Treasures Down the Mountain Chapter 1

Here, the shadows of the trees are looming, and the setting sun shines through the jungle, illuminating a golden-red stream.

As far as the eye can see, there are thick shades on both sides of the road, and an endless sea of clouds rolling around and under your feet. If you listen carefully, you can only hear the faint chirping of insects and the occasional roar of wild animals, coming from the dense forest in the distance that has fallen into the night.

This is a mountain that is rarely visited by people.

What is strange is that there is a house in such a secluded location.

Calling it a house is really giving it face. This building is at best a thatched shed. I don't know how careless the owner is. It was built in a rather unruly way: the thin wooden poles of famine were exhaustedly supporting a mess of straw, and the crooked posture seemed to be about to kneel down and kowtow to someone in the next second. The low and short fence was sparsely tied, and pheasants could get in through the gaps without flapping their wings. An extremely ugly wooden table was placed in the middle of the yard at will. Combined with the chopping boards and knives on the table and the disgusting stove half a meter away, it should be used as a kitchen and dining room. At this time, the leaky bamboo door of the thatched shed was wide open. In the dim light, you can see a bed inside, and a deer, a weasel and a wild dog squatting at the head of the bed.

This strange group gathered together but did not fight. Other animals occasionally appeared outside the yard. They were all concentrating on capturing the breathless human voice in the shed.

The next second, the leaves in the distance suddenly rustled.

To the wild beasts, that slight noise sounded like the roar of their natural enemies. The animals that were peeking out from the fence and shrinking their heads suddenly scattered with their fur standing on end. But in a flash, a thin figure with a strong smell of blood split the twilight.

The man was not very tall, with half-long messy hair loosely gathered behind his head with a cloth strip. He was wearing a patched Taoist robe, with skinny arms sticking out from under his rolled-up sleeves. His skin was so pale that it looked bloodless, and he looked very thin, like a beggar who had been hungry for three days and was about to set out from the bridge hole to the street tunnel to beg for food.

However, in his seemingly weak hands, he was holding a wild boar that was almost as big as a brown bear.

The boar's throat was cut open accurately and ruthlessly, leaving a long trail of blood. The boar died with its fangs bared, revealing its ferocious appearance. The night breeze blew up the hunter's messy hair, and he raised his hand to impatiently gather it, revealing half of his bloodstained but handsome face.

Felix came back with today's prey, and he knew what was going on in the house at a glance. He frowned and kicked the gate, and the lecture in the thatched hut stopped immediately. After a moment, Arthur Wei's old voice floated out from inside: "Disciple?"

Felix threw the wild boar in front of the stove: "What did you put in here again?"

The three animals who were listening to the sutra in the room immediately retreated obediently. Before leaving, the stag nodded to Felix, knowing how to read people's expressions. The weasel and the wild dog met Felix's gaze, and they squeezed their but.tocks and ran away.

Felix went into the room to wash his face. Arthur, wearing a robe that was even more torn than his, lay on the bed with his legs spread out and sighed: "You scared away all my junior brothers and sisters."

Felix ignored him, washed his face and found a pair of scissors to cut his hair. His haircutting skills were amazing, and in a blink of an eye, his head was full of bumps and grooves.

Arthur chuckled, groped his hands to the table, and poured him a cup of cold tea: "Are you tired? Have some tea, have some tea."

Felix looked at him. Arthur's eyes were wide open, staring at the void without focus, without any awareness.

This old man is blind.

He should not have been blind before. Felix's ears were callused from listening to Arthur bragging about his heroic deeds. He kept talking about the chapter about him taking the sect's disciples out to kill the enemy decades ago. He kept talking about it over and over again. When he got excited, he even insisted on dragging Felix to see the string of human heads hanging on the rack in the backyard. The heads couldn't be fake. How could a blind man go to war? It was obvious that he was not blind before.

But Felix was only half-believing and half-doubting the truth of most of his stories. For example, he said that his sect was well-known in the cultivation world, with hundreds of disciples, and that he had profound attainments and was knowledgeable. But for so many years, Arthur had been living in this thatched hut that was not even as good as an animal cave, eating bran and vegetables. Felix had never seen the famous sect's fairy mountain and hundreds of thousands of disciples. How could this old man who said he had profound attainments be so blind and old now?

