FVN Chapter 22 Stealing the Baby
Chapter 22 Stealing the Baby
As the pheasant crows at dawn, the morning mist hangs heavy.
Song Quyou stretched as he emerged from the Emerald Pine Heaven, marveling at the perfect moment.
Just as I was about to put away the teapot on the ground, I saw a red-skinned wild boar covered in frost curled up, clutching the broken teapot to its chest.
Song Quyou picked up the teapot, startling Shan Gao awake.
"fool……"
Song Quyou shook his head and smiled helplessly. This mountain oyster was truly an offensive term.
"Thank you for keeping watch for us, but I have to go now."
After taking only a few steps, the mountain geese followed closely behind, rubbing their front hooves.
"A dwarf bird?"
Rainbow clouds burst forth from the pot, transforming into a lark that landed on Song Quyou's shoulder.
"Red-skinned wild boar, aren't you leaving?"
Song Quyou, also puzzled by the meaning of "mountain sap," waved his hand and said, "We're leaving, you should go back to the mountain too."
The morning mist gradually dissipated, and the autumn sun quickly climbed to its zenith.
Song Quyou finally encountered a village in the mountains.
The village is small, with a dozen or so households living together in a mountain valley. The dozen or so stilted houses are close together and surrounded by high fences covered with thorny brambles.
It's lunchtime now, and wisps of smoke are rising from the village chimneys, filling the mountains with the aroma of food.
Suddenly, a gong rang out in the village, and villagers from every household came running out, carrying various miscellaneous farm tools such as hunting bows, hoes, and machetes.
"Child thief! Catch the child thief!"
The village erupted in commotion, as if a pot had been boiled over.
The villagers hurriedly ran out of the village, onto the mountain path, and ran towards Song Quyou.
The dense forest swayed, and a dark shadow darted through the branches, from which came the cry of an infant.
Because of its incredible speed, Song Quyou could not see its face clearly. But since it was stealing a child in broad daylight, Song Quyou could not let it leave.
He reached for the long sword at his waist with his right hand, gathering his strength to step on the branches and chase after it.
"You short-lived brat! Running faster than a rabbit, are you in a hurry to be reincarnated?"
The shouts and curses rang out as a red figure appeared.
"The child thief, naked, with wrinkled skin. Straw hair tied in a bun, waist reaching her knees, abandoned by her husband..."
Hearing the curses, the dark figure stopped, trembling with shame and indignation. Its appearance was indeed exactly the same as the one described by the mountain scalp.
It was naked, with flabby flesh hanging down to its knees, wrinkled and unkempt. Its straw-like hair was tied into a high bun on its head, resembling a half-melted candle, making it extremely ugly.
Song Quyou rushed toward the dark figure, and as she got closer, she recognized her.
Wild woman.
According to ancient Chinese texts, the old woman was fond of stealing infants. She possessed extraordinary strength, capable of wrestling with tigers, and could traverse steep cliffs as if they were flat ground. She was not afraid of being beaten, only of being scolded; she had a sense of shame and would not intentionally harm anyone. However, besides stealing infants, she also enjoyed forcibly binding lone men, dragging them to her cave, and raping and defiling them.
"You ugly hag, treating someone else's child like a treasure, could you even give birth to one yourself?"
Overwhelmed with shame and anger, the old woman hurled the child at the mountain stalk, then vanished into the forest as a shadow.
The mountain gorilla only knew how to curse and had no intention of saving people. When it saw the child being thrown at it, it immediately turned on all fours and ran away at top speed to avoid it, looking quite disheveled.
The child was frightened and his cries became hoarse, but fortunately Song Quyou arrived in time, leaping close to the ground and catching the baby.
Seeing that the danger had passed, Shan Gao straightened up and trotted back, hiding behind Song Quyou and timidly watching the villagers chasing after him.
The villagers caught up, panting, and the old man leading the group took the child in his arms, tears streaming down his face, expressing his deepest gratitude.
