Chapter 8 Entering the Mountains

"It's done! It's done!" Huan Ni excitedly circled above Shi Yuan's head. "Shi Yuan, you're amazing!"

"You have no idea how many lineages have been lost!"

Taking advantage of that profound perception, Shi Yuan blocked out Huan Ni's ramblings and continued to write. Golden light flashed on the desk from time to time, and soon the cinnabar was used up.

As soon as she put down her pen, Huan Ni flew to the desk, her beady eyes fixed intently on the talisman: "Put it here! Put it here! I'll keep it for you! I'll stay with you forever. If you need it, I'll give it to you!"

"No need," Shi Yuan refused. It was safer to keep such a life-saving item on herself.

She picked up the storage talisman and with a thought, all the talismans on the desk were put away.

Huan Ni jumped up and down in a panic: "Give me a few, give me a few right now!"

"How long has it been since I last threw talismans around!"

Helpless, Shi Yuan casually drew a few talismans and gave them to her.

Huan Ni was overjoyed and showered her with sweet words: "Shi Yuan, you are so beautiful and amazing!"

"You are sincere to your family, genuine to your friends, and especially devoted to me. I hereby declare that I will listen to you in everything from now on!"

Afterwards, he didn't forget to praise himself: "I'm very capable too, you'll find out later!"

Shi Yuan chuckled, squatted down to sort through the discarded yellow talisman paper, and prepared to throw it into the stove to destroy the evidence.

"Why would we have to go to the kitchen?" Huan Ni spat out a talisman and said smugly, "A fire talisman will do."

"Let's test its power while we're at it!"

"break!"

"Huh, why isn't it working?" Huan Ni doubted Niao Sheng for a moment before immediately blaming Shi Yuan, "Shi Yuan, your fire talisman is no good!"

Shi Yuan's forehead twitched: "Is it possible that you didn't throw a fire talisman?"

"Isn't it a fire talisman?" Huan Ni's beady eyes widened in confusion for a moment. "Then what is it?"

As soon as she finished speaking, a red figure appeared on the windowsill.

Huan Ni suddenly realized: "It's a soul-summoning talisman."

Shi Yuan rubbed her forehead to calm the throbbing veins, and then she drew a talisman to summon the soul.

"What should we do?" Huan Ni asked softly.

"How should I know? You're the one who caused the trouble, so you're the one to deal with it."

"Well, the Ghost Festival is over, and the gates to the underworld are closed." Huan Ni scratched her head with her wings. "We'll just have to wait until next year's Ghost Festival."

"Then keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn't disturb Shi Ling."

"No problem, leave it to me. If it doesn't work, I'll devour her!" Huan Ni patted her chest with her wings, making a firm promise.

"That's really despicable." Shi Yuan shook her head, feigning regret, "If you hadn't done that, the child might have been a year old by next year."

"Tch~ She was clearly under a spell. I rescued her from her misery."

"You're a pretty nice person."

"Do you need to tell me!"

Red-clad female ghost: How about you two take a look at me!

She spoke softly, "I've been wronged."

Shi Yuan continued tidying up the discarded yellow talisman paper, while Huan Ni fluttered her wings and flew to the nest that Shi Yuan had specially prepared for her, where she lay down and fell asleep.

Red-clad female ghost: ...No, you summoned me here!

She floated up to Shi Yuan: "I'm innocent~~~"

Shi Yuan walked straight past her, picked up the last yellow paper ball, and headed towards the kitchen.

"Hey!" The woman in red dropped the act and said angrily, "Don't pretend you can't see me!"

"You were just discussing this in front of me!"

Shi Yuan lit a match to destroy the discarded yellow talisman paper. Luckily, she bought a lot, so she could afford to use it all up.

"Hello!"

"Look at me!"

"I'm talking to you!"

"If you ignore me again, I'll get rough with you!"

The woman in red blew out a breath of yin energy, but Shi Yuan didn't care at all. Ji Ying had been by her side for many years, and she was completely unaffected by this level of yin energy.

