Chapter 38

The sun gradually shone away the mist between the mountains, revealing a ruthless, scorching white light.

The shadow of the ancestral hall roof was cast on the front courtyard, and the ancestral tablets of Wu Family Village were quietly listed in the main hall.

On the offering table at the very bottom, besides incense burners and melons and fruits, there was a wooden rack, horizontally placing a green and red mixed jade flute, with colorful long silk ribbons wrapped around the tail end.

The grandmother guarding the ancestral hall ran in hurriedly, holding her bamboo flute in her left hand, grabbed the jade flute with her right hand, and turned to run out again.

She had just reached the entrance of the ancestral hall, looking down from a high position, and saw several figures running rapidly on the hillside.

Wu Zhaizhu Wu's cloak and Wu Tugu's figure were particularly eye-catching.

That young man from outside was almost on par with Wu Zhaizhu Wu, his speed as fast as a tiger or leopard.

It looked like if he didn't need Wu Zhaizhu Wu to guide the way, he could be even faster than Wu Zhaizhu Wu.

"Actually came so fast?"

The grandmother guarding the ancestral hall cursed, looked around, and suddenly ran toward the side.

She had just run back to the ancestral hall from the bamboo forest, and the distance was much shorter than from the big pit to the ancestral hall, so she was able to arrive one step early.

If she really compared speed, she would definitely not be able to beat those few people.

Wu Zhaizhu Wu was full of anger, and from afar, he had already seen that person enter the ancestral hall and come out again, so he couldn't help but shout.

"Grandmother guarding the ancestral hall, what are you doing?!"

The resonant voice echoed between the mountains.

Seeing Chu Tianshu followed his shout, cast his gaze over, knew the position of the grandmother guarding the ancestral hall, and stepped on the ground with both arms spread.

The soil on the ground burst into small pits, and his figure shot out like a hunting falcon.

The terrain of the ancestral hall belonged to the highest in the entire village.

The grandmother guarding the ancestral hall ran out from inside, and there was no place to hide in the large area nearby.

Only on the west side was a stone wall, covered with moss and vines, covering a large mountain cave.

She relied on her thin body, didn't even look at the vines hanging at the entrance of the cave, and drilled through the gaps and rushed in.

Almost front and back feet, Seeing Chu Tianshu's figure also arrived here.

He grabbed a large piece of vines, shook his wrist, tore those tangled vines from the branches and joints, threw them aside, and revealed the entrance of the cave.

The sunlight entered the cave instantly, allowing him to roughly see the terrain and rock walls in the cave to prevent any mechanisms.

There were no mechanisms, but a sharp and rapid flute sound suddenly rose in the cave.

On the rock walls on all sides, a large number of flying insects bumped toward the middle.

Seeing Chu Tianshu hadn't seen clearly what kind of insects they were, but where the flying insects bumped, a large piece of firelight exploded.

Whoosh!!!

Raging flames sprayed toward the outside of the cave.

Seeing Chu Tianshu covered with his sleeves, stepped and dodged, his body first retreated to the left rear, then folded to the right rear.

In the blink of an eye, he was ten meters away.

"What is this?"

Seeing Chu Tianshu looked again, and the figure of the grandmother was gone.

But there were still many small insects on the rock walls, sometimes flying up, sometimes falling back to the rock walls, and the species were strange and varied.

Some were like pure black ladybugs, some were like green bees, some were like fire-red ants, but their wings were longer than their bodies.

There were more insects that couldn't fly, which were also startled by the firelight just now, crawling around in the cracks of the ground, centipedes, house centipedes, lizards, scorpions, spiders...

He moved his gaze upward and found that two large characters had been carved above the entrance of this cave, but they were covered by vines before.

"Hide, Immortal?"

When Seeing Chu Tianshu read these two characters, Wu Zhaizhu Wu and the others also arrived.

"She actually broke into the Immortal Hiding Cave?"

Wu Zhaizhu Wu gasped and hurriedly said to Seeing Chu Tianshu, "It's very dangerous inside, don't rush in..."

The Miao people originally had their own writing, but the Miao people spread in various places were not unified, and the universality was not high.

