Question: Why did the bird’s beak get stuck in a rock and refuse to come out?
Answer: Because it was greedy and wanted to sneak a bite of a river clam that could use Earth Escape.
The white crane neither admitted nor denied it, pretending nothing had happened, as if the idiot in question were not itself.
But the guilty look in its eyes gave it away.
As the saying went, when you hit someone, don’t hit the face; when you curse someone, don’t expose their sore spots.
Li Qiuchen did not want to keep entangling himself with this stupid bird over the matter.
Because he had not thought of any particularly good way to extract pearls from these river clams either.
The little things’ Earth Escape was exceedingly marvelous. The moment they sensed danger, they could instantly swap places with the mud and stone beside them.
Unless one caught them off guard, kicked them into the sky, and kept them from touching the lake water or the ground.
But right now, Li Qiuchen had no tools at hand. Even the cleverest housewife could not cook without rice.
The river clams’ habitat was here and would not run away. He could come back and dig for them anytime in the future.
For now, his attention was mainly focused on another matter.
Early in the morning, just as the sky was beginning to brighten, Li Qiuchen opened his eyes.
This time, he did not continue along the river. Instead, he climbed up a ridge by the lake.
Standing on the mountain, his field of vision broadened, allowing him to see far into the distance.
He soon discovered cooking smoke slowly rising in the distance.
People said that mountains that looked close could run a horse to death. Although the smoke seemed only a few li away, who knew how much effort it would take to make the detour over there.
Li Qiuchen weighed it in his heart for a moment, then said to the white crane, “Fly over and check the situation. If they look like good people, we’ll feel our way over. If they don’t look like good people, we’ll go around.”
The white crane looked at him as if he were an idiot.
What did good people look like? Did bad people write the words “bad person” on their faces?
“Just take a look first.”
Li Qiuchen also knew this stupid bird was unreliable, but he had no other choice. He could only pin his hopes on it. Then, based on the information it brought back, he would make a further judgment.
The white crane spread its wings, flew over the mountain ridge, and returned half an hour later. The moment it landed, it began performing.
“Gah gah gah gah gah—”
“Someone died?”
Li Qiuchen’s heart tightened.
“Gah-aw gah—”
“Someone in the village died, and they’re holding a funeral?”
“Gah gah!”
Ah, that was all right then.
Li Qiuchen let out a long breath.
Scared me to death. I thought everyone in the village was dead.
If they still had the mood to hold a funeral, that meant there was no great danger.
In a truly dangerous place, how could there still be living people to hold funerals for the dead?
However, Li Qiuchen did not fully believe the information this stupid bird brought back.
He decided to sneak over and observe carefully.
After crossing two mountain ridges, Li Qiuchen faintly heard the sounds of wind instruments and drums coming from ahead.
The village was at the foot of the mountain, built along the river. From afar, there seemed to be several dozen thatched cottages and over a hundred mu of farmland.
It did indeed look like a proper place.
Even so, Li Qiuchen did not dare approach too closely. He lay on the mountain and waited until the sun set before carefully drawing near.
The white crane followed behind him furtively, like a thief.
As soon as he entered the village entrance, Li Qiuchen smelled the scent of food and could not help swallowing.
A vigilant whine from a village dog sounded from a courtyard. It had smelled the scent of an outsider.
Li Qiuchen quickly waved for the white crane to hide farther away.
His body carried only the scent of grass and trees. Even the wild beasts of the old forest would not grow wary of him.
That stupid bird was different. Its whole body reeked of earth.
The white crane rolled its eyes, hopped away, spread its wings, and flew into the air.
Following the fragrance of food, Li Qiuchen felt his way into the household holding the funeral. To his surprise, it was actually a landlord’s compound. A canopy had been set up in the courtyard, with a coffin placed beneath it. The table beside it was filled with wine and dishes.
This food was not prepared for the living, but offered as tribute to the underworld runners.
On the day a person died, such a table had to be set out. On the seventh day, another table had to be laid.
Li Qiuchen only knew there was such a custom, but in Songlin Village, it had been a long time since he had eaten at anyone else’s banquet.
People rarely died in Songlin Village, and ordinary families could not afford a spread like this either.
The food on the table was cold, but he could not care about that much. He grabbed a steamed bun and tore into it with some pickled vegetables.
He was not hungry. He was purely craving it.
The food and dishes could be set aside for now. When he left, he could pack a portion for the stupid bird.
Li Qiuchen had sneaked in at night mainly because he wanted to steal some useful things.
For example, rice, flour, salt, bowls, chopsticks, and the like.
If there were clothes that fit, he could also take a set. The clothes he wore now had long since been torn to tatters.
After circling the rear courtyard and finding a firewood knife and a hoe, Li Qiuchen was perfectly satisfied.
Farming in the mountains by himself was truly exhausting. Without handy tools, he lived like a savage.
With a firewood knife and a hoe, he could greatly improve his work efficiency, open up more medicinal fields, plant more herbs, and provide more help for his cultivation.
He even wanted to carry off the iron wok as well, but after thinking about it, that felt a little excessive, so he gave up.
There was not much of value in a farming household to begin with. The most precious item was probably that wok.
In the past, when people spoke of smashing the pot and selling the iron, it meant they were ready to stake all their possessions and fight to the death.
Although this family looked like they probably did not lack the money for one wok, Li Qiuchen still did not intend to go too far.
