The Rural Doctor of the Mountain Spirit

  I was a bit curious, so I just stood there staring at him. After a while, I felt something was off because he was walking towards Wu Xianyi's house.

  I've lost interest in playing around, so I followed him directly. This person came to the front of Wu Xian's house and stopped. He raised the lantern in his hand and suddenly shouted at the house: "Wu Laoer, old friend has come, you don't even come out to greet?"

  After a while, Wu Xianyi's voice came from inside the house: "You've finally found me. I'm in here. Come on in if you want to see me."

  "No, I just came to take a look. Old friend, nothing's wrong, I should go." After finishing speaking, the person carrying the lantern turned around and really left. He walked back along the original path, and at this moment, I faced him, clearly seeing his face.

  This man was not tall and could even be said to be somewhat short, his face was full of fleshy scars, looking exceptionally ferocious.

  Soon, he walked past me with a lantern in his hand, without even giving me a glance. I didn't dare to look at him again, and after he left, I ran back home on my legs.

  I overheard from the conversation between these two people that this person is acquainted with Wu Xianyi. Moreover, when they spoke, it seemed like they were two old friends who had known each other for a long time. But somehow I felt that something was off, the atmosphere wasn't right. They didn't seem like friends, but rather like enemies.

  I returned to the house and saw that Wu Xianyi had already gotten out of bed. At this moment, he was holding a tobacco pipe and continuously smoking. I didn't dare disturb him, so I waited until he finished smoking before asking him: "That person just now was really strange, who is he?"

  Wu Xianyi put down his pipe, and his face became extremely solemn. Suddenly, he let out a sigh. In the past, Wu Xianyi always had a cold demeanor towards me, never willing to say more than one word to me, and always looked at me with an air of superiority.

  These days, Wu Xianyi has been sighing in front of me many times. I understood the implication, and I'm afraid that person who just arrived is not simple at all.

  Wu Xianyi sighed and after a while, finally spoke: "Our village is about to be hit by a great disaster."

  At this moment, Wu Xianyi said very seriously, he was not joking. In fact, Wu Xianyi had never joked in front of me before. And when someone who doesn't like to joke says something, its credibility is unusually high.

  I felt a tightening in my heart when I heard his words. What did he mean by "great calamity is approaching"? Was that person just now here to harm our village?

  "Xiao Sen, follow that person immediately and see which direction he's heading in. Also, check if the lantern in his hand is extinguished or not." Dr. Wu Xian said to me as I was deep in thought.

  I've been with Wu Xianyao for half a year, and he's never called me by my name. But today, he did, and even assigned me a task. Hearing Wu Xianyao's words, I felt a thrill in my heart, and without thinking, I replied "good" and ran out of the room.

  Soon, I saw the man with a lantern in the field again. He was walking very slowly, like an old man. At this moment, he was a little far away from me, and I ran wildly for a while before catching up with him again.

  But before I could get close to him, he suddenly stopped again and muttered something with his back to me: "Don't think that you can hide and escape, the retribution that should come will always come."

  He was not far from me, and I could hear what he said clearly. What surprised me was that after listening carefully, I found that the person carrying the lantern was actually a woman. However, her voice was too rough and indistinguishable from a man's.

  He stopped and I also stopped, standing still behind him. I didn't know who he was talking to or what his words meant.

  "You hide here and enjoy yourselves, but let others suffer. When the day of reckoning comes, you will know what it's like to be worse off than dead." He continued muttering to himself, as if speaking to the air, yet also seeming to speak directly to me.

  To be honest, although he was facing away from me, hearing him talk non-stop made me feel a bit creeped out.

  I plucked up the courage and pointed at him, scolding: "Who... who are you talking to?"

  "I'm talking to you." He replied without even thinking, with his back still turned towards me.

  My goosebumps suddenly emerged, and I couldn't help but take a step back. He spoke again: "You were called by Old Wu, wanting to see where I'm going? Is the light on or off? You go back and ask him for me, what is he afraid of?"

  After he finished speaking, his body moved again, carrying the lantern and continuing to walk forward. I stood in place, scared out of my wits, not daring to follow him anymore, only silently watching which direction he was heading in.

  He gradually disappeared from my line of sight. And in my mind, I only remembered his back figure.

  His back was somewhat thin and hunched, wearing a black sweater, with a head of messy hair hanging on his back.

  I went back to the house and told Wu Xianyi everything he had just said to me. Wu Xianyi suddenly started sighing again: "I was poisoned by a corpse a few days ago and almost died, it was all because of him. I thought he had avenged himself and wouldn't come looking for me again, but I didn't expect his resentment to be so deep that he would come knocking on my door."

  Corpse poison?

  I immediately thought of Wu Xian's poisoning a few days ago. It turned out that Wu Xian was also poisoned by him.

  I looked at Wu Xian with some confusion and said: "Aren't you very powerful? Why are you afraid of him?"

  Wu Xianyi shook his head and sighed: "I'm not afraid of him, but I owe him, and since I owe him, I have to pay him back."

  I don't understand what Wu Xianyi said about owing him, but I can feel that Wu Xianyi seems to be extremely guilty towards that person and doesn't want to be his enemy. In fact, in the following days, I gradually came to realize that with Wu Xianyi's skills, corpse poison was nothing he couldn't handle, and the reason he got poisoned was purely voluntary.

  After the man carrying the lantern left, the villagers seemed to be unaware of it. Wu Xianyi also told me: "Don't tell the villagers about this, lest they get scared. Don't worry, I'll take responsibility for putting the village in danger, even if it costs my life, I will protect the village's safety."

  After saying this, Wu Xianyi rushed into his house and locked the door.

  I waited outside his house for a long time, only to hear the sound of rustling and whispering coming from inside, I don't know what he was doing.

  I was idle and didn't know what to do, so I left home and headed towards Er Gou's house. But before I even arrived at Er Gou's house, I was drawn in by a burst of wailing cries, which were coming from Niu Dan's house.

  Niú Dàn was called Niú Dàn because when he was young, he often liked to touch the cow's testicles. Niú Dàn's family raised several cows, and they didn't have much land, basically relying on raising cows to maintain their living.

  At this moment, I heard a cry from Niu Dan's home, and I immediately ran to his house. When I arrived at his house, I found that the door of Niu Dan's house was surrounded by people with gloomy faces. In the yard of Niu Dan's house, Niu Dan's mother was standing beside two oxen, crying out loudly in a hoarse voice.

  "Niu Dan's mother, this cow is already dead, crying won't help, hurry up and slaughter it to sell the meat." A woman advised beside Niu Dan's mother.

  I squeezed into the crowd and saw Niu Dan standing with his head down. I hastily asked him, "What's going on?"

  Niu's eyes were also red with anger: "My mom said I was the one who got you killed, but it wasn't me, and I even got a beating from him."

  I said: "Then why is your mom crying?"

  "My cow is dead! It was fine just now, but after I let it back in, all of them are dead."

  Are they all dead? I stared blankly at Niu Dan, still in a daze. At this time, I saw the same distressed expressions on the faces of others in the village.

  The mother of the two dogs whispered to an old man: "My family's two pigs are also dead, I was still feeding them at noon and they were eating well, but now when I went into the pigpen, both pigs are all dead."

  Then the others in the village also started talking. And I stood by, basically figuring out what was going on. It turned out that at noon, all the poultry and livestock in the village had died, not a single one left.

  The more I listened, the more I felt that something was fishy. I had even forgotten to take a look at my own two pigs. In a hurry, I rushed back home. As a result, when I ran into the pigpen and took a look, my own two pigs were also dead.