Chapter 63 — The Talisman Painter Who Guards the Village

Rễ Bàng Hamlet

Ten days of traveling west, the trail gradually narrowed into a blur among the weeds, then disappeared completely when Diệp Sương entered the rolling hilly land, where ancient trees grew so densely that the noon sunlight only filtered down in thin, trembling streaks on the ground covered with rotten leaves. There was no longer an inn, no more guard post, only the sound of strange birds chirping in the tall foliage and the dull feeling of being watched that she had gradually gotten used to since the night she left Tùng Lĩnh Village.

The small gray shadow had rarely appeared since that night, only occasionally passing at the edge of her vision whenever she lost her way, like a silent sign pointing onward without revealing itself. Diệp Sương learned to trust it, even though reason could not explain why a wild creature seemed to be guiding a stranger.

*

She found Rễ Bàng Hamlet on a rainy afternoon. While struggling to find shelter, she suddenly saw thin kitchen smoke rising from behind a row of dense trees. The small hamlet had only a dozen or so ramshackle thatched roofs, built around a giant ancient almond tree with roots emerging from the ground like dry pythons - perhaps it was because of that tree that the hamlet had this name.

The first person to discover it was a skinny old man, holding a machete, chopping firewood in the yard. He stood straight, his alert eyes scanning Diệp Sương's body from head to toe.

"Who are you? Where did you come from?" he asked, his voice hoarse but unable to hide his sharp scrutiny.

"I'm a lost person, just asking for temporary shelter for the rainy night," Diệp Sương replied, keeping a moderate distance, her hands hanging down to clearly show that she was unarmed.

The old man looked at her for a moment, then lowered his machete. "Mr. Bảy Nhánh," he introduced himself, his voice softening somewhat. "This village is poor, and there is Little Tơ offer guests, but we have a place where you can shelter from the rain."

*

That night, sitting around the fire at Mr. Bảy Nhánh's house with a few curious neighbors who came to see the stranger's face, Diệp Sương gradually understood why Rễ Bàng Hamlet was so remote and poor. This land used to have a strong flowing Linh Mạch, enough to sustain a rich region many generations ago, but for some reason over the past ten years, the soil vein has gradually weakened, crops have failed, and wild animals have become increasingly unusually ferocious, while no survey team from the royal court or sect has ever stopped by to take a look.

"We once sent someone to town to report the news. We asked the sect to send someone down to investigate," a middle-aged man in the neighborhood said, his voice filled with bitterness. "They said this area was too far, too small, and not worth sending a separate survey team. From then on, we took care of ourselves. Those who could leave would go, those who had nowhere else would stay."

"Lately it's been worse," Mr. Bay Branch continued, his voice low. "Deep in the western forest, at night there are strange lights and calls that are not human. The villagers do not dare to go into the deep forest anymore, they only dare to collect firewood from the edge of the forest, even though the firewood at the edge of the forest is getting depleted day by day."

Diệp Sương listened, her heart was both sad and painfully familiar - this was no different from her Tùng Lĩnh Village many years ago, only there was no one like Mr. Tám Mực or Elder Tạ Vân Khê who happened to stop by to change the fate of a child who drew instinctive spells.

*

In the middle of the night, a scream tore through the night, waking up the whole neighborhood. Diệp Sương rushed out of Mr. Bay Branch's house with everyone, seeing a creature that looked similar to a wolf but was unusually large, gray hair standing up, red eyes growling in front of a small house, where a woman was clutching her small child cowering in the corner of the yard, with no way to escape.

"Another one!" someone shouted in panic. "This month is the third child!"

Diệp Sương did not have time to think. She rushed forward, quickly searched her bag for ink, but found only the dried-ink packet Mr. Tám Mực had given her on the day she left the village. There was no water and no time to grind it, so she gently bit the tip of her finger, mixed her own blood with a little dried ink, and quickly drew a simplified talisman on the wet ground in front of the strange wolf. The lines were rough and hasty, completely foreign to any discipline the sect had taught her.

Pale blue light burst from the drawing, not strong enough to completely suppress the beast but enough to make it stop, its head shaking as if suffering a sudden dizziness. Diệp Sương took advantage of that moment and drew a second stroke across the first—not a pure suppression technique, but closer to the way she had soothed the neighbor's cat when she was a child, offering comfort rather than control.

The strange wolf roared one last time, then staggered back, ducked its tail and ran away into the dark forest, leaving the whole neighborhood standing in stunned silence.

