar mindset, theyād definitely be able to sit through the entire program without even blinking your eye .
Ma Yue and Ma Ting Ting were the only ones that noticed what Xuan Mo was doing . The adults completely ignored the program playing in the background; only these two would glance at the TV occasionally when they were bored . And so, they realised how peculiar their cousin who grew up in the city was . She should have seen and experienced way more things in the city than the two of them . Despite so, she seemed incredibly earnest while watching the Spring Festival Gala program . Really, did she get brainwashed by propaganda or somethingā¦
From then on, Xuan Mo ranked number one in the weirdness chart in their hearts, and this belief had never since then been undermined or overturned .
Back in the days, people living in villages would slaughter a new year pig on the third day of the lunar New Year, but the tradition died down, so theyāve not had any slaughter for many years . Now with Xuan Mo and her mother returning to visit their hometown this year, Mashan village paid and bought ten pigs . Seeing that theyāve not done this in ten years, they were going to make up for all the years theyāve missed, and they decided they were continuing with this tradition in the future .
Xuan Moās grandfather had been the best butcher around here . Afterwhich, her uncle inherited her grandfatherās skills and took over from then . Touching the blade again after ten years of abstinence, he suddenly felt the pressure weighing down on his shoulders . Heād practised the movements a few days ago, and even got his son to search the web for videos to familiarise himself again with the procedure .
Now that he was standing at the entrance of the village with ten pigs, he could still felt the pressure . Though there were a few burly men helping him to hold down the pig, even the action of waving the blade down required much strength, so he wasnāt sure if he could handle all ten at one go .
The people around were mostly males; females generally dislike such bloody scenes . Despite this, Xuan Mo, a dash of vibrant red, stood among the spectators . She was curious, so there was no way sheās missing this . Ma Yue tried convincing her otherwise but his attempts were futile . He figured that sheād make her leave on her own soon anyway, so he didnāt persist, and decided that heād cover her eyes when the blood spurts later . While his little cousin did have an inhumane strength, and were good with her fists, and liked watching the Spring Festival Galaā¦ but they were slaughtering a pig this time, the blood and gore was real, so things were different .
Five men in total stood around the table to press the pig down tightly on the table . The pig snorted and cried loudly on and on . Though it was in the middle of winter, Xuan Moās uncle only had pants on . While heād gained some weight over the years, and in place of the muscles heād had before were now only fats, the many years of labour had trained his arms and shoulder, making his upper body out to appear strong and burly . A foot-long knife in hand, he watched as a few of them placed a big basin sprinkled with salt under the pigās neck to collect the blood .
He tapped the knife on its neck before stabbing it in immediately after, before pulling out a blood-stained knife . As the blood spurted out immediately, cheers sounded from the spectators around, praising how heās still as good as heād been ten years ago . The remaining females save for Xuan Mo had already left the scene, unable to take the slaughtering .
Ma Yue on the other hand felt chills . He couldnāt exactly pinpoint when such a feeling crept up on him, but he knew that the moment the pigās blood spurted, he suddenly felt a wave of coldness sweeping his way . When he turned to peek, his little cousin looked as normal as ever, save for the fact that her temperament and the air around her had changed completely . Her fixated gaze, bright eyes and clenched fists as she stared at the pig ā she looked absolutely excited and thrilled, and almost as though she wasā¦ suppressing some sort of violet tendency .
He patted his own shoulders and he inched a step away from her .
Xuan Mo on the other hand didnāt seemed to have noticed his reaction at all . The only thing she could register right now was the fact that the scene before her was stirring; it was blood-boilingly alive, pumping, and fresh, yet so familiar as though sheād seen such a scene countless times, ifā¦ if she was the butcher, the pig would have died much faster, she could have punctured its arteries more accurately, everything, everything would be much more perfect, much faster and much swifter .
She slowly touched her chest where her heart was . She still did not have it figured exactly how she should use her heart . Now though, she knew . The thumping wasnāt something she could control; this goosebump-inducing chills was entirely her heart at work . It was helping her realise that it was possible for her to be this excited, and one way to get her this riled up was when she sees a bloody scene .
Xuan Moās uncle slaughtered three pigs consecutively before he started feeling a little tired . That was a symptom characteristic after being in a sustained, highly alert and focused state . When he was slaughtering the fourth pig, his hand slipped after waving the knife down, so he didnāt manage to pull the knife out . The four men holding the pig down didnāt manage their grip either when the pig struggled frantically . As a result, the pig rolled off the table and howled as it dashed into the crowd with the butcher knife still stuck across its neck . Not only did it crash into the bucket of pig blood and overturned it, it also dispersed the crowd . Instantly, the ground was dyed red as screams rose . With the knife still jabbed, blocking the blood, one tiny streams of red seeped from the pigās neck, so itās going to remain alive and hopping for a while . The more the pig ran around, the more riled up it got . Such a scene caught the men present off guard . It was only when Xuan Moās uncle exclaimed before they reacted and swarmed towards the pig .
Crazed, the pig yowled, dashing all over the place . A few of them made futile attempts to lunge at it, only to end up getting themselves stained with blood . They continued chasing after the pig; the entire scene got even more bloody and chaotic .
The trail of bloodied people continued dashing, but they were panting from the chase . The pig on the other hand seemed to appear more and more energetic . With a knife stuck in its neck, it was as though an iron pig, fearless and daunting . The pig-chasers on the other hand suddenly felt as though they saw another dash of red zipping past before them . A cry of agony sounded before the pig ahead of them crashed into the ground . Atop, a girl stood tall, a foot over its body, one hand holding the pig head and the other gripping the knife as she looked into the distance, her deep gaze appearing almost poignant .
The scene shocked everyone present . The pigās expression was frozen at the point when it howled, its body however laid on the ground peacefully . No one remembered to collect the blood even after it had streamed onto the ground until Xuan Moās floating thoughts returned to earth and turned to speak, puzzled, āyouāre not going to continue?ā
When Xuan Moās uncle pushed aside the spectators, he was greeted with such a strange scene ā a doll-like girl holding a butcher knife and a pigās head in each hand . To say it was bizarre combination was an understatementā¦ āAh Mo, y-you, w-what are you doingā¦ā
āMe? I slaughtered the pigā¦ā Xuan Mo walked over and handed the head over, but held on to the knife . āLet me handle a few . ā
āAh? No no no, I can handle it, even if I canāt, we have enough people to sort this out, how can a little girl like you get your hands dirty, come come, hand me the knife nowā¦ā
While Xuan Mo was incredibly reluctant, she still returned the knife to her uncle . At the very least, she knew when she should and shouldnāt be persistent . There were enough men in the village to take over carrying out such a tradition, as a blue planet ālittle girlā, she had no place cutting in .
In the end, the ten pigs were successfully slaughtered . Everyone received three kilograms worth of meat . The remaining were sent over to their neighbouring village as gifts .
Xuan Mo while she relished the adrenaline rush when her blade slitted the pigās neck, couldnāt help but sigh deeply at how different things were here . Having come from a place where war ensued without ever needing to anticipate it, it was really difficult to feel anything similar here, and even if she did, she had to depend on others to slip up like what had happened earlierā¦
Regardless, no matter which day of the New Year it was, New Year was New Year . To the blue planet beings, this was a new beginning, the start of hopes and dreams . And in this new year, anything can happen .