The same procession is repeated on a smaller scale a few days later. This time its object is to bring back to their prison the ghost who had been temporarily released.
All along the way down which the procession passes, the faithful place before the door of their houses tables on which lighted candles and incense are burning, with flowers and fruits. Everybody comes out of the house to admire the immense march past, which is, moreover, a kind of walking exhibition, as the members of the different societies which take part in it, and which all belong to different trades, carry with them all the new productions of the year. The crowd covers at least from two to four kilomètres with its long moving column; for each god has his subalterns, and each of these subalterns has the right to a magnificent escort. Toy and sweet merchants profit by the occasion to display their wares in the streets, offering their goods to the children, who always take a very large share in festivities of this sort.
At Fou-Tcheou there is a peculiarity which is particularly interesting. The feast lasts two days, and the second day’s ceremony is an exact repetition of the first. However, on the second day an excursion is made out to the suburbs of the town, where Tai-Tchang’s mother-in-law is supposed to live, the god being brought as a respectful son-in-law to pay his respects to the good lady. Happy god, happy mother-in-law!
Legend relates that a young peasant-girl, daughter of a butcher, having witnessed the procession, went home and died immediately. During her short agony she told her parents that the god, only recently having become a widower, had noticed her great beauty, and had chosen her for his wife. She was an only daughter. Her death threw her family into despair, and in their rage her parents set out to revenge themselves on the god by setting fire to his temple. Tai-Tchang, however, taking human shape, appeared to them, and pacified them by saying that he had married their daughter, and that he owed her parents all the respect due from a good son-in-law. As a proof of this, he gave orders that a procession should take him every year to the house where the butcher’s wife, the mother of his divine companion and queen, lived. This shows that Tai-Tchang was a very sensible god, free from all aristocratic prejudices, and the very type of the cunning son-in-law, diplomatic enough to be able to soften down the anger of a mother-in-law, who in her rage had nearly become an incendiary.