Chapter 62 Chapter 62 Double Update in One
The family of three mentioned in the master's letter were none other than the personnel dispatched from the capital to the local area to compile the Records of Mountains and Rivers, but their entire family disappeared after a visit. The master arranged for Lin Xinghuo to replace the daughter of that young couple. It turned out that the master had indeed found the whereabouts of this family back then.
What puzzled Lin Xinghuo was that her Grandmaster had clearly told her not to leave the Lotus Peak formation, so how had she found the family in distress? Although her Grandmaster had rescued many wild animals near Lotus Peak, such as Huahua and Dahuang, and the spiritual energy concentration had only reached a certain level in the past two years, Lin Xinghuo had indeed never seen any signs of spiritual beasts in Buxian Temple. Even the most intelligent ordinary beasts could not help her Grandmaster with such a complex task.
If the family had met with disaster near Buxian Temple, how did the master bury them near Jinjiayao? Even if there was a proper mountain path between Lianhua Peak and Jinjiayao, the distance was actually far less convenient than taking the shortcut from Nanshan.
And then there's the so-called "Monk's Tomb." Spiritual energy began declining during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, reaching its lowest point by the end of the Song Dynasty. After drying up for hundreds of years, it only began to revive in modern times. During this period of spiritual energy decline, monks developed a new path of cultivation, harnessing "dragon energy." So, are these tombs the remains of ancient monks, or of Qi cultivators who have taken a different path?
Why were the ashes of that family of three buried here?
Lin Xinghuo didn't believe that her master's request was just to let her take out the ashes and bury them in the capital, otherwise she would have told her so in the previous letter. She didn't acquire any other skills in the past two months and was mostly immersed in the mundane affairs of life. She did put a lot of thought into her food, clothing, housing and transportation.
The Jinjiayao brick factory was built on a hillside, practically hollowing out the small hill behind it. But for the next thirty to fifty years, there wouldn't be a shortage of clay for brickmaking. The mountains in Song County are constantly rising, one after another, and the hills to the side of the brick factory appear to be mostly earthen hills. This is somewhat unusual. After all, while the mountains in Selangor Province are often covered in a thick layer of humus, they're not nearly as bare of rock as the brick factory itself. This suggests that these earthen hills are often formed by river erosion or wind-driven accumulation.
Behind this are continuous mountains. The monsoon is blocked by the mountains, and the wind is not strong enough to transport so much sand. Moreover, if it is really formed by millions of years of wind accumulation like the Loess Plateau in the south, it must not be just a few small slopes... Lin Xinghuo climbed to a high place to look at the terrain, and he was basically certain that there must have been a big river passing through this place many years ago, but the mountains and rivers have changed, and it is not easy to find nowadays - although there are several mountain streams nearby, but the flow direction is wrong, and there has been no change after the heavy snow. Lin Xinghuo is more inclined to believe that the big river at the time either dried up or sank into an underground water vein.
"The brick factory also needs a lot of water, right?" Lin Xinghuo looked at the huge mechanical well to the south of the brick factory. There were really quite a few wells in this factory, scattered here and there, with no particular pattern. It seemed that a well could be drilled wherever water was needed, which showed that the underground water resources were abundant.
"Look over there." The caracal could step on Little Lei Yunfei, and its eyesight was sharper than Lin Xinghuo's. After searching minute by minute, it found a rather unusual "well" in the far north. The well was a bit off the beaten path, not far from the northern edge of the brick factory. The soil nearby had been dug up, and now it had become a snow dump. It was normal for people to shovel snow directly into such an abandoned well to save trouble, since they didn't drink the water anyway. But the snow around the well had piled up like a mountain, while the well platform itself was still clean. When the brick factory workers piled snow here, they had deliberately compacted the snow near the well mouth, forming a slope on the other side, obviously to prevent the snow from collapsing into the well.
As the most impressive factory in Jinjiayao Commune, the brick factory is still bustling even during the winter holidays. Not only are there two kilns that are still burning and require workers to take shifts to man them, but there are also many young people from outside playing on the snow trail formed by the half-abandoned hill of the brick factory, with screams and laughter deafening.
Lin Xinghuo wrapped himself in his sheepskin coat, stuffed the caracal back into the pocket inside the coat, smoothed the hair under his snow cap to cover his eyebrows, and went to the brick factory.
