CH 18

Chapter 18: Twin Brothers’ Undying Hatred 1

When Lou Muge saw that he seemed to be unable to listen to others, he addressed Tao Zhai, “Tell me, what exactly have you suffered?”

Because of his injuries, Tao Zhai was now sprawled on the ground with his blood staining a large area of the snow and mud. His eyes were red, ejecting an indelible hatred. He gasped for air and looked deeply at Lou Muge.

“My brother’s deeds are all for me…” Tao Ming spoke tearfully from the side.

Tao Zhai’s expression changed, and he shot a glance at him: “Don’t cry!”

“If you want to know the truth, I will tell you.” Tao Zhai saw tears in his brother’s eyes, and finally decided to let go. He embodied a dying beast, with smoke below his knees and blood staining half of his body, but he was as ferocious as ever.

His palms condensed light, and the wind and clouds changed in a flash. Thunder rumbled amidst the rolling black clouds, and the moment the cold wind passed, a heavy rain fell without warning. Lou Muge tilted his face, and a round bead of water smashed straight into his eyes.

He subconsciously raised his hand to rub it, but a warm hand suddenly grabbed his hand. Lou Muge was startled. He opened his eyes again, and saw the scene in front of him. It was like a layer of old and yellowed silk, from blurred to clear, then everything in front of him disappeared.

The Shan’an people, who were crying and begging for mercy; Tao Zhai, who was seriously injured; Tao Ming, who was on the verge of tears; the man who was furious; and Wen Changchu, who was fighting fiercely, all disappeared. Lou Muge turned his head and saw Ning Shaosi still standing beside him, holding his hand firmly.

His palm was soft and warm, just like the pure smile on his face, which has never faltered by the constant changing of events.

The next moment, a silk was seemingly jerked away, and something lit up in front of his eyes. Under the blazing sun, the appearance of Shan’an City completely changed.

It was starkly different from the city they had seen before. This Shan’an City didn’t have the stone statue of the Water Goddess. It was surrounded by houses made of straw and mud. The passers-by were also wearing worn linen clothes, and their feet were trudging on a muddy road. On top of that, there were several lumps of horse manure. At a glance, the poverty and desolation of this place was more in line with the “Shan’an Village” that those people talked about.

“What is this?” Lou Muge asked.

“It’s an illusion.” Ning Shaosi’s voice sounded soft and indifferent. “Tao Zhai drew in the Crouching Dragon Spring as a medium, and opened up an empathy illusion. This should be Shan’an 50 years ago.”

Shan’an fifty years ago was the beginning of everything that happened.

“Chuangen, what are you standing there at the door for?” A woman’s voice sounded from behind. Lou Muge turned around instinctively, and saw the woman smiling lovingly at him, reaching out to pull him in the door.

Ning Shaosi was still holding his hand, so he was dragged away obediently. He wanted to enter with Lou Muge, but surprisingly, the woman glared at him. “Where is the wild child from? Release my Chuangen!”

She shook his hand off from Lou Muge’s, dragged Lou Muge into the door, and said, “Chuangen, don’t play with this kind of child. Who knows whose family he belongs to. He’s a glutton at a glance!”

Ning Shaosi stood in the same place, watching Lou Muge being dragged into the house. He walked to the window of the house and peered in.

After Lou Muge was dragged in, he found out that the house looked quite dilapidated from the outside. However, the inside was much more dilapidated than he had imagined. There was almost nothing in the house, not even a decent bed. The window was also somehow open. The sun didn’t shine for most of the day, and it was still dark under the blue sky.

The bed, made of mud and hay, was covered with a cloth, and on it lay a child of two or three years old, sound asleep.

The woman took out a piece of gray cloth from behind the waistband of her trousers, the size of a palm. Lou Muge was filled with disgust when he saw it. After the woman undid the gray cloth, several pieces of broken cakes were revealed inside.

It was dry, and was devoid of cake aroma. It was a wonder how long she had kept it in the cloth.

What’s terrifying was that the woman pushed the mushy item to Lou Muge’s mouth, and as if afraid that someone might hear it, she whispered, “Son, eat it quickly.”

