Chapter 127. Liúshuǐ People (3) Antique Dealer

    The witch in the Miao village was a little different from what Ye Mo had imagined.

     She is not very tall, with a round face and slightly sunken eyes. She wears a blue and white cloth shirt and black pants. Her sparse white hair is wrapped in a black headscarf. She looks like an old lady in her seventies or eighties from next door. When she smiles, her eyes narrow into slits, making her look kind and gentle.

     This image had nothing to do with the mysterious and terrifying style. She didn’t look like a weird old man who raised poisonous snakes and insects in a stilt house. No wonder Wang Xue had never noticed anything unusual.

     The witch received them in the small hall connected to the bedroom. Although the electricity had been out of order since last night, the stilt house faced the sun, and the light in the house was very bright during the day, and it also exuded a faint fragrance of bamboo.

     Using Mandarin with a strong accent, she warmly invited Wang Xue and Ye Mo to sit down, personally pouring tea for them and bringing out two packets of preserved meat wrapped in banana leaves, smiling broadly as she did so.

     “Xiaoxue, Xiaojing, this tea is grown by our own people in the village, and the preserved meat is made from wild rabbits caught in the mountains. They’re not worth much, and our village doesn’t have many of the good things from the outside world, so please don’t despise them.”

     Whether it was the bamboo kettle for pouring water or the cups for drinking tea, everything was ordinary and plain. The witch didn’t bring out any of the fancy purple clay teapots, yingqing porcelain, or famille rose porcelain from the kitchen cabinet to treat her guests.

     “Thank you, Grandma Mo,” Ye Mo said, standing up and taking the preserved meat with both hands, following Wang Xue’s lead in addressing the old woman.

     It was obvious that Wang Xue was quite popular with the elderly. It seemed that she had been to the sorceress’s house more than once before, but Wang Xue was now more cautious about what she ate after learning about the witchcraft.

     “Good child.”

     Then Mo shén pó^[1]神婆 (shén pó)”: This translates to “Sorceress/Witch” or “shaman woman.” It carries a slightly different connotation than just “old woman,” suggesting … Continue reading then sat down, put her thimble back on, and resumed her work of sewing shoe soles. First, she used paste to stick together the five or six layers of the shoe sole, and then she threaded the needle back and forth, her movements very practiced and skilled.

     Different from the shoes in Ye Mo’s memory, there were more exquisite and colorful embroideries on the shoe surface. The patterns included cranes, snakes, and gourds, and the patterns were lifelike and very spiritual.

     “Grandma Mo, you have a good eye.” Wang Xue could only offer praise, and she smiled as she steered the conversation, “Grandma Mo, Sister Jing is a lover of national history and culture, and she’s particularly interested in our Miao village. Could you tell her about the things in the village? Anything will do.”

     “Our village is just about farming and hunting every day, the same as you eating, drinking, and sleeping. There’s nothing much to talk about,” Grandma Mo replied with a chuckle, poking a hole in the new shoe sole with her awl.

     “Your village has beautiful scenery with mountains and rivers, which we don’t have in the north. It’s so pretty no matter how you look at it. And Grandma Mo, your superb embroidery skills are something Wang Xue and I admire. These shoes are really beautiful.”

     While speaking, Ye Mo began to extend her mental power downwards, extending into the first floor of the stilt house, passing over the poisonous snakes and insects that were killing each other, invading the soul energy of one of the ghost undead, and mentally suggesting him to float up.

     Within 10 seconds, a black shadow with limbs and a head hanging weakly emerged bit by bit from the floor. Wang Xue tried hard to ignore it, but her eyes still glanced over, and her legs felt a little itchy.

     She wanted to step on it.

     Mo shén pó, however, looked as if she could not see the ghost undead. She smiled and sighed: “In our village, there are many people whose skills are far better than mine.. It’s the younger generation of girls and boys these days who are becoming more and more delicate. They can’t even sew a shoe sole properly, and the straw sandals they weave fall apart.”

