Strange Stories

Chapter 494 Thundering Cloud
The glow of the sunset gradually dimmed.

I wonder how many lights there will be in this mountain village thousands of years from now. Now there is not a single light here at night, but it is not pitch dark and it is not without decoration. The dazzling starry sky is rotating above the mountain and is reflected in the terraced fields. The backs of a man and a fox are still visible on the mountain.

I didn't find the dark cloud, and I don't know what it is.

After a long time, Lin Jue closed his eyes and started practicing.

At midnight, a few thunders sounded, shattering the fox's dream. At dawn, a chill came over the Taoist priest's clothes.

As I said yesterday, today is a rainy and foggy day.

When Lin Jue opened his eyes, he saw fog all around him. He could only see tiny water droplets moving in the wind. The mirror-like terraces and the purple-red sunrise of the past were all gone.

The sky gradually brightened and the world became vast.

Lin Jue sat in the thatched hut.

I never thought that rain and fog could have such a unique flavor.

The sunny day and dark clouds are competing in the sky, and the mountain fog and rain are also competing on the ground. The fog is like a tide. Once the rain stops, it will quickly surge up from the bottom of the valley. Once the rain gets heavy, the mountain fog is suppressed by the sound of the raindrops hitting the leaves in the forest, and sinks to the bottom of the valley. As a result, a corner of the terraced fields is exposed in the rain.

At this time, Lin Jue lowered his head——

You can see a white fox jumping around in the terraced fields not far below, sometimes catching fish and digging loaches, sometimes chasing ducks from some household, carefree and having a great time.

There were no crops in the terraced fields at this time, as they were still in the stage of releasing water to cultivate the fields. There were many large and small fish and loaches in the fields. It was not the first day that the beast had been playing in the fields, and it seemed as if it would never have enough fun, so Lin Jue ate a lot of the fish and loaches that it had roasted using the solar spirit fire.

The mountain fog rose and fell, sometimes submerging and hiding it, and sometimes appearing before Lin Jue's eyes.

Such a scene can keep immortals watching for a long time.

"Come down and play!"

Suddenly, a fox's voice came from below.

"..."

"Play!"

A gentle breeze blew by, and in a whoosh, the Taoist in the thatched cottage was blown away without a trace and landed on the ridge of the field below.

The Taoist looked down at the fox, and the fox looked up at the Taoist.

"Look!"

The fox jumped high up from the water, drew an arc in the air, and dived down suddenly, suddenly biting a small fish in its mouth, the size of a finger.

"Um……"

"Come and play, too!"

"I don't play."

“Come and play!”

"I watch you play."

The Taoist priest has lost some of his childishness, but has also gained a lot of patience.

"Let's go!" The fox swallowed the fish in one gulp and looked down at the terraced field, deep in the mist. "Let's go to the mushroom village over there and see if we can still buy food!"

"How can that be considered paying for a meal? That's someone else's funeral."

"Pay the money! Eat!"

The fox's tone was serious and he was not so easy to convince.

"You..."

"Let's go!" The fox jumped up from the field and onto the ridge. He shook his body slightly, and the mud and water on half of his legs were clean, without a speck of dust. "Since we can't find Yun today, the fox will take you to see the flowers of the fruit tree!"

Although Lin Jue did not agree, he did not object.

He had intended to take this trip himself.

It's a good opportunity to see if what the fox did yesterday caused any trouble or affected others. If it caused a bad impact, I have to help others solve it.

So a beautiful and magical little white fox walked in front, along the ridge of the terraced field, taking small and quick steps, stopping from time to time to look around, and sometimes to see if the Taoist priest behind it was keeping up. The narrow ridge and the wet mud soaked by the rain did not bother it at all. A Taoist priest behind it followed slowly, and was not trapped by the narrow and muddy ridge. The two figures were in the fog and in the water of the terraced field.

The mountain was very high. They walked from the top of the mountain to the valley. Mountain fog was accumulating below. The man and the fox walked slowly. Almost every time they went down a level, the fog retreated a level.

As time went on, the mountain rain went from sporadic to frequent, and the fields below gradually began to move.

An old man with a hunched back, wearing a straw raincoat and a bamboo hat, walked slowly upwards with his hands behind his back, leading a buffalo in his hand. He came along the terraced path from the mountain fog. The fog behind him was rising and falling, as if he was leading the fog towards a man and a fox above.

There were also women working barefoot in the fields, digging the soil with hoes.

There were also men walking in groups of three or four into the fields, checking the water release gaps and the water level and weeds in the fields, talking from time to time.

When they met this man and the fox, they all looked at them sideways.

"It's time for spring ploughing..."

“Why are they all looking at me?”

"I wonder if the situation in the world below the mountain has been determined..."

"I turned into a dog!"

The fox took a step forward and turned into a white dog. It turned its head and looked left and right, then turned back to the Taoist and said, "The village ahead is where I paid for my meal and saw flowers blooming!" The wind blew away the fog, and a village appeared faintly.