*

The woman who had just been rescued, her name was the eldest sister in the neighborhood, whom everyone still affectionately called Ms. Tu, carried her small child and ran over, knelt down in front of Diệp Sương, tears streaming down her face. "This life-saving grace, I will never forget for the rest of my life," she said, her voice choked up. "Whatever you need, even if this neighborhood is poor, it will try its best."

Diệp Sương quickly helped her stand up, confused by the gratitude so great compared with what she had just done—a talisman hastily drawn with blood and dried ink, effective only enough to repel, not to suppress completely. "Don't do that," she said. "I just did what I could, as anyone with any ability would have done in that situation."

The child in Ms. Tu's arms, a boy about five years old, curiously poked his head out to look at Diệp Sương, his round eyes had no trace of fear, only the pure curiosity of a child in front of someone who had just done a miracle.

"Can you draw it again for me?" the boy babbled and asked, causing the tense crowd to suddenly laugh in relief, like a warm breeze dispelling some of the terrifying atmosphere that had just happened.

*

"Who... who are you?" Mr. Bay Branch asked, his voice still shaking because he had just experienced the terror, his eyes looking at Diệp Sương were now mixed with both fear and gratitude.

Diệp Sương sat down on the ground, panting, her fingers still bleeding. She considered it for a moment and then decided not to hide it. "I used to be a disciple of the Tông Vân Các," she said, her voice tired but sincere. "Not anymore. I was expelled for a crime I didn't commit."

Murmurs rose in the crowd, but unlike the fear she had once worried about, most eyes now held something different—not fear of a banished person, but almost sympathy, as if they themselves understood better than anyone the feeling of being mercilessly abandoned by a great system.

"The sect has abandoned us for so many years," a woman spoke up, "yet a person abandoned by that sect is the one who saved us tonight. Perhaps God also knows who to send at the right time."

*

The next morning, Mr. Bảy Nhánh invited Diệp Sương to stay a few more days, using the excuse that his finger wound needed careful bandaging, but everyone understood that it was just an excuse to keep the person who had just saved the whole neighborhood a terrible night.

Sitting on the porch, looking out at the dense trees to the west where the strange wolf had just disappeared, Diệp Sương asked Mr. Bảy Nhánh about the strange light and call that the neighbors were rumored to hear.

"Are you going to go into the deep forest to find out?" he asked again, his voice filled with worry. "Someone in the neighborhood once went in there and never came back out, miss."

"I think," Diệp Sương replied slowly, still looking at the misty forest, "what's in there, might not be the enemy. It might just be something that people have misunderstood for too long, just like I've just been misunderstood." Mr. Bảy Nhánh looked at her silently for a long time, then sighed, stood up, and patted her shoulder. "If you decide to go, this village will prepare dry food for you. If you discover any truth, don't forget to come back and tell this old man." Diệp Sương nodded, a strange feeling arose in her heart - not quite hope, not quite fear, but like standing on the threshold of something greater than anything she had ever faced since the day she left Vân Tiêu Peak.

*

Before leaving, Ms. Tú brought Diệp Sương a handful of dried forest leaves and told her how to apply them to the cut on her finger. It was a folk remedy not much different from what Mrs. Chín Lài had taught her when she was young. Diệp Sương received it, her heart warmed by the unexpected similarity: despite being separated by vast distances, ordinary people forgotten by the larger system always seemed to find the same ways to heal with their own hands and what the land provided.

Tu's little boy followed her to the beginning of the hamlet, put a smooth pebble he had picked up somewhere in Diệp Sương's hand, said nothing, just grinned and ran quickly to where his mother was calling. Diệp Sương stood silently watching, clutching a small stone in the palm of her hand, a simple gift but enough to make her steps, as she turned towards the dense forest to the west, become much more steadfast.

Mr. Bay Branch sent it to the edge of the forest, stopping right where the old trees began to become so dense that they completely obscured the sunlight. "From here on, our neighborhood has never dared to step deeper," he said, his voice lowered. "You be careful. And remember your appointment, you have to come back and tell this old man."

"I promise," Diệp Sương replied, bowed slightly, then turned and walked into the dark green darkness of the forest, where the sound of strange birds had completely stopped, leaving only a heavy silence as if holding its breath waiting for the footsteps of a stranger who dared to step across a boundary that no one had dared to cross for generations.