Chapter 36: Xian Niao Mountain
It was already a little late, but when Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan descended the mountain, they still stopped by to check on the woad growing on Wuchuan Mountain.
This batch of woad was growing even better than they had expected.
The plants were not afraid of the low temperature at all. Instead, in the cold, they had grown thick green leaves.
That deep green had been tempered by frost and snow until it looked even more dazzling. It was clearly a cool-toned color, yet somehow it had a searing brightness.
“The crops you grow are truly wonderful.” Wen Zhongshan looked at the thick green leaves, admiration showing in his eyes.
“It’s probably thanks to the lake mud.” Ying Kongtu led Wen Zhongshan forward. “That batch of lake mud really was excellent. I dredged some extra lake mud and sent it to the vegetable garden too.”
“Don’t you like eating woad seedlings? I planted another batch afterward. After a while, when they’ve grown up, I’ll plant another batch after that. That way, there will always be seedling greens to eat.”
Ying Kongtu smiled at Wen Zhongshan. “I’ll keep planting them until next spring.”
Wen Zhongshan looked at him and said softly, “Thank you.”
“No need.” Ying Kongtu waved a hand. “Come on, let’s go down the mountain.”
Dusk fell. As they descended the mountain, they could smell the scent of cooking fires from the county town.
Changchuan County was a small mountain county. Even now, quite a few households still used firewood stoves.
At this hour, wisps of smoke curled upward. The resinous scent released by burning firewood was a little like a special kind of incense.
Ying Kongtu drove the little three-wheeler, bringing Wen Zhongshan home along the outer ring road.
As they drove, they could see that some households along the roadside had planted woad in foam boxes.
From higher ground, looking into the distance, they could also see that many rooftops had been planted with woad as well.
This was another trend that had become popular in the county.
Everyone said drinking woad was good for the body.
Moreover, because woad had a special smell, it did not attract insects much, so it was more convenient than planting other vegetables.
If one planted cabbage, it was easy for bugs to bite it full of holes.
Because of this, more and more households in the county gradually started growing woad.
Ying Kongtu had not deliberately changed this small county, yet under his influence, the county still took on a different atmosphere.
The wood ear mushrooms from before were like this, and so was the woad now.
Wen Zhongshan looked at those green seedlings from afar, and a smile appeared on his face.
The two of them had gone up the mountain together, so Ying Kongtu brought Wen Zhongshan straight back for dinner.
They still had not finished the big fish from the morning. Aside from the part that had been dried for Tiaozhu and the others to eat, there was still enough for the two of them to have another meal.
Since there was fish, they could also make tomato scrambled eggs.
Ying Kongtu calculated in his heart.
The temperature was low now, and the tomatoes he had planted were nearly frozen to death. The tomatoes they bore were much smaller, and some were misshapen.
However, these tomatoes, whose growth cycle had been exceptionally long, had also accumulated an exceptional amount of flavor. They were sandy and sweet, and the slight sourness they carried was especially fragrant and tangy. They would be perfect for making tomato scrambled eggs to go with rice.
“Meow.”
“Awoo.”
As soon as Ying Kongtu opened the courtyard gate, Dart and Jingwei squeezed out, calling at them in affected little voices.
The cat and wolf circled them, rubbing against them desperately.
Cats had the habit of rubbing against people, but wolves rarely did.
Wolves were more accustomed to jumping up, placing their paws on people, and panting as they showed affection.
One glance was enough to tell that Jingwei had learned this habit from Dart.
Ying Kongtu sighed inwardly and rubbed the wolf’s head.
Their family’s food was good, and both Jingwei and Dart had grown very well. Especially in winter, they had changed into their winter coats, and their fur was thick, soft, and incredibly smooth.
They felt wonderful to the touch.
“All right, you two play in the courtyard.” Ying Kongtu gently pushed aside Dart and Jingwei, who were nudging over. “Stop whining. I’m going to cook.”
So Dart and Jingwei went to crowd around Wen Zhongshan instead. “Meow.”
Wen Zhongshan also wanted to go into the kitchen, but he still gave face to the two little creatures pushing up against him and stroked them.
He petted them until they purred.
Ying Kongtu had already gone into the kitchen to wash his hands.
Wen Zhongshan glanced over, patted the base of Dart’s tail, then patted Jingwei’s neck, and said in a low voice, “Play by yourselves for a while.”
With that, Wen Zhongshan gently pushed them away and went into the kitchen to help Ying Kongtu.
Dinner tonight was also two dishes and one soup, all quick dishes.
When they sat in the courtyard to eat dinner, the sky had not yet turned completely dark.
Ying Kongtu turned on the courtyard’s small light.
The light was orange-yellow. Winter insects were attracted over, but they could not enter the courtyard, so they lingered outside.
This was practically a natural cat toy.
Dart excitedly rushed outside the courtyard to play, and Jingwei followed. Only Tiaozhu remained lying leisurely atop the courtyard wall.
