Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 235 A Village Filled with Yellow Fruit

The rest at home did not last long.

That very night, after the female ghost was laid to rest and thrown into the large vat, Ran Qing had a dream.

In his dream, he saw an incredibly thick and enormous ancient tree.

Many skeletons were buried beneath the tree, and the tree's roots meandered and burrowed among them.

The red character for "fate" hopped and skipped to the foot of the tree. Suddenly, a gust of cold wind blew by, causing the leaves of the towering tree to rustle and revealing many strange eyes among them.

The next second, the red character for "fate" rushed towards the giant tree and disappeared into the trunk.

The instant the character "命" (fate) entered the tree trunk, countless faces screaming in agony flooded Ran Qing's vision, and countless pale, rotting hands frantically engulfed him...

"hiss!"

Ran Qing, feeling cold all over, suddenly sat up.

The house was deathly silent in the middle of the night.

Only the faint sound of a television drifted from the next room, Mo Li's room, so low it was almost inaudible.

"...It's easy to spare your life, but give me back my life!"

Immediately following was a burst of rapid and intense suona music, accompanied by a scream.

The music was clearly uplifting and pleasant, but the peculiar tone of the suona gave Ran Qing a conditioned reflex of goosebumps.

The group of pale ghosts in the Wujiang Ghost Realm left him with a deep psychological trauma.

Having just had a nightmare and witnessed a terrifying scene, Ran Qing suddenly heard the sound of suona horns. Her heart pounded, and she nearly choked.

"The curse of the Life Master talisman has been cast..."

Ran Qing murmured.

That incredibly realistic nightmare was the first-person perspective from which the curse was successfully cast by the Life Master card.

The ghost we're going to catch at Lao Wang Mountain this time is actually a tree?

Ran Qing felt somewhat confused.

Aunt Liu's booklet became very simple after we got to the back of Longchang Street.

They only gave the location, unlike before when they clearly stated what needed to be prepared.

Ran Qing got dressed, got out of bed, pushed open the door, walked through the main room, and knocked on Mo Li's door next door.

At 10 a.m. the next day, two motorcycles set off from Park Road and headed out of the city.

Lao Wang Mountain is more than 100 kilometers away from Yue Zhao City. If it were in later times, it would only take a little over an hour to reach it by taking the highway.

But nowadays, Zangke is barren and impoverished. Forget about highways, even the provincial roads are just dilapidated dirt roads without asphalt paving.

Once it rains, the roads become full of potholes and puddles.

The dirt road winding through the mountains is bumpy, difficult to travel, and desolate.

After the motorcycle left Moonlit City, there were vast, uninhabited, desolate mountains and wilderness, with no signs of human habitation in sight.

Fortunately, this time we were going to Ran Qing's hometown, so he was naturally familiar with the road conditions.

With his directions, I wasn't worried about getting lost.

The wobbly motorcycle continued to bump along until it was almost dark before the four of them finally arrived at Laowang Mountain.

By the time the motorcycle entered the village where Ran Qing had grown up, the sun had already set, the sky was overcast, and night was beginning to fall.

In the dim light, the motorcycle headlights pierced through the narrow dirt roads in the village.

At the entrances of the wooden houses, villagers watched with curiosity and wariness as the two unfamiliar motorcycles entered the village.

Only after seeing Ran Qing in the car did the villagers in front of the wooden houses lower their guard and smile.

"...It's a small stone."

"Ran Qing is back."

"Little Ranqing is on holiday?" The villagers on both sides of the road greeted Ranqing with smiles.

Zangke is mountainous with steep terrain. The land at the foot of Laowang Mountain can be considered relatively flat, but the wooden and tile houses built by the villagers are scattered here and there.

Some families built their houses next to each other, while others were separated by other tiled houses by dozens of meters.

There wasn’t a single piece of flat land that could accommodate so many villagers building houses at the same time.

These sparsely scattered wooden and tiled houses are divided by patches of barren and arid land.

The village is situated at a low altitude, with the rushing Zangke River not far below. The air is thick with moisture, and instead of the potatoes and corn commonly found in the Zangke region, the villagers cultivate lush green yellow fruit trees, interspersed with a few sugarcane plants.

Where the mountain stream flows, there are several acres of terraced rice paddies distributed on the mountainside.

As the motorcycle drove past the rice paddies, a woman with her trousers rolled up to her knees, standing in the paddies catching eels, saw Ran Qing on the motorcycle and called out.

"Little Stone is back? The soil in the ditch behind your house was washed away by the flood a few days ago."

Ran Qing recognized the woman's voice and quickly thanked her, "Okay, Auntie! I'll get ready when I get back."

Yanggou is actually the drainage ditch behind a wooden-tiled house.

However, the word "yin" is taboo in the villages of Zangke, so "yin gou" (ditch) should be replaced with "yang gou" (ditch).

Just like the market in Zangke area is arranged according to the twelve zodiac animals, but because the villagers of snake farm are very superstitious about snakes, snake farm is called Shunchang.

In rural areas, there are many taboos passed down from elders.

Ran Qing chatted and laughed with the villagers she had known since childhood.

He was already sitting on Long Zongshu's motorcycle, leaving Mo Li to ride alone.

Although she didn't have any ill feelings towards the villagers, Ran Qing knew all too well how eloquent the women in the village were.

If someone saw him riding back on a motorcycle with a young girl, who knows what version of the story would emerge the next day.

The four people on their motorcycles traversed the dirt roads between the villages and soon arrived at the foot of a straight earthen embankment more than three meters high.

Above the earthen embankment was a lush grove of yellow fruit trees, and a path sloping down led to the end of the embankment, where Ran Qing's old house was located.

The motorcycle couldn't go up there, so it had to be parked on the side of the dirt path.

After parking the car, the three of them carried the paper figures and backpacks and walked towards the old house.

The dampness in the air and the unique fragrance of Huangguoshu fruit were all familiar and comforting to Ran Qing.

He came to the village where he had grown up, back to familiar surroundings, and his steps seemed much lighter.

Most importantly, there was no sign of Ran Jianfei returning.

Ran Qing and the other two arrived at the old house. The empty wooden house was desolate and lifeless, with the door tightly closed. The big yellow fruit tree planted at the door rustled in the night wind, and the sound of its leaves seemed to be welcoming Ran Qing.

Although Ran Qing's father came here, he did not appear in this old house, so Ran Qing did not need to worry about running into him.

Seeing this scene, Ran Qing finally let go of the last trace of worry in her heart.

He smiled and walked towards the wooden house, saying, "Just put the paper figure at the door."

He placed the two paper figures side by side at the entrance of the wooden house, and the paper figures that Mo Li and Zong Shu carried were also placed there.

Ran Qing took out her key and opened the tightly closed wooden door.

Instantly, a musty smell, as if no one had lived there for a long time, wafted out of the wooden house.

In the cold stove, there was still a pile of ashes left by Ran Qing when she left a few months ago.

Ran Qing said, "You guys wait at the door for a while. Once the air inside has dissipated, I'll go to the back and clean up the soil in the ditch."

He went inside and brought out two stools, which he gave to Mo Li and Long Zongshu to sit on.

He then picked up a hoe and went to the back of the house.

This is his home, the hometown where he grew up. He can imagine every blade of grass and every tree here with his eyes closed.

Ran Qing arrived here with ease, exuding a relaxed and joyful confidence.

(End of this chapter)