Chapter 13: Too Falcon-like

Besides the incense used for Exorcism, Wen Gu asked Qingyi Daozhang about the stockpile of "Anti-Hunger Pills."

This stuff is convenient to eat and keeps hunger at bay, making it suitable for traveling.

Perhaps to maintain his image as an expert and treat the Village as a fallback, the Daoist Priest also gifted the Village a recipe for a simplified version of the Anti-Hunger Pill. It doesn't have as strong a medicinal effect, but it can stave off hunger.

Out of professional habit, when gifting the recipe, the Daoist Priest also mentioned the "Exorcism" properties of glutinous rice.

The villagers believe it firmly.

The Village Chief is so grateful he could kowtow, and he has long since harbored no complaints in his heart.

Therefore, during this time, the Village has also been making similar things.

Making them in batches saves firewood and is easy to store; once made, they can be eaten directly. When the time comes, he will let the villagers exchange their Work Points for them.

After leaving Qingyi Daozhang's place, Wen Gu went to the Village Chief's to exchange for some of the low-spec Anti-Hunger Pills.

One cannot rely on Qingyi Daozhang for everything.

The Village Chief has been very busy lately, distributing supplies in the Village, needing to handle construction, and also practicing the god-worship rituals taught by the Daoist Priest.

Seeing Wen Gu, the Village Chief said happily, "I was just about to go find you! Quick, come over and help see if this is correct?"

The Village Chief picked up a piece of paper, which contained the steps for the god-worship ritual, dictated by him and recorded by his grandson, Doumiao.

When the Daoist Priest was instructing them, Wen Gu was also present.

Wen Gu took the paper and looked it over.

The handwriting was not very neat, but it was barely legible.

Doumiao, standing to the side, hung his head in embarrassment. In front of Wen Gu, his handwriting was indeed not presentable; he had already tried very hard to write the characters so that everyone could recognize them.

There was no strange expression on Wen Gu's face; he simply looked at the content written on it.

The god-worship steps were very detailed, and it even included how to handle the ash from the burned Exorcism incense at the end.

The Village Chief treasures the incense ash; it is something that can be wiped on windowsills and thresholds or sprinkled at home to ward off evil. Ordinary people cannot get a share of this; only those who have made great contributions can receive some.

Wen Gu expressed no objection to this.

The incense ash itself does indeed have some effect in preventing decay and repelling insects.

The Village has its own ecology, and in the current world, there is no need for excessive interference.

After reading it, Wen Gu handed the paper back: "It is very detailed, the steps are written very clearly, and there are no errors."

The Village Chief was relieved: "That's good, that's good!"

With one worry resolved, the Village Chief spoke to Wen Gu in a relaxed tone about the current construction progress in the Village.

The wood, stone, bricks, and tiles that were transported back have already been sorted and stacked, and construction has already begun in several places.

The villagers are building the houses themselves; although they have never used such "high-end" materials before, they can figure it out by spending some time exploring.

As long as there is no major technical difficulty, the villagers have their own local methods to solve it.

Wen Gu has already charted a direction for their Village to struggle and survive in this chaotic world. The rest are not major problems.

The Storybook that Wen Gu is writing has now reached the third volume, and they are all with the Village Chief.

The Village Chief plans to take them out to boost everyone's morale when they are too tired from building the fortress.

Doumiao then took out two medicine packets and gave them to Wen Gu: "Merchants from the South often pass through the County Town. I have heard of some methods to prevent and treat water-borne parasites and epidemics, so I pondered and made some medicine packets. Perhaps you can use them on your journey."

"Many thanks!" Wen Gu accepted them and gave a solemn bow.

Sigh, Doumiao is truly a young man with great potential; it's a pity he cannot be poached. If there is a chance in the future, he will come back to try poaching him again.

Doumiao, who had turned around to return to his room, suddenly shivered for no reason. He looked up at the sky; the temperature was dropping, and it was time to add more clothing.

The seventh month brings the heat, the ninth month brings the clothes.

The temperature is dropping step by step, and those doing needlework in the Village are busy all day long.

Besides finding people to make clothes, Wen Gu also used sturdy cloth and had people make three large backpacks.

There were no zippers, so he used buttons. The backpacks had compartments and small pockets inside, which could separate items of various sizes, making them easier to find when needed. Things could also be clipped onto the shoulder straps of the backpacks.

Additionally, after cutting paper, he asked someone to sew a few pocket-sized Notebooks that were easy to carry, and added two Charcoal Pencils he had gotten from the Daoist Priest, in case there were important clues on the road that needed to be recorded.

After taking inventory of the supplies, Wen Gu went to the carpenter's house again. He asked the carpenter to make water bottles.

The water bottles made of bamboo were actually just Bamboo Tubes with lids.

The Village previously had many bamboo water bottles, the kind with a latch, which could prevent the water inside from splashing out.

When Wen Gu came to see the carpenter last time, he suggested trying to make interfaces with screw threads.

Unexpectedly, only two days had passed, and they were already finished.

"It's not difficult."

The carpenter did not say much, but his attitude toward Wen Gu was very friendly, and he was very grateful for the suggestion Wen Gu gave him. In these two days, he not only made water bottles but also tried making other things.

As a token of gratitude, the carpenter did not charge the processing fee Wen Gu offered, and he also gave a strong discount on the wheelbarrow Wen Gu ordered, even throwing in some wood himself.

"I will have the wheelbarrow made for you in these two days," the carpenter said.

He is skilled at making this; before the world became chaotic, people in the Village had asked him to make them to push goods to the Town to sell.

When moving things in the Town a few days ago, besides the two-wheeled Wooden Board Cart, there were several people pushing wheelbarrows to transport goods.

