The River in the Dream

"Quzha has no women?!"

Pingcuo's words made Zhou Yang frown deeply!

He stared intently at the continuous trail of ash-covered footprints on the ground, his mind instantly filled with a multitude of questions!

If Quzha did not have a wife, whose corpse was the woman Quzha brought?

Was the person who brought the female corpse still Quzha?

as well as...

These kinds of questions cannot be answered by simply thinking about them in your head.

A thorough investigation is still necessary!

Zhou Yang abruptly suppressed the jumble of questions in his mind, raised his eyes, and met Pingcuo's gaze.

Pingcuo had been observing Aji, but when Aji suddenly looked at him, he was startled. He smiled at Zhou Yang to cover his embarrassment.

"Pingcuo, please go to Quzha's house again and bring Quzha here—do you see these footprints on the ground? After finding Quzha, follow these footprints to the end, and you'll meet up with me." Zhou Yang said to Pingcuo, pointing to the footprints on the ground.

Pingcuo had just returned from Manitang when Zhou Yang asked him to turn back.

He opened his mouth, caught his breath, stared intently at Zhou Yang, and after a long while, finally managed to utter a single word. "Good!"

"This is very important, we must Quzha back!" Zhou Yang patted Pingcuo's shoulder heavily, and seeing Gama running over from behind, he raised his voice and said to Gama, "Hey, Gama!"

"Please call all the people in Zeweng's family over now!"

Follow these footprints on the ground to find me!

"Let's talk about everything once we've all gotten together!"

Gama answered loudly, "I understand, Aji!"

Zhou Yang waved and hurried away.

The gray footprints had already disappeared from his sight.

Jiekan, who had been sprinting ahead, gradually slowed down. No matter how good his stamina was, how could he possibly outrun a Tsen Demon?

With the Breathing of the Ghost, Zhou Yang could temporarily increase Aji's physical speed several times over, but this state could not last long.

Once the Tsen Demon runs too far, he can only look at the footprints and sigh in despair.

"Quack..."

At that moment, the cries of vultures in the sky caught Zhou Yang's attention.

He looked up and saw a black dot hovering around the area above his head.

An inexplicable connection linked him to that black dot in the sky.

That black dot was none other than Little Zhuoma, Dakini.

"Zhuoma, can you keep an eye on the Tsen Demon who's trying to escape ahead?"

"Look where it went."

Zhou Yang silently asked himself the question.

"Wow, wow!" Above the azure sky, Zhuoma's cry suddenly became louder!

It circled three more times in the sky, then flapped its wings and soared forward!

However, in a short while, Zhuoma had already put some distance between herself and Zhou Yang.

A subtle fluctuation traveled through the invisible thread connecting Zhuoma to Zhou Yang.

Zhou Yang was of sound mind.

Many images inexplicably flashed through my mind--

Low mounds, yellowish-green earth, a river flowing like a belt...

The mounds gradually rose up, transforming into a series of precipitous mountains.

The yellow and green patches on the earth transformed into the wilderness beneath the treacherous mountains, and the occasional meadows and trees growing there.

The river, like a belt, meanders down from the distant, precipitous mountains.

On the treacherous mountain, magnificent watchtowers stand like a forest, prayer flags hang everywhere, and curtains with mysterious symbols cover the rooftops. People dressed in crimson vests and monks' skirts tend to this forest of watchtowers.

A small river flows down beside the cluster of fortified houses. A series of gray footprints come to an abrupt end at the riverbank.

When Zhou Yang saw the ash-covered footprints appear by a river, he suddenly realized:

"These are all scenes seen by Zhuoma in heaven!"

"That Tsen Demon, in the end, jumped into the river that Zhuoma had seen!"

Zhou Yang sprinted away, and as he passed Jiekan, he patted him on the shoulder. "Come on, let's go!"

"Let's go to the nearby river!"

"That Tsen Demon jumped into the river!"

A group of people gathered by the river.

A shepherd tending his sheep by the river, brandishing his whip, curiously approached to observe.

As he approached, a curly-haired man rushed out from the crowd, staring at him with unfriendly eyes. "Hey!"

"What are you looking at?! Get out of here!" The shepherd picked up his whip again and walked away sullenly.

Jiekan, with his curly hair, immediately raised his head high, as if he had accomplished something extraordinary. He then slipped into the crowd and found an empty seat next to Zhou Yang Zhou Yang, sitting down beside him.

He still held his head high, solemnly observing the surrounding movements, like Zhou Yang's most formidable protector.

Zhou Yang sat cross-legged, earnestly nodding to Jiekan, then turned to look at a tall, thin man being held down by Pingcuo, smiling, "Quzha, are you Quzha?"

The tall, thin man nodded with a fearful expression.

He finally had some free time today, as he was digging irrigation ditches in the village head's fields, and went home to rest for a while.

As a result, Pingcuo barged into his house and, through a combination of coaxing and intimidation, led him to the riverbank.

