You have mastered the art of thunder and you tell me that it is in a strange world?

Chapter 27: Village Outside the City

Before leaving Qingzhou City, Liu Laizi gave Zuo Chen a stack of silver bills.

"Master, I don't have any valuable treasures here, but you need some mortal things when traveling around the world. These banknotes should be enough for you to reach the Northern Fairy." When Liu Laizi gave the banknotes, he wanted to hold Zuo Chen's hand, but he was afraid that his hands, which had been used to kill people while escorting, would dirty Zuo Chen's palm, so he withdrew his fingertips backwards.

It was not until Zuo Chen took the banknote that he smiled awkwardly, his old face turning a little red.

"Thank you, Chief Escort."

Zuo Chen placed the banknotes in his bamboo basket and accepted his kindness with a smile.

Only then did Liu Laizi feel relieved.

After packing up his things, Zuo Chen left the escort agency while it was still light, carrying a bamboo basket on his back. Caiyi was still greedily eating the chicken legs that Liu Laizi had prepared for them at the farewell banquet. When she saw that Zuo Chen was about to leave, she hurriedly pulled off a chicken leg, held it in her hand, and followed Zuo Chen.

Zuo Chen looked at the chicken drumstick in Caiyi's hand:
"Is it tasty?"

Caiyi felt a little embarrassed when she heard that.

"Master, if I want to learn from you, do I need to not eat grains, but only eat mountain fruits and drink dew from treetops?"

A few black lines appeared on Zuo Chen's forehead: "Look, I've been dining with you these past few days, but I've only eaten fruits and starved?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you want one, get one for me too."

Caiyi: "..."

Is this the Taoist priest’s personality?
"Then I'll give this one to you?"

"Not really, just take it and eat it." Zuo Chen declined.

"Oh." Caiyi nodded, lowered her head and gnawed on the chicken leg. After several bites, she saw Zuo Chen still looking at her, and her face became a little embarrassed. She coughed twice and sorted out her words: "Master, where should we go first? Go directly to the border? Now there is no need for an ultimatum at the border from Qingzhou to Xuzhou. Liu Laizi said before that if you leave the Qingzhou City Border, the gatekeepers will laugh for a long time, thinking that Qingzhou City has lost a mouth to feed, and it will be troublesome to come back. Even if you give silver, you can't go through the border. You need to go around in the mountains."

"Let's not go to the checkpoint yet." Zuo Chen said, "Follow this road and there is a village ahead. The young man I saved before is over there."

"Master? You don't really want that young farmer to repay you, do you?" Caiyi was horrified holding the chicken leg: "I'm afraid he can't even take out the banknotes!"

"What else is on your mind besides banknotes and food?" Zuo Chen pressed his forehead, regretting the fact that he took Caiyi away with him. "When I saw him that day, I could see some ghost energy on him. The ghost energy did not come from the ghost village that day, so I thought about going to him to have a look after I had dealt with the matter."

Caiyi wanted to say that everyone has ghosts these days, but then she remembered the young man's reckless behavior. In the end, she said nothing and just started to eat the chicken leg obediently.

……

The young man before called himself Wang Erniu, and was the second son of Widow Sun in Wangjia Village outside the city.

Wangjia Village is one of the largest villages outside Qingzhou City. You can find out its exact location by asking around in Qingzhou City. It is very easy to find.

Without using the technique of shrinking the earth into an inch, Zuo Chen and Cai Yi walked slowly around Qingzhou City as if they were on a picnic.

After walking out of the city gate and along the official road for an hour and a half, Caiyi began to complain of foot pain, so Zuo Chen took her to a nearby tea shop to rest.

After the tea shop owner collected the copper coins, he quickly made two pots of inferior tea. However, Caiyi was not a picky person, and Zuo Chen had no opinion on the quality of tea. The two of them drank happily and ordered some minced meat with their bowls, chatting while eating.

"The tricks I learned before were all those low-class tricks from street theater troupes. I wonder if you, Taoist priest, have ever heard of a magician. The old man who taught me before was a magician."

Caiyi talked about her past with tea: "I have no father and no mother. The old man said that I jumped out of a stone, but I didn't believe him. He didn't have any great ability, so he named me randomly. He didn't have a surname, so he couldn't pass it on to me, so he called me the magician.

"At first I wanted to call her Red Clothes, but Red Clothes also refers to evil spirits, so I felt it was inappropriate, so I changed it to Colorful Clothes. After the name was decided, they taught me Fire, Bean, Pill, and Rope. To put it simply, it means spitting fire, offering pills under the moon, soybean pills, and the immortal rope. But I have a casual personality, so in the end I only learned how to spit fire and soybean pills. I only know the principles of offering pills and the immortal rope, but I can't use them."

"Where is your master?" Zuo Chen asked.

"He's not dead. He ran away." Caiyi said this in a gloomy tone: "Maybe he thought I was capable enough, or maybe he thought I was too lazy to be worth teaching, so he ran away a few years ago, and even took the money with him."

After saying this, Caiyi was a little depressed: "At that time, I performed very hard and got three taels of silver ingots, but when I woke up the next day, I didn't have a single copper left..."

Without continuing to talk about this matter, Caiyi said:

"Master, what could possibly happen in Wangjia Village?"

"I'm still not able to understand the destiny and everything. Instead of guessing, I'd better go and take a look."

After the two finished chatting, they took out a pair of scissors, cut a piece of valuables from the silver and handed it to the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper took out a small scale and weighed it. He immediately smiled and said:
"You two are going to Wangjia Village. You better be careful, there have been strange things happening in their village recently."

"Strange? What's strange?" Zuo Chen asked, "Would you like to tell us about it?"

"It just so happens that there are no other guests besides you two, so I'll say a few more words."

The store manager was obviously a chatty person. Seeing that Zuo Chen wanted to ask something, he immediately opened up:

The history of Wangjia Village is not too long. At the beginning, an old farmer named Wang opened a farm next to the city. Later, he got married and had children. The children also got married and had children. As he had more children, he bought cows. The fields he opened became bigger and bigger, and more and more people named Wang came.

The Wang family's house became the Wang family's courtyard, and then the Wang family's courtyard became the Wang family's large courtyard. Finally, Old Wang died, and Little Wang and Little Little Wang planted two trees in front of the door, and it became the Wang family village.

The village is located next to the city and naturally has a lot of interactions with the city. Sometimes the farmers in the village will bring some grain and meat into the city to sell, and then exchange them for some trinkets from the city and bring them back to the people in the village.

Day after day, Wangjia Village lived a relatively stable life.

However, in recent times, few people have come out of Wangjia Village.

"I'm doing business on the edge of the city. Normally, people from the village would come to my place to rest, but recently few people have come out from there.

"I believed it so much that I asked a brave waiter to go and find out. My waiter went and came back that afternoon in shock.

"He said that a monk came to the village some time ago, ate vegetarian food and chanted Buddhist scriptures, and helped the village chief perform a ritual.

“Then the monk went into the mountains, and no one ever saw him come out again.

"A few days later, a man in a monk's robe knocked on the door of the village chief's house in the middle of the night. The village chief thought it was the monk who had returned and wanted to open the door, but the amulet he had been given suddenly broke. He felt something was wrong and hid in the house for the whole night.

"Until the next morning, Wang Laogou, the dog next door to his house, was bitten to death by something.

"Rip open your stomach!"

Grandpas, please give me votes. I’ll kowtow to you two!

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(End of this chapter)