A Single Flower Of The Village - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Lu Shouqiu is a ghost who knows how to quit while she’s ahead. She quickly finished washing up, changed her clothes, and went downstairs.

Ruan Jingluo was already eating without waiting for her. In the small, deep iron pot was chicken stewed with pickled mustard greens—sour, spicy, and fragrant. She couldn’t wait to scoop up some rice, grumbling while she ate that Ruan Jingluo didn’t wait for her, which was impolite. After all, she was the owner of the Drum Tower and Ruan Jingluo’s employer; there was no such thing as treating an employer like this.

Ruan Jingluo didn’t indulge her bad habits, retorting mockingly: “I made this for myself. You started eating my food without my permission, so who is the impolite one here?”

“Sharing is caring, don’t be so stingy,” Lu Shouqiu quickly found an excuse. She had no principles when it came to food. Ruan Jingluo’s cooking skills were quite good; the civet cat had run up to her ear that morning and whispered several times that she must find a way to keep this living person, as her cooking was excellent. Even boiled noodles with vegetables were that delicious, so everything else must be just as good.

Ruan Jingluo realized that Lu Shouqiu was a truly shameless person who acted like a rascal. “You always have an answer for everything. I have nothing to say. Go ahead, eat, eat…” She pushed the small iron pot, which was resting on a pad on the table, toward Lu Shouqiu.

Lu Shouqiu felt no guilt for exploiting labor. Her movements with the chopsticks were fast and accurate, and she ate with great satisfaction. Even just having that annoying look on her face without saying a word was enough to make Ruan Jingluo furious, yet she looked completely innocent.

Ruan Jingluo was no pushover. Once she finished eating, she ordered Lu Shouqiu to wash the dishes: “I cooked so I don’t wash, you didn’t cook so you wash. You pick one; you can’t have it all your way.”

“Fine, fine… I’ll wash the dishes.” This time, Lu Shouqiu was quite obedient. She didn’t cause trouble or say anything strange. She gathered the dishes and went to the kitchen. Halfway through washing, she heard Ruan Jingluo’s scream from outside.

“Ahhhhh! What the hell is that—!”

Lu Shouqiu had a bad feeling. She dropped the dishes and ran out, only to see Ruan Jingluo huddled in a corner. Beside the low table was a creature the size of a football, with the body of a rat and the head of a soft-shelled turtle. This was a Manman, a beast recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas: Classic of the Western Mountains, which had circulated in the human world. Its cry sounded like a dog. The civet cat often ran into the depths of the farm and caught Manmans, treating them like ordinary rats. She had warned the civet cat before not to bring birds or beasts that no longer existed in the human world back to the Drum Tower, but the creature treated her words like wind passing by.

Ruan Jingluo had been sitting on a stool playing on her phone when this thing fell from the rafters without warning and landed by her feet with a solid thump. A few drops of hot blood splattered onto her newly changed pant leg. She had been terrified, looked down, and nearly fainted. Thinking it was some kind of mutated monster, she jumped up and sprinted to the corner. Before Lu Shouqiu even came out, she had already cursed everyone in her family tree.

Since becoming a security guard, she had fought hooligans, chased away stray cats and dogs, caught snakes as thick as fingers, and even overturned rat nests. She considered her courage to be greater than the average woman’s, yet she was now trembling and nearly in tears because of this strange-looking creature that clearly didn’t belong to a normal Earth species.

“Lu Shouqiu, there’s a monster in your house!” She ran over and hugged her employer, clinging on like a koala, refusing to set foot on the ground.

“…The world is vast and full of wonders. It’s just a rat, it just looks a bit strange, that’s all. Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,” Lu Shouqiu comforted her while looking toward the rafters.

The culprit hurried to hide its chubby, mottled body into a gap in the rafters. What was this? The living person had told it to get a rat this morning, so it had caught one. Why was she so scared? Although the Manman didn’t look great, but… en… oh no, Lady Shouqiu was angry. Of the thirty-six stratagems, running away is the best one!

The civet cat escaped from the rafters to the outside. The sky is vast, let me fly; I want to roam the world with a sword, charge!

Only after Lu Shouqiu kicked the Manman in the corner did Ruan Jingluo dare to get down, but she adamantly refused to go near that area again, muttering that the Drum Tower had monsters and the legends were true.

“What legends?” Lu Shouqiu asked, curious as she mopped up the bloodstains on the floor.

