A Mortal’s Immortal Gourd
Chapter 67: The Goose-Riding Warrior

After Ergouzi’s cultivation level advanced, he spent most of his time on Shekou Mountain, cultivating, farming, and feeding the geese.  

The locust extermination team had the assistance of two spirit beast-level giant geese. Without Ergouzi having to intervene, they had already eliminated insect swarms in several nearby villages.  

Currently, they were centered around Sanchazi Town, continuously sweeping outward to clear locusts.  

One day, Ergouzi was sitting on a persimmon tree.  

The persimmons on the tree were fully ripe; all he had to do was tear open a bit of the skin and suck the sweet, rich juice into his mouth.  

Sitting in the tree picking the ripest ones, he ate more than ten, his hands and mouth covered in yellow juice. Anyone who didn’t know better might have thought he had been eating something disgusting.  

At that moment, a large white goose flew over from afar and landed right beside him.  

This white goose was assigned to the locust extermination team and usually wouldn’t come back on its own.  

The white goose walked up to him, stretched its neck arrogantly for a moment, and then spat out a bamboo tube from its beak.  

Ergouzi wiped his sticky persimmon juice off on the goose’s pure white feathers.  

He also wiped the yellow juice off his mouth onto the goose’s feathers.  

After cleaning his hands, he took the bamboo tube and pulled out a slip of paper to read carefully.  

“A two-foot-long giant locust king spotted!”  

Judging by the handwriting, it looked like it was written by a constable.  

Not many locust kings in the swarms were capable of becoming demons.  

He had killed one himself and bought one at an auction.  

The bodies of these two locust demons had given rise to four spirit beast-level giant geese.  

Moreover, both of those locust demons had only been a little over one foot long. He had never encountered one as long as two feet before.  

Since then, he had been searching for traces of such a locust demon but had never found one again.  

Immediately, he mounted the white goose and left Shekou Mountain, meeting the locust extermination team outside a village.  

Ergouzi glanced at the quiet village; the extermination team should not have raided inside.  

“Captain Zhang, that swarm is currently five miles away and moving toward us.”  

The constable and others led Ergouzi up a small hill to observe.  

This was an extraordinarily large swarm, larger than any they had seen before.  

Wherever the swarm passed, even trees were gnawed down and devoured.  

Countless mutated locusts several inches long filled the swarm, numbering at least a few hundred.  

They caught only a distant glimpse of the locust king, a creature two feet long with a far stronger aura.  

It would be tough to deal with.  

Over time, the extermination team under his command had gathered more than 2,000 people.  

But among them, there were still only two martial scholars and one constable. Facing those mutated locusts, the death toll would be very high.  

It was quite possible that all two thousand might die here.  

While Ergouzi was pondering how to handle the situation, the locust swarm took flight again.  

“This swarm probably flew over from very far away, heading straight toward us.”  

The constable’s reminder made Ergouzi realize that this swarm was likely targeting the medicinal herbs on Shekou Mountain.  

Rather than sending his more than two thousand men to their deaths, it was better to let his flock of geese handle it.  

“You don’t need to do anything. Let the swarm continue flying. I’ll figure out how to deal with it.”  

Ergouzi told the extermination team to continue sweeping locusts elsewhere. He took two large white geese and followed behind the locust swarm.  

Every time the swarm took off, it could only fly about a hundred yards before resting briefly, then taking off again.  

The overall moving speed of the swarm wasn’t very fast.  

After following for a while, Ergouzi confirmed the direction was indeed toward Shekou Mountain.  

Since that was the case, he simply rode the white goose back to Shekou Mountain.  

He fed each goose on the mountain a Peiyuan Gutben Pill.  

Then, mounting a spirit beast-level giant goose, he led all the geese from the mountain flying out in front.  

Such a magnificent scene stunned the villagers around Shekou Mountain.  

In their lifetimes, it was the first time anyone had seen someone leading such a huge flock of geese into the sky.  

So much so that many years later, every household around Shexi Village raised geese, which became a local delicacy.  

Many children in the village dreamed from a young age that one day they could ride their own giant goose into the sky.  

The geese clashed head-on with the locust swarm on a tall mountain a few miles outside Shexi Village.  

Ergouzi knew his own strength and to avoid getting in the way, he jumped off the goose early and sat on a large rock to watch the battle.  

Four spirit beast-level giant geese charged forward, sweeping through the swarm like an unstoppable force.  

Locust limbs fell from the sky like rain, pattering down.  

