Chapter Forty-One Past Events

  The next morning, I was pulled out of my bed by the female demon. A young boy with a lot of energy always has some trouble in the morning. This small trouble, however, brought about a loud shriek from the female demon who had lifted up my quilt, followed by a severe beating on me.

  "Master, have you gone mad?" I covered my face with both hands, dodging the demoness's fists and feet while asking in terror. My face is of utmost importance to me, so I decided to defend it to the death!

  "You little thing, naughty thing, hiding under the quilt making trouble early in the morning." The demoness kicked the poor Daoist with her foot while blushing and scolding him repeatedly.

  "Hurry up and get dressed! What are you pretending to be dead for?" After hitting me for over 10 minutes, the demoness finally stopped, panting heavily as she stood at the head of the bed, pulling my ear and shouting.

  "Hey, Master Aunt. Am I getting up or not?" I covered the ear that she was pinching with my hand and pointed to my body, which only had a vest and shorts on, asking weakly.

  "Pfft! Who wants to look at you anyway? Hurry up and get out of bed, wash up, and then take me out for breakfast." The demon girl glanced at my small frame with disdain and spat at me. Ah! Don't look down on me just because I'm skinny - isn't my whole body made of muscle? If you don't want to look, then don't look.

  Breakfast was beef noodles with a lot of chili oil, plus a few scallion pancakes. The witch said that breakfast should be eaten more. Because the next meal, it's unknown when we can eat again. Hearing her say this, my heart couldn't help but feel a chill. Where is the witch planning to take us?

  After breakfast, the demon girl ordered me to rent a car again. She, on the other hand, sat in the noodle shop with her legs crossed, picking at her teeth with a toothpick.

  The destination of this trip is a mountain valley called Jiuligou, but it's not entirely accurate to call it a mountain valley. To be precise, the place called Jiuligou should actually be considered a forest farm. Although some people do risk imprisonment to steal and cut down trees, that's just a clandestine activity. For the hundreds of square kilometers of the Jiuligou Forest Farm, it's no different from losing a single strand of hair.

  At present, it is the season of heavy snow and severe cold. Not only do those forest rangers huddle indoors to warm themselves by the fire, but even those who engage in illegal logging will not risk their lives to work in such weather.

  In Northeast China, when winter arrives, the snow is heavy and the wind is strong. If you're not careful, you'll be blinded by the wind and snow. Then, perhaps you'll step into a hidden pit and freeze to death. If you're lucky, maybe after tens of thousands of years, future generations will dig you up and make you an object of study. If you're unlucky, then you'll be dug up by a bear and become its skewered meat.

  Sitting on a four-door, six-seat vehicle with anti-skid chains tied to the tires, after going through 6 hours of bumpy roads and paying 1000 yuan in car fees, we finally arrived at the border of Jiuligou. Looking around, apart from a vast expanse of snow that was so white it was dazzling, there were only the distant black mountains. Apart from this, there was no third color. Black and white had been given their most complete interpretation here.

  Of course, soon the lamp grass added a third color to this black and white world. He drilled into the woods by the side of the road, hid behind a big tree, and urinated. The urine was turbid yellow, and the monk had been eating more meat recently, possibly with some inflammation.

  The monk urinated a refreshing stream, then shivered with a refreshing chill, and then he stood behind the big tree, letting out an unrefreshing cry: "Brother, come and help me quickly!"

  "What's wrong? What's wrong?" I signaled to the female demon not to move, and ran to the tree that had been urinated on by the monk and the child, asking repeatedly.

  "It's frozen!" The lamp grass looked at me with tears in its eyes, then lowered its head and said, looking at the crotch area.

  "Good, good! Congratulations, Master Di, for removing this evil object. The female Bodhisattvas of the world are blessed!" I looked at the thing frozen together with the lamp grass and urine, and smiled.

  "Get out! Think of a solution quickly!" Dēng cǎo (Lamp Grass) really wanted to kick me, but was afraid of getting hurt, so she just stood there, angrily shouting.

  "This is easy, don't move!" I said, and with a kick, I went towards the monk. With the monk's agility, how could he be kicked by me? So, he shifted his body to the side. Then, a faint cracking sound of ice breaking came from afar.

  "Huh? Nothing's wrong after all!" The grass lamp lowered its head and examined me carefully before exclaiming in surprise.

  The demoness stood alone by the roadside, just as she was getting impatient, I and Lamp Grass came out of the woods with our shoulders leaning on each other. The wind continued to slap people's faces painfully, and the snow still fell from the sky like goose feathers. In a corner where the demoness couldn't see, Lamp Grass's urine had frozen into a dull yellow icicle in the shape of a crescent moon, stubbornly standing upright against the wind and snow.

