Chapter 44: A Meeting in the Night
The wolf king Xian Niao was still lecturing the two wolves.
Just as it had done back then, when it had still been the wolf king of its pack.
The two wolves lowered their heads, tucked their tails, and obediently listened to the scolding. From time to time, they let out a few whimpers.
Ying Kongtu stood outside the door with his back to the little brick house, listening to the movement inside.
Fortunately, this was only the first time the two wolves had gone down the mountain. Fortunately, they had only bitten chickens.
If they had hurt people, things would have become much more troublesome.
Before long, the wolf king Xian Niao led the two listless wolves out.
Ying Kongtu looked them over carefully. Both wolves were adults, and both were males.
“Look at you two.” Ying Kongtu reached out and flicked one wolf’s ear. “There’s so much food in the mountains, but instead of hunting properly, you went to bite an old woman’s chickens.”
The two wolves stared at their own paws, not daring to make a sound.
Ying Kongtu flicked the other wolf’s ear too. “If you’d just taken one or two chickens to satisfy a craving, that would be one thing. But you bit all of her chickens to death. Do you have any conscience at all?”
“Woo.” The criminal wolf whimpered softly.
The wolf king Xian Niao stood beside them, watching them with great majesty. Ying Kongtu’s hands itched a little.
Xian Niao was disciplining other wolves, and Ying Kongtu did not want to damage its image. Even though his hands were itching, he did not pet it. He only said, “I’ll head back first. Xian Niao, once you’re done dealing with them, go back to the shrine and rest early.”
Xian Niao said, “Awooo.”
Ying Kongtu stepped through the snow in the dark night and went down the mountain.
The snowlight was very bright, and the air was cold and fresh. The rolling forests seemed to have fallen asleep in the darkness, appearing especially quiet.
On his way down the mountain, Ying Kongtu deliberately took a detour to the small village to take a look.
The old woman whose chickens had been bitten to death had already turned off the lights and gone to sleep. The other villagers had also turned off their lights and gone to sleep.
Ying Kongtu finally felt relieved. He found his motorcycle parked by the roadside and rode home.
Early the next morning, Wen Zhongshan came to Ying Kongtu’s house and heard what had happened the night before. “How is Xian Niao so capable?”
“Wolves are typical social animals. They’re very smart. Back then, the wolf pack Xian Niao led could even carry out large-scale hunts.”
“Xian Niao commanded them?”
“Yes. One spring, there were many prey animals in the mountains, and Xian Niao once led more than forty wolves to hunt a herd of Reeves’s muntjacs.”
Ying Kongtu seemed to return to the days several hundred years ago, when that wolf pack hunted.
“Reeves’s muntjacs are especially good at running. Xian Niao commanded the wolf pack to block and chase them. The pack spread across several mountains, chasing while tightening the encirclement, and trapped the entire herd of muntjacs inside.”
That year, Ying Kongtu had sat on a mountaintop, watching the great pack of wolves running along the ridges of the opposite mountain.
They ran so fast they seemed to be flying across the mountain peaks.
Before that, Ying Kongtu had never seen wolves so magnificent. That day, he saw many.
The successful hunt brought tremendous benefits to the wolf pack.
That year, more than thirty plump wolf cubs were born in Xian Niao’s pack.
With abundant food, the cubs grew very well.
After the cubs left the den, because the wolf pack had become too large, Xian Niao even had to divide part of the wolves away, splitting one wolf pack directly into two.
The other pack, led by the new wolf king, went into the deep mountains to the south. Now, who knew whether their descendants still remained in the southern mountains?
Xian Niao could manage even a complicated wolf pack in perfect order. Two lone wolves were naturally nothing difficult.
Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan went to the small mountain village.
Ying Kongtu had to help deal with the matter of the wolves biting the chickens to death.
The wolf matter could be handled by Xian Niao, but the aftermath on the human side could only be handled by Ying Kongtu himself.
