"Why didn't you come earlier? You could peel the skin and make a scarf when the weather was cold. Now that the weather is getting warmer, what's the use of it!" Luo Yujing picked up a piece of firewood, broke it, and threw it into the fire.
Wild fox: “…” He suddenly bared his teeth.
Kusheng: “…” He drew his sword and left.
After a while, Kusheng came back with a fox corpse with soft and smooth fur. Luo Yujing didn't really skin it because the smell was too strong, so she just hung it aside.
Ku Sheng fell into a deep sleep with a yellow talisman on his forehead, while Luo Yujing sat beside him holding the sword of extermination. As the fragrance of Ku Sheng became stronger, many strange things came to him. Luo Yujing put his forehead against his knees, blocked his ears, and didn't listen or see.
However, this night she always felt that the surroundings were very crowded. Even if she blocked her ears, she could still hear some tiny noises, as if she was in a noisy city. Luo Yujing didn't like this kind of environment. Those unclear mumblings mixed together, and in the end, they all seemed to become the people around her pointing fingers at her and mocking her in the past.
Her hands trembled slightly as she took out the soul-soothing incense she had made from the box and lit it, one stick after another.
Nothing happened that night. The next morning, Kusheng suddenly opened his eyes and sat up. He looked around and felt relieved when he saw that there were no corpses on the ground. He didn't say anything when he saw the thick incense ash piled up beside Luo Yujing. He just opened the small box and took a look. He found that there was not much incense left.
Time to make some new incense. What gods are around here
"There seems to be a Shi clan ancestral hall nearby, but that was two hundred years ago. It's hard to find it now."
A child's shock-induced amnesia was cured. The old man in the family said this when he heard Ku Sheng asking about the clan god.
"We locals who have lived here for generations know that this place was blessed by the clan gods in the past, but outsiders don't know about it. This Taoist priest is really knowledgeable."
Dongzhou is such a large place with numerous clans. The history of the rise and fall of large and small clans is enough to be written into a thick book, and clan gods often only exist in the records within the clan. Ordinary people live for a few decades, and after two or three generations, many things that have never been recorded will gradually disappear in people’s memories and be gradually forgotten.
The reason why Ku Sheng knew this clearly was because of his special identity. Whenever he stepped on a certain piece of land, he could sense from the aura of the land whether this place was under the jurisdiction of other clan gods.
This is just like how some animals use scent to mark their territory. Each clan god can feel the range of each other's aura and whether their aura is friendly or aggressive.
If it was a friendly clan god, Ku Sheng would just go, like the Zhu clan god last time, he was in decline and his aura was as gentle as water. If it was the kind of aura that was full of attack power and repelled other clan gods from approaching, Ku Sheng would not be able to approach it either.
In a place like this, Kusheng could feel the "aura" of a clan god who had once appeared there. This aura had already dissipated, which meant that the clan god had also disappeared. Naturally, he had no scruples when entering such a place.
Although this clan god is dead, there is a high possibility that a requiem tree still exists in his old place.
Following a vague sign, Kusheng carried Luo Yujing up a nearby low hill. It could be seen that there used to be a road up the mountain, which was a main road, but it had not been walked on for a long time and was covered with trees and weeds, with only a vague boundary line showing.
There is a broken bridge ahead. It was originally a stone bridge, but was damaged by humans, leaving an insurmountable ravine.
Kusheng ignored the ditch blocking his way and quickened his pace. Just as he was about to jump, his hair was grabbed tightly by Luo Yujing behind him.
"What?" Kusheng stopped.
Luo Yujing pointed to the large ditch filled with rocks and asked him, "Do you think I will die if I fall into it?"
If Ku Sheng really jumped over such a wide ditch, with his momentum and strength, he could jump to a height of two or three meters, and she would fall to pieces along with the fragile rattan chair.
Ku Sheng thought so too, and said, "Then I will knock you out and carry you over."
Luo Yujing looked confused: "Why did you knock me out?"
Kusheng said: "If you are not fainted, you will struggle and scream if I touch you."
Luo Yujing: "... No. I just don't like... people touching me. Didn't you say you were a zombie?"
Kusheng didn't believe it: "You would. A few months ago, I just grabbed your hand and you cried and screamed at me!"
Seeing him pestering her, Luo Yujing's voice instantly became louder than his: "I said I can't do it, and that means I can't do it! Are you done yet? Hurry up and carry me over! You were the one who urged me before! Now you're dawdling again!"
She has been switching between extremely depressed and extremely irritable states at any time recently, which makes people unpredictable. Kusheng reached out to hug her and said, "Don't be loud!"
Luo Yujing: "I learned to speak loudly from you!"
Although she said she wouldn't struggle, Kusheng still felt her body stiffen when he picked her up. So he froze instantly as well, looking at her warily, ready to put her down the moment she started crying.
But no, Luo Yujing took the initiative to hug his neck and fix herself on him.
She still resisted getting close to people, but she had smelled too much of the faint fragrance on Ku Sheng's body from the soul-soothing incense. Whenever she smelled it, she subconsciously felt calm and peaceful, and she no longer felt repulsive to him.
Holding her legs with one hand and her back with the other, Kusheng silently took two steps back and then leaped forward. He jumped high, his hair flying, and jumped over the wide ravine, landing lightly in the grass on the other side.
Luo Yujing quickly let go of him, lowered her head and retched. Kusheng was stunned, opened his hand subconsciously to touch her shoulder, and suddenly retracted it.