Ruan Jingluo sat on the stool with her knees hugged to her chest, curled into a ball. “The ones on the internet. People say there are ghosts on the farm and that people have encountered them in the middle of the night.”

She had been bored and had nothing better to do, so she searched for posts about the farm and found one with a horror-themed title in a corner of the web.

“Oh?” Lu Shouqiu became interested. She stopped mopping and ran in front of Ruan Jingluo, deliberately scaring her. “That’s right, there are ghosts. I am a ghost. Are you afraid?”

Ruan Jingluo, whose face was still pale, raised a fist. “Terrified, absolutely terrified. So terrified I want to punch you to death.”

“I really am a ghost.” Don’t blame me for not telling you later.

Ruan Jingluo was so annoyed by her teasing that she lost her initial fear. She put her legs down, returned to normal, and said: “Heh, you’re scarier than a ghost. Even ghosts would have to kneel when they see you.”

Lu Shouqiu widened her eyes, putting on an exaggerated expression of shock, as if to say, “How did you know?” It made Ruan Jingluo feel like Lu Shouqiu was treating her like a child.

Boring, childish, psycho, she grumbled to herself and ran back to her room to rest.

Lu Shouqiu watched her go upstairs, then the corners of her mouth curled up. These days, nobody believes you even when you tell the truth.

The civet cat hadn’t gone far before it ran into two sheepdogs kept by a herdsman. They were sisters from the same litter and very intelligent. When not working, they liked to hang around the Drum Tower, waiting for a chance to scare the civet cat. They had smelled the Manman earlier. Lady Shouqiu’s management of the farm’s perimeter was very strict. Usually, the Manman only appeared in the small clinic in the back village as a medicinal herb, in the form of bones. Only the civet cat, relying on being Lady Shouqiu’s pet, dared to occasionally break the rules.

“Woof, woof, woof!” The sisters ambushed the fleeing civet cat, pinned it under their paws, and barked madly into its ears.

The civet cat only felt a buzzing in its ears, cursing these two stupid dogs. It was fine when they played this “chase and escape” game as kids, but now that they were adults, they were still so childish.

It raised its claws to scratch the sheepdogs’ faces. Don’t touch me!

The cat and the two dogs fought fiercely in the bushes behind the Drum Tower. Fur flew everywhere; it was impossible to tell if it was cat fur or dog fur. By the time they called a truce, neither side had come out well. Their fur was a mess, and the civet cat’s ferocity had been triggered; its remaining fur stood up like a hedgehog’s, and it kept hissing at the sheepdogs, ready to fight again at any moment. The sheepdogs weren’t inferior either, their front claws digging into the ground, baring their teeth and letting out threatening low growls.

The civet cat was combative and was about to charge again. Today it would fight until one of them died.

“Hiss…”

Before that hiss could be fully released, the back of its neck was grabbed by a beautiful hand. The civet cat was scooped up by its armpits. It struggled to twist its fat body, wondering who dared to grab it, only to turn around and face Lu Shouqiu’s smiling face. Instantly, it went limp, its arrogant aura vanishing, replaced by a delicate, spoiled meow.

Lu Shouqiu held the civet cat in her arms, stroking its smooth fur with long, slender fingers. Seeing the bald patches where the sheepdogs had torn out its fur, she pretended to be heartbroken: “Oh dear, how come the fur is gone here? Did the bad doggies bite you? I told you long ago that the outside world is dangerous and not to run around randomly. Now you know, right? Be good, come home with Mom, and don’t come out again.”

The civet cat’s pupils shook—No! No!

Lu Shouqiu kindly told the sheepdog sisters to hurry home and stop playing outside, then took the civet cat back to the Drum Tower.

Watching freedom wave goodbye to it, the civet cat felt that life was meaningless. Don’t save me, I’m already dead.

The main hall had been restored to its original state. Lu Shouqiu had an owl send the Manman’s carcass to the clinic. The Manman is an ancient beast; its bones are an excellent medicinal ingredient that can nourish yin and yang and strengthen the body. Ground into powder and made into pills, it is a tonic that money can’t necessarily buy. The Manman had been rampant in the depths of the farm for many years, destroying crops. The ghosts and immortals living in the depths were very troubled and had mentioned it to Lu Shouqiu many times. She intended to take a trip into the depths in the near future.

She threw the civet cat back into its nest. “Face the wall and reflect for three months. I’ll consider letting you out when you’ve behaved well.”