Dart jumped up to pounce on insects.
Jingwei also jumped up to pounce on insects.
The half-grown wolf was becoming more and more catlike. It learned from Dart, using its paws to bat at things, even curling its wrists, but it was not light and nimble like a real cat.
Instead, because it was a little heavy, every time it jumped, it landed with heavy thuds.
Ying Kongtu looked at Jingwei’s large, furry tail moving back and forth. After painfully reflecting on it, he said, “This can’t continue.”
“When it grows a little bigger, it should be fine. If not, I can go into the mountains with it for a while and accompany it hunting.”
“If we wait until it grows bigger, it’ll have grown crooked!” Ying Kongtu said firmly. “No, tomorrow I’ll go call my wolf mountain god down.”
“Wolf mountain god?”
“Didn’t I tell you before that I have nine dependents in total? They’re all different local animals, and one of them is a wolf.”
A nostalgic expression appeared on Ying Kongtu’s face. “The wolf mountain god used to be a wolf king. I discovered it while patrolling the mountain. I saw that it had a calm temperament, led its pack especially well, and was exceptionally intelligent and measured. It never harassed humans, so I wanted to recruit it under me.”
Wolves in the past were different from the wolves now.
Changchuan County had been surrounded by mountains since ancient times. In the past, there were few people and many animals. Wolves on the mountain really did eat people, and people would also go into the mountains to hunt every autumn and winter to reduce the number of fierce beasts.
Most wolf packs Ying Kongtu had seen acted according to instinct. They would bite lone humans and attack livestock raised by the common people.
He had to deliberately control them before the fierce beasts in the mountains could coexist peacefully with the villagers.
The wolf king he had taken a liking to was different.
It had a particularly keen spirituality. It seemed to instinctively know that it could not disturb the common people.
Most of the time, it led the pack to surround and hunt wild beasts. It would not drag away the livestock of the people.
Because of this, during those years, the wolf pack it led could be called enormous.
The wolf pack under its command was also an overlord among the mountains. Even tigers and black bears had to retreat from it.
That was even more true of the various pandas, leopards, golden cats, and other fierce beasts in the mountains.
Ying Kongtu said, “The wolf king had an especially steady character and was very experienced. I can’t say about anything else, but teaching Jingwei would be more than enough.”
Wen Zhongshan also began to look forward to it. “That really would be wonderful. Can you call it out?”
“It shouldn’t be too much of a problem.” Ying Kongtu calculated for a moment. “Originally, I wanted to keep some divine power in reserve for emergencies, so I only called Tiaozhu out. Now that I have the incense from those lost travelers and the incense from Yue Chengji, and the condition of the forests is improving more and more, the incense power is relatively sufficient. I should be able to barely call the wolf king out.”
“I’ll go with you tomorrow.”
The more Ying Kongtu thought about it, the more he felt that he could not let Dart and Tiaozhu continue raising Jingwei.
The reason this half-grown wolf had learned to be so catlike was mainly because Tiaozhu was too powerful.
Jingwei instinctively worshiped stronger animals. There were no wolf elders around to teach it, let alone a wolf king, so it learned Tiaozhu and Dart’s techniques instead.
The physical conditions of canines and felines differed too greatly. If it kept learning like this, Jingwei might really go astray and be unable to hunt, let alone return to the forest.
The next day, the anxious Ying Kongtu brought Wen Zhongshan into the mountains early.
“The wolf king is on Xian Niao Mountain,” Ying Kongtu said as he rode the motorcycle.
“Xian Niao Mountain is deep in the mountains. It’s somewhat far from here. The scenery is ordinary, and there are still wild wolves on the mountain now, so people usually don’t climb that mountain.”
“At least, locals don’t climb it,” Ying Kongtu added. “As for whether reckless outsiders climb it, I’m not too sure.”
Mentioning the wolf king, Ying Kongtu could not help but say a little more. “Actually, the name Xian Niao Mountain came from the wolf king. Before that, it was just an unnamed wild mountain.”
“Back then, I wrote a few names and let the wolf king choose. It chose the two characters ‘Xian Niao.’”
“So this mountain first had the wolf king Xian Niao, and only afterward did it have the name Xian Niao Mountain.”
Wen Zhongshan looked at the distant mountains and said, “It sounds like it also had things it could do nothing about. That’s why it named itself Xian Niao—Envying Birds, right?”
“Yes,” Ying Kongtu said. “It died one winter when the snow was especially deep. It was trying to save its pack after they got trapped in a swamp. By the time I arrived, its whole body was covered in ice shards. Even I couldn’t save it.”
Ying Kongtu looked ahead, as though he could once again see the valley from back then, filled with wolf corpses covered in mud and water.
Those years had been especially cold. In current history, that period was even called the Little Ice Age.
The wolves led by the wolf king never went down the mountain to attack humans and livestock, but in the mountains, they could not find enough prey either.
