Chapter 43
"Hey, you guys are practicing taijutsu!"
Chu Zhongyuan ran in from the courtyard gate, panting, and it looked like he had just run all the way back.
"What's wrong?"
Gu Qingming turned around and looked at Chu Zhongyuan in a strange way, as he looked hurried.
"Uncle Zhang next door is going to kill a pig, so I have to go and help. Are you interested in coming and watching?"
Chu Zhongyuan raised his eyebrows.
The other three looked at each other and saw the answer in each other's eyes.
Killing the New Year pig is a traditional custom in the north. Usually, pig farmers kill pigs to sell them for money. The meat of a pig is too big, and it is difficult for a family to finish it, no matter how many people there are. But the end of the twelfth lunar month is an exception.
In Dalinling, most families will kill pigs in the twelfth lunar month to prepare meat for making dumplings and cooking dishes during the New Year, so as to ensure that they can eat fresh meat every day during the New Year. This is called "killing the New Year pig."
Some people had already gathered in Uncle Zhang's yard. The shiny tricycle that brought them back from the train station was parked at the entrance of the yard. A sturdy middle-aged man wearing a pair of Ula shoes greeted several high school students who came specially to help, and then hurried to prepare for the ceremony before slaughtering the New Year pig.
Uncle Zhang lit some incense and candles, and bowed to several butchers in the yard in advance to express his repentance for killing and respect for life. Then he waved his hand and led everyone towards the pigpen.
All the children in the village were running around in the crowd, humming Lin Ling's nursery rhyme: "Little children, don't cry, we will kill pigs in the twelfth lunar month."
Luo Dong, who was determined to photograph folk customs all over the world, had no resistance to this lively folk scene. After obtaining consent, he took his camera and went into the crowd to record the moment. The other three people and Uncle Zhang were driving pigs in the pigpen together. The young man next to them seized the opportunity, picked up a urea bag, and put it on the pig's head.
After weighing and tying the pig back, Luo Dong had already helped the women in the village set up the big pot and counted the basins. The always noble young master had soot on his hands and coal on his face, as if he had just crawled out of a cornfield.
But she was smiling happier than when she was sitting in any expensive car, and was taking pictures of a few old ladies wearing headscarves.
The butchers have excellent knife skills. They fillet the pig after releasing the blood. It doesn't take long for them to cut the pig into liver, bones, ribs, tenderloin, and stew the internal organs, and divide the meat into two parts.
The outgoing aunt pulled Gu Qingming aside and proudly introduced to him that one of the butchers was her son, who was famous in all the villages and towns around and was known as the "Five Jin of Meat." The reason was that he had superb skills. To put it in an exaggerated way among the people, he could "produce an extra five Jin of meat."
Gu Qingming was so caught up in the warm atmosphere that he forgot about his social phobia and kept responding. Every word of praise touched the aunt's heart, causing her to almost pull him back to have dinner together.
Gu Qingming finally turned down the enthusiastic aunt. After squeezing to the front and seeing Chu Zhongyuan, it seemed as if his soul had been repossessed, and he felt that he could now pinch out a new pig with his fingers.
The pig-slaughtering dish had not yet been prepared, but sticky rice dumplings had already been steamed in the large steamer. Chu Zhongyuan said something to Uncle Zhang, took one out of the steamer, wrapped it in oil paper, and handed it to Gu Qingming.
“Try my favorite childhood delicacy.”
Chu Zhongyuan blinked his eyes, as if he couldn't wait to share the rare bright colors of his childhood with his friends.
That was what Chu Zhongyuan thought was the best thing in the world when he was a child.
Now, he shares it with his best...friend.
Gu Qingming looked at the steaming, golden sticky bean curd that was so hot it burned his mouth, took a careful bite, and was instantly impressed.
The sticky rice dumplings are sticky from skin to core, with the fragrance of red dates and a slightly sandy texture, slightly sweet and sour. They taste like the precious southern pastries that Gu Qingming had received from Luo Dong before.
But it is warmer, with the heat of human life.
Gu Qingming raised his eyes and met Chu Zhongyuan's sparkling eyes.
