Meng Jinsong stood dumbfounded for a moment: “But I’ve never examined your golden bell closely. Those patterns and such—I can’t replicate them.”
The Beast-Subduing Golden Bell had always been kept in storage and treated as a sacred object. On the rare occasions it was brought out, he had only glimpsed it fleetingly, seeing just its general appearance.
Meng Qianzi responded impatiently: “I’ve never examined it closely either. How many women who wear jewelry can describe the detailed patterns of their accessories? As long as it’s roughly similar with a comparable appearance, that’s sufficient.”
Xin Ci had initially wanted to volunteer. By coincidence, he had helped Meng Qianzi safeguard her accessories and, being extremely curious about the golden bell, often took it out to admire it carefully. He was more familