After she finished cooking, Hu Xiaocao began cleaning again. By the time she had put everything in order, daylight had already broken. She picked up her enamel cup, slung on her basket, and prepared to set out.
"Ma, I'm heading out! There's porridge on the stove. Remember to eat it later."
The woman nodded and gently warned her, "Be careful out there. Don't go up the mountain anymore. It's too dangerous for a little girl like you to enter the mountains alone."
"I'm not scared. Grandpa Mountain God is protecting me."
Hu Xiaocao muttered a few words, but her voice was too soft, and the woman did not hear her clearly.
A day seemed long at first glance, but Hu Xiaocao had far too many things to do. She was like a spinning top, whirling without pause from the moment she opened her eyes.
As usual, after cutting pigweed and finishing all her chores, Hu Xiaocao picked quite a few wild fruits and headed toward the mountain path. Along the way, she happened to encounter several villagers returning from working in the fields.
"Xiao Cao, where are you off to so cheerfully?"
Hu Xiaocao answered with a skip and a hop, "I'm going to pay my respects to Grandpa Mountain God!"
Watching Hu Xiaocao's retreating figure, the other villagers exchanged puzzled looks. "The mountain god? Where did a mountain god come from? How can that little thing believe in this stuff?"
After discussing it for a few moments, they paid it no further mind.
Hu Xiaocao arrived at the place where she had encountered the mountain god the night before.
Unfortunately, she did not see the mountain god. Everything here had returned to normal—plain and ordinary—as though what had happened yesterday had merely been Hu Xiaocao's hallucination.
But she knew it had not been a hallucination. The mountain god was real, the moon was real, and even the Moonpetal Grass had been found because the mountain god had blessed her.
After pondering for a moment, Hu Xiaocao suddenly clapped her hands. "Grandpa Mountain God must be sleeping soundly!"
She placed the wild fruits she had picked on the ground, then devoutly bowed and knocked her head against the ground several times before leaving.
As the days passed, Hu Xiaocao made offerings like this every so often, but she never saw the mountain god.
Hu Xiaocao was not discouraged. One day, Grandpa Mountain God would surely be moved by her sincerity and be willing to meet her!
Although she did not go very often, she was seen several times, and the other villagers learned that Hu Xiaocao worshiped the mountain god.
The woman had originally been worried and did not want her to enter the mountains, but she could not withstand Hu Xiaocao's coaxing and pestering. Besides, Hu Xiaocao went during the day and did not stay long, so the woman could only reluctantly agree.
She merely instructed Hu Xiaocao to stay on the outskirts and not run deeper inside, where she might encounter wild beasts.
This day, after making her usual offering, Hu Xiaocao did not leave. Instead, she fell into thought. "Why isn't Grandpa Mountain God willing to come out yet? Could it be that I'm not sincere enough? I want Grandpa Mountain God to bless Ma!"
Hu Xiaocao remembered the temples she had seen in town when she had accompanied her mother to the market in the past.
"All those gods are worshiped inside temples, with all kinds of delicious pastries and fruit."
Hu Xiaocao looked at the little wild fruits laid out on the ground, and a guilty look appeared on her face. Compared with those offerings, hers were truly shabby.
No wonder Grandpa Mountain God had never appeared again. He must have thought she was just fooling him.
How could she ask Grandpa Mountain God to bless her mother like this?
A lively glint flashed through Hu Xiaocao's eyes. She suddenly smacked her head as if she had thought of a wonderful idea. "I've got it!"
She scampered down the mountain, unaware of the snake tail that flashed past behind her.
A faint rustling arose, barely noticeable, like the sound of a snake's scales sliding across the grass.
Watching Hu Xiaocao run away, Ye Qin said, "I was wondering why wild fruits kept appearing here lately. So it was this girl's doing. Is she worshiping me as the mountain god?"
Because cultivating to the second stage required him to contemplate the moon, he rarely appeared during the day. Recently, however, he had discovered that fresh wild fruits appeared here every so often.
