Longevity starts from having a daughter in old age - Chapter 276
Chapter 276: Chapter 245 Chen Family Village_1
“This gentleman is the Immortal Master! His visit is an honor for our village. Go and notify the village chief and the elders right now!” Chen Qingshan announced loudly with a somewhat inflated posture.
Xu Mu stood behind, smiled, and remained silent.
“What? Immortal Master? Are you kidding?”
The crowd was somewhat skeptical, but they dared not challenge his words. If he really was an Immortal Master and they upset him, the whole village could be in danger.
“Indeed, this is the Immortal Master! Chen Hong, Chen Liang, don’t you trust my words? Get out of the way now!” Chen Ying stepped forward to speak.
Compared to the young and naive Chen Qingshan, the elderly Chen Ying had much more credibility. With his confirmation, the village’s patrol team hurriedly made way. Already, someone rushed off to notify the village chief and the elders.
Under the leadership of Chen Qingshan and Chen Ying, and accompanied by the crowd, Xu Mu entered the village and headed towards Chen Qingshan’s house.
Chen Family Village was small, covering merely a mile or two. The houses were arranged in a well-planned manner, with bluestone slabs paving the ground, neat and clean.
“Is that person the Immortal Master?”
“Why would an Immortal Master visit our village?”
“How does that rascal Chen Qingshan know the Immortal Master?”
Hearing that an Immortal Master had come to the village, every household rushed out. They stood by the roadside, craned their necks, and kept their eyes on Xu Mu.
Some children from the mountain village, not knowing the fear, desperately pushed forward to see the legendary Immortal Master. Their parents hurriedly pulled them back, admonishing them in fear of offending Xu Mu.
After walking about three to five hundred steps, they stopped in front of a house near the outskirts of the village. Chen Qingshan hurriedly went up and knocked on the door.
“Mother! Little sister! I’m back!” Chen Qingshan’s voice was full of excitement.
“They’re back!”
A white-haired, plain-clothed farmer’s wife wiped her hand with her apron while opening the courtyard gate. Upon seeing a crowd standing outside the house, she was taken aback.
“My fellow villagers, what’s going on? Did Qingshan cause some trouble?” Chen Qingshan’s mother thought her son had gotten into trouble and everyone had come to confront him.
“Mother! What are you talking about!” Chen Qingshan said somewhat embarrassingly, “Uncle and I ran into an Immortal Master while we were hunting in the mountains! Not only did the Immortal Master save us, he also promised to heal my father’s illness!”
“What?!!!”
Chen Qingshan’s mother pinched her thigh to make sure she wasn’t dreaming and stood still in shock, until Chen Qingshan led her to Xu Mu.
The woman, ignoring whether it was true or not, immediately knelt down before Xu Mu and thanked him with a bow.
Xu Mu shook his head helplessly. These people would kneel down at the drop of the hat, which was quite troublesome for him.
He didn’t have much contact with mortals before, but he didn’t expect that cultivators held such weight in the hearts of these ordinary people.
If he had known how good the worldly realm was, there probably wouldn’t have been so many cultivators in White River City back then.
The White River City of the past was a place where cultivators were treated worse than dogs!
Xu Mu thought silently.
While facing the woman’s tribute, Xu Mu did not feign familiarity by helping her up, he simply said after she had finished bowing, “Let’s go see your husband first!”
“Yes, yes, yes!”
The woman nodded repeatedly, rose in a hurry, and didn’t even have time to brush off the dust on her body before leading Xu Mu into the courtyard. The others followed, eager to see what would happen.
Xu Mu did not stop them, and neither did Chen Ying and Chen Qingshan feel it right to do so. After all, everyone was a neighbor. Many of them were even their relatives.
The courtyard housed a stone mill and a well, stacked with high piles of firewood. There was a date tree laden with green fruits. Although it was simple, it was neat and tidy.
