In the center of the crowd, thin, curling smoke was rising, standing out starkly in the stagnant air.
"Over there, let's keep a bit of distance and observe."
Nan Zhubin quietly suggested, stopping with Li Lingling at a spot in the crowd that was neither too far in, nor weakened their line of sight.
The other social workers were curious for a few seconds after seeing Wang Lili bring two strangers, then immediately turned their attention back to the ceremony in the field.
The scene of the ritual, in an emergency relief site where resources were strained, appeared particularly simple and, because of that, slightly dissonant.
At the center of the crowd was a small shrine, roughly piled together with a few incomplete red and blue bricks, with dirt stuffed in the gaps. Inside the shrine, there was no statue or idol, just a rough piece of paper torn from some packaging box edge, scrawled with some traditional characters written with either charcoal or scarce ink.
