During the Ming Dynasty, there was a woodcutter named An Yuchen in Ruzhou . On weekdays, he not only had to go to the mountains to cut firewood, but also took care of the five acres of land at the head of the village to make a living. One day, after hoeing the grass in the field, he returned home and lay down in bed to rest. He slept until midnight when he was woken up by the urge to urinate. He got up and went to the latrine.
Just when An Yuchen came to the latrine, a sow appeared behind him, bumped An Yuchen quickly and pushed An Yuchen into the latrine.
When An Yuchen opened his mouth to call for help, the sow suddenly uttered human words: "My dear, please bear with me, I am saving you!"
An Yuchen in the latrine stopped shouting and stayed in the latrine. Then the door of his house was blown open by a gust of wind, and a huge python entered the house. He looked around at everything and found that there was no trace of An Yuchen in the house, so he called out An Yuchen's beloved wife Zuiliu.
Zui Liu stared at the python in horror. Under its supervision, he carefully rummaged around the room. After searching for about half an hour, he found a night pearl, and rolled and crawled to hand it to the python.
But Ye Mingzhu just touched the python, and immediately a puff of white smoke came out, and it turned into fly ash in an instant.
The python roared at Zui Liu, opened its mouth wide, and sprayed the mucus all over Zui Liu.
Zui Liu's clothes suddenly dissolved, and he turned into a ragged man in a moment. However, the python did not shy away from suspicion at all. It rolled up Zui Liu's body with its tail and ran quickly towards the cave in the distance. During
, Zui Liu kept screaming.
After the python ran away, the sow fished An Yuchen out and told An Yuchen its identity as the local patron saint.
The story about An Yuchen and the sows begins two months ago. At that time, An Yuchen was cutting firewood on the mountain, but accidentally broke a leg. He had to limp slowly to collect firewood. At this time, he heard the sow's snoring, walked in the direction of the sound, and found that a sow had fallen into a hunter's trap.
The kind-hearted An Yuchen endured the discomfort in his legs and put a few wooden sticks under the trap to let the sow crawl out of the trap. This saved her life and took her home to take care of her.
However, An Yuchen always regarded the sow as an ordinary animal. He never thought that it would be a patron saint. Moreover, it was transformed into the appearance of a sow by the snake demon . He would be as aggrieved as he was.
The sow was afraid of the python because she had been tricked by the python. This time the python's cultivation reached a bottleneck and it needed a luminous pearl to advance its cultivation to the next level. This luminous pearl was An Yuchen's family heirloom, and only An Yuchen had one in the world.
On weekdays, An Yuchen always carried the Luminous Pearl with him, but after all, the Luminous Pearl was the size of a fist, so it was inconvenient for An Yuchen to carry it with him. He was also worried about being noticed by thieves, so he handed the Luminous Pearl to the Taoist Temple for safekeeping.
If An Yuchen hadn't put the night pearl into the Taoist temple a few days ago and hid a fake night pearl under the bed, I'm afraid the night pearl would have been taken away by a python tonight.
In order to get the Luminous Pearl, the python secretly found Zui Liu and colluded with Zui Liu to search for the Luminous Pearl. Zui Liu had no results. The python inevitably felt anxious and suddenly couldn't hold it back in the middle of the night. It barged into An Yuchen's house and forced Zui Liu to look for the Luminous Pearl. Zui Liu couldn't find it, so it exploded.
If An Yuchen hadn't been in the latrine just now, the python would have called him out if he smelled An Yuchen's breath and asked him to hand over the Night Pearl.
However, Zui Liu was under coercion and did not really want to find the night pearl for the python. An Yuchen couldn't bear to let Zui Liu stay with the python all the time, so he went to the Taoist temple to invite several Taoist priests and took them all to the mountain where the python was.
Within a moment, the Taoist priests found the cave where the python was, entered the cave and rescued Zui Liu, but accidentally woke up the sleeping python. None of the group was a match for the python, so they had to retreat quickly and formulate a strategy to deal with the python.
Zui Liu stayed with the python for several days, and found that the skin of the python was harder than steel, and there was no flaw in its body. Nothing in the world could hurt it, but all snakes were afraid of realgar, and no one had ever tried realgar on a python.
To this end, the Taoist priests went to the market to find all the realgar, and found the best cooks to make several large pots of broth. They took the broth to the python cave and put the realgar soup there. When the python drank all the broth, its body quickly collapsed.
Then the Taoist priests swarmed up, got rid of the python, and divided it into pieces of meat, all of which were distributed to the villagers at the foot of the mountain.
The villagers were all so happy that they made a whole snake feast to entertain the Taoist priests, and treated the Taoist priests well. After eating and drinking, the Taoist priests returned to the Taoist temple.
Because Zui Liu was forced to do nothing, An Yuchen did not blame her for stealing the Night Pearl. He still treated her as his wife and gave all the good things to Zui Liu for safekeeping. The couple still lived as sweetly as before.
After the python was removed, the sow's body returned to its original appearance. She was a woman only three feet tall, dressed as a Taoist nun. After bidding farewell to An Yuchen, she returned to the top of the mountain to continue her role as a patron saint.
