In order to wash off the ink stains on her face, Luo Yujing sat by the stream for half a day, and Kusheng did not dare to urge her.
"I didn't do anything wrong, Zhuxie Sword, do you think so?"
"I didn't abandon her, I even made some incense for her soul!"
"What's wrong with drawing a talisman on your face? Isn't that how I killed ghosts in the past? Isn't that right, Zhuxiejian?"
"… "
He squatted on a tall rock nearby, with his back to Luo Yujing who was washing in the stream below, and muttered to the Zhuxie Sword that was inserted at his feet.
Suddenly, he raised his hand, drew out the sword and swung it out: "Kill!"
The Sword of Zhuxie flew out and pierced the crack of a large rock. The shadow there twisted for a while, and black smoke came out and dissipated in the air.
A mountain monster hiding in the shadows and looking for an opportunity to eat people was killed. The sword that could kill evil made a buzzing sound and was called back into Kusheng's hand.
He put Zhuxie back into the sheath and continued the previous topic, "It's not that the ink stain can't be washed off, it just needs to be washed a few more times. Even though the clothes were torn, I bought her new clothes. Why are you still angry?"
"Zhuxie Jian, you should discipline her well and threaten her like you threatened me before. It's because you indulged her too much that she became like this!" Kusheng accused Zhuxie Jian.
This accusation without any response ended with Luo Yujing cleaning herself up and standing up.
"Finally, we can go!" Kusheng jumped off the rock and saw Luo Yujing's face was pale and shivering in the mountain wind. The new clothes were bought in Jinchuan, where plain clothes were the most common, so she was still dressed in white. It's no wonder that many people thought she was a female ghost, because there was no life in her.
"You..." Kusheng hesitated, "You look dead."
Luo Yujing said coldly: "Oh, congratulations."
The "cold" here does not refer to her tone, but to her current state - it is early winter and the weather in this area is very cold. After washing in the mountains for so long, she is almost freezing to death.
Kusheng choked, turned around to find a place, and built a fire for her to calm down.
Luo Yujing, wrapped in a blanket and huddled in front of the fire, still looked unhappy. Kusheng frowned, lit a stick of calming incense, squatted in front of her and said, "Take it."
Luo Yujing took the incense stick slowly. The curl of white smoke floated around her and went into her nose. The faint fragrance gradually stopped her unconscious trembling.
"Wait for me here." Leaving the Zhuxie Sword behind, Kusheng turned around and strode out. Not long after, he came back with messy hair, covered in grass debris, and holding a strange-shaped white radish.
Kusheng searched through the pile of debris, pulling out the pot and rice. The white radish that was thrown at his feet suddenly turned over and climbed up, shaking its plump and juicy body, trying to escape. From its flexible posture when twisting, it was hard to tell whether it was a radish or not.
Luo Yujing: “…”
He picked up the twisting radish and went out again, and then Kusheng came back hurriedly with the pot and put it on the fire.
Luo Yujing saw something moving in the pot and tried to push the lid open, but two white tender roots came out from the cracks in the pot and were roughly stuffed back in by Kusheng. The movement was no different from boiling untied crabs, so he took out two talismans from his sleeves and stuck the lid on to prevent them from escaping.
Even though Luo Yujing was inhaling the soul-soothing cigarette, which made her calm down involuntarily, she couldn't maintain her expression of grief and despair. She had a bad feeling in her heart and asked, "Are you refining pills? Refining medicine?"
Kusheng said, "Of course I am cooking for you."
Luo Yujing said: "I see, you are sealing the demons and monsters."
Kusheng said, "I am making food for you."
Who wants to eat this? She just watched the strange thing twisting, and even now it was knocking on the pot lid! A trace of excitement appeared on Luo Yujing's pale face. She coughed and said, "I don't want to eat it."
Kusheng said angrily: "I washed my hands before putting the rice in, twice!"
Luo Yujing heard the sound of the thing in the pot hitting the lid getting louder and louder. She couldn't stand it anymore and shouted, "Is it your hand? That thing can't be eaten at all. It's a monster, right? You want me to eat a monster?"
