Chapter 70: 69, Rain

69, Rain

"Hiss-hiss—hiss-hiss—"

Wen Si tightly covered both ears and sprinted barefoot; he could only hear his own violent breathing.

Brother Wen San pulled open the bolt of that black lacquered wooden door leading to the outer courtyard; as the door hinges turned, though Wen Si had pressed his ears tight, he felt as if he heard a prolonged "creak."

The clamorous light from outside surged into the dark, sunless inner room, illuminating Wen Si's pupils.

This light was too intense; it stung Wen Si's eyes until they turned red in an instant, and tears streamed down.

—He had not seen the daylight of the outside world for a very long time.

As Wen Si stared at the daylight flooding in, still dazed, Wen San suddenly turned, grabbed Wen Si's arm, and dragged him through that black lacquered wooden door, running outside!

In the outer courtyard, the brewery workers had towels draped over their shoulders, chatting and laughing around rows of sky-pots.

The fermented wine yeast was piled onto the sky-pots; as the firewood beneath the pots burned fiercely, billowing steam rose from the tops of the sky-pots, and the wine liquor flowed continuously down bamboo pipe conduits, falling into the large jars before the pipes.

The brewery workers busy before the sky-pots suddenly saw two rot-faced men rushing out from the inner room and were momentarily stunned.

The crowd stirred slightly.

"Run! Run!"

Wen San, who was running ahead, pressed his ears tight and shouted loudly.

Some brewery workers, looking at these two mad, rot-faced men, frowned deeply;

some workers hurried to report the situation to Manager Zhu, who was guarding the front hall;

others widened their eyes, moved closer to Wen San and Wen Si, and tried to block the two of them.

Not a single person obeyed Wen San's words and fled immediately from this place.

"Don't listen! Cover your ears tight, don't listen to the sounds! Don't listen!"

Wen Si also shouted loudly; following behind his brother, he charged left and right through the gradually surrounding crowd, fleeing desperately toward the side gate at the back of the brewery.

The brewery workers in the outer courtyard had never seen Wen San or Wen Si before.

Seeing these two rot-faced men run out from the inner room in a mad state, they instinctively thought the two were suffering a fit of madness; to prevent them from continuing to cause trouble, they tried to restrain them.

Obstacles on Wen Si's path grew ever more numerous.

More and more brewery workers blocked the path ahead of him and Wen San, waving various tools and striking down at the two of them from head to toe.

A wave of despair surged into Wen Si's heart.

Wen Si saw several tall, burly workers ahead raising iron shovels and closing in to surround him and Wen San; his calves trembled, and he felt the little strength remaining in his body being rapidly drained away by fear and despair.

At this moment, something unknown attracted the attention of those few tall, burly workers ahead.

They dropped their iron shovels and all looked up at the sky.

Those people closing in from all sides also stopped one by one, their faces turned toward the same direction, their eyes curiously fixed on the sky.

Wen Si deciphered their opening and closing mouths; it seemed he heard their voices speaking:

"Look quickly!"

"A dragon—a long dragon flew out from the inner room!"

"Such a long dragon... human heads! Those are all human heads!"

"What official rank? What official..."

The tall, burly worker muttering "what official rank" suddenly turned from a face flushed with color to one pale as death.

He closed his eyes and shut his lips; the confusion and shock on his face quickly faded.

A head with a cold, wooden expression detached itself from that tall, burly body, rode the wind, wobbled through Wen Si's field of vision, and flew into the sky beyond Wen Si's sight!

"Ah—ghost!

The ghost has come!"

Wen Si screamed in terror!

In that instant when he shouted, the heads of the people all around, just like that of the tall, burly worker, detached one after another from their necks and floated up into the high sky!

Left behind on the spot were headless bodies like tree stumps!

"Aaaaaah!"

Extreme fear collapsed Wen Si's sanity; he tightly hugged his own head, fearing that this precious thing on his neck would also, for no reason, fly far away like everyone else around him!

He crouched among the array of headless corpses like a forest, curling his body tight.

But at this moment, more and more people had their attention drawn to the "long dragon" drifting in the sky—

Human heads connected to spirit tablets, spirit tablets connected to human heads, forming a "Grass-Head Dragon Chang" that floated in the high sky; those human heads murmured softly, continuously spreading the sound of inquiry: "Do you... have an official rank?"

"Do you... have an official rank?"

Every inquiry was a life-snatching call!

The body of the Grass-Head Dragon Chang grew ever longer; it flew from the brewery's back courtyard, soaring over the towering gatehouse of the front hall.

People who had nothing to do all day and were already entangled by wine addiction gathered on the open ground before the gatehouse.

Accompanied by the white wine vapor rising from the sky-pots in the back courtyard, the people on the open ground stretched out their necks one by one, greedily inhaling the wine fragrance in the air—these people with stretched-out necks saw a strange sight that even drunkenness could not make them see clearly or forget:

Human heads covered in mycelium, connected by black spirit tablets, transformed into a long dragon and flew across the sky above the Yongsheng Brewery.

The tail of that dragon of human heads was connected to a golden, shimmering chain.

At the end of the chain, a "cocoon cluster" indescribable, as if gathering the most brilliant and hallucinatory light in the world, wobbled!

As that dragon of human heads and spirit tablets rose higher and higher, the golden chain connected to its tail stretched straight; on each link of the chain were embedded yellow, square-holed copper coins.

"Hum! Bei Ye! Sa Wa Na Ye! Suo Ha!"

Obscure and incomprehensible language burst forth intermittently from that dragon of human heads and spirit tablets.

The square-holed copper coins embedded on the golden chain also began to fall rustling at this moment, as if a rain of money was falling on the open ground before the brewery!

"Money!"

"So much money!"

"Robbery! Robbery!"

Below, the people watched helplessly as that torrential rain of money poured down, their eyeballs seeming to turn into square-holed copper coins!

Their faces twisted with wild ecstasy, they screamed and spread their arms to welcome the downpour of copper coins—yet, in that very instant they opened their arms, their heads instead flew off their necks first!

Countless severed heads converged in unison toward the Grass-Headed Dragon Chang at the center of the sky!

The chain of the Emperor's decree at the tail of the Grass-Headed Dragon Chang, after being inlaid with copper coins, finally shattered in an instant!

That aggregate of desire-thoughts, which had gathered a vast ocean of longing and appeared from the outside like a psychedelic, iridescent cocoon, did not fall downward at this moment, but quietly dissolved in mid-air.

The illusory, mottled desire-qi melted into every passing wind and every passing cloud.

Riding the meeting of wind and clouds, the Grass-Headed Dragon Chang pierced into the unreachable firmament, vanishing from sight for a time.

And the great wind, soaked with vast and complex desire-thoughts, plunged into the five-colored, mottled clouds; an illusory, mottled rain fell from there, drenching the entire Green Robe Town!

Every person in the town was grain nourished by the rain.