Chapter 12: Xijiang Miao Village

  The Xijiang Miao Village is located in the southeast of Guizhou Province, where the Miao people live. The village is surrounded by mountains and has a beautiful landscape with terraced fields that stretch up to the sky. The Baishui River runs through the village, dividing it into two parts. The houses in the village are mostly wooden stilted buildings, built along the mountain slope, with green bamboo surrounding them. The stilted buildings have three floors, with the first floor used for raising livestock, the second floor for living, and the third floor for storing grain. The living area has a long corridor, surrounded by wooden railings, where Miao girls often do embroidery. The village is connected by stone roads, lined with maple trees that give off a fragrant scent.

  Xijiang Miao Village is the place with the most Miao people in China, and the area of the whole village is also extremely vast, with a large population. However, this Miao village is divided into two parts: inner village and outer village.

  The outer village is developed with the progress of modern society, and the Miao people have made great efforts to open up communication with the outside world. The main responsibility of the outer village is to make money for the entire Miao village, making it rich and no longer poor like before. At the same time, it can also communicate with the outside world and introduce advanced knowledge from the outside world into the Miao village. The best way for the outer village to make money is to develop tourism, as the scenery of Xijiang Miao Village is very good, attracting a large number of tourists, making the entire Miao village gradually become richer and more modernized.

  However, the inner village of Xijiang Miao Village is very different from the outer village. The inner village is never open to outsiders, and even the Miao people in the outer village need to have a high status to enter the inner village. The inner village has absolute authority over the entire Xijiang Miao Village, and it retains the customs and traditions of the Miao people's era. The concept of hierarchy within the inner village is also very strong, with the village chief and shaman standing at the highest level. The village chief manages all daily affairs within the village and has absolute control over everyone in the village. However, the shaman is a mysterious existence that transcends the village chief, and the shaman in the Miao village is not subject to the village chief's jurisdiction. Moreover, the village chief must show great respect to the shaman because each shaman possesses great spiritual power. Whether someone in the village falls ill or gets injured, they will definitely be cured if they find the shaman. This is also one of the reasons why the shaman has a superordinate status in the Miao village.

  Yang Feng is now walking in the direction of Xijiang Miao Village, his destination is also Xijiang Miao Village, where he was born, where there is a wooden house where he and his mother lived together, with his happy childhood. Yang Feng, who has nowhere to go, can only return there now, only there will make Yang Feng feel safe!

  Yang Feng chose to return to the Xijiang Miao Village for another reason, which is that his maternal grandfather was the chief of the Xijiang Miao Village. Although he had driven his own mother out of the village in the past, after all, Yang Feng was still his grandson. If Yang Feng were being pursued and killed by others, his grandfather should also take him in. Even if his grandfather's heart was as hard as iron and refused to take him in, returning to his mother's residence should not be a problem.

  It was already deep winter, and although he was in the south, the weather had been very abnormal in China over the past few years. Places that shouldn't have snow were now covered in a thick layer of white, transforming into a silver world. Meanwhile, in the northern regions, it was common to not see any snow at all throughout the entire winter. Yang Feng was currently walking forward, one deep footprint at a time, and behind him, a long trail of footprints stretched out towards the distance.

  Yang Feng, despite having agility, had not yet reached the level of "treading snow without a trace". On the deep snow that was over a foot thick, he would still leave very deep footprints. However, if someone were to see Yang Feng in his current state, they would definitely be shocked. In such cold weather, Yang Feng was only wearing a thin shirt, and what was originally a white shirt had turned gray. The two sleeves were also nowhere to be found. His lower body was clad in an equally thin pair of pants, with the legs reduced to strips. This version of Yang Feng looked as pitiful as could be.

  However, looking at Yang Feng's appearance, he didn't feel the slightest bit cold, and there were even sweat beads on his forehead. A faint mist of water vapor drifted away from his head, still looking quite hot. This was actually one of the benefits of cultivating the Nine Suns Divine Art. Although he had only reached the first sun realm, this bit of cold was already nothing to Yang Feng.

  Just then, a small green head poked out of Yang Feng's arms, looked around and shivered before retreating back into his embrace. However, Yang Feng seemed to have not noticed the green head at all and continued walking forward. The green head belonged to a snake, which bore some resemblance to the giant python Yang Feng had encountered earlier. But why was this snake in Yang Feng's arms? And where did that green giant python go?