Meow! That would be the death of the cat! The civet cat wanted to protest, but it didn’t have the guts. It could only shrink into the nest, pretending to be obedient, though its glazed eyes were darting around, seemingly looking for something.

Lu Shouqiu knew exactly what it was thinking. The terrified Ruan Jingluo had already gone to the gate. The little security guard had quite a temper but was very responsible. Even without a salary, she was still diligently doing her job.

If Ruan Jingluo knew this was what Lu Shouqiu was thinking, she would definitely jump up and curse. She wasn’t that dedicated at all; it was entirely because the unknown creature from earlier made her feel that the Drum Tower was full of ghosts and monsters. It felt eerie and scary to stay inside, plus the dream she had last night, which was so realistic she wondered if she had a mental illness. Seeing the old, paint-peeling, ancient totems on the beams and eaves of the Drum Tower during the day made it even creepier. She had practically scrambled and crawled out of the Drum Tower, leaving at full speed; whether she would return at night was another question.

In the afternoon, the immortals harvested fish to make laosuanyu (old pickled fish). Lu Shouqiu had nothing better to do, so she went to join the fun. The farm had enclosed fish ponds, and they also raised fish in the rice paddies—carp and grass carp. Rice-field carp are usually used for pickled fish. From the time they are stocked until harvest, they aren’t fed feed; they eat plants and insects in the paddies and drink water from the heavens. The fish raised this way have firm, fresh meat. Live fish can sell for over 30 yuan a pound at the immortal market, and supply still can’t meet demand.

The immortals don’t sell all the fish; most are kept to make pickled fish, a specialty delicacy marinated with sticky rice and chili powder and then wrapped in bamboo shoot shells to ferment. The finished product possesses a natural harmony of salty, sour, fragrant, and sweet flavors. The longer it is pickled, the more fragrant and delicious it becomes. Some immortals have old pickled fish that have been aged for over twenty years; the color is beautiful. Such vintage pickled fish is only brought out during major holidays; usually, they eat ones pickled for two or three years.

Lu Shouqiu rolled up her trousers and went into the paddy to catch fish. The wooden bucket behind her held her entire harvest for the day: rice-field carp of various sizes. The tail and back areas were a golden yellow, the color of ripe rice ears; their scales were larger than those of pond-raised fish, and their mouths were slightly longer. They crowded in the bucket, flapping their gills. She brought the bucket to the shore, her calves covered in mud, her face also looking like a little messy cat.

Besides being bored, she came to help catch fish for a greedy request: “Auntie Daohua, I’ll buy this bucket. Can you help me make a jar of old pickled fish?”

Auntie Daohua was an expert at making old pickled fish. Lu Shouqiu wanted to make a jar to age for ten or twenty years before eating it.

“Sure, I’ll make it for you,” Auntie Daohua said with a chuckle. “I won’t charge you.”

“Then thank you, Auntie Daohua. I’m going into the deeps in two days, and I’ll bring you back two baskets of jade mushrooms.” Lu Shouqiu didn’t like taking advantage of others. The immortals sent things to the Drum Tower, and she always had return gifts.

It wasn’t easy for the immortals on the outskirts to go into the deeps. The journey was long and the road conditions complex. The birds and beasts that had gone extinct in the human world were in the depths, and it was extremely dangerous. The immortals living on the outskirts were very ordinary; they had no self-defense capabilities and tried their best to avoid the depths. But there were rare things in the depths, and Lu Shouqiu would always bring some back for them on her way.

“If you leave, will the living person be okay in the Drum Tower?” Auntie Daohua was a bit worried. Every midnight, the Black and White Impermanence would escort lost souls to the Drum Tower. If Qiuqiu wasn’t there, there would definitely be trouble.

Lu Shouqiu gave a sly smile. “Everyone has to go through it sooner or later.”

The old pickled fish she wanted wouldn’t be ready that quickly, so Auntie Daohua gave her some that she had already pickled to take back to eat.

Lu Shouqiu was walking on the road with the jar of pickled fish when she was stopped by Grandma Huangtao, who was coming down the mountain, along with Sister Pig, who raised black pigs.

The two were old neighbors of many years, often quarreling over trivial matters. Grandma Huangtao was still obsessed with the black pig that had run into her peach forest in the morning and eaten several of her large yellow peaches. After Ruan Jingluo left, she went to find Sister Pig again, wanting to take the black pig as her own, and they started arguing. Sister Pig came to Lu Shouqiu to seek justice.

