Chapter 40 Chapter 40 Green Reed Fairy Mother
Having successfully reunited with the caravan and safely arrived at the oasis under the escort of the gourd spirit, the merchants' fear of the gourd spirit had largely subsided.
"Perhaps this is a demon that cultivates merit," the merchant thought to himself.
Seeing that the gourd spirit had completed her task and was about to leave, the merchant called out to her again.
"Sir, thank you for saving us. May I ask your name?"
"Show off your extraordinary encounters."
A crisp sound came from the air, and in a moment, the gourd spirit had disappeared.
Upon seeing this, the waiter couldn't help but exclaim in amazement, "No wonder it's a gourd spirit, it really can fly!"
The merchant frowned: "How can you be disrespectful to an immortal? From now on, you must not call the immortal gourd spirit."
"What should we shout then?"
The merchant pondered for a moment: "To show respect, why not call her the Green Gourd Fairy Mother?"
"Huh? But don't immortals have beards? So you should call her Immortal Mother, right?"
“You don’t understand,” the merchant said confidently. “The skin and flesh are just appearances. The immortal’s voice is clearly that of a woman, so she should be called the Immortal Mother.”
"But she just said her name is 'Showing Off a Strange Encounter'!"
“You don’t understand,” the merchant stroked his beard. “The immortal wasn’t telling us her name, but rather that she had something to tell us.”
"Huh?" the guy asked, confused.
“Look, the Green Reed Fairy saved us in the desert, but only accepted some gold and silver that were useless to her. This shows that she was actually on the path of doing good deeds.”
"Finally, they told us to share our adventure. It wasn't about mentioning her name, but rather a reminder to spread the word about her existence."
"Show" implies both display and boasting, while the word "adventure" fits our experience.
The merchant spoke with unwavering conviction: "So what the immortal really wants to say is that we should spread the word about her existence. Tell other travelers in the desert that when they encounter dire straits, they can exchange names with the Green Reed Fairy and ask her for help."
"In this way, we will not only repay the kindness of the Green Reed Fairy Mother, but we may also gain her favor because of this incident."
The unsuspecting man looked at the businessman with eyes full of admiration.
"Such profound meaning in just four simple words. You truly deserve to be the leader. We still have much to learn from you."
*********
After completing the escort mission, Xiu Chuqi saw that her backpack balance had increased by 300 gold, and her originally depressed mood instantly improved.
"Haha, the reward for this mission is huge! It's even higher than my two hours of attack and defense. The developers have finally been generous this time."
I'm motivated to keep playing.
I opened the map, glanced at the mission markers, and then flew over to one that was closest to me.
He cleared all the tasks on the map in one go, showed off his adventures, and was satisfied to see that his balance had increased by more than 3,000 gold and he had reached the friendly reputation level. He felt that his future was promising.
"Oh, right, I haven't checked which heroes were unlocked in the last game level yet."
Show off your adventure by opening the Heroes interface and discover that you have unlocked the purchase rights for five heroes: Qiao Feng, Duan Yu, Xu Zhu, Kang Min, and Lü Zhang.
As for his close friends, only Qiao Feng remained, standing there all alone.
“That’s normal,” Xiu Chuqi comforted herself. “A close friend requires a high level of affection, at least the fifth level of intimate friendship. Unlike a knight-errant, who only needs to reach the second level of meeting too late.”
"Then let's set a small goal for ourselves this time: to make one more close friend."
*********
"What should we do now? Where can we find water?"
No sooner had Hu Tiehua finished speaking than Chu Liuxiang stood up abruptly.
"What's wrong, you old bug?"
Hu Tiehua asked in confusion.
The next moment, before Chu Liuxiang could answer, he knew the answer.
Suddenly, a green gourd with a green lotus leaf on its head, black glasses, and a beard landed in front of him from the sky. Behind the gourd was a small animal whose species he could not identify.
A gourd with a long beard is already rare, but what's even more surprising is that this green gourd also has a pair of long, slender legs.
There was no sunlight, no wind, and no starlight. Hu Tiehua felt that everything in the world was completely silent.
Am I hallucinating because I'm so thirsty?
Just as Hu Tiehua was thinking this, the gourd in front of him suddenly spoke.
"Is there anything I can help you with?"
It was a clear, crisp female voice.
Hu Tiehua was startled and quickly stepped back.
Chu Liuxiang, who was standing next to him, had seen too many ghost stories and was somewhat frightened, but he was still calmer than Hu Tiehua.
"May I ask who you are?"
"Me?" The green gourd tilted its body, and the lotus flower on its head trembled with its movement.
"My name is Show Off Your Adventures, do you need any help?"
Chu Liuxiang calmly asked, "If we need your help, what price would we need to pay?"
“Give me a quarter of the money you have,” the green gourd replied good-naturedly.
"Just money?"
"Just money!"
Chu Liuxiang glanced at Ji Bingyan, and only after seeing him nod did Chu Liuxiang finally smile.
"Alright, then please give us some clean water."