“It’s delicious.”
He said seriously.
"Come on! Try Lin Ling's specialty! This pig is really delicious!"
Uncle Zhang's shouting came, and Chu Zhongyuan cheered and pulled Gu Qingming into the crowd. There were several large pots full of pig-killing dishes. The pig blood was stewed tenderly, and the bone soup stewed with lumbar vertebrae and loin bones was white, emitting hot steam that seemed to last forever in the cold winter.
Gu Qingming picked up a piece of pork with chopsticks and dipped it in garlic and soy sauce. He felt that the freshly slaughtered pork was as good as its reputation. The fragrance of the sauerkraut and the deliciousness of the meat were even better than last night.
Zheng Qiuji was so greedy that he volunteered to cut the large piece of stewed meat. After a while, Chu Zhongyuan and Gu Qingming, who were standing behind him, saw him pick up a thin piece and put it into his mouth.
The fresh pork belly is steaming hot, and both the fat and lean parts have an umami aroma. Even without any seasoning, it is ridiculously delicious.
Zheng Qiuji couldn't hold back his sinful words after all.
The pig-killing dishes include not only stewed meat with sauerkraut, but also fried pork liver, stewed blood, twice-cooked pork, braised pork, stewed blood sausage... and so on. Uncle Zhang packed a lot of food in plastic bags for the few people and enthusiastically helped them deliver it to the yard. Chu Zhongyuan thanked him repeatedly. The two of them were so polite to each other that Gu Qingming and others, who had never seen such a scene before, were amazed.
Luo Dong: "Uncle Zhang... and Brother Chu got into a fight?"
Gu Qingming: "Linling's characteristics, no rush."
After the lively scene gradually died down, Luo Dong took advantage of the horizon that was already dyed with rosy clouds, climbed up the high wall of Chu Zhongyuan's yard in a few seconds, and took a picture towards the distance.
The texture of the mirrorless camera is excellent. You can see yellow, orange and red colors covering the ground, and the white snow is reflected in the color of the sun, piled on the road.
The shadows of the birch trees on both sides turned black, like Lin Ling's hands reaching out to retain us. Rime hung lazily on the branches, sparkling with crystal points of light.
"Tsk tsk, absolutely beautiful."
Luo Dong contentedly jumped down from the half-height wall.
He used the formula to successfully take a perfect "hanging sun" picture based on the ratio of the sun's diameter, the distance between the sun and the earth, the height of the tree branches, and the shooting distance.
In order to calculate the most perfect position, Luo Dong spent almost an entire night calculating. Gu Qingming sighed: "If you put in half the effort you put into studying math now, you wouldn't be unable to get 100 points."
Luo Dong raised his head happily and looked at Gu Qingming and Chu Zhongyuan beside him, but he always felt that something was missing.
"By the way...where is Zheng Qiuji?"
Gu Qingming was a little confused. In his memory, Zheng Qiuji was clearly by his side just now, how could he disappear in the blink of an eye?
“This way!”
As if he had heard the conversation between the three people, Zheng Qiuji half-exposed his body in the alley beside the courtyard wall and waved to the three people.
But Gu Qingming did not relax.
Because... the other person's expression is really too strange... It doesn't look like a human's expression, but rather has the charm of some animal.
Chu Zhongyuan, whose eyesight was very good even without his special powers, only took one look and felt cold sweat starting to form on his back.
There was a fluffy white paw on Zheng Qiuji's shoulder!
Chu Zhongyuan grew up in Dalinling. Whenever he went back to his hometown, he often heard his grandma and grandpa tell him stories about the horse-riding temple. The CPA online course also mentioned the horse-riding magic inherited from the Northeast. The names of Hu Huang Changmang and Guixian are almost household names in both the supernatural and non-supernatural circles.
A hint of en factor flashed behind Gu Qingming and Chu Zhongyuan for an instant. As expected, the en factor felt the obvious mysterious aura and resonated with it.
Coupled with the obvious mysterious aura he just felt, Chu Zhongyuan, a native of Linling, believed that Zheng Qiuji's symptoms were most likely caused by being possessed by a passing immortal.