“Grandma Huangtao, why haven’t you changed your habit of taking advantage of others? If you don’t change it, I’m going to raise the rent.” Lu Shouqiu wasn’t a very good mediator; she had eaten Grandma Huangtao’s peaches and still kept up her exploitation.

Grandma Huangtao looked like she had just eaten poop; the large yellow peaches in the morning had gone to waste. “Don’t do that. If you raise the rent again, I’ll have to drink the northwest wind.”

“Then fix your bad habits,” Lu Shouqiu didn’t want to wake up every day to a headache. “And Sister Pig, watch your pigs. Don’t let them run around stealing people’s food.”

Sister Pig looked sheepish; her pigs didn’t know who they took after, but the habit of stealing food had been there since they were small.

However, it was impossible to make the two reconcile, and Lu Shouqiu had no expectations for them. They were all thousand-year-old spirits; it was pointless to play games with them. After speaking, she left, leaving the two of them there to continue bickering. Passing immortals fanned the flames on the sidelines; a life without end was boring, and watching people argue added some fun to the long, long years.

Lu Shouqiu went to the entrance to find Ruan Jingluo but didn’t see her. The birds resting on the wooden window frame told her that Ruan Jingluo had been called away by the immortals. They said the weasel that had been stealing chickens was caught, and they wanted Ruan Jingluo to judge the case and decide how many years the weasel should be sentenced to.

This was a question Ruan Jingluo wanted to ask: how many years? No, wait, what did this have to do with her?! Why were they looking for her!

She felt that when it came to wild animals, one should either release them directly or call the police to let the relevant departments handle it. The villagers’ losses should be compensated by the government, but when she explained it like this, they all shook their heads, saying that farm matters were handled within the farm and the outside world didn’t get involved.

What was this? Ruan Jingluo was dumbfounded, stunned that she had boarded Lu Shouqiu’s pirate ship. That play-dumb swindler was definitely not a kind character; she might even be a gangster!

The more she thought about it, the more terrified she became. Now she couldn’t run away. She was dragged to the cage containing the weasel, looking at the yellow-haired creature that was tilting its head to look at her.

Surrounded by a circle of angry villagers, she spoke numbly: “If you were hungry, you could have just made a sound. Stealing chickens is illegal and wrong. Do you realize your mistake? If you do, just nod, and I’ll help you plead for leniency from the villagers. Don’t worry, you’ll just be sent to the zoo for a few days, and it won’t be long before you’re released back into the forest.”

Clearly, the “zoo” she was talking about was not the same one the “Yellow Immortal” was thinking of.

The Yellow Immortal in the cage was running back and forth as if it had received a huge shock, squeaking and screeching. The sound was ear-piercing, and its claws kept scratching at the cage door. Help me, I don’t want to go back to the depths, that’s not a place where a weasel can survive, wuwuwu…

It was crying. The Yellow Immortal was crying, tears streaming down. It scared Ruan Jingluo, who jumped up and shouted: “Hey, hey, hey… what’s going on? Has it become a spirit? Help—Lu Shouqiu! Lu Shouqiu!”

Whenever she was frightened, she called for help.

Lu Shouqiu, who appeared at the gate, was still holding the jar of old pickled fish. She pushed through the crowd, looked at the useless little security guard, and asked: “What is it?”

“It… it… it…” Ruan Jingluo pointed at the cage, trembling, “It’s crying!”

A weasel crying—how scary was that?

“What’s so strange about that? All things have a spirit.” Lu Shouqiu acted like an enlightened master.

It made Ruan Jingluo want to punch her. What did she mean? Was she saying Ruan was making a fuss out of nothing because she hadn’t seen the world? She had never seen a weasel cry before, so of course it was horrifying.

“You came just in time.” She pulled Lu Shouqiu over. “Handle this. I’m out. Don’t come to me for things like this in the future.”

Huh? Someone who had been forced to come and wanted to run away was actually talking about the “future”? Lu Shouqiu was instantly in a great mood and handed the jar she was holding over to Ruan Jingluo to hold.

The jar was very heavy, and Ruan Jingluo almost dropped it. “What the hell is this?”

“Old pickled fish. Auntie Daohua gave it to me. I helped her catch fish in the afternoon. How about we have hot pot tonight? Pan-fried pickled fish is delicious.” She crouched down in front of the cage and tapped the top cover, not forgetting to discuss what to have for dinner with Ruan Jingluo.

