"What? With so little time left, you want me to repaint a dragon head at the last minute?"

When Tan Chunying received the request from the organizers, she found it quite absurd. The dragon boat race was about to start, and the organizers suddenly said that they would add a fun dragon boat performance segment, using an old boat body but with a new dragon head, which needed to be repainted.

"Oh..." The person on the other end probably mentioned the price during the call. Tan Chunying readily agreed, "I'll rush to get it done, it shouldn't be a problem. Just send it over directly. What kind of head is it? A tiger head?"

Tan Chunying was very pleased. Although they hadn't been open to visitors for the past two years, due to the resurgence of the shaman culture in the public eye, which even sparked some discussions, as well as the boost from the tourism industry, their family's income had actually increased.

"If you had already graduated now, you could directly join your mom in doing some big business, right? Wait a few more years and study hard..." While Tan Chunying was encouraging her child to study, the truck delivering the dragon head had already arrived. The driver unloaded the large wooden crate and left.

Tan Chunying got some tools and opened the wooden crate, revealing the dragon head inside.

Tan Chunying: "............"

She slowly turned her head and asked Tan Xiao, "This is Hello K*tty, isn't it?"

Tan Xiao glanced at it, "Didn't they say it was a tiger head? Maybe the unpainted model just looks more similar."

Tan Chunying cursed out loud, "Nonsense, the bow is still here. Don't think I can't tell just because the color is removed!"

Tan Xiao lowered his head to hold back his laughter.

The boat girl was very enthusiastic and insisted on having this "white tiger head". They were also racking their brains. It was easy to resolve things with the organizers, but in terms of the operation... Let's put it this way, if there was any infringement, who would be responsible?

So Tan Xiao came up with a bad idea. He removed the little bit of color from the white tiger, did some minor processing on the base, and sent it to Tan Chunying as a white model to be repainted according to the dragon boat colors.

Tan Chunying directly called to confirm if the wrong item had been delivered. After learning it wasn't a mistake, the other party asked if there were any issues. She only paused for a moment before immediately saying, "No problem."

Tan Xiao understood his mother well.

"Let me tell you, for this performance race, it must be that the sponsor's kids like it, or some charlatan calculated that a cartoon cat head brings good luck or something," Tan Chunying unsurprisingly came up with reasons for the other party. "I don't know what generation my peers are from nowadays, how do they have so much creativity?"

Tan Chunying painted the "dragon head" according to the traditional method... still using white as the base, but on top she used the classic Dragon Boat Festival colors to repaint the eyebrows, eyes, and whiskers. At first glance, it really did look like a white tiger head. But when the gaze fell on the bow, you would notice something was off.

Tan Xiao secretly took a photo and sent it to Mu Fei to show the boat girl. The boat girl was very satisfied. This perfectly combined her classic preferences with what she liked.

The "white tiger head" had just dried when the day of the Dragon Boat Festival race arrived.

Tan Xiao's original plan for this day was to avoid the tourists and stay at home. Now, he indeed had to rush to the crowded banks of the Nanxi River after finishing half a day of classes.

Tan Xiao went with a few of his classmates. In addition to him, there were Lin Yang and a few other classmates who wanted to join in the excitement.

The scene was decorated with red, and there were a large number of staff maintaining order. Both banks were filled with tourists, and there were also sightseeing boats on the river. An incense altar and offerings were placed on the pier.

Tan Chunying was wearing a set of Taoist robes, waiting for the auspicious time to perform the ritual. The lenses of reporters and documentary film crews were all focused on her.

Tan Xiao had other tasks today, but he didn't go in immediately because they saw Teacher Zhu's figure among the crowd.

"Teacher Zhu!" Lin Yang called out loudly to Zhu Dayong in the crowd.

Zhu Dayong had come in a wheelchair, with his wife and parents beside him.

They had heard a few days ago that Teacher Zhu had woken up, but after lying in bed for so long, he was quite weak and couldn't recover immediately. They didn't expect to encounter him at the scene.

"Teacher Zhu, you've been discharged from the hospital?" The classmates all squeezed over and asked.

"Yes," Zhu Dayong was also very happy to see his students. "Thank you all for your concern!" After waking up, his mind was in a daze for a few days. He didn't really remember how he fell and fainted, let alone what he did during his coma when his soul wandered on the river.

Everyone expressed their concern for Zhu Dayong, and he answered one by one.

Seeing Tan Xiao, the teacher's wife recognized him and said, "Young man, it's you. Dayong, it was this student who taught us how to call back the soul. We went to the riverside to call for the soul, and when we came back, you really woke up!"

Because it was such a coincidence, the teacher's wife felt that perhaps traditional mysticism really did have an effect? Although she wasn't sure if it was the soul-calling that worked or the red envelope under the pillow, but recalling the glance she exchanged with Tan Xiao that day, she inexplicably really wanted to believe it.

After Zhu Dayong woke up, he also heard his family members talk about how the hospital had rescued him—of course, first thanking the doctors who treated his injuries—and how they had even resorted to mystical methods when he remained unconscious. But he himself was puzzled and only felt that he had suddenly woken up from sleep.

