On New Year's Eve, Tan Xiao ate the reunion dinner at home with Tan Chunying, and then drove out of the city.

According to the old customs of Nanchu, there is a tradition of "offering lanterns" on New Year's Eve, also known as offering light, which is to go and pay respects to ancestors. In addition to "people looking for ghosts during Qingming Festival, and ghosts looking for people during Ghost Festival", people in Nanchu also "look for ghosts" on New Year's Eve. Of course, in some places, lanterns are sent during the Lantern Festival, which varies.

In recent years, people have almost formed a habit. After dinner is the peak period for offering lanterns. Burning paper money and offering lanterns allows the ancestors to also liven things up before going back to watch the Spring Festival Gala. Traffic police will be on duty near various cemeteries.

By the time it was getting dark, they had arrived at the cemetery outside the city. At this time, there were already families coming and going to send lanterns, converging on the mountain road like a river of lights.

When offering lanterns, it is common to burn some paper money and set off firecrackers. Fireworks and firecrackers are not allowed in urban areas, but it's different outside the city. At the foot of the mountain, you can vaguely hear the sound of firecrackers coming from various places on the mountain.

This is just a suburban cemetery. In proper cemeteries nowadays, burning is generally prohibited, and there are special services for offering lanterns. For example, a long-lasting lantern that only burns on New Year's Eve night costs one hundred yuan, and there are different prices for three nights and five nights, with customization also possible.

The Tan family brought candles. When Tan Chunying was still young, the family sent oil lamps and waited to make lanterns with paper to prevent them from being blown out. Later, people began to send electronic colored lanterns, but the Tan Chunying family still used candles as they had many at home.

When they arrived at the Tan family's grave, Tan Chunying and her son first cleared the surrounding weeds together, placed three stacks of paper money on the grave, then lit the grave lanterns and burned four incense sticks. An old saying goes "three for gods, four for ghosts", so offerings for the deceased cannot be in odd numbers. Chatting and laughing, they finished this bit of work.

This was the grave of Tan Chunying's parents, that is, Tan Xiao's maternal grandparents. Tan Chunying was the daughter born to the family late in life. Tan Xiao had spent a few years with his maternal grandparents when he was young, but they passed away one after another before he started junior high school.

Tan Chunying didn't often mention her parents usually. Every time this occasion came around, she would talk a bit more.

Smiling, she said, "In the past, in addition to lighting lanterns at the grave, we also had to light lanterns for the earth god and the water god... Later it wasn't allowed, for fear of causing a fire. At that time, the neighborhood committee found my parents several times, asking them to take the lead in getting rid of superstitious practices."

Tan Xiao nodded. The status of shamans had changed over time.

Tan Chunying folded the paper money a couple of times and then burned it, saying as she burned, "Your dad at that time would go around blowing out other people's lanterns, and then didn't dare to fight back when chased and ran."

Tan Xiao laughed out loud. He knew that his father had an accident when he was very young. Tan Chunying had not explained in detail what exactly the accident was, and he was afraid of reopening his mother's old wounds, so he didn't pursue the matter.

Whenever Tan Chunying occasionally talked about old times, Tan Xiao found it amusing. He thought his parents must have also been childhood sweethearts before.

When the candles had burned out, Tan Chunying wordlessly finished up, turning over the ashes to ensure they wouldn't reignite from the embers.

After burning the paper, Tan Xiao stood to the side, listening to Tan Chunying talk. He also looked around. If the deceased had recently passed, the family would often light white lanterns (with white lampshades), only starting to use colored ones from the second year onwards. At some of the graves with white lanterns, and a few with colored lanterns, Tan Xiao could also see some people with unusual demeanors.

Since he began dealing with unnatural matters, Tan Xiao had gained an additional aspect to his observation of people. He thought that among these "people", some might be the occupants of the graves themselves.

Ordinary ghosts are usually most active when newly deceased. After a long time, if they don't reincarnate, they gradually dissipate. He also didn't see any figures that might be his maternal grandparents beside their family grave. After so long, they had probably already been reborn.

"Let's go, time to go back and watch TV." Tan Chunying patted her hands and stood up. Suddenly, she said, "Sometimes I think that maybe ghosts and gods really do exist in this world."

Tan Xiao returned from his thoughts and looked up. "What?"

"I don't know, I just suddenly remembered doing things with your maternal grandparents when I was little. At that time, our family hadn't transformed yet. They acted as if they could really help people descend to the underworld, conducting ceremonies with piety." It had been too long, and even Tan Chunying's own memories were hazy. She scratched her head. "Maybe there really are ghosts in this world, it's just that I can't see them."

For a moment, Tan Xiao didn't know what to say. Tan Chunying hadn't mentioned a word, but he knew she was missing her deceased relatives.

"Let's go." Tan Chunying picked up the bamboo pole used to pat the paper ashes. Some nearby villagers, like his family, still used candles to light lanterns. Although there were people on duty every year on the mountain to prevent fires, Tan Chunying would still look around to make sure there were no fires before leaving. It was an old habit.

......

Yu Zhenzhen had a camera hanging around her neck as she got out of the car with her parents. Her parents instructed her, "You can take some photos at the foot of the mountain, but don't snap randomly once we're up on the mountain, it's not good."