At the time, one wolf had discovered animals trapped in the swamp and frozen there, so it went to eat them.
In the end, one wolf went to save another, and many wolves were lost in there.
The wolf king, in order to save the wolves under it, kept moving through a mixture of icy water and mud. Later, it froze to death.
Many other wolves froze to death along with it.
Perhaps it also wished it could become a bird and fly to Ying Kongtu to report the situation, so the wolf pack’s losses would not have been so tragic.
Ying Kongtu emphasized, “The wolf king really was very good. Later, it was also one of the great generals under me.”
Wen Zhongshan said, “We’ll go wake it now.”
In the modern age, the country’s infrastructure was developed enough that even for a mountain like Xian Niao Mountain, located deep in the mountains, they could still ride the motorcycle close by.
However, after getting off the vehicle, they still had to walk for a stretch.
Ying Kongtu introduced the area to Wen Zhongshan. “Those mountains over there used to be my mountains too—Tanyan Mountain, Taiwen Mountain, Luyue Mountain, Qiulan Mountain, Yanquan Mountain, An Mountain, Jingwei Mountain, Baiping Mountain, Longtoumei, and Xian Niao…”
As Ying Kongtu recited the names of the mountains, he sighed softly. “I haven’t been here in a long time either.”
Wen Zhongshan patted his back. “We can take our time. For us, the thing we lack least is time.”
Ying Kongtu smiled. “That’s true.”
Ying Kongtu led Wen Zhongshan toward the mountain summit.
The shrine of Xian Niao Mountain was at the summit. Ying Kongtu had specially set up this shrine for the wolf king, Xian Niao.
The wolf king liked sleeping at the mountaintop more. From there, it could look over the many mountains, look at its territory, and look at its wolf pack.
“We’re here.” Ying Kongtu pushed aside the weeds, revealing a small shrine. He casually wiped it with his sleeve. “My divine power is insufficient, and my control isn’t strong enough. The closer to the edges the mountains are, the more weeds and miscellaneous trees grow on them. It should get better in the future.”
Wen Zhongshan cleaned the surrounding weeds and shrubs with him, allowing the shrine to be revealed.
Looking at the now refreshed shrine, Ying Kongtu tapped it with his finger. “I’m starting.”
Wen Zhongshan nodded solemnly. “All right.”
Ying Kongtu’s jade-white hand gently pressed against the bluish-gray stone tablet.
Divine power surged from his palm, all of it sinking into the stone tablet.
A little short. Still not enough.
Ying Kongtu gradually furrowed his brows.
Aside from the minimum divine power he needed to keep, he had sent in all the rest, yet it still was not enough to awaken the wolf king.
Perhaps the times had changed too much, and the mountains and forests had declined for too long. To make the wolf king inside the shrine awaken again, even more divine power was needed.
Ying Kongtu hesitated over whether to send in all of his divine power.
If he sent in all of his divine power, he would fall into slumber. He would have to sleep for at least ten days to half a month, or even several years.
But if he gave up now, the divine power he had just sent in would not awaken the wolf king and would not reach the wolf king’s body. It would dissipate.
Although some of the divine power would dissipate into the forests, and most of the rest would dissipate between heaven and earth, ultimately still nourishing this region, it was still far too wasteful.
He had accumulated that divine power for so long.
Too wasteful.
Ying Kongtu gritted his teeth and turned his head, intending to ask Wen Zhongshan to bring him down the mountain.
Sleeping for a while was not impossible.
After all, there was not much to do in winter.
Ying Kongtu thought this to himself.
At that moment, Wen Zhongshan gently reached forward. Standing beside Ying Kongtu, he pressed his hand over the hand Ying Kongtu had placed on the stone tablet.
In an instant, pure power of faith surged through Ying Kongtu’s hand and rushed violently into the stone tablet.
Like crashing waves striking the shore, unstoppable.
At that moment, the shrines on all thirty-nine mountains lit up.
They were like thirty-nine stars responding to one another across the distance.
Ying Kongtu looked at Wen Zhongshan in shock.
Wen Zhongshan smiled weakly and staggered, falling to the side.
Ying Kongtu instinctively caught him.
Wen Zhongshan had a large frame, and his muscles were solid and hard. As he fell heavily against Ying Kongtu, Ying Kongtu nearly failed to catch him.
A scorching masculine presence rushed into Ying Kongtu’s arms.
Goosebumps instantly rose across Ying Kongtu’s body. It was a reaction caused by the stimulation of Wen Zhongshan’s aura.
Ying Kongtu stared at him in a daze, his mind blank.
They were too close.
So Wen Zhongshan’s presence was actually this invasive.
So Wen Zhongshan had always been restraining his aura.
When he no longer restrained it, he became powerful and full of aggression.
An extremely, extremely obvious masculine presence lingered around Ying Kongtu.
For the first time, Ying Kongtu felt the discomfort of being invaded.