"Master Zeweng, take a look and see if he is the Quzha you mentioned." Zhou Yang said to Zeweng with his smile unchanged.

"It's him!" Zeweng and Zhima responded in unison.

Zhima exclaimed, "I recognized him just now!"

"It was him who brought his drowning wife to our house!"

Listening to the couple's words and seeing the mixture of anger and fear on their faces, Quzha looked blankly at them and asked, completely bewildered, "What drowned wife? Who are you?"

"I don't know any of you, so how do you know me?"

Sky burial masters usually live far from ordinary villages.

It's perfectly normal for living people not to recognize these sky burial masters.

After all, death is something that most people try their best to avoid.

Sky burial masters, who have direct contact with death, are also people people try their best to avoid contact with.

Zhou Yang looked at Quzha and rubbed his temples.

The Mindfulness between my eyebrows remained unmoved.

Quzha is now just an ordinary, normal person.

He really didn't know Zeweng and Zhima, the couple.

"Quzha has no women!" Pingcuo shouted. "The neighbors all say he's a poor wretch, barely able to afford to rent land from the chieftain. No woman would be with him, and they've never seen him bring any of those homeless, crazy women home!"

"A crazy woman, a fool, she's neither crazy nor foolish in this matter," Quzha mumbled, trying to defend himself. Zeweng and his wife frowned as they listened to Quzha and Pingcuo's words.

They were certain that this Quzha was the same Quzha who had been brought in with the body.

Quzha insisted that he had never seen the two of them.

Others can also testify that Quzha never had a woman.

He never brought even crazy or foolish women home.

So where exactly did things go wrong?

"That's how it is." Zhou Yang supported himself on his knees and stood up from the meadow.

All eyes were on him.

He first pointed to Quzha: "I'm sure Quzha wasn't lying."

"Quzha has never met Master Zeweng; he has no woman or wife."

"Yes, yes." Quzha nodded repeatedly. This young man was reliable, and he trusted him completely. "I dream of having a wife, but when I open my eyes, she's gone!"

"I'm also certain that Master Zeweng and Zhima Ajiala weren't lying. They really did see Quzha, and the drowned wife that Quzha brought over," Zhou Yang said, pointing to the Zeweng couple. That was indeed the truth.

But the reality was something that Mr. and Mrs. Zeweng could not accept.

"If neither of us lied, then who did?"

Zeweng exclaimed in shock, "I actually gave Quzha's wife a sky burial, and Zhima was right there watching!"

"That Tsen Demon has really got me hooked— Aji, you said it yourself, that Tsen Demon has a lot to do with Quzha. After thinking about it, I realized that things might really be as you described!"

"I truly possess the Tsen Demon, and you have all seen it!"

"What happened?"

"I know!" Jiekan raised his hand, his eyes shining brightly.

His bright eyes made everyone think for a moment that he might actually know the truth.

Even Gonpo said hopefully, "You know, tell me, Jiekan."

"Quzha dreamt he had a wife, and she drowned!" Jiekan exclaimed. "In his dream, he sent his drowning wife to Master Zeweng for a sky burial, and Zeweng and Zhima helped send Quzha's drowning wife away for the sky burial in their dream!"

As soon as Jiekan speaking, he was met with a burst of laughter. "Hahaha..."

"Are you crazy, Jiekan!"

Can three people have the same dream?

"That's not true, Jiekan, shut up!"

Gonpo glared at Jiekan.

He knew all along that Jiekan wasn't mentally sound, but he still held onto a sliver of hope for him.

--But he himself had gone mad, actually believing that Jiekan could say anything useful.

Amidst the laughter of the crowd, Zhou Yang's gaze fell upon Quzha.

Quzha did not mock Jiekan like the others.

At this moment, he looked at Jiekan with a shocked expression.

What Jiekan said resonated with some of his own experiences! Zhou Yang's mind cleared immediately upon hearing this!

"Quzha." He spoke up, and all the laughter fell silent. All eyes turned to him. "Quzha, did you have the dream that Jiekan mentioned?"

"Have you had a dream similar to Jiekan described while you were by this river?"

"Yes!" Quzha recovered from his shock and nodded emphatically. "The day before yesterday, just as dawn broke, the chieftain drove me out of my home to herd sheep for his family. I drove the sheep to the meadow around ' Sangsang River ' and fell asleep against a tree by the river."

"In that dream, I saved a woman who was escaping from the mountains!"

"That woman thanked me... Later, in a dream, one day I went to the river to herd sheep again, and I saw her drowning in the river!"

"I retrieved her body, and she said there were many evil spirits on the mountain that kept chasing her. She said she had been defiled by those spirits and asked me to clean her up so she could leave this world clean!"

"I didn't know how to let her leave cleanly, so I only thought of asking a sky burial master to send her off."

"In my dream, I told her, 'I remember the place where the sky burial masters live, at the foot of Narong Mountain...'"