Many things had happened in Songlin Village ten years ago.
Hong Yang's parents had sacrificed themselves, the Li family's eldest daughter had defected, and Guan Damu opened his noodle shop.
There were some things Hong Yang had only just learned.
There were some things Li Qiuchen had known long ago, and he knew more than Hong Yang besides.
The villagers had little concept of secrecy. Their daily idle chatter about this family and that revealed much information, all of which Li Qiuchen heard, but he always pretended to know nothing.
Because the Great-Granduncle had eyes and ears in the village.
Two children running off to the back mountain in the middle of the night—such a thing could never be hidden from the Great-Granduncle's eyes and ears.
The moment Hong Yang stepped into the village, the villagers blocked his path, binding him hand and foot like a rice dumpling.
"Let me go! Let me go!"
Hong Yang looked in terror at Third Uncle and Fourth Uncle around him, their faces expressionless and their gazes cold. These villagers who usually smiled so cheerfully when they saw him had become especially terrifying tonight.
"Who allowed you to break the seal on your own?"
The Great-Granduncle emerged from the crowd with a cold expression, questioning him sharply.
"What seal? No, wait—how did you know I broke the seal?"
Hong Yang shouted and yelled, but no one paid him any mind.
The Great-Granduncle said indifferently, "Naturally, it's because Qiuchen was worried something would happen to you, so he told me about it in advance. But I never expected that you little brat would truly disregard the life and death of the villagers and act so recklessly!"
"What?"
Hong Yang whirled his head around, staring fixedly at Li Qiuchen. "I treated you like a brother, and you actually betrayed me?"
All eyes fell upon Li Qiuchen.
Li Qiuchen looked at Hong Yang, then at the sinister face of the Great-Granduncle in the shadows of the torchlight, and shook his head. "I didn't."
"You're lying!"
Hong Yang's eyes were red, heartbroken.
Only the three of us knew about this. If it wasn't you, was it Shopkeeper Guan?
The villagers escorted Hong Yang away, but the Great-Granduncle did not leave. He stood in place, leaning on his cane, and sized up Li Qiuchen with a scrutinizing gaze.
These two boys had been inseparable since childhood, their bond surpassing that of real brothers. But even between brothers, cracks were inevitable. After this incident, presumably the trust between them could no longer be maintained.
"Great-Granduncle, why are you lying?"
Li Qiuchen was silent for a moment before asking.
The corners of the Great-Granduncle's mouth rose. This was the reaction a child ought to have.
What scheming could a little child possess? Having suffered such a great injustice, it was impossible to resist asking.
It was just that this reaction was a bit slow, but that was fine. Without their ocular art, the Li family were merely flesh-and-blood mortals.
"You're still young and don't understand anything. Go back and sleep!"
"What about Hong Yang?"
"He has caused a great disaster this time. Without severe punishment, it will not be enough to satisfy the public. You have always been a good child; you mustn't learn from his rashness."
"Fine."
Li Qiuchen silently sighed to himself that his act as a child was still unconvincing. At a time like this, his emotions should have been more intense. What kind of child didn't cry and make a fuss?
Fortunately, the Great-Granduncle was no professional operative, and with matters weighing on his mind, he didn't notice these details.
Returning home, Li Qiuchen lay on his bed and closed his eyes.
The image of General Crayfish immediately appeared in his darkened vision.
Nine feet long, its entire body covered in pitch-black shell, upon which faint, mottled traces of blades and swords could still be seen.
A thread of blood light extended from the crown of its head down into its body. This was the essence of the crayfish spirit, as well as its fatal weak point.
One might also call it the vein.
The village was only so big; even trivial matters spread like wildfire.
When Li Qiuchen went out in the morning, several little children made faces at him from afar, threw stones, and shouted, "Traitor! Spy!"
Before Li Qiuchen could react, the children scattered with a clamor.
These were the children who usually played tag-along behind him and Hong Yang. They slept until dawn; how could they know anything about traitors or spies?
Li Qiuchen lifted his head to look at the old willow tree swaying in the village wind, and said nothing.
Hong Yang had been locked in the ancestral hall and beaten severely, so much so that his skin split and flesh tore; he couldn't even crawl.
The Great-Granduncle led the village's able-bodied men in a grand charge to the back mountain, fighting General Crayfish for three hundred rounds. After paying an extremely painful price, they finally captured the crayfish spirit alive in one fell swoop.
The battered villagers cheerfully carried the tightly bound crayfish spirit back to the village. Its massive body amazed those who had stayed behind.
This thing was as big as an old sow. Without the shell, there must be several hundred jin of meat, right?
But in the end, it wouldn't end up in the villagers' mouths. The Great-Granduncle publicly announced that all the crayfish meat would be fed to Yingcao.
To placate everyone, the Great-Granduncle explained tirelessly again and again: no matter how much crayfish meat there was, divided among the households, it would only amount to one bite per person. Once Yingcao cultivated to immortality, wouldn't the villagers have meat and fish at every meal?
Though disappointed, the villagers finally accepted this explanation reluctantly.
After all, this was how things had been all these years.
As the scholars said: one general... one general what? Right—one general's success is built upon ten thousand bleached bones!
How could cultivation to immortality be so easy? Songlin Village's ancestors had once been prosperous; everyone understood the principle that one must give before receiving. If they gritted their teeth and endured a few more years, once the village produced an immortal, wouldn't their hard days finally be over?
