Chapter 56 He Likes Her
A serpentine shadow, about three stories high and the size of three buckets, enveloped Wei Muchen.
He turned around in disbelief, only to find nothing behind him; there was no snake at all.
The hissing sound was incessant in his ears, and he could even feel the snake's tongue breathing on the back of his neck. How could there be no snake?
Fear and unease spread from the bottom of his heart. Wei Mucheng quickly looked around. He didn't see any snakes in the nearby trees or the grass by the pebble road. But hissing sounds came from all directions, as if countless snakes were surrounding him.
Where did this damned giant snake shadow come from?!
"Ah—!" Wei Muchen couldn't help but cover his ears, screaming as he stumbled forward in terror.
Cheng Ying looked at Wei Mucheng in surprise, wondering what was wrong with him.
Soon, she noticed that there seemed to be insect bite marks on Wei Muchen's neck.
Several small brown scorpions had somehow crawled up his ankle, but Wei Muchen, a man who was usually very alert, was completely unaware of it.
Cheng Ying realized something and turned to question Long Buxi: "You put a curse on him? Didn't you say you couldn't use curses? Do you know what the consequences will be if you put a curse on him?!"
"You've already told me about the consequences." Long Buxi, carrying her mailbag, strolled forward. "I said I wouldn't use a curse on you, but that doesn't mean I won't use curses on others. Especially not on uninvited strangers like this who keep pestering you!"
He emphasized the words "entangled and complicated" with particular force, as if he were gritting his teeth.
Cheng Ying felt uneasy. She felt that Long Buxi's behavior today was somewhat abnormal, and his attitude was also very strange. His hostility towards Wei Muchen was so great that she felt that he wanted to kill Wei Muchen.
Wei Muchen was already yelling wildly as he ran ahead.
Cheng Ying quickly caught up with him and asked Long Buxi, "What kind of curse did you cast on him to make him like this?"
Long Buxi turned her head to look at her, "Are you feeling sorry for her?"
"How could I be heartbroken? I'm just worried that your Gu worms will kill him!" Cheng Ying said with a worried expression. "Wei Muchen's background is not simple. If your Gu worms drive him crazy, cripple him, or kill him, you and Pucang Village will be in big trouble. I'm not joking."
"Is this why you let him follow you? Are you afraid of him?" Long Buxi stared at Cheng Ying with his dark eyes, carefully discerning her expression as she spoke, trying to see if she was lying.
His eyes were long and deep, with dark pupils that gleamed with a cold light. His thick, curled eyelashes trembled from time to time, adding a touch of eeriness to his pupils.
Under such gazes, Cheng Ying couldn't lie even if she wanted to.
Cheng Ying lowered her eyes, avoiding his gaze, and whispered, "I had a dream. In the dream, he did many terrible things to me, my family, and my friends. Those things felt so real, like they actually happened, that when I woke up, I felt an intense aversion to him, aversion to him, and hatred towards him."
"Is this why you broke up with him?"
"Um."
Long Buxi stared at Cheng Ying expressionlessly for a few seconds, then suddenly a smile appeared on her lips as she continued walking forward. "I didn't use a Gu on him. It was Alan who bit him. Alan is a Gu worm that I created. It's poisonous. If it bites someone, the toxin can cause them to hallucinate for several hours, thus rendering them powerless and allowing me to kill them."
As soon as he finished speaking, a dark blue shadow flew towards him from the back of Wei Muchen's neck, who was going berserk in front of him.
Long Buxi raised his slender right index finger, and a four-legged insect named Alan landed on it, squeaking as if it were asking for credit.
Long Buxi smiled slightly, "Alan, well done."
Alan made a sound, her expression proud.
Cheng Ying breathed a sigh of relief. It was good that the Gu worm hadn't entered her body. Wei Muchen, that scumbag, deserved to suffer. Did he really think no one in this world could deal with him?
He deserved it for provoking Long Buxi!
She looked at the insect, about the size of a chopstick tip, in Long Buxi's hand and asked curiously, "I heard that every Miao village's Miao king will refine a Gu king to intimidate and control all the Gu insects in the entire Miao village. Is Alan the Gu king you refined?"
