“Good disciple, this is what we’re having for dinner tonight?”
Wang Tiezhu pointed at the porridge and pickled vegetables in front of him in disbelief.
Ye Qingyun mixed up a bowl of porridge for her son and handed it to him. Then she casually pulled Fu Min away from teasing her little brother. One look from her, and the girl immediately behaved.
She filled two more bowls with extra sweet potato chunks for the twins before finally nodding at her master.
Wang Tiezhu refused to give up.
“Where’s the meat? Where’s the wine?”
He wasn’t blind. The house might be small, but everything inside was brand new. She had just come from the city. No matter how poor she was, she had to be better off than the villagers.
Ye Qingyun’s answer was simple.
Even the landlord had run out of money.
She had spent one hundred yuan essentially rebuilding the entire house. Now she only had eighteen yuan left, and it had to last until the summer harvest. If she wasn’t frugal and something unexpected happened, she’d have to dip into her last reserves.
Wang Tiezhu ground his teeth.
You’re so stingy!
Ye Qingyun glared back.
Eat it or don’t.
Wang Tiezhu was dumbfounded.
This is utter rebellion!
Ye Qingyun shrugged.
Master, times have changed.
Only then did Wang Tiezhu realize that his once obedient little disciple had changed.
She wasn’t so innocent anymore.
She wasn’t so easy to fool anymore!
But…
A true man knew when to bend and when to stand tall.
Faced with the choice between eating nothing and eating something, Wang Tiezhu chose the latter without hesitation.
Heh. You know what?
Sweet potato porridge with pickled vegetables tasted a whole lot better than chewing on wild vegetable cakes.
Ye Qingyun glanced at the old man across from her quietly drinking his porridge, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
Seeing that her master was still so practical put her mind at ease.
Still…
Sweet potato porridge and pickles were acceptable once or twice.
Eating it every day?
Even she couldn’t stand that.
After finishing a large bowl, Ye Qingyun—whose body desperately needed energy after a full day’s work—felt as though she hadn’t eaten at all.
A powerful craving welled up inside her.
She wanted meat.
Big, fragrant slabs of pork belly.
The four children, on the other hand, had only eaten meat once every two weeks back in the city. Since coming to the countryside with her, they had managed to taste a little meat almost every day, and somehow looked healthier and rounder than before.
Meanwhile, Wang Tiezhu licked the tip of his chopsticks.
He was only about sixty percent full.
Master and disciple exchanged meaningful glances.
Then, in perfect unspoken agreement, both turned their eyes toward the endless mountain ranges surrounding Qiling Village.
…
Night had completely fallen.
The production team members had finally finished the day’s labor and returned home to cook dinner.
One by one, dim yellow lamps lit up inside the wooden houses built along the mountainside, like scattered stars across the night sky, giving the village an almost dreamlike atmosphere.
By then, Ye Qingyun and her four children had already finished dinner and settled down for the night.
The three girls lay side by side on the only wooden bed.
Ye Qingyun leaned against the headboard, while her youngest son slept on the bedding spread out on the floor beside the bed.
She slowly waved a palm-leaf fan as she softly told them the story of Sun Wukong’s Three Battles with the White Bone Demon.
In this special era, everything children learned revolved around revolutionary ideals.
They had never heard fantasy stories like this before.
The four siblings were thrilled from the very first sentence.
Before long, their excitement exhausted them.
Their bodies gradually relaxed, and one after another, they drifted into peaceful sleep.
Ye Qingyun couldn’t help thinking that moving to the countryside had its advantages.
The atmosphere here was much more relaxed, allowing her to tell the children classics like Journey to the West.
Otherwise, she’d probably have ended up telling them stories about her own battles against demonic beasts.
A nightingale sang from the bamboo grove behind the house.
Ye Qingyun stopped fanning.
She looked down at the four sleeping children, extinguished the kerosene lamp, slipped on the new rubber-soled Liberation shoes she had bought at the supply and marketing cooperative, picked up a bamboo backpack basket she had found among the clutter behind the house, locked the door, and stepped into the clearing outside.
A dark figure emerged from the shadows to one side and waved at her.
Follow me.
