Reborn Cat Sheriff

Chapter 539 The Taoist Nun (Please Subscribe)

Li Siyu stood there dumbfounded in the crowd, not understanding what the villagers were saying.

Who is the Taoist nun?

Why do I have to make her see me?
Could there possibly be anything wrong with this?
Lin Ge squinted and looked around at these people. He had just been feeling relieved that they hadn't made things difficult for Li Siyu, so why did a Taoist nun suddenly appear?

However, judging from their attitudes, they seemed to genuinely respect this woman called "Grandma Daoist." The old woman only mentioned her name, and then no one objected or spoke up for her; it seemed the matter was settled.

However, after all that commotion, it was already late, and there wasn't enough time to go see the Taoist nun today. So the aunt who had invited Li Siyu to stay at her house earlier took Li Siyu home for dinner and rest.

Lin Ge stayed where he was to watch the commotion. He noticed that the people there rarely had a good topic to discuss from outside the village, so a few people dispersed and went home, while the others remained squatting and standing at the entrance of the ancestral hall, chatting and laughing.

They didn't mind the cat Li Siyu brought, and they certainly couldn't have imagined that the cat could understand human speech. Aside from marveling at the cat's fearlessness and boldness, they jokingly remarked that city girls were indeed different; not only were their faces like peeled eggs, but even their cats were foreign breeds. One older woman wondered if this kind of cat could catch mice, while another laughed, saying the cat was treated like a precious little emperor—how could it possibly do any work?
"I've done more work and done more things than you can imagine!"

Lin Ge mentally complained.

Then their conversation turned to everyday matters, occasionally sighing about how Li Siyu's father had finally settled down outside but died young, and why Li Siyu's uncles and aunts hadn't come back with her this time.

Lin Ge listened for a while but didn't get any detailed information. These people didn't talk about the Taoist nun at all, which made Lin Ge curious but he couldn't do anything about it.

Helpless, he returned to Li Siyu's side, where she was sitting alone awkwardly eating a bowl of noodles, surrounded by the rest of the family.

Although everyone was quite polite, Li Siyu still felt very awkward watching this monkey show-like scene. She could only eat her noodles while briefly answering their various questions and satisfying the curiosity of the aunt's son and daughter-in-law.

There were nine or ten eggs in the bowl, so full that Li Siyu struggled for a long time to finish eating them.

Seeing Lin Ge return, she wanted to ask him for help but felt embarrassed to feed the cat in front of others. The older woman, seeing that Li Siyu couldn't eat anymore, took the bowl from Li Siyu's hand, carried it back to the kitchen, and then went to the next room to make Li Siyu's bed. This small room was originally her grandson's, but the child had gone to study in the countryside and only came back once a month. Now that Li Siyu was sleeping there, naturally the sheets and blankets had to be changed.

Poor Lingo, however, didn't get a single thing to eat. It seemed that cats in this rural area weren't fed; they were allowed to find their own food outside. Plus, Lingo was a different breed, so nobody even suggested feeding the cat.

It was only before bedtime that Li Siyu secretly fed Lin Ge a can of cat food and two cat treats, which prevented Lin Ge from going hungry.

Nothing more was said that night. Li Siyu slept restlessly, tossing and turning for a long time before finally falling asleep.

The next morning, Li Siyu woke up early and got dressed. When she went out, she saw that the family had gotten up even earlier, and her father had already gone to the fields with a hoe and was just returning.

This made Li Siyu a little embarrassed, but the aunt smiled and comforted her, saying that her husband was just being nosy and making trouble for no reason.

Then, a little while later, the old man who was the first person I met yesterday came over.

He unexpectedly changed into a Zhongshan suit with obvious creases, which looked like a treasured piece of clothing that he rarely wore.

Seeing that Li Siyu had already gotten up, his expression softened, and he turned around and asked Li Siyu to come with him.

Li Siyu quickly went back to her room to get some gifts to take with her. The old man glanced at them but didn't object. He just slowly walked out of the village with his hands behind his back.