"Squeak!" Alan raised her head and puffed out her chest.
Yes! I am the King of Gu.
Long Buxi nodded, "It was the Gu King I refined when I was ten years old. It took me a lot of effort to refine it. After it came out, it ate the old clan chief's Gu King and became the new Gu King of Pucang Village."
"Squeak." Alan nodded.
That's right, I am the new King of Gu, and I'm incredibly powerful!
Cheng Ying responded with an "oh," recalling what Mei Shu had said about Long Buxi being thrown into a Gu pool by the villagers when he was ten years old, left to be bitten by Gu worms and left to fend for himself. Her heart was filled with complicated emotions.
Long Buxi was just a ten-year-old child back then. How painful and desperate he must have been to be thrown into a pool full of Gu worms.
In such a harsh environment, he actually managed to walk out of the Gu Pool alive and even cultivated Alan, the Gu King, within it. How much perseverance must he have had to survive?
If it were her at that age, seeing a pool full of poisonous snakes, insects, scorpions, and other venomous creatures, let alone practicing Gu worm cultivation, she would have fainted from fright just from seeing those snakes and other venomous creatures.
This position of Miao ethnic minority chieftain is truly not one that just anyone can hold.
Cheng Ying walked side by side with Long Buxi. "What kind of insect is Alan? I've never seen an insect like it before. Its upper body looks like a bee, and its lower body looks like a rove beetle. It's fat like a ball and it's dark blue. It looks like a strange creature."
"Squeak—" Alan lost its previous smugness and squeaked softly, covering its round body with its wings in a pitiful manner.
Long Buxi glanced at Alan and said with a smile, "Alan is indeed a strange creature. It was formed from dozens of poisonous insects and creatures devouring each other in the Gu pool. It is both my Gu insect and my partner. It needs to protect me and also lead and intimidate the Gu insects in the whole village. It consumes a lot of physical energy, so it eats a lot to maintain its energy and looks a bit fat."
Alan nodded: That's right, I'm usually very tired, I need to eat a lot to conserve my energy! I'm not fat, and I'm not a ball!
"What does it usually eat?" Cheng Ying asked, even more curious.
Long Buxi said, "It eats everything, it's not picky, but it likes meat the most."
They eat human blood and flesh.
As the two were talking, they arrived at the stilted house where Long Buxi lived.
Wei Muchen ran around and shouted like a madman, stepping on many irises by the stone roadside, which attracted many Miao people to gather and watch.
Cheng Ying was worried that Wei Mucheng's actions would anger the Miao people and violate their taboos, so she wanted to go forward and pull him away.
Long Buxi saw through her intention and reached out to pull her back. "Don't worry, I'll have someone lock him up temporarily. When you leave, I'll release him so he can leave with you and won't be able to run around."
As he spoke, he shouted to the Miao people who had gathered not far away: "Gasu, take this man to the house next door and lock him up. Keep a close eye on him and don't let him wander around."
A tall, handsome young man with thick eyebrows and big eyes, dressed in black Miao clothing, stepped out from the crowd.
He placed his right hand diagonally across his left chest, bowed respectfully to Long Buxi, and then, without saying a word, walked up to Wei Muchen, stretched out his thick arm, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and dragged him toward an empty stilted house.
After watching them leave, the crowd turned back to look at Cheng Ying.
Seeing Long Buxi standing to one side, his face gloomy and his gaze cold as he looked at them, everyone shrank back and lowered their heads, not daring to look Long Buxi in the eye, and quickly dispersed.
As soon as the Miao people left, Long Buxi carried Cheng Ying's mailbag upstairs.
Cheng Ying watched Ga Su drag Wei Mucheng away, hesitated for a moment, but did not stop him. She turned around and followed Long Buxi up to the second floor of his stilted house.
The living room on the second floor is still the same as before, with wooden windows on all four sides. The living room is well lit, with beams of sunlight shining in from the windows, making the light inside soft and hazy. The living room, which is built entirely of wood, has a kind of comforting, rustic beauty.