Of course, Zhu Dayong knew about Tan Xiao's family background. He smiled and said, "Tan Xiao, you came to see me too."

"Yes, Lin Yang and I both went. I happened to mention the old custom of soul-calling in Nanchu. It's good that you woke up, Teacher Zhu." Tan Xiao naturally knew what to say and casually talked about the matter of soul-calling.

Zhu Dayong originally had an ordinary smile, but upon hearing Tan Xiao's voice again, he felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity, as if he had heard this voice during his coma.

In a daze, the sound of "dong dong" drums suddenly rang out from the altar on the shore, the sound carrying far through the speakers, reaching even the opposite bank of the great river. The tourists on both banks cheered. This signaled the start of the dragon boat launching and sacrificial ceremony!

"Teacher Zhu, we're going over there to watch! See you at school!"

Zhu Dayong couldn't help but clutch his heart, feeling that the drumbeat was also extraordinarily familiar. Looking into the distance, he could vaguely see the Chu shaman dancing with a mask, as if in the depths of his memory, there was also a colorful mask talking to him.

He heard Kong Xuan say to Tan Xiao, "You have to go over now..."

Strange.

Zhu Dayong felt that this voice also gave him a unique sense of familiarity, not because they were his students, but... it was related to the great river before his eyes.

Although Tan Xiao covered his face, although Zhu Dayong had forgotten what happened at the time, because he was in a soul state, the consciousness hidden deep within his soul seemed to be more acute.

Zhu Dayong suddenly remembered his colleagues coming to visit him in the hospital, mentioning recent urban legends and the WeChat Moments post he made before fainting. He couldn't help but smile wryly.

"What's wrong?" his wife asked.

"Nothing, I just feel that while I was unconscious, my soul might have really fallen by the river watching the dragon boat race, and then you all and Tan Xiao called me back, haha." Zhu Dayong rubbed his head. Seeing his family also starting to laugh, he murmured, "Something that can be passed down for so long, perhaps there really are mysteries that we have not been able to unravel..."

...

On the shore, the dragon boats were all pulled to the riverbank. Tan Chunying burned incense and paper money, holding a rooster in her hand, chanting blessings, "Today we invite the ancestral masters to show their power and might, the Dragon Kings of the Four Seas to come assist, first sacrificing a fine golden tooth at the bow..."

With firecrackers exploding in unison, she also threw the offerings into the river.

As the white mist billowed, the ceremony was complete. Next was the newly added performance program. The emcee held up cue cards and announced, "Next, we invite the traditional White Tiger Boat from Nanchu to perform the traditional dragon boat show 'Grabbing the Red'. The dragon boat team members all come from the Nanchu Municipal Government's 404 Cultural Research Office, and the drummer is Nanchu's cultural heritage inheritor, Shaman Tan Xiao."

- The boat girl was to lead the performance, but her team members were all ghosts, and they were short one person. They certainly couldn't let the entire city see ghosts in broad daylight. But it also wasn't good to suddenly change her team members at the last minute after they had practiced for so long.

So the solution they came up with in the end was to have members of the Bureau 404 act as stand-ins and let her team members temporarily possess their bodies.

And because they were short one team member, they adjusted positions and had Tan Xiao fill in as the drummer, thus forming the dragon boat team that the audience saw today.

When this dragon boat team came out, both shores erupted in commotion.

Even the netizens watching through TV and live streaming were all puzzled and frantically sending bullet comments. With cameras, they could see even more clearly than the on-site audience.

[...A white tiger head? Why do I feel it looks more like a kitty head!]

[Hey, there's even a bow on top of its head!]

[Aren't tigers considered big cats?]

[I see an old friend in its face...]

Starting from the first person who saw through it, the truth spread further and further. No matter how you paint it, you can't hide that this really looks like a Dragon Boat Festival version of the Hello Kitty cat!

This shocked the out-of-town tourists and netizens. The level of discussion soared as more tourists entered the live stream to admire the cat-headed dragon boat.

[I heard long ago that Nanchu's Dragon Boat Festival customs were unusual. The boat heads have dragons, phoenixes, qilins, tigers... I never imagined there would also be a kitty head?]

[No way, is the organizer playing around? Your traditional dragon boat has a kitty head, hahaha]

[I woke up fiercely seeing a kitty going into the water. Is this a special hobby of the organizers?]

[I, Cat Police Chief, express my dissatisfaction!]

[I also spotted a familiar face in the crowd! Isn't that younger bro, Shaman Tan? I didn't hear he was also participating. Another new stage for him?]

[Compared to the Chu Shaman, I'm more puzzled that the emcee said the rowers are all from some cultural research office. Since it's a traditional dragon boat performance, I thought they would find some old veteran rowers?]

For the dragon boat team members, positions like the helmsman can be held by old sailors who can do it for a long time. But the rowers naturally need to be young and strong. However, since it was said to be an exhibition race, many people felt they should be old rowers who could no longer compete.

If you find a group of office workers, even if they can recite the hundred cultural meanings of dragon boats, what's the use?