Mandarin ducks are playing and the white water is swaying.
In a village near the lake, more than a dozen women or girls squatted on the shore, holding mallets in their hands, washing clothes and silk. Sometimes they wiped the sweat from their foreheads, sometimes looked around and chatted with each other.
The mallet hit the clothes with a "bang bang bang" sound, and every time it hit, a short explosion sounded around the wilderness.
The birds on the surrounding treetops were not afraid either. They tilted their heads back and sang, their voices clear and melodious as if they were used to it.
The lake water is rippling and clear, reflecting the singing of birds and the fragrance of flowers.
As the breeze blew, a young man in blue appeared not far away on the opposite side of the lake.
He held a folding fan in his hand, stretched out two slender fingers to pick up a piece of paper cutting in the air, and then put it back into his sleeve.
As I passed by the lake, I could vaguely hear the laughter of several women.
A young girl was the first to notice the handsome young man. She blushed and said to the person next to her, "Look, what a handsome young man!"
Perhaps the sound was too loud, and the women washing clothes near the lake could hear it clearly, so they all looked up at the other side.
"He is indeed handsome!"
Suddenly, a woman covered her mouth and said with a smile: "Sister Xiaofang, you are so fascinated that your eyes are about to burst into tears!"
Suddenly, there was a burst of gentle laughter from the girls.
But one woman shook her head and said earnestly, "Auntie, I'm an experienced person. Don't be fooled by how handsome this pretty boy looks. He's actually useless. Look at his skinny arms and legs. He can't even tie a chicken. He'll probably be too tired to straighten his back after planting three times."
Then another woman said with envy, "I wish my idiot was as strong as your black ox. He breaks his hoe before he can even use it three times, so I have to farm alone every day."
"His sister-in-law, you need to be skilled and skillful to farm on your own. Brute force alone won't do! Come to my house someday and let my Black Bull teach you."
…
Zhang Ling walked around the bend of the lake and came to this village. Suddenly, he felt something strange.
He counted on his fingers and frowned slightly.
At that moment, a woman came running to the shore from a short distance away, panting and shouting, "Auntie, no... it's over! Your... your black cow has been bitten to death by a snake!"
As soon as the words were spoken, everyone around was shocked. Two or three women stood up and ran hurriedly towards the village, and then seven or eight more women followed.
Soon all the women washing clothes on the shore left, leaving only the young man in blue standing there.
He took out a paper-cut from his sleeve and placed it in a hole in a big tree at the entrance of the village. Then he shook his folding fan, said "strange", performed the magic of invisibility, and walked towards the village.
——
A small farmhouse was surrounded by a crowd of people, and the sounds of wailing, crying, and talking could be heard, all of varying kinds.
"Tsk tsk, that snake was so big, it bit Black Bull's neck in one bite, then scurried back into the house and disappeared!"
"Hey, his aunt, I'm so sad, so sad..."
"We have to find this snake, otherwise what if it pops up again?"
"Looking for it? How can I look for it? What if I get bitten again while looking for it? I think that snake is not ordinary."
"Hey, I'm telling you, how can you be so clueless? If we don't find this snake, people in the village will get bitten at any time!"
"What's it to you whether I find the snake or not? Is it your turn to lecture me?"
"How ridiculous! We're all just neighbors in the village, how can you be so selfish? Who hasn't run into trouble? Today I asked you to find a snake, and you said so. If you run into trouble again..."
"What are you talking about? Curse me, right?"
After a few words, they were about to fight. Fortunately, they were persuaded by the people around them. They said that they should sympathize with his aunt. Her husband Hei Niu had just died. Isn’t making such a fuss deliberately embarrassing her?
At this time, the oldest man in the village came out with a cane and said tremblingly, "I think we should ask someone to go to Lihua Temple to invite Li Tianshi or his disciples to come and take a look."
He added, "The reward for inviting Tianshi Li will be paid from the main ancestral hall. It's also the tribute money everyone pays every year, so we can take this opportunity to improve the feng shui of our village."
"That makes sense!" Everyone nodded, thinking that this was the best method.
Zhang Ling hid in the crowd and saw at a glance a dark red, flat-headed, three-eyed snake lurking under a pit in the farmhouse in front of him. It was about two meters long and curled up in a ball, with its eyes closed and motionless as if petrified.
The young man in green saw clearly that the snake had no evil aura and its true form was a copper coin, which was also an illusion created by a trick.
However, there was actually a mortal's soul in the snake's belly, as if it could be used for some kind of storage.
"call!"
Zhang Ling blew a breath of fairy air and went straight towards the snake.
Suddenly.
The flat-headed three-eyed snake opened its eyes, its pupils shining, and rushed out of the house.
"ah!"
The girl who first spotted the snake ran out and jumped up and down in fear, her scalp tingling as she shouted, "Snake! Snake!"
The onlookers were panicked and fled in all directions, but some brave men refused to leave. They shouted to each other and prepared to start catching the snake.
Zhang Ling gently pointed his finger, and a breeze blew by. The snake suddenly split into countless small snakes, which rushed towards the village entrance. There were so many of them, densely packed like silkworms on foil, and they were everywhere.
A man stepped on a small snake out of suspicion and killed it, and it suddenly turned into a dozen copper coins.
He rubbed his eyes, thinking he was dizzy, but when he looked carefully, it was indeed a copper coin. He hurriedly bent down to pick it up, and felt that it was hard and cold. It was indeed a copper coin.
The men around soon noticed something was wrong, and started shouting and telling others about it.
Soon a group of people chased the little snake towards the village entrance, shouting and stepping on the little snake, with copper coins falling to the ground along the way.
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