The only difference was that on the dining table in the living room, there was a vase shaped like a jade Guanyin, with two fresh purple-blue irises inside. They swayed gently in the breeze blowing in from the window, looking beautiful but also giving off an eerie and bewitching feeling.
"Did you pick these flowers?" Cheng Ying walked to the dining table and reached out to touch the irises. "Where did you get this vase?"
"I searched for a long time on the mountain and found a white stone that looked like jade. I asked Ren Qing from the village about the style of vases used by the Han people, and carved it according to her drawing. I picked the flowers especially for you because I knew you were coming today." Long Buxi placed her parcel on the dining table and looked at her, asking, "Do you like them?"
Cheng Ying's heart skipped a beat, unsure how to answer.
The last time she was in Pucang Village, she saw the irises blooming beautifully and casually mentioned that she wanted to pick a couple to look at. She didn't care whether she liked them or not; she just wanted to put them in a vase, which is why she asked him if he had a vase.
Unexpectedly, Long Buxi remembered it and specially found a stone from the mountain for her, carved it into a vase, and even picked irises for her.
His unusual behavior, as well as his previous attitude towards Wei Muchen, all conveyed a message.
He likes her.
Cheng Ying is not the kind of person who is carefree. On the contrary to her fiery personality, she is often very meticulous, good at observing and understanding people's hearts, which is why she can complete training and missions well in the army.
She was quite beautiful. Although she married Wei Muchen early in her previous life and then divorced him, and was entangled with him for most of her life, she was never short of men who were interested in her.
After her divorce, many men who were good-looking, wealthy, and had excellent personalities confessed their love to her in various ways, subtly expressing their affection for her.
She had seen countless men, but none had ever made her feel this panicked.
If another man subtly expresses his feelings for her, and she doesn't like that person, she will reject him without hesitation, so as not to drag him along and give him unrealistic fantasies, which would be bad for both him and herself.
But Long Buxi is no ordinary person. He is a Miao ethnic minority member, the young chief of Pucang Village, and the future Miao king. If she wants to refuse Long Buxi, she will have to find some words and excuses to politely refuse him.
Otherwise, if the rejection is too direct and hurts his feelings, given the stubborn nature of the Miao people, who knows what they might do to her.
Cheng Ying thought for a moment and said very seriously, "Long Buxi, the vase you carved is very beautiful, and the flowers you picked are also very beautiful, but I can't tell you whether I like it or not. In the eyes of us Han people, your actions have crossed the line. If we hadn't met so few times and spent so little time together, people would have thought you liked me for what you did and said to me."
Long Buxi raised an eyebrow, a faint smile playing on her lips. Instead of arguing with her about the issue, she asked, "What's this about the arranged marriage?"
Speaking of this, Cheng Ying was a little embarrassed. "He kept pestering me, and I couldn't stand it anymore, so I had my dad write a letter to his dad, lying that my dad had arranged a marriage for me since childhood and that I should fulfill the engagement so that he would back down. I couldn't find a good person to deal with him right away, so I thought of you and mentioned your name, thinking that your status as the young chief of the Miao ethnic group would make him hesitate. I didn't expect him to stubbornly follow me and insist on coming to your village to see you. I apologize for my recklessness and the trouble I caused you. I hope you won't be angry."
Long Buxi sat at the dining table, reaching out to stroke Alan's fluffy head, which was perched on the iris petals in the vase. As Alan made a comfortable squeaking sound, she said, "I thought you remembered our engagement, and I was happy for a while."
Cheng Ying:
What did she hear?
"A marriage contract? What marriage contract?" She looked completely bewildered.
Long Buxi stared at her intently. "When you were ten, you came to Pucang Village with your father to deliver mail. The first time you saw me, you praised me for being very handsome. After you found out I was a boy, you told your father that you would marry me when you grew up. At that time, my parents were still alive. My mother asked you if you were telling the truth. If you were, she would accept you as her daughter-in-law, and you nodded and said it was true. For so many years, I have been waiting for you to grow up, and I have been waiting for you to come to me and fulfill our marriage agreement. We really are childhood sweethearts."
Cheng Ying: !!
