Fantasy Farm

translator: baumkuchen

Lu Qingjiu was sick for another two to three days before he recovered completely. Only after he’d recovered did he let out a sigh of relief, knowing that he wasn’t at risk of being taken to be a sick animal and eaten by Bai Yuehu. 

In recent days, the snow had been getting heavier and heavier, practically not having stopped even once. Soon, Lu Qingjiu learned from Yin Xun that the road to town had been blocked off by the snow. Once the traffic between the two places had been cut off, Shuifu village became a little village almost entirely isolated from the rest of the world. Only after spring came and the snow melted would it be connected to other places once more.

Lu Qingjiu’s memories of winter from his childhood were very faint. He only vaguely remembered that winters in Shuifu village were much harder to tough through than other seasons, and that food became precious and scarce. It was difficult to find fresh vegetables to eat.

And now, Lu Qingjiu had a clear understanding of just how hard it was to tough through. After five to six days of snow, the electricity and internet to his home was cut off. That day, Lu Qingjiu had even been watching the television at home, and in the end, the house suddenly descended into darkness. Yin Xun, unexpectedly, was very calm. Clearly, he had long since expected that something like this would happen. “The power’s been cut off.”

Lu Qingjiu said, “It’s cut off? Didn’t you say that that would only happen in December?” 

“It’s snowing very heavily this year,” Yin Xun said, “Some power grid somewhere was probably crushed under the snow. It’s not like there’s any way to fix it. Let’s just get out the candles and make do…”

Yin Xun had previously told Lu Qingjiu about how, in the middle of winter, practically the entire village’s power and internet would be cut off, but the current situation was even worse than what Yin Xun had talked about, because this was just the first snow, and now their power and internet were gone. Fortunately, Lu Qingjiu had made preparations early on. He took out a few small battery-powered lamps and placed them in the living room for lighting. Even though it was daytime, because it was snowing all the time, outside was brighter than indoors.

Lu Qingjiu heated the charcoal basin until it was glowing red. As he sat on the edge of the Kang and stoked the flames, he discussed what they were going to eat for lunch with Yin Xun. Bai Yuehu was still sitting on his rocking chair, eyes closed and resting. Winter was a season which made people not want to move. There wasn’t too much farming to do, and there was no need to go out, it was enough just staying at home and thinking about what to eat all day.

“Let’s have some cured meat.” Yin Xun started to think about what he wanted on his menu. “We prepared so much of it but I haven’t gotten to try it yet.” 

Lu Qingjiu nodded. “Alright, then let’s make some spicy cured meat. Yuehu, what about you?”

Bai Yuehu said, “Up to you.” He would eat anything.

Lu Qingjiu said, “You guys can keep playing first, I’ll go cook.”

Tlc Wec rjlv, “P’ii ub klat sbe. Cgfc’a sbe jogjlv bo atf mbiv? P’w cba.” 

Oe Hlcuple vlvc’a gfoerf tlw, jcv atf akb kfca ab atf xlamtfc abufatfg. Snfg rlcmf la rajgafv rcbklcu, Oe Hlcuple kbeiv yjrlmjiis bcis mbbx. Snfgsatlcu firf ja tbwf kjr vbcf ys Tlc Wec jcv Djl Tefte. Djl Tefte kjr gfrqbcrlyif offvlcu atf mtlmxfcr jcv atf atgff ilaaif jclwjir lc atf tberf. Tlc Wec kjr gfrqbcrlyif obg tfiqlcu Oe Hlcuple. Qtfc mbbxlcu, jcs rafqr atja lcnbinfv tlw tjnlcu ab abemt kjafg kjr ifoa ab Tlc Wec ab vb. Oe Hlcuple kjr qgjmalmjiis ecjyif ab abemt jcs mbiv kjafg.

If Lu Qingjiu hadn’t thought there was any problems with him coming into contact with water before, the problem was that after experiencing that bout of sickness, Lu Qingjiu finally clearly recognised that if he were to fall sick again, Bai Yuehu would not let him off. Hence, the cold-fearing him could only to his absolute best to avoid coming into contact with anything cold so as to keep himself from falling ill, to avoid a situation where if the illness didn’t take his life, he would be swallowed whole by Bai Yuehu, and nothing of him would be left.