Another great creature had been added to the ancestral hall.
Hong Yang had a rag stuffed in his mouth, his hands and feet bound, cast into a corner.
The crayfish spirit was suspended from a roof beam, not allowed to touch the ground, lest it use an earth escape technique to flee.
Once everyone dispersed, the Great-Granduncle walked into the ancestral hall alone. He had no sooner sat down in the chair than he began coughing violently, and with the coughing, a mouthful of old blood sprayed onto the ground.
The crayfish spirit couldn't help but sneer upon seeing this: "Old bastard, you're about to die!"
"If you had hidden in the village to recuperate, you could have lived two more years. You insisted on fighting me head-on; let's see how many days you have left!"
The Great-Granduncle smiled tragically: "Two years... how could that be enough? I want to live another two hundred years!"
The crayfish spirit mocked: "Do I look like something that extends your lifespan when eaten?"
It was said that ginseng, lingzhi, and fleeceflower root could prolong life, but no one had ever heard of anyone eating spicy crawfish to extend their years.
"At this point, how would I know unless I gamble?"
The Great-Granduncle sighed: "Originally, I wanted to wait for this foolish boy to grow up, then use your aquatic demon power as a medicinal primer to stimulate the True Dragon bloodline in his body. I never expected this foolish boy would run to the back mountain himself, bewitched by your rumors, nearly ruining this old man's grand scheme!"
"Now that things have come to this, I can only settle for second best—dig out the demon core from within your body and offer it to the Medicine Master, begging for a bit more grace..."
His voice grew lower and lower, until finally he closed his eyes and dozed off.
"True Dragon bloodline?"
The crayfish spirit glanced at Hong Yang huddled in the corner and said disdainfully, "This old bastard doesn't have an honest word in his mouth. You really believed he would wait for you to grow up?"
Hong Yang was gagged and couldn't speak; he only grunted twice.
At the same time, Li Qiuchen was standing outside Wang Er Mazi's home, silently observing the activity inside.
This time, the Great-Granduncle had paid a bloody price to go to the back mountain. Over a hundred of the village's able-bodied men were injured, and among the most severely wounded—Wang Er Mazi, for example—had practically been disemboweled, blood flowing all over the ground.
Anywhere else, his family would already be preparing his funeral affairs.
But under the protection of the Medicine Master, such injuries were far from fatal.
Wang Er Mazi lay in the courtyard. Outside, the great willow tree's branches slowly drooped down, twining around his body. A gentle force cascaded through the branches, healing that horrific wound in his chest at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The entire village was quiet. Those injured villagers were all receiving identical treatment.
And their families were all kneeling beside the wounded at this moment, silently reciting the Medicine Master's compassion.
Li Qiuchen left without betraying any emotion, walking as lightly as possible, and stealthily arrived at the noodle shop's entrance.
Glancing at the motionless old elm tree at the door, Li Qiuchen pushed the door open and entered.
Shopkeeper Guan, sitting behind the counter idly playing with copper coins, smiled slightly when he saw him come in.
The Great-Granduncle's eyes and ears covered the entire village; everyone's every move was under his surveillance. No matter what you said or did, he knew it all perfectly.
The villagers didn't dare speak ill of the Great-Granduncle in private, but after a few cups of horse piss, who could resist the urge to vent?
Li Qiuchen had observed mosquitoes, insects, snakes, and rats, and even searched for hidden cameras, finally identifying the suspects as the thirty-six ancient trees planted in the village in rather peculiar arrangements.
Now these ancient trees were devoting all their energy to treating the village's wounded, so presumably they had no spare energy to spy on others' movements.
Walking to the counter, Li Qiuchen dipped his finger in tea and wrote three characters on the counter.
—Is it enough?
Shopkeeper Guan gave a simple, honest smile and tilted his head, indicating for him to follow into the back kitchen.
Entering the back kitchen, Shopkeeper Guan lifted a wooden board at his feet, revealing a passage to the cellar, and led Li Qiuchen down.
Upon entering the cellar, Li Qiuchen was met by a thick, sulfurous stench.
The walls were hung with all kinds of strangely shaped mechanisms and hidden weapons.
This was originally a craft Shopkeeper Guan had learned outside, but the Great-Granduncle had denounced it as wicked trickery and ordered it sealed.
How could this stuff count as wicked trickery?
Looking at the pitch-black iron lumps neatly arranged in the crates, Li Qiuchen felt this was the true reason for the Great-Granduncle's strict ban.
Palm Thunder, also called Hand Cannons.
Commonly known as improvised explosives.
Was it enough? More than enough!
Shopkeeper Guan had actually managed to produce two full crates—a hundred Palm Thunder bombs—right under the Great-Granduncle's nose. And in three large wooden barrels beside them, they were bursting with loose black powder.
Li Qiuchen picked up one Palm Thunder and examined it carefully for a moment, asking in a low voice, "Do they work?"
"They definitely work."
Shopkeeper Guan said in a muffled voice: "The problem is how to place them in the right places, detonate them at the right time, and not be discovered by the Great-Granduncle in the meantime."
"In two days, the Great-Granduncle will lead the clan to worship the Medicine Master."
Li Qiuchen set down the Palm Thunder and said gravely, "I'll find something to keep the Great-Granduncle occupied. As for the rest, I'll have to trouble you, Old Uncle."