Fantasy Farm

Translator: Yuki
Editor: Xiao Wu

After finishing their haircuts, the end result was not too bad, at least they looked relatively presentable. Lu Qingjiu and Yin Xun collectively decided to stay far away from that well in the backyard, to prevent the annoyance that would be their hair regrowing every day. 

The initial appearance of the ghost lady was an omen. Soon, she started appearing more and more often. Sometimes in the morning when Lu Qingjiu went to sweep the backyard, he would spot her daydreaming while sitting on the edge of the well.

Lu Qingjiu also got to know from Bai Yuehu that the ghost lady had no special power, other than causing people to grow long locks. Thus there was no need to worry that she would become a horror movie antagonist and drag others into the well.

Lu Qingjiu would occasionally also chat with her. However, she seemed to have forgotten what had happened when she was alive, her memories were lost regardless.

“Do you know why I am here, “the ghost lady asked Lu Qingjiu, “Do you know what is my name?” 

Lu Qingjiu did know her name, from when he was helping Hu Shu solve the case previously. However he was a little reluctant to reveal the ghost lady’s name for some reason. He had a hunch that letting her remember her pitiful past which led to her cause of death was not a good idea.

Luckily, the ghost lady was rather free and easy. She wasn’t really hung up on this matter, and quickly turned her attention to other things in the backyard, such as the grape vines growing on the lattice, the beehives in the corner, and the eyeball plants growing beside the beehives.

The seeds they had obtained from Gou Mang had borne fruit. The eyeballs that had grown out of the ground gazed in all directions as the wind blew, making a terrifying sight. To avoid others from coming across such a scene, Lu Qingjiu took care to immediately pick the eyeball fruits once they were ripe to be shared with Bai Yuehu and Yin Xun.

Similar to the previous eyeball fruits, the ones now were also fruit flavoured. There were all types of fruit flavours, but the one Lu Qingjiu was the most fond of was still the grape-flavoured one, whereas Yin Xun preferred the lychee-flavoured ones and Bai Yuehu liked the orange-flavoured ones the most.

While eating the eyeball fruits, Lu Qingjiu chatted with Bai Yuehu, asking about the relationship between Gou Mang and Zhu Rong. In response, Bai Yuehu said that although they were both gods that governed the four seasons, Zhu Rong was actually Gou Mang’s boss because when Pangu separated the earth and skies, Zhu Rong already existed whereas a lot of the other gods were born afterwards.

Later, the topic of the Yinglong and Zhulong came up. Lu Qingjiu finally found out that, actually Yinglong referred to adult dragons that were above 500 years of age. On the other hand, rather than calling Zhulong dragons, you could call them an offshoot of the dragon race. Their race was actually in charge of underworld matters, but rebelled against the rest of the dragon race as their ideals differed.

Hearing Bai Yuehu’s words, Lu Qingjiu felt that these fantasy creatures always seemed so far away. However, looking at Bai Yuehu, he actually thought that they may be closer than he had initially thought, after all, wasn’t a cute Yinglong sitting right in front of him now?

As the weather warmed up and all living creatures grew increasingly active, Shaohao had also been calling them more often to invite Lu Qingjiu et al out for a meal. 

Initially, Lu Qingjiu was still a little suspicious of Shaohao’s kindness, but Bai Yuehu inadvertently revealed the underlying reason, “Shaohao’s house has probably encountered a beastly disaster.”

Lu Qingjiu exclaimed, “Beastly disaster?”

“Doesn’t his place house a lot of birds? There are many creatures who like to eat birds, so once the weather starts getting warm, it’s easy for incidents to happen at his place.”

Lu Qingjiu asked, “So what’s his reasoning for asking us out for a meal?” Recalling the previous occasions where Shaohao had spent only 500 yuan to hire Bai Yuehu, he asked cautiously, “Does he want you to be cheap labour again?” 

“It depends on what creatures have appeared, the Youyans were quite hard to swallow.”

“Are there delicious tasting ones?”

“The Juru that appear in summer don’t taste that bad, their meat is tender and their bones have a unique fragrance. Have you tried them before?”

