translator: baumkuchen  editor: ellabells

Faced with Bai Yuehu's covetous and hungry gaze, Xiao Hua, who had originally already pa.s.sed out, struggled awake in Lu Qingjiu's arms and forced out, "I feel… I can still be saved…"

Lu Qingjiu, "…"

Seeing that Lu Qingjiu didn't have any intention of giving up on this little black pig, Bai Yuehu quietly clicked his tongue in disappointment and said, "He's not much different from ordinary pigs, he'll be fine after drinking a bit of water."

Lu Qingjiu carry Xiao Hua back into the house when he heard this. Yin Xun brought out ice water from the fridge and prepared a wet towel for Xiao Hua, at last saving Xiao Hua's life. Seeing his personal ice bag survive his time in Bai Yuehu's hands, Yin Xun almost cried tears of joy. He hugged Xiao Hua, saying that he would definitely treat him well from then on.

Xiao Hua almost pa.s.sed out again from his embrace. He said, "You need to f.u.c.king treat me a little better… Stop hugging me…"

Yin Xun, "Qingjiu, Xiao Hua said he likes me!"

Xiao Hua, "…" He had never seen such a shameless man in his life.

Lu Qingjiu let them argue. He turned and went to the kitchen to cook, the little fox eagerly following along behind him like a little doggy.

When Lu Qingjiu cooked, he would occasionally toss a few pieces of meat to the little fox to stave off its hunger. Sometimes, he would even let the little fox help with throwing away rubbish. The little fox was actually very smart in acting in a supporting role.

Since Yin Xun said earlier that he wanted to eat cold noodles, Lu Qingjiu made some using pea starch. The cold noodles he made were the colour of white rice, Q-dan, soft and smooth. After cutting them into strips, he sprinkled on some specially made sauce. They tasted very spicy and was incredibly appetising. Lu Qingjiu then steamed a few baskets of buns he made himself. The buns had pork and bean vermicelli stuffing. They came out incredibly successful, tasting utterly delicious. With one bite, a rush of meat juices would fill one's mouth. Because the pork used was pork from the farmers, they had all been fed on grains, the quality of the pork made it incredibly fragrant. Lu Qingjiu used all the leftover fat from the pork to make leaf lard and placed it in a jar. This type of oil felt very good in one's mouth. No matter if he used it to make noodles or stir fry, things cooked with it would taste much better than if they were cooked with ordinary oil.

Lu Qingjiu called the others over to come eat once he finished cooking.

The three people sat at the table and the atmosphere was very lively. Off to the side, the little fox, Xiao Hei and Xiao Hua had their own little table with minced meat and Xiao Hei and Xiao Hua's specialised food placed on it. For a while, only the sound of chewing could be heard in the house.

As they ate, a roar of thunder sounded outside the window. Lu Qingjiu glanced outside and saw heavy storm clouds in the sky and the wind howled. From the looks of it, it was going to rain heavily soon.

"Aiya, I didn't close the windows at home," Yin Xun said, "The weather really changes in the blink of an eye." Worries spouted from his mouth, but he was still unwilling to put down the bun in his hands.

"Aren't you a mountain G.o.d?" Lu Qingjiu said, "Don't you have any special abilities?"

Yin Xun, "…What abilities?"

Lu Qingjiu, "From thousands of li away… closing windows?"

Yin Xun gave him a look. "Who said a mountain G.o.d should be able to close windows from thousands of li away, how could we do something so difficult…"

Before he could even finish speaking, he heard the sound of the windows in the house snapping shut. Bai Yuehu gave Yin Xun a cool glance, and said, "I also closed yours. No need to thank me."

Yin Xun, "…"

Lu Qingjiu sighed, "How did I produce such a useless son…"

Yin Xun bawled.

Summer storms were completely incomparable to winter rains. Even though they only lasted for a short time, their potential for destruction was shocking. If one didn't close their windows, they could expect everything in their house to be blown into an utter mess. There was never much rainfall in Shuifu village year round. It had rained several times this summer, but they all stopped very quickly, not causing any impact.

"It's raining really hard." Yin Xun stuffed the last mouthful of his bun into his mouth. "I reckon it'll last a long time."

Lu Qingjiu said, "How about you stay over at my house for the night?"

Yin Xun said, "That works."

Lu Qingjiu's home had a lot of guest rooms, they just needed to be cleaned up a little first.

Lu Qingjiu was more or less done eating, so he got a cleaning rag and a mop and cleaned a room up for Yin Xun, even preparing him a clean set of pajamas.

As he was cleaning, he heard the pattering of rain falling onto the ground. Bean-sized drops of rain fell from the clouds, bouncing off the blistering hot ground and falling back down. As dirt mixed together with the rainwater, the special scent of rain started filling the air, the scent making people feel a little more at ease.

It only took a few minutes for the few drops of rainwater to turn into a cras.h.i.+ng curtain of rain covering the entire world. The heavy rain washed away the soil in the courtyard, forming small puddles on the ground.

