Chapter 225 Fate and Dream "Do you know what abilities the Alligator King has?" "Don't get me wrong! We are cultivators who practice Taoism and we also know magic. It's normal for cultivators who know magic to discuss magic with each other!" The two senior brothers and sisters spoke one by one. "This... How would I know..." The monster felt that something was wrong, but he dared not not answer. "Are there any other taboos?" "It's taboo..." The monster stood there weakly, searching his memory and thinking: "What I remember is that when you see the Alligator King, you must call him the Alligator King, not the Crocodile." "anything else?"
"There is one more thing... I don't know if it counts..." The monster paused and looked at him timidly. "Just say it." "Even if humans are more powerful than monsters, even if monsters have attained enlightenment, they can still transform into human bodies, speak human language, write human characters, and wear human clothes. I don't know how to explain it, but if you go there, you will see monsters everywhere. It's best for real people not to show contempt for monsters, otherwise they will think you are looking down on them." The monster paused again, "They will be angry and sad." "We naturally know this." Lin Jue nodded, and the junior sister also nodded beside him. "That's it." The monster had finished speaking, but the look in his eyes when he looked at them became even more frightened, as if he was afraid that they would abandon him and kill him to silence him. "Thank you for informing me, Your Majesty." Lin Jue bowed to him and changed the subject: "But it is still wrong for you to stop people and extort money. Logically, you should be handed over to the priests and let the gods judge you. However, I am afraid that few of the gods here are conscientious and responsible. I am worried that you will be killed by them when you get there, which would be a pity for your cultivation." When the monster heard that he was going to hand himself over to the priest, he immediately showed a look of fear, but only felt relieved after hearing the second half of the sentence. "Fuyao." Lin Jue turned his head and took a look. At some point, the huge three-tailed white fox next to it had become the same size as the spotted cat next to it. It was sitting upright on the ground, licking its paws. Instead, the spotted cat looked bewildered. When it heard Lin Jue calling it, it immediately understood, walked over, raised its paw, and pressed on the monster. The monster quickly pulled up his trouser leg to check, and saw a fox claw mark on his leg, which looked like a plum blossom and then quickly disappeared. "This……" "Since you have told us the truth, we are willing to let you go. However, we are entrusted by others. Even if you are helpless or have other reasons, you should not extort money from others. Although we can let you go, you must return all the money we extorted." Lin Jue said to it:
"You should know how you extorted money and sacrifices. Since you have the ability to make others give you sacrifices and money after returning home, we also have ways to embarrass you. But don't be afraid. After you return all the money, come to us and we will remove this mark for you." "As ordered." The monster trembled: "Where does the real person live?" "South of Runze City, there is a village with many shops, which is quite prosperous and lively. From here, walk along the official road to Runze City. When you are almost there, there is a small path on the left, a few dozen steps away. A hundred steps into the path, there is a thatched cottage with a peach tree planted in the yard. We live there." Lin Jue said, "It doesn't matter if you can't find it. When you get closer, my Fuyao will know and come to pick you up." "I've made a note of it." "As for the difficulty you just mentioned, the missing gift of the Crocodile King, we will make it up to you when the time comes, just as a thank you gift." "This……" The monster was startled again. "Why? An unexpected surprise?" Lin Jue smiled, "You have brought us an unexpected surprise, so we should give you one too." The monster then immediately straightened his expression and bowed deeply. "That's not necessary. By the way, the government has posted a reward. We won't take your head, but you should leave us a proof." "Let me think about it..." Before I knew it, the bright moon was already high in the sky. The monster finally left. Under the moonlight, the brother and sister looked at each other, smiled, and felt a little relieved. They had solved the problem of the monster here and also learned how to find the crocodile king. They felt relieved now that they had a plan. This was an unexpected surprise brought to them by the monster. So they gave him one in return. Then Lin Jue put away his flying sword, and his junior sister put away her long sword and handed it back to Lin Jue, and the two of them walked back under the moonlight. There was no need for the fox and the catfish to hide anymore. Lin Jue was too lazy to carry them on his back and just let them walk, run and jump around on their own. However, every time the catfish looked at the fox, there was a daze in its eyes, or perhaps disbelief. I couldn’t walk back to the hut late at night, so I had to walk to Xiao’s store. I asked for directions, found the thatched inn, knocked on the door and asked about accommodation. "You can only live in this dormitory." The shopkeeper was holding an oil lamp, the light of which was not much brighter than the moonlight. He pushed open a door and spoke to them. Lin Jue looked around. This thatched inn was actually similar to an ordinary house, and similar to the thatched huts they lived in, except that it was larger and had more huts. At this time, there were many mules and donkeys tied in the yard, and snoring like thunder could be heard from the other rooms. It seemed that thanks to the monster, many business travelers lived here. "I'll live here." "Give me the money first." "Oh……"
