Chapter 1: A folk hero?

I closed the gate to the courtyard and handed the key to the compound to a staff member. I had lived here for many years, but when I left, I realized that I actually missed Beijing.

Qin Huai followed me, carrying a bag of luggage, and said, “Chengyi, wait for me in Sichuan. After I finish some things, I’ll come find you.”

“Don’t do that. If your grandfather knew you were going to wander with me, he would beat me up.” I said casually. In my heart, I really decided to live alone for three years and face the society alone, not necessarily with someone by my side.

“You mean you haven’t decided on a place to stay yet?” Qin Huai asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, I don’t know what I can do yet, so how can I decide where to settle down?” Just as I finished saying this, the sky suddenly started to sprinkle with snow. Yes, time flies. After I finished dealing with some miscellaneous matters, I realized that more than two months had passed without me noticing it. From the end of August to the middle of November, Beijing had already entered early winter. I only realized it when I saw the snowflakes falling.

In fact, life alone is not that difficult. I have been living like this for more than two months.

I was in a daze and didn’t hear what Qinhuai was saying next to me. It wasn’t until Qinhuai called out to me, “Chengyi, are you really not considering it?” that I realized what she was talking about.

“Consider staying in Beijing, in our department. You know you also contributed to the old village chief’s case, and your master and I are friends…” Qin Huai said seriously.

“No, at least not now. Don’t worry about me, really. Look, it’s been more than two months, right?” I can’t use Taoist magic recklessly. This is the request my master gave me. So, what would I do in that department? Like Qin Huai, be a clerk? But I didn’t tell Qin Huai this. If my master believed it, I just wanted to keep it to myself.

At this point, I had already walked out of the alley, and I took the luggage from Qin Huai’s hands, not letting him send me off any further.

This is what I had agreed with many people at the beginning. After all, I have many friends in Beijing after all these years. I will be leaving, and naturally, someone will come to see me off. But I have experienced too many farewells since I was a child, and I don’t want to touch them anymore, so I refused them all.

Only Qinhuai insisted on seeing me off, but I insisted that he only take me as far as the alley. I don’t want to face any more farewells in my life! Is this something that I have to experience because I was born a child? I’m lonely!

Qinhuai wanted to say something else, but I had already taken my luggage and waved to Qinhuai before walking away without looking back. There were scattered snowflakes in the sky. This time I suppressed the loneliness in my heart. I think loneliness is something everyone has to face when they grow up, although I faced it a little earlier, leaving home at a young age.

But if that’s the case, then… shouldn’t I adapt to it a little earlier? Huh, it still hurts. This time I’m saying goodbye to a period of my life, and to… some friends.Taoist priest

Because of the money, I only bought a hard seat ticket. As the train rumbled forward, I watched the crowd bustling about. I took off my hat and closed myself off again. I realized that because of too many farewells, I was already afraid of contact with too many people. Because I couldn’t let go of too many feelings, and I was easily sentimental, what kind of problem was this?

The strangers next to me have already become friends, chatting about all kinds of things, exchanging food, playing cards, and I am the only one who doesn’t fit in…

Their excitement is theirs, and mine? Maybe in the end, I’m just a loner after all! Leaving home, leaving friends, and even my master, is this a sign of my fate?

Thinking about it, I felt a little depressed. I walked to the train connection and lit a cigarette. The crowds in the passageways along the way made me feel like I was back on earth.

The smoke rose. For more than two months, I had not thought about going back to Sichuan and being with my parents, but I also felt that I did not have the courage to start a new life, so I had been living in the courtyard.

Every day, I practiced kung fu, studied the Taoist books left by my master, then went shopping, cooked, and went to bed. I lived a somewhat closed life, and didn’t even have much contact with friends. I knew that I was about to leave, so I didn’t want to add any more sadness.

So, after I thought I had adjusted, I went to see Master Uncle once, asking him to help me contact some staff and have them send some important things back to Sichuan for me.

Unfortunately, this time, my uncle was also not there. He said he was leaving for half a year, and in the end, my eldest brother helped me with these things.

After the things were shipped back to Sichuan, I stayed for another week before I returned the courtyard and left.

Originally, I borrowed 500 yuan from Qinhuai to last for a month, but when I ran out of money, I borrowed some more. By now, I have borrowed 3,000 yuan from Qinhuai. After all, I can’t go home empty-handed to see my parents, can I?

My master left me everything except money. I felt a little bitter when I thought about it. Is earning money the first step I have to face in life? Who is like me? I left my own support for more than two months and owed 3,000 yuan?