At the same time, feathers mixed with blood continuously fluttered down from the sky.  

The mutated locusts in the swarm were also very strong, fast, with sharp sawtoothed legs.  

About a dozen large locusts five to six inches, six to seven inches long, would gang up on one giant goose.  

Soon after the battle began, a giant goose was severely injured and fell from the sky.  

Farther in the air, he also saw a locust king over two feet long, squeaking and directing the swarm.  

Ergouzi picked up the severely wounded goose and walked to a large rock, casually swinging his long sword.  

All the locusts that approached him were cut in half, none able to get within three feet of him.  

A seven-inch mutated locust arced through the air at arrow-like speed, shooting toward Ergouzi.  

He just lightly adjusted the angle of his sword blade.  

The locust king smashed itself onto the blade and was split in two.  

He had already mobilized his spiritual consciousness from within his recognition sea, covering a radius of about six feet around him.  

With his current cultivation level, his spiritual consciousness could cover three to four times that range, but it would be exhausting and unsustainable.  

All the locusts within his spiritual consciousness range had their flight paths clearly visible, and their speeds seemed to slow.  

He only needed a casual slash to kill them.  

Within moments, three more giant geese fell from the sky, their necks spraying blood.  

These attacks were all from the locust king, who used its explosive speed and sharp hind legs to kill geese with one strike.  

Ergouzi also wanted to hunt the locust king, but this locust was cunning, keeping its distance and never engaging him directly, killing a goose whenever it found an opportunity.  

Unfortunately, Ergouzi couldn’t fly...  

Just as this thought arose, he summoned a nearby giant goose, mounted it, and flew into the sky.  

To avoid alerting the locust king, Ergouzi circled in the air on the goose, killing many irrelevant locusts.  

But the distance to the giant locust was closing.  

The gap narrowed from more than ten yards to around seven or eight yards.  

Five yards.  

Four yards.  

Only four yards now. Once he was within three yards, he could unleash sword energy and be almost certain to hit.  

But at that moment, the locust seemed to sense something and flapped its wings to fly away.  

In urgency, Ergouzi unleashed a sword energy slash, but the giant locust slightly shifted left or right and dodged.  

After spooking the locust, the distance between them widened again to five yards.  

The goose chased; the locust king fled...  

If it was a straight-line speed contest, the goose was faster, having the advantage of a larger body.  

But in short-distance dodges and shifts, the locust had the upper hand.  

So both had their strengths and weaknesses—the goose couldn’t catch up, but the locust couldn’t escape. The distance fluctuated constantly.  

Finally, the distance once again closed to less than five yards.  

Just as the locust king was about to dodge sideways again, the goose had to turn and pursue. The gap would widen again.  

Ergouzi, still riding the goose, had not yet unleashed his sword light. The chaos made it too risky to accidentally harm the other geese.  

He gathered all his spiritual consciousness but was still a few feet short of reaching the locust.  

Seeing the distance widening again and uncertain when he could get this close again, he immediately used the Wind Riding Technique to leap from the goose’s back, pursuing the locust king in midair.  

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the distance closed to about seven and a half feet, entering Ergouzi’s spiritual consciousness range.  

A dazzling sword light shot out from the sword tip. In a flash, the locust king’s body was split clean in two.  

However, after slaying the locust king in midair, Ergouzi’s body also plummeted downward rapidly.  

If he fell like this, he would definitely be crushed to death.  

The white goose’s battle against the locust swarm had already attracted villagers nearby.  

Among them were naturally Zhang Youliang and his brother.  

“Eh!”  

Both looked toward the sky, stunned by Ergouzi’s sword light that had just slain the locust king.  

Even if they had nine lives, they couldn’t withstand such a sword strike from Ergouzi.  

There was shock and fear but also hope shining in their eyes.  

“Better if he just falls and breaks his neck from the sky!”  

Seeing Ergouzi fall rapidly with no way to gain leverage after killing the locust king, they thought to themselves.  

The Wind Riding Technique didn’t allow a Qi Refining cultivator to truly fly, only enabling brief midair leaps with a push-off.  

Below Ergouzi was a field of rubble. If he fell straight down, he would likely be smashed to a pulp.  

They were just waiting for Ergouzi to fall to his death today so they could take over Shekou Mountain tonight.  

However, life is rarely so smooth.  

Ergouzi let out a sharp cry in the air, and a white goose swooped down and caught his falling figure steadily.  

Zhang’s brothers sighed in disappointment.  

Without special fortune, they might never catch up to Ergouzi in this lifetime.  