"So the Taoist nun didn't live in the village after all?"

Lin Ge suddenly realized something.

But based on his impressions of the journey yesterday, the nearest village was several kilometers away. Was the old man planning to walk there?

To Lin Ge's surprise, the old man didn't set off after leaving the village. Instead, he took a short detour towards the mountain behind the village. His steps were steady and his pace was fast; his climbing efficiency even surpassed Li Siyu's, quickly leaving the man and cat behind.

Li Siyu and Lin Ge exchanged a glance and quickly sped up.

After walking for more than an hour on the rugged mountain path, from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountainside, and then down a slope to a valley, Lin Ge was exhausted but finally saw signs of human habitation in the distance ahead.

It's a stone temple!

Unlike what you see in movies, TV series, or tourist attractions, this was just a stone house nestled halfway up a mountain. It was rather low and even had quite a few defects, but the two rounded stone beasts at the entrance and the marks on the plaque above the gate proved that it was different from ordinary houses. Upon closer inspection, Lin Ge noticed that the ground in front of the door was made of fine gravel rather than cement slabs, and the large trees on both sides of the door were unexpectedly different from the surrounding trees, as if they had been specially transplanted.

Upon closer inspection, Lin Ge saw a small courtyard enclosed by a bamboo grove behind the stone temple, containing several simple tiled houses. Vegetables were growing in the courtyard, along with chicken coops enclosed by bamboo fences, where a few small animals were wandering around.

As Lingo approached, the little yellow chicks scattered in all directions in a panic. Soon, five large, imposing roosters burst out of the straw shed and began clucking loudly at Lingo without any politeness.

Amid the commotion, the temple's arched wooden door creaked open, and a Taoist nun wearing a Taoist hat and robes walked out expressionlessly.

She looked quite old, even older than the old man who had led the way. Her originally plain blue Taoist robe was faded from washing, but thankfully there were no patches. Upon opening the door and seeing Li Siyu and the old man standing there, a hint of displeasure appeared on her wrinkled face. Her heavy eyelids narrowed slightly, barely revealing a slit, and without a word, she turned and went back into the temple.

The old woman and the nun didn't close the door, so their attitude was quite clear.

The old man nodded to Li Siyu and went in first, followed closely by Li Siyu and Lin Ge.

Upon entering, he found the interior quite dark, and it didn't seem like the place would have electricity or running water. Contrary to Lin Ge's expectations, the temple didn't contain towering Buddha statues. Instead, the walls were riddled with countless palm-sized recesses, most of which contained densely packed, fist-sized clay human-shaped sculptures. Upon closer inspection, they did resemble Buddhas, given their bald heads. There were probably several hundred of these small clay Buddhas in the room. Besides these, there was an altar on a table facing the entrance, upon which sat a yellowed, even blackened, paper painting of Guanyin. Two candles burned on the table, their wax pooling beneath them.

The only light coming in from the front door and two candles illuminated the entire room, which explains why it was dim and filled with smoke, and the air felt dusty.

Overall, Lingo felt that this place could be called the Thousand Buddha Temple.

But to be honest, Lin Ge still found it a little strange that a Taoist nun lived in a temple. Shouldn't they generally live in Taoist temples? Of course, it's also possible that such places don't particularly adhere to these things.

Li Siyu followed the old man and bowed to the various Buddha statues around them, thus completing the entry ceremony.

Then the old man led her out the back door, and as soon as she looked up, she saw the old Taoist nun from before making shoe soles in the yard. They were the kind of old-fashioned shoes with many layers of soles. She didn't even look up, but patiently sat on a wooden chair, using an awl to poke holes in the shoe soles.

In short, he's a rather eccentric person.

Lin Ge didn't know why the old woman lived alone in such a place, but judging from his sense of smell, it was true that she was the only permanent resident of the temple. The entire room and surrounding area smelled only of her, and even the hundreds of clay Buddha statues seemed to have been sculpted by her alone. Lin Ge also saw damp mud and sand on the ground in a corner of the courtyard, strongly suspecting that this was the soil the old woman used to sculpt the Buddhas.

