Chapter 446: Good People Naturally Have Good Fortune |
This night was a long one for the local Land God and the ghosts of the cemetery, and equally so for all the people of Maotan Village.
As the morning sun shone brightly down on the earth, the people of Maotan Village gradually awoke. Liao Daqiu and his wife straightened up from the bed, feeling aches and pains in their backs.
“Ugh… Hey, honey, I didn’t sleep well at all last night, I had a nightmare in the middle of the night…”
The woman stopped mid-sentence, got out of bed, took a sip of water from the kettle, and then continued speaking.
“I dreamt that I was sleeping on a battlefield, surrounded by shouts of battle, as if two armies were fighting fiercely, but I just couldn’t get up. I wanted to open my eyes but couldn’t, my eyes were burning.”
Upon hearing his wife’s words, Liao Daqiu immediately became agitated.
“Me too! I couldn’t open my eyes no matter what I did, but I could feel the fierce fighting all around me, it was terrifying!”
“You dreamed about that too?”
The wife asked in surprise.
After their initial agitation subsided, the two looked at each other in bewilderment before quickly getting dressed.
After Liao Daqiu finished tidying up and went outside, he saw that his neighbor, Old Zhang, had already rushed to his front door.
“Old Liao, Old Liao! Let me tell you, I had a dream last night that there was a war going on around our village. The sounds of battle were deafening, and I couldn’t open my eyes because I was so scared! It wasn’t just me; my wife had the same dream, and so did Old Liu’s family!”
Liao Daqiu swallowed hard and hurriedly took a few steps outside before speaking.
“Old Zhang, to be honest, my wife and I had the same dream. We couldn’t see anything but we could hear things, and it felt like there was a war going on around us. We felt like we were dead bodies… Ugh, I mean, it felt like we were sleeping very soundly!”
Old Zhang subconsciously took a few steps closer, looked at Liao Daqiu, and asked in a low voice.
“Old Liao, don’t you think… did the ghosts in those cemeteries already fight the plague last night?”
Liao Daqiu glanced in the direction of the cemetery and nodded subconsciously.
“We can’t say for sure!”
Then the two vaguely heard the sounds in the village getting louder and louder. The villagers, now all awake, were telling each other about the terrible dreams they had had the night before. As they talked, they realized that, except for a few people who had slept very soundly, most people had experienced similar dreams.
Some people could only hear the voices but not see the people, and knew they were on the battlefield even though they couldn’t open their eyes. Others could open their eyes a crack, though not enough to see anything aside from an eerie green light and a large number of chaotic silhouettes charging and fighting amidst the blinding footsteps.
Nobody here was stupid. This situation didn’t need to be explained too clearly; everyone could connect it to the battle flags and weapons burned for the spirits of the cemetery a while ago, and the dreams the ghosts of the cemetery and the local Land God had respectively entrusted to Liao Daqiu and the old village head.
Many villagers in Maotan didn’t even bother with breakfast. They wandered around the village several times, but found no trace of a battlefield. However, they unexpectedly encountered two outsiders.
When Liao Daqiu and the old village chief led seven or eight men from the village to the cemetery, they saw two men, one in a white robe and the other in a blue robe, standing outside looking at the cemetery. Hearing footsteps, they turned around to look at the villagers of Maotan Village, but their faces showed no surprise.
“Greetings, everyone. My name is Ji Yuan!”
“I am Chang Yi!”
Ji Yuan bowed slightly to the villagers, and Chang Yi naturally did the same.
These two men were clearly learned, and their manners were impeccable. The people of Maotan Village, of course, did not dare to be negligent and, led by the old village head, quickly returned the greeting.
“May I ask where you two come from, and what brings you to Maotan Village?”
Ji Yuan smiled.
“We’ve come from quite far away. We heard that someone here was building a public cemetery for the remains left by the roadside, so we came here specifically to see who started it.”
