Just then, faint ghostly wails drifted in. The old woman's face changed, and she blew out the oil lamp. Not only Little Pearl but even the tabby cat went silent as a cicada in winter, looking terrified.
All manner of strange noises came from outside, frightening them to the bone, yet no one dared go out for even a glance.
Even the clatter from the village entrance had long since stopped.
"Granny, what exactly is going on?" Tang Changsheng wasn't particularly afraid, but he still lowered his voice.
"The Green King is holding a banquet... He's making every household scrape together a hundred coins for food and wine. He's recruiting troops, too!" Little Pearl said.
A hundred coins were nothing to Tang Changsheng. But for families in a poor mountain village like this, they were no small sum.
That was nearly a tenth of a tael of silver. An ordinary household here might earn only two or three hundred coins in a year—and still had to pay the imperial taxes...
Seen that way, this so-called Green King was squeezing them to the marrow!
"What sort of god is the Green King?"
"The god in the temple at the village entrance. I heard King Qing has an enemy who's been making trouble for him, so he's recruiting troops everywhere to fight..." Little Pearl explained.
Tang Changsheng listened and nodded slightly.
Chen Wangshi smiled. "Don't be fooled by how young Little Pearl is. She's gifted—more capable than this old woman already. She can commune with spirits and even enter the Underworld. She found all this out herself!"
Tang Changsheng was startled. He knew that folk shamans and spirit mediums had no real cultivation methods. They relied almost entirely on their inborn gifts to commune with spirits.
For Little Pearl to do so