The old woman gestured to Li Siyu, who quickly put down the gifts she had brought and then stood respectfully in front of the Taoist nun.

She didn't even understand why she was doing this, but she felt that the purpose of coming here was to let the Taoist nun take a good look at her and hear her say a few words that the villagers would believe.

"Li Weidong's daughter?" the Taoist nun suddenly spoke, without raising her head.

Her voice was flat and emotionless. But as soon as she spoke, Lin Ge sensed that the old man waiting at the back door seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

why?
Is it really necessary to be so nervous?
Lin Ge didn't quite understand.

“Yes! Grandma Taoist, my name is Li Siyu, and I am Li Weidong’s daughter.”

Li Siyu quickly agreed.

“When you were leaving the village, I told him not to go. But he didn’t listen, or maybe his brother persuaded him to think the outside world was better. As a result, he passed away before an old man like me just a few years later.”

The old woman spoke in a rather flat and straightforward tone, as if these things had nothing to do with her.

Li Siyu pursed her lips, unsure how to respond to her great-aunt's words, but as her own daughter, she still felt somewhat uncomfortable hearing them.

"Don't you like it?"

The old woman lifted her eyelids slightly, then put the work she was doing down on the ground at her feet.

Seeing that Li Siyu remained silent, she continued, "When your father took you away back then, he had the same attitude as you. He felt that staying in the village for the rest of his life was not good, and that the outside world was more exciting. But a person only lives once, so what's the point of excitement or not? When you die and are buried, aren't you just a handful of yellow earth? He wasn't the kind of person who was quick-witted. If he moved to another place, wouldn't he still just be toiling in the fields?"

"..."

Li Siyu really had no way to refute this. Her father was indeed an honest man who didn't know how to make big money. Until his death, he did make a living by farming and gathering mountain products.

"But if he didn't go out, how could he have raised Li Siyu so well? This old man only knows how to coax people to stay in the village and be content. Doesn't he understand that people have to slowly venture out to see hope?"

Lin Ge disagreed with the old woman's words. Although she might be right about people, things weren't calculated that way.

"This cat..."

The old woman suddenly glanced at Lin Ge, then looked up at Li Siyu and asked, "Did you bring this back?"

Li Siyu nodded quickly and then introduced Lin Ge, saying, "Yes! Its name is Mimi. It's the police cat at the Zhanghe Police Station where I work, and it's also a well-known and outstanding police officer in our Chu Province."

"..."

The old man behind him paused for a moment.

Are city dwellers this adventurous these days? Even a cat can be a police officer. What does it do as a police officer? Catch mice?

"Leave it with me, you can go now!"

The old woman beckoned to Lin Ge and then waved him away without any politeness.

Li Siyu wanted to speak, but the old woman behind her pressed her shoulder and shook her head to stop her. Even so, Li Siyu was still worried, wondering what this somewhat strange old woman wanted to do with Mimi.
“There have been a lot of rats in the temple lately, so I’m asking this cat to help me with some chores. I’ll return it once I’m done catching them.”

The old woman's words finally relieved Li Siyu.

But Lin Ge's ears twitched; he knew perfectly well that the old woman wasn't telling the truth. Could he possibly hide the existence of rats in the temple from him? If they really wanted to catch rats, they wouldn't need him; those five roosters in the coop next door were clearly not to be trifled with.

But since the old woman had spoken, no one could refuse. Li Siyu looked at Lin Ge worriedly, and seeing that he calmly wagged his tail at her, she followed the old woman back down the mountain.

Soon only Lin Ge remained in the temple, while the old woman continued stitching shoe soles as if calling Lin Ge was just a spur-of-the-moment thing.

Lin Ge wasn't in a hurry either, so he simply squatted down and patiently watched the old woman work.

