Daily Life in the Countryside After Being Reborn
Chapter 55: Dragon-Suppressing Space

Chapter 55: Chapter 55: Dragon-Suppressing Space

Yezi led Zhu Shijun and the other two towards the Great Wizard’s residence.

As they walked, Li Quqi asked what exactly had happened when they were delivering the food, but Yezi couldn’t answer. He was still feeling dazed, annoyed at Zhu Xiaoxian for being stingy and not handing over the great nourishing medicine, and walked grumpily ahead.

But he didn’t walk too fast, reckoning that Zhu Xiaoxian behind him could catch up by quickening his steps.

However, as soon as they entered the suspension house of the Great Wizard, an old clock hanging from the eaves started buzzing. Yezi felt as if millions of mosquitoes were flying around his ears, dropped the food box, and covered his ears.

When the ringing stopped, he turned around only to see that the rice in the food box had spilled everywhere, and the people behind him had disappeared.

He ran out of the suspension house and called out a few times, only hearing the sound of the bell, and Grandma did not answer him as usual; the house seemed empty. Li Ye, who knew what was important, realized something was wrong and hurriedly ran back the way they had come.

"Yezi, are you talking about that old clock under the eaves of the Great Wizard’s house?" Yezi’s mother had had an opportunity in her early years and had learned a bit of Gu Technique from the Great Wizard, who never acknowledged her as his exclusive disciple. Still, she knew about the origin of that old clock.

The old clock, stained with rust and worn by the elements for centuries, was called the Dragon Suppressing Bell, and it rarely sounded.

Among the four, Zhu Shijun was the most anxious. He was already somewhat wary of the Miao people, and during the meal, Li Quqi had mentioned White Dragon Pond and Mountain Dragon Energy, which had already raised his suspicions. He thought regretfully that he shouldn’t have brought his young granddaughter into this messy affair, and now he only hoped that Xiao Xian was unharmed.

The old man was preoccupied and walked quickly, but suddenly stopped after walking a long distance.

Not just him, but the three members of the Li family walking behind also noticed something was wrong with the path.

"Mama, something’s wrong with the road. Why do we keep walking around the same place?" Yezi had run back and forth three times, his forehead slick with sweat, and he didn’t even think to wipe it off.

The road to the Great Wizard Grandma’s house was one he walked on twice a day; he knew exactly how many steps it was each way. Tonight, he had already covered twice the usual distance, but he still hadn’t seen the Great Wizard’s house.

It was pitch dark around them, the familiar neighboring suspension houses seemed like ghostly shadows looming on either side. They couldn’t hear any human voices or the sound of insects.

"Yezi, did the little girl say anything as she entered, something that might have upset your Grandma?" Yezi’s mother figured something out, the smooth stone path was endless. In ancient terms, this was called "ghost wall". Having lived in Southeast Mountain Village for over thirty years, she had never encountered such a situation before. It seemed that the Great Wizard had set up a formation intentionally preventing them from passing. But she couldn’t figure out what exactly Xiao Xian had said.

"She didn’t say anything, we didn’t even see Grandma’s face, no wait, before the bell rang, Xiao Xian behind me blurted out something about ’ginseng prolonging life’" Yezi wracked his brains, recalling.

"Nonsense, where would any ginseng come from, that child," Zhu Shijun was momentarily overwhelmed with frustration.

The four of them didn’t realize that they were only a hundred meters away from the Great Wizard’s suspension house, and without Red Locust’s permission, even if they walked all night, they would still be stuck in the "ghost wall".

Between the road and the suspension house lay an invisible maze, twisting and turning so that they could not find their way out.

Above the suspension house, around ten meters from the ground at the corner of the eaves, the old bell, Dragon Suppressing Bell, was vibrating intensely. On closer inspection, one would notice that there was no clapper inside the ringing bell, and above the dragon bell, an intricately carved mutant beast with a horse face and deer horns was depicted.

Xiao Xian’s voice, faint as a mosquito bite, continuously leaked from the bell.

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Red Locust Great Wizard still held half a stick of Purple Ginseng in her hand, her face filled with joy.