Helpless, the female ghost in red followed Shi Yuan back to the room and then whispered in Huan Ni's ear. As a result, Huan Ni's sleep quality was quite high, and she was not affected at all, sleeping soundly until dawn.

The female ghost in red: ...This is outrageous!

Shi Yuan said that humans and ghosts are different, and we should not meddle in other people's business. Besides, this matter was brought about by Huan Ni, so if there is anything, we should find Huan Ni!

The next day, the sky was filled with rosy clouds.

"Don't go out when the sun is high in the sky." Huan Ni transformed into a swallowtail butterfly and landed on Shi Yuan's head. "If you go up the mountain now, it will be troublesome if it rains heavily."

"We still have to go." Shi Yuan looked up at the sky. "If it rains, we'll find a cave."

She needs to get the gold as soon as possible to regain her powers.

People like Sun Guangyao can only intimidate for a short time. Once he runs out of money, he will take the initiative to contact Xie Minyin and exchange her information for money.

She certainly had ways to stop Sun Guangyao, but Sun Guangyao wasn't the only one who could get the message to Beicheng.

If Xie Minyin is determined, she will find out about her sooner or later.

There must have been many hidden stories behind Shi Ling's departure from Shi Ling to Beicheng with her young daughter Shi Yuan to marry Yang Fuguo.

At the time, the Yang family said that when Shi Ling was in trouble, it was Yang Fuguo who sheltered her and her daughter, and Shi Ling did not deny it.

Those who persecuted the mother and daughter back then may very well do it again.

There are quite a few enemies!

No matter what, she had to protect Shi Ling.

The woman in red glanced at Huan Ni with some apprehension, gritted her teeth, and followed Shi Yuan in a daze.

Beicheng Southern Military Region Family Compound

"Mom, you called me all this way just to make me drink this stuff of unknown origin?" Xie Minyin pushed the medicine bowl away. "I won't drink it, and don't ever bring me this again."

"If I don't arrange it, who will?" Zhao Chunmei pushed up her reading glasses unhappily, and scolded as she sewed a patch on the knee of her grandson's new pants, "You've been married to Guanhai for more than ten years!"

"You're both remarried!"

"Don't forget, Guan Hai's ex-wife gave birth to his daughter."

"So what?" Xie Minyin said dismissively. "What's there to be proud of if you gave birth to an idiot?"

"I think you're the one who's stupid!" Zhao Chunmei glared at her daughter. "This proves that Guanhai is fine!"

"The reason you can't have children is because of you!"

Xie Minyin's face paled upon hearing this.

“Guanhai is already over forty. If you don’t take care of him now, are you going to wait until he gets old and starts thinking about his family to bring Shiling and her daughter back to Beicheng?”

Xie Minyin stood up abruptly: "Of course not!" She had spent so much effort back then to force people out of Beicheng.

"Then you should try to get pregnant as soon as possible," Zhao Chunmei said. "For a couple who remarry, they need a child to be together."

Xie Minyin gritted her teeth, picked up the bowl of strangely-tasting medicine, and drank it all in one gulp. She tried her best to suppress the nausea and vomit.

“That’s right, I’m doing this for your own good.” Zhao Chunmei looked at Xie Minyin with satisfaction. “Hurry up and have a child with Guan Hai, then his heart will truly be with you.”

Qinglin Bay

Shi Yuan pulled Huan Ni to his side, pointed at the mountain and said, "Quickly, see where there are valuable things."

Huan Ni was speechless: "How would I know what's valuable?"

"Wolf skin? Tiger bone?" Shi Yuan suggested two.

"That must be found deep in the mountains and forests."

"Then let's go deeper into the mountains." Shi Yuan had always thought about going into the mountains to make a big fortune, but once they got into the mountains, they lost their goal.

The female ghost in red floated forward: "Looking for ginseng?"

