Published: March 12, 2025
Chapter 468: The Distant Yesterday, A Beautiful Tomorrow
Zhao Hai was somewhat confused now. He didn’t quite understand what was going on in the Ark Continent. The people here looked like Westerners from Earth, yet their culture had many Eastern elements, just like the ancestor worship ceremony he had witnessed.
Ancestor worship was generally a part of Eastern culture. In Eastern beliefs, people thought that after death, the souls of their ancestors would continue to guard their families, which is why they performed ancestor worship—to invite their ancestors to protect their homes.
In reality, people knew that ancestors couldn’t truly guard their families. Even if they did become spirits, they wouldn’t be able to perform protective roles. If they could, the great families and royal families on the continent would have persisted indefinitely, instead of gradually fading into history as they were now.
However, the main reason people performed ancestor worship was to commemorate their ancestors and express a yearning for a good life, rather than purely as a superstitious act to seek their ancestors' blessings.
For large families like the Karlqi Family, ancestor worship was not solely for blessings. They aimed to foster a sense of cohesion within the family through such rituals, which would help the family grow stronger over time.
The entire ancestor worship ceremony was very solemn, with no errors during the process, and overall, it concluded quite successfully. Zhao Hai participated alongside Smith in the ancestor worship.
The ritual in the Ark Continent was somewhat different from that in China. In China, women generally did not participate in ancestor worship, but there were no such restrictions here, allowing women to join as well. This meant that the ceremony lasted for half a day before concluding.
In the evening, Lando was set to take Peter to a palace banquet. To be honest, celebrating Divine Grace Day as a noble was quite boring; it mostly involved gathering with family to eat and drink, and the atmosphere during these gatherings was often not even pleasant. Zhao Hai didn't particularly enjoy such an atmosphere.
After attending the banquet hosted by the Karlqi Family, Zhao Hai promptly led Laura and the others back to Iron Mountain Fortress. Compared to the Karlqi Family, Iron Mountain Fortress was his real home, and he needed to attend the banquet there.
Upon arriving at Iron Mountain Fortress, he found that the banquet had not yet started. Galen and the others were waiting for Zhao Hai. Now, Galen and the others were gathered in the square of Iron Mountain Fortress, where they had set up many bonfires, with whole mountain goats and Mighty Bulls laid out on the side, along with Blue-eyed Rabbits.
Beside them was a huge blade scale whale and some seafood. It could be said that Galen had genuinely brought out all the good things for this occasion.
Next to each bonfire stood a large wooden barrel filled with fragrant milk wine. Whether orcs or humans, everyone was dressed in new clothes and sat around the bonfires, but no one touched the food or the wine. Instead, they sat calmly, waiting for Zhao Hai.
When Zhao Hai emerged from his space, seeing this scene warmed his heart. Laura and the others were also very touched. Zhao Hai recognized that it wouldn't be good if anyone was missing at this moment, so he quickly went to Jadewater City to bring Mu En and his family back. Now, as long as it was on the space map, Zhao Hai could enter and exit freely, truly making it a treasure for teleportation and greatly enhancing his convenience.
While Zhao Hai went to fetch Mu En, Galen had already begun to roast the animals over the bonfires, even having processed the blade scale whale.
Galen and the others had put a lot of thought into preparing the blade scale whale. The scales had been removed, and those scales could be used to make sharp and sturdy tools.
The remaining whale meat had already been scored and marinated with various spices. The internal organs had been taken out, and some heated stones were placed inside the whale, as there was enough space for a person to even stand inside the whale's mouth to heat those stones, while the bonfire outside heated everything up together. With the neatly scored whale meat, the blade scale whale could be roasted to perfection.