Felix was full of sarcasm, but he was too lazy to say it. He was not a talkative person, and in fact, he had no interest in other things. When Arthur didn't ask him to work, he usually sat quietly in the yard and was in a daze. When he was hungry, he went out to grab something to fill his stomach.

The story of his fate with the old Taoist priest is a long one. Arthur said that Felix was a wild ghost he had picked up in the past, and he had been taking good care of him and treating him as his own son. After Felix became intelligent, he accepted him as his last disciple. This kindness was as high as a mountain and as deep as the sea, and he could never repay it. Felix had no way to refute the former. He had lived with the old Taoist priest for countless years, and he had been what he is now since he became conscious. His memory of the past was fragmented and difficult to sort out. However, the latter part, taking good care of him and treating him as his own son, was obviously bullsh!t. Arthur spent all day and night preaching and eating and sleeping. If he hadn't worked like a cow and a horse every day, this old man would still be digging grass roots to eat.

Arthur started to repeat the same old tune again.

"Our Taicang Sect has been established for thousands of years. We are highly respected in the cultivation world and have countless disciples... You are my last disciple. When you inherit my mantle and become the 62nd head of the sect, you must take it as your responsibility to glorify our sect..." The old man said as he rummaged under the bed again and took out a gray cloth bag filled with pieces and lumps of silver. The surface of the silver blocks had turned black, and the carvings of what should have been human figures on the round silver blocks were rusted. Arthur separated the ingot-shaped silver blocks and put them aside, then blew on the silver blocks, raised them to his ears and listened, "... I don't know which emperor has taken over the throne after the war. Who cares? Anyway, the world is peaceful and the silver will definitely come in handy. You have to keep the money, as it is the key to our sect's comeback after the world is reborn..."

Felix put down the cup, stood up and left.

"Wait." Arthur threw down the ocean and called him, "What are we having for dinner tonight?"

Felix: "Roasted wild boar leg."

Arthur always had a lot of complaints about food: "Can't we just cook braised pork?"

Felix replied: "No."

Arthur grabbed him and stuffed a red envelope into his mouth flatteringly: "Let's cook braised pork. Roasted pork legs are hard to digest, so of course we have to braise wild boar."

Felix picked it up and found that what Arthur handed him was the jade pendant that he always carried with him. The jade pendant was white and smooth like a piece of solidified cream. Felix seemed to know instinctively that this was a good treasure. This was the only evidence that made him feel that the old Taoist's past might not be completely nonsense. But now this stingy old man gave it to him casually just to eat a bite of braised pork.

He frowned and stared at the jade pendant: "Isn't this your leader's seal?"

Arthur remained calm and said, "You really believe it? I was just bragging."

Felix stared at his face and suddenly realized something: "You are dying."

Arthur blew his beard and said, "You are really good at chatting. I have lived for more than 500 years, but I am still a mortal. How can a mortal be immortal?"

Felix didn't want to argue with him, and handed the jade pendant back expressionlessly: "I don't have a physical body, and I can't leave this mountain. You'd better find someone else."

Arthur didn't answer, but just laughed and climbed back to the bed, lying comfortably on the straw mat. He tilted his head and looked in the direction of Felix. His blind eyes seemed to have a focus at this moment, and he looked energetic: "Since 120 years ago, when the Heavenly Dao fell, the spiritual energy collapsed, and the realms of practitioners fell, I knew that sooner or later this day would come. But decades ago, I accompanied your brothers and sisters to leave the sect, return to the world, and kill people. Practitioners should not interfere in worldly affairs, so I became blind, and I don't know where your brothers and sisters went... But I still don't regret it. Disciple, do you know what cultivation is?"

"That's bullsh!t." Felix asked, "Do you still want to eat?"

"Forget it, you'll know it sooner or later anyway." Arthur didn't force it. He looked back at the top of the void, and his pupils lost focus again. He only muttered with faith, "I want to eat braised pork..."