When the two arrived at the small mountain village, the old woman had indeed already called someone from the subdistrict office over.
There was no dispute about compensation. National regulations required compensation, and the subdistrict office staff also agreed to pay.
The only thing was that the amount of compensation was something the old woman simply could not accept.
The old woman’s eyes were red with anger. “Seventeen of my chickens were bitten to death, and you can only compensate me one thousand yuan? If I sold them at the market, native chickens are twenty yuan a jin. I could have sold them for more than two thousand!”
The subdistrict office staff looked pained. “There’s nothing we can do. According to our regulations here, livestock and poultry bitten to death by wild animals are compensated at fifty percent of the average market price. That means if your chickens could sell for two thousand yuan, the state can only compensate half.”
The old woman wiped her tears. “Then what do I do about the gap of more than a thousand yuan? If I had known, I might as well have made them into preserved chicken in the middle of the night instead of waiting for you people. Damn it all, so many chickens…”
The villagers stood to the side and spoke up for her.
Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan also helped coordinate.
But the state had regulations, and that was all they could compensate.
Seeing the old woman’s white hair, the subdistrict office staff could not bear it and wanted to privately give her a little extra, but the old woman firmly refused.
The old woman said that if she took someone else’s money, her heart would not be at ease.
The villagers also said that the old woman had lived openly and honestly all her life. If she accepted that much money, she would probably be unable to sleep at night.
The subdistrict office staff soon took the chickens that had been bitten to death away.
The old woman was still heartbroken, sitting at home and wiping her tears.
Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan had no better solution either. They could only help the old woman clean her house, repair some furniture, and then buy some dried goods from her.
—Even though Ying Kongtu’s house already had many dried goods, and his family did not lack them at all.
These things clearly could not fully make up for the old woman’s losses.
As the two carried the things back, both of them felt rather heavyhearted.
Xian Niao had also come down from the mountain and was walking beside them. Its furry wolf face also carried a low mood, along with a bit of self-blame.
“It doesn’t feel good, does it?” Ying Kongtu rubbed its furry big head.
“Awooo.” Xian Niao’s voice was low and dejected.
“All sorts of things are bound to happen in the mountains. That’s part of the mountains too. You’ve already done very well. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Awooo.”
That was what he said, but Ying Kongtu and Xian Niao both still felt bad.
These mountains were no longer under Ying Kongtu’s name, but he was still a mountain god of this region. He was supposed to guard this place and protect the living beings on this land.
Now that he had failed to properly manage two lone wolves, he felt that he bore at least some responsibility.
Wen Zhongshan understood what he was thinking. He firmly put an arm around him, silently offering comfort.
“Do you want to go up the mountain together tonight?” After Xian Niao returned to the shrine, Ying Kongtu asked softly.
Wen Zhongshan also lowered his voice. “Where?”
“Up the mountain to dig some wild ginseng and make it up to the old woman.”
“Sure.”
“Then stay at my place. After the little ones at home fall asleep, we’ll quietly go up the mountain and dig.”
The two quickly discussed it. When they returned home, they did not reveal a word.
Taking the little ones up the mountain would make too much noise and would not be very convenient.
Ying Kongtu planned to finish digging quickly, then secretly place it at the old woman’s house, so no one would see. Otherwise, the old woman might easily refuse to accept it.
That night, after Dart and Jingwei squeezed together in their nest and fell asleep, and after Tiaozhu and Xian Niao had also gone back into the shrine, the two of them met quietly in the living room.
Dart was still snoring, its breathing long and regular.
That snoring was truly worthy of a big fat orange tabby.
The two looked at each other and smiled, their moods easing quite a bit.
When Ying Kongtu opened the door, Jingwei seemed to hear the movement and whimpered twice, looking like it was about to wake up.
Ying Kongtu quickly stepped forward and stroked the wolf’s head, soothing it and telling it to sleep.
Jingwei had played for an entire day and was long since tired. After Ying Kongtu stroked it, it soon slipped back into dreamland.
