Ghost and monster stories circulating in the countryside were quite different from ghost and monster stories in the city.
Ghosts and monsters in the city were all very righteous. They emphasized things like karmic cycles and retribution, repaying even a drop of kindness with a gushing spring, transforming into beautiful won to seduce scholars...
Ghosts and monsters in the countryside were very simple. The unified format was all "If you don't listen/sleep/eat, XXX will take you away/eat you!"
What karmic cycles, beautiful won and scholars, country folk didn't understand these things. But wild beasts coming down the mountain, entering the village to steal chickens and dogs and snatch children, these things were very common.
If there were any other way, the old man wouldn't have placed his hopes on Li Qiuchen. However, Li Qiuchen didn't pat his chest and make grand promises.
One who knows oneself knows one's own affairs. He didn't have such a big chest but he was very interested in the dark pearl the old man ntioned.
"What if you stake this life, but that group of bandits still won't let the villagers go?"
"Who knows? Can't fish it up ans can't fish it up. They can't make the whole village jump in the river and drown, right?"
The old man's face was full of sorrow, sighing but the suspicion in Li Qiuchen's heart didn't weaken by half.
This old man wasn't telling the truth.
With Grand Uncle as a warning from the past, he now held strong vigilance toward all old-but-not-dead fellows.
"Back when your family's old ancestor fished up that dark pearl, didn't he leave behind any experience, techniques, or things like that?"
The old man raised his eyelids to glance at Li Qiuchen. After a long silence, he lowered his voice, "There are so sayings, but we descendants are incompetent. We don't have those skills of the old ancestor."
"What kind of sayings?"
"..."
Seeing the old man hesitating sowhat, Li Qiuchen smiled, "Whether you tell
or not doesn't matter. Soone must be more curious than . When the ti cos and you're gone, if that bandit happens to take your family..."
The old man hurriedly grabbed Li Qiuchen and smiled, "Things have co to this, what's there to keep secret? I'll tell you the truth. Back then, my great-grandfather also had a chance encounter. When hunting in the mountains, he ran into a Mountain Lord."
Mountain Lord ant tiger.
"That Mountain Lord was severely injured and collapsed by the water. Blood flowed into the water, attracting countless fish and shrimp to compete for it. Among them was a stone clam. After eating tiger blood, it couldn't digest it, got drunk and collapsed by the river, and my great-grandfather picked up a bargain... You say, this kind of lucky coincidence, how could you encounter it just by saying so?"
I see.
Li Qiuchen nodded. While picking at the food, he followed up asking, "Did that Xiao Tian say when he'd co again?"
"Should be these next few days. I reckon he's due to co."
"Old grandfather, no matter what, I've eaten your family's food and taken so things from your family. I owe your family a favor. How about I help you figure this matter out?"
The old man had been waiting for exactly these words. After hearing them, his face imdiately blood with joy. He hurriedly picked up the wine pot to pour wine for Li Qiuchen, "Little brother, what thod do you have? Speak quickly. As long as you can save my family's old and young lives, whatever you fancy in my house, just take it!"
"Don't get excited yet, old sir."
Li Qiuchen pressed down his wrist and smiled, "I ask you, where did your family's old ancestor encounter that Mountain Lord?"
"In that water puddle in the northern mountains..."
"North side... the one about four or five mu large?"
"Right, right, right!"
"Then listen to . Tomorrow morning, have your family go over there and make a fire and cook by that lake, set up a banquet. I'll help you work so connections, go invite that Mountain Lord out, ask it for a bowl of tiger blood. Maybe we can lure out the stone clam in the lake."
The old man was stunned. Little brother, your connections are this wild? You can invite the Mountain Lord to eat?
"Is this truly so?"
"I'm just offering an idea. Whether it succeeds or not, I don't dare guarantee. But even if I'm deceiving you, it's just deceiving a al. What could your family possibly lose?"
Li Qiuchen shrugged, "There's an old saying about treating a dead horse as if it's alive. If you think it's not appropriate, just pretend I never said it."
"No, no, no, appropriate! Must be appropriate!"
With Li Qiuchen saying it like this, the old man beca anxious instead.
"Tell , how should this food and wine be prepared? Should we cut a couple more catties of at, get so good wine or sothing?"
Two catties of at, you're using that to pick the Mountain Lord's teeth?
Li Qiuchen pointed at the food on the table, "Prepare according to this standard, just make the quantity larger. First stew a big pot of sothing hot, then bring two jars of wine."
The old man looked along Li Qiuchen's pointing finger.
Mountain Lords also love eating pork stewed with vermicelli?
"Also, rember this: after the food is ready, leave quickly. Don't have people stay there."
Li Qiuchen said seriously, "If the Mountain Lord discovers them and eats both people and food together, don't bla
then."
"Yes, yes, I understand."
The old man was overjoyed and repeatedly urged him to drink. In his eyes, this wasn't any child. It was clearly a transford spirit, and not an ordinary spirit at that.
What ordinary little demon would dare joke using the Mountain Lord's na?
Seeing him believe it without doubt, Li Qiuchen wasn't polite with him either. He raised his hand to block the wine, pulled out a copper basin from the sack, dumped all the food on the table into the basin, shouldered the sack, and turned to leave.