After sliding back and forth on a broken wooden plank, a pair of bad boys approached on a snowmobile, ready to hit them. Lin Xinghuo didn't dodge or avoid them. Just as they were about to get in, she exerted force and made a beautiful little turn to get past them. The two young men hadn't braked when they were rushing down from above, so they were so mischievous. Now, even with all their might, they couldn't stop. The snowmobile slid straight into the ditch, sending them flying high and plummeting into the small snow hill at the back.
"Hey, you're amazing!" A girl in a maroon jacket, who had been sitting in a tire and only dared to slide down the lower slope, where the slope wasn't steep at all, slid in and spoke. The child of a brick factory employee, she had been playing on this slope since she was a child, but she still didn't dare to slide directly down from the top. The slope wasn't very high, but it was quite steep, and the excavation had left huge pits on top, making it really scary to slide down.
Lin Xinghuo felt that it was a bit like a roller coaster decades later. She used to envy her classmates down the mountain for being able to go to the amusement park, but by the time she was able to make her own decisions, she had unknowingly been shackled by the "Master Lin" who had achieved some success in spiritual practice, and was embarrassed to go to such places anymore.
"Aren't you scared?" the girl in the maroon jacket said with a hint of envy. "Then can you take me skiing? Just once, and I'll treat you to roasted chestnuts!"
"Okay!" Lin Xinghuo agreed readily, but her broken wooden board couldn't accommodate two people, and the tire the girl was sitting on was also quite tight.
"My name is Jin Aiju. Wait for me, I'll go borrow a snowmobile!" The girl said as she struggled to get out of the tire, but she was wearing too many clothes and was stuck inside like a little turtle trying to turn its shell inside out. It was Lin Xinghuo who stood up and lent a hand to pull her up.
Jin Aiju brushed the snow off her cotton pants and ran to the crowded area in front of the snow ditch. In a few minutes, she pulled up a ski sled made of wooden planks that was big enough for two people. Three young men chased after her. The tallest one was holding Jin Aiju's tire, and the shorter one was holding a rope. "Let's just slide on the tire. You just sit there and don't move. Let your second brother pull you up by the waist and you can slide down easily. How great!"
"You want to go on the snowmobile? Can you? Or you'll fall. The snow on the slope isn't as smooth as in the ditch. It'll hurt!" the eldest brother pressed. He and the second oldest wanted to slide down the slope with their younger sister between them. Aiju said she was afraid and didn't want to. Now they dared to go on a snowmobile alone? Did some smooth-talking kid trick the younger sister?
Jin Aiju pointed at Lin Xinghuo, letting her three brothers see that she was a girl. She turned around and pushed the three of them away: "Stay away! We can play by ourselves!"
It was indeed a girl, and the three brothers of the Jin family were even more worried. They hadn't seen Lin Xinghuo just pick up a broken piece of wood and dare to slide down the snow track. Now they were anxious to persuade their sister to give up the idea. The snow track at the brick factory was very difficult to use. When other girls skied, they used snowmobiles with front guards and brakes! The second and third brothers even offered their eldest brother, saying that he could take them to the river to skate.
Jin Aiju turned a deaf ear to her. She had just seen it clearly. With just her two feet, the sister controlled the board steadily. When she flew out of the snow pit, she was lower than those good snowmobiles with brake wheels. And they were sitting on a broken wooden board. What was there to be afraid of now!
After climbing the ridge path from the side to the top of the slope, the eldest brother of the Jin family even tried to trade with someone for a snowmobile with brakes. Lin Xinghuo took a look and saw that brakes meant two wooden wheels fixed to the front of the snowmobile by hinges. The wheels were wide and engraved with anti-slip grooves. One's feet slipped into the leather covers above the wheels, and when the snowmobile was going too fast, one could press the wheels down to contact the snow to slow down... It was useful, but also extremely crude. Hinge hinges required tickets, otherwise anyone could install them on any of these homemade snowmobiles. In fact, they were not as rare as the truck tires Jin Aiju used.
Jin Aiju was a lively girl with a lot of chatter. Lin Xinghuo wanted to find out more about her, so he tried to coax her. The first time, he controlled the speed deliberately and passed the three snow pits very steadily. Later, the girl got bolder, and the snow sled carried by Lin Xinghuo was thrown higher and higher. When it flew out of the first snow pit, it could even fly over the second snow pit from the sky and slide directly into the third one.
Jin Aiju hugged Lin Xinghuo's waist tightly, laughing and screaming, her little face flushed, and she called her sister all the time.