Chen Qingshan’s mother pushed open the wooden door of the main room, and a strong smell of medicinal herbs immediately rushed towards them.
“Cough, cough! Yingzi, is it Qingshan who has come back? Cough, cough…”
As if he had heard the movement outside, there came a voice from inside the room, weak and frail.
“Head of the house, Qingshan has brought back a fairy healer to treat you!” said mother of Chen Qingshan as she walked into the room first, her face glowing with an excited smile. She was stuttering her words, clearly still overwhelmed by her excitement.
“Healer?”
Chen Xiong, who lied on the bed with a sickly, waxen face, thought he had misheard.
He must have been so desperate to recover that he started to hallucinate. How could a fairy healer possibly come to treat him?
Even in his dreams, Chen Xiong wouldn’t dare to imagine such a thing.
But when Xu Mu walked in with Chen Qingshan’s mother, Chen Xiong couldn’t help but widen his eyes, his breathing noticeably quickening. He mustered the strength to rub his eyes to confirm that someone really did walk in, that it wasn’t a hallucination.
“This person, cough cough, could they be…”
“Dad! This is the Immortal Master!” exclaimed Chen Qingshan as he ran from behind Xu Mu to the front of Chen Xiong’s bed, speaking excitedly.
“As a healer, his mana is boundless! He will definitely cure you!”
“….”
Xu Mu was speechless.
So, all the things he had said earlier were in vain.
While most common illnesses were easy for him to cure, there were always exceptions. He didn’t dare to promise anything in case something went wrong and he’d end up embarrassed.
“Enough! Make some space! Let me check on your father!” declared Xu Mu as he stepped forward.
“Yes, yes!”
Chen Qingshan quickly sidestepped, standing to the side with his heart in his throat. He watched Xu Mu’s every move with unwavering attention.
Chen Qingshan’s mother did the same, clutching her chest as if her heart would leap out any moment.
At this moment, Chen Ying and others also walked in, but didn’t dare to come too close. They crammed at the doorway, craning their necks to get a glimpse of the fairy healer’s miraculous techniques.
Most of these people haven’t left their area in their whole lives; the furthest place they’ve been to was Chi Lin Town. They have heard plenty of stories about fairy healers, but except for Chen Ying and Chen Qingshan who had met him not long ago, none had ever seen one.
If they were able to witness this, it would definitely be a story worth bragging about for the rest of their lives.
Xu Mu approached Chen Xiong and lifted the quilt to reveal a stomach swollen like a woman nine months into her pregnancy. The difference was that his belly was transparent and bulging; looking as if it were filled with water. It seemed like a mere prick from a needle would cause all the water within to gush forth.
Looking at it, it seemed like an abdominal edema induced by an infection. Quite problematic for ordinary physicians but not so much for him.
“Get a bucket!”
Xu Mu instructed Chen Qingshan.
“Huh? Yes, yes!”
Chen Qingshan was momentarily stunned, but quickly nodded and squeezed through the crowd to fetch a wooden bucket.
“Immortal Master, what do we need this for?”
“Place it by your father’s bedside.”
“Oh?”
Although Chen Qingshan was confused, he followed Xu Mu’s instructions obediently.
Once the bucket was in place, Xu Mu simply pointed at Chen Xiong’s stomach. His belly instantly appeared as though stirred by some invisible force, causing him to suppress a belch. Chen Xiong’s originally yellowed face turned red instantly, and he couldn’t help but turn his head toward the bucket.
He belched forth mouthfuls of thick, yellow fluid into the bucket until it was almost full. His distended stomach visibly shrunk, much to everyone’s relief.
“Hm?”
As Xu Mu’s brow creased, he increased his hold on Chen Xiong’s stomach. A black insect, resembling a slug, was forcefully expelled from Chen Xiong’s mouth, only to be held in place by an invisible force in front of Xu Mu.
“A parasitic insect? It seems the situation is not as simple as I initially thought!”