Hu Tiehua pulled out a bucket from somewhere from the green gourd in front of him and leaned forward in surprise to sniff it.
"It's water, it's clean water!"
Is one bucket enough?
Chu Liuxiang, who was about to say "enough," remembered the attack he had been attacked before, and his words changed as he spoke.
"There are many of us, could you give us a few more buckets?"
As they were talking, Ji Bingyan had already handed the silver note to the gourd spirit.
The green gourd was not angry at their greed. After accepting the silver notes, it conjured up more than a dozen wooden buckets filled with clear water out of thin air.
This is more water than they brought when they first entered the desert.
The people present couldn't help but smile easily, but their smiles didn't last long before they froze on their faces.
Suddenly, the green gourd that had just kindly sold them water collapsed to the ground, and Chu Liuxiang keenly sensed that it had lost its life.
Before he could even go forward to check, he saw the little animal following behind the green gourd suddenly grow larger, its ears, which had been standing up, drooped down, and it lowered its head to hide the dead gourd spirit with its tail.
Chu Liuxiang felt a pang of guilt.
"Was it because I was too greedy and asked for too much water that I killed her?"
Before he could apologize, the small animals and the gourd corpse in front of him vanished as if they had never existed.
Only the buckets scattered on the ground here prove that they once existed.
*********
After completing another daily task, Show Off a Strange Encounter and discovers that the next task location is quite far away.
With her strength completely depleted, Xiu Chu was too lazy to run away. She remembered there was a resurrection point nearby, so she simply severed her meridians and died.
After happily completing daily tasks for several days, I finally remembered my main quest after showing off my unexpected encounters.
“Mark all the oases in the desert.”
Show off your amazing encounter by taking out the quest items given by the system from your backpack, only to find that they are just a few small stone tablets.
She used her great lightness skill to fly to every corner of the desert, placing the stone tablet in the oasis, but she couldn't find the last two oases no matter what she did.
"The number of mission items given by the system can't be wrong. It must be that I flew too high, causing me to miss two small oases."
She landed on the ground, thought for a moment, and decided to slowly walk through the desert, conducting a thorough search, hoping to find the last two oases.
However, since we're going to be walking, we should bring a camel with us in the desert, since camels and desert go better together, don't they?
The "Crossing the Desert Boat" can also be released.
She hadn't played with this little toy much. The system description said it could cross deserts and guide lost travelers across the vast ocean to the land of gold. It was a good omen, so she might as well let it out to play for a while.
*********
I talked with Ji Bingyan for a long time and confirmed that he had never encountered such a strange event as the green gourd.
Looking at the buckets scattered all over the ground, Chu Liuxiang couldn't help but give a wry smile.
"I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse."
"Could that gourd spirit be a newly born monster, whose magic is weak because it is still young and cannot withstand too many instances of teleportation?"
"I always felt that I killed it by using too much water."
Hu Tiehua, standing to the side, was also feeling bad; his heart was even softer than Chu Liuxiang's. Tongban's earlier behavior had deeply hurt him, and now, the usually energetic man was unusually listless.
Ji Bingyan, on the other hand, had been through so much hardship in the desert that her heart was much harder than before. She was still able to muster the energy to comfort them.
"Don't think too much about it. As far as I know, gourds grow on vines. Maybe the little gourd spirit just ran out of magic and went back to the main vine to recuperate? We can't think the worst."
"You know, monsters are different from us; their vitality should be much stronger."
Chu Liuxiang and his companions were barely persuaded and finally cheered up again.
The water from the wooden bucket was poured into the still-intact water bladder, and the bucket was still more than half full.
Not wanting to waste such precious resources, the group worked together to move all the water buckets into the carriage. With nowhere else to stay, they left the carriage and rode on camels.
As Chu Liuxiang walked in an unknown direction, he suddenly felt a mysterious guidance.
He looked up and met Hu Tiehua's gaze; sure enough, he saw the same shock in their eyes.
"I feel like something is calling to me."
"Me too," Hu Tiehua said.
“Me too.” Ji Bingyan nodded in agreement.
The three of them simultaneously thought of the gourd spirit who had died earlier.
"Could it be that she's come to seek revenge on us?" Hu Tiehua asked in a trembling voice.
Ji Bingyan shook her head: "It shouldn't be that bad. Although I feel a little guilty for causing her death, it was indeed a fair trade between us."
As the only businesswoman in the group, Ji Bingyan offered her insights.
"Since the gourd spirit is willing to sell water in the desert, it means she is not the kind of monster that harms people in stories. Otherwise, she could simply wait for us to die of thirst and directly harvest our flesh and blood, without having to go through the trouble of trading with us."
Chu Liuxiang also felt that a spirit selling water with small animals couldn't be a bad monster, so he nodded in agreement.
"Since we're already lost, we might as well follow the guidance in our hearts. Whether it's a conspiracy or something that little monster needs our help with, we'll find out once we go and investigate."
Thinking of his three younger sisters, who were still missing, Chu Liuxiang sighed deeply.
"It's better than wandering around like a headless fly. Maybe we'll find a turning point."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
