Thinking of this, Chu Xuan suddenly stood up and started packing up.

A-Qing panicked a little, "Sir, sir, where exactly did my wife go?"

"Right, money, I can pay." He hurriedly reached into his pocket.

But Chu Xuan raised his hand to stop him, saying earnestly, "Fortune-telling relies on sincerity. You’re not sincere and are deliberately concealing something, so I cannot do this reading. Let’s part ways here."

After saying that, he picked up his fortune-telling banner and other things, turned around, and left. Qingqing and Gu Haitang hurriedly followed.

"Sir! Sir, wait for me." A-Qing anxiously chased after them.

"I said, I promise I won’t hide anything anymore."

Chu Xuan still didn’t stop, and it wasn’t until he walked out of the village that he turned back, speaking earnestly:

"The path of humans and demons are different. Your wife leaving like this may not be a bad thing. Live your life well from now on."

Hearing this, A-Qing’s face turned red, "My wife didn’t leave on her own! She can’t possibly abandon me, she must have been captured by someone."

As he spoke, A-Qing began to cry. He knelt on the ground and kowtowed, "Sir, I beg you to help me, I can do anything, anything at all..."

Chu Xuan pondered for a moment, "Follow me and talk while we walk. How do you know she was captured by someone?"

A-Qing quickly got up, wiping his tears and saying, "Just half a month ago, a wandering Daoist passed through Niu Gu Village and came to my house asking for a bowl of water to drink."

"My wife was very kind, so she immediately went to pour water for him to drink, but that middle-aged Daoist kept staring at her. I got a bit angry, so I stood in front of her and took her into the inner room."

"When I came out again, the Daoist was still there, pestering me with questions. I got impatient and used a broom to chase him out."

"The Daoist just kept sighing, and finally said to me: Your wife is a demon, it would be wise to part ways with her early on, otherwise great calamity will come later..."

A-Qing’s expression dimmed as he spoke.

"So did you know your wife was a demon?" Gu Haitang’s view actually agreed with that Daoist’s; humans and demons should not come together.

A-Qing opened his mouth but finally nodded dejectedly, "It all started three years ago..."

Near Niu Gu Village, there’s a Niu Gu Mountain. On the day before going to the county market, A-Qing led his beloved little horse to graze on the hillside, so it would have the strength to travel.

He loved this horse dearly, having grown up with it, washing it, and feeding it, never willing to hit or scold it.

The horse had a very gentle temperament, diligent in its work, and never threw tantrums.

Until that day, for some unknown reason, a small earthquake occurred in the nearby mountains, causing both man and horse on the hillside to be knocked down.

Curiously, although the quake wasn’t strong, a large crack opened up on Niu Gu Mountain, swallowing both man and horse.

If the horse hadn’t cushioned him, A-Qing might have been killed by the fall.

Even so, the horse sustained serious injuries, whimpering in pain. A-Qing became anxious and saddened, and at this moment, he suddenly saw something glowing in the darkness?

Upon closer inspection, it was a green, unfamiliar herb with small lantern-like white fruits attached, emitting the glow.

A-Qing remembered hearing from the elders that countless millennia ago, an Immortal had once ridden a bull on the Niu Gu Mountain, and to this day, there were still four bull hoof prints at the mountaintop.

He guessed this might be some kind of Immortal’s Spirit Medicine and, with a "dead horse becomes a live horse" mindset, he uprooted the entire plant and fed it to the horse little by little.

Magically, after consuming the herb, the horse’s injuries gradually healed.

Even more unbelievably, the horse itself began to glow too, first from within its belly, then emitting a strong light from its entire body.

The light was so intense that A-Qing couldn’t open his eyes, and after the light faded, he was dumbfounded—a naked young woman had replaced the vanished horse.

The young woman immediately approached him warmly, rubbing her head against him and licking his face with her tongue.

A-Qing took a long time to accept the fact that his horse had turned into a human being.

Then he was again at a loss; what to do now? If he took the woman back, the villagers would definitely suspect her origins.

He couldn’t just say the woman was transformed from a horse, right? Otherwise, she might be beaten to death as a demon by the villagers.

So A-Qing had a plan in mind; since he was going to the market anyway, he would just say he sold the horse and brought back a wife instead.

At this moment, the underground fissure unexpectedly began to close right where it was. A-Qing was immediately filled with panic, fearing that both he and the woman would be crushed to death underground.

So he devised a way to instruct his ’horse’ to carry him out.

The young woman quickly understood his intentions. Though clumsy, she was remarkably strong, and indeed, she carried A-Qing out of the ground before the fissure closed.

When A-Qing looked again from the surface, there was no trace of any opening or closing, leaving him astonished.

He then took off his upper garment to cover the woman, telling her to hide in a nearby grove and not to move.

Then A-Qing sneaked back home to fetch a set of men’s clothes for the woman to wear.

With everything arranged, the two really went to the county market, mainly to get the woman some proper apparel so there would be no suspicion when they returned.