Chapter 23: Songlin Mountain

  After solving Liu Daqiang's poison, Zhushan Lao Dao walked to my mother and said: "To solve the difficulties of Shimache Village, I need to take Xiaofei as an apprentice."

  Zhu Shan Lao Dao's words were so sincere and heartfelt that no one dared to question them. Originally, my mother just wanted me to study hard and make progress every day, and didn't want me to follow the immortal master. But Zhu Shan Lao Dao's words had linked my fate and the lives of everyone in the village together. If my mother didn't let me become his disciple, it seemed that the entire village would suffer.

  My mother was a kind-hearted person, so as long as she was certain that I would come to no harm, she wouldn't refuse the old Taoist of Bamboo Mountain.

  "Will Xiaofei stay with you all the time? What about his studies?" My mom asked anxiously, these two questions were her most concerns.

  If Master Zhushan said that after becoming his apprentice, I would have to stay with him for a long time, my mom definitely wouldn't agree. Also, if I went to learn those things from Master Zhushan, I wouldn't be able to continue going to school, and my mom wouldn't agree with that either.

  "Don't worry, Little Fei doesn't have to live with me, and he can still go to school as usual. However, when I'm dealing with the vengeful spirits of Exterminating Grandma and Zhang Xiaolan, I'll need his help," said Bamboo Mountain Old Dao.

  After Zhang Shan said that, my mother had no choice but to agree with him. And as for me, I was just a kid and didn't have any say in this matter.

  After paying respects to his master, Zhangshan Lao said that all things were caused by the death of Zhang Xiaolan, so he had to find Zhang Xiaolan's missing body first.

  To investigate the clue of the missing body, Zhang Xiaolan's grave that was dug up by someone must be visited. Since Zhang Xiaolan's body went missing, villagers have felt eerie and no one dared to touch Zhang Xiaolan's grave, so Zhang Xiaolan's grave has remained in its original state after being robbed.

  Zhang Xiaolan's grave was robbed. The person who robbed the grave must be Li Tianzhen's enemy. He thought that by robbing the grave, he could harm Li Tianzhen, but instead, he ended up harming himself because of his lust and also brought disaster to Shimavillage.

  After Zhushan Daoren finished speaking, the villagers seemed to have understood something, but also became more confused.

  Although the villagers looked puzzled, Master Zhangshan seemed uninterested in explaining anything. After checking, he pulled me straight to Zhang San's home.

  At this time, Zhang San's body was placed in the main room of his home, with two villagers guarding it.

  Arriving at Zhang San's home, Bamboo Mountain Old Dao first took a look at Zhang San's corpse. After looking at Zhang San's corpse, Bamboo Mountain Old Dao said: "Interacting with humans and ghosts together, one yin and one yang, one cold and one hot, therefore sudden death."

  Wang Wu quickly reacted and immediately understood what Zhang Shan Lao Dao meant.

  "Are you saying that Zhang San had a relationship with both Li Tianzhen and Zhang Xiaolan last night?" Wang Wu asked.

  Zhu Shan Lao Dao did not answer this question with language, but he nodded meaningfully.

  Zhu Shan Old Road nodded at this point, and the villagers immediately boiled over again.

  "This Zhang San is really shameless! He actually put his mother-in-law and daughter-in-law together, one a corpse and the other alive."

  "Li Tianzhen is not simple either? She can actually serve a man together with her daughter-in-law's corpse!"

  The villagers were chattering away when Zhang San's bedroom door opened and in walked Bamboo Mountain Taoist.

  Bamboo Mountain Old Dao looked at Zhang San's bed, then sniffed with his nose. "There is still some corpse energy, but Zhang Xiaolan's body has already run away," Bamboo Mountain Old Dao said.

  Did he run away? Can a corpse actually run? The words of Bamboo Mountain's Old Dao shocked everyone present.

  "The corpse won't run, but Zhang Xiaolan's soul can control the living to carry her corpse and make it run."

  After finishing speaking, Zhangshan Laodao picked up the pair of straw shoes under the bed. Judging from the size of the straw shoes, their owner should be Zhang San.

  "Does everyone recognize this?" asked Zhangshan Laodao, pointing at the pine needles stuck on his straw sandals.

  "Pineneedles are everywhere on the nearby mountain, what does that mean?" Wang Wu added.