“There’s ginseng on this mountain!” she said confidently. “When I was on the verge of death, my father sent people to search for ginseng, and they finally found it in Qinglin Bay.”

Later, when her father was injured, she even came to Qinglin Bay to dig for ginseng. However, she never expected that when she regained consciousness, she had become a ghost.

"Go northwest, there are giant ginseng roots there!" the red-clad female ghost declared confidently.

Shi Yuan and Huan Ni exchanged a glance. Huan Ni, in her butterfly form, circled in the air, her phoenix tail drawing a long arc, transforming into a phoenix with seven-colored tail feathers, and flew southeast without any hesitation.

Whoever wants to believe this nonsense can believe it; she and Shi Yuan certainly don't.

The female ghost in red stomped her foot and floated in front of Shi Yuan, almost face to face. Then she started to drop equipment, first her eyeballs, then her nose, and then her white brains scattered all over the ground.

Shi Yuan: ...No smell of corpses, bad review!

Shi Yuan, without changing his expression, stepped forward a few paces and walked past the female ghost, chasing Huan Ni in a southeast direction.

She remembered that Ji Ying had told her that in the 1970s, when resources were scarce, ginseng was sold at exorbitant prices on the black market, and it should be no problem to exchange it for some gold.

But ginseng isn't so easy to find. Huan Ni turned into a bird and flew for a long time, losing several bird feathers in the process, but she couldn't even find a single ginseng feather.

When she flew back, she saw Shi Yuan leisurely strolling through the mountains and forests, waving a foxtail grass in her hand, brushing the weeds here and there, and tapping the branches there, clearly in a very cheerful mood.

Huan Ni Dou Dou's eyes darted around, and she flew to Shi Yuan's shoulder and stopped: "I didn't find the ginseng, but I found something good."

"What?" Shi Yuan threw away the broken foxtail grass and grabbed a twig to swing at it. "Is it valuable?"

"I don't know if it's valuable or not, but it's definitely delicious and highly nutritious," Huan Ni said with a smile. "You know I've lived for a long time, and this kind of good stuff is rare in all my years."

Shi Yuan became interested; besides gold, what she was most interested in was eating!

However, she turned her head suspiciously and met Huan Ni's eyes: "You didn't frame me?"

"Tch!" Huan Ni tossed her head. "That's good for nourishing the body! You don't appreciate a kind heart!"

"Is it delicious?"

"That was amazing! The kind of thing I'll never forget!"

"Let's go take a look!"

The woman in red was left standing there, questioning her existence: Could it be that they really can't see me?

“Here!” Huan Ni pointed to a wild grass. “You know Shennong tasted hundreds of herbs, right?”

"Hmm~"

"This is the same 'Heavenly Root' that helped Shennong detoxify more than once back then!" Huan Ni promoted it tirelessly. "It has a rich and mellow aroma that clears heat and detoxifies, and it's extremely rare!"

Shi Yuan frowned deeply, feeling that Huan Ni had ill intentions. However, the root of heaven in her hand did have an indescribable, elegant fragrance. Even knowing there was something wrong, she couldn't help but take a small bite.

"Ugh!" A stench of excrement assaulted her senses! Her taste buds had never suffered such an ordeal, not even in the apocalypse!

"Huan Ni," Shi Yuan said calmly, "today is a good day."

"Hmm!" Huan Ni said proudly.

"Perfect for roasting bird meat!" After saying that, Shi Yuan casually stuffed the Heavenly Root into his pocket and swiftly grabbed Huan Ni.

Huan Ni was prepared, and happily flew to a high place, completely satisfied!

We finally got her back! That feels great!

"Shi Yuan, I'm not lying to you, this really is good stuff. I just didn't tell you that it smells delicious but tastes awful, hahahahaha!" Huan Ni laughed heartily. "But you still got a good deal!"

"That one bite is worth more than ten ginseng roots!"

Shi Yuan smiled sinisterly: "Then thank you!"

She's definitely going to roast that bird!

A note from the author:

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