Otherworldly Merchant

Uncle Zhong wiggled for a while before quieting down. Immediately afterward, he began to scream again. “I remember! I had unearthed a beast horn, and it attracted many strangers that came to see it. Some had even wanted to buy it at a high price. But there was a voice that warned me not to sell it.

“Eventually, a man offered me one million renminbi for the horn. I decided to sell it to him. However, as I was about to give him the horn, a strange wind blew into the room and the horn disappeared. Those strangers fled immediately. Then, I felt dizzy…”

“What happened after that?” The villagers were all nervous and looked at Uncle Zhong.

Uncle Zhong shook his head. “After that… I can’t remember. I don’t remember anything…”

The villagers were mad and blamed Uncle Zhong for all the incidents that happened to their family members. “Damn, it’s all because of you!”

Uncle Zhong clutched his head and knelt on the ground in pain. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have unearthed that thing.”

Zen Master Baimei said, “All right, it’s useless to blame him now. The urgent thing to do now is to find that horn. Uncle Zhong, I think you still remember where you got that horn, don’t you?”

Uncle Zhong nodded immediately. “I still remember. Right at the mountain foot, in my wheat field. At the time, I wanted to exploit new areas.”

Zen Master Baimei said, “That’s good then. We should go now. Do you have soybeans? Everybody should keep some soybeans on your bodies. When your mind goes blurry, you must chew the soybeans.”

It wasn’t hard to find soybeans. No matter what, it was an essential grain. The villagers hurried home and picked up some beans. Some cowardly folks even took a whole bag with them.

The moment the villagers returned home to get the soybeans, Zen Master Baimei said, “It’s going well. That wild dog spirit can’t control the villagers’ minds now. Next, we must think how to unite them and make them full of hatred toward the wild dog spirit. The stronger their power of belief is, the more helpless the wild dog spirit will become!”

We immediately nodded.

Shortly after, the villagers gathered at the village entrance. Zen Master Baimei asked Uncle Zhong to take us to the place where he had found the horn.

The mist around us grew thicker. We couldn’t see anything farther than three meters away. Zen Master Baimei asked the folks to hold each other’s hands. They should never scatter.

When we got to Uncle Zhong’s wheat field, we found that the fog here was much thicker than anywhere else. We couldn’t see anything clearly.

I saw many shadows moving in the thick mist. It made me feel strange. I couldn’t see the faces of the people standing near me, but I was able to see those shadows?

I carefully pulled Chuyi’s shirt and told him about this strange matter.

Chuyi seemed to have noticed it already. He drew the eight-sided Han sword on his back and muttered something. Then, his blade flashed with a blue light. He hacked down in midair, and all the shadows vanished.

Zen Master Baimei asked all the people here to keep a soybean in their mouths since it was possible to encounter something dangerous soon.

As soon as the villagers heard Zen Master Baimei, they all became nervous and placed the soybeans into their mouths.

Zen Master Baimei held a hoe, while I quickly pulled out a flashlight. Although it couldn’t pierce through the layers of mist, it helped a little bit.

The senior monk asked Uncle Zhong for the specific location then started to use his hoe to unearth the soil.

There was only soil, mud, and a few rocks in the area. Zen Master Baimei could easily dig up the soil.

Uncle Zhong told us the story about the day he had dug up the horn.

That day, he had come to the mountain foot and dug the soil. After around one meter, his shovel touched something hard. At first, he thought it was some rock so he just continued to dig.

After a while, he found a deep and dark hole that had the horn inside.

When he saw the horn, he felt it had some sort of magic power. The magic overcame all his thoughts, and he felt compelled to take the horn home with him. He even threw his shovel aside.

While the man was talking, Zen Master Baimei’s hoe hit something hard.

The group cheered, “There it is!”

Chuyi shouted, “Don’t talk. If you disturb that thing, no one will be able to leave!”

The villagers all quieted down.

I observed the area that Zen Master Baimei had just dug up.

I saw a pit. It didn’t look deep and could barely fit a human head.

From the outside, we couldn’t see anything. Zen Master Baimei didn’t hurry to observe the hole but meticulously dug around the place.

There were a lot of stones all around the hole, which created a massive subterranean structure.

Zen Master Baimei asked some villagers to take their tools to help dig. He asked them to dig around the hole and not to touch its original structure.

After half an hour, the stone structure appeared in front of us, which made us gawk in awe!

It was a small courtyard built with stones. It was small but pretty similar to a human family’s courtyard. However, this miniature had rows of rooms with a bedroom, study room, living room, and even a toilet.

Everything was made of stones that stacked on each other. These stones were glued together by some strange, tough substance. All the structures looked nice and exquisite.

The folks were astonished and somewhat frightened. Was that creature capable of creating such a complicated courtyard? But only a human could do something of the sort!

But no villager here had done that, right?

Zen Master Baimei said, “Merciful Buddha, did any Benefactor come here and build this house to absorb the moonlight and the sunlight energy?”

The villagers shook their heads.

I was puzzled and asked, “Zen Master Baimei, how can this thing absorb the sunlight and moonlight?”

Zen Master Baimei explained, “This place is called the Eye of the Mountain, which is the part of the mountain that absorbs the essence from the moon and the sun. This sort of place can’t be used to build a house. Otherwise, not only would it affect the animals and plants that live on the mountain from taking in the essence of moonlight and sunlight, but it would also forcefully suck the spirit essence of the mountain itself, stopping only after the mountain had died! The villagers, trees, birds, and animals that live dozens of miles around the mountain would be affected altogether.”

He continued, “After a long time, the thing that absorbed the mountain’s spirit essence would become a spirit! It could become a Mountain Spirit to protect the mountain or a monster that would harm people. From this situation, I can tell the mountain’s essence has been absorbed by a wild dog spirit… Wild dogs are fierce animals. With its fierce nature, it couldn’t become a deity, so it turned into a monster instead. That horn the wild dog spirit is using is the essence of earth and heavens. If we obtain that horn, we could restrain its source of power and then subdue it easily.”

The villagers gawked in shock. It seemed they couldn’t believe that they had been neighbors with a wild dog spirit for quite a long time.

The villagers begged Zen Master Baimei to save them and find that wild dog spirit.

“Don’t worry. As long as you unite together, we can deal with that wild dog spirit.”

I lowered my voice and asked Zen Master Baimei, “Who built the rooms in that courtyard? Did the wild dog spirit do that?”

Zen Master Baimei smiled and pointed at the hole. “The answer is right in that hole.”

Chuyi stooped and thrust his hand into the hole. He searched around. Eventually, he pulled something out and threw it onto the ground.

My eyes focused, and I couldn’t help but take a deep breath.

It was a yellowish dog skin. The fur was almost gone, but the skin looked intact and complete with all four legs. It was like a cicada shedding its shell.

The skin looked smooth and nice, which wasn’t much different from human skin.

Zen Master Baimei cautiously walked forward and touched the dog skin. He sighed. “No matter how much an animal wants to become a human, they’ll still be an animal in the end!”

I didn’t understand what he meant so I asked him.

“That wild dog spirit wants to become a human. That’s why it had cast off its skin. Anyway, no matter how much it can resemble a human, it won’t be able to stand up straight. In short, it looks neither like human nor animal right now.”

To become like a human, the dog spirit had even built a courtyard. But how could a wild dog learn the knowledge that human beings have accumulated over the years? Although this little structure looked similar to a man-made courtyard, it was just an imitation.

Humans were simply superior to other animals!