Chapter 128: Fengdu Guest: Reminiscence of the Past (Part 3)
Fallen Flower Cave Girl refers to a local girl from western Hunan who has a chance to be favored by the cave god if she enters the mountain. In order to marry the girl, the cave god will take away the girl's soul in advance and then release the girl back home. The favored girl will become as bright and beautiful as fallen flowers between the time she returns home and the time she is married. When the time comes, the cave god will send someone to lead the girl into the cave to become the cave god's bride.
The bride chosen this time is the little girl's elder sister, named Erya. The little girl is called Erjiao, nicknamed Jiaojiao.
Yang Qingyu and Jiao Jiao followed the wedding procession and walked a short but very rugged mountain road before arriving at the cave where the cave god was. Looking from the outside, this was a very huge cave, and it was so dark inside that it was hard to see what was going on.
Yang Qingyu was not afraid, and without even a second thought, he carried Jiao Jiao into the cave. The cave was filled with strange-shaped stalactites, and the cold wind was chilling.
At first it was very narrow, but then it became passable. After walking a few dozen steps, it suddenly became open.
The cave was not deep. After walking for about ten minutes, they could see the light at the exit. After passing through the cave, they saw a canyon that looked like a fairyland. Across the canyon, facing the exit of the cave, was a rushing waterfall. The waterfall formed a deep pool of water at the bottom of the valley, and in front of the pool was an open lawn.
Logically speaking, this valley has plenty of sunshine and should be a good place with lush vegetation, but strangely, apart from the lawn, there is only one tree growing in the entire valley, and this tree has long been dead.
The cave owner's wedding banquet was held here.
At this moment, there were at least several hundred banquet tables on the lawn, and a group of ugly monsters were eating and drinking.
The process of transforming into a human can be said to be a compulsory course for monsters.
The level of cultivation of this monster can actually be determined by its appearance. The worst one is of course one that has not yet cultivated into a human form; the next best one is one that has cultivated into a human form, but some details still look more like its original form; the better ones look no different from ordinary people; but the ones with the highest level of cultivation don't care whether they look like a human or not, they can become whatever they want.
Who is a human being? Why must we grow according to his standards?
Yang Qingyu was not afraid of strangers. He unloaded his luggage at the exit of the cave, and then sat down with Jiaojiao in his arms without any psychological pressure.
On the left of Yang Qingyu sat a monster that looked like a wild bull. He looked silly and stupid. When he saw Yang Qingyu sitting down, he politely said, "You look a little unfamiliar. Which mountain are you from?"
Yang Qingyu smiled politely and said, "I am from the bride's family."
After saying that, he started to pick up his chopsticks without waiting for the Bull Monster to speak. Yang Qingyu picked up the dish on the table and smelled it, and confirmed it carefully. It was fresh game. He was hungry and thirsty, so he didn't hesitate to put two rabbit legs into his bowl, one for Jiao Jiao and one for him, and started to eat them in front of the monsters.
The monsters at the same table with Yang Qingyu swallowed their saliva when they saw him eating happily. They actually wanted to start the feast a long time ago, but they had been mountain monsters for a long time and were not good at using chopsticks. They were afraid of making a fool of themselves and disrupting the cave owner's wedding banquet, so they had been holding back.
Seeing that they were hesitant, Yang Qingyu hurriedly called out, "Eat quickly, don't be polite, it will get cold soon." He and Jiaojiao each held a rabbit leg in their hands, without any manners, and they chewed it with great relish.
When the monsters saw this, they were so greedy that they no longer cared about their manners and started to imitate him.
Yang Qingyu was not satisfied after serving his own table. He turned around and greeted the next table, "Everyone, enjoy your meals!"
The monsters at the next table also responded politely: "Okay, okay." Then they started eating under the leadership of Yang Qingyu.
If you don’t know, you might think that Yang Qingyu is getting married today.
The barbarian bull monster sitting next to Yang Qingyu chatted with him while eating: "I have been to so many wedding banquets hosted by cave owners, but this is the first time I have seen the bride's family. In the past, the bride's family would immediately close the door after sending the bride out, pretending that they didn't have this daughter."
Yang Qingyu shrugged and poured himself a glass of wine: "They missed out on a lot of good food and wine, but there's nothing we can do about them being afraid of monsters."
The Bull Monster asked curiously, "Then you're not afraid?"
Yang Qingyu was using chopsticks to dip wine into the water and feed it to Jiao Jiao in his arms: "What should I be afraid of?"
The Bull Monster nodded, "Indeed, I also think that humans shouldn't be afraid of us, but we should be afraid of humans. You don't know that the cave master originally had his eyes on a girl from a family in the village next door, not this one. But because the girl's family was afraid of the cave master, they tied her up and threw her directly at the cave entrance, ignoring her. At that time, the cave master was in seclusion preparing for the wedding. When he finished preparing and came out of the cave, he saw that the girl's body had already rotted!"
This scared Jiao Jiao in Yang Qingyu's arms: "Ah!" She grabbed Yang Qingyu's front with tears in her eyes and asked, "Uncle, will Jiao Jiao be like this in the future?"
"Of course not. Jiaojiao is so cute. Dad and mom love her so much."
Jiao Jiao's eyes flickered, as if tears were welling up in her eyes. She still looked a little uneasy as she said, "But my parents said that women's lives are cheap."
Yang Qingyu touched Jiao Jiao's hair and said gently and seriously, "It's not that women's lives are cheap, it's that others think women's lives are cheap. So, Jiao Jiao, at this time, you must value yourself and cherish yourself."
Jiao Jiao didn't understand, but she intuitively felt that it must be a good thing to say, so she nodded and continued to gnaw on her rabbit leg.
