Chapter 14: Evil Spirit (or Malignant Energy)

“Grandma Wen, let’s eat first! After dinner, I need to process them,” Leng You tugged at Wen Jiuyue’s sleeve.

“Ah… ah? Okay… okay, let’s eat.” Wen Jiuyue’s thoughts were scattered, her feet felt light, and she nodded unconsciously, turning towards the kitchen.

Xiang Wentian, as he had been yesterday, didn’t eat dinner with Leng You and the others. Instead, he carried a large basin of rabbit stew with potatoes (this was something Leng You had specifically requested from Wen Jiuyue before going out that morning, as there were plenty of rabbits) back to Xiang Huai Xin’s place.

After Leng You and Wen Jiuyue had finished eating, he returned to help Leng You process the ginseng.

Although conditions were limited, Leng You made full use of them.

She used both the heated kang (traditional Korean/Chinese floor heating) and the iron pot to dry the ginseng. Because the temperature of the kang would also rise when heating the iron pot on the earthen stove, the kang served as a readily available and safest large oven.

Even if they couldn’t be completely dried after a night of baking, Wen Jiuyue could continue drying them on the kang the next day while she was home alone, and she and Xiang Wentian could continue digging the remaining ginseng.

Drying ginseng in an iron pot wasn’t that simple. You couldn’t put the ginseng directly into the pot; that would scald it.

A rack had to be set up underneath, and to prevent the iron rack from getting too hot and damaging the ginseng, it also needed to be wrapped with thatch or similar material.

Fortunately, Xiang Wentian was a genius among geniuses. With a slight hint from Leng You, he fully understood everything, adjusting the heat, turning the ginseng, changing the arrangement… everything was done expertly.

Wen Jiuyue, needless to say, had often helped her husband harvest, dry, and process herbs when he was alive. Even though she hadn’t processed ginseng, a rare and precious herb, she was clearly more experienced than Leng You and Xiang Wentian.

“Go to sleep, I’ll watch it.” Xiang Wentian looked at his watch; it was 10:30 pm. Glancing towards the end of the kang, he saw there was enough space for a small person like Leng You to sleep.

“Brother, go back! We can just leave them on the kang to dry slowly; it won’t affect my and Grandma Wen’s rest,” Leng You felt very energetic and wasn’t sleepy at all.

After more than seven hours of drying, the roots of the ginseng were completely dry, and most of the moisture in the main body had also evaporated; the overall size had shrunk considerably.

All that remained was to leave them on the kang to dry for another day or two before they would be completely dry and ready for storage.

“I’ll watch over them. You two are too young to stay up so late; go to sleep.

Xiaotian, why don’t you stay here?”

Leng You was young, so Wen Jiuyue didn’t have many concerns.

“I’ll go back, and I’ll come early tomorrow,” Xiang Wentian put on his army coat and disappeared outside in the blink of an eye.

“Grandma Wen, the kang isn’t that hot anymore; don’t worry about them, you should sleep too! We have to get up early tomorrow,” Tucked into bed by Wen Jiuyue after having her coat removed, Leng You reached out a small hand to hold Wen Jiuyue’s clothes.

“Youyou, are you really going into the valley with Xiaotian tomorrow?” Despite a night of persuasion from Leng You and assurances from Xiang Wentian, Wen Jiuyue still couldn’t rest easy.

Mainly, the villagers of Daheishan  had been thoroughly brainwashed by the terrifying legends of the “Summoning Souls Valley” for generations. And indeed, some who had dared to enter the valley had exhibited unusual symptoms afterward and died mysteriously shortly thereafter.

Even more bizarrely, after that, the families living closer to the valley began to experience misfortunes: family members would be accidentally injured, or suddenly fall seriously ill, and every family became impoverished.

The villagers hadn’t initially made much connection, until one day, the only son of a family suddenly went insane, and many doctors from the village and beyond were helpless.

In desperation, the family secretly found a shaman from another village (during this particular era, such superstitious activities were strictly prohibited). The shaman lit incense and burned paper, and after jumping around, his face immediately changed drastically.

From then on, the people of Daheishan Village finally had an answer for all the strange things happening in the village. The source of the trouble was this deep valley.

According to the shaman, this valley didn’t originally exist; previously, that area was hundreds of miles of continuous mountains.

A thousand-year-old snake demon with nine heads had been dwelling in the mountains, cultivating its power.

Just as it reached a crucial point in its cultivation, a villager cutting wood in the mountains discovered this large snake, its body shrouded in black mist. In extreme fear, he swung his axe, cleaving the nine-headed snake in two.

The intense pain pulled the nine-headed snake back from the underworld, only to find its body split in two, and its painstakingly cultivated energy dissipating bit by bit.

The snake demon, filled with rage and fury, dragged its half-body and bit off the villager’s head, but it couldn’t stop the gradual dissipation of its energy.

In its immense fury, it vanished in a flash of lightning, reappearing in the villager’s home. After a puff of black smoke, the villager’s family members all became catatonic.

It turned out the snake demon had devoured the souls of the villager’s family.

This wasn’t the end. The snake demon flashed into other houses in the village, devouring the souls of dozens of villagers.

The reason the snake demon did this, besides revenge, was to use the souls of people to nourish its spirit, preventing its spirit from dissipating along with its energy.

In this way, the snake demon madly harmed the villagers, causing the population of Daheishan Village to dwindle to near extinction.

The villagers, desperate, could only kneel and beg the Jade Emperor for help.

The Jade Emperor, hearing this, was extremely furious and immediately ordered the Thunder God to subdue the snake demon. The Thunder God accepted the order and immediately arrived on a cloud.

A large thunderbolt struck the snake demon, which was dragging its half-body and harming the villagers.

The snake demon’s face changed drastically, and it immediately turned to flee. Just as it escaped to the mountain where it had long dwelled, a larger thunderbolt descended, striking the snake demon and cleaving a deep valley into the mountain.

The snake demon’s spirit was scattered, leaving only a wisp of consciousness within its body, which fell to the bottom of the valley.

The snake demon felt extremely aggrieved and told the Thunder God its grievances.

The Jade Emperor therefore showed mercy, leaving the snake demon’s last wisp of consciousness, but trapping it at the bottom of the valley, promising that the entire valley would belong to the snake demon, and that the snake demon had the right to take the lives of those who invaded or actively harmed it.

As for why the families living closer to the valley suffered misfortune, the shaman’s explanation was—

Because the snake demon’s thousand years of cultivation was destroyed, and it was trapped at the bottom of the valley by the Jade Emperor, its immense anger and resentment combined to form a heavy Evil Spirit (malignant energy).

This Evil Spirit spread from the valley outwards, to the valley’s surroundings.

Anyone who came into contact with this Evil Spirit would, at best, be injured or die, and at worst, their entire family would be annihilated.