     “Because there are abundant materials now.” Ye Mo has gotten the information she wanted. It turns out that there really are people in this world who aren’t survivors but have yin-yang eyes. She sent the ghost away, turning her gaze to the tools in the witch’s basket.

     “Mo Shenpo, you have a lot of embroidery needles. You have so many tools for making shoe soles. Did the silversmiths and blacksmiths in the village make them themselves? They look very delicate.”

     Wang Xue nodded like a chicken pecking at rice: “Yes, yes, yes.” The black ghost finally went down.

     Mo Shenpo: “The blacksmiths in the village have been skilled for many years, and it has been passed down from generation to generation. It is indeed good.”

     “There are really many capable people in the village, not only the blacksmiths, but also the rows of houses in the village are not something that ordinary people can build.” Ye Mo praised, “At that time, how did our ancestors consider building the village in this mountain instead of the more stable places on the mountainside or at the foot of the mountain?”

     “Perhaps it was to escape war, or maybe it’s just been too long, maybe even a thousand years, we’re not really sure.”

     Ye Mo nodded, then asked, “The gold-threaded nanmu pillars in the village are the same, they’re very old artifacts. These gold-threaded nanmu and sunken wood have very specific and harsh conditions to form, and they’re very old. I wonder if there’s any more of this good wood left in the mountains?”

     Mo Shenpo continued her work, her hands moving deftly. “They’re all just wood, what’s the difference? When the gold-threaded nanmu was on that TV news program, people from down the mountain came to the village every day to take a look, but they didn’t see anything new. The village’s legends always revolve around things like the Emperor’s gift, the Hundred Birds Garment, stories of our ancestors. How would people today know about those things?”

     …

     During the conversation, Mo Shenpo seemed to cooperate, but the content of her answers was all empty words or lies.

     Ye Mo and Wang Xue looked at each other and chose to expose the news: “Grandma Mo, to tell you the truth, it was Xiaoxue who saw a lot of invisible and intangible things in the village at night, so I came to the village.”

     Mo Shenpo’s hand paused, stopped the work in her hands, and asked: “What things?”

     “Things that just appeared. You can see them too, right? These past two days, haven’t they been increasing in the village? Starting from last night, they’ve even affected people’s normal lives. This morning, we also saw many villagers sneezing. If this continues without a solution, it won’t do any good for anyone in the village.”

     Ye Mo spoke sincerely: “We really hope to understand and help deal with this matter. We apologize for disturbing you; it was our fault.”

     “You two are quite direct,” .

     As soon as the voice fell, Mo Shenpo’s palm moved forward, and a white, shadowy figure darted out, flying towards Wang Xue. However, Ye Mo intercepted it, trapping it with a dagger.

     It was a small, pure white snake about three inches long, with ruby eyes, hissing and flicking a purplish-black tongue.

     Ye Mo: “Miao Gu^[2]苗蛊 (miáo gǔ): Miao Gu refers to a type of venomous insect or creature used in traditional Miao folk magic, often associated with curses or harmful spells.?”

     The smile on Mo Shenpo’s face had vanished, her voice a bit cold. Despite clearly being at a disadvantage, her aura was completely different from before, now resembling that of a Witch.

     Her tone was filled with sorrow: “You’ve really become something now, joining forces with the descendants of the Ji clan, manipulating ghosts to attack the village. Can you face your ancestors? Take all the gold-threaded nanmu from the village, take whatever else you want. Just don’t cause any more trouble. For the sake of our possibly shared ancestry, please spare our village!”

     Wang Xue: “Wait a minute, Ji?”

     She was only surnamed Ji in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period copy. Did this Mo Shenpo transmigrate to the wrong copy?.

     Ye Mo: “Ancestors?”

     It seems that the witch misunderstood something?

     …

     Ye Mo and Wang Xue gave a serious explanation.