Lou Muge drew his neck away and placed both hands against the woman’s hands, exuding resistance.

“Gen’er, why are you being stubborn?! Hurry up and eat, this is a good thing!” The woman grew anxious and wanted to shove it in his mouth.

Lou Muge ducked left and right, shaking his head like a rattle, and pushed the woman in a panic.

“Chuangen…” The woman looked at him in astonishment. Her eyes reddened, and looked as if on the verge of tears. “What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you eat it?”

Lou Muge was so frightened that he took two steps back, and only said, “I’m not hungry. You can eat it yourself.” Then he turned around and rushed out the door.

Lou Muge didn’t know if the door was originally crumbly, or perhaps he didn’t pay it much attention in his hurry. However, when he pushed the door, it actually crashed down from the door frame. BOOM was all that resounded. It smashed on the ground, and startled Ning Shaosi who was peering in through the window.

Lou Muge leaned against the door frame, staring at the broken door.

“Chuangen, are you hurt?!” The woman rushed forward and checked Lou Muge up and down, making him feel uncomfortable. After confirming that he was not injured, she breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the door. Then she began swearing, “This broken door should have been burned as firewood!”

With but a little effort, she set the door back up.

Seeing this, the pedestrians passing by couldn’t help but interject, “This door has been installed in your house for more than ten years, but in the end didn’t receive a word of praise.”

“Mind your own business!” the woman chokingly retorted.

The person who was feeding the chickens next door laughed and scoffed, “Sister-in-law, look how dirty Chuangen is. Hurry up and wash him.”

The woman’s expression improved when she faced the neighbor. Her smile wrinkled her face. “It’s okay, Chuangen has a rambunctious temperament, and he’ll only get dirty after washing up, so I’d better wash him in the evening.”

“Have you boiled the pot yet?” The neighbor asked again.

“Not yet. I’m waiting for Lao Guo to come back,” the woman replied.

“Yo, Lao Guo followed the men in the village to Crouching Dragon Spring. I don’t know what they’ll bring back. Your Lao Guo is really capable. After so many years, no one has ever thought of touching the bottom of the spring.”

The woman reeked with pride, but she said, “What are you talking about? Everyone is willing to contribute, and if they can find something, it’s a blessing that everyone can enjoy.”

When the neighbor heard this, she cheerfully lowered her voice, “Tell me, can we really eat a scaled dragon’s meat?”

“That’s impossible to say.” The woman smiled back.

Lou Muge got out from under the woman when she was chatting with the neighbor and stood beside Ning Shaosi. After hearing these words, he drew closer to Ning Shaosi’s ear and asked in a whisper, “Are they talking about the mortals who went to hunt and kill the Black Dragon?”

Ning Shaosi felt the heat in his ears, and even mist glistened in his eyes. He turned to look at him, and nodded gently. “It should be.”

“You…” Lou Muge tapped the woman’s shoulder.

The woman turned his attention to him and complained, “You’ve grown big, don’t you even know how to say ‘Mother’?”

Lou Muge’s lips moved a couple of times, but in the end he was unable to call her mother. He said faster, “How long have they been gone? When will they be back?”

Fortunately, the woman doted on her son very much and didn’t care about it. She just smiled and rubbed Lou Muge’s face. “Son, can’t you wait to eat a scaled dragon? Don’t worry, they’ve been gone for a long time, so they’ll be back soon.”

After kneading his face a couple of times, he turned around and went back to the house. “I’ll start the fire first and put the pot on the rack, and then when your father brings the meat home, we can cook it directly and eat it…”

When the woman finished kneading Lou Muge’s face, he felt as if he was covered in grease. There was no telling what matters the woman laid her hands on, but he only used his sleeves to wipe his face. Consequently, the mud and dust that accumulated on his sleeves made his face even dirtier. After such a massage, there was almost no clean spot on Lou Muge’s beautiful face.

Seeing his appearance, Ning Shaosi smiled with his eyes bent, and wiped the dust off his face with his sleeve.

They had lived and ate together these days, so it never occured to Lou Muge that his behavior was too intimate. He asked him with a smile, “Did I not wipe it clean?”