  "You can see clearly, three needles in a bundle, this is the needle of white bark pine. Everyone should be very clear, in these ten miles around, there is only Songlin Mountain with white bark pine." said Zhangshan Old Dao.

  As soon as Zhang Shan finished speaking, everyone in the room took a deep breath. The place of Songlin Mountain is actually the territory of the exterminated family, where there are many lonely souls and wild ghosts, and it can be said that no one dares to go. And he, even if his courage was greater, would not dare to go under normal circumstances. Moreover, the mud on his straw shoes had not completely dried, indicating that it should have been left last night.

  That is to say, Zhang San went to Songlin Mountain last night, and after returning from Songlin Mountain, Zhang San suddenly died.

  The clue of Songlin Mountain came out one after another, and the whole thing seemed to be clearer, but in reality, it became more complicated.

  Although the white-barked pine is only found in Songlin Mountain, there are many of them on Songlin Mountain. As for the pine needles stuck to Zhang San's grass shoes, everyone knows they come from Songlin Mountain, but it's impossible to tell which specific pine tree they came from.

  What's even more terrifying is that Songlin Mountain is not only high, but also full of cliffs and precipices, with ghosts wandering around. Therefore, even if everyone knew that Zhang Xiaolan's body was there, even in the daytime, no one dared to go.

  Everyone knows that when Zhang Shan Lao Dao says this now, he wants everyone to prepare themselves mentally and go to Song Lin Mountain later.

  Since everyone was silent, Zhu Shan Lao Dao picked up the bunch of pine needles and sniffed them. "It has a mouth odor, it should be used by She Dizhu to dig his teeth, these pine needles must come from the north slope of Songlin Mountain."

  Many villagers have heard stories about She Dizhu.

  Before liberation, the She landlord was the largest landlord in this area, and he was really rich. However, this She landlord had a bad habit, that is, he didn't like to use toothpicks, but liked to use pine needles, and they were white-skinned pine needles.

  The reason why the landlord has this habit is that he asked a fortune teller to calculate for him, and the fortune teller told him that when he picks his teeth, he can only use white skin pine needles, otherwise his family property of ten thousand taels will not be passed down.

  One day, the landlord Si forcibly took a tenant's daughter, Xiaofen, as his concubine. Knowing she couldn't win against him, Xiaofen pretended to obey, and Si gradually let his guard down around her.

  Xiaofen knew that the landlord, She Di, had a habit of using pine needles to pick his teeth and also knew why he only used white-barked pine needles. To take revenge on She Di, one day when Xiaofen saw him drunk, she quietly replaced the white-barked pine needles with green pine needles. After She Di used the green pine needles to pick his teeth, the She family slowly began to decline.

  After liberation, the landlord Shi could no longer enjoy that extravagant life, so he took a hemp rope and hanged himself to death. After his death, Landlord Shi was buried on the north slope of Songlin Mountain.

  Zhu Shan Lao Dao brought up the issue of land ownership this time, wanting to make villagers believe in him and not be afraid. However, the villagers still did not express their stance.

  "Tonight I have to go to the north slope of Songlin Mountain, and I need someone to help me. Who's going?" Seeing that no one dared to volunteer after he had been guiding them for half a day, Zhushan Lao Dao spoke directly.

  When the villagers heard that only one person was needed for Bamboo Mountain, they felt both happy and afraid. Happy because if only one person was chosen, the chances of being selected themselves would be greatly reduced; Afraid that if they were chosen, if they died, there wouldn't even be anyone to bury with them.

  Several minutes have passed since Lao Dao Zhangshan finished speaking, but still no one dares to stand up voluntarily.

  At this time, I didn't know which nerve was acting up.

  "I'm going!" I shouted loudly.

  As soon as I finished shouting, my mom immediately covered my mouth.

  "It seems that Shimayu Village still has a Hanzi, but it's a small one." Zhangshan Old Dao patted my shoulder with approval and then said to my mother: "Don't worry, Lu Dajie, Xiaofei's fate is strong, his yang energy is very heavy, even if it's a fierce ghost, it can't get close to him. This time on the north slope of Songlin Mountain, I'll just let him help me carry the lantern and shine some light for me, it won't tire him out."

  Bamboo Mountain's old Daoist has already said so, and besides, I took the initiative to stand up for myself. Now that I'm Bamboo Mountain's old Daoist's disciple, my mom can't say anything else, she had no choice but to let me go.