Although Luo Dong and Gu Qingming were not from Linling, they had heard some rumors about it. They heard that the "immortals" were moody, and there were still crowds of people in Uncle Zhang's courtyard next door. They were afraid that the other party might suddenly attack and hurt people, so they did not hesitate and rushed towards Zheng Qiuji in two steps.
Zheng Qiuji's figure quickly disappeared into the alley and continued to turn forward.
After turning two or three corners, a narrow path with few people appeared in front of them. Zheng Qiuji, whose movements were as strange as an animal, was standing in the path with firewood piled on both sides. He closed his eyes and faced them unconsciously.
“Squeak, squeak.”
A faint voice was heard, but it did not come from Zheng Qiuji's mouth.
Gu Qingming and the others shifted their gaze slightly, and sure enough, they saw a small white animal sticking its head out from over Zheng Qiuji's shoulder.
The little white beast pointed at the road in the distance. That was the direction from which Gu Qingming and the others came.
A stoat.
The weasel is commonly known as the yellow weasel, and is also the "yellow fairy" among the Huhuangchang python.
Chu Zhongyuan frowned slightly. The Huang family ranked second among the four great families of Hu, Huang, Chang and Mang. The white Huangxian represented happiness and good luck. There was even a saying in folk sayings that "a thousand years of black, ten thousand years of white". In the face of such a special existence, even if they were professional superpowers of CPA, they could not treat it casually.
"I don't know what the immortal is doing——"
He bowed, and before he finished his words, the weasel turned into a handful of snow, landed on Zheng Qiuji's shoulder, and disappeared.
The fresh snow quickly melted in the temperature of human bodies, as if it had never been there.
The white Huang Xian came inexplicably and left extremely quickly, worthy of the famous Huang family who moved as fast as the wind.
Zheng Qiuji lost control and fell forward diagonally. Luo Dong and Gu Qingming quickly lifted him up on the left and right. Chu Zhongyuan looked in the direction Huang Xian pointed and fell into deep thought.
That is the direction of the train station.
In the minus-degree weather in Linling, Zheng Qiuji quickly woke up because of the cold. He opened his eyes drowsily, as if he had just had a dream, but he had no idea what the dream was about.
Luo Dong told him about the possession he had just experienced, and Zheng Qiuji was so frightened that he almost flew into the sky on the spot.
"That immortal seems to want us to leave."
Chu Zhongyuan was silent, then suddenly spoke, causing the other three to tilt their heads in confusion.
"Uncle Zhang said that because of the heavy snow last night, the dirt road was also blocked and is still being cleared... We can't leave Linling for the time being."
Gu Qingming was a little surprised when he heard this, but he still honestly told the other three people the news he had heard from Uncle Zhang to avoid any information errors.
Since the mystery exists, Huang Xian’s warning must be taken seriously.
The four great immortals have made great contributions to the fact that the magic of riding a horse can gain a place in CPA. Now that the white yellow immortal has spoken, who knows what will really happen next.
CPA and the four great immortals have always stood on the same side. There is no need for Huang Xian to play such a joke on them or to intimidate them.
"The snow has blocked all the dirt roads?"
Chu Zhongyuan took a deep breath and coughed twice as if he was frozen by the icy air.
"Then we really can't run away even if we want to."
Chu Zhongyuan looked at Uncle Zhang's house next door where people were still coming in and out, and sighed in a joking tone.
"We have a CPA responsibility, we can't run away."
Zheng Qiuji frowned. He was still a little confused, but that didn't mean he didn't know what Huang Xian's warning meant.
Only mystery can make the mysterious being remind them with good intentions.
In other words, something dangerous and mysterious is about to happen in Linling.
Gu Qingming and Luo Dong also nodded.
If they leave, what will happen to the people in this village?
What's more, Uncle Zhang told me that in the nearby mountains and forests, there is an ancient tribal village guarding their tree gods.
What should they do?
"Then let's see what is trying to cause trouble during the New Year."
Chu Zhongyuan seemed to have known that his companions would react in this way. He looked at the dark night sky of the forest and began to speak in a childish manner.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