The old woman and the cat seemed to be having a contest of willpower, neither willing to utter a sound first. In the end, the old woman had no choice but to admit defeat, sighing as she looked at Lin Ge and said, "You rascal, what's the point of bullying an old woman? You were the one who lured me to this place back then, and in the blink of an eye, more than forty years have passed, and you've never once come back to see me. Now that I'm about to turn into dust, you've come, but what's the point?"

"Ow?"

Lin Ge tilted his head and looked at the old woman, not understanding for a moment whether she was talking to him or muttering to herself.

Not only had I never been to such a remote mountain area before, but with cats living forty years in the blink of an eye, what cat could possibly have such a long lifespan? But if she was thinking of other cats, what did the old woman mean by staring at me?
"Everyone says cats have spirits! I didn't believe it at first, but then I did. After decades, I've become increasingly puzzled, but now I have no choice but to believe it again. I say, cat, you can understand me, right?"

The old woman put down her work, her slightly white eyes fixed on Lin Ge, and said, "Don't worry, I just wanted you to keep me company. If you really don't want to listen, you can leave anytime. Heh, I don't want to have too much to do with the Li family down the mountain, and they don't want to listen to an old woman like me nagging. Talking too much can easily breed resentment and lead to gossip. But nagging a cat won't cause any trouble. Oh, come here, I'll give you something."

As she spoke, the old woman stood up shakily, turned around, and went to the low-ceilinged inner room at the back. Lin Ge peeked through the crack in the open door and found a simple bedroom with only a bed made of stacked stones covered with a pale blue, faded quilt.

Lin Ge heard a rustling sound coming from inside the house. Soon, the old woman came out again, holding a pendant in her hand.

The pendant cord is somewhat unique; it's made using a technique from decades ago where a ring of paper is pasted around the inside of a hollow plastic circle to create patterns and designs. The pendant wrapped in it looks like just a simple plastic item, and is very lightweight.

Lin Ge let the old woman hang the necklace around his neck. Looking down at the plastic tube necklace cord, he noticed that it was probably stuffed with newspaper or something else; the black and white printing gave it a vintage feel.

It's likely that the old woman made it herself, so its value shouldn't be judged by the materials used. Lin Ge let out a shout as a way of thanking the Taoist nun, then saw her wave her hand, indicating she could get lost.

"Weren't you supposed to chat with me and catch mice too?"

Lin Ge was a little puzzled, but he still obediently returned from the temple gate. When he reached the threshold, he glanced back and saw the old woman sitting there cracking pumpkin seeds, seemingly without any intention of seeing him off.

From afar, she appeared extremely hunched and petite; when she bent over, she almost curled up into a ball, able to shrink into a chair. Yet this seemingly frail woman had lived alone in this mountain temple for forty years…

To be honest, if it were Lingo himself, he felt that he could never have done it.

But upon reflection, and considering that there might be some other secret behind that particular era, Lin Ge could understand the old woman's insistence. She seemed to be anticipating something, but Lin Ge couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

Not far from the temple, Li Siyu and the old man were actually standing there waiting for Lin Ge.

As Lin Ge approached, he heard the old woman whispering to Li Siyu, "The Taoist nun isn't a member of the Li family; she's a refugee from elsewhere. Of course, that's all from that era, so there's not much to say. Anyway, back then, she didn't want to marry into the village and couldn't enter Li Family Village. Somehow, she found this dilapidated temple in the mountains and has lived here for decades. She occasionally comes down the mountain to help the villagers with medical care, give advice, and exchange for daily necessities. But she's rarely come down in the last ten years or so. We usually bring rice and flour to her when we need something. She's good at judging people and understands some things we peasants don't understand. Li Family Village has encountered trouble several times, and it was the Taoist nun who gave us the advice. Oh, and by the way, all the hundreds or thousands of Buddha statues in that temple were sculpted by the Taoist nun herself, and she's been doing it for thirty or forty years..."

(End of this chapter)