Chapter 37: Heavy Rain

Faced with Bai Yuehu's gaze, Xiao Hua, who had already passed out, struggled to wake up from Lu Qingjiu's grasp and said with difficulty, "I think I can still be rescued."

Lu Qingjiu :"

"

Bai Yuehu was slightly disappointed to see that Lu Qingjiu had no intention of giving up the Xiao Hei pig and gently tsked, "He's just like a normal pig, just feed him some water."

Only then did Lu Qingjiu carry Xiao Hua back to the house. Yin Xun got ice water from the fridge and a wet towel for Xiao Hua, which finally saved Xiao Hua's life. Looking at the ice bag that had survived Bai Yuehu's hands, Yin Xun almost wept with joy, hugging Xiao Hua and saying, "I will treat you well from now on.

Xiao Hua almost passed out again when he hugged her and said, "Don't hug me if you're fucking nice to me."

Yin Xun says: "Sake, Xiao Hua says he likes me"

Xiao Hua: ""He had never seen such a shameless person in all his life.

Lu Qingjiu let them go and turned to the kitchen to cook, while the little fox followed Lu Qingjiu like a puppy dog.

When Lu Qingjiu cooks, he occasionally throws a few pieces of meat to the foxes to satisfy their cravings, and sometimes asks them to help carry the rubbish, which they do with aplomb.

Since Yin Xun had said she wanted to eat cold noodles, Lu Qingjiu made her own with pea starch. Lu Qingjiu steamed some more buns of his own. The buns were stuffed with pork and vermicelli, and they were very successful. Lu Qingjiu boiled all the fat left over from the pork in a large jar of fat oil. This oil has a very good taste, both underneath and in stir-fries, and the result is much tastier than ordinary blended oil.

Lu Qingjiu cooked the meal and greeted them as they came over to eat.

The atmosphere was lively as the three sat at the table, and the little fox and Xiao Hei Xiao Hua had their own little table next to them with mince and Xiao Hei Xiao Hua's special food, and for a while all that could be heard in the room was the sound of munching.

Lu Qingjiu looked out and saw thick overcast clouds hanging in the sky, and the wind was whipping, so it looked as if it was going to rain heavily soon.

"Oh, my windows are still open." Yin Xun said. Yin Xun says, "The weather really changes at the drop of a hat." He was worried, but he couldn't put down the bun he was holding.

"Aren't you a mountain god," Lu Qingjiu said, "with no special skills?"

Yin Xun: "What skills"

Lu Qingjiu: "Shutting the windows from a thousand miles away"

Yin Xun glared: "Who says the God of the Mountain has to be able to close a window for a thousand miles, we can't do anything that difficult"

Before he could finish his sentence, he heard all the windows in the house crackle shut. Bai Yuehu gave Yin Xun a salty look and said, "Yours is closed too, no thanks."

Yin Xun :""

Lu Qingjiu sighed: "How did I give birth to such a useless son as you?"

Yin Xun bawling.

There is no comparison between the summer rainstorm and the winter rain, which is short but incredibly destructive. If you don't close the windows, everything in the house will be blown to bits. Shuifu Village doesn't get a lot of rain throughout the year, and this summer it rained a few times, but it stopped quickly and didn't cause any problems.

"This rain is coming hard." Yin Xun stuffed the last bite of his bun into his mouth, "It's expected to rain for a long time."

Lu Qingjiu said, "Or you can stay at my place for one night."

Yin Xun said, "That's fine."

There are plenty of rooms in the Lu Qingjiu house, they just need to be cleaned in advance.

Lu Qingjiu had almost finished eating, so he took a mop and rag and helped Yin Xun clean out a room, and prepared clean bedding for him.

He was fiddling with it when he heard the sound of dripping rain falling to the ground, bean-sized drops falling from the clouds, bouncing up and down on the hot earth. The dust and rain combined and the air began to smell like the rain, a smell that was somewhat reassuring.

It took only a few minutes for a few drops of rain to fall and for a crashing curtain of rain to envelop the world, washing away the mud in the courtyard and creating small puddles of water on the ground.

Lu Qingjiu brought Bai Yuehu's rocking chair to the door, expecting Bai Yuehu to sit on it like the rest of them, staring out at the rain, but instead Bai Yuehu stood up and looked up at the outside with a somewhat serious look on his face.

Lu Qingjiu saw the difference and said, "Bai Yuehu, what's wrong?"

Bai Yuehu said, "Go out with me."

Lu Qingjiu: "Where are you going?" He was slightly surprised, as an umbrella would be useless in such heavy rain, and going out would mean getting wet.

Bai Yuehu said, "The place I've been before."

Lu Qingjiu wondered, "What are you doing there now?"

