Chapter 3

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Chapter 3: Turning a Blind Eye

“Waaah!”

The Li boy is terrified by the eerie scene before him. He bursts into loud tears, turns around and runs, stumbling as he flees toward Linshan Town. Xu Yan can see that the boy’s pants are already stained with wetness, and he can faintly smell an unpleasant odor.

Because the Li boy was closest, he heard Xu Yan’s story most clearly and even saw the strange gap in the flatbread most distinctly, which is why he was frightened the most. The other youths, though also quite scared, weren’t frightened enough to run away.

“I remember now—it was my Little Black who bit my flatbread.”

Taking a bite of the flatbread, Xu Yan says hurriedly to the youths around him: “Come on, let’s go into the mountains. I remembered wrong earlier. The painted flatbread story wasn’t told by Granny Zhang—it was something my master said this morning. It’s not scary at all. Granny Zhang is buried in the ground and can’t tell stories anymore.”

Hearing Xu Yan say this, the other youths finally breathe a sigh of relief. They really had been quite frightened by Xu Yan just now.

The youth called Tie Zhu smiles bitterly and says: “Xu Yan, can’t your memory be a bit better? If it really was a story told by Granny Zhang, I would have run away too.”

“Yes, Brother Yan, your story scared Little Hua to death!”

The little girl called Xiao Hua pats her chest in complaint. Then the group of youths finally enters the mountains with laughter and chatter, though they keep their voices very low, afraid of scaring away those fat wild rabbits.

Eating his flatbread, Xu Yan passes expressionlessly through a dark shadow that drifts out from a grave—one that others can’t see at all. A bitter smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he whispers: “Ghosts? Who would believe that…”

The reason he’s befriended pigs since age nine, the reason he imagines himself as a pig—Xu Yan’s difficulties are unknown to others except the old Taoist. It’s because only the little black pig in the temple’s pen would completely ignore the ghosts that occasionally appear before it.

By being a pig, Xu Yan aims to master the ability to turn a blind eye!

If he couldn’t ignore those ghostly spirits, Xu Yan would probably have gone mad long ago. He’s a young child who can see ghosts and Impermanence messengers, a child tormented by the strange visions in his eyes for years. This is simply his only means of self-preservation.

After six years of tempering, Xu Yan has truly learned to turn a blind eye. At least when he doesn’t want to see them, his gaze automatically ignores those floating ghosts. In Xu Yan’s view, this is all thanks to that little wild pig that never grows up.

Not only is Xu Yan an anomaly in Riding Clouds Temple, but even that little black pig that won’t grow is an anomaly. However, wild pigs in the mountains don’t stay small—adult wild boars are so fierce that even tigers must retreat when they encounter them.

The deep mountains contain not only wild boars, but also tigers, leopards, and wolves.

Old Grave Mountain belongs to a branch of the Wanheng Mountain Range. Though not far from Linshan Town, no one truly dares to enter the deep mountains alone. Only by traveling in groups can safety be ensured. If a person faces a tiger or leopard alone, even a strong and robust man would find it difficult to escape becoming food for the beasts.

For a group of youths, Old Grave Mountain is truly too vast. Aside from the small southern slope that serves as a graveyard, everywhere else is wilderness. The deeper one goes, the taller the trees become. Some mountain hollows are even shrouded in tree shade, blocking out sunlight and looking eerily dark.

Perhaps because the Li boy’s earlier shouting was too loud, by noon, the group of youths entering the mountains hasn’t caught any wild game. They’ve chopped plenty of firewood, but haven’t seen a single rabbit’s shadow.

“Bad luck—we won’t be eating rabbit meat today.”

Tie Zhu angrily stabs his wood-cutting knife into the ground and wipes the sweat from his forehead.

“It’s all that Li boy’s fault. If he hadn’t shouted so loudly, how could we not have seen a single wild rabbit?”

All the other youths are deeply disappointed. Someone begins complaining about the Li boy who was scared away. They’ve already walked mountain paths for half the day, and going deeper, no one dares venture further.

“Does Brother Yan still want to go deeper into the mountains?” Xiao Hua stands on her tiptoes, looking at the quiet forest in the distance, asking somewhat uneasily.

“Yes, I’m going to look for ginseng. If I haven’t returned by the time it gets dark, you all go ahead without waiting for me.”

