Strong Winds Return Home

In order not to disturb the common people in the city, Liu Xian’an got out of bed at dawn the next day, and the rest of Xiao Wang Palace had already prepared the carriage and horses. Both Tong Ou and Liu Meng were in the courtyard, each holding a stack of books in their arms. They had followed Liang Shu’s orders and searched all over to find these strange books. Liu Meng whispered: “Commander Tong, what do you think the prince wants these things for? I turned two pages yesterday, and each page is bloodier and more obscene than the other. There was something about a bloody girl who embraced a man and stuck a lamp on his head. When my mother saw me reading these, she picked up a broom and hit me without saying a word. She didn’t even listen to my explanation, and almost stuffed them into the stove and burned them.” 

Tong Ou said: “You see them as bloody and obscene things, but Second Young Master Liu is reading legends from the Southwest. Sometimes folk tales are not necessarily made up, and shadows of reality can be found in them. Have you never heard the story of the bloody girl with the lantern?”

“What bloody girl?”

“The one in the drawing you saw,” Tong Ou said. “There was a girl who poisoned her man not long after getting married, and cut off his head to make a lantern, which she carried in her hands all day long, walking around the mountains all covered in blood.”

Liu Meng’s hair stood on end when he heard this: “What kind of scholar is able to make up this kind of story?”

“It’s not a story, it’s real.” Tong Ou said, “It was in Raven City. After the girl killed her husband, she pushed the headless body into a dry well. It took three days before neighbors discovered it. A woodcutter encountered the bloody girl in the mountains and recognized her as the missing woman, but because her appearance was so strange, even though he went down the mountain and reported it to the officials, he stated that he had met a ghost.”

But it was a real person. At that time, Tong Ou was investigating the Baifu Sect in Raven City. He said: “It was I who personally led people to arrest her.”

Liu Meng listened to this in disbelief: “Was she insane?”

“She wasn’t insane. She had a clear mind, and wrote down her plan to poison her husband in great detail. The cut was neatly made, and it could be seen that there was no hesitation in the attack.” Tong Ou said, “At first, everyone thought she was just like most murder cases, and could no longer bear being abused all the time. But it was later discovered that she and her husband were very affectionate, and neighbors testified that they had never quarreled more than once.”

The woman killed her husband in order to get her child back. She became pregnant shortly after the wedding, which was a great joy, but lost the child three months later. Although her husband comforted her in every possible way, she was still depressed. And one day, she went to the street to relax and met a wizard.

Liu Meng: “A disciple of the Baifu Sect?”

Tong Ou nodded.

Since then, the woman believed in the cult and donated her property to the wizard again and again. At first, it might have only been a bowl of rice and a piece of meat, but it later turned into a coin or a piece of silver. Seeing his wife getting increasingly confused, the man forcibly locked her in the house and considered taking her back to his hometown to get away for a while, but the woman killed him one rainy night.

“She believed the wizard’s words and felt that the child’s death was entirely due to her husband’s sins, and that at this time, the child’s soul was being torn and eaten by thousands of wild ravens. She wanted to call him back, but had to use her husband’s head as a guiding light. She walked barefoot in the mountains every day, just to call that remnant soul back into her belly.”

Liu Meng’s face paled, not because of fear, but due to nausea. Tong Ou patted him on the back: “You’ll hear more such tragedies in the future, and you’ll become accustomed to it.“

Although the conversation between the two was very soft, Liu Xian’an had good ears and could hear it clearly. He turned his head and asked Liang Shu: “Raven City. If I remember correctly, it should not be far from the Southwest Garrison camp. It’s a large city with lots of traffic, and there are even many foreigners from Nanyang. Is the Baifu Sect so arrogant?”

“Sometimes a cult will not admit that it is a cult. There are so many kinds of witchcraft in the Southwest that they can just put on another disguise at will.” Liang Shu said, “It doesn’t take a lot of fanfare to spread the word. Just one mouth can destroy the families of dozens of people.”

Although Liu Xian’an had never been to the Southwest before, he liked Raven City very much, mainly because of the name. Coupled with the mystery of the Southwest frontier, he felt that there was a sort of magnificence like countless ravens flying in the emerald mountains at twilight. A-Ning didn’t understand, and said: “A sunset in the deep mountain forests, the sky full of flying ravens. Will it be haunted?”

Liu Xian’an pinched his mouth shut. All right, don’t spoil the atmosphere.

Liang Shu said: “Okay, I’ll bring you to the mountains to see it.”

Liu Xian’an let go, but A-Ning still felt very depressed. He wasn’t wrong. How could a normal person go to the mountains to look at ravens? The young master’s tastes were very strange, and the prince also spoiled him.

There was still a long distance between Huaizhen City and Raven City, so Liu Xian’an lay in the carriage and went through all the books that Tong Ou had collected. It was also Liang Shu’s first time seeing him read a book. Saying that he took in ten lines at a glance could be considered modest. The pages turned with a squeaking sound, and Liang Shu watched for a while before stepping forward to stop it with his hand: “What is this page about?”

Without thinking, Liu Xian’an said: “A ghost mother giving birth to a child. A wealthy homeowner in Huaping town had a wife and a concubine. The wife had no children, but the concubine did, so the wife was jealous……wu.”

Liang Shu leaned over and kissed his lips, then ran his tongue across them. “A ghost story about jealousy, I won’t listen.”