The junior sister reached into her bosom and pulled out a string of copper coins neatly strung together with a small straw rope, exactly twenty cents, and handed it to the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper put money in his pocket and held up oil lamps to provide light for them. Inside the door was a large bunk bed, stretching from the far left to the far right of the room. It was covered with thick straw and several rolls of blankets. There was already a person lying in the corner, but there was still plenty of room. Upon closer inspection, it was Qiao Xuefu, whom I had met earlier. Lin Jue smiled. "Well……" The middle-aged man also woke up, opened his eyes and looked under the light, carefully identified them, and was immediately surprised: "It's you two?" "Yes, it's fate." "Didn't you go forward? Are you afraid of the monster and are you going back?" "Not even close." Lin Jue answered him with a smile. He then went in, put down the backpack, climbed onto the bunk bed, and sat down on the other side of the bunk. There are no special conditions in this kind of place. It's just a place to shelter from the wind and rain, keep warm and lie down. It's a good place to take a nap, and you can't be picky about anything else. "No one will come tonight. There will be breakfast tomorrow morning. It's five cents per person, with a vegetable dumpling and an egg. Come find me if you want to eat." The shopkeeper said something and then closed the door and went out. As soon as the oil lamp went out, the room was suddenly filled with darkness, with only a little moonlight shining through a hole in the window above the head. The two men also seemed to lie down and fall asleep. The middle-aged man was confused. These two people always made him feel a little strange. However, the two parties only met by chance and had never met each other before. Moreover, it was late at night and he was woken up in the middle of his sleep. His mind was still a little confused and he didn't want to ask more questions. He thought that if these two were monsters, they would have harmed him on the road just now. If they were robbers, he only had five copper coins on him and there was nothing worth their trying. His life was miserable and lowly, so what was there to be afraid of? Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep again. I didn't expect that in the middle of the night, I suddenly saw the light in the room turned on. He opened his eyes again in a daze, thinking that someone had come in the middle of the night, but when he looked up, the door was closed and another lamp was lit in the room. It was strange that there was no oil in the lamp, only the light of the lamp. The two men sat cross-legged on the bed and talked to him. Besides, everything was hazy, as if the room was covered with a misty fog, and one could see things but not clearly. Not only could he not see clearly, he also could not hear clearly what the two people said to him. But the strange thing was that he just could not hear clearly the words and sentences they uttered, but he knew what they meant by what they said to him. "Mr. Qiao, we are polite. Actually, we are not travelers on the road, but Taoists from Mount Yi. We are not going anywhere on this night journey. We came here specifically to find the monster." The middle-aged man was emotionally dull and had no idea how to answer.
And he didn't answer. I vaguely realized that this might be a dream. The two figures sitting on the other side of the bunk bed seemed to know this as well, and they spoke to themselves: “It is a great fate that I met Mr. Qiao. I never thought that there would be an unexpected fate. Mr. Qiao’s moral character and behavior are also admired by demons and humans. "Now that the monster has been captured by us, we have ordered him to return all the money and property and not to cause trouble in the future. This matter is now over. "Although this monster has never killed anyone, and only causes trouble at night, and has only recently started causing trouble, the Runze County Court has still posted a notice offering a reward. The reward is not much, just ten taels." The middle-aged man did not speak or move. It doesn’t even seem like there is a “self”. Only from a perspective in the corner of the dormitory can one see the scene and hear the sound. "Considering our fate with Mr. Qiao and the fact that he will have a hard time after paying off his debt, we placed the token left by the monster under the poplar tree on the right side of the official road outside the thatched inn. If Mr. Qiao is interested, he can take the token to the government to claim the reward after hearing that the monster has returned the money. Just tell the government the truth." The light in the room slowly dimmed. The middle-aged man's consciousness seemed to have disappeared. When I woke up, it was already early in the morning. The door of the hut was wide open, and the morning sun had already poured in. The room was full of dust, and two puppies were barking in a backpack. "Ouch……" The middle-aged man felt particularly dizzy and dazed, as if he had overslept. "last night……" The middle-aged man vaguely remembered that he had a dream, which was quite strange. He quickly turned around and took a look inside the house. The two young men were long gone. "..." The middle-aged man shook his head and put aside all distracting thoughts. He stood up, put on his shoes, and carried his backpack. What happened last night was obviously just a dream. He felt that it was because he kept thinking about the monster on the road yesterday, and in the past few days he had been thinking about these kinds of monsters, ghosts, gods and strange things, so he had such a dream at night. Dreams are nothing strange, no matter how strange they are. It's not worth taking seriously. How could such a wonderful thing happen in the world? Not to mention that there is no such thing as a fairy, even such a good thing as giving you money has never happened. As for the headache, it was probably because I caught a cold from the wind yesterday, or because I didn’t sleep well in this thatched inn.
I overslept and it was afternoon when I got home. After waking up, the dream was already vague, so the middle-aged man quickly put it behind his mind and went home with the basket on his back. (End of this chapter)