When entering the mountains with these youths, Xu Yan never hides anything. These children all know that Xu Yan always goes into the mountains to search for ginseng to help regulate the old Taoist’s health, so no one finds it surprising.

Tie Zhu looks at the sky—it’s still early. After hesitating, he says: “Let’s go a bit deeper. The wild rabbits hiding in the deep mountains definitely won’t be startled by the shouting from outside the mountains.”

Since someone takes the lead, the other youths naturally agree. So more than ten youths continue forward, except this time Xu Yan walks in front.

In this level of deep mountain area, it’s extremely easy to encounter fierce beasts. Though Xu Yan’s body doesn’t look particularly robust, he’s actually much stronger than the others. The stone-throwing technique the old Taoist taught him requires not just days or months of practice—Xu Yan has been practicing it for nearly ten years.

Throwing stones seems ordinary, but there’s quite a lot to it.

Not only arm strength, wrist strength, and even waist and leg strength all require years of practice. Moving one part affects the whole body—this is the essence of stone throwing. Xu Yan has suffered quite a bit for this, and this suffering hasn’t been in vain. At least with his current ability, even if he faced a fierce tiger, he could escape unharmed.

Xu Yan often ventures alone into the deep mountains to search for ginseng. The number of times he’s encountered fierce beasts in the deep mountains is countless, so in this level of deep mountain terrain, having Xu Yan lead is the most reliable.

After walking for another half hour, the grass in the distance suddenly moves slightly. The movement isn’t large—it should be traces of a small animal.

The youths who discovered prey are all overjoyed, each looking tense. Whether they can eat meat today depends on this moment.

Sure enough, when the youths stealthily surround this patch of grass, a fat gray rabbit suddenly springs out with a whoosh, jumping right past Tie Zhu and heading straight for another larger patch of grass where it’s about to escape.

Whoosh!

Smack!

A small stone flies out almost following the wild rabbit’s movement, hitting the rabbit directly on the head. The fat rabbit is knocked unconscious before it even lands. Moments later, it’s already tied up securely by Tie Zhu and carried on his back.

“We have meat to eat!”

The youths cheer quietly in their delight. Such a fat rabbit is enough for a good feast.

Not only are the youths elated, but Xu Yan, who just hit the wild rabbit, shows even more joy on his face. It’s not because he likes eating rabbit meat, but because he’s discovered that near an old tree not far away, there’s a strange plant growing with six green leaves and small red fruits at the top.

Ginseng berries!

The fruit of wild ginseng—Xu Yan recognizes it at a glance. Below that strange plant is at least a ginseng root over a hundred years old, because at this moment, that plant is slowly moving toward the large tree beside it, apparently having heard the youths’ cheering and wanting to hide behind the tree.

Only hundred-year-old ginseng develops ginseng spirits, and wild ginseng with ginseng spirits can move slowly.

In a few leaps, Xu Yan rushes over. The red string around his wrist has already been untied. His left hand presses down on the strange plant while his right hand quickly wraps the red string around the plant’s root. Only then does he breathe a sigh of relief and take out his small shovel to carefully dig out this ginseng with its long roots.

Rumble!

A sound of rolling rocks and stones drowns out the youths’ cheering. Xu Yan, who has just tucked the ginseng into his chest, is also startled. He looks up to see that in the distance, on a steep mountain slope, sand and stones are rolling—there’s actually been some collapse, and in the collapsed area, a dark mountain cave has appeared.

It rained heavily just two days ago, and though a day has passed, the mountains are actually almost completely dry. However, the collapsed area faces north—perhaps too much rainwater accumulated there, or perhaps that mountain cave had been covered for too many years, which is why half an opening appeared in the collapse.

Collapses in the deep mountains aren’t uncommon. Even the appearance of a mountain cave isn’t particularly strange. Many wild beasts like to dig holes—bears, for instance. In Xu Yan’s view, the cave on the mountain slope should have been dug out by wild beasts years ago, so he doesn’t pay it much attention.

Not only did they catch a wild rabbit, but they also dug up a ginseng root. The youths are very satisfied with today’s harvest, and Xu Yan is also very satisfied. But just as the youths are preparing to leave the mountains, movement appears again in the other patch of grass where the wild rabbit had originally been trying to escape.