The three Jin brothers watched with envy. The other kids gathered around them, asking if their bobsleigh had been modified in any way. Oh my god, how high did it have to go to fly over the second snow pit? And how did it stay put when it landed? Everyone had built their own bobsleighs out of wood, and every year, some reckless kid would go too high and break them apart when trying to get out of a snow pit.
The third son of the Jin family asked them to pay attention to the distance between their bobsleigh and the snow surface before it landed in the third snow pit - the direction control was too good. When it flew more than halfway over the second snow pit, the front of the car was pressed down. When it reached the edge of the next snow pit, it was only half an arm's distance from the ground. If it fell like this, not only would the bobsleigh not fall apart, even the little sister sitting on it would not feel the bumps.
After the key was pointed out, the young people immediately rubbed their hands and were eager to try it out. The brick factory was as lively as boiling water: as many people pressed the front of their cars too early and crashed into the second snow pit, while as many people pressed the front of their cars too late and missed the buffer zone between the two snow pits and fell directly into the third pit. For a while, there were constant shouting, screaming, laughing and cursing. Soon, many wooden boards were scattered on the snow track, and Jin Aiju's snowmobile was among them.
The three Jin brothers broke their sled apart on their first try. Too embarrassed to follow their sister, they picked up the planks and ran off to clean up. Jin Aiju pulled roasted chestnuts from her pocket and offered them to Lin Xinghuo. Lin Xinghuo, in turn, pretended to reach into his satchel and pulled out a bag of various fruits, honey-soaked and baked.
Girls are always quick to chat when they're eating together. Jin Aiju chattered away, and soon she had told Lin Xinghuo everything about her family.
Lin Xinghuo not only learned that she had three older brothers and one younger brother, but also that her great-grandfather had worked in the brick factory since her generation, and that her grandfather had even worked as a farmhand for the Jin family's steward. "Even though we share the surname Jin, we're not actually from the same clan. Our ancestors were either hired laborers or slaves in the steward's household. We have nothing to do with the big capitalists in the provincial capital."
After chatting for a while, Lin Xinghuo pointed to the snow pile on the east side of the snow ditch and asked, "Was the snow over there moved there to build a ski trail?" Although it is just a simple ski trail for playing in the countryside, someone must have compacted it with a rolling log to make it flat, otherwise it would not be so smooth.
Jin Aiju nodded and pointed to the ditch in the middle. "That ditch only appears at this time of year. It's dug out and filled with soft snow, so if you can't stop yourself from sliding down and fall into it, you won't get hurt."
"Why is there a space in the middle of the snow pile? Is that a wellhead? The well for getting water? Then why is it leaning against the snow pile? It would be terrible if he slipped while fetching water." Lin Xinghuo asked.
Jin Aiju's face tensed up, her shoulders hunched, and she moved closer, a bit fearful, and spoke, "Who dares to draw water from that well?"
"That well is strange!" the young girl said mysteriously, "It's an old well. My grandfather said it's been there since he was a kid. The brick factory used to dig the earth right here. It was pretty normal back then. At most, the well platform was always clean... But later, more earth was dug up on this side of the hill, and they couldn't really dig away the slope, so the brick factory expanded to the other side. The well was no longer useful anymore, and when they moved, someone would just dump broken bricks and rotten wood into the well to save trouble. But every time they dumped it, the things they dumped would pile up next to the well again the next day, and people who dumped the garbage would always slip and sprain their ankles for no reason... Several incense masters in the commune said that the immortal of the Liu family lived in this well, and he loved cleanliness—hiss!"
At this point, Jin Aiju suddenly covered her mouth and her face turned pale. In those days, it was popular to "grab people's braids and put labels on them". Just this one weird remark from her was enough to make people fight against her, and maybe even her parents and brothers would be implicated.
Lin Xinghuo smiled and moved closer and said mysteriously, "You know I'm from the old courtyard visiting relatives. The reason why I'm staying at my relatives' house during the first month of the lunar year is that my younger brother and sister are a little abnormal, so I came here specially to ask the female incense head from your commune to take a look. Is there something wrong with them..." Her younger brothers and sisters in her previous life were really stupid, and they loved to do things that would harm others and benefit themselves.
Everyone in the surrounding area knows that there is a fairy incense head in Jinjiayao Commune, but few people say that there is a female incense head here. Jiang Xiangtou and her family are outsiders and have only moved to Jinjiayao ten years ago. Although she is capable, she keeps a low profile these days. Only local people who have lived in the town for a long time know about her.