The cured meat was cut into thin slices, placed into a wok and stir-fried together with chili peppers. The heat caused the meat to curl up, and the fatty meat to become translucent. This kind of meat, when eaten, wasn’t at all greasy, rather, it was both supple and soft, very chewy. The chilli peppers had been bought back by them earlier. Even though they weren’t as fresh as when they’d just been bought, in the winter where ingredients were lacking, it was enough.

Lu Qingjiu even had Yin Xun go to the cellar and bring over some of the white cabbage they’d stored, then made a big pot of pork and stewed cabbage vermicelli. Before the dish even came out of the pot, the entire room was filled with the fragrance of meat. Standing by the side, Yin Xun was staring so hard his eyeballs were about to fall into the pot. That eager look of his was truly a little funny. Lu Qingjiu finished up the dishes, then brought them to the room with the Kang. In order to save on charcoal, everyone in the house stayed in the room with the Kang, sitting on the Kang to eat and chat. 

The fried cured meat was very fragrant. The pork with stewed vermicelli was also a dish very suited for winter. In the winter, one’s appetite would tend to get a little better. Even Lu Qingjiu managed to eat quite a bit.

Yin Xun slurped up the vermicelli, and shovelled the white rice down in big mouthfuls, so happy that his eyes curled. Bai Yuehu sat next to him, loudly crunching on the pork. Lu Qingjiu had already gotten used to hearing this, but now, he had kind of a new understanding of this sound… He felt like his own bones wouldn’t be as tough as those of pigs…

After their meal, it was now time for their afternoon nap. Yin Xun didn’t dare to squeeze into the same bed with Bai Yuehu, and hence obediently went off to the next room. Bai Yuehu then shook out those nine beautiful tails of his, and with natural movements, he wrapped the Lu Qingjiu lying on the bed up in them.

The tails were both soft and warm. Wrapped up in them, Lu Qingjiu was incredibly comfortable. He pulled one into his arms and rubbed his face against it, soon falling asleep in this pleasant warmth. After falling asleep, he ended up sleeping for most of the day. By the time he woke up, it was already almost 4 or 5pm. 

After waking up, he washed himself up quickly to fully wake up. Then, it was time for dinner.

This kind of life where you went to sleep after you ate, then ate after sleeping really wasn’t bad. After all, every year, winter only lasted one or two months, and when spring came along with the new year, it became very busy. Of course, the only point of dissatisfaction in this beautiful time was because their power had been cut off, there was nothing entertaining to do at home. The television couldn’t be watched, the computer couldn’t be used, even their phones were soon going to run out of battery. They’d basically returned to life in the beginning, where there was no power or internet.

Hence, after dinner, then incredibly idle and bored Yin Xun brought up wanting to have some fun.

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Lu Qingjiu was eating fried, fragrant sunflower seeds. He asked, “What kind of fun?” 

Yin Xun said, “Let’s have a ghost story telling competition, and see whose ghost story is the scariest!”

Hearing this, Lu Qingjiu’s hand bringing the sunflower seed to his mouth stilled. “You, a mountain god, want to tell ghost stories?”

Yin Xun said, “Do you or do you not want to do it? Do you or do you not want to do it?”

Lu Qingjiu thought about it for a moment, then felt like it was fine, so he asked Bai Yuehu who was sitting next to him, “Yuehu, want to join in?” 

Originally, Lu Qingjiu had thought that Bai Yuehu wouldn’t be interested in this kind of thing. Who knew that he would actually nodded in agreement, then get up from his chair and sit down next to the other two.

“Then you go first,” Yin Xun said to Lu Qingjiu.

Lu Qingjiu said, “Fine, I’ll start.” He told a story about something that had happened to him in his company.