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Although Lu Qingjiu didn’t know why Shaohao was so fervent, he still agreed upon a date and time to visit Shaohao’s bird park.

Although it was not his first time seeing Shaohao’s bird park, Lu Qingjiu was still filled with amazement when looking at all the flora and fauna in the park. It was different from the park in spring. The colours of the bird park in summer were more rich, and the birds themselves were more active. Except perhaps due to the fact that there were too many predators hunting birds, the birds in the park were all extra wary of strangers, only relaxing when they saw Shaohao following behind.

Shaohao had previously scared the living daylights out of Yin Xun when the latter’s finger had been gnawed on. This time, out of desperation to continue living, he was extremely conscious to stay further away from Shaohao. 

However, this didn’t seem to faze Shaohao, who seemed to not notice Yin Xun’s reluctance, throwing his arm over Yin Xun’s shoulders as if they were good friends, causing Yin Xun to feel uneasy. Furthermore, as Shaohao was half a head taller than Yin Xun, this posture was not that out of place. Therefore, Lu Qingjiu, who had been focusing on the bird park, did not notice anything out of the ordinary between the two.

“The Juru are just up ahead, I won’t go much further from here,” Shaohao said, “Once you’re done eating just come look for me, I’ll prepare a sumptuous meal.” His smile should have seemed gentle, but the black tattoos on his lower jaw unexpectedly added an unsavoury feeling to his smile.

“Do I also have to go over?” Lu Qingjiu asked.

“I don’t see why not,” answered Shaohao. “Depends on whether you want to go, but he had better stay behind. After all those creatures may like human meant, but they definitely like roulingzhi even more.” 

At this, he smiled at Yin Xun, revealing a row of pearly white teeth. Seeing this, a chill ran up Yin Xun’s spine and he swallowed his saliva out of nervousness. Yin Xun had originally been thinking of going over together with Lu Qingjiu and Bai Yuehu, but Shaohao was pinching his nape, like someone picking up a chick by the scruff of their neck. He had been struggling for a while to get out of Shaohao’s grip but to no avail, not daring to struggle too much for fear of cluing Lu Qingjiu in. In the end, he could only watch with wide eyes as Lu Qingjiu left, leaving him alone with Shaohao.

“What… what are you up to?” Yin Xun nervously stuttered. “If you really eat me, Bai Yuehu will get mad. Also, haven’t you tasted enough last time…” he mumbled.

Shaohao squeezed out between gritted teeth, “You still dare to speak?”

“Why would I not dare to speak?” 

Shaohao pinched Yin Xun’s cheek, pulling harshly forcing his face into a facsimile of a grin, “What did you add to your finger last time?”

Yin Xun cried out, “I didn’t add anything! I just, I just…”

“Just what?”

“I had been scratching my foot beforehand.” 

Shaohao’s expression twisted, “Huh?”

Yin Xun was frightened by his look and turned around preparing to run away, but was picked up once more by Shaohao like a bird. As Yin Xun met Shaohao’s fierce gaze, he felt that his luck had run out.

Shaohao said, “After eating your finger, I had diarrhea for the next few days.”

“Oh…” 

“Don’t you ‘oh’ me…”

Yin Xun rushed to explain, “Mister, this really isn’t my fault. It’s because my body has detoxification and beautification properties. Even though you’ll get diarrhea upon eating it, but haven’t you noticed that your pimples have cleared up, your eyes have become brighter and even your nightmares have reduced in frequency!?”

“Hmm, that seems to be true…”

Hearing this, Yin Xun was planning to smile, but then heard Shaohao continue, “True my butt, I’ve never had pimples on my face.” 

“Wuwuwuwu…”

“And have also never had any nightmares.”

Hanging from Shaohao’s grip, Yin Xun felt like he was a piece of Chinese bacon being hung out to air dry.

Shaohao dragged Yin Xun behind him as he walked away. The sobbing Yin Xun felt that his life was in danger. Even though he initially hadn’t wanted to trouble Lu Qingjiu, seeing as he was currently facing a life and death situation, he couldn’t care less. He secretly took out his mobile phone, but before he had the chance to do anything, it was taken away by Shaohao, and thus, he completely lost his last lifeline. 

