Yaozu Village

Southwest border, east of the jungle, isn’t that near them?

“Brother Zheng, I want to wait until the Green Blood Snake Grass grows up tomorrow and go to Yaozu Village. If Brother Chen Jing and the others are still there, I will go back to Yunxi Sect with them. If they have already left, I can also ask the villagers how long they have been gone.”

“Okay. The Green Blood Snake Grass will wither soon after it matures. I’m afraid I have to hurry back to refine it into medicine to cure my brother’s illness. Master?”

Lu Yuanyi sat in the distance, flipping through the documents sent by the elders of Yunxi Sect that needed to be approved urgently, and his loose silver hair almost dragged to the ground.

The long snake seemed to be scared by Jiang Xuejian. Seeing Lu Yuanyi glanced over, it was so scared that its tail trembled, and “whoosh” it circled Shen Leyan’s waist.

Shen Leyan: “…”

“Brother Snake, you will suffocate me to death.”

The long snake let go of him embarrassedly.

 The firelight outlined Lu Yuanyi’s eyebrows clearly, and his phoenix eyes were cold under his deep eyebrows. His tone was calm: “I’ll go with you tomorrow.”

Shen Leyan smiled obediently: “Okay.”

They slept in the southwest jungle for a night. The next day, the edges of the petals of the blood-green snake grass turned green, and the spiritual power fluctuations became more abundant.

They said goodbye to the long snake. Senior Brother Zheng took the blood-green snake grass and flew to Yunxi Sect. He and Lu Yuanyi continued to set off to the east of the jungle.

Shen Leyan soon found that it was a bit of a mistake to go with Lu Yuanyi.

The reason was simple. The two of them were directionally challenged. They only knew such simple geographical information as “Yaozu Village in the east of the southwest jungle”. They were like two headless flies bumping around in the jungle.

At most, Lu Yuanyi was a headless fly with explosive combat power.

 He even suspected that the monster circle in the southwest jungle had already heard of their terrible rumors, because the last time they encountered a tiger monster, before Lu Yuanyi made a move, the tiger monster had already cried and begged for mercy, and then knelt down and kowtowed three times before running away.

Then they had no obstacles along the way, and they didn’t even see the shadow of the monster again.

Fortunately, when they reached the eastern edge of the southwest jungle, there were more shops and markets, and many locals brought their own vegetables and fruits to sell.

Shen Leyan bought a few sesame cakes and asked the old man who sold them: “Elder, do you know where Yaozu Village is?”

The old man scratched his ears: “What village is Yao?”

Shen Leyan thought of a skit, and had a bad feeling in his heart. He raised his voice: “Yaozu Village! The Yaozu of the glorious ancestors!”

The old man also raised his voice: “What ancestral village?”

“…Yaozu Village.”

“Yaozu what?”

Shen Leyan laughed dryly: “It’s okay, it’s okay, elder, I mean your sesame cakes are really delicious.”

He found a young pork seller. The young man was wearing the ethnic costumes of the southwest and looked very healthy.

“Brother, I came from the north and came here to find someone. Do you know where Yaozu Village is?”

The young man spoke a long string of dialects fluently, and enthusiastically spoke and gestured as if he wanted to show him the way, but Shen Leyan didn’t understand a word.

 That’s right… In many places in the south, the dialect varies from place to place. Maybe people in the next village have different dialects. He grew up in the north, so it’s impossible for him to understand it.

Shen Leyan asked five or six stall owners in a row. When they heard “Yaozu Village”, they looked confused and shook their heads and said they didn’t know it.

If they continue like this, they don’t know when they can find Yaozu Village.

There were a few young people performing in the open space around the stall. There were some musical instruments on the side. It seemed that they were about to perform.

He thought about it, asked a street performer to borrow a gong, and knocked it three times in a row. When passers-by gathered around curiously, he used his spiritual power to amplify his voice.

 “Dear fellow villagers, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters, I… I am a wandering doctor! Passing by here, I heard that there is a village called Yaozu Village! 

Many villagers in that village suffer from infertility, and the children in the village are stillborn or die soon after birth – I am very sad after hearing this. I wonder if any kind-hearted person knows how to get to Yaozu Village?! 

I am willing to pay one or two taels of silver as a reward to the kind-hearted person who shows me the way!” 

Other things may not be well-known in the countryside, but gossip like “infertility” is definitely hot news. The old men and women in the village like to move chairs and sit at the entrance of the village to talk about these things. 

In addition there’s a reward of one or two taels of silver, for ordinary people, one or two taels of silver is already a huge sum of money, which can support the livelihood of a family for a long time. 

Sure enough, as soon as he shouted this sentence, the crowd of onlookers immediately exploded and whispered to each other. 

 “What?! One tael of silver? Really?”

“He’s right here, are you afraid he won’t pay?”

“Why, do you know that Yaozu Village?”

“It sounds familiar, but there are so many large and small villages around, who can remember every one of them…”

Soon an old man squeezed to the front of the crowd, Shen Leyan looked closely: Isn’t this Ma Dongmei who has poor hearing?

“Elder, you…”

Looking at the one tael of silver in his hand, the old man’s ears were no longer deaf, his voice was louder, and his eyes were clearer.

 “Young man, if you can pay one or two taels of silver to find Yaozu Village. You should have told me earlier! My cousin’s niece’s in-laws’ family is in Yaozu Village. I will draw a map for you right now, and I guarantee you can find it!”

Shen Leyan: “…”

He handed over the silver and added one or two taels: “Mm…thank you, elder? Otherwise, please tell me if there is anything happening in Yaozu Village recently, anything about the family.”

Decades ago, when the old man just got married, Yaozu Village was not infertile.

On the contrary, it was famous for its thriving population, and the women who married there only gave birth to sons, not a single daughter.

But three years ago, a flood washed away the ancestral tombs in Yaozu Village and they had to rebuild them. Since then, no child in the village has been able to grow up safely to the age of eight. Most of them have miscarried or died a few days after birth.

 The villagers of Yaozu Village sought medical advice, prayed to the gods, and found many Feng Shui masters to see them. They spent a lot of money but there was no improvement.

It is rumored that the ancestral tomb became very ominous after the layout was changed, and the ancestors could not bless the village. That’s why it became like this. Many young and middle-aged people in Yaozu Village were scared and moved away, but strangely, even if they moved to other villages, they still had no children, as if this curse had always followed the villagers of Yaozu Village.

The old man touched the silver in his hand happily.

“Mm… it’s roughly like this. My cousin’s niece married to Yaozu Village for a year, miscarried a child, and ran back to her parents’ home after a conflict with her in-laws. She told all these things.”