  "Where are we going, Master?" I pulled the hood of my down jacket over my head and face, tightening the two thin strings dangling from under my chin, which made me feel a bit better. After struggling to walk for about half an hour, I finally couldn't help but ask.

  "Hurry up, if we dawdle any longer, we'll end up watching the sunrise in the snowy ground!" The north wind howled and the snowflakes fluttered. The demoness's words instantly made my heart feel chilly. It seems that the road ahead is not close, but very far!

  "How dare you not say something more specific?" The piercing white in the vast wilderness and the endless black in the distant mountains oppressed my heart with anger. I quickened my pace, caught up with the demon girl who was leading the way, and asked her somewhat irritably. As for the consequences of provoking the demon girl, I couldn't care less. Rather than being tortured like this, it would be better to just give me a swift blow.

  "Your heart is still not at peace. Walk through this snowy land, cross over the mountain slope in front of you. After turning around the mountain ridge ahead, it's almost there!" The demoness looked at me with a sympathetic expression and then casually pointed to the small black dot visible in the distance, saying to me.

  "If you don't want to go anymore, you can go back now. I won't force you." The demon girl seemed thirsty and took out a frozen pear from her bag that was hard enough to kill someone with, and crunched on it with a "crunch crunch" sound. Then she looked at me with her curved eyes like crescent moons and smiled slyly.

  "I'll just keep going!" I turned my head to look back at the endless, desolate snowy landscape, and made up my own mind. No village ahead, no shops behind. On this road where even birds are rarely seen, how can I go back?

  "So, calm down and walk slowly! Don't be afraid of being slow, just worry about understanding the principle. As long as we have a goal in our hearts, no matter how slow we move forward. As long as you keep walking forward firmly, you will eventually reach your destination!" The female demon threw the pear core in her hand into the snowy ground and began to teach the poor Taoist a lesson.

  "Alright!" I couldn't help but say that the demon girl's voice, when she wasn't throwing a tantrum, was actually quite pleasant to listen to. I turned my head and looked at the monk who was still bent down, stroking the lamp wick, and let out a long sigh.

  "In the northeast, this land actually has many legends. The most widely spread one is Huang Daxian! In order to stop me from throwing a tantrum, the demon girl rarely told me a story."

  "Huang Da Xian?" It's always better to have someone talking than one person being there in silence, but I don't understand which god the demon girl is referring to with "Huang Da Xian".

  "Hmm! That's what we usually call a groundhog!" The witch lifted her hand to brush away the stray hairs around her ears, and then used her gloved hands to rub her wind-chafed cheeks as she explained to me.

  "Desert Fox......" I was astonished by Huang Da Xian's true identity.

  "Hmm, it's the weasel! Because this thing is greedy, cunning and venomous, yet it also has a grudge to repay, and a favor to return. So among the common people at the bottom, there are still many who believe in it. Everyone ignores Huang Daxian's greed, cunning and venom, and everyone hopes that one day they can do a favor for it and get its reward." The demoness slowly said, her hand tucked into her sleeve.

  "What return? It's just a yellow weasel, what can you expect it to repay?" I said with some disdain.

  "You're wrong! Huang Daxian's return is enough to change a person's fate!" The female demon shook her head, seemingly helpless about my ignorance.

  "It can't be that evil, right? Can it really change a person's fate? The Three Pure Ones would have to step down. Let Huang Daxian take their place and enjoy the incense of the world instead?" I absolutely don't believe that a yellow weasel can change a person's fate.

  "People only remember its gratitude, but ignore its nature, greed, cunning and toxicity! It can change a person's life, but it needs the person's descendants to pay with three lives!" The demoness spoke in a low voice, not affected by my interruption.

  "That was a long, long time ago, so long that I don't even remember how many years it has been. In a mountain valley nine li away from here, there lived two families of hunters. That year, the snow and wind were just as big." The female demon seemed to be recalling something.

  "The two masters of the households, one surnamed Mei and the other Shi! They grew up together since childhood, as close as brothers. The two of them hunted together, went to market together. Even when they married their wives, it was on the same day." The demon girl continued to speak to herself, while I seemed to understand something too. This story might be related to the demon girl's origins.

  "One year, a heavy snow sealed off the mountain, and both families' stored grain was running low. They discussed going into the mountains to try their luck, to see if they could hunt some game to get through the winter. The two men entered the mountains, leaving behind only two women and two young children." The witch's eyes were filled with memories.

  "Two people wandered in the mountains until nightfall, and finally, they managed to hunt a deer. It was a male deer, and its meat could be eaten. As for the antlers, after winter had passed and the snow had melted, they could be taken out of the mountain to exchange for rice, salt, and cloth." At this point, the demon woman's face suddenly turned somewhat ferocious.