Duoming Ridge earned its ominous name for a reason: over a hundred years ago, this place had been a thriving small town. Then a great earthquake struck and unleashed a mountain fire, burying more than twenty thousand people within its bounds. After that catastrophe, the terrain shifted — the landscape became treacherous, wild undergrowth ran rampant, and the place was filled with bones of the wrongfully dead. Miasma hung thick in the air; anyone who wandered in would find themselves hopelessly lost, unable to find their way out. And so the name Duoming Ridge spread, and it became a name that made people’s faces change colour at the mere mention of it.

Having scouted as far as this, the members of the Mystic Clan were already losing their nerve about pressing deeper. For one, night had fallen, and the terrain was treacherous — it was difficult to find one’s way in the dark. For another, the miasma here was heavy, and the Yin energy oppressive. They feared they might lose their own people before accomplishing anything, which would be a losing exchange.

Gong Si, however, was growing anxious. He held the spinning compass in his hand and said: “The compass has already shown the position. A few more hours and we’ll reach the Upper Prime. That matches the time of the hexagram reading our clan’s young master performed — the great evil is set to descend into the world on the night of the full moon during this very day. We don’t have much time. Shouldn’t we locate the jiangshi first?”

“Fellow Daoist Jingyi, even so, the Upper Prime Festival is still more than a dozen hours away from the full moon. Now that we’ve already found the location indicated by the hexagram, we might as well wait for daylight before going deeper into the forest.” A disciple of the Feng Family by the name of Zhao said: “The sky is already dark, the forest here is dense, and the miasma is thick. Pressing forward recklessly could harm our own people — and if we’re already weakened when we face that jiangshi, I’m afraid we’ll be at a disadvantage.”

“Precisely. Even though we’ve all taken the medicinal pills, it is the dead of winter and yet the miasma of Duoming Ridge shows no signs of dispersing — which tells you how dense it truly is. The Yin energy inside is also oppressive. We must not rush ahead carelessly.” An elder from the Rong Family also chimed in: “Wherever there is heavy miasma, there are marshlands. If we charge in blindly, we may easily become trapped in the bogs and unable to free ourselves. If we are all mired within, would we not become like cornered beasts, only slowing ourselves down and giving that jiangshi a chance to escape?”

“Right, exactly. There are only a jiangshi — and there are dozens of us. It won’t be able to run far.”

“Besides, the full moon night is still a long way off.”

“We may not fear death, but we shouldn’t throw our lives away needlessly.”

“Even with the medicinal pills, we’re not immune to every poison.”

“Honestly, these past few days we haven’t slept — we’ve been following the waterways without stopping, and the compass has led us astray more than once.”

The voices of agreement came one after another, and the tone of each carried a faint note of grievance.

Gong Si’s expression turned as dark as the night sky. Inwardly, he felt a deep contempt. This is what the Mystic Clan has come to. Compared to the truly fearless and enlightened masters of a hundred years ago who guarded the people with no thought for themselves — these people fall far, far short.

Among those who had come with Gong Si, there were ten disciples of the Gong Family. Some were lower in cultivation than Gong Si, but a good number had a fiercer temper, and upon hearing all of this, someone let out a heavy, disdainful snort: “Throwing your lives away? Well then. Slaying evil and upholding the Way — that is what we, as cultivators, ought to do without hesitation. Otherwise, what exactly is the point of cultivation? To play the holy fraud and swindle a few coins from common folk? Or to con rich men out of their grand manors and their fair wives? The nerve of you to even say it aloud. If you’re so afraid of dying, you’d have been better off staying put in your respective clans, huddled up and enjoying your warm beds and hot wine. Why bother coming here to stand in the cold north wind?”

“Exactly. And these past few days — the detoxification pills our senior brother Jingyi provided? You lot swallowed them greedily enough, didn’t you? And these were consumed before we even entered the forest. Not a single word of thanks, and yet all the Yin energy and foul bile those pills drove out of you has apparently found its way to your mouths instead. Who exactly are you implying with all that unpleasant talk?”

“Honestly, if I had any shame left, I’d stick my fingers down my throat and cough the pills back up.”

