Chapter 57: Driving Piles For Drought Demons, A Single Embroidered Shoe
Seeing the visitor claim to be Li Chun Lai, Su Mo immediately knew he had run from Gu Lan County to Capital City to sell that embroidered shoe.
Seeing it was already noon, and this Li Chun Lai was hesitant and timid, not daring to speak, Su Mo said:
“Since it’s already mealtime, I’ll treat you all to dumplings filled with sour soup mutton. We can chat slowly at the table!”
Li Chun Lai actually hadn’t eaten since getting off the train, he was starving with his chest sticking to his back, and hearing Su Mo invite him for mutton soup, he immediately swallowed a mouthful of saliva:
“Dumplings filled with sour soup mutton, that sounds great! Let’s go eat first and talk later!”
Wang Pang Zi then said cheerfully:
“Master is treating, that sounds great!”
Hu Ba Yi immediately packed up the stall with Wang Pang Zi, turned around and brought Li Chun Lai, following Su Mo into a mutton dumpling shop near Panjiayuan.
Entering the dumpling shop, Hu Ba Yi immediately found the boss’s wife. He and Wang Pang Zi often ate here and were very familiar with the boss couple. The boss’s wife then led the four into the storeroom behind the kitchen and set up a table there.
Su Mo ordered several bowls of dumplings filled with sour soup mutton from the boss’s wife, plus a few stir-fried dishes, and the four sat down.
Li Chun Lai hadn’t eaten since morning, his soul was hooked away by the aroma outside, his eyes fixed only on the stove outside.
Hu Ba Yi couldn’t help laughing:
“Brother, what thing are you selling? You can take it out now, right?”
Wang Pang Zi also said:
“Yeah, what embroidered shoe are you selling? Don’t tell us you’re fooling us. If it’s not something good, we’ll split the bill for this meal!”
Li Chun Lai didn’t understand what AA meant, but he got that Fatty meant if there was no good stuff, they wouldn’t treat him to dinner, so he pursed his lips and said:
“How is it not a good thing! I’m still waiting to sell it for money to get a wife back home!”
Hu Ba Yi smiled:
“You haven’t married yet, and by chance us three master and disciples are all bachelors too! From your accent, brother, you’re from Shaanxi, right? I’ve often heard that the women of Mizhi and the men of Suide—if it’s really a good item, you might be able to get a Mizhi wife when you go back!”
Hearing about getting a Mizhi wife, Li Chun Lai immediately perked up:
“The women of Mizhi are just like red gauze flowers blooming at the window, so beautiful you can’t imagine! If I could really get a Mizhi wife, my life wouldn’t have been lived in vain!”
While they were chatting animatedly, the boss’s wife brought over four bowls of sour soup dumplings. Li Chun Lai was already starving flustered, didn’t care that the freshly boiled dumplings were scalding, picked up the bowl and wolfed them down, soon finishing one bowl leaving only the broth.
Seeing his manner like a starving ghost reincarnated, Su Mo smilingly pushed his own bowl of dumplings in front of him:
“I’m not hungry yet, you eat this bowl of mine first!”
“That would be too embarrassing…”
Li Chun Lai was polite with words but honest with actions, took Su Mo’s bowl and started devouring again, soon another bowl down.
Perhaps with two bowls of dumplings as base, he felt much more settled, plus Su Mo and Hu Ba Yi seemed very approachable, Li Chun Lai had grown much more trusting of them. After finishing Su Mo’s bowl, he opened the tattered bag and took out the embroidered shoe from inside.
Hu Ba Yi took the shoe and examined it closely, seeing it was exactly the kind ancient women could wear after foot-binding, the front toe like a bamboo shoot tip less than a handful wide, the green satin upper embroidered with peony flowers in red, blue, and gold threads, even the sole was sandalwood, with a compartment in the middle for spices.
This shoe on an ancient beauty’s foot would truly be lotus steps with fragrance at every step!