“Aren’t we going into the mountains? Why are we heading into the village instead?”
Following behind her master, Ye Qingyun found the direction increasingly suspicious and finally asked.
Wang Tiezhu raised a finger to his lips, signaling her to keep quiet and avoid being seen.
The first production team had finished work late today.
Most villagers had only just finished dinner. Although few people were walking around, figures could still be seen moving in front of nearly every house.
What the master and disciple planned to do tonight definitely wasn’t something that could be done openly.
Naturally, they couldn’t let anyone see them.
Ye Qingyun was puzzled.
Her house stood alone on the southern hillside.
She could have gone straight into the mountains without passing through the village at all.
That was exactly why she had hurried the children to bed before sneaking out while everyone else was still busy.
Wang Tiezhu merely gestured for her to stop asking questions and keep following.
Taking a deep breath to suppress the urge to turn around and leave, Ye Qingyun quietly followed him to a stilt house.
He motioned for her to hide beside the firewood pile beneath the house.
Then, with practiced ease, he slipped to the stairs beside the chicken coop and knocked on the wooden door three times in a distinct rhythm.
A moment later, the door creaked open.
Light spilled down the staircase, casting the graceful silhouette of a woman across the wooden steps.
The woman’s annoyed voice rang out.
“You old fool! Didn’t I tell you my son came home? I told you not to come these next few days! Are you trying to get yourself killed? If Ah Da sees you, aren’t you afraid he’ll beat you to death—”
Before she could finish speaking, Ye Qingyun heard a loud smack.
“Ah Mei, lend me your son’s flashlight for one night. I’ll treat you to some meat afterward.”
The woman snorted.
She clearly didn’t believe a penniless old man like Wang Tiezhu could possibly come up with meat.
Even so, she didn’t argue.
She quietly slipped back inside and returned moments later with a flashlight.
The door closed once more.
The light disappeared from the staircase, along with the woman’s shadow.
Hearing the familiar footsteps, Ye Qingyun peeked out from behind the firewood pile.
Wang Tiezhu looped the flashlight around her neck and grinned proudly.
“To do a job well, you first need the right tools. Going into the mountains at night without a flashlight simply won’t do.”
Unfortunately, the Qiling Village Production Brigade was dirt poor.
Only Widow Liu Ahmei’s son, who worked as a mail carrier, owned a flashlight.
Fortunately…
Ahmei happened to be on very good terms with him.
“Remember to save something nice for your master’s wife afterward.”
Patting Ye Qingyun on the shoulder, Wang Tiezhu reminded her solemnly.
Master’s wife?
The corner of Ye Qingyun’s mouth twitched.
Which master’s wife is this again?
Forget it.
She had long since lost count.
Looking at the old man standing by the roadside with no intention of following her into the mountains, she asked once more,
“You’re really not coming with me?”
Wang Tiezhu replied,
“Didn’t I already tell you where it is?”
He pointed at his own frail body.
“Besides, if your master could go himself, would I have ended up looking like this?”
Only then did Ye Qingyun remember.
Neither of them was a cultivator anymore.
The shabby, skinny old man before her would probably provide the whole village with a funeral feast if he took one bad fall.
“All right then. Keep watch for me.”
She still couldn’t help worrying.
Wang Tiezhu patted his chest confidently.
“I’ll stay right here at the mountain entrance. If anything happens, I’ll signal you immediately.”
Ye Qingyun glanced once toward the direction of home.
Then she switched on the flashlight, turned, and headed into the mountains, following the stream upstream.
Mountain streams often ran through valleys between peaks.
Judging by its name alone, Qiling Village was a place of many steep and dangerous mountains.
On either side of the stream rose cliffs inclined at nearly seventy degrees.
Constantly soaked by the flowing water, the rock faces were extremely slippery.
The stream Wang Tiezhu had mentioned was the largest tributary near Qiling Village.
It was said that a few years earlier, someone had climbed the cliffs to gather medicinal herbs, slipped, rolled down the rock face, and drowned in the deep pool below.
After that, the production team strictly forbade anyone from going near these dangerous ravines.
Because of that, the most treacherous stream of them all had earned a chilling nickname—
Ghost Creek.