During the Kangxi period, there was a miscellaneous book "Dongxi Xianzhi", which recorded: "The Miao people have books, not tripod seeds, nor tadpoles; who is the author, cannot be examined."

By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the legend became: when the Miao people migrated to the southwest, the clan elders forgot to bring the Miao books and asked the eldest daughter-in-law to go back to get them; as a result, the eldest daughter-in-law heard the child crying, hurried to hold the child, and forgot to take the books; Miao writing has been lost since then.

Therefore, most Miao villages use Han Chinese for reading and recording.

This Immortal Hiding Cave was a name given by an old pedant in the Miao village before; if ordinary outsiders saw it, they might think it was a good place.

In fact, that old gentleman played a word game, which is also a common habit of ancient literati, giving a dangerous place an elegant name to cover up the real name.

The true meaning of "Immortal Hiding" is "Fiber Hiding".

It means that there are a large number of insects in the cave that lay eggs and live, and fungi that spread powder and reproduce, all of which are fiber-small things.

This cave is more than two miles long, and the wide part inside is about dozens of steps, and the narrow part is seven or eight steps.

There is no other way out, only this entrance.

Wu Family Village waits until after the winter solstice every year, when the climate is coldest, but it is clear and cloudless, and the yang energy is actually heavy for those few days.

Only then will the clan leader lead the team, select the most agile warriors and insect-mistresses in the village, fully armed, and make full preparations to go inside to catch insects and pick mushrooms.

Bringing them outside to make cursed insects and medicine, poison and wine, has many uses.

But now, the climate has not reached that time, and there is the grandmother guarding the ancestral hall hiding inside playing the flute, stimulating and affecting those insects, and the danger is no small matter.

"Some of those poisonous insects produce a kind of flammable acid oil, and some can produce extremely small sparks when their claws collide."

"Separately, it's fine, but affected by the flute sound, if they bump into each other, they will explode in the air."

Wu Zhaizhu Wu's expression was very solemn, "And the deeper you go into the darkness of this cave, the more poisonous the mushrooms that grow are; if an explosion occurs in those places, I fear it will directly ignite the mushroom powder and produce poisonous smoke."

"If you inhale even half a mouthful, you may be poisoned, crazy, and babbling."

Seeing Chu Tianshu said: "I saw her holding two flutes, one of which is green and red mixed, like jade, that is the Colorful Cloud Flute, right? So, why did this grandmother suddenly have this anomaly?"

Speaking of this, Seeing Chu Tianshu narrowed his eyes.

"Is she colluding with someone outside?"

Wu Zhaizhu Wu frowned and thought hard: "It shouldn't be; those responsible for going out to inquire about news are all the brothers I trust most, and the person guarding the ancestral hall hasn't left the village for decades, nor does she care about things outside."

Wu Tugu's anger was hard to calm, and he shouted directly into the cave: "Grandmother, why do you want to destroy the rules left by the ancestors and destroy our competition?"

"You are still an old person in the village; are you going to let our village be humiliated like this?"

His voice was like thunder, enough to reach the depths of the cave, even louder than the sound of the village chief shouting before.

There was also a sound in the depths of the cave, which was constantly transmitted out by the stone walls.

"What are you shouting about?!"

The voice of the grandmother guarding the ancestral hall was helped by the cave terrain, and when it reached the outside, although it was not very loud, it made people understand, and it was full of annoyance.

"I did it to protect the ancestors' heritage, so I drove the big acid mosquito to take action; that mosquito only makes people's muscles and bones sour and their strength drop a cut."

"Otherwise, you and Zewa lost two rounds in a row; can you stop them in the third round?"

"But I helped, and you still lost; the village chief, this old fool, actually identified the mosquito I raised and brought people to find me; you are the people who make the village humiliated!!"

Wu Tugu was even more angry, his mouth was a bit stuttering, and he said seven or eight "you" words in a row.

"Grandmother guarding the ancestral hall, you are not for anything else, just don't want the Colorful Cloud Flute to be borrowed, right?"

Wu Zhaizhu Wu raised his voice, "If this is the case, then there is nothing shameful; you just tell me directly that you oppose this matter; why did you have to make a black hand first and then bring the treasure into the cave?"

The voice in the cave came out coldly.