But Su Mo saw at a glance that the shoe carried an eerie aura, so he said:
“Brother Chun Lai, I see your shoe seems somewhat eerie. I’m afraid the original owner didn’t die well, or there’s something eerie about it?”
Li Chun Lai was startled:
“Brother, you’re young but so perceptive, how did you see at a glance that the one who wore this had something eerie!”
Wang Pang Zi laughed:
“Brother, this is my master. Don’t let his youth fool you, he has amazing skills and eyes that see through the divine! Also, don’t call him brother, or it’d be taking advantage of us!”
Li Chun Lai was stunned, even more surprised.
Su Mo waved his hand and smiled:
“Never mind that, just tell me where this shoe came from!”
Li Chun Lai smiled somewhat embarrassedly:
“It’s a long story! This matter has to start from when our place hadn’t had rain for a year…”
It turned out Li Chun Lai’s village hadn’t had rain for a long time, a fortune-telling blind man came to the village saying they needed to beat the drought bone pile to pray for rain.
This beating the drought bone pile, also called beating the Drought Demon, was a custom unique to the Central Plains Shaanxi area.
Legend has it that Yellow Emperor had a daughter named Female Corpse, when Yellow Emperor campaigned far against Chi You, he ordered Ying Long to attack in the wilds of Ji Province, Chi You summoned Wind God and Rain Master unleashing torrential rain, making Yellow Emperor’s army unable to advance.
Yellow Emperor then sent Female Corpse into battle, after she appeared it was indeed a great drought, Wind God and Rain Master’s powers all failed, and Yellow Emperor thus defeated Chi You.
Because of this, Female Corpse became the god in charge of drought, and the people believed Drought Demon was the spiritual energy Female Corpse left in the human world. If after a hundred days the corpse didn’t decay, no grass grew on the tomb, and water seeped from the grave, it meant the deceased in the tomb had become a Drought Demon and would cause great drought.
Beating the drought bone pile meant dragging out the deceased who had become Drought Demon from such a grave, whipping with leather whips, then burning with fire to dispel the Drought Demon’s spiritual energy and bring rain.
The people of Li Chun Lai’s village followed the blind man to find the Drought Demon, and sure enough found a desolate grave at the east end of the village. Opening the coffin released a peculiar stench like entering a salted fish shop, inside a female corpse was preserved very intact, with clothes and jewelry all complete.
On this female corpse’s head surprisingly squatted a small monster covered in green fur all over, looking like a few-inch-long little monkey.
A few bold villagers then smashed the little monster dead with a hammer, then whipped it, upon whipping it emitted thick black qi, only after the corpse was whipped to pieces did the black qi stop coming out.
The blind man told the villagers to burn the coffin along with the little monster, just as he finished speaking, dark clouds covered the sky, and it was about to rain heavily.
At this point the villagers fully believed the blind man’s words, so they left Li Chun Lai there to burn the coffin and the little monster’s corpse.
Li Chun Lai then gathered a pile of firewood and lit the coffin, just as it burned halfway, rain fell and extinguished all the fire.
Li Chun Lai had already been tempted by the gold jewelry on the female corpse, now seeing the fire extinguished by rain with no one else around, he thought of taking a few gold jewelry pieces from the female corpse.
At that moment a village fool named Ma Da Dan came over and directly robbed all the jewelry from the female corpse, leaving only this embroidered shoe for Li Chun Lai that hadn’t been burned yet as he left.
Li Chun Lai couldn’t beat Ma Da Dan and could only watch him take everything, himself only taking the embroidered shoe back.
Who knew the next morning, Ma Da Dan’s entire family of four all died unnaturally, he and his wife and two kids all had their bellies cut open, four hearts missing.
The village had a shocking case, county police came but found no result, Li Chun Lai with this embroidered shoe didn’t dare tell anyone, so he quietly ran to Capital City, both to avoid the trouble and to sell the embroidered shoe for some money.
He’d heard Panjiayuan in Capital City collected antiques, so he traveled all the way to Panjiayuan and happened to run into Su Mo, Hu Ba Yi, and Wang Pang Zi.