After playing tricks, he finally gave up, closed his eyes, and lay down on his back, as quiet as if he was asleep.

Felix stood there for a while, then turned and walked out of the room.

He held the knife and stared at the wild boar he had dragged back in the evening.

Ever since he could remember, he often felt hungry, and his appetite was huge, he almost never felt full. Therefore, for similar prey, he would give a leg to Arthur and then eat the rest alive.

But today, he didn't even want to touch it.

The stove burned all night long, and the aroma of braised pork wafted through the valley.

Until dawn, there was no sound of Arthur urging for dinner in the house. Felix sat cross-legged in front of the stove and looked at the sky. When the crackling sound of the charcoal fire died down, he came to his senses and stood up silently.

He found a suitable spot in the backyard, dug a hole with a shovel, then went back to the house and carried the already cold Arthur out.

Arthur, who usually kept his mouth shut, was tactful. After Felix put him down, he thought for a while and dug a small hole next to him. He dragged a rack from the backyard and poured all the dried human heads that had been hanging on the rack for who knows how many years and that the old man was so proud of into the hole.

The skeletons were smooth, cutely round, with eyes wide open, rolling around in the pit, looking very delicious.

But Arthur never let him eat these.

Felix stood in front of the two pits, suddenly stunned by hunger and confusion.

Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned around and saw hundreds of wild animals coming outside the fence. Jackals, tigers, leopards, chickens, ducks, cows and sheep, all of which loved to come to listen to Arthur's lectures. When Felix saw them, he suddenly became even hungrier: this mountain was uninhabited, so there were many animals with intelligence, which were obviously convenient and nutritious, but Arthur would not allow him to eat them. Arthur was very annoying when he made a fuss, so he usually had to run a long way to find ordinary prey.

The stag with strong horns in the front met his eyes and its calves were obviously trembling, but it still nodded its neck towards Felix, then walked to the pit where Arthur was and put down the wild grass he had brought.

Felix stared at them for a while, then finally walked away and let them come forward to pay their respects.

No one came empty-handed, even the wild dogs had pheasants in their mouths. Felix sat cross-legged in front of the broken fence, watching the group of people who had coveted the food for many years but never got to eat under Arthur's control come and go, and his heart was so quiet that there was no ripple.

Until the weasel, who had offered the bird eggs, came over.

Felix leaned his head against the fence, looking from top to bottom, and said lazily: "Are you looking for death?"

The weasel's tail exploded and it instinctively turned around to run for its life. After taking two steps, it slowed down again and looked back every few steps, with infinite desire in its shifty eyes.

This seemed to mean he wanted to lead the way. Felix didn't want to pay any attention at first, but when he saw Arthur's grave piled with fruits and vegetables, he was too confused to know what to do, so he got up and followed him.

With the hungry boss behind him, the weasel ran as fast as lightning and soon led Felix to a mountain wall. Felix recognized this place as the edge of the mountain and the end of his hunting range for decades. He had been here countless times, and each time he was blocked by an invisible barrier because he had no physical body.

The barrier of this mountain is a gate god that protects the creatures in the mountain from being disturbed by the outside world. It is also a shackle that traps the souls of the creatures in the mountain and prevents them from reincarnating normally.

This place is isolated from the rest of the world, and even the ghost messengers never set foot here. Therefore, the souls that died here, if they cannot find someone to preach the sutras to help them to be liberated, can only wait here day after day, becoming earth-bound spirits with an obsession that cannot be shaken off, and looking for a replacement.

However, there were few evil spirits and ghosts in the mountains. In the early days of Felix's spiritual enlightenment, he could occasionally catch a few to eat, but he never saw them again after that.

It's a pity that the evil spirits have strong yin energy, and their sense of fullness is actually much stronger than that of pheasants, wild boars, etc...

Felix's thoughts turned, and he came back to his senses, wondering why the weasel brought him here?

The weasel in front suddenly stopped and let out a long, suppressed cry.

Felix knew why it brought him here.

At the barrier of the mountain wall ahead, which was usually covered with weeds, there was a dead body lying quietly there.

I found something delicious and I’m going to offer it to the boss.