Just as he went out the door, the old man chased after him from behind, holding a half-cut sauced pig head in his hand, "Little brother, little brother, take this too! Our family has a vat of cornal in the back room. Wait a mont, I'll pack it for you..."
"Next ti, let's talk about it next ti!"
Li Qiuchen didn't even have a storage bag. How could he carry so much stuff? Taking advantage of the old man going back, he took off running.
Running out of the village in one breath for two li, Li Qiuchen unloaded the sack from his body. Before he could catch his breath, the white crane flapped its wings and descended from the sky.
"Ga ga!"
"I know, I know, don't snatch!"
Is snatching useful? You can't even get it into your own mouth.
Li Qiuchen had just set down the basin when the white crane plunged its whole head down, burying its entire head in the basin, and began wolfing it down.
A living person can't be suffocated by urine. Although this eating thod looked a bit ugly, it was still better than starving to death.
This stupid bird only knew how to eat all day.
Sotis Li Qiuchen even suspected that under its feathers, it only had a stomach pouch.
A whole basin of food was eaten clean by it in the blink of an eye. Even the basin was licked clean with its tongue. Even like this, it still had so lingering desire, staring at the sauced pig head in Li Qiuchen's hand, seemingly still having ideas.
"Eating more would be cannibalism among your own kind."
The white crane was silent for a mont. After reacting that Li Qiuchen had called it a pig, it unceremoniously slapped a wing across Li Qiuchen's face.
Li Qiuchen decided to give it an even worse nickna. He'd just call it Gaga Pig.
After eating and drinking their fill and returning to the lakeside, Li Qiuchen began preparing tomorrow's plan.
He definitely didn't know any Mountain Lord. Coaxing the old man to co set up a feast was just coveting his family's big iron pot, and incidentally wanting to mooch another free al.
As for how to catch the stone clam and obtain the dark pearl, Li Qiuchen also had ideas in his heart, but wasn't in a hurry to practice them.
That old man seed quite honest as a person, but he hadn't told the truth.
Or rather, he hadn't revealed all the information to him.
From beginning to end, there were two things he'd never made clear.
One was the governnt.
This village wasn't as remote and isolated as Songlin Village. rchants would co to purchase pearls, and the governnt would co to collect taxes.
Now that such a matter had occurred, why didn't you report it to the authorities?
This point could be understood. Perhaps there were various unspeakable difficulties. For example, the governnt didn't handle matters, or the distance to the county seat was too far, distant water couldn't save a nearby fire.
Li Qiuchen didn't understand the local situation and couldn't make a judgnt but the second matter, thinking it over carefully, was very strange.
The village had only fished up one dark pearl over these years, and that was a very long ti ago. How did the newly arrived bandits know about it and even run to the door to demand it?
Li Qiuchen felt there were two possibilities.
One possibility was that the old man's family had provoked so enemy who used the dark pearl as an excuse and hired bandits to make trouble for their family.
The other possibility was... his family actually truly hid a thod for obtaining pearls, but the information leaked out and fell into interested parties' ears.
Or both.
"What do you think?"
Li Qiuchen actually felt it was superfluous to ask this stupid bird this question, but there were no other living things nearby to chat with.
"Ga!"
The white crane pointed at the food basin and clenched its claws.
This stupid bird's thoughts were quite simple. Since it had eaten people's food, it should help people settle matters.
"What if we can't obtain the dark pearl, and that group of bandits is unreasonable and won't let the villagers go?"
"Ga!"
Then fight to the death!
The white crane viciously made a throat-slitting gesture.
Quite a heavy killing intent.
The problem was, you're a stupid bird that even has difficulty feeding itself, plus , this child who can't carry on shoulders or lift with hands. How do we deal with a group of fierce and evil bandits?
Things have co to this...
"Let's sleep first."
With not much intelligence and clues at hand, Li Qiuchen couldn't make rash judgnts either.
Early the next morning, there was movent from the village side.
Li Qiuchen hid in the forest, watching several villagers co to the lakeside to make a fire and set up a pot, arranging tables, chairs, bowls, and chopsticks.
Country folk were relatively honest. Saying they'd prepare a banquet, they earnestly prepared, actually carrying over a live pig weighing several hundred catties to butcher and dismber on the spot.
The local feast had a very simple and direct na, just called Pig Slaughter Dish.
During festivals after slaughtering a pig, they'd use pig blood for sausages, cut large fatty at slices, put them together with heart, liver, stomach, lungs, and big bones into a pot, add last year's pickled old sauerkraut shreds and stew them.
This was the main dish. The remaining parts each had their own thods. The most common were pork stewed with vermicelli, crystal pork knuckle, braised pig trotters, sauced pig head, roasted ribs...
The thods were actually all very simple. Whether it tasted good mainly depended on the pig's quality.
The villagers also didn't know the Mountain Lord's tastes. Very cleverly, they only cooked half a side, hanging the other half of the pig beside it, and left five large jars of aged wine.
This busy work took most of the day. Seeing the sun slanting west, after the several people discussed, they should withdraw early.
The employer had instructed that no people should remain on site. Who knew how big the Mountain Lord's appetite was? What if it wasn't full and took them as a midnight snack?
As soon as these people left, Li Qiuchen stood up and walked out openly. Coming to the pot, he filled himself a bowl of yellow rice, sat down, and wolfed it down.
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