Before they had encountered the Daoist, they had already traversed this path down the mountain seven or eight times back and forth. Each time they had come close to the foot of the mountain, a fork in the road would appear without rhyme or reason, turning them back to the middle of the slope.
He still remembered how Chang Rong had joked at the time: “Could it be we’ve run into a spirit maze?” He had said that when he was small, his mother used to tell him about such things — that in remote, cold, gloomy places like this, strange occurrences were common. A perfectly ordinary road would suddenly change shape, bewildering travelers until they lost their minds entirely.
One of the soldiers, a man called Wei Bo, had enthusiastically agreed upon hearing this, and added that if one truly encountered a spirit maze, there were ways to deal with it.
A spirit maze feared two things above all else: first, crude and obscene cursing — the more vigorous the cursing, the easier the formation would be broken.
Second, the urine of a young boy. — At that, the whole group had erupted in laughter. Chang Rong had laughed the loudest of all, slapping Wei Bo on the shoulder and hollering: “We’ve got no shortage of the other thing, but young boys’ urine is something we’ve got plenty of! I’d even stake my guarantee that our master is still a young boy himself!”
Lin Xiao had not expected Chang Rong to dare tease him as well, and had reprimanded him with a straight face for several lines.
He wanted nothing to do with talk of ghosts and gods! He had simply instructed Chang Rong and the others to stick their fletched arrows into the roadside at intervals to mark their path, and while daylight still held, had led the group down the mountain again.
As it turned out, although they had not retraced the same looping route this time, they had stumbled inexplicably into that uninhabited village.
Those arrows they had planted as guides had been entirely useless — every single one had been moved to a different position by some mysterious force!
“Just ahead, after that bend, there is a small stream. If all goes smoothly, after walking another half an hour or so, we will be out of the mountain.” The Daoist’s voice carried from ahead, cutting through Lin Xiao’s recollections.
He raised his head at the sound and indeed heard the faint murmur of running water somewhere in the distance. The eerily forbidding valley, given color by the sound of that stream, transformed instantly — like a few lively carp introduced into a stagnant pond, it came alive at once.
Chang Rong and the others were both startled and delighted. “How did we never come across this stream before?”
As if you could have found it — the Daoist inwardly scoffed, allowing a satisfied expression to cross his face. “Even now, we can only hear it and not see it. We must go around that great rock before the stream will come into view.”
He continued: “If you had not encountered this humble Daoist today, I dare say you could have walked for three days and three nights without finding your way out of this mountain. Over the past three years, countless people have entered and vanished without a trace. It has earned a well-known reputation in the local area as a mountain of ill omen. After enough people met their fates here, no one dared to come near anymore. Even today, if this humble Daoist had not urgently needed to gather certain medicinal herbs that grow only in this mountain — and if I did not possess some small measure of spiritual power — I would not have dared to enter so recklessly.”
“You’ve only made me more curious,” Chang Rong said, turning back to look at the Daoist. “From the sound of it, this mountain only began acting strangely three years ago?”
The Daoist nodded. “Though this humble Daoist was ordained in this region, I am not a native of these parts. The rumors about this mountain are things I heard from fellow Daoists at the monastery.”
He spoke, lifting his head to scan the surroundings. “This mountain is called Mang Mountain. It was once known far and wide across hundreds of li as a blessed land favored by immortals. On the mountain there was a village called Renji Village — the very uninhabited village you saw today. Most of the villagers there were hunters who had lived in these hills for generations, born and raised on the land. They had dwelt in the mountain from time immemorial, living by the hunt. Though their lives were modest, they could be said to have lived in peace and contentment. In earlier years, the villagers began bringing the wild fruits they gathered and the game they caught to the market to sell. Gradually, over time, their circumstances grew prosperous…”
Everyone thought back to the silent, desolate uninhabited village they had seen that day. Who could have imagined that it too had once known prosperity and bustle — and what could have happened afterward to reduce it to such a state of desolation?
As if anticipating what was on everyone’s minds, the Daoist’s expression became grave. “The local people guard their silence about what happened in those days with absolute secrecy. This humble Daoist had to go to considerable lengths to learn even a fragment of it. From what I understand, three years ago, a villager from Renji Village suddenly went to the county magistrate’s office to report a strange occurrence. Within a span of seven days, more than thirty head of livestock had disappeared from the village, and at night the villagers constantly heard a woman weeping. The villagers were seized with panic and begged the authorities to send someone to investigate and apprehend the culprit. But the magistrate, upon learning that it was merely a matter of missing livestock, paid it no mind at all, offered a few dismissive words, and sent the villager home.”
Those words struck a chord in Chang Rong, who cursed bitterly: “A blind, incompetent official!”
The Daoist offered no opinion on Chang Rong’s outburst, and continued: “Not long afterward, disaster struck Renji Village — every last one of the hundred or more inhabitants vanished overnight without a trace, and not even their bodies were ever found—”
Before the Daoist had finished speaking, it was as if countless ghosts were answering his words: the mountain forest, which had been utterly silent, suddenly erupted in a wailing, weeping clamor. The sound was like sobbing, like lamentation — a haunting, terrifying cry that seemed to reach into the very soul.
The group was caught completely off guard and started in fright.
Lin Xiao’s expression sharpened at once. He swiftly drew the sword at his waist. Chang Rong and several of the attendants spurred their horses forward simultaneously to take up positions flanking Lin Xiao. One of the attendants, glancing around in alarm, stammered: “Wh-what is that sound? It’s utterly horrifying.”
“The wailing of a hundred ghosts!” The Daoist’s complexion changed drastically. He vaulted off the horse in a single leap, hitched up his robes, and broke into a flat-out sprint. Running and shouting at the same time, he cried: “If we don’t move now, it will be too late! If we go around that great rock ahead, we’ll find the path down the mountain! Hurry! While that evil entity has not yet emerged, we must leave this place at once!”
“Move!” Lin Xiao urged his horse forward without a moment’s hesitation.
They rounded a boulder taller than a man, and the cramped mountain path suddenly opened wide before them. A clear stream appeared in the sight of all.
“Just ahead — if we ford this stream—” The words had barely left his mouth when the Daoist abruptly stopped dead in his tracks.
Lin Xiao and the others found this strange. Chang Rong called out in surprise: “What’s wrong with you—” but when he saw clearly what lay before them, the rest of the words vanished as though someone had seized him by the throat and choked them off.
By the edge of the stream, a young woman was crouching, leaning forward to wash her long hair in the current. She washed it with the utmost care and attention. The bright red sleeves of her garment had slid back with her movements, baring her slender arms — her skin so white it seemed a color not of the human world.
The moonlight fell like the finest silver silk, gently tracing the contours of her silhouette in a soft rim of silver.
Stranger still: every unsettling and unruly sound that had filled the valley seemed to return to silence the moment this young woman appeared. In the quiet moonlight, the only sound was the unhurried splash of her cupping water.
Lin Xiao and the others stood transfixed by the scene before them and fell into a prolonged silence.
After what felt like a very long time, someone managed to squeeze out a single difficult sentence: “It seems none of us will be leaving tonight.”