    First, Ye Mo is a pure Central Plains Han Chinese, 100% genuine, second, they really came because ghost undead in the village, but they have nothing to do with the ghost undead, finally, they have no desire for the village’s national treasure-level cultural relic, the gold-threaded nanmu, and are definitely not artifact traffickers.

     The ghost undead in the village were not brought by them, really not. There are also many ghost undead in the outside world now. They just accidentally discovered that there are many ghost undead in this mountain village.

     Mo Shenpo: “Really not?”

     Ye Mo & Wang Xue: “No!”

     Mo Shenpo finally believed it, because she found that the Gu worms that had just been put in the tea and meat were killed by the two of them, and the Gu that was put in Wang Xue each time would last for a month at most.

     And the white jade Gu that she raised with her essence and blood since she was a child was vulnerable in front of Ye Mo.

     If the two really wanted to rob, all the people in the village together could not beat them.

     The two sides reconciled.

     Only then did Wang Xue know that from the first day she lived in Miao Village, Mo Shenpo had already discovered something wrong with her strength, and even regarded her as a cultural relic dealer.

     Just because her last name was Wang?

     “…”

     …

     “This has happened before, not just once or twice. After the golden nanmu appeared on TV, several groups of people came, but they were not as strong as you. This was also the reason why the Miao village changed its name.”

     After sighing, Mo Shenpo glanced at Wang Xue, and then began the story of Miao Village.

     Legend has it that a long, long time ago, to escape persecution by the Zhou Dynasty, whose surname was Ji, descendants of the Shang Dynasty migrated from the Central Plains to the south. They used the ghost magic of the Shang Dynasty to build water fortresses and became one of the Baiyue tribes. Many Baiyue tribes were related to groups of survivors.

     Wang Xue held her forehead: …Wang comes from Ji, no wonder.^[3]王从姬 (Wáng cóng Jī): This is a reference to the origin of the Chinese character “王” (wáng – king or ruler), which is said to have originated from the surname Ji.

     The Shui people believe in ghosts is a universally acknowledged fact among the various Baiyue tribes and even in Han Chinese feng shui.

     The priests of the Shui people are called ‘Shuishu Xiansheng’ (Water Book Masters), also known as ‘Gui Shi’ (Ghost Masters). They can release, capture, and repel ghosts. However, with the dissipation of spiritual energy, the number of deceased spirits is decreasing. Ghost Masters must resort to methods to retain them.

     For example, they establish Yin dwellings and Yin lands.

     Among them, the Shui people and the Miao people, descendants of the Baiyue and Chi You tribes, hit it off immediately. They discovered that witchcraft and ghost arts could complement each other. Therefore, the two ethnic groups liked to build their settlements together.

     Looking at it now, the saying “the Shui and Miao are one family” also started from here.

     The golden nanmu in the mountain village is the accumulation of ghost masters of all generations to build Yin lands. Some of them come from the mountains, and some even come from the emperor’s tomb. The heavier the Yin energy, the stronger the Gu and ghost magic.

     But the interests are moving. In the late Ming Dynasty, the last ghost master came out of the mountains to save the world and ushered in a disaster. The village suffered a devastating blow.

     Some of the dead souls in the village who have lived for a long time were locked here forever by the last generation of ghost masters who used their own forbidden magic.

     In order to maintain the safety of the village, there is only Miao Village, and it is an anonymous Miao Village. Although there are Shui people in other places after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Miao Village has not changed its name.

     It is not because they don’t want to change the name, but because Miao Village has many unscientific secrets that cannot be exposed. Originally, the Yin Land was disappearing little by little, but when Wang Xue moved into the village-

     The spiritual energy revived, the Yin Land was restored, and more and more ghost undead appeared.

     In addition, Ye Mo controlled a ghost in front of Mo Shenpo just now, which made her believe that Ye Mo was a descendant of the Sui people, and also the legendary Black Ghost Master, which led to the conversation they just had.