The Yellow Immortal felt that Lady Shouqiu wanted to eat it. It retracted its four paws, trying its best to curl into a ball. It was not a beast registered on the farm’s outskirts; it had run over from the border between the depths and the outskirts. It had been well-behaved before, so Lady Shouqiu had turned a blind eye, but now that it was stealing chickens, it was definitely finished.

“You’re the boss, whatever you say,” Ruan Jingluo said, putting the heavy jar on the ground. She felt that the sniffling weasel was quite pitiful. Strange, she actually had some compassion now. “Shouldn’t we call the police? Handling wild animals privately is illegal.”

“How many chickens did it steal?”

“The villagers said eight.”

“That’s too many.”

“Huh?” Ruan Jingluo was confused, listening without understanding.

Lu Shouqiu stood up, ignoring the weasel’s tears, and turned to the immortals whose chickens were stolen: “Send it back to the depths. Don’t let it come again.”

Hearing it was going to be sent back, the weasel stopped curling up. Its front paws clawed at the cage door, tears streaming.

Lu Shouqiu was unmoved. The Yellow Immortal was never a well-behaved beast; it was always stealing chickens and dogs, never changing its ways, and was quite the drama queen. It couldn’t survive in the depths not because the living environment was dangerous, but because all the beasts were annoyed by the Yellow Immortal’s nature. No one liked having a thief in their home.

On the outskirts, in addition to stealing chickens, it had also tried to run out of the farm, only to be intercepted by birds in charge of surveillance. Now, with two crimes, it had to go back whether it wanted to or not.

This was already the result of Lu Shouqiu being in a good mood and showing mercy. If she had been in a bad mood, the Yellow Immortal would have ended up in a much worse place.

“Where are the depths? What kind of place is it?” On the way back to the Drum Tower, Ruan Jingluo couldn’t help but be curious.

Lu Shouqiu was chewing on a piece of dogtail grass, followed by the stupid donkey she met halfway; it had run off to steal other people’s food again.

“Deep mountains and old forests. Want to go? I’m going to check it out in two days. I can take you with me.”

Ruan Jingluo stood on her tiptoes and looked into the distance; there were mountains countless kilometers away. She pouted and said: “Not going.”

Lu Shouqiu was just saying it casually. She couldn’t take Ruan Jingluo into the depths now; it would scare her to death. Although death is not the end but a new beginning, ordinary living people don’t think so. Living people think that death is like a light being extinguished, and there is nothing left. They might say there are ghosts in the world, but subconsciously, they still believe in science and don’t believe in an afterlife.

“You’re really not going? It’s fun there. There are birds this big,” she spread her arms to gesture (there were Kunpeng in the depths, with wings spreading ninety thousand li). Not taking Ruan Jingluo this time didn’t stop her from teasing the girl. “And big dinosaurs. You know tyrannosaurus rex, right? Like in the movies. With their front claws curled against their chests, just like this,” she mimicked a running T-Rex, looking quite comical.

“Pfft…” Ruan Jingluo almost died laughing, then said: “When you make up lies, please consider the age and IQ of the listener.”

“I’ll be struck by lightning if there’s a single lie.” She raised her hand to swear.

Ruan Jingluo gave a cold snort and ignored her. She had heard this kind of “deadly oath” many times when she was a child from that irresponsible man who said it to her mother. Who would believe it? The so-called lightning never came. Karma only ever seemed to target good people because good people didn’t have good rewards, while evil people lived very well.

The sun was about to set, the sunset clouds filling the sky; it was a beautiful sight.

Lu Shouqiu kept telling stories, from mountains, rivers, and streams to the Nine Heavens of the Divine Realm. Even Journey to the West wasn’t as bizarre as what she was saying, but Ruan Jingluo was an inattentive listener. She caught the first sentence but missed the next, and she had extreme doubts about the content, not believing even a single punctuation mark. Yet, Lu Shouqiu kept telling them relentlessly.

By the time they reached the Drum Tower, Ruan Jingluo could no longer stand the chatter and commented: “Have you lived alone too long? Are you lonely? You just talk on and on.”

It was only today that she learned from the villagers that Lu Shouqiu had always lived alone in the Drum Tower, with no family, only a civet cat and a donkey that didn’t look very smart for company.

“Yeah,” Lu Shouqiu admitted generously. She really liked talking to living people.

Ruan Jingluo gave a heh sound, unable to understand the troubles of the rich. If she were as wealthy and powerful as Lu Shouqiu, she would be happy to death—eating, drinking, and playing every day, traveling the world. She wouldn’t be lonely at all.

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