“Your sleeves are much dirtier,” Ning Shaosi replied.

Lou Muge shook his sleeve, and actually managed to shake out a lot of dust. He grimaced in disgust, “Ho, rolling around on the ground ten or more times won’t necessarily gather so much dust.”

When he was shaking his sleeves with excitement, he saw two black and thin monkeys coming with bamboo baskets on their backs. Lou Muge was startled. He quickly turned around and stepped back, but when he looked closely, he found that they were not monkeys, but two girls. Their bamboo baskets were full of wild vegetables.

The girl in the lead put down the wild vegetables, straightened up and wiped off her sweat, and smiled at Lou Muge, “Little Brother, what are you playing at the door?”

The two little girls’ resemblance to monkeys wasn’t because Lou Muge had poor eyesight. The girls did look like monkeys. They were skin and bones, and their skin was a dot closer to charcoal. They were petite, about nine or ten years old, but appeared older than their age. The girl smiled brightly and fished out a red from her tattered clothes. She repeatedly wiped it with her hands a number of times and stuffed it into Lou Muge’s hand.

“Eat it, it’s freshly picked,” said the girl.

Lou Muge really had no appetite, looking at the object in his hand, so he smiled and nodded to the two in response.

The girl looked at him affectionately, turned around and entered the door while shouting, “Mother, we’re back!”

The woman’s scolding voice immediately came out from inside. “You’re back if you’re back, what are you shouting about, you worthless brats?!”

Lou Muge was stunned when he heard it. He didn’t expect that the woman who had been doting on him lovingly just now turned out to be like this. The girl seemed accustomed to it and acted as usual. She entered the door with no expression.

The woman came out with a pot-scouring brush, and after glancing at the bamboo basket by the door, her face turned grim. She hit the girl who passed by with the back of her hand, splashing water from the brush onto Lou Muge’s face.

He wiped his face and stepped back in horror, when he saw the woman grabbing the girl’s neck and pushing her into the house while beating her mercilessly. “How useless! They’re just wild vegetables, yet you’ve only picked this much! For whom is this enough?! What benefit is there from raising you?!”

The girl cried and begged for mercy, “There are only that many wild vegetables over there!”

“How dare you talk back!” The woman beat her even more fiercely, throwing everything at the girl, looking like she wanted to beat her to death.

Lou Muge was startled and instinctively wanted to push the door in, but Ning Shaosi squeezed his hand.

Lou Muge looked at him sideways, and met his gentle and unwavering eyes. He said, “This is an empathy illusion, something that happened 50 years ago, and there’s nothing we can do to change it.”

The crying and violence in the house continued, but this seemed to be a common occurrence for the passers-by. No one stopped because of this, but this drove a chill in Lou Muge’s heart.

Noticing that his expression was growing terribly ugly, Ning Shaosi lightly pinched his fingertips. When he faced him again, he put on a bright smile and took him a step farther away, “Let’s go and have a look elsewhere.”

Lou Muge sighed under his breath, his brows stained with a hint of tiredness. He wanted to stay away from the house, so he responded to Ning Shaosi’s proposal. He let him pinch his fingers and led him a good distance away.

Fifty years ago, Shan’an City was truly desolate. It was not as big as it was later. There were a few shabby houses scattered here and there, and the best ones were made of wood. The worst of all was the muddy road and the horse dung everywhere, that made Lou Muge suffocate.

A surge of powerlessness swept his heart. “Is this really a habitable place…”

In the isolated mountains fifty years later, this same Shan’an Village has changed immensely.

Lou Muge and Ning Shaosi walked a long way until they reached a wasteland. They picked a clean-looking stone pier, and after the two stood for a while, they sat down, intending to rest for a while.

Even the wasteland was much better than staying in the village.

It was just that Lou Muge’s hungry butt just briefly made contact with the stone pier, when a damp smell spread in the air. The originally clear sky also changed hue, and a huge dark cloud rolled from the sky, like thousands of spirited horses galloping, overwhelmingly blotting out the sky and covering up the earth. overspread.

Lou Muge squinted his eyes and studied the change. He saw several thin white lightning flashes in the rolling black clouds, and said, “Here it comes.”