Everyone in Maotan Village looked at Liao Daqiu, who hesitated for a moment before stepping forward to speak.
“Well, I did initiate the cemetery project, but it was also a project that our village accomplished together. Without the help of the villagers over the years, how could I have built such a cemetery? Even the corpses are not something one person can easily move alone.”
Ji Yuan nodded.
“Indeed, you are all very righteous!”
“Haha, I dare not accept the compliment!”
“No way, we’re just doing this to accumulate good karma!”
“Yes, yes!”
The villagers felt a little embarrassed by such simple praise, but they were happy inside. These two people looked very learned, and in their hearts, the words of learned people carried a different weight.
“By the way, since you two have come from afar, it’s not very good for you to come to Dahe County at this time. You don’t know…”
Liao Daqiu glanced at the cemetery again before speaking to Ji Yuan and Chang Yi.
“Recently, it seems there’s been an epidemic in our county and the neighboring counties. This is no small matter; it can be very dangerous if you grow sick. Why did you come here at this time?”
Chang Yi let out a slight breath, shook his head slightly, and then spoke.
“Yes, there’s a plague, but not in just Dahe County and the neighboring counties you mentioned. If tallied up carefully, in this region stricken by plague, including counties and towns, there are probably close to several hundred causalties…”
“Ah!?”
“Several hundred?”
“Good heavens!”
“Is it all plague?”
“Is…is this even possible?”
The people of Maotan Village were clearly shocked by the number Chang Yi mentioned. Many of them had rarely left their own Dahe County, and the farthest they had ever gone was probably the neighboring county. Although this number included both counties and towns, just thinking about it, they could tell that it covered a very large area.
While the villagers were in astonishment, Ji Yuan looked at Liao Daqiu and observed that his aura rose in various colors, and his vitality and energy were quite strong. Although the signs of good fortune weren’t obvious, his fortune was still much better than the people around him.
“It’s so early in the morning, gentlemen. You probably haven’t had breakfast yet. Although our village is poor, we are hospitable. Why don’t you come into the village and have breakfast together?”
“Yes, yes, come and rest in our village!”
“Yes, yes, tell us about what’s happening outside. How is the plague?”
“Yes, tell us about what’s happening outside!”
Everyone immediately agreed with the old village head’s suggestion. Ji Yuan and Chang Yi exchanged a glance, and the former nodded his thanks.
“Thank you all for your kindness. In that case, shall be disturbing you.”
“No disturbance, no disturbance at all. Gentlemen, please follow us!”
The group had searched inside and outside the village but found no signs of battle. Since they couldn’t keep searching, they welcomed Ji Yuan and Chang Yi into the village.
On the way, some people couldn’t help but tell Ji Yuan and Chang Yi about the ghosts of the cemetery appearing in their dreams, and about how almost everyone in the village had the same dream that previous night. They wanted to ask the two scholars to interpret it for them.
Ji Yuan and Chang Yi pretended to ponder it for a while, and then told the villagers directly that their visions were likely true. It was a case of good deeds being rewarded in the present, and past good deeds averting disaster. This made the people of Maotan Village very happy.
About fifteen minutes later, in the Liao family’s courtyard, Ji Yuan and Chang Yi each held a large flower-patterned bowl and sat close together on small stools.
The bowls were full of rice porridge, topped with a lot of pickled vegetables. It was the Liao family’s breakfast that they had offered the two of them. Liao Daqiu also sat eating opposite them, while his wife and children sat on the kitchen threshold.
Ji Yuan used chopsticks to pick up the pickled vegetables and skillfully scraped the porridge to eat, enjoying it immensely. This reminded him of the first time he left Ning’an County and ate porridge on a small boat on the river.
Chang Yi held the bowl with a curious expression, glancing at Ji Yuan and then back at his bowl. He tried the pickled vegetables with porridge cautiously and with great interest. He had lived on Xianxia Island for as long as he could remember. Although he was not completely ignorant of worldly customs, this was the first time he had ever eaten porridge with pickled vegetables in an ordinary household, especially since most of the porridge had been made from the previous day’s leftover rice.