Bai Yuehu said something inexplicable: "The rain won't stop for a while." After saying this, he went to the nearby utility room to get an umbrella and raised his chin slightly at Lu Qingjiu, gesturing for him to follow him.

Lu Qingjiu took the umbrella, looked at Yin Xun and said, "What about you, Yin Xun?"

"I," Yin Xun scratched his chin, "I'll join you."

Bai Yuehu Without saying anything, the three of them walked out into the heavy rain, which was so heavy that it could almost be described as pouring, smashing against the umbrella with such force that it soon made one's hands go a little numb.

Lu Qingjiu could not see anything but follow Bai Yuehu as they seemed to go up the mountain and the path became winding. Lu Qingjiu didn't know where Bai Yuehu was taking him, but from the route it seemed to be heading up the mountain

After about ten minutes of walking, the rain around them gradually subsided and Lu Qingjiu could see the surroundings clearly.

It was still evening in the mountains, with the sun shining in all directions and a sea of clouds rolling in, there were neither dark clouds nor rain in the air.

"You guys stay here, I have some business." Bai Yuehu tossed his umbrella to the side, "Wait until I get back."

Before Lu Qingjiu could say anything, he watched as he turned around and disappeared from his sight.

Lu Qingjiu turns his head and locks eyes with Yin Xun.

Yin Xun scratched the back of his head: "Since there's nothing else to do, let's go for a stroll in the mountains."

Lu Qingjiu said, "Do you know what Bai Yuehu is going to do?"

Yin Xun said, "I don't know." He said it openly, not quite like he was lying.

Lu Qingjiu was a little unconvinced, but he looked at Yin Xun and finally said nothing, nodding his head and heading up the hill with Yin Xun.

The last time he came here, he was led up by Bai Yuehu, so Lu Qingjiu didn't have much time to observe the roadside scenery.

The plants here are all of a kind Lu Qingjiu has never seen before, some are ordinary and some are strange. Lu Qingjiu is drawn to a plant that has a bare stalk with a white Xiao Hua growing on top. The animal looks at first glance like a cat, but on closer inspection it looks a little different, with its ears hanging down on its sides like a rabbit and its fluffy white fur.

When Yin Xun saw Lu Qingjiu stop, he also came over and said, "What is this?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "I don't know." He had now read the Shanhaijing many times and was certain that there was indeed no such creature in it.

Yin Xun says: "Can I touch it?"

Lu Qingjiu studied it for a moment and shook his head, "It's better not to." He thought it would be better not to touch anything here.

However, before Lu Qingjiu could finish his sentence, Yin Xun put his hand out to touch the soft, fluffy fur on the animal's body, but no sooner had he done so than the petals of the plant, which had been motionless, suddenly split open and turned into a huge mouth with dense teeth and bit towards Yin Xun's hand.

Yin Xun was unaware of this and screamed in dismay, losing most of his palm.

Lu Qingjiu's heart was beating out of his chest as he said, " Yin Xun, are you alright?"

Yin Xun cried, "Do I look like I'm okay?" He had lost his hand.

Lu Qingjiu: "But you're not bleeding." The palm was clean, no blood at all, and when he looked at the edge, he saw that it had a transparent colour, as if Yin Xun's body was full of water without the blood.

Yin Xun said, "Yeah, I'm all about the flowing water."

Lu Qingjiu :""

Yin Xun said, "Forget it, don't touch it, I'll be fine in a minute, let's just keep going up the road."

Lu Qingjiu nods helplessly.

The two of them continued to walk up the hill, not daring to touch the wild flowers and grasses along the road. Anyway, Lu Qingjiu had discovered that he and Yin Xun were basically the bottom of the food chain here.

Soon Lu Qingjiu saw the stone monument he had seen before, which had the words Shuifu Village written on it in blood-red letters.

"Is this the soul of Bai Yuehu?" Lu Qingjiu asks Yin Xun.

"Well how can I put it." Yin Xun said, "Here it would have been influenced by Bai Yuehu, but not his soul."

Lu Qingjiu was dumbfounded, in any case he knew very little about the world of Yin Xun and Bai Yuehu. They followed the path to the platform where Bai Yuehu had brought Lu Qingjiu before, which was no different from the previous one, with the same tumbling sea of clouds below, and the Manta rays weaving in and out of them.

Lu Qingjiu and Yin Xun were a little tired from their walk, so they sat down on the edge of the platform to rest for a while. While resting, Lu Qingjiu noticed a path beside the platform, which seemed to lead deeper into the mountain.

Lu Qingjiu said, "Tell me, why did Bai Yuehu bring us here?"

Yin Xun was burying his head in a struggle with a weed on the side of the road, trying to pull it up, but it wouldn't budge with all his strength, when he heard Lu Qingjiu's question and replied without looking back, "I don't know, maybe it's something we can't know about."