Holding back the nausea, Luo Yujing saw Kusheng squatting two meters away from her with a complicated look on his face, as if... he had been rejected by the clean Zhuxie Sword before.
Luo Yujing wiped her mouth and explained, "It's not your fault. I just can't stand the feeling of falling suddenly from a great height."
—That’s how she died.
Kusheng said nothing, and jumped back to bring the sundries with him. He set out again, walking through the wild grass that grew in spring. The road ahead was winding, and gradually many stone sculptures of different sizes carved into the shape of fish appeared.
Some of these stone sculptures are well preserved standing in piles of weeds, some are buried under trees with a fish tail or head exposed, and some are broken into pieces. Some remaining red paint can still be seen on the surface of the fish-shaped stone sculptures, indicating that these fish must have been painted red in the past.
"Hmm? There is a trick to deceive the eyes." Kusheng squatted down and fumbled for a while, then stood up again, crushing a few bricks under his feet. Luo Yujing only felt a flash before his eyes, and he didn't know how he walked. The woods in front of him suddenly became clear, revealing a house that was mostly collapsed.
The stone house looks majestic and solid, while the carved patterns and animal shapes appear delicate and beautiful.
Kusheng found the soul-soothing wood he was looking for in the house, an old tree that was about to die. He was going to make incense on the spot. Luo Yujing looked around the deserted house and saw a few red koi swimming in the pond in the yard.
She returned to Ku Sheng and watched him break off dead branches and dry them in the sun, then crush the dry parts into powder.
"Will I follow you like this forever?" Luo Yujing asked as she sat down.
The sound of pounding sawdust stopped and started again.
"You want to escape? You can't escape." Kusheng said.
Shaking her head, Luo Yujing said, "No, I just suddenly felt that this is not bad. In a few years, when I die, you can kill this evil ghost of mine, and we will both get what we want."
"If my life is only this long, I don't have to think about what I'm going to do in the future... When the time comes, before you kill me, can you take me to Yuzhou? There is Yuzhou here, right?"
Kusheng stopped pounding sawdust again. He squatted in a dark place, frowning unconsciously: "...Yuzhou?"
"It's my hometown... Maybe. I don't know if this world is the same as mine. There are so many fairies and ghosts here, but not in my world. And Ujigami, I've never heard of him either."
Ku Sheng didn't know how to answer, so he just said, "You talk a lot today."
Luo Yujing closed her mouth and returned to her calm and indifferent expression as she basked in the sun. Kusheng pounded the sawdust a few times, looked at her, pounded a few times, and looked at her again, as if he wanted to say something.
"Speak." Luo Yujing said.
Kusheng handed her the stone mortar he was using to pound sawdust and said, "If you have nothing to do, would you like to help me pound sawdust?"
Luo Yujing took it and, expressionless, hammered the wood chips with a stone, making a continuous thumping sound. Kusheng twisted the dry wood into sawdust and then pounded it into ash. Seeing Luo Yujing hammering the stone, he said to her dryly, "You used the incense too quickly. I have to make more."
The sound of pounding sawdust suddenly became louder. Luo Yujing had been pounding sawdust all day and couldn't even lift her hands at night. The next part of the work had to be done by Kusheng alone.
Under the lamp, he cut his arm with the sword, squeezed out a few drops of blood and mixed them with the incense ash, stirring them together. It was the first time that Luo Yujing saw him making incense with her own eyes, and only then did she understand why the incense had the same faint fragrance as his when it burned.
She rolled up her quilt and lay on the mat, watching Kusheng concentrate on making incense and slowly falling asleep. Every day before she closed her eyes, she saw Kusheng, who always stayed at a distance from her, guarding her like a door god.
Seeing her fall asleep, Kusheng kneaded a ball of incense and threw it into the fire. Soon, a faint smoke lingered. The smoke from the new incense was slightly different from the previous one because the soul-soothing wood was different, but the faint fragrance remained the same. Smelling this smell, Luo Yujing slept more soundly and had no dreams all night.
In spring, there are many flowers blooming on the roadside, each with its own beauty.
There are many white magnolias in Lucheng. Luo Yujing is carried on Kusheng's back and looks up at the tall white magnolias. Just then a white magnolia falls from the treetop and she reaches out to catch it.
The fragrant and pure white magnolia fell into the hands of a woman in plain clothes who was as pure and elegant as the magnolia. This scene was truly pleasing to the eye.
"What a beautiful lady." A man riding a horse passing by saw this scene and was amazed. He stopped his horse and asked, "Who is this person?"
"I've never seen him. He must be a foreigner passing through Lu City. He looks like a Taoist priest." said the servant.
"How could a strange Taoist priest bring such a beautiful woman with him? Let's go over and ask."
Luo Yujing was caressing the soft petals of the magnolia when she heard the sound of horse hooves. A man with two servants came running after her and shouted, "Master, please stop! I am Peng Yuan from Lucheng. I always like to make friends with extraordinary people. Master, you look extraordinary. I wonder if you could do me the honor of coming to my house so that I can entertain you?"
The words were beautiful, but his eyes kept turning to Luo Yujing, and he didn't hide his greed: "And the lady behind the Taoist priest is really good-looking. I wonder who she is from?"
Along the way, many people thought Luo Yujing was an evil spirit subdued by the Taoist priest and did not dare to approach him. But this man was so bold that he came to find out the truth even though he knew something was wrong.
Kusheng frowned and reached for the Zhuxie Sword, but found nothing. Luo Yujing got there first and drew the sword out of its sheath. He pointed at Peng Yuan and said angrily, "Shut up, you bastard! Get out of here!"