Without the locust king’s command, the swarm lost its formation, and the geese’s charge killed many while the rest fled. The threat was eliminated.  

Ergouzi called Qiuyue to bring people to clean up the battlefield.  

In this battle, all 48 of his giant geese were deployed; five died, and most of the rest were injured.  

But they obtained the corpse of a two-foot-long locust demon.  

They also collected over 400 mutated locust corpses.  

The normal locust corpses amounted to five or six stones in weight.  

Ergouzi kept only the locust demon and mutated locust corpses, letting Qiuyue take the rest as rations.  

While Ergouzi was fighting the locust swarm, the county government unexpectedly sent people to find his extermination team.  

“Where is Zhang Ergou?”  

The county official’s envoy arrived with a long, stern face.  

His cordiality toward Scholar Zhao and the others was lukewarm, showing an expression of keeping people at arm’s length.  

“Captain Zhang went to track a large locust swarm and hasn’t returned yet.”  

“I think he is abandoning his post. If County Magistrate pursues this, there will be punishment.”  

The constable was more tactful and presented several mutated locust king corpses, which softened the envoy’s attitude slightly.  

He also sent someone to find Ergouzi in Shexi Village.  

Ergouzi, riding a giant goose, soon arrived at the temporary camp in the village.  

“Scholar Zhang, you seem carefree, but do you know the entire Qingzhou Prefecture is ravaged by locust disasters, bandits run rampant, and people suffer to death, with bones exposed in the fields?  

Yet your extermination team hesitates here.”  

In front of over a thousand of his men, the county envoy spoke at length, immediately slapping a heavy accusation on Ergouzi.  

“Scholar Zhang, do you know you are guilty?”  

The county envoy arrogantly challenged him.  

The extermination team was mostly villagers who feared government officials most of all. Hearing the envoy’s threats, they all lowered their heads, afraid of government punishment.  

But inside, they felt wronged.  

They had been fighting day and night, clearing locust swarms in several nearby villages.  

After so many days of battle, many were injured, and some had even lost family members.  

And now they were being threatened with punishment by the county government.  

Ergouzi scanned with the Qi Observation Technique. This clerk was only a martial scholar, yet dared to bluster in front of him.  

“First, all the disasters in Qingzhou Prefecture were not caused by a mere martial scholar like me.  

Second, I am not in the position to manage such affairs. These major matters are handled by the prefectural governors, magistrates, and county chiefs. How could I, a lowly martial scholar, interfere?”  

“Moreover, we have been fighting day and night with only three to four dou of rations daily, wiping out locust disasters in five surrounding towns. How can it be said that we hesitate?”  

With a surge of righteous anger in his chest, Ergouzi finally retorted.  

This anger was not only for himself but also for the more than two thousand men under him.  

Perhaps this was the confidence that came with his cultivation improvement.  

Also, having read many books lately, he was able to argue with reason and logic.  

A few years ago, when facing government officials, he could only stammer and dare not even breathe heavily, let alone argue back.  

“You!”  

“Don’t think I can’t deal with you just because you have a scholar’s title!”  

The county envoy originally used the usual tactic: brandish the county’s authority to intimidate and then look for benefits.  

But now he met someone who didn’t know his place and was silenced by the retort.  

Fuming with anger, the envoy’s hand trembled as he threw a county document forcefully on the table.  

“The county magistrate orders you to immediately lead the extermination team to assist in Chengxi Town.”  

Ergouzi picked up the official paper on the table. It was indeed issued by the county government, with a red official seal.  

Chengxi Town was located in the western suburbs of the county seat. Sima Yi had mentioned that there were large spiritual fields there growing herbs like ginseng.  

It seemed the locust swarm was targeting the medicinal herbs there.  

After receiving the county’s order, Ergouzi had no choice but to lead the team to Chengxi Town.  

Along the way, the envoy kept urging the team to speed up, but the team still proceeded steadily.  

There was no way around it; the oxen and horses had to be fed some forage. Their two thousand people required four dou of rations daily, but after deductions by the officials, they only got about three dou.  

On average, each person got only a mouthful or two of food daily, not enough to sustain the energy needed for walking.  

They could only march while sweeping locusts for food.  

A journey that should take one day took them two days with this large group.  

Moreover, many refugees had gathered and become bandits, robbing villages and ambushing travelers in great numbers, so they had to be cautious.  

When they arrived at Chengxi Town, they found the sky shrouded in a dark cloud formed by locusts.