"Oh, I know." Yu Zhenzhen's father was from another province. In previous years, they were mostly at her paternal grandparents' home before New Year's Eve, and then came over here on the first day of the lunar new year, so in her memory, she had only offered lanterns twice when she was young.

This year, because they were spending New Year's Eve in Nanchu, Yu Zhenzhen came along too. She had heard relatives say there would be a scene of a river of lights in the mountains, so she brought the camera she rented.

However, when she arrived at the site, Yu Zhenzhen found that this river of lights was not as spectacular as she had imagined. There were scattered points of light, yes, but it couldn't be called a river.

"It's because there aren't as many people coming here to send lanterns now. When we were young, it was indeed very numerous and bright," Yu Zhenzhen's mother said.

"I see..." Yu Zhenzhen thought that made sense. There were more cemeteries and such now. But since she had brought the camera, she might as well take a few photos.

Because she wanted to capture a wide view, Yu Zhenzhen had borrowed a medium-short focal length zoom lens with the camera. She flipped the screen over so she could easily take selfies while hand-holding the camera and capture a large area of the surroundings. She first took a group photo with her family.

Everyone shouted "Cheese!" at the camera together.

Although they had come to send lanterns and visit graves, the main point of visiting graves on New Year's Eve was actually to liven things up with the ancestors. It was the Lunar New Year, so everyone was in quite a festive mood.

"Click." Yu Zhenzhen pressed the shutter. The last time she went to Qiyun Ridge to pick a camera, she found that some cameras didn't focus very well. Many people borrowed cameras during the New Year, so this time she couldn't be picky. However, after taking a few shots, she felt this camera had no issues.

The money for renting the camera during this New Year period was supported by Yu Zhenzhen's mother. Originally, the family had agreed to buy her a camera after graduation, so for now if she wanted to play with one, she could only rent it herself.

But after Yu Zhenzhen took those few photos for Tan Xiao and Kong Xuan, the effect was extremely good. When she took them home, her relatives took one look and lavished praise on Yu Zhenzhen for being a photography genius.

Her mom was overjoyed and rented a camera for Yu Zhenzhen before even giving the New Year's money. She even rented it for a whole month, enough for Yu Zhenzhen to play with the entire winter break.

Yu Zhenzhen didn't even have the heart to delete the few photos of Tan Xiao and Kong Xuan from the memory card, although she had backed them up. She always felt there was a slight difference between showing people photos she took with a camera versus showing them on a phone. Keeping them on the memory card felt fresher, more like she had just taken them, giving her family a more tangible sense of pride when showing off.

Yu Zhenzhen flipped the screen and started taking pictures of the mountain. Logically, when taking a still photo, you just need to focus and shoot. But unexpectedly, the focus point kept jumping around, blurring the mountain and lights in the background.

Yu Zhenzhen frantically tapped on the screen but couldn't get it to focus. She cursed in her heart, wondering what was wrong when it was just fine a moment ago.

In the distance, the sound of firecrackers could be faintly heard, and the smell of burnt paper seemed to linger in the air. Looking further up, the vegetation was noticeably more lush, with ancient trees intertwined, the dim street lamps unable to fully illuminate the path ahead.

Yu Zhenzhen remembered she had set it to auto-focus with face detection priority. The focus box on the screen would automatically lock onto faces. She thought, could it be focusing on the pedestrian in front?

Yu Zhenzhen was already in manual mode. She raised her hand and adjusted the parameters. Just now, her focus was on the lights, so the image was quite dark.

As the screen gradually brightened, the image became clear again. There was indeed a pedestrian in front, but only their back was visible.

Yu Zhenzhen saw the face detection focus jumping around on the screen, sometimes on the pedestrian's head, sometimes selecting the side. After a moment, the face detection system firmly locked onto an empty spot on the screen where no one was!

"...Mom." Yu Zhenzhen called out in a trembling voice.

In that instant, she thought of all the ghostly photos and stories she had seen online. She didn't even dare press the shutter, afraid that when she looked back at the photo, some figure would appear.

Mama Yu turned her head and jokingly scolded, "What is it, don't tell me you're already tired from just starting the hike up the mountain."

Her scolding actually made Yu Zhenzhen feel less tense. She reassured herself it was just a focusing issue, nothing to be afraid of. She had seen cameras at their store have focusing problems before and the owner said even repairs couldn't fix it.

Mm, she was just a bit influenced by the atmosphere here. People are less brave at night after all.

Yu Zhenzhen took a few steps forward and held onto her mom's hand, not daring to pick up the camera to take more photos.

She honestly followed her family up the mountain to burn joss paper. It took about half an hour before they could head back down.

Although she didn't see the river of lights, when Yu Zhenzhen changed angles while descending the mountain, passing the trees in front, her view opened up. She discovered she could overlook the lights of tens of thousands of households all around.

In that moment, Yu Zhenzhen was captivated. She completely forgot the focusing system seemed to have issues and raised the camera in her hands again.

This time, the focusing system didn't give her trouble and smoothly captured the night scene before her eyes.

But in the time she stayed behind to take the photo, the others had already walked ahead. Yu Zhenzhen put down the camera and hurried to catch up. She saw the street lamps flicker a few times and faintly heard an ethereal whispering by her ears.

Instantly, cold sweat broke out on Yu Zhenzhen!