Bizarre Cultivation: Starting from Being Beaten Up by Reality

Chapter 17 Niu Dadan

After calming his mother, who was on the verge of tears, Lin Fan went with her to see Er Gou.

"Mom, how could you come back? Er Gou's family and our family are old friends. If something happens to his family, we should all go and help."

"Yes, Xiao Fan has become sensible. It was Mom who didn't think things through." Lin Shuixiu nodded in agreement belatedly.

Actually, Lin Fan was worried that his mother would encounter an ugly woman at home, and he hoped that his mother would not come home until he solved this problem.

In Er Gou's courtyard, a white cloth was draped over a bamboo mat.

Lin Fan suddenly lifted a corner of the white cloth.

Er Gou stared wide-eyed at Lin Fan with a look of terror on his face.

"You scoundrel, what are you doing? Don't touch my son!" Er Gou's mother roared from the side, but she didn't dare to come forward and get close to Lin Fan, this jinx.

“He was my good brother, and I wanted to see him one last time.”

Lin Fan looked at him carefully for a while and confirmed that he was not staring at him, but looking at the last thing he saw before he died with a fearful expression.

Lin Fan knew very well that Er Gou had been scared to death. It was probably similar to what he had experienced last night.

"I tried several times, but he just couldn't close his eyes," Er Gou's grandfather said to Lin Fan after calming his daughter down.

Lin Fan tried to place his hand on it, with the Soul-Suppressing Pearl between his palms.

When the Soul-Suppressing Pearl touched Er Gou's forehead, Lin Fan felt a slight warmth in his palm.

He gently stroked Er Gou's eyelids, and Er Gou finally closed his eyes and never opened them again. At the same time, the expression of fear and pain on his face eased.

Lin Fan pretended to scratch an itch and put the Soul-Suppressing Pearl away.

A complex mix of emotions welled up inside him.

He covered Er Gou with a white cloth, muttering softly, "You said a humble name was good, that it meant no illness or disaster, but look how useless it is."

"You promised to take a look at me, but look at you, you can't even speak properly." Lin Fan said, his lips unconsciously relaxing.

"Forget it, let's not laugh at each other in this damn world. Maybe in a few days I'll be on my way to the underworld to have a drink with you. Hmm, you probably don't know how to drink yet, I'll teach you then."

Lin Fan stared at the white cloth with a complicated expression for a while, then got up and disappeared into the crowd of mourners.

"Thank you, Xiao Fan. Otherwise, I would have really thought Er Gou died with his eyes wide open in disbelief."

Er Gou's mother wiped away her tears and thanked Lin Fan repeatedly.

"Don't thank me, it's nothing. By the way, Auntie, do you know how they got back?"

Lin Fan remembered that they went during the day, but they still didn't come back. How did their bodies return to the village? Did they suddenly return on their own, like his hoe?

"It was Niu Dadan who carried the children back one by one. We knew the place they went to was dangerous, and ordinary people couldn't go there, so we pooled our money to have Niu Dadan bring them back," Er Gou's grandfather explained.

Lin Fan still remembered Niu Dadan, the hunter, the guy who had tricked him with a trap and then knocked him unconscious.

"Could it be that the hunter has a strong murderous aura, and even ghosts are afraid of him?" Lin Fan speculated.

Er Gou's mother shook her head repeatedly, "We don't know either."

Afterwards, while everyone else was busy, Lin Fan slipped away alone.

He carried his hoe on his back; this thing would appear out of thin air beside him, and holding it in his hand actually made him feel more at ease.

Lin Fan soon arrived at Niu Dadan's residence at the foot of the mountain.

"Oh dear, they all died horribly, and their deaths were all very strange. Little Lin Fan, would you like some?"

Niu Dadan stewed a pot of meat all by himself in the small house, and the pot was filled with the aroma of mutton mixed with its own smell.

Lin Fan didn't stand on ceremony. He had been starving all night and his mouth was already watering from the aroma. He took the bowl and started eating.

Lin Fan, who hadn't eaten meat in a long time, drank all the soup, even the one with the strongest gamey smell.

Although this dish is delicious in modern times, Niu Dadan cooked it too roughly, and the impurities were not cleaned properly, making it very unpalatable.

Lin Fan immediately got back to the main topic.

After asking about the general condition of each person, Lin Fan's guess was confirmed.