Ye Qin had grown curious and come over to take a look, only to unexpectedly catch Hu Xiaocao making offerings to him.
"Looks like this girl really does think I'm the mountain god."
Meanwhile, Hu Xiaocao had no idea that the Grandpa Mountain God she had been thinking about day and night had already appeared.
At the foot of the mountain, she gathered bricks left over from other people's construction work. Then she mixed mud with straw and piled them up, one brick at a time.
A villager passed by. Seeing how seriously Hu Xiaocao was working, he could not resist teasing her. "Xiao Cao, are you playing with mud here?"
Hu Xiaocao's tiny body was squatting on the ground, completely absorbed in her mud-and-brick work. Without even looking up, she seriously retorted, "I'm not! I'm building a house for Grandpa Mountain God."
The other villagers found this so amusing that they could hardly contain their laughter.
Yet no one expected Hu Xiaocao to actually build it, brick by brick. A tiny temple less than half a meter tall took shape before their eyes. Aside from being crude, it had no other faults.
Hu Xiaocao scratched her head and looked at the little temple before her. "It feels like something's missing. What could it be?"
Her eyes lit up. "How can a Mountain God Temple not have a mountain god inside?"
Hu Xiaocao pinched off a ball of mud from the side. Soon, a thin, elongated creature appeared in her hand, looking rather like an earthworm.
She carefully and reverently placed it inside the temple, as though it were the mountain god himself.
A tiny Mountain God Temple had thus taken shape.
The mountain god stood guard, while wild fruits served as offerings.
Though the sparrow was small, it had all its vital organs.
Then Hu Xiaocao respectfully knelt before the little temple and knocked her head against the ground three times. She muttered something under her breath, seemingly praying, and only rose after a long while.
The few villagers saw this and could not resist teasing her again. "Xiao Cao, didn't you say this was a Mountain God Temple? Why did you put an earthworm inside?"
Hu Xiaocao stamped her feet in anger, nearly crying from anxiety. "What earthworm! That's a snake! It's the all-powerful Grandpa Mountain God!"
The villagers rubbed their noses. Although they could not understand what connection a mountain god had with a snake, seeing that Hu Xiaocao looked as though she was about to cry, they felt awkward continuing to tease her.
They could only chime in, "Yes, yes, yes. This is Grandpa Mountain God."
Hu Xiaocao did not take what the villagers had said to heart, but afraid they had offended the mountain god, she devoutly knocked her head against the ground several more times.
"Grandpa Mountain God, don't listen to those people's nonsense. I made it very lifelike. Don't dislike it either. When Xiao Cao makes lots of money in the future, I'll build you a big house and give you a golden body."
Only after finishing all this did Hu Xiaocao leave, thoroughly satisfied.
When evening arrived, Ye Qin appeared. He stared thoughtfully at the tiny Mountain God Temple before him and fell silent.
"Are you sure this isn't making a fool of me?"
What met his eyes was a crooked, unidentifiable creature.
It coiled inside the temple. Calling it an earthworm was already generous praise. If he really looked like this, he would have cried himself ugly.
Ye Qin's gaze shifted, and he saw three foxtails fluttering in the wind before the temple. Clearly, Hu Xiaocao had been unable to obtain incense, so she had plucked a few grasses to serve as a substitute for now.
It barely passed for something of the sort, though naturally, there were many things that could not withstand close examination.
Although everything looked crude and was merely a simplified version, it represented Hu Xiaocao's heartfelt devotion. She had built it with her own hands.
"This little girl is rather interesting."
Ye Qin shook his head and did not linger. He then returned to his cave.
It was not that he was cold-hearted. He was simply powerless to help with something like this. The girl hoped her mother would recover as soon as possible, but Ye Qin did not know how to heal or save people.
He was still only a snake. He had not reached the realm where he could overturn heaven and earth, nor had he learned the art of alchemy. Thus, in a matter like this, all he could do was offer his sympathy and nothing more.
(The End of the Chapter)
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