And the wheelbarrow Wen Gu ordered had improvements in some details. The carpenter himself benefited from it as well, moving the orders of other families in the Village to a later date to rush Wen Gu's order first.

Xiao Liu Liehu has often come to Wen Gu's place during this time.

His family has already prepared things for his long journey, and his father told him to come over to Wen Gu's to help.

His father said that in their small team, Wen Gu is the backbone. Although he is just a weak scholar, he is the one who makes the decisions.

If they can safely reach Beidi, they will have to rely on Wen Gu's care then.

His father said: "You can treat Wen Gu as the 'employer' who hired you. We must let the employer know how capable we are and what special skills we have."

Therefore, Xiao Liu Liehu is very proactive in showing off his talents in front of Wen Gu.

He has already shown his archery, and he still has things that Wen Gu is interested in.

"I also keep a falcon; I've been training it for two years. Its name is Matuan."

When he was small, he followed his father into the County Town and ate a deep-fried sesame ball there once, remembering it to this day. Later, when he went into town to look for work, he only ever watched from afar, thinking that once he earned enough wages, he would buy one for himself to eat.

How well the people in the County Town ate, and how well they lived; they didn't have to toil at farming, nor did they have to go into the mountains to hunt while risking their lives.

Xiao Liu Liehu had always hoped that one day he could find a job in the County Town and live there with his whole family.

Now, he could only change his dream.

The name "Matuan" hid his simple and persistent yearning.

However, "Matuan" had gone out to forage now and hadn't returned yet.

Xiao Liu Liehu looked around; not far away, stone materials and timber were piled up, and a crow was standing on top of them. He didn't know if it was resting there or curiously observing human activity.

There was no one else outdoors nearby; if there were, they would certainly have chased this crow away.

Xiao Liu Liehu believed quite a bit in gods and ghosts, but perhaps because he was more familiar with birds, he wasn't as sensitive toward crows as the other villagers.

"There is a crow over there."

Xiao Liu Liehu observed Wen Gu's attitude toward the crow; some scholars really hated crows.

However, Wen Gu did not show any aversion, instead following up on Xiao Liu's words: "When I was on a Study Tour, I heard a small story about crows."

Wen Gu told the story of the crow drinking water.

Xiao Liu Liehu nodded excitedly again and again: "Right, right! They can use tools; they are actually very smart! Smarter than many hawks and falcons!"

"I didn't understand when I was little and even asked my father why he didn't train more birds like that. Later, I found out it was because of the taboo."

Wen Gu understood.

"I... heard while on my Study Tour that a long, long time ago, crows had positive symbolic meaning. It was only later, due to wars and disasters, that there were many dead, and since crows are scavengers—that is, they eat carrion—they were often seen circling those places. The poems and essays written by scholars would use them to metaphorically describe desolate scenes."

Besides desolate scenes, there were also political metaphors, but he wouldn't mention that.

Anyway, it was enough to let Xiao Liu Liehu know why everyone held a taboo against them.

When choosing hunting birds, the people here still mostly chose hawks and falcons; in the hearts of wealthy families and commoners, they mostly held positive connotations, representing martial prowess and also serving as a symbol for warding off evil.

"Oh, oh, so that's how it is."

Xiao Liu Liehu recalled Wen Gu's words just now and sighed in his heart; no wonder so many scholars went out on Study Tours every year—they knew so much!

The crow in front didn't know what it had discovered, or perhaps it wanted to observe the humans from a closer distance; it hopped from the stone pile to the ground, getting closer to Wen Gu and Xiao Liu Liehu.

This also brought Xiao Liu back to his senses, and he continued the previous topic.

"Besides the taboo, another reason we don't train crows is that they are too smart and don't submit to discipline."

Wen Gu nodded: Understood, the higher the IQ, the easier it is to "rebel."

Sometimes, being too smart and having too much of one's own mind is actually unsuitable. They might even turn around and test their master's bottom line, until in the end, it's uncertain who is training whom.

Hawks and falcons are different; they are easier to train into hunting tools.

Seeing that Wen Gu could understand, Xiao Liu Liehu was very happy, only feeling that this "employer" was truly a good person, unlike those masters in the County Town who didn't understand birds yet still blathered on and berated people.

Xiao Liu took this opportunity to recommend his own falcon: "'Matuan' may not be as smart as a crow, but its temperament is very good, it's very obedient, and it knows many special tricks. When it comes back, I'll have it perform one for you..."

A figure swooped down from the sky, accurately and swiftly pinning that crow to the ground with one foot.

The trampled crow flapped its wings and squawked.

The falcon that had swooped down stepped on the crow with its powerful talons and even used its beak to pluck the crow's feathers.

It was quite fierce.

For a moment, black crow feathers flew everywhere.

Xiao Liu felt like he was about to fall apart: "No! I didn't tell it to perform this!!!"

After a good while, the crow finally struggled to flip over, flapped its wings, and fled.

Only the falcon remained on the ground, looking fierce, with fluffy crow down hanging from its beak.

The beaten crow flew far away. Other crows flew past nearby, their cawing incessant; it was unknown whether they were gloating and mocking their companion, or cursing at these humans.

Wen Gu withdrew his gaze from the sky and looked at the falcon in front of him once more.

It truly was a bird of prey; it was so "falcon-like"!

Qingyi Daozhang, who had come out for a walk after his eyes grew weary from Alchemy, happened to see that scene just now; he glanced at Wen Gu with a mocking look in his eyes, which also seemed to carry a hint—

Sometimes, no matter how many schemes you have, force decides everything!

Note: Peregrine falcons, kestrels, etc., are all national second-class protected wild animals! Do not break the law!