  The green snake in Yang Fenghua's belly is actually the giant python they met before, but to be precise, it shouldn't be called a snake anymore, it should be called a Jiao. It is what the Green Snake becomes after 500 years of cultivation, and if it cultivates for another thousand years, it will become a Jiaolong, and after another thousand years, the Jiaolong can become a Dragon! In other words, the Jiao in Yang Fenghua's belly is now in its dragon youth stage, and after evolving, it will become a dragon.

  This serpent has an 800-year-old Dao lineage, but it spent 500 years as a serpent. Although it has an 800-year-old Dao lineage, it still needs to cultivate for another 700 years before it can transform into a dragon. And the reason this serpent was trapped in the floating ice of that underground cave is because it coincidentally swallowed the Qinglian growing in that cave, and then somehow got sealed in the Xuan Ice. Unless it can refine the Qinglian, it won't be able to break through the Xuan Ice.

  While Yang Feng was cultivating the Nine Yin Scripture and the Nine Yang Divine Skill, he absorbed the cold energy of Xuan Bing, causing it to slowly shrink until it disappeared. This is why the snake was able to reappear. The unsealed snake was naturally very grateful to Yang Feng, and on his body, there was a breath that made it feel extremely comfortable, which is why it kept chasing after him until Yang Feng knew the snake had no ill intentions, at which point they became friends.

  Yang Feng's actual combat experience became richer under the accompaniment of Huan, and he gradually mastered the Nine Yin White Bone Claw, Jade Xiao Swordsmanship, and Spiral Nine Shadows. During this period, Huan also finally refined the Qinglian it had swallowed, increasing its power by 200 years, achieving a thousand years of Taoism, and only needed to cultivate for another 500 years to have the opportunity to transform into a Jiaolong.

  With the thousand-year-old cultivation base, the python had already been able to shrink its fifty-meter-long body, as thick as four adults, into a size of only one foot, and slipped into Yang Feng's arms. What surprised the python was that it found that the cultivation speed in Yang Feng's arms would increase a lot, so maybe it wouldn't take five hundred years for it to transform into a dragon, which further solidified its determination to follow Yang Feng.

  Yang Feng naturally didn't know the origin of Xiao Qing, but he felt that its ability to change size was very magical. Moreover, it could always follow him and guarantee his life safety. The more he fought with Xiao Qing, the more he could feel its strength. Although Yang Feng had already reached a high level of cultivation, he still couldn't inflict any damage on Xiao Qing when they sparred. In fact, Xiao Qing was just playing with him without using its full strength.

  Having such a powerful helper, Yang Feng became more confident in dealing with the Yang family in the future, and at the same time, he went even crazier in his cultivation. His recent goal was to defeat Xiao Qing, so during his free time, he would always find Xiao Qing to spar with him.

  Although there was a foot of deep snow under his feet, Yang Feng's speed was very fast. Originally, the place where he came out from underground was not far from Xijiang Miao Village. After finding the correct direction, Yang Feng quickly arrived in front of Xijiang Miao Village.

  Looking at the mountain village where he was born, Yang Feng felt a strange emotion for a while, feeling that this place was so familiar yet so strange. He stood in front of the village for a long time, and since it was already dark, no one noticed his presence. Yang Feng did not plan to pass through the outer village, so he used Spiral Nine Shadows, turned his body and disappeared on the spot, bypassing the outer village and arriving at a small mountain behind the inner village, where there was a very small wooden house, which was the place where Yang Feng and his mother lived together for ten years.

  The closer he got, the more excited Yang Feng became, and the deeper his hatred for the Yang family grew! Next to the small wooden house was a raised mound of earth, which was the grave of Yang Feng's mother. His mother had been buried there.

  Yang Feng walked up to the mound with heavy footsteps, looking at the wooden tombstone he had erected in front of it. Yang Feng immediately knelt down, and tears began to fall from his eyes, but he didn't dare cry out loud, fearing that he would disturb the people inside the village and bring unnecessary trouble upon himself. He could only sob there, a heavy sorrowful aura emanating from him and spreading out in all directions!