Chapter 74
After the village chief and the others left, I asked, "Sister, what's going on in your village?"
"Why call me sister? I'm not that old anymore." She said with a smile, "A few years ago, our village built a road. It was originally intended to make it easier for us to go to Hebei for work. However, there have been a series of deaths in the village in the past two years. People in the village started saying that the sacrifices were not made properly when the road was built.
Last year, all the apple trees in Hebei died of disease. They covered the entire mountain with trees I'd grown for over twenty years, and I lost a lot of money. Now no one's farming that land anymore, so the road was built in vain.
But lately, after dinner, everyone has taken to strolling along that road. The breeze is quite pleasant.”
"Has anyone died at the entrance of your village?" I asked.
She looked at me in surprise and said, "How do you know? Before that road was built, Guangsheng from our village fell off the village entrance while riding a motorcycle. He died instantly. What a pity, he was only in his twenties."
"Sister, let me ask you something. A lot of pigs have died in your village in the past two years, right?"
"It's not very good. Alas, this year we had swine fever. Hundreds of pigs died in the pig farm in our village. Now the farm is empty!"
"Little Master, you are truly amazing," Sister Shuilian said. "In fact, we have consulted many masters over the past two years, but it's basically useless. They all talk about something really weird, but they are all liars."
"Haha, there are a lot of scammers nowadays," I said.
In the afternoon, Shuilian asked me if I knew how to play mahjong and insisted on dragging me to the village store to play mahjong.
I was not interested in mahjong, and I didn't know how to play it at all. I could only play seven pairs, so I declined.
Shuilian went out by herself and didn't come back all afternoon. In the evening, she came home to cook dinner. Knowing that I was going to see that road tonight, she said, "Sister, I want to go see it too, okay?"
"Okay," I said.
There was no danger, so I agreed.
But I only brought her and Zhang Dayong. With so many people, the yang energy would be too strong, and if any unclean things were to appear, they wouldn't dare to appear, and I would have waited in vain until night.
The three of us walked to the village entrance.
I asked Zhang Dayong to turn off the flashlight.
I sprinkled a lot of salt on the ground, which I had picked up from Shuilian's house. Mountain spirits love salt. There's a story in the Taiping Guangji about a woodcutter who, while climbing up the mountain to chop wood, parked his cart with freshly bought salt on it. The cart was stolen by a mountain spirit. Besides salt, mountain spirits also enjoy shrimp and crabs.
The unclean creatures were drawn out by the smell of salt. Judging from their appearance, they must be mountain spirits. Each one was hunched over, skinny, with a bald head, two pairs of sharp teeth, hands like eagle claws, feet like horse hooves, and the size of a seven or eight-year-old child.
There were four in total, this was a litter.
After seeing them, I had a complete understanding of what was happening in the entire village.
When the village was building a road, they blew up the den of these mountain elves, and in revenge, the mountain elves began to harm the villagers. However, they had just formed and were not yet powerful, so the elderly, fruit trees, and livestock became their targets.
As for why mountain spirits were formed, it was because the entire village lived on the mountainside. In the past, the Yong River was full of water, and while the water vapor brought blessings, it also took away the evil spirits in the village, making it a clear river.
Later, the water of Yong River became smaller and muddy, which brought bad luck and took away blessings.
Originally, there was a sharp evil spirit formed between the village entrance and the bridge. All the evil spirits gathered here and gradually turned into a mountain spirit.
It happened that the village was building a road here and blew up a mountain spirit's nest. The mountain spirit was transformed by evil spirits and was naturally not a good thing. It started to torment the villagers, and then the following events happened.
Fortunately, they found me in time, otherwise, once these mountain spirits become powerful, it will not only be a matter of the death of the elderly and livestock, but also young people with stronger yang energy will die one after another.
Looking at the mountain spirit wandering towards us, four golden-feathered arrows quickly appeared in my hand and were shot out silently.
How could the underage mountain spirit block my golden-feathered arrows? They all dissipated as soon as they touched my arrows.
Shui Lian and Zhang Dayong had no idea that in just a short while, I had eliminated the culprit who had brought disaster to their village.
"Okay, let's go back. Call the village chief tomorrow and I'll talk to him," I said.
When I got back to Shuilian's house, I fell asleep.
In the middle of the night, I was awakened by a noise.
"I heard that a pretty girl came to your house?" A vulgar voice sounded.
"I'm telling you, it's fine if you take advantage of me, but don't have any bad thoughts about the girl!" Shui Lian said.
"I know, I know, let me kiss you quickly." The obscene voice said impatiently.
"You bastard!" Shui Lian said coquettishly.
The next morning, I rubbed my sleepy eyes and washed up quickly.
Sister Shuilian has already prepared breakfast.
"Thank you, Sister Lian," I said.
"You're welcome." Sister Shuilian said enthusiastically.
She sat in front of me and started eating with me.
When I saw her face again, I frowned. There was a faint ghostly aura between her eyebrows, very faint. If I waited until noon, it would probably dissipate on its own.
She still didn't have it yesterday. The only possibility is that the man with the obscene voice I heard last night sent it to her.
But Shui Lian was not the victim, so the ghost energy could not condense on her for a long time. It would dissipate when the yang energy was at its peak at noon.
I didn't point it out, and said, "Sister Lian, after I tell the village chief, let's go to the store and play mahjong."
"That's great. I'll pay for it and you can have fun as you like." Shui Lian said happily.
"No, no, I have money here," I said.
She and I were eating when the village chief and others arrived.
I said, "Find some small Five Emperors coins and bury them at the intersection. You won't be cultivating the wasteland under the bridge anyway, so why not plant poplar trees there?"
"Thank you, young master." The village chief said respectfully.
Then they went about dealing with it.
After we finished our meal, Shui Lian excitedly pulled me to the grocery store.
It's still early and the mahjong players haven't arrived yet.
Shuilian and the others all have regular poker partners, and we waited until after nine o'clock before they finally got together.
I didn't know how to fight, so I just stood next to Shuilian and told them I was just there to take a look.
The moment I saw him, I was certain it was Shuilian's old lover. He was sitting in Shuilian's house, limping when he arrived, smoking a cigarette. The two of them exchanged glances in a very subtle way.
But this did not escape my eyes.
The lame man had a black forehead and looked dead. He would not live for more than two days.
Having identified the root cause, my goal was achieved. I began to watch Shuilian play mahjong, and the morning passed quickly.
At noon, the village chief said the Five Emperors' Coins had been buried. I said, "Next time we build a road or a bridge, we must offer sacrifices before we begin construction."
The village chief said yes repeatedly.
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