Lu Qingjiu: "For example"

Yin Xun: "Sneakily eating Xiao Hei and Xiao Hua"

Lu Qingjiu's expression twisted for a moment, and to be honest, he was a little afraid that Bai Yuehu would tell him that Xiao Hei, Xiao Hua and the little foxes were all lost when he returned.

"You play here, I want to go to the top of the hill." Lu Qingjiu, almost rested, stood up and patted his buttocks.

Yin Xun finally gave up fighting with the poor little grass and said, "Hey you wait for me, we'll go together."

The path, beyond the platform, becomes a little narrower and instead of the lush vegetation seen before, the path is lined with low ferns.

The road behind, hidden in a dense mist, is fortunate that there is only one path here, and there is no fear of getting lost.

Lu Qingjiu continued to climb up the mountain, Yin Xun followed him but looked a little uneasy, he said, "Qingjiu, are we still going up?"

"What's wrong," Lu Qingjiu asked.

"I'm just a bit sick." Yin Xun said, "The fog is too thick here."

Lu Qingjiu said, "I think it will be fine."

Yin Xun sucked in his nose and didn't say anything.

Lu Qingjiu continued on his way, not normally a particularly curious person, but for some reason today he was extraordinarily keen to go up and see what lay at the end of the fog.

Seeing Lu Qingjiu's firm attitude, Yin Xun did not persuade him any further, but followed him quietly with his arms in his arms.

After about ten minutes of walking, the fog faded.

Lu Qingjiu could faintly see the scene around him again. Unlike the beautiful scenery below the platform, the environment around them could only be described as desolate. The earth on the ground had been replaced by black rocks, which were empty of anything but fine sand.

A tall mountain appears before Lu Qingjiu's eyes, so high that you cannot see the top, the mountain is black, with no trace of vegetation, and the peak is covered in black smooth rock, like the surface of a mirror, making it impossible to imagine how one would climb it.

Halfway up the mountain, surrounded by dense clouds, Lu Qingjiu's gaze fell on the clouds, and he was a little lost in thought until Yin Xun said softly, "What are you looking at?"

"There seems to be something in the clouds." Lu Qingjiu said, "Did you see it?"

"No." Yin Xun looked at it for a moment and shook his head, "There's nothing there."

Lu Qingjiu said, "Am I mistaken?"

Yin Xun is silent.

The weather here is slightly different to that on the other side of the platform, the sky is cloudy with occasional flashes of lightning and thunder booming. The one mountain peak that stands tall, like an island, is separated from the land by a sea of clouds.

Yin Xun sat down on the ground and looked towards the bottomless sea of clouds. He was a bit itchy, so he found a stone and threw it into the sea of clouds. But as soon as the stone entered the sea of clouds, he heard a poofing sound from the depths of the sea of clouds.

"There's water underneath." Yin Xun said, "There's actually water."

Lu Qingjiu said, "Is it strange that there is water?"

Yin Xun said, "It's not strange." He smiled, showing his cute tiger teeth, " Shuifu Village has water, how could it be strange."

Lu Qingjiu smiled and looked at Yin Xun for a moment.

Having been sent here by Bai Yuehu inexplicably, Lu Qingjiu couldn't understand what Bai Yuehu was thinking. He guessed that the heavy rain outside might mean something, but he just didn't understand it at the moment.

There was another low thunderclap, and Lu Qingjiu finally got a good look at what was hovering above the black peaks in the distance, which was, in fact, a long dragon.

Although he hadn't seen it too clearly, Lu Qingjiu was sure he hadn't been mistaken. The dragon was hovering around the black peak with its head and tail joined, its body extremely long, wandering through the clouds, its body as beautiful as a painting. But the next moment it disappeared once more into the dense clouds, and Lu Qingjiu was almost dumbfounded.

This time Yin Xun saw it too, and his reaction was similar to Lu Qingjiu's, a mixture of amazement and dismay.

"How can there be dragons here," Yin Xun said, "aren't they supposed to be extinct?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Extinct but there are mountain gods, so why would dragons be extinct?"

Yin Xun said, "I also passed on part of their memories when I became a mountain god." He replied, "Dragons are not like other races, they have a meaning to their existence, usually to guard something, and since stepping into the modern world, faith has become thinner and thinner, and it is said that the last dragon was over a thousand years ago

extinct"

Lu Qingjiu: "It's still relevant to modern society."

Yin Xun was aggrieved: "No, if you find ten dollars on the roadside now, do you think you are lucky, or do you thank the gods for their blessing?"

Lu Qingjiu says: ""It seems to make sense when you think about it.

Yin Xun said, "When faith is gone, the gods naturally cannot survive, so these things are becoming less and less available."

