Chapter 262: Son Of The Toad God
Fang Mu fell into silence and couldn’t help but ask, “Do you know who that outsider is?”
“My impression of him isn’t very deep; after all, it was just a fleeting glimpse. I only remember seeing him from afar walking alone into the forest on Nong Mountain.” Mo Longwei shook his head, seemingly somewhat depressed as he took a big gulp of beer.
Fang Mu didn’t speak. His deepened breathing exposed the unrest in his heart, but the two people beside him simply didn’t notice.
“What exactly is that Toad God? It sounds like It is very… powerful.” Fang Mu weighed his words carefully before inquiring.
Hearing this, Mo Longwei’s drinking motion stiffened noticeably for an instant. His originally somewhat hazy brain was instantly jolted back to full consciousness by the fear deep in his heart. With panic in his eyes, he said: “Toad God… Toad God… If you ask me what deity in the world truly exists, I would tell him without hesitation that it is the Toad God.
But if you ask me what evil truly exists, I… I would give them the same answer.”
Mo Longwei uneasily shook his leg, his thumb unconsciously tightening around the beer can in his hand, as he began to tell Fang Mu a legend circulating locally about the Toad God.
A very, very long time ago, when the mainstream human lifestyle was still tribal collective living, there was a tribe called Rong Village, rooted in a place almost isolated from the world.
Limited communication with the outside world was both a bad thing and a good thing. At least no one disturbed their tribal life. The people living in this tribe could be considered content and prosperous at the time, thanks to the bountiful environment and ample food. Besides necessary farming and hunting, everyone could do what they wanted. Rong Village was almost a real paradise.
But like most stories, beauty is always meant to be shattered.
In a certain year, Rong Village encountered a heavenly disaster of severe drought. With no water, people couldn’t farm, and everyone failed to harvest grain. People wanted to hunt, but water is the source of all things; without water, animals couldn’t survive either. The village hunters returned empty-handed every time they entered the mountains. And fatally, at just this time, a terrifying monster appeared in the mountains.
That monster was like a gigantic centipede, covered in dense long legs and with many eyes. It ate any living thing, especially humans, biting them on sight. Those who risked death to hunt in the mountains not only failed to catch prey but were often grabbed by the monster and eaten alive. It was extremely gluttonous and cruel.
But the people of Rong Village had no choice. Without food, they couldn’t survive. Farming was hopeless, and going into the mountains to find food was the only way to give the village a chance to survive. Risking death to hunt was a choice they had to make.
At that time, only young and strong men could venture deep into the mountains. Women had to tend to the children at home and couldn’t go far even if they entered the mountains, so finding food in the mountains was done by the men of Rong Village. But that monster had nearly eaten all the men who entered the mountains.
Without men, the tribe couldn’t reproduce even with women alone. The tribe’s disintegration was almost foreseeable.
And at this moment, whether the tribe’s witch had gone mad from recently losing her husband and was babbling nonsense, or truly received guidance from a deity, she said the tribe needed men, but the tribe’s men were gone. The tribe’s women needed to pray piously to the deity to grant their tribe children.
The people were in deep despair, the tribe indeed needed to continue, and plus the witch held a respected position in the tribe. So no matter how strange the prayer method the witch described was, the women of the village still followed it.
The women used their hair to make thread and wove a piece of cloth, hanging it by their bed before sleep. At night, they had to open the room door. Then the witch required them to cover their eyes and not remove whatever was covering their eyes no matter what they heard at night.
That night, some of the tribe’s women vaguely heard the chirp of a toad frog appearing nearby while in slumber, but they remembered the witch’s instructions and didn’t remove the cloth covering their eyes, waiting until dawn the next day to take it off.
At this time, the women joyfully discovered they were pregnant. The similarly pregnant witch told everyone in the tribe that they were all children of the deity.
The witch said this was all a favor from the Toad God. From then on, Rong Village was to have faith in the Toad God.
In any case, the tribe finally had descendants, and the tribe members were all quite happy.
Perhaps the children in the women’s bellies were truly special; they developed very quickly, and the women’s bellies grew large enough for imminent birth in less than a few days.
In less than five days, the tribe’s women successively gave birth to children.
These children of the deity looked very strange: flat heads, huge mouths, sturdy limbs, and skin covered in bizarre pimples. They couldn’t speak, their manner of movement was quite eerie, but each was incredibly strong, and some even mastered wondrous magic. Some could make creatures that heard their voices fall asleep and then eat them in one bite; some could spit water, summon flames, and they had many powerful abilities.
From birth, it was as if they had a mission planned from the womb. They all left the tribe together, entered the mountains, eliminated and killed that harmful monster, then returned to the village, helped the village with reproduction and growth, making Rong Village the most powerful tribe in Guinan.
As Mo Longwei told the story, he drank, and unknowingly passed out drunk on the spot.
Fang Mu felt the story had a continuation and, unable to endure the cliffhanger, desperately shook the village chief, hoping he would get up and continue. But Mo Longwei was too drunk; no matter how much he teased him, he wouldn’t wake up.
Seeing this, Mo Guangning stopped Fang Mu from trying to wake his drunken uncle, and couldn’t help laughing as he explained to him that the story really ended there. Then he said it was late and told Fang Mu to go back to sleep; tomorrow he would take him into the mountains.
Tonight, tour guide Mo Guangning set up the drinking table precisely to get his uncle drunk. He knew once his uncle passed out drunk, he would definitely sleep until the next evening. This way, they would have plenty of time for a round trip to Nong Mountain.
Fang Mu expressed thanks for this and returned to his own room with a heavy heart.
This father and son thought it was just a simple story, but to Fang Mu, it wasn’t like that. Though it might have the embellishments of a legend, the element of truth in it was so high that Fang Mu couldn’t help trembling.
Children of the deity, children of the Toad God?
Though he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Fang Mu couldn’t help thinking of the diary’s description of being chased by strange people on a foggy day. That thing that “he” suspected wasn’t human—all its characteristics matched closely with the children of the Toad God in the story, didn’t they?