"I don't remember anything like this!" Cheng Ying exclaimed, her eyes wide.
She had absolutely no memory of knowing Long Buxi when she was a child, let alone the nonsense about marrying him!
“It’s normal that you don’t remember.” A trace of sadness appeared in Long Buxi’s eyes. “When you first came to our village, you were very bold, running around everywhere and seeing things you shouldn’t have seen, which scared you so much that you went insane. To help you return to a normal life, my mother used a Gu she concocted to erase your memories of that time in the village. Using that Gu requires a lot of energy and effort. After my mother erased your memories, her body became very weak, and she had an accident the day after you and your father left our village.”
Cheng Ying paused for a moment. She suddenly remembered that when she was ten years old, she was curious about her father's job and insisted on going with him to run the mail. Her father couldn't resist her pestering and agreed to take her on one trip.
That time, many villagers along the Ma'anshan postal route got to know her. As a result, when she took over her father's postman job, the villagers recognized her the moment they saw her on her first postal run.
She still had some impression of the villages and people she had visited along the way, but she had no impression of Pucang Village.
Given her father's personality, he had already promised to take her on a mail delivery trip. It's impossible that when they reached the east side of Ayi Mountain, he wouldn't take her down to Pucang Village and leave her, a girl, alone on a mountaintop hundreds of meters high, to fend for herself. Her father must have taken her to Pucang Village.
But she has no memory of coming to Pucang Village when she was ten years old. Could it be true, as Long Buxi said, that she said she wanted to marry him when she was little? And her mother erased her memory?
This is too bizarre! Does such a thing as a Gu worm that can erase a person's memory really exist?
Cheng Ying's expression shifted between light and dark, feeling that Long Buxi's words were both absurd and strangely reasonable.
She gripped the strap of the mailbag tightly, pursed her lips, and said, "I'm sorry, I don't have much of an impression of what happened when I was ten. I don't completely believe what you're saying. I need to go home and confirm what happened back then with my dad."
Long Buxi smiled and nodded, pointing to her parcel, "What delicious food did you bring me?"
"Oh, I bought you canned yellow peaches, malted milk powder, some candy, and also a spicy chicken dish my mom made. Try it." Cheng Ying opened the package, took out the things she had brought one by one, and pushed them in front of Long Buxi, gesturing for him to eat.
Long Buxi picked up the glass-topped yellow can and looked at it, then picked up the canned malted milk powder and the candy wrapped in colorful candy wrappers. A rare look of confusion appeared on her fair face. "How do you eat this?"
Cheng Ying asked in surprise, "You've never eaten these things before?"
Long Buxi shook her head: "No, I rarely leave the village. My parents have never left either. No one buys me these things to eat. When government workers came to our village to do literacy work, they gave the candy they brought to other children, not to me. They were probably afraid of me. The only one who ever gave me candy was you. When you were ten years old, you said you wanted to marry me and told me to remember that you would marry me someday. You unwrapped a piece of candy, put it in my mouth, and asked me if it was sweet."
He smiled at Cheng Ying, his smile was very bright, "Sweet, very sweet."
It was so sweet that he still remembers it to this day.
His smile, and his face, so beautiful it was almost otherworldly, momentarily stunned Cheng Ying.
She quickly came to her senses and felt sorry for Long Buxi.
Although Pucang Village is indeed backward, hidden in the dense forest valley at the foot of Ayi Mountain, the village is inhabited by Miao people who rarely leave the village. However, over the years, thanks to the efforts of government staff, the Miao people in the village have gradually started to intermarry with outsiders and have also allowed government staff to enter their village regularly and postmen to come and go.
These people who went out should have bought some candy and snacks for the children in the village, so why didn't anyone share with Long Buxi? Even the government staff didn't give him any, leaving him to just watch. Isn't this blatant bullying of his family?
Cheng Ying asked, "You said you rarely leave the village. How many times have you actually gone out?"
“Once,” Long Buxi answered, touching the glass of the can of yellow peaches. “That time, after my parents died, some people in the village thought I killed them and wanted to throw me into the Gu pool to feed the Gu worms. I escaped. But I didn’t know the way out, and I was caught and brought back after running for a short while.”