There was indeed a faint scent of incense near the ancient locust tree at the south end of Jinjiayao. Lin Xinghuo had noticed it long ago and now said, "My family kept it a secret from me and didn't let me get close. I only vaguely know that my younger brother and sister went to the big locust tree, and I don't know if it was the home of the female incense master... I heard that your commune has more than one incense master?"
It was Jiang Xiangtou's family. After sharing their secrets, Jin Aiju had nothing to say. She hurriedly said, "I'm not letting you get close because it's for your own good. Otherwise, it would be terrible if her family's God of Wealth took a fancy to her. I heard that Jiang Xiangtou was chosen when she was still a girl and was asked to become a deity. Her family didn't want an unmarried girl to be a head of an incense, and they almost went crazy because of the magic. Jiang Xiangtou never married for this reason. Now she's old and worried about not having children. I heard that when her family's God of Wealth takes a fancy to someone, she will adopt that person as her son or daughter and give all her property to that person..." Jin Aiju was a little envious. Jiang Xiangtou's family was very wealthy. There were countless young wives willing to be his disciples. When she got married, she would go to Jiang Xiangtou's house to test her luck. Not only for the intangible property, but also because being a head of an incense could make money to support herself, which was almost like having a job.
Lin Xinghuo brought the conversation back to normal, saying, "Then why didn't Jiang Xiangtou ask the immortal in his family to drive the things out of the well? Didn't the brick factory persuade her?"
Jin Aiju waved her hands quickly. "Where is that? Jiang Xiangtou is very kind. She's come to see it and even gone down there. But she says there's an underground river down there, and there are so many hollows that even an immortal would get lost. One winter, it was extremely cold and snowy, and all the other wells were frozen over. To get some water, the factory organized a team to go down there and see. They were so frightened they became sick. They say there are glowing white pancakes floating above the water down there... just like the river lanterns they used to light on Ghost Festival on July 15th. The river down there might be connected to the Yellow Springs, and those white pancakes are the boats of the dead!"
"Not in the summer?"
"Who dares to go down and look again!" Jin Aiju shook her head like a rattle: "But it was winter when Jiang Xiangtou went down, so she didn't see it."
"But my grandfather said that the Yellow Springs River is not a bad thing. There is a Yellow Springs River flowing under our feet. Our ancestors used to go to and from this river during the New Year ancestor worship. Usually this river is very deep underground, and the one in the well over there is just a little shallower. As long as we don't go too close to the well, it will be fine." Jin Aiju explained, pointing to the people who were having fun.
Lin Xinghuo began to understand a little bit. The so-called monks' tombs that only appeared after heavy snow might be related to these "white cakes".
After stuffing the entire bag of dried fruit into Jin Aiju's arms, Lin Xinghuo pointed to her stomach and said she'd be gone for a while. Jin Aiju held the large paper bag of dried fruit, pinched one and held it in her mouth, reluctant to swallow it. It was sweet and even better than the canned food the factory had given her before. Such good things were generously given to her, so she couldn't be so ungrateful.
But when it was time to go home for lunch at noon, Jin Aiju still hadn't seen anyone, so she had to take a bag of dried fruit home temporarily. She then asked her grandparents if there were any relatives in the commune who had come to see Jiang Xiangtou for help. Her mother scolded her and told her to stop talking nonsense. Everyone was relying on relief food this year, so how could they have extra food to support their relatives? And not to mention the unrest in the county before the New Year. Jiang Xiangtou had already closed his shop and stopped accepting requests.
Her three brothers also asked for her help, but there really was no such person. It made sense, considering the family had brought three children to visit relatives. They were a big target, and anyone who had been in the commune could be easily questioned. In this situation, it could only be said that the girl wasn't telling the truth. Jin Aiju, clutching the bag of dried fruit, felt a little scared. Could that girl be planning to go down the well? She wondered if she had let her mouth down and gotten herself into trouble.
While the girl was eating her lunch without any taste, Lin Xinghuo had already carried the caracal down to the "Yellow Spring Well". The well was very deep and spacious underneath, and it was indeed connected to an underground river.
But the stone caves created by the underground river are twisting and have many branches. The river water is sometimes thin and sometimes thick. There are cracks under the riverbed, which also lead to larger underground rivers.
Where to find this?
Just as Lin Xinghuo was about to release the vines to separate from the caracals and investigate one by one, the Zhulongdan fell out from his wrist and flew slowly towards a crack.
