"Yin Qing, why did you run so far to relieve yourself? It's so dangerous in this mountain!"
Mo Xiu came over with a slight breathlessness and saw Yin Qing standing there stupidly.
"It's already been solved? I might as well solve it."
As he spoke, Mo Xiu went behind a rock and started to untie his belt.
"No, no, I haven't started peeing yet."
Yin Qing responded and quickly moved closer to the other side of the mountain wall. While unbuttoning his pants to relieve himself, he looked around. He did not see the strange-looking man who claimed to be a mountain god and seemed to have a stutter, nor did he see the paper crane.
In fact, Yin Qing had only seen paper cranes two or three times before, and each time he saw the paper cranes fly to Hu Yun and peck at him. He only heard that Mr. Ji wrote a lot of words on the paper crane, but the paper surface still looked white and clean.
By the time Yin Qing and Mo Xiu had finished peeing, Yin Qing had searched almost every stone and bush with his eyes, but still found nothing.
"Let's go, what are you looking at?"
"Oh, go, go, go."
There was no other way, so Yin Qing had to follow Mo Xiu back. However, on the way back, the paper crane flew back to Yin Qing, and then flew into his arms as Yin Qing was surprised.
In fact, the paper crane is not very intelligent. It just can simply distinguish the master's orders and give clear responses, apart from the instinct to seek good fortune and avoid danger. The reason why it pecked Yin Qing three times just now was not because it understood the metaphor, but because it understood the fact. One peck meant it was here, and two pecks meant it was not here anymore.
When Yin Qing and Mo Xiu returned to the resting place, they were also preparing to set off again. They told some interesting stories in the middle, and they had been resting for a quarter of an hour.
The group spent another half hour bypassing this barren ravine and ridge, and then the terrain began to go down from an upward slope until they reached a large downhill slope.
"Great! Finally, I don't have to climb up anymore. I can finally walk down. This will save me a lot of energy!"
Lin Xinjie said this excitedly as if he had been pardoned.
"Haha, young man, there is a saying that it is easier to go up a mountain than to go down. This section of the road is where you need to be careful. Huzi, Li Yin, and Chuanzi, keep an eye on these three scholars to avoid any accidents."
“Hey!” “I understand, Uncle Lu.” “I understand, Uncle Lu.”
The three scholars scratched their heads and did not ask why Yin Qing did not need protection. After all, as long as they were not blind, they could see that Yin Qing's physical strength was not inferior to those traveling merchants.
Just as Old Lu said, going down was much more difficult than going up. It consumed a lot of physical energy. Some people felt like their legs were going to weaken as they stepped down the mountain. In addition, the road was slippery after the rain, so everyone walked extremely carefully.
A strong man whose leg was bitten before had plenty of energy and didn't feel it wasted much effort, but this time when he stepped down, he stepped on a movable stone.
"Hey hey hey..."
"Be careful!" "Got it, got it!"
"Pala..."
The stone rolled directly down the mountain path, and the man was so scared that he couldn't stop slipping even after kicking his feet. He was about to fall down, but the mountain path under his feet suddenly had several subtle bulges, which gave the man's feet a foothold. Only then did he stabilize his falling body and grab a small tree nearby.
"Are you okay, Xiao Liu?" "Brother Liu!"
"Slow down, slow down!"
Several people nearby quickly gathered over.
"Hiss... That was close. I almost fell down. If I had rolled down like that, I might have lost my life!"
The man surnamed Liu sat down on the slope, looked down and wiped the cold sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. He had sweated more in just a moment than he had in the previous half hour.
"Hey Brother Liu, there's blood on your trouser legs!"
Upon hearing this, the man rolled up his trouser leg and looked at the place where he was bitten by the fox yesterday. Sure enough, blood had seeped out of the bandage. He untied it to take a look and found that the wound had split open again.
"Ouch, it's a little festering. This fox has a pretty poisonous mouth!"
"Let's watch it tonight. Now is not the time to rest!"
After being frightened by this incident, the group of people traveled more carefully. At noon, they had a meal of cold water in a bamboo tube and some biscuits and steamed buns. Before dark, the peddlers found a cave on the trail that was about ten feet deep and four or five feet wide.
This cave looks quite scary, as if a rock was split in the middle by the magic of nature, and it feels like it will fall down at any time, but in fact it is very stable. It is the old place for this group of traveling merchants to take shelter and rest.
Some people were cooking, while many others were unbuttoning their clothes and trousers to check the places where they were bitten and scratched last night.
“Hiss…” “Wow…this is serious!”
"It's all festering..." "My skin is all swollen, why don't I feel any pain or itching during the day?"
"Ouch, now that you mentioned itchy, I feel a little itchy now."
"Don't catch!"
"Treat it again with herbs!"
These people were now worried. After all, they were not injured by an ordinary fox. The healing of the wound was not good. However, they were lucky enough to find a lot of herbs along the way. Now someone was rubbing the herbal juice and preparing to apply medicine to everyone.
Behind the bushes in the distance, three foxes looked at the group of mortals over there with cold eyes.
“Hehehehe…” “If you dare to go against me, you don’t even know how to write the word death!”
“These guys must be eaten!”
"Hey, scholars, please slow down for a moment and let us spend the night together first~"
"Yes, yes, yes, hehe..."
They have not truly cultivated the ability to transform into human form. The fact that they can appear in human form is just an illusion, similar to a blown-up balloon, and can be easily popped. They are essentially incapable of having sexual intercourse with humans. The so-called night of passion is nothing more than seducing a scholar and sucking his essence away when he is in an excited state.