Haha, Chen Chengyi, you really are poor! Thinking this way, I finished my cigarette.

When I returned to my seat, I found that the window seat had been taken by someone else. It was a buddy who had originally sat next to me. When he saw me return, he said to me apologetically, “Buddy, I get a little carsick. Can I sit here?”

He spoke in Mandarin, but with a strong Sichuan accent. I found it somewhat endearing, and I didn’t intend to make a fuss about it, so I smiled at him in a friendly but silent manner, and then sat in his original seat.

Perhaps because he was embarrassed, after I sat down, the guy enthusiastically took out a bottle of Jianlibao and handed it to me, saying, “Want a bottle?”

But I don’t like to accept things from others, and I’m also very careful about avoiding cause and effect, so I refused in Sichuan dialect: “I’m not thirsty, thanks.”

“Are you also from Sichuan?” The guy was a little surprised.

But I didn’t want to talk anymore, so I nodded politely, then pretended to be tired, took off my hat, and pretended to fall asleep.

I guess my indifference was a bit too obvious, and the guy didn’t say much. He continued to brag to others, while I was alone, thinking about my own thoughts, wondering where my master would be, thinking about Master Hui’s injury, wondering where Brother Sheng would be, and wondering what the purple plant was and whether it had anything to do with the southern region’s formation of a corpse-raising ground. I didn’t feel that time was passing by.

But at that moment, the Sichuan guy who had taken my seat accidentally passed a comment to my ear, which caught my attention. He said loudly, “I’m not lying. My mother-in-law really knows some sorcery!”

A folk expert? I suddenly became interested, and my heart was attached to the Miao area, so I began to listen carefully.

“Guzhu? What is that? It sounds pretty dangerous.”

“You’re not just blowing smoke, are you? I know a bit about witchcraft, but that’s all the work of witches.”

The people around him obviously wanted to hear something new, but they certainly didn’t believe it. Everyone on the train was just briefly acquainted with each other, so who could really believe what the others said?

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me! Who said that witchcraft is something witches do? You wouldn’t understand that.” The guy continued to brag to the people around him in Trump, but the topic obviously aroused everyone’s interest, and no one refuted him.

They just urged him to continue, and the guy was pleased. Then he said, “My mother-in-law is not from Sichuan, she married into the family. Do you know where my mother-in-law is from? She is from the Miao village in Xiangxi. Where is Xiangxi? It is in Xiangxi, in Yunnan. I am not bragging, but people from the Miao village know a little bit about the art of witchcraft. I didn’t know this before, but when I was a child, one time…”

The guy was bragging, but I didn’t think it was credible. Who said that people in Miao villages must know about the art of witchcraft? You have to know that most Miao people have been Hanized now. Even if they haven’t, there haven’t been many Miao people since ancient times, and they are mysterious. Some Miao villages don’t even have contact with other villages. How did they become people in Miao villages who know the art of witchcraft?

So I decided that the guy was just bragging, and I didn’t pay much attention to him. I was a little drowsy from listening to him, and I wanted to go to sleep.

But the next thing he said caught my attention: “I offended that person, and I had a stomachache all night. Then my mother-in-law looked at it and gave me some herbal medicine to eat. Then you know what I had diarrhea the next day and what came out? You won’t believe it if I tell you, but I pooped out a weird bug that I’d never seen before. My mother-in-law said that the person who cast the spell had raised the bug himself, but the technique wasn’t very good. Hmm, the bug was hidden under the fingernail.”

Yes, it was the last sentence that caught my attention, the one about the fingernail. Only someone who knows their stuff would say that.

You see, although I don’t play with gu, and like Ruoyue, Lingqing’s grandmother is a professional, I have heard them talk about some things that can be passed on. One of them is to go to the Miao village and see people with dirty fingernails. Stay away from them, because the gu is hidden in the fingernails, mostly worm eggs. With a flick of the finger, it will get into the food you eat. If you are more skilled, it will go straight into your nose.

This is indeed a very crude way to put a curse, and this kind of curse is not difficult to deal with, because the kind of bug usually dies quickly, and many eggs may not even have an effect before they are melted by stomach acid. But is this guy’s mother-in-law really an expert?

Thinking about this, I became interested, so I took off my hat and asked the guy in Sichuan dialect, “Brother, you know a lot, don’t you? Is your mother-in-law really from the Miao village? I’ve been to Xiangxi, which village is your mother-in-law from?”