Of the seven people, five died of fright and two committed suicide; it was all due to that woman's methods.

"Then how did you manage to go in and come out of such a terrifying place?" Lin Fan finally asked the question he was most curious about. If Niu Dadan had to bring out seven people, he must have made several trips.

"Oh, that place is really strange. There are dead people everywhere, and the stench is unbearable."

Niu Dadan continued eating heartily, hoping that the food would alleviate his fear.

Lin Fan wasn't in a hurry. He knew that the other person had just gone through a tough battle and needed to rest, replenish their energy, and talk things out.

"Luckily they were all in the yard. I really didn't dare to go into the house. That place was too gloomy. There was no sunlight in the middle of the day, and there were strange wind noises."

Niu Dadan continued recounting the details that Lin Fan hadn't asked about.

"Fortunately, the talisman the Taoist priest gave me really worked, otherwise I wouldn't dare to go. No, even if he offered me more money next time, I wouldn't go again."

Niu Dadan trembled as he spoke, and he wasn't as bold as the rumors suggested.

Hearing this, Lin Fan's eyes lit up. "Could that Taoist priest really have supernatural powers? What kind of talisman is it? Let me see it quickly."

Niu Dadan carefully pulled out a crumpled yellow talisman from his pocket, on which crooked characters resembling earthworms were written.

Lin Fan took it, examined it for a while, but still couldn't figure it out.

"I heard that place is full of treasures. Haven't you thought about taking some?" Lin Fan wanted to understand the situation from a different perspective.

"Treasures everywhere? More like dead people everywhere! Besides, the Taoist priest said that if I take anything that was already in the house, the talisman won't protect me anymore, so I have no choice but to move those seven people out."

"We have to search everyone before we move them to make sure they haven't taken anything out of the house."

Lin Fan nervously swallowed. "What if we bring it out?"

"The Taoist priest said that I will surely die within seven days," Niu Dadan replied with some lingering fear, then drank a large bowl of hot soup to calm himself down.

Lin Fan looked at the blood and flesh stuck to his hoe. Was this considered as bringing it out?

The answer is simple: since Niu Dadan said so, all we need to do is ask that stinking Taoist priest in dog skin and we'll understand.

……

"Master Yunxiangzi," Lin Fan said respectfully.

Despite being called a Taoist temple, the Dog-Skin Taoist lived in a thatched hut halfway up the mountain, where a plate of sandalwood incense burned slowly, dispelling the musty smell in the hut.

"What is it?" The Taoist priest, sitting cross-legged on the futon, opened only one eye and looked at the poor boy with a hoe in front of him with some disdain.

Lin Fan was annoyed by his condescending attitude, but since he needed to ask for a favor, he had to be polite.

"Please, Taoist priest, save me."

Lin Fan briefly recounted his encounter with the female ghost, mentioning that he was quite brave and managed to withstand the Soul-Suppressing Pearl.

To ensure the other party could hear him clearly, Lin Fan sat directly opposite the dog-skinned Taoist priest after he finished speaking.

Yun Xiangzi flicked his whisk, sweeping it across Lin Fan's face.

"Go back."

Lin Fan was taken aback, then understood and was overjoyed. "Thank you, Daoist Master. You are of noble character and your magic is superb..."

The dog-skinned Taoist priest's eyelids twitched, and he said unhappily, "What are you talking about? I'm saying you're hopeless. Go back and wait to die."

Yun Xiangzi waved his whisk impatiently again, as if trying to shoo away Lin Fan like a fly.

Lin Fan was truly enraged now. He wasn't holding the Soul-Suppressing Pearl, and once his temper flared up, he couldn't control it.

"You think you can mess with me?" Lin Fan raised his hoe and pointed it at the dog-skinned Taoist priest. "I haven't settled the score with you yet. I wasn't possessed at all. You cheated my family out of two thousand coins!"

Seeing that Lin Fan was serious, the dog-skinned Taoist priest finally raised his somewhat thin old hand from his long sleeves and pressed it against Lin Fan's hoe.

"Young man, don't get so agitated. Everyone has to die eventually. The sooner you die, the sooner you'll be reborn. At worst, I'll give you a free funeral service. Normally, I charge two taels of silver for this."

"Taoist priest, would you like to guess how long you can live?" Lin Fan stared intently at the dog-skinned Taoist priest, his hands gripping the hoe tightly, his knuckles turning slightly white.