Chapter 921 You are a living god
In an instant, Song Chunxue felt a chill run down her spine, as if her soul had left her body.
[Stop focusing your mind and guarding your thoughts, what are you afraid of? It's just a mouthful of food for me, you coward, you wimp!]
The unbridled mockery of Wuyou echoed in her mind, and the chill on Song Chunxue's back vanished instantly, replaced by a surge of hot, angry anger.
"who?"
In the huddled group of people sleeping together, someone suddenly opened their eyes and shouted.
The others instantly snapped out of their daze, grabbed sticks, shovels, and hammers, and pointed them at Song Chunxue.
"Don't be nervous." Song Chunxue, with a man's face, lit a tinderbox and said calmly, "I am a cultivator who catches ghosts and demons. I was passing by this place and noticed that someone was stealing your souls, so I came in to check."
"What?"
"Catching ghosts? There...are...really ghosts in this cave?"
"Stealing...living souls?"
Everyone was so frightened by Song Chunxue's words that they cried out in shock and looked around frantically, suddenly feeling as if the cave was full of ghosts.
"Swish, swish, swish!"
At that moment, a noise came from deeper inside the cave.
A group of men huddled together in fear, some even lying on the ground, making various noises.
The next moment, Wuyou returned to Song Chunxue's hands.
"Don't worry, it's my sword. The unclean things in this cave have been cleaned up." Song Chunxue looked at them. "Do you have any torches? The tinderbox is too dim."
The next moment, someone shakily took out a torch that was standing in the corner of the wall, its handle made of apricot wood and worn very smooth.
The firelight illuminated the earthen cave, where the ground was covered with bat and pigeon droppings, as well as footprints left by various unknown creatures, which were still clearly visible even after being stepped on.
"You... esteemed hero, do you intend to spend the night here?" the eldest man asked in a hoarse voice. "We can squeeze in here for a while and leave when it gets light."
They were clearly afraid and wanted Song Chunxue to stay with them.
"Alright then." Song Chunxue looked at them with an ordinary-looking face. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you home?"
Then, everyone took turns sharing their experiences of begging for food.
Song Chunxue walked to the innermost part, where the thin man was lying on the ground.
“His spirit is unstable. I’ll give him a pill. Go outside and get some water.”
"Okay, sure."
The three of them went out together, broke off a piece of ice from the frozen river, returned to the cave, put it in a dark iron can, and placed it on the fire to melt.
I'm full. I'm going to take a nap. Come find me if you need anything.
A carefree, languid voice came from behind her, and Song Chunxue gave a soft "hmm".
"May I ask your honorable name, sir? If it weren't for you, our young brother would probably be in grave danger." The leader of the men sighed, "Alas, we thought that we men were full of yang energy and wouldn't have to worry about those things if we spent the night in this cave, but I didn't expect things to turn out like this."
They reached out and dug into the ears and nostrils of the thin man on the ground, pulling out red clay fragments. The others watched with lingering fear.
"Is there anything else in this river bend?"
“Yes, but it’s gone from this earthen cave,” Song Chunxue said gently. “With me here, they wouldn’t dare show up.”
With Wuyou around, the sound of the demon-slaying and ghost-catching, and the shrill screams of the evil spirits that were ripped out of his stomach, had already spread throughout the entire river bend, scaring away everyone nearby.
They just can't hear it.
But she vaguely overheard some of the sounds coming from Wuyou's side.
In this place, living is hard, becoming a ghost after death is hard, and becoming a demon is even harder.
In places where spiritual energy is scarce, it is already more difficult to cultivate into a spirit than elsewhere, let alone encounter a good opportunity to be enlightened, which is even more difficult. It is easy for evil to breed and then be struck away by heavenly lightning.
The law of the jungle, where the strong prey on the weak, applies to all six realms.
"May I ask your honorable surname, my benefactor?"
Song Chunxue snapped out of her daze and conjured a short tree stump from her storage ring to sit down.
"My surname is Song. It is fate that we meet here. You have had a hard time making a living this year. I have brought some flour, grain and money with me. You should go home as soon as possible. I heard that there are bandits and rebels in the south from time to time, so don't go there."
As she spoke, Song Chunxue placed several bags of grain in front of them, two of which were buckwheat flour given to her by her eldest son and his wife.
"so much!"
"It really is food!"
"My God, hero, where did you conjure this up from? This...this really is food!"
Everyone rushed forward, opened the bag, examined it in their hands, and looked at the practitioner in front of them with surprise.
He was hidden in the shadows, dressed in black, and his face was not visible, yet they felt that he must be a deity.
Aside from gods, who else would send them food?
They exchanged a glance and then knelt down before Song Chunxue.
"Thank you, hero."
"You are a living Bodhisattva, thank you so much, Bodhisattva..."
They were kowtowing, tears streaming down their faces.
Song Chunxue quickly reached out to help them up.
"I am a practitioner, don't be like this, get up quickly."
"No, you are a compassionate Bodhisattva, a living deity. We have nothing else to say but to kowtow a few times to thank you for your great kindness."
Song Chunxue had no choice but to kneel down, help this person up, and see that the other person kowtowing on the ground.
The soil inside the cave was thick, and when they looked up, their foreheads were covered in dirt.
At that moment, Song Chunxue's tears welled up in her eyes and were about to burst forth.
Elsewhere, she rarely encountered people like this.
Even though she might encounter beggars on the road, she also noticed that the farmers in the plains were well-dressed, ate well, raised cattle and sheep, and lived in areas with abundant water and grass.
She often thought that people's lives had improved in recent years.
But upon returning to this barren land, she accepted reality: the world is vast, and people have their own hardships, but here, the heavens are exceptionally stingy with rain.
"Get up, all of you! Are there many villagers in your village who have no food?" Song Chunxue shouted. "If you don't get up, I'm leaving."
"Well, several people in our village have already starved to death, otherwise they wouldn't be out begging for food," the old man sighed. "If we weren't running out of grain seeds, we wouldn't be out begging for food either."
Song Chunxue took out a bag of silver. "The reason I'm helping you isn't just because I want to help you. Take this silver back and distribute it to other families who can't leave their homes and are on the verge of collapse. Buy some grain from the villages and counties and send it to them. Can you manage that?"
"Thump~"
They knelt down again in unison, saying, "We can definitely do it, please rest assured, great hero, please our benefactor, we will definitely distribute this silver to the others."
"Thank you, my benefactor, sob sob..."
"Smack!"
Someone slapped themselves and cried, "Are we dreaming? There's no such thing as a free lunch."
Song Chunxue's heart clenched as she watched.
"Get up quickly. Where do you live? I'll take you there. We'll know tomorrow if this is a dream. The thinnest one might not be able to walk back. Find a doctor for him."
Several men got up from the ground. "Let's go, let's go, I'll lead the way for you, hero."
Song Chunxue took out the flying boat. "Let's go, I'll take you back."
Seeing one of them drop the grain in his hand and about to kneel down again, Song Chunxue said helplessly, "Stand still. Go early and come back early. Don't you want to go home and reunite with your families?"
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