"Thank you, Taoist priest. If it weren't for you, my grandson would have been stolen by that thief."
"Old man, that old hag who stole the child was incredibly fast. If it weren't for the shouts and curses from the mountain scrambler behind me, I would have been powerless to stop her."
The old man looked at the timid red-skinned wild boar behind Song Quyou and exclaimed in surprise:
"It was you?"
"You old bastard, what's so surprising?"
The old man suddenly became agitated, pointing at the gypsum, and was so angry that he almost jumped up and down. Finally, he sighed deeply and said, "Master, you don't know this. This scoundrel is on another mountain. It curses all day long. No one from our village who passes by there has escaped its curses."
The villagers behind the old man nodded in agreement, pointing at the gypsum and angrily cursing:
"We never provoked that red-skinned beast. He curses everyone he sees. My mother, who is almost sixty, was passing by that mountain when he caught her, blocked her, and cursed her for three hours. If we hadn't gone to greet her out of concern, he wouldn't have let her leave."
"Every time my child passes by that place, he yells at me and makes me cry when we go home."
……
The unforgiving mountain sap could not tolerate such insults, so it retorted viciously:
"That old woman sprained her ankle, and I was just helping her inflate it. How can she blame me for that?"
"Your child is ugly, and you don't even allow people to say so?"
……
There's a saying that you shouldn't expose someone's weaknesses when you're insulting them, but Shan Gao's insults specifically target people's shortcomings, how can anyone not get angry?
The villagers instantly erupted, their eyes turning bloodshot. They grabbed their weapons and prepared to smash the gypsum, ready to fight to the death.
Song Quyou knew that the spiky was truly foul-mouthed, and he was somewhat helpless, but he still quickly stopped the villagers and explained, "Gentlemen, it's just the spiky's nature to curse, and it has no intention of harming anyone. Just ignore it. Also, considering that it saved the child today, let it go."
The scene grew increasingly chaotic, until finally the elderly man holding the child sighed deeply and said with a sense of relief:
"Never mind, never mind."
The old man waved his hand, "You may scold me, but I will remember this kindness you showed me today."
Then he turned to the villagers behind him and said, "Fellow villagers, we are not ungrateful people. After all, this wild boar helped save our child, so we will not hold it against it today."
Shan Gao poked his head out from behind Song Quyou, a tuft of reddish-yellow curly hair twitching: "You old bastard, at least you still have a conscience!"
The old man's face twitched, his weathered, dark face flushed red, and he breathed hot air from his nose. He turned around, jumped up immediately, and lunged at the spiky with bared teeth and claws, determined to slap it no matter what.
Song Quyou quickly turned around, grabbed the pig snout of the mountain ox, and stopped it from making any more noise.
A lark, who was enjoying the view from the tree, suddenly produced a sturdy straw rope from somewhere and tossed it to Song Quyou.
To prevent the spiky from causing more trouble with its mouth, Song Quyou tied its sharp beak tightly with straw rope.
The scrambled bird had its mouth tied, sobbing and whimpering. Its two front hooves clung to the straw rope, and it paced anxiously in circles. But no one helped it; all around were people who wanted to see it make a fool of itself and vent their anger.
"It's lunchtime, Daoist Master, you probably haven't eaten yet. My family just finished cooking." The old man stepped forward, grabbed Song Quyou's sleeve, and pulled him towards the village.
Upon entering the village, the old man led Song Quyou into his stilted house. Inside the main room, dishes were already laid out: stir-fried cured pork with bamboo shoots and cold-dressed houttuynia cordata, all very characteristic of the mountains.
However, the bowls and chopsticks on the table were in disarray, probably due to the earlier capture of the wild woman.
Song Quyou was warmly invited to sit down, while the mountain goat squatted on the threshold, its two front hooves gripping the straw rope around its mouth, peering longingly into the house.