Cheng Ying really wanted to ask how his parents died, but she felt it would be presumptuous to ask directly.
After thinking for a moment, she stood up and opened all the canned yellow peaches, tore off the candy wrappers, opened the malted milk powder and the lunchbox containing spicy chicken, and pushed them all in front of Long Buxi. "Eat the canned food, spicy chicken and candy directly, but you have to mix the malted milk powder with hot water. Try it and see if you like it. If you like it, I'll buy you some every month when I have spare money."
Long Buxi smiled broadly, "Okay, I'll give it a try."
**
Cheng Ying stayed in Long Buxi's stilted building for more than half an hour before leaving with her mailbag.
She is a postwoman with her own job to do. She won't stay in Pucang Village for too long. After delivering the mail, she has to hurry back.
Today, there is only one letter in Pucang Village. It is addressed to a Han Chinese woman named Ren Qing, who married into the village. She is also the Han Chinese woman that Cheng Ying saw downstairs at Long Buxi's place when she woke up in Pucang Village last time.
She was going to deliver a letter, and Long Buxi originally offered to take her with him, but she declined. The main reason was that after she realized that Long Buxi had ulterior motives towards her, she would feel very uncomfortable with him following her.
Following the address on the letter, she crossed the suspension bridge and walked for about twenty minutes along the bamboo groves growing on the riverbank, until she arrived at a stilted house built in the bamboo grove.
A woman dressed in a black patchwork Miao costume was reading a book in the first-floor corridor. When she saw Cheng Ying, the woman put down her book, leaned over the half-meter-high railing, and called out to her, "Comrade Cheng, do you have any mail for me?"
"Yes." Cheng Ying took an envelope out of the parcel and waved the letter at her. "Comrade Ren Qing, shall you come down to get it, or shall I come up?"
"Come up here, I need to write a reply." Ren Qing stood up and walked into the house.
Cheng Ying followed the stairs built on the side of the stilted house to the first floor of Ren Qing's house. The layout of the first floor of her house was similar to that of the second floor of Long Buxi's house, both having a large open living room with a sunken stove in the middle, which served as both a living room and a kitchen.
There were two little girls, about seven or eight years old, sitting at a table on the left side of the living room drawing. When they saw Cheng Ying come in, they looked at her curiously and greeted her politely, "Hello, Sister Cheng."
Cheng Ying lay in the village for more than ten days. Everyone in the village knew her name and recognized her. It was not surprising that these two little girls knew Cheng Ying.
"Hello, little sisters." Everyone likes polite children. Cheng Ying unconsciously smiled as she walked over to them, looked at their drawings, praised them, and then handed the letter in her hand to Ren Qing.
"Comrade Ren, your letter is unsigned."
"Yes, I know." Ren Qing took the letter, opened it casually, glanced at it, and said to Cheng Ying, "Comrade Cheng, please sit down for a while. I'll go upstairs to get paper and pen to write this letter."
"Okay." Cheng Ying casually pulled out a chair and sat down.
Ren Qing's eldest daughter, being very perceptive, poured Cheng Ying a cup of hot water, saying, "Sister, have some water."
"Thank you, you're so thoughtful." Cheng Ying praised the little girl politely, holding the water in her hand without drinking it.
Ren Qing, who had come down from the second-floor room with paper and pen, saw this scene and said with a mocking smile, "You're not drinking water because you're afraid my daughter will cast a spell on you?"
Ren Qing was around thirty-five years old. She had delicate features, a beautiful face, and a slender figure. When she smiled, she still retained her charm.
"I drank a lot of water before I came to your house, so I can't drink anymore," Cheng Ying said somewhat awkwardly.
"You drank the water at Long Buxi's house, right? You trust him quite a bit, aren't you afraid he'll use a spell on you?" Ren Qing sat opposite her, holding a pen and paper, writing a letter as he spoke to her.
Cheng Ying paused for a moment before asking, "Comrade Ren, how long have you been married into the Miao village? How much do you know about Pucang Village? Do you know why the people of the Miao village are so hostile towards Long Buxi?"
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