Carrying the sack on his back, Li Qiuchen returned to the front courtyard. Just as he was about to sit down and pack up some food, his footsteps suddenly stopped.
Beside that banquet table sat another person, holding a bowl and chopsticks, head lowered as he shoveled food into his mouth.
The old man was even wearing his burial clothes.
Was this right?
Even though Li Qiuchen was bold and careful, at that moment, he was nearly scared into wetting himself.
The old man who was eating happened to turn his head. Seeing the ragged, disheveled, dirt-covered Li Qiuchen, his hand trembled, and he flung his chopsticks away.
He had also been startled.
The two of them silently stared at each other beneath the canopy for a long time.
“Old sir, what are you…”
Li Qiuchen tentatively asked. After calming down, he observed carefully and found that the old man’s body was quite healthy, not at all like a dead man about to be buried.
Hearing him speak, the old man also secretly let out a breath of relief and chuckled softly. “Little brother, you’re not from the village, are you?”
“I’m from the mountains.”
“Don’t be afraid. I was hungry too, so I got up to pick at a few mouthfuls of food…”
And then you plan to lie back down, is that it?
Li Qiuchen sat down beside him and asked, “I see your body is still quite strong. How did it come to the point of holding a funeral?”
The old man sighed. “When a man grows old and refuses to die, he is called a thief. I have no choice but to die.”
“Your family is unfilial?”
“No, it has nothing to do with my family.”
The old man’s face was full of the vicissitudes of life. He poured himself a cup of wine, drained it in one sip, then began telling Li Qiuchen his story.
“Our village is a pearl-gathering village. Every year, by custom, we pay a batch to the government, and merchants also come to purchase them. In the past, our days were still fairly decent…”
Pearls were divided into southern pearls and northern pearls.
So-called northern pearls were freshwater pearls specially produced in the rivers and lakes of the northern region, a kind of precious jewel.
The official name of the river outside the village was Gouben River. Locals commonly called it Goude’er River. It was a tributary of the Heishui River.
Pearls were also produced in the river. Their quality was average, but they had the advantage of stable yield, enough to let the villagers live without worrying about food or clothing.
The old man was the village chief. It was said that one of his ancestors had been a famous pearl gatherer who once fished up a top-grade “xuan pearl” from the river, allowing his whole family to live good lives.
The pearls in this river were born and nurtured naturally. Their quantity could be guaranteed, but not their quality. A top-grade xuan pearl was even more something one might chance upon but could not seek. In all these years, a second one had never appeared.
Who would have thought this could invite disaster?
About two or three years ago, a bandit gang arrived on Kudang Mountain seventy li away. Their chief, Jiao Potian, had over a hundred men under him, all ruthless and vicious. Who knew where he had heard the news, but he said this village had a xuan pearl. He brought his men into the village under the pretext of celebrating his own father’s birthday and forced the old village chief to present a gift.
He wanted neither gold nor silver. He only wanted the finest xuan pearl.
If they could not produce it, he would kill the old man’s whole family.
Before such unreasonable bandits, no reason or excuse would be of any use.
Helpless, the old man could only change his story. He told Jiao Potian that there was a xuan pearl in the river, but the old clam had profound cultivation, and the pearl gatherers in the village had no ability to bring it up.
“There really is a xuan pearl in the river?”
“There really is, but it also really can’t be fished up.”
The old man sighed. “That stone clam that produces the xuan pearl is no ordinary thing. When I was little, I heard the elders at home say that those stone clams are all of dragon stock. They are born with innate divine abilities. The moment you touch them, they vanish without a trace. There’s simply no way to catch them.”
Uh…
After all that, wasn’t it just the thing I saw by the lake last night?
That counted as dragon stock? Was dragon stock some kind of cabbage by the roadside?
Of course, Li Qiuchen could understand. Country folk had little learning. When they saw cultivators, they called them immortals; when they saw aquatic creatures, they said they were dragon stock… In fact, this was a kind of simple wisdom.
When you encountered something you did not recognize, whether it was human or ghost, there was nothing wrong with giving it a higher title.
“Fishing it up is definitely impossible, and Jiao Potian definitely won’t let it go. So I came up with this…”
Seeing that this disaster could not be avoided, the old man discussed it with his family. They would tell outsiders that he had personally gone into the river to gather pearls and ultimately drowned there.
The greenwood had its own rules.
Jiao Potian had not openly robbed them. Instead, he had demanded it under the pretext of celebrating his own father’s birthday. Regardless of whether he actually had such a father, at least on the surface, it showed that he was still willing to observe the rules of the greenwood.
This was called having a justifiable pretext.
For the sake of his whole family’s survival, the old man was paying with his own life.
This was called death wiping the debt clean.
Everything on this side was already prepared. Now it depended on whether Jiao Potian would accept it.
In truth, the old man himself had no confidence.
Tonight, after running into Li Qiuchen, he hesitated briefly before laying out the entire matter. In his heart, he actually still held on to a few faint hopes.
All because of that sentence Li Qiuchen had said: “I’m from the mountains.”
What family’s child would live alone in the mountains for no reason?
If he said he came from the mountains, then there was only one meaning: it meant he was a mountain spirit.
Mountain spirits often possessed wondrous abilities. If he was willing to help, perhaps he could resolve this deadlock.
Thank you to the mighty Xifeng Songnuan for the massive tip!
Thank you to the mighty Hongse Beike luke for the massive tip!