Once they reached the courtyard, Ying Kongtu took out the hoe and machete placed in the corner and handed them to Wen Zhongshan. Then he went to push out the motorcycle.
Since they were sneaking up the mountain tonight, they would not drive the little farm tricycle. A light motorcycle was more convenient.
Ying Kongtu carried Wen Zhongshan away from home. “We’re going to Xiwushan to dig ginseng. There are several wild ginseng plants there that are a few hundred years old, but today we’ll just dig up one around a few decades old.”
After patrolling the mountains so many times, Ying Kongtu knew all the good things in the mountains like the back of his hand.
He simply had never liked exchanging the mountains’ precious wild medicinal herbs for money, so he had never dug them up.
Selling a bit of wild vegetables and mushrooms was one thing. After being harvested this year, they would grow again the next year.
But wild medicinal herbs were not easy to grow. Digging one plant truly meant one less plant.
Ying Kongtu thought for a while. “Let’s dig one wild ginseng plant that’s about twenty years old. It should sell for two or three thousand yuan, which is about enough.”
Sitting on the back seat, Wen Zhongshan put his arms around Ying Kongtu’s waist and asked, “Will the old woman understand the sales channels? Could she easily be tricked?”
“It’s fine.” Ying Kongtu said readily. “We’ll send it to her house tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll pretend we heard the news and go directly to her house to buy it.”
“…”
“What? Is this idea not good?” Ying Kongtu glanced at Wen Zhongshan through the rearview mirror. “We dug it up with our own hands. Wouldn’t we know its effects?”
“No. It’s very good.”
“After buying it back, I can use it to nourish you.” Ying Kongtu said casually. “Didn’t you use up almost all your faith power before? I’ll stew some ginseng soup for you. Since it’s ginseng from my own mountain, I know how much to use and how to use it.”
Wen Zhongshan’s heart warmed, and he held Ying Kongtu even tighter. “Mm.”
Ying Kongtu’s handlebars immediately tilted a little, and the tips of his ears turned warm. “Hey, don’t hold so tightly. It’s hard for me to move.”
They rode to the foot of the mountain and went up in the dark.
There was snow on the mountain, so they did not need a flashlight. By the snowlight alone, they could see everything clearly.
When they reached the spot, Ying Kongtu identified the wild ginseng. “We can dig.”
Ginseng had many roots. Growing in the mountain forest, its roots drilled deep.
It was not easy to dig up wild ginseng in this season.
Only because Ying Kongtu knew his mountain forest so well and knew where to place the hoe most easily was it relatively convenient.
The two chopped away the aboveground parts of the wild ginseng and took turns digging. After more than an hour, they finally dug out the ginseng completely, roots and all.
“This is much harder than digging yams.”
“Of course. What price are yams, and what price is ginseng?”
After saying that, Ying Kongtu looked up and saw Wen Zhongshan’s dusty, dirt-covered appearance, and could not help smiling.
Wen Zhongshan smiled too.
“Come on, let’s fill the soil back in, then we can go.”
After digging something from the mountain, it was best to fill the soil back in. That way, the mountain forest would not be left pitted and uneven.
Most people were too lazy to do this step. When they dug wild plants on the mountain, they left big holes behind, and the damage to the forest was far greater than simply digging up a wild plant.
As a mountain god, Ying Kongtu certainly could not leave hidden hazards in the mountain forest.
“All done.” After filling in the soil, Ying Kongtu let out a breath. “Let’s go to the old woman’s house.”
The two rode the motorcycle toward the old woman’s house.
However, before they arrived, Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan ran into the furry Xian Niao on the road.
Xian Niao had not come empty-mouthed. It was carrying a wild reishi mushroom in its mouth.
Ying Kongtu and Wen Zhongshan had not come empty-handed either. They were holding a wild ginseng root.
Xian Niao: “…”
Ying Kongtu: “…”