"Oh, right." After comforting Jiao Jiao, Yang Qingyu began to inquire about the cave owner's news, "What kind of person is our new brother-in-law? My sister had never met him before she got married."
The Bull Monster, who had already established a good relationship with Yang Qingyu, looked skeptical after hearing this: "Your sister? You don't look that young."
Yang Qingyu, who had been handling the situation with ease, felt the veins on his forehead popping out with anger, and his smile became stiff.
But fortunately, the Bull Monster didn't intend to delve deeper: "This cave owner is very powerful, don't you know--" The Bull Monster looked left and right, then leaned over and whispered to Yang Qingyu, "The valley in this cave is a rare and extremely dangerous cave that is rarely seen in a hundred years. There is an extremely dangerous zombie suppressed underneath. Thanks to the cave owner, otherwise, the zombie would have come out and killed all living things."
"Zombies?" Yang Qingyu, who was completing the "Zombie Chapter of the Heavenly Book Fragments", smiled delightedly when he heard this, "Oh? That's really..." That's great.
When Yang Qingyu was about 80% full, the wedding ceremony began. The cave owner, with a big red flower on his chest, held a silk ribbon in his hand, and the other end of the ribbon was in the hand of the bride wearing a red veil.
The cave owner was short, with pus-filled face, and looked very unpleasant.
Seeing the bride coming out, Jiao Jiao in Yang Qingyu's arms suddenly became excited. She struggled to get out of Yang Qingyu's arms and go to her sister: "Sister!"
Yang Qingyu did not stop her, but relaxed his strength and let her jump down. Jiao Jiao ran to her sister without hesitation, then hugged her sister's thighs and cried, "Sister!"
The girl in Luohua Cave had her soul taken away and had no reaction at all.
The monsters and cave masters who were watching the ceremony were all shocked by this sudden change: "What's going on!"
When they took a closer look and found that this was just a weak human, the monsters closest to her began to drive Jiaojiao away: "Go away, go away! Today is the wedding day of your sister and the cave master, don't make the cave master unhappy." As they said that, they were about to grab Jiaojiao.
Then, just when these monsters were about to grab Jiaojiao, several talismans flew over from behind and stuck to the hands of these monsters. In an instant, flames high into the sky ignited from the hands of these monsters.
"Ah!" Several monsters screamed and jumped into the pool behind them.
All the monsters attending the wedding banquet stood up together, and they all looked in the direction where the talisman was cast.
Under everyone's gaze, Yang Qingyu, who had eaten and drunk his fill, stood up, stretched himself beautifully, and then said word by word: "It's time to exercise after dinner."
As if in response to Yang Qingyu's words, the Penglai beads in his hand automatically untied, and each bead floated around him as if with self-awareness, ready to go.
The battle has begun.
The battle is over.
Originally, the owner of the cave was just a small monster who was a local tyrant in a small place. Most of the people who attended the wedding banquet were small monsters with low Taoism skills. They were no match for Yang Qingyu who possessed the Penglai Pearl.
The monster who knew the situation ran away as soon as Yang Qingyu stood up, while the monster who didn't know the situation was knocked unconscious by the Penglai Pearl the moment he rushed towards Yang Qingyu.
Some feel dizzy, some run away.
In the end, the only monster still standing was the cave master - he was being strangled by Yang Qingyu at this moment.
"Will you dare to traffic in women again in the future?"
The cave master had been beaten to his original form, with grayish yellow skin and pimples all over his body. At first glance, it was obvious that he was a toad spirit.
The cave owner argued, "It's not trafficking women. I gave the girl's family some time to think about it, and they didn't refuse. Besides, this is the local custom, and I'm not the only cave owner who does this."
After hearing this, Yang Qingyu slowly exhaled and said slowly: "Things in the world cannot be justified by being covered with the word 'customs'. It does not mean that it is right just because 'other people' are like this."
It’s not your fault that you are ugly, but it is your fault that you are ugly and still traffic in women!
But Yang Qingyu was in no mood to continue preaching to the cave master. He simply pasted a talisman directly on the cave master's protruding forehead. Instantly, a burst of fire lit up, and the cave master instantly turned into a charcoal-grilled bullfrog.
Yang Qingyu moved his nose. He didn't expect that the ugly cave owner would smell so good when he was grilling. "Oh no, I'm hungry again."
After the cave master died, the girl whose soul was taken away by the cave master naturally woke up, but the girl named Erya planned to die .
"But even if I return to the village, I have nowhere to stay. As long as I have been elected as a Luohua Cave Girl, the people in the village will regard me as an unlucky person. I might as well die here and be done with it." In fact, in western Hunan, in the old days, many girls were not even chosen by the cave master, but were forced to death because of people's prejudice and ignorance just because they seemed to have the signs of being elected as a Luohua Cave Girl.
Yang Qingyu didn't know what he should say. He couldn't change the way the world was.
So, he could only take out most of the money he had, handed it to Erya, and said: "The world is not just about your village, so go and try." Go and try to find a place where you can survive.
Failure is impossible. What is terrible is accepting failure without trying.
The girl seemed to understand, but she still kowtowed solemnly to Yang Qingyu, and then walked out of the cave with Jiaojiao.
The future outside the cave may be uncertain, but that is also her life.
After resolving the small incident, Yang Qingyu turned his attention to the deep pool in front of him.
The valley was visible from the beginning, so if someone wanted to hide something, this was the only place. In addition, the cave owner was an amphibious toad, so it seemed that the so-called thousand-year-old corpse must be in this deep pool.
Thinking of this, Yang Qingyu dived into the deep pool without saying a word.