Lu Qingjiu moved Bai Yuehu's rocking chair to the doorway. He originally thought that Bai Yuehu would sit on it and eat melon seeds while watching the rain like they were doing, but Bai Yuehu stood up and looked outside, his expression somewhat severe.

Lu Qingjiu saw that he was acting strange and asked, "Yuehu, what's wrong?"

Bai Yuehu said, "Come out with me."

Lu Qingjiu, "…Outside? To where?" He was a little surprised. The rain was so heavy, umbrellas would definitely be of no use, going out meant that he was going to get soaked.

Bai Yuehu said, "To the place we went to before."

Lu Qingjiu asked doubtfully, "Why do you want to go there at this time?"

Bai Yuehu replied with an unfathomable line, "This rain won't be able to stop anytime soon." After he said this, he went off to the storage room and got an umbrella. He raised his chin slightly at Lu Qingjiu, motioning him to follow.

Lu Qingjiu took the umbrella, then looked at Yin Xun and said, "Then what about you, Yin Xun?"

"Me?" Yin Xun scratched his chin. "I'll also… go with you."

Bai Yuehu didn't say anything. The three of them walked into the rain with their umbrellas. The rain was truly too heavy, one could almost say that it was pouring. The force coming down on their umbrellas quickly made their hands go a little numb.

Lu Qingjiu couldn't see a thing. He could only keep heading forwards along with Bai Yuehu. They seemed to be climbing up the mountain and the road became winding. Lu Qingjiu didn't know what place Bai Yuehu was bringing him to, but from the path, they seemed to be going up the mountain…

After walking for about ten or so minutes, the rain gradually became lighter. Lu Qingjiu started being able to see his surroundings clearly. Sure enough, they were on the mountain. But this mountain wasn't Shuifu village's mountain, it was the place Bai Yuehu had brought him to to go fis.h.i.+ng before.

Currently, it was still evening on the mountain. The rays of the sunset tinted everything red; the sea of clouds were rolling; there were neither storm clouds nor rain in the sky. Lu Qingjiu really liked this place. After putting his umbrella away, there was a small smile on his face.

"You two wait here, I have something to do." Bai Yuehu tossed his umbrella to the side, "Wait for me to come back."

Before Lu Qingjiu could say anything, he saw him turn and disappear right before his eyes.

Lu Qingjiu turned and met Yin Xun's eyes.

Yin Xun scratched the back of his head. "Since there's nothing to do, let's go up the mountains and look around?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "Do you know what Bai Yuehu's doing?"

Yin Xun said, "I don't know." He spoke very calmly and didn't seem like he was lying.

However, Lu Qingjiu didn't quite believe him. He looked at Yin Xun, but he didn't say anything in the end. He nodded and went up towards the mountain peak with Yin Xun.

The last time he came here, he had been holding hands with Bai Yuehu and led straight upwards the entire time, so Lu Qingjiu hadn't had time to look at the scenery by the road. This time, since they weren't going anywhere in particular, Lu Qingjiu looked around as he walked.

The flora and fauna here were all species Lu Qingjiu had never seen before. Some of them looked ordinary, but some looked very strange. A certain plant drew Lu Qingjiu's eye. It only had a single bare stalk with a little white flower on top. Of course, that wasn't the main point, the main point was that in the little white flower was a furry little creature about the size of a fingernail curled atop it, sleeping. At first glance, this creature looked a little like a cat, but upon closer inspection, he noticed that it was a little different from a cat. Its ears hung down from both sides of its head like a rabbit. The soft fur covering its body was white. In short, it looked like it would be very nice to pet.

Yin Xun, seeing Lu Qingjiu stop, also moved over. He asked, "What's that?"

Lu Qingjiu said, "I also don't know." By now, he had already read the Cla.s.sic of Mountains and Seas many times over and could confirm that there wasn't such a creature recorded in it.

Yin Xun said, "Can we touch it?"

Lu Qingjiu looked it over for a while, before shaking his head. "We'd better not." He felt like it would be better if they didn't touch anything here.

But before waiting for Lu Qingjiu to finish speaking, Yin Xun directly reached his hand over, wanting to stroke that creature's extremely soft looking fur. But who knew that just as he reached over, the originally unmoving flower petals would suddenly split open, turning into a giant, teeth-filled mouth to bite down on Yin Xun's hand.

Yin Xun didn't feel it for a moment before letting out a screech. Half of his hand had been bitten off.

Seeing this, Lu Qingjiu's heart was about to jump out of his mouth. He exclaimed, "Yin Xun! Are you okay?!"

Yin Xun sobbed, "Do I seem okay?" His hand was gone.

Lu QIngjiu, "…But you're not bleeding." His palm was clean, without even a trace of blood. He looked at the edge, and found that it was transparent, like Yin Xun's body didn't contain any blood, it was entirely made up of water.

Yin Xun said, "Right, I bleed water."

Lu Qingjiu, "…" 

Yin Xun said, "Nevermind, nevermind, don't touch it anymore. I'll be fine in a while, let's just keep heading up."

Lu Qingjiu nodded, helpless.

cold noodles:

buns:

stuffing (sorry the only pic i found is p low res):