When Lu Qingjiu was still working at his company, he often had to work overtime until eleven or twelve at night. Every time he went to the toilet, he would find that there was a locked stall inside. The first few times, he didn’t pay any attention to up, until one day, when he was using the stall next to the locked stall, he dropped his cell phone on the ground. When Lu Qingjiu bent down to pick up his phone, he found that, in the locked stall next to him, was actually a pair of feet facing him. If they were normal feet, then it would still have been fine, but the problem was that those two feet were clad in red high heels. The skin of those feet were very pale, to the point that he could even see their blue blood vessels. 

Lu Qingjiu had gone into the men’s toilet. In the men’s toilet, how could there be a pair of women’s feet? At that time, Lu Qingjiu sensed something was wrong. Just as he was planning to get up and leave, he heard the clacking of footsteps, then watched with wide eyes through the crack at the bottom of the stall as that pair of high heels walked over to stand before him from the toilet on the right.

“Dong dong dong.” Someone knocked on his toilet stall door.

Lu Qingjiu instantly froze up. Even though he occasionally ran into a few rather strange things, such as stuff like Old Tree who could talk, this was his first time running into this kind of unclean thing. He didn’t dare to make a single sound. Pretending that he hadn’t heard anything, he sat on the toilet and held his breath.

There were two more knocks on the stall door. Lu Qingjiu still didn’t dare to breathe. Following that, he heard the clacking of the high heels as they walked away. Upon hearing these footsteps, Lu Qingjiu thought that that thing had left. Just as he was about to push open the door, he then thought of something. He stilled in his movements of opening the door and glanced over at the crack between the door and the floor. This glance almost made his heart stop from shock. He saw an inverted pair of eyes. That thing was holding up her head with her hands, and staring at Lu Qingjiu upside-down. Her body had been stretched out, so even though her head was still before Lu Qingjiu, her red heel-clad feet had already walked over to the toilet entrance… No wonder he’d heard the sound of those heels walking away…  

“And then what and then what?” Yin Xun got nervous just from listening.

Lu Qingjiu said, “Then we just stared at each other for an entire night. She didn’t disappear until the sun was about to rise the next morning.”

After hearing this, Yin Xun’s eyes widened. “She didn’t do anything to you?”

Lu Qingjiu said, “Unexpectedly, no.” 

Yin Xun let out a long sigh. “Then now it’s my turn.”

He talked about when he first became a mountain god, he was met with a man who brought a corpse up onto the mountain to dispose of it. That female corpse had been hacked into an utter mess by the man. Her death looked like it had been incredibly miserable. The man was also very flustered. He casually dug out a pit and buried the woman’s body. All of this was seen by Yin Xun, but at the time, he was too young. After telling his grandparents about this, the old couple who were afraid of trouble stopped him from reporting it, telling him to never tell anyone about this.

Yin Xun listened to his grandparents, but he still used his abilities as a mountain god to secretly observe the situation.

After burying the body, the man disappeared for a period of time, bit then appeared once more on the mountaintop with a shovel. Looking all over for where he’d buried the corpse, the man dug in all directions, until he finally found the corpse. When he dug out the body again, the corpse had already mostly rotted, looking incredibly disgusting and sinister. But the man didn’t care about this. He dug out something from his jacket, stuck it onto the woman’s forehead, then buried her once more. 

At the time, Yin Xun was very curious about this, but because he was stuck on the mountain, he couldn’t follow the man. He didn’t know what exactly had happened over on the man’s side, to make the man do something like this.

However, ever since that time, the man came to the mountain more and more frequently. Even if it was the middle of the night, he could climb up the mountain and dig up that corpse.

In the beginning, Yin Xun didn’t understand why the man was doing this, but gradually, he noticed something strange about the man.

The man’s neck was becoming longer and longer. In the beginning, it could still be explained as him holding his neck up straight, but afterwards, it no longer could be explained away like this. His neck began to thin, grow long, and grow soft, like a cold snake. Because of this change, the man didn’t dare to return to his home, forced into choosing to live on the mountain. And this time, Yin Xun finally found out what was happening to the man.