“As if you would. Top-grade medicinal ingredients went into those — who’d have the heart to spit them out?”

The Gong Family members fired away at each other back and forth — but the words were clearly aimed at those who had been making snide remarks just moments before.

The rapid-fire verbal assault from the Gong clan, sharp-tongued as if dipped in crane-crest red, left the targets flushed with shame and fury. Fortunately the night was dark and no one could see their faces clearly, otherwise they might have died of humiliation on the spot.

And those few showed no sign of restraint, only growing more spirited by the second. The members of the Feng and Rong families turned sour-faced, thinking privately that these people must have been spending too much time around that little demon star of the Gong clan — their words were this vicious, this brazen, and they were still smug about it. Infuriating.

They all turned to look at another figure standing in the clearing — a Mystic Clan elder from the imperial family, bearing the bearing of an immortal sage, a man of exceptional seniority whose Daoist name was Kong Xu Zi.

Kong Xu Zi held his whisk and merely lifted an eyelid, without saying a single word.

Seeing this, the Gong clan members only grew more energized and were about to deliver a few more jabs, when Gong Si cleared his throat and said to his disciples: “All of these fellow Daoists have come in the name of slaying evil and upholding the Way. You must not speak carelessly.”

“Yes.” The Gong clan members said yes with their mouths, but their expressions made clear they could not care less.

Gong Si then looked at the large, assembled crowd and said: “Although it is true that the hexagram still shows more than a dozen hours remaining, divination has never been a fixed and immutable thing — it is filled with ten thousand possible variations. How can we be certain the hexagram hasn’t already shifted without our knowledge? Once the tide turns and the evil creature has emerged, we will be on the back foot.”

A brief silence fell.

Kong Xu Zi gave a small nod. “Fellow Daoist Jingyi makes a fair point. A hexagram is like a person’s fortune — a single decision can alter its appearance and change one’s fate entirely. We cannot rely wholly on the hexagram and simply wait for the foretold moment to arrive. Rather, we should seize the initiative — for instance, by slaying the jiangshi outright, cutting off the evil before it can emerge.”

Gong Si was in full agreement, as were the rest of the Gong clan members. The whole point of reading the hexagram in the first place was to seize advantage by means of foresight — the natural course of action was to use that advantage to change the outcome. Were these people truly sitting here waiting for the hexagram to fulfill itself?

The crowd had been backed into a corner, and embarrassment was plain on many faces.

Gong Si, seeing this, offered a way out: “The concerns raised by our fellow Daoists are not without merit — this terrain truly is treacherous, the miasma heavy, and the Yin energy oppressive. Real dangers, all of them. How about this: we send a small group ahead to scout the path. I’ll take the lead — who is willing to come?”

The Gong clan disciples naturally rallied behind their own, responding enthusiastically.

Seeing this, the other families found it impossible to stand aside entirely, and several more stepped forward.

“Since it is merely scouting, too many would be unwieldy — ten people can look out for one another just fine.” Gong Si selected three from his own clan, then picked two from each of the other families.

Kong Xu Zi rose and gestured for one of the Gong clan members to step back. “This old Daoist will shamelessly exploit his seniority and claim a scout’s spot. Jingyi and I will go on ahead together — the rest of you, wait here.”

The moment those words landed, the faces of the other families burned even hotter.

Kong Xu Zi was a member of the imperial Tantai family. Though the Tantai family had in recent years distanced itself from any Mystic Clan identity, preferring instead to call themselves the imperial family, they still kept a number of dedicated elders — and every one of them had genuine ability. The man before them was one such figure.

Now that he had stepped forward for what was ostensibly a scouting errand, it only made their own hesitation look all the more like cowardice.

But what was done was done. Kong Xu Zi and Gong Si had already taken the lead, pressing forward into the depths of Duoming Ridge.

The remaining Gong clan members rolled their eyes in unison, sat cross-legged on the spot, formed hand seals, and entered meditation where they stood — they had no patience for those who sought fame without deeds and yet shrank from death.

At that moment, a gust of Yin wind swept through, raising every hair on every body. All eyes turned toward the direction where Gong Si and the others had vanished, and a sense of foreboding rose quietly in their hearts.