Liu Xian’an explained between kisses that there was not a single page in this book that was not a ghost story.

Liang Shu said: “Then I won’t listen to those either.”

Gao Lin passed by and glanced through the gap in the curtain, and immediately straightened his head with a solemn and respectful expression. 

Liu Xian’an went through most of the carriage full of books in three days. Liang Shu asked: “Shall I go find some new ones?”

Liu Xian’an shook his head: “No need. They’re all similar stories with minor differences, not interesting.”

Liang Shu lifted the other’s limp body a little, asking: “How about doing something fun?”

Liu Xian’an didn’t want to do that either, so he crawled under the quilt on his hands and knees and rolled himself up. Sleep was important.

Liang Shu found this amusing, and stopped teasing him, simply staying by his side. The Sleeping Immortal slept for another ten days, lazy all day long, and after laying down for a long time without moving, he began complaining of a headache. Sitting beside the coachman, A-Ning thought, alas, he didn’t seem to have so many problems before. I thought our entire family was used to the young master, but I didn’t expect that there are still further heights he can climb to.

Liang Shu patiently helped massage his temples. Liu Xian’an found a comfortable position in his arms, but before he could take a nap, A-Ning said outside: “Your Highness, Young Master, there’s a village up ahead. It seems they’re also holding a Many-Color Festival, and there are many people. Shall we go around?”

“Go around, ba, don’t disturb them.” Liang Shu covered the ears of the man in his arms, wanting him to continue to sleep, but the crisp sound of rattle drums came from afar.

Liu Xian’an opened his eyes.

. . . . . .

Like thousands of other villages in the Southwest, this village consisted of bamboo buildings with tiled roofs, colorful and gorgeous. A huge bonfire was lit in the middle of the village, radiating warmth in the winter, and pheasant meat was being roasted. The little dolls were circling around the fire, laughing and making noise. It should have been a cozy, festive scene, but because of the rattle drums in their little hands, it was a bit strange.

Liu Xian’an said: “It’s exactly the same pattern.”

The villagers also spotted the group of people at this time and greeted them with smiles, leading them over to share a cup of wine by the campfire.

Liang Shu reached out and calmly wrapped an arm around Liu Xian’an’s waist.

When ordinary villagers saw foreigners, even if they were the most enthusiastic and forthright people, they would ask where they came from and where they were going before pouring tea and wine. Greeting them like this and luring the other party to drink at their home without saying a word….. “Be careful,” he whispered.

Liu Xian’an made a sound of acknowledgment, walking forward with Liang Shu. He had participated in the Many-Color Festival in Huaizhen City, and knew what the songs, dances, and welcoming smiles should really look like. They came from the heart, without a trace of any false joy. At this moment, although the villagers before them were smiling, they smiled like they were wearing human skin masks, extremely stiff in the light of the dancing flames.

The village head invited them to sit by the bonfire, and someone soon brought over two cups of wine. Liu Xian’an didn’t drink, and Liang Shu also set his cup down on the ground. A little doll kept secretly looking at Liu Xian’an, perhaps thinking he looked good. Liu Xian’an called her to his side and handed over a handful of sweets from the bowl in front of him, taking her rattle drum.

A clear texture, with a greasy smell.

It was human skin.

He took note of the number of rattle drums at this scene and felt a chill in his heart. He had previously thought that the drum stuffed into his hand in Huaizhen City could already be regarded as the Baifu Sect’s most straightforward provocation to Liang Shu, but didn’t expect that they could be even more unbridled. There was poison in the wine. He knew and Liang Shu knew, and the Baifu Sect people should know that Liang Shu knew. But they still arranged for the villagers to organize this Many-Color Festival and specially watched the road, holding rattle drums and pouring poisoned wine.

In the Southwest, people were often refined into puppets through mystical witchcraft. Although it sounded terrifying, Liu Xian’an felt that it was far inferior to the scene he was looking at now. These people were neither poisoned nor bewitched, and it was because of this that it was even more chilling — all the people in the village, men, women, and children, had been brainwashed by the cult. Singing and dancing, celebratory and jubilant, they worked together with sober minds to poison and kill.

This was truly more sinister than puppets crawling out of a mass grave.

Sensing his discomfort, Liang Shu took the water bag from his waist and handed it over: “Take a drink.”

“Guest,” an old woman asked him, “Why aren’t you drinking our wine?”

Liang Shu replied: “We still need to travel, and can’t drink.”

“It’s a Many-Color Festival, everyone has to drink,” another villager said. “If you don’t drink, you’re looking down on us!”

“Right, drink! Drink! Drink!”

The villagers began to chant in unison. The little dolls were naive, and also shouted in an excited frenzy, the rattle drums in their hands clamoring like a summer thunderstorm, an anxiety-inducing sound. A little boy no more than five years old raised his head and said with shining eyes: “Drink, drink! Peel the skin and make drums!”

His mother hurriedly covered his mouth. Mixed in the noise, it went unnoticed. 

“Drink! Drink! Drink!”

The people around stood up one after another, holding wine cups and surrounding the two of them. They pushed and shoved as they approached, the wine in their hands shaking and splashing, and the scene was filled with a pungent smell.

Liu Xian’an regarded the group of fanatical, brainwashed villagers, and moved slightly closer to Liang Shu.