Chapter 49
"Where are we going next?" I asked him.
"Since there is a legend about the Fountain of Youth in Aba, let's go to Aba first."
After going down the mountain, we took a bus to Aba.
The scenery of Aba is quite different from that of Leshan, reminiscent of the exotic landscape of Xinjiang. The sky is filled with white clouds, and the mountains stretch across the landscape. Standing between heaven and earth, it feels vaster than anywhere else.
There are many herders in AB State. Liu Danchen and I went up to ask them, but they ignored us and were unwilling to talk to us at all.
In the end, Liu Danchen and I had no choice but to eat something at a farm inn.
The young woman who greeted us looked about my age. Her clothing was distinctive: a long, ankle-length gown with embroidered lace at the collar and cuffs, a patterned belt, and a headscarf wrapped around her head. The whole look was predominantly white. She was a little shy when she saw we weren't locals.
Liu Danchen and I each ordered a bowl of noodles, plain noodles with a few water spinach slices. I don't know how she prepared it, but it was light and delicious. Liu Danchen finished one bowl and asked for another.
"Please wait a moment," she whispered.
"Don't you want to eat something? We have no idea where to eat next meal now." Liu Danchen said to me.
"I'm full." I touched my stomach and couldn't eat any more.
While Liu Danchen and I were chatting and waiting for noodles, a man rushed in. He was covered in blood, and there was a deep wound on his arm that could be seen to the bone.
As soon as he entered the door, he shouted, "Sister!"
The girl came out from behind the door curtain, saw the man, and called out urgently, "Brother!"
She quickly ran to the man, hugged him, and said, "What's wrong with you?"
"Go find the patriarch, go quickly." The man said, panting.
The girl was panicking and didn't know what to do. I stepped forward and said, "Go find a doctor quickly. We'll take care of you."
Liu Danchen also came forward to observe the man's injuries.
The girl handed the man to us and ran out in panic.
Liu Danchen unbuttoned the man's shirt and saw three deep wounds on his chest.
"It looks like it was caught by some ferocious beast." Liu Danchen said.
He took out the powder from his clothes and sprinkled it on the wounds, as well as on his arms, which also had several wounds.
These wounds look horrific. To me, they look like they were torn apart by iron hooks.
After Liu Danchen sprinkled the powder on him, the man let out a heart-wrenching cry, apparently in excruciating pain. The cry lasted for over a minute before it stopped. Now he was humming softly, apparently the powder was taking effect.
"Thank you." The man said gratefully.
His lips are now pale and his face is pale, perhaps from excessive blood loss.
Liu Danchen took out another pill and gave it to him to take. After a while, the man fell into a deep sleep.
We waited for about twenty minutes before the girl came running over with a group of people. The leader was a strong middle-aged man, the clan leader the man had mentioned. The girl led the clan leader and others to the door. The clan leader first looked at us two outsiders in surprise, then looked at the sleeping man and said stiffly, "What's going on?"
Seeing her come back, Liu Danchen and I handed the man over to her. The clan leader and an old man helped the man up. The old man checked his injuries and said a lot of things, but I couldn't understand them at all. This should be the language of their clan, not Sichuan dialect.
The clan leader and the old man glanced at us from time to time. After they finished their discussion, the clan leader asked the people beside him to carry the man into the house. He stood up, walked over to us, and said, "Thank you very much, two distinguished guests. Our clan doctor just said that Han'er's injuries were very serious, but the bleeding has been stopped by a magical medicine. Please don't mind my recklessness just now."
Liu Danchen and I were so busy saving people that we didn't care about the clan leader's attitude at all.
"It's okay, we can't just stand by and watch someone die," I said.
The patriarch left a few tribesmen to look after the injured man and led us to a bright courtyard.
To express his gratitude, he wanted to invite us to have dinner at his tribe's home.
Liu Danchen suddenly had an idea and asked, "Has the clan leader ever heard of the Fountain of Youth?"
"Fountain of Youth?" The patriarch obviously did not expect Liu Danchen to suddenly ask this question.
Liu Danchen and I both looked at the patriarch and listened to him continue.
"Everyone in our area knows the story of the Fountain of Youth. Why are you asking this?" the patriarch asked in confusion.
"We need to use the Fountain of Youth," I said.
The patriarch said, "The Fountain of Youth has been passed down among us orally. It's no secret. But it's just a legend. There is no Fountain of Youth in this world."
"Can the patriarch tell me in detail?" I asked curiously.
"A long time ago, there lived a couple here. They were nearly sixty years old but had no children. One day, the old man saw an injured monkey on the roadside. He felt sorry for the monkey and took it home. He raised it carefully until the monkey recovered. After the monkey recovered, the old man released it back into the forest, but the monkey came back the next day and landed in the old man's yard.
The old man's wife saw the monkey come back on its own, and since they had no children, they decided to keep it. They discussed it with the old man, and he agreed. But one day, the monkey suddenly started talking. The couple thought they had encountered a monster and were so scared that they dared not move. The monkey said, "Don't be afraid. I learned to talk after drinking water from a spring."
The couple couldn't believe it, so the monkey led them to the spring. The old man drank two sips and soon turned into a young man. Seeing this, the old wife also took a few big sips, but she drank too much and finally turned into a baby.
This is the legend of the Fountain of Youth that has been passed down to us.”
After hearing the patriarch's story, I was immediately extremely disappointed. This was not as good as the story told by Master Jinghai about Samantabhadra Bodhisattva washing the elephant with the fountain of youth.
Liu Danchen said, "Does the clan leader know where the spring is?"
The clan leader shook his head and said, "I don't know. It's just a legend. There's no specific location."
It seems that Liu Danchen and I have made this trip in vain.
We were so dejected that we didn't know where to go.
When we were looking for the Resurrection Herb, we at least knew it was on Zhayang Mountain, so we could find it with a little more effort. But the Fountain of Youth was only said to be in Sichuan. Sichuan is so big, where should we look for it?
At the dinner, the tribe leader and his people warmly invited us to eat and drink, but we had no desire to do so. Liu Danchen forced a smile to greet the other tribesmen, while I sat alone in a corner, watching the bonfire, crackling sounds emanating from it.
"Sister, do you have any medicine?" A timid voice came from beside me.
I turned around and saw the girl from the daytime.
"Yes, what's wrong?" I asked her puzzledly.
"My brother has started bleeding again. The clan doctor said that the medicine we have here is not very effective. I hope we can use some of your medicine again."
After hearing her words, I went to find Liu Danchen. After I told him the situation, he took out some hemostatic powder. The tribe leader, upon hearing that the man's condition was unstable, stopped the tribe members from accompanying us and went to check on him.
But we didn't feel like attending the banquet, so we went with the village chief.
On the way, I asked the girl what her name was, and she said her name was Erma.
When they arrived at Erma's house, they saw that his brother's wound was indeed bleeding profusely. Liu Danchen went forward to take a look and found that the edge of the skin had turned purple. He said, "This is a symptom of poisoning."
His bleeding was stopped, but he was already unconscious.
"It's all because of that damn mountain ghost." Someone in the crowd said.
When Erma heard someone talking about the mountain ghost, she fell on her brother and cried bitterly.
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