The local people have strange customs. The corners of their houses are relatively round. They like to use thick thatch as roofs, which are also relatively round. The houses look like yellowish mushrooms. But after living there for a long time, the humidity in the mountains is much heavier than that in the mountains. A layer of moss will grow on the roofs, which looks green and more like mushrooms.

The stone paths in the village were lined with gutters, and rainwater was pouring down.

However, the village is very lively today.

The fox led Lin Jue, but Lin Jue walked very slowly, and from time to time he could hear the discussions of the local villagers.

"Woof!"

"No hurry." Lin Jue said, "Besides, you don't sound like one at all."

"Wang~"

The fox turned its head and licked its wet fur.

Scatteredly, stopping here for a while, listening there for a while, Lin Jue finally understood why the village was so lively today.

Two reasons:

One was that someone in the village passed away yesterday. During the funeral, everyone went to pay their respects, but a girl from the end of the village also went. This girl was from a poor family and had no relatives or friends with the family, but she gave a whole piece of gold without saying a word or sitting down to eat. She just gave the gift money, took two bowls of meat and left. It was very strange.

After all, it was a funeral and everyone who came was a guest. There was no reason to refuse guests. Although the family felt something was wrong and even suspected that the gold was fake, they did not question it in public.

Because he was busy, he saw her taking the bowl and leaving, so he didn't stop her.

Later that night, I discovered that the gold was actually real.

That family has always been kind to others and has a good reputation in the village. They are also kind-hearted. They brought gold early this morning and went to find the girl in the rain. They guessed that the girl did not know the value of gold, so they wanted to return some of it to her so that she could live a better life. However, they found that she had not been to their place that day, but had been working in the home of a rich man in the village.

"Oh my god, how could this happen..."

"Everyone in the village said that Grandpa Zhayue must have done good things all his life. At his age, he should have been enjoying his life, but he was accidentally beaten to death by the heavenly creature. The gods couldn't stand it, so they turned into Pumei to send gold to their family!"

"real or fake?"

"Of course it is! A bowl of fish and a bowl of meat, aren't they both offerings to the gods?"

"oops……"

There is often a small yard or open space in front of these mushroom houses, which can be used to dry food. When the rain stopped for a while, women would sit on small wooden stools and chat in the open space. The pear tree next to the house was in full bloom with snow-white flowers, embellishing the bluestone road and this quiet mountain village.

Lin Jue stood under the tree, seemingly admiring the flowers.

A white dog stood in the middle of the road in front of him. It turned its head and stared at him seriously, as if urging him to walk faster with its eyes. It didn't realize at all that the women were talking about it.

Or maybe you heard it but pretended not to.

Or maybe it's not interested and doesn't care.

How can a fox think the same way as a human? And how can a human understand a fox's thoughts?

After listening for a long time, Lin Jue finally took a step forward.

That’s another matter.

There were two extremely rebellious and unfilial people in the village.

These are two brothers.

The two were addicted to gambling, extremely lazy, and aggressive. They stole and fought all day long, bullied men and women, and bullied the neighbors. They stole all the money in the house, and sold all the valuable items, such as tables and chairs. In comparison, they were restrained when they were young, but the older they got, the more arrogant they became. They made their parents starve at home, and it was common for them to drive them out of the house in the middle of the night. In today's world of filial piety, they have undoubtedly become the object of scorn in the mountain village. No one in the surrounding area has not heard of them.

After their reputation became ruined, unexpectedly, not only did they not change, but they became even worse. Not long after the beginning of this year, my elderly parents were starved to death at home by them.

The villagers couldn't stand it, but they didn't dare to provoke him.

Finally, they asked an old man who was respected by everyone in the village and could barely be considered their cousin to go and persuade them, but they did not expect that he was accidentally beaten to death by them.

That was the family that Fuyao went to give gifts to yesterday.

By accident, the good guy was compensated.

Anyway, this is a bigger matter.

Everyone in the village cursed and said that the two brothers would be struck by lightning.

There is indeed a rumor here -

Those who commit heinous crimes and kill their fathers and mothers will be struck by lightning. It is said that there have been people struck by lightning in the past.

After the two brothers did this, they were a little frightened. As the weather had changed last night, the elder brother hid in the cellar. Only the younger brother did not believe it, thinking that the rumors were just made up to fool people. As a result, at five o'clock in the morning, five thunders struck from the sky, shattering the roof and beating him to death in his bed.

The two things are related and coincidental.

This morning, in this small village, everyone was preaching these two things, to warn themselves and to educate their descendants to be filial and kind.

No one knew that the protagonist of one of the stories had turned into a white dog, standing on the side of the road scratching itself. When it heard their conversation, it acted as if it didn't hear anything and remained indifferent.

The villagers seemed not to see them.

"Is it the cloud from yesterday?"

Lin Jue murmured to himself, he didn't expect that this trip would bring him such an unexpected gain.

This cloud was just what he wanted!
(End of this chapter)