"The things you decided, you didn't ask me beforehand; if I go to find you later, is it useful? I know, you people didn't put me, an old woman guarding the ancestral hall, in your eyes at all!"

Wu Zhaizhu Wu defended: "You said you love quietness yourself, and you have never liked to manage things in the village all these years, so we didn't notify you..."

The voice in the cave suddenly rose.

"Can those things before compare to this matter?"

The grandmother guarding the ancestral hall shouted, "I don't care about other things, but what is the Colorful Cloud Flute? That is a real treasure; that is not a few dead woods carved with names, not stupidly dancing, singing, and worshiping the mountain without consciousness."

"You do those boring things year after year, adhering to useless things, but want to borrow the real treasure casually?"

"Wu Zhaizhu, Clan Leader, think for yourself what stupid thing you are doing!"

"You actually identified me, you, you, you are too disappointing!"

Wu Zhaizhu Wu's face suddenly became very ugly, and Wu Tugu and Wu Zewa were even more stunned.

Those who strictly follow customs in the village are often those older generations.

And the person guarding the ancestral hall should be the one who understands these customs, understands the clan rules, and respects the ancestors the most.

But this grandmother, what did she just say?

In fact, perhaps because she has been guarding the ancestral hall, and she understands the cursed insects and witchcraft in the village, she understands better that there is nothing entrusted on those ancestral tablets.

And she understands better that when people worship the mountain, the mountain does not respond to them.

Only the Colorful Cloud Flute is the treasure recovered from the ancestors' legends.

There is actually such a flute, and this flute really has magical abilities.

The grandmother guarding the ancestral hall has been observing the Colorful Cloud Flute every day for these ten-plus years and learned to make flutes herself.

The magic tools she used to perform cursed insect arts have all changed from short whistles to flutes.

Outsiders cannot understand how much thought she has put into this flute.

Even if they are people in the same village, those who only enter the ancestral hall to worship the ancestors' treasures during festivals cannot feel the same as her.

"It seems that you really won't understand me."

The grandmother guarding the ancestral hall in the cave said with deep hatred, "Only I am the one who truly cherishes the things left by the ancestors!"

Seeing Chu Tianshu looked at Zhong Jinqiu, Old Yu, and others behind him, and their expressions were all a bit subtle.

They should be considered to have breathed a sigh of relief first.

This old grandmother is not colluding with people outside, nor has she set up a series of conspiracies to target them.

This incident is just her own restlessness.

Not bad, just restlessness.

If she had a detailed plan, she wouldn't have hidden in such a cave with no other way out.

However, the matter of passing the trials to borrow the treasure had already been agreed upon by everyone, and the vast majority of people in the village agreed, but suddenly such a person jumped out to stir up trouble.

If Seeing Chu Tianshu's strength was slightly worse, he might have failed because of this and couldn't keep evidence.

In that case, the big things of the two sides were not destroyed by conspiracy, nor were they destroyed by strong enemies.

But were ruined by the restlessness of an isolated old person.

If the matter is revealed in the future, it will really be sighed by people that creation is teasing people!

Shopkeeper Ma and Cai Shanjun also arrived slowly and heard the cause and effect.

"What is this?"

Shopkeeper Ma had a fire in his heart, and was also dumbfounded, "Did our things almost get destroyed by such an old woman who has never met and lives in seclusion?"

Cai Shanjun was calm: "How many big things in ancient and modern times have turning points in inconspicuous places? Back then, when Lord Xinling stole the tally to save Zhao, if it weren't for the help of a concubine of the King of Wei, who knows success or failure?"

"Fortunately, Tianshu didn't lose, and we can still make up for it."

Shopkeeper Ma nodded: "Since this cave has no other exit, it's a big deal to wait for her for a few days, and then do it when she is hungry, or get some wet firewood and smoke her with smoke."

Wu Zhaizhu Wu shook his head: "There are too many poisonous insects in the cave; if you smoke it indiscriminately, if it rushes into the village, I can't afford it; as for starving her, it's fine, although she can catch insects for food, she definitely won't last a month."

"A month?"

Seeing Chu Tianshu said decisively, "No! Is there any other way?"

(End of chapter)