Lin Xinghuo activated the vine talisman, leaving a dead vine as a mark, and then he and the caracal chased Zhu Longdan through the crevice - suddenly an underground river no thinner than the Songwazi River appeared in front of them, and in the underground river there were many disc-shaped "ice cakes" that were thick around the edges and thin in the middle floating on the water.
Zhu Longdan wanted to move forward, but was rolled back by Lin Xinghuo's spiritual vine. His forehead touched Zhu Longdan, and the fragment of his consciousness was constantly craving: Wutong wood!
The ice cakes had no unusual appearance. The caracal jumped onto one of the larger discs and began to spin around with the ice disc under its claws: "There are whirlpools in the water." The ice cakes were formed by the whirlpools in the water, not by any boats to ferry the dead souls across.
Lin Xinghuo also tried it. Countless whirlpools all spun in the same direction. Following this pancake river, he could probably find the end of the undercurrent. That was also the direction Zhu Longdan, trapped by the spiritual vine, was heading.
This underground river was too long and was getting deeper and deeper. When there was only one piece of the vine talisman left on Lin Xinghuo's body, the man and the caracal could no longer withstand the coldness underground. Lin Xinghuo changed into a green jacket and trousers made of stinking orchid leaves, and the caracal not only had a green vest that fit him, but Lin Xinghuo also folded his scarf into a triangle and wrapped the caracal's head with it.
The wind on the underground river was stronger than that on the ground. The Zhulongdan had wilted and stopped rushing forward. It hung on the tip of the spirit vine and used its much smaller flame tail to point the way.
Grabbing the spiritual vine, I jumped down the cliff dozens of meters high along the river. The stone cave suddenly became much wider. Although there were still countless stone teeth intertwined, at least there was only one general direction left.
The ice cake disappeared from the bottom of the cliff, as if it was blocked by two rows of stone pillars on the cliff - "Look at those two rows of stone pillars, do they look like giant mouths with teeth?" Lin Xinghuo stopped and looked back, and suddenly said.
The caracal with a green headscarf hugged Lin Xinghuo's head, and in an instant a thin layer of thunder clothing covered the two of them.
A purple figure suddenly appeared on the smooth stone wall washed by the water. Even the lightning could not cover the green reflective head of the macaque.
Now her own head was also glowing green. She shouldn't have taken out the green headscarf just now. In fact, Lin Xinghuo didn't really want the manul brand leather hat, so she endured it and didn't "take" the manul off...
Not long after entering this huge mouth, the sounds of "click! clang! clang!" appeared strangely in his ears. After being combined with the echo, it became more and more obvious. Lin Xinghuo calmly released his spiritual sense and quietly covered the corners blocked by the stone teeth.
On the hidden stone tooth, there was a yellow shadow about ten centimeters high circling around them. The shadow seemed to be pulling something, and the sound was the sound of that thing hitting the gravel.
Upon seeing the yellow figure, Lin Xinghuo's first reaction was that the yellow-skinned creature wasn't completely dead, but after observing it carefully for a moment, she was certain it wasn't a yellow-skinned creature. Even with her divine sense, she couldn't quite make out what it was. If a yellow-skinned creature had that kind of speed, both her and Mr. Mao's graves would be covered in grass.
Reaching out and pinching the caracal's furry paws, he successfully pulled down a ball of thunder. Lin Xinghuo wrapped the thunder ball with a spiritual vine and quietly laid out a bunch of thunder cages as he walked, until he connected the large area outside the circle where the yellow shadow was circling into a circle. Only then did Lin Xinghuo stand still.
As soon as she pulled the spiritual vine, it was like an experienced fisherman casting a net. The entire area in front of her was surrounded by the fishing net, and no matter how fast the fish swam, it was in vain.
"Ouch!" An old voice shouted, sounding strange like an old man.
Lin Xinghuo narrowed his eyes slightly, and with a reach of his hand, the seven-toothed rake that had been re-refined in the gourd furnace appeared in his hand. He held the sharp rake that was shining with a cold light in his right hand, and with a point of his left hand, yellow talismans flew out to form a talisman shield wall. He walked towards the sound step by step without haste.
The yellow shadow struggled on the lightning web, like a moth stuck on a spider web, helplessly waiting for the black widow to come and devour it... "Woo woo woo!" A faint cry rang out, making Lin Xinghuo look even more like a villain.
"Anian, Anian! I am Qingji!" said the thin voice with sobs.
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The author has something to say: That’s about it for today, I’ll update more tomorrow~~
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