Blue, Red and White Dark Abyss Cauldron

Seeing that several things had been agreed upon, Bai Qizheng struck the bronze gong hanging beside him three times, and said, "Everything has been agreed upon. Let's go back now."

Suddenly, a man stood up and said, "Old Patriarch, I went to the Wild Sheep Ridge in the east to hunt wild sheep early this morning, but I didn't find a single hair of the wild sheep. Instead, I found something very strange. Do you want to tell me about it?"

When Chu Xiaomu saw that it was the Chu family's seventh uncle who said something strange happened, he squeezed through the crowd to listen.

Bai Qizheng frowned and said, "What's the strange thing? Can you tell me in detail?"

Chu Qi cleared his throat and said, "This morning, I got up quite early. After I got up, I was thinking, should I eat bread, porridge, or just two slices of dried fish? If I want to eat bread, there is no ready-made one at home. I need to grind the wheat into flour and make it, which is very time-consuming. If I want to eat porridge, there is ready-made one. I can just heat it up and eat it..."

Bai Qi interrupted him and said, "Why are you talking so much? Just say that you saw something strange." He knew that Chu Qi usually talked a lot, so he quickly interrupted him.

Chu Qi said, "Old Patriarch, this is your fault. It was you who asked me to explain it in detail, didn't you? If I want to explain it in detail, I must start from when I got up early, otherwise I won't be detailed. I'm afraid that if I don't explain it in detail, people won't understand, and if they don't understand, they will blame me, so I might as well not say anything. If I don't say it, I'm afraid everyone will blame me for being unreasonable..."

Everyone burst into laughter. Someone joked, "Old Seven Chu is right. If you can't explain it clearly, we will probably have to stay at your house tonight and listen to you talk slowly. Then we will have to ask your woman to make room for everyone to sleep." Everyone laughed even harder.

Bai Qizheng frowned and said, "We are in a clan meeting, so please don't make such indecent jokes!"

Only then did everyone stop laughing.

Bai Qizheng turned around and said to Chu Qi: "Just tell me what strange things you saw on the mountain, don't tell me anything else."

Chu Qi said: "Old Patriarch, why don't you just tell me what you saw on the mountain earlier? Why do you have to make me tell you in detail? If I tell you in detail, I must start from when I got up early, otherwise I won't tell you in detail. Don't you think so..."

When everyone saw that he was confused, they started laughing again and nodded in agreement.

Bai Qi was so angry that he blew his beard and wished he could beat him hard with a cane.

Chu Xiaomu walked over and asked, "Uncle Qi, did you really go to Yeyangling today?"

Chu Qi replied: "Of course I went. Why would I lie about something like this?"

Chu Xiaomu asked again: "You didn't hunt any wild sheep, did you?"

Chu Qi was surprised and asked, "How do you know? Did you go there too?"

Chu Xiaomu didn't answer him and continued to ask: "You collected a lot of pine oil, right?"

Chu Qi laughed and said, "You are still the same as when you were little. You secretly followed Uncle Qi's butt today, didn't you?"

"Pine oil is not easy to collect. How did you collect so much?"

"Those pine trees are all broken. Some are broken in half, and some are broken at the root. A lot of pine oil has leaked out, so it's easy to harvest." Chu Qi said proudly.

“There should be dozens of broken trees, right?”

"There are more than dozens of them. All the trees in a large valley, regardless of thickness, were broken. I can't count how many there are. Well, I'm afraid there are hundreds of them..."

"How did it break? Did you see it?"

"No, it must have been broken for a day or two when I saw it."

"Is this the strange thing you are talking about?" Chu Xiaomu asked.

Chu Qi said: "Yeah, isn't this strange?"

Chu Xiaomu waved his hands and said with a smile: "Look, Uncle Qi, isn't it clear in just a few words?"

Chu Qi was speechless and said, "Yeah, that seems to be the case."

Everyone immediately understood that the strange thing Chu Qi was talking about was that all the trees in a large valley suddenly broke. This was indeed an incredible and strange thing.

Bai Qizheng said, "Everyone heard that Chu Qi said that all the trees in Yeyangling suddenly broke. Has anyone gone there to cut down trees in the past few days?"

Everyone said no, and said that even if they did cut down trees, there was no need to cut down all the trees in the valley, and they had to be classified according to size, as it would be useless to cut down small trees.

Bai Qizheng looked solemn. He asked everyone to sit down again and said, "If that's the case, this kind of thing is definitely beyond human control. What do you think?"

Some people said that it was broken by the wind, some said it was broken by the waves, and some said that it might be caused by wood insects that bore down the tree.

Chu Qi refuted them one by one, saying that it was impossible, the wind could not blow only to that valley, the waves could not reach that place, the broken end of the tree was fresh and clean, with no trace of wood worms.

Chu Liang was silent for a long time, and then said, "I'm afraid it's a bad omen. Before the plague hit the two southeastern villages, all the flowers suddenly withered overnight. When the water monster came to the island, it was also the result of heavy rains for several days and huge waves on the sea."

Everyone looked at Huai Fucao to hear his opinion. Huai Fucao said, "This phenomenon is indeed strange. I think there is no other way to guess the reason except asking the spirits." Everyone nodded and said yes, thinking that this spirit-asking technique really couldn't be lost.

Bai Qizheng called over a sturdy man in his forties and said, "Tell everyone not to go out to sea to fish tomorrow morning. Arrange more people to explore the coast. If you find anything unusual, report it as soon as possible so that we can respond."

The man's name was Bai Shantang, the son of Bai Qizhen. He often patrolled the island, which was his job besides fishing and hunting, so he responded and went.

Yang Dou was about to speak out about the wild bees' journey north, but Chu Xiaomu pulled him back, so he had to keep silent.

Since the crowd had nothing else to do, they gradually dispersed.

Yang Dou grabbed Chu Xiaomu and asked, "The matter about the wild bees is also very strange, why don't you let me tell you?"

Chu Xiaomu said: "It's useless to tell them, it will only make everyone more suspicious and afraid, so it's better not to tell them. We will have the answer after we ask the spirits, so there's no need to rush."

Yang Dou asked again: "How do you know that your seventh uncle didn't hunt any sheep, but instead collected a lot of pine oil?"

Chu Xiaomu rolled his eyes at him and said, "Didn't you see that there was no sheep's blood on his clothes, but a lot of pine oil instead?"

Yang Dou said "oh" and suddenly understood.

Chu Xiaomu returned home and saw Bai Yixing still unconscious. Remembering that it was time to give him medicine, he heated up a bowl of medicine and fed it to him.

But Bai Yixing had completely lost his ability to swallow, and most of the medicine fed into his mouth flowed out.

Chu Xiaomu had no choice but to pry open his mouth and feed him slowly, little spoonful at a time.

He was worried and anxious. On the one hand, he really didn't want the person he was trying to save to die halfway. On the other hand, subconsciously he didn't want to be trapped on Baihua Island for the rest of his life and wanted to go to the Eastern Continent with this person. He just didn't realize it at the moment.