Holding Yin Xun in one hand and Yin Xun’s mobile in another, Shaohao asked with a faint smile, “Who were you trying to call?”

Yin Xun answered in a shaky tone, “I… I was just going to update Lu Qingjiu that I am safe.”

“There’s no need to update anything, you are very safe.”

“……” 

While Yin Xun had been dragged away by Shaohao, Lu Qingjiu was still blissfully unaware that his friend was in grave danger. He and Bai Yuehu encountered a few of the creatures known as the Juru while walking through the bird park. The creature kind of resembled a mouse, but it’s head was a lot bigger than a mouse’s and was also covered in a stiff layer of fur.

If it had only been one of the creatures, they probably didn’t have that much attack power. However as Lu Qingjiu and Bai Yuehu approached the mountain peak, they sucked in a cold breath. As far as the eye could see, the mountain peaks and surrounding forests were completely packed with these creatures, even causing the illusion that the forest had become black-coloured. Quite a few birds had met gruesome ends, devoured till only some feathers were left.

Shaohao seemed to have used some sort of method to pen all the creatures within a space, but looking at their restlessness, as if they could rush down the mountain right now and become a bigger threat to the remaining bird park below, Lu Qingjiu could understand why Shaohao had been constantly chasing Bai Yuehu to come over.

“Can’t Shaohao deal with these creatures?” Lu Qingjiu always felt that Shaohao was not as harmless as he seemed. 

“He can,“ Bai Yuehu replied, “but even though these creatures can be killed, dealing with their corpses is also an annoyance, so he might as well ask us to come and eat them.”

Neither Bai Yuehu nor Jiufeng would eat the dead, so if Shaohao killed these creatures, then none of them would show an iota of interest.

“You guys don’t eat animal corpses?”

“Un.” 

A little mystified, Lu Qingjiu asked, “But don’t my normal cooking use corpses?”

“……”

“Why are you making this expression?”

“Why don’t you wait here for me, I’ll be back immediately.” 

Bai Yuehu forcefully ended this conversation, causing Lu Qingjiu to feel like laughing and crying at the same time. Though thinking this through, if he had to say, Bai Yuehu probably wouldn’t eat corpses that hadn’t been cooked beforehand.

A black fog filled the air, hiding the forest and mountain peak. Lu Qingjiu who was waiting at the foot of the mountain could only hear the creatures’ pitiful howls, seemingly that of the Juru. At this time, Bai Yuehu should be hunting the Juru at the mountain peak, cleaning up the pests in Shaohao’s bird park.

After a few minutes, Bai Yuehu appeared at Lu Qingjiu’s side. This time, he was holding two Juru that had been tied up saying, “Here why don’t you keep this for the time being, we’ll bring it back to eat later.”

Looking at Bai Yuehu, Lu Qingjiu suddenly raised his hand to touch the corner of Bai Yuehu’s mouth. 

Slightly shocked, Bai Yuehu uttered, “En?”

Using his thumb, Lu Qingjiu gently rubbed away the red stain at the corner of Bai Yuehu’s mouth, explaining, “There’s a bit of blood left there.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Since you don’t eat humans, what do I have to be scared of?” 

Who knew that as Bai Yuehu heard Lu Qingjiu’s words, his eyes darkened as he suddenly moved closer to whisper into Lu Qingjiu’s ear, “Exactly how do you know, that I don’t eat humans?”

Bai Yuehu’s breath on his neck caused goosebumps to rise on that patch of skin. He was just about to argue back, but realised that Bai Yuehu’s gaze was a little weird. That gaze was as if he wanted to skin and eat Lu Qingjiu alive, swallowing every part of his body into his stomach.

However, this also seemed like it was just a misconception on Lu Qingjiu’s part, as in the next instant, Bai Yuehu reverted back to his normal cold expression saying, “Let’s go, Shaohao should be waiting for us.”

Lu Qingjiu opened and closed his mouth, not knowing what to say at this very moment.