It has always been the case that belief in ghosts and spirits is a matter of faith, but disbelief is not.

Lu Qingjiu nodded in response to Yin Xun's statement.

The dragon Lu Qingjiu only looked at it once, and after that it was never seen again; this world did not have darkness or light, nor did the sun or the moon ever change.

Unknowingly, Lu Qingjiu and Yin Xun have been here for more than eight hours, and just as Lu Qingjiu is wondering when they can go back, a familiar figure appears in the fog behind them.

Bai Yuehu is back.

His appearance had changed dramatically from the time he was separated, his originally sharp short hair had turned into waist-length hair, and he was wearing a robe with a black backing, which had a flying dragon outlined in gold thread and eyes inlaid with red gems, so vividly that it looked as if it would fly out of the robe the next moment. The bottom of the robe was somewhat torn and looked like it had been burnt by something. Bai Yuehu did not speak when he saw them looking over, but merely raised his arm and waved gently at them.

While Yin Xun stood still, Lu Qingjiu smiled calmly and said, "Bai Yuehu, you're back so soon."

"Well." Bai Yuehu said, "Come on, let's go home."

Only when he got closer did Lu Qingjiu notice that Bai Yuehu's side of her face was covered with three very visible bruises, which looked like they had been scratched by something and stood out on Bai Yuehu's fair cheek. The bruises were very deep, and although the bleeding had stopped, they were still a bloody mess and looked like they would easily leave a scar.

"You're hurt." Lu Qingjiu exclaimed when he saw the wound.

Bai Yuehu turned his face sideways and raised his hand to his cheek, he raised an eyebrow when he saw the blood on the back of his hand, he didn't seem to notice the cut on his cheek before, he said, "It's a small wound, it's not a problem."

Lu Qingjiu said, "Did you go and fight with anyone?"

Bai Yuehu: "Hmm." His eyes fell on the blood on the back of his hand.

Lu Qingjiu miraculously understood what he was saying and he lost his smile before taking a clean handkerchief out of his pocket, grabbing Bai Yuehu's hand and carefully wiping up the blood.

Bai Yuehu now shows his satisfaction and his eyes soften a little.

"And did you win the fight?" Lu Qingjiu asked again.

Bai Yuehu watching Lu Qingjiu: "Winning"

Lu Qingjiu thought about it for a moment and said it differently, "Does it taste good?"

Bai Yuehu smiled with disgust, "It's awful, it smells like water, it's disgusting."

Lu Qingjiu couldn't help but smile as he noticed that Bai Yuehu's body was wet and smelled strongly of blood. At first he thought it was because Bai Yuehu had accidentally gotten wet, but then he followed Bai Yuehu two steps forward and realised that what was dripping down Bai Yuehu's robe was not water stains at all, but blood.

Bai Yuehu's black robe is soaked with blood, which, judging from his state and words, clearly came from another creature.

Lu Qingjiu and Bai Yuehu were talking to each other, asking him what was wrong with his hair, and Bai Yuehu ruffled it, saying that he would just cut it short after they got down the mountain.

Lu Qingjiu joked that he actually looked quite good with long hair.

"It's a hassle." Bai Yuehu puts it this way, "You still have to bunch up when you eat."

Lu Qingjiu laughs loudly.

But for some reason, Yin Xun's face didn't look good from the moment he saw Bai Yuehu's face, and he didn't say a word on the way, like a scared quail. Lu Qingjiu gave Yin Xun a thoughtful look, but did not ask him what was wrong.

They followed the trail away from the summit of Shuifu Village, where the rain had stopped, white clouds hung in the sky and the fresh air after the rain was particularly refreshing.

Lu Qingjiu expected Bai Yuehu to change back to his original form, but he walked home in this form, took a shower, changed into his usual human-like clothes, and then Lu Qingjiu saw him walk out into the yard with a pair of scissors and stranded his long, beautiful black hair with a few snips.

Lu Qingjiu: "You cut your own hair"

Bai Yuehu said, "Yeah."

Lu Qingjiu: "Not afraid of being cut up"

Bai Yuehu said, "If it's broken, it will grow again."

Lu Qingjiu: "Why don't you use spells to change?"

Bai Yuehu: "Because of the trouble."

Lu Qingjiu swallowed: "Then why don't you go to the hairdresser?"

When Bai Yuehu heard this question, he paused in his haircutting motion and spat out two words from his mouth, "No money."

Lu Qingjiu's head was dizzy, as if he saw the same Bai Yuehu standing in front of the dumpling shop staring at him seriously when he first met him.

The vixen in his family is a poor fox, so poor that he can't even afford to eat a small dumpling

Author's Comment: Lu Qingjiu: What makes you disdain mundane food?

Bai Yuehu: It's poverty.

Lu Qingjiu.