Just one hour ago, the Great Wizard had divined her own fortune, pronouncing that an auspicious purple aura was arriving from the east and her deteriorated body still had a chance to recover.

The Great Wizard put down the tortoise shell used for divination, mocking herself by saying, "A healer doesn’t heal herself; the fortunes I divine are likely inaccurate."

The Great Wizard of the Miao family, originally named Red Locust, was considered one of their own by the Miao people, though she was actually Han.

Red Locust was born during the year of the Anti-Japanese War, from a family of officials along the southeast coast during the late Qing dynasty. To avoid the ravages of war, she followed her family into the Black Mountain region in 1939.

At that time, relations between the Miao and Han were worse than now. In order to survive in Miao Village, Scholar Dad found her a Miao wet-nurse. During the busy farming season of autumn, the wet-nurse placed her on the field, and when she returned in the evening after finishing work, she found a black python with a bloated belly coiled on the ground, its head triangular and its tongue-flicks as thick as a human arm.

The villagers dared not approach to rescue, saying the snake was a demon. The snake coiled on the field for a full three months, its belly bulging the entire time. The snake neither ate nor drank, and after three months, it finally died from exhaustion.

Several bold Miao people used scythes to cut open the python’s belly, and unharmed by a single drop of milk, the female infant Red Locust burst forth from the python’s stomach. Her cowardly father was so frightened that he couldn’t even recognize his daughter and, once the war subsided, fled down the mountain with the rest of his relatives.

Seeing little Red Locust all alone and miserable, the village chief of Miao Village adopted her. Since then, Red Locust has been living among the mountain’s poisonous snakes and ants, tasting all kinds of medicinal herbs the mountains had to offer, and transformed from Little Red Locust into Old Red Locust, changing from a daughter of the Han Clan to the Great Wizard of Dongnan Miao Village.

Red Locust Wizard is exactly fifty-nine years old this year, but her appearance is as aged as a seventy-year-old woman. This is inseparable from her childhood practice of Gu Technique, keeping company with poisonous insects and snakes, and consuming poisonous plants and eggs. More than twenty years ago, she fortuitously rescued Li Quqi, and thereafter developed a shallow mentor-student relationship with Yezi’s mother, which brought her closer to the Li family.

Her experience of separation from her family when she was young made Red Locust Wizard cold and indifferent toward people, even rarely smiling at Yezi more than a few times a year.

However, tonight, Red Locust was laughing heartily in the house, feeling that with the millennium-old Purple Ginseng and a suitable disciple for Gu Refining arriving at her doorstep, she had something to look forward to in the days to come.

The bell sounds stirred Red Locust’s laughter into Xiao Xian’s ears, causing throbbing in her temples.

It was also her own fault for carelessly letting something slip just now; Xiao Xian knew that regret was pointless now, and had to think of a way to leave this bizarre place.

After looking around, she realized that the Dragon Suppressing Bell, hanging under the eaves and as big as a palm, was also considered a space.

This space was indeed a complete space of poisonous insects; it was filled with crawling reptiles, a huddle of red and green poisonous snakes, leaping toads, and orange-sized ballooned spiders, the most peculiar being that all snakes and toads were gathered around a green cicada.

"Old grandma, let me out quickly; I hate snakes, toads, and spiders the most in my life. They are all pests."

After a while, Xiao Xian’s voice softened, "Grandma, please let me out. I’m really not suited for learning Gu. Otherwise, I’ll bring back Li Ye, he likes small animals and insects, he could definitely inherit your mantle and enhance the cultivation of insects."

"Little girl, I have already received your apprenticeship offering, how can I let you leave empty-handed. Don’t rush; there are tens of thousands of Gu in the Dragon Suppressing Bell; you pick one, regardless of which one, I, the Great Wizard, will gift it to you. Gu are yin and delicate beings, and Yezi is a boy, having a strong yang constitution, unable to learn Gu." Red Locust’s laughter made the Dragon Suppressing Bell shake even more violently.

The bell sounded loudly, and it looked as if the swarm of Gu insects was about to surround them.

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