On the other side, the traveling merchants and scholars who were stared at by the monster’s malicious gaze also felt a little uneasy in their hearts. They just gathered around the campfire and did not dare to go far even to collect firewood.
"Everyone, be careful. There are no walls to protect us tonight. Besides wild beasts, who knows, the three vixens from last night might come back again!"
Having been a traveling merchant for so many years, I have encountered many strange and bizarre things more than once. However, most of them were not worth investigating or I didn't want to investigate them deeply. In order to avoid trouble, I would rather keep it unclear. But this time was undoubtedly the strangest, as I encountered a real monster.
“Ouch~~~~”
“Ouch~~~~~~~”
After nightfall, the howling of wolves suddenly sounded in the mountains, making everyone even more nervous. After a while of silence, the howling sounded again.
“Ouch~~~~~~~”
Many people took out their axes and hid behind the fire.
"Uncle Lu, the wolf howling seems to be getting closer?"
The man who was speaking glanced at the others and a little sweat appeared on his face.
"Well... I have to be more careful tonight. The hungry wolf might be more dangerous than that vixen. As the old saying goes, a pack of hungry wolves is more ferocious than a tiger..."
However, the three fox spirits they were talking about were obviously more nervous than the traveling merchants. In a small valley about a hundred feet away from the traveling merchants, the three foxes had huddled together.
"Uh-huh..." "Woo-huh..."
“Ouch~~~~~~~”
Wild mountain wolves appeared nearby, their numbers increasing, appearing and surrounding the fox from far away. Many of them bared their teeth and roared at the fox, with saliva dripping from their fangs.
"What's wrong with these beasts..." "Why are these beasts coming towards us?"
"Big sister, what should we do?"
"There are so many wolves. Have all the wolf packs from Datong Mountain come..."
The eyes of the wild wolves glowed green in the night. Some were on the high slopes and some were on the near side. They all stared at the three foxes.
The humans a hundred feet away started a fire. Although the fire was visible through many trees and rocks, the wolves obviously ignored the humans' plans.
As if they had received some kind of signal, one of the wolves roared "Ah..." and all the wild wolves bared their ferocious fangs and rushed towards the fox.
As the saying goes, there is always a conqueror. Although the three fox spirits have refined their horizontal bones and gained magical powers, their cultivation directions are different, and their own cultivation and abilities are not enough to make up for their natural defects. What's more, wolves and dogs themselves have a certain ability to break evil, so they can be said to have met their nemesis.
"Ahh..." "Uhh..."
“Woo woo woo…”
“Roar…”
"Ah..." "Roar..."
"Big sister, save me~~~"
The roars and screams of the vixen and the wolf apparently startled the crowd far away; the roars of the beasts fighting were creepy and sounded very close, sometimes even seeming to be just outside the cave.
"Hey... I thought I heard a cry for help just now. Was someone being..."
"Stop talking nonsense, I didn't hear anything!"
"Shh, don't talk, be careful not to attract the fire!"
"Yes, yes, yes, make the fire burn brighter!"
Everyone in the group was trembling with fear. The wild wolves seemed to be crazy tonight, and there were wolf howls from far and near. The sounds of biting and fighting continued outside the cave for a long time, and then extended to farther places.
Anyway, before dawn, no one had the courage to go out and see what was going on.
On the next morning, everyone who had not slept all night dragged their tired bodies and set off carefully. After hesitating for a long time, they finally moved towards the place where they first heard the sound of the beasts fighting.
When we arrived at the small valley, we saw some tragic traces.
"Hiss... There's so much blood!" "Yeah, there's a lot of blood on my hair!"
Old Lu walked behind a bush and poked it with a hatchet, pulling out a piece of red-haired, bloody claw attached to a leg.
"This... looks like a fox leg?"
"It seems...right..." "Hiss...could this be the vixen from the night before last?"
“I really can’t tell!”
"Oh... Datong Mountain is too dangerous!"
Old Lu's face also looked gloomy, and he was wondering whether he should take the Datong Mountain trade route less often in the future, or just give up.
"Go, go, go, hurry up, we must get out of the mountain before dark today, it's too dangerous here!"
"Yeah!" "Uncle Lu is right!"
"Go, go!"
No one in the group dared to hesitate anymore, even the scholars stopped complaining about being tired along the way, as breaking a leg was better than losing their life.
At the end of the evening when the sun was setting, nearly twenty exhausted people finally walked out of the uninhabited area of Datong Mountain.
As soon as they turned out of the small road, they saw a large post station that was still in operation on the side of the mountain ahead, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Yin Qing, who felt movement in his arms, looked down, then turned around and looked behind him. Behind a large yellowish-brown rock beside the mountain path, the hunchbacked mountain god was bowing to him from afar.
Seeing this scene, Yin Qing suddenly understood what happened last night. He was afraid that it was the mountain god who took action, so he hurriedly bowed and saluted.
"Scholar Yin, what are you worshipping?"
"I am thanking the god of this mountain. If there is a god in the mountain, he must have blessed us to get out of the mountain safely this time!"
"Yes, yes, that makes sense!" "Then I'll say goodbye."
"Me too!"
After experiencing this incident, everyone in the group was still frightened and went to pay respects to the grave sincerely.
Rather than being a mountain god, it would be more accurate to say that this mountain spirit is still cultivating towards the position of a mountain god. At most, it has stepped into the threshold and does not care about the beasts in the mountains or the people who enter the mountains.
Moreover, there is no mountain temple in Datong Mountain. It's not that the mountain god doesn't want to, but he doesn't have the ability to gather incense, or he hasn't grasped the essence of how to gather incense. But at this moment, the mountain and water monsters hiding behind the rocks suddenly felt the power of mortals' wishes coming.