“Hiss… slurp…”
Seeing Ji Yuan drinking porridge put Old Liao at ease. He had been worried that he might not be able to host them properly and had wanted to boil two eggs, but they had previously slaughtered their old hen for the feast, and there were no eggs left. Most of the neighbors were in the same situation.
After drinking more than half a bowl of hot rice porridge, Ji Yuan slowed down and started chatting with Liao Daqiu, whom he had become much more familiar with.
“By the way, I heard that Brother Liao has a son serving in the army. You and your wife worry about him often. If it’s convenient, could you tell me about him?”
Ji Yuan’s sudden mention of this matter surprised Liao Daqiu.
“Uh, Mr. Ji, who told you this?”
Liao Daqiu remembered that these two gentlemen didn’t know anyone in the village when they arrived, and on the way here, they mostly talked about the cemetery and the villagers’ dreams the previous night. How did they suddenly hear about his eldest son joining the army?
“Haha, it was the local Land God who appeared to me in a dream!”
Ji Yuan said with a smile.
‘Oh my!’
Hearing Ji Yuan’s words, a short, cane-wielding figure in a corner outside Liao Daqiu’s courtyard couldn’t help but smile knowingly, but dared not get too close.
The villagers of Maotan Village had recently experienced several instances of such dreams, and with Ji Yuan’s explanation, Liao Daqiu immediately believed it to some extent. However, there was nothing wrong with talking about it; it just stirred up some sadness.
“Sigh… My eldest son, Liao Zhengbao, has been away on the front lines for nine years, and there has been no news of him since. Several soldiers from the same draft have returned, but they all say they don’t know what happened to him. Sigh… I hope Abao1 is still alive…”
Liao Daqiu himself didn’t have much confidence as he spoke, and the woman on the other side sighed silently.
“Well, I have some basic knowledge of divination. If you don’t mind, Brother Liao, why don’t you tell me your son’s birth date and the date he went to war? I’ll be able to tell his fortune.”
The Liao family had gotten their eldest son’s fortune told countless times, and almost every time it was a matter of unpredictable destiny, or nonsense like “if he survives this calamity, he will become rich and powerful.” But out of goodwill, they nodded in agreement.
“That’s not a problem. My son was born in…”
As Liao Daqiu spoke, Ji Yuan put down his chopsticks and secretly calculated with his hands in his sleeves, Chang Yi beside him narrowed his eyes and concealed his gaze, clearly also performing a divination.
Seeing this scene from afar, even though the local Land God couldn’t tell whether the two immortals were performing a technique, or even detect any traces of spiritual energy. However, asking about Liao Zhengbao’s birth date and time was definitely an attempt to predict his fortune.
‘I never imagined that the Liao family would possess such good fortune that two immortals would divine for them together. Based on this alone, the Liao family members will be of a higher rank than ordinary ghosts in the underworld after they die!’
On the other side, as soon as Liao Daqiu finished speaking, Ji Yuan and Chang Yi stopped their divination, exchanged a glance, and nodded slightly.
“Mr. Ji, he is indeed still alive!”
“That’s right, still alive!”
Liao Daqiu and the woman were slightly taken aback upon hearing this, and their hands holding the porridge bowls trembled slightly. The two gentlemen used a definite statement, instead of the vague pronouncements of the previous fortune tellers.
T/n: Hi friends, happy July! You know what that means? HAPPY ARTFIGHT MONTH!!!! If you’re a digital artist, traditional artist, cosplayer, sculptor, or maker in any form, come art-attack me and other amazing artists this month! It’s never too late to start drawing. Cheers!
https://artfight.net/~Mango_to_sleep
- “A” is a diminutive prefix, so Abao (or A’bao) is an affectionate nickname for Zhengbao
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