"Poisonous mushrooms, rice with stones and sand, poisonous snakes and centipedes, corpse oil... Forget about these, now you even want me to eat monsters!"
He blocked his ears with his fingers and said bitterly, "This is not an ordinary monster. Calm down! Don't let the anger get to your head and lose your mind!"
Luo Yujing: "If you don't let me eat this kind of thing, I will be very calm. As long as you don't torment me, I will be calm and silent!"
Kusheng lit two more incense sticks and fanned the smoke towards her, making the place look like a smoking room. Luo Yujing gradually calmed down. Even the radish monster in the pot was quiet, probably because it had been cooked.
Luo Yujing, who was "smoking", looked detached and said, "I won't eat it."
Kusheng crossed his arms, looking unhappy, and waited until a strange fragrance came out of the pot. He tore off the talisman and opened the lid. The overwhelming fragrance instantly came out with hot white steam, and the ordinary white rice soup turned golden.
He put a wooden spoon in to stir, and the rich and beautiful golden color rippled. Kusheng scooped the smaller "white radish" out of the pot and threw it into the basin on the side.
"I won't eat you, get out of here quickly." Kusheng said with a sour face.
The white radish in the basin flipped out of the basin and ran out. Luo Yujing watched the monster run away, and her eyes moved to the pot of something that she didn't know whether to call "radish soup" or "monster bath water."
Kusheng served her a bowl. Luo Yujing, who had previously decided not to eat it no matter what, was attracted by the strange aroma of the food. She took the bowl and took a sip.
In an instant, her long-dead taste buds were awakened, and a delicious taste she had never tasted before burst out in her mouth.
After those things happened, she couldn't eat anything for a while and food lost its taste. In order not to worry her sister, she tried hard to eat, but she always ended up vomiting it out after her sister left.
After coming here, she didn't care what Kusheng gave her to eat, because she couldn't taste anything.
At this moment, she clearly felt hungry and couldn't help but swallow the bowl of soup in bigger mouthfuls. As the soup fell into her stomach, she shed tears unconsciously, but they were not tears of pain. Some subtle happiness and satisfaction surged from her body, which were emotions she had lost for a long time.
When she came to her senses, Luo Yujing found that she had almost finished the pot of soup, and Kusheng was pouring the last bowl into her bowl. Her body was no longer stiff and cold, as if it was bathed in sunshine.
"What... is this?" she heard herself floating.
"Tai Sui soup." Ku Sheng threw the pot into the water and rinsed it. "Tai Sui is not an ordinary monster, but a spiritual creature. Although it does not have the effect of prolonging life and curing all diseases as the legend says, it is also beneficial to mortals."
There are fewer and fewer evil spirits nowadays, so this kind of rare spiritual creature is naturally even harder to find. He had just happened to sense the aura of Tai Sui by the stream and had not wanted to disturb it. If he had not seen the man's pitiful appearance, he would not have gone through all this trouble.
Luo Yujing suddenly realized that she had misunderstood him before. This might be a precious medicine. She pushed the last bowl of soup in her hand in front of him and said, "Drink it."
Kusheng: "I have a seal on my face, I can't drink it."
For the first time, Luo Yujing asked him calmly, "Can't you take it off temporarily?"
Kusheng: "We have to kill 1,300 evil spirits to complete the task. If we take it down now, it will be a failure."
Luo Yujing: "You don't need to eat, and you won't be hungry?"
Ku Sheng was surprised and said, "Who said I won't be hungry? I'm just used to being hungry all the time."
Luo Yujing: “…”
Kusheng packed up his things and put them in the pile of his belongings. He squatted in front of Luo Yujing with his arms folded and said, "Smoke the soul-soothing incense every day, control your anger, stop crying and shouting, and stop abusing my sword... If you cooperate, I will make you Tai Sui soup in the future."
Luo Yujing felt vaguely familiar with these words, as if her elder sister had said something similar to her when she was in elementary school, something like "Study hard, and if you rank in the top three next time, I'll make you something delicious."
She was a little dazed, wondering how someone could say such things to her.
In early winter, there was light snow falling from the sky.
Luo Yujing sat on a rattan chair, with debris piled high on both sides, just blocking the cold wind and creating a sheltered position. An umbrella was opened and fixed on the rattan chair, blocking Luo Yujing and Kusheng's heads, but Kusheng walked fast, and the snow flew diagonally and fell on him.
Kusheng didn't care about the wind and snow. What he liked most was heavy snow, especially the feeling of heavy snow covering his body.
Holding a burning incense stick, Luo Yujing performed her daily "smoking" treatment. Every day, smelling the faint fragrance, Luo Yujing did look much better, and would take the initiative to talk to Kusheng, for example:
"There is a farm ahead. It's getting dark. Let's go and stay for the night."
Kusheng said: "It's snowing a little, the weather is just right, why not set off overnight."
Luo Yujing: "I'm going to make a scene."
Kusheng: “Damn it!”
When he went to stay at the farm, an old man and two farmhands came to open the door. Kusheng saw them and said, "There is an evil spirit on your farm. I can kill it."
The old man was overjoyed and welcomed him in, complaining, "I have a daughter who has been bedridden for the past two years and has nightmares every day. She has taken many medicines but has not gotten better. I hope the Taoist priest can take a closer look to find out what's wrong with her."
Ku Sheng held the sword to kill evil, and without further explanation, he sensed the evil spirit in the house and went straight to the door. He walked in front, and the old man saw that he did not need any guidance and went straight to his daughter's room, so he hurriedly followed, holding up his clothes.
Seeing him kick open his daughter's door, the old man frowned and wanted to say something, but didn't know how to start.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?” The sickly-looking woman on the bed had just finished speaking when Kusheng was about to stab her with the Zhuxie Sword. The old man was so frightened that his face changed drastically. He rushed over to hold his hand and shouted, “No!”
Kusheng frowned, and with his other hand he pinched out a talisman and still hit the bed - but not at the woman, but at her pillow.
The talisman touched the pillow and instantly caught fire. A black ball of fire rolled out of the pillow and then rolled out of the window.
"open!"
Hearing Kusheng's shout, the old man realized the misunderstanding and hurriedly let go. Kusheng held the sword and rushed straight to the window. Luo Yujing, who had been carried by him, jumped down from the rattan chair skillfully while he climbed through the window.
—If you don’t jump down, you will get stuck on the window sill or be swept down.
She didn't go out through the window, but went out through the door and found Kusheng in a corner of the courtyard.
With Kusheng's ability, he should have dealt with a little monster like that long ago, but he just squatted on the steps with his arms folded, looking at a stone well not far away. It was obvious that he had not killed the evil monster yet.
"Did that thing just now hide in the well?" Luo Yujing asked.
"Hmm." Kusheng said sullenly.
He stared at the well over there fiercely and was unwilling to get any closer.
Luo Yujing knew that it was because he was afraid of wells. During the time they had been together, Luo Yujing had already discovered this problem of his. They slept in the open air and occasionally stayed in dilapidated temples and old houses, where they would always come across wells. He would avoid wells when he saw them and would never approach them no matter what.
"Just wait for it to come out on its own?"
"… Um."
Luo Yujing walked to the well and looked down, and found that the well had been abandoned for a long time and was much shallower than she had imagined. The bottom was full of fallen leaves, and the black hair ball was rolling underneath.
She turned around and shouted, "Evil-killing Sword."
The Zhuxie Sword trembled and flew into her hand. Luo Yujing jumped into the well holding the Zhuxie Sword.
Kusheng: “!!!”
He also jumped up, but took two steps forward and didn't dare to move any closer. He grabbed her hair and shouted, "What are you doing! Zhu Xie Jian, why did you listen to her!"
Before he could be angry for long, Luo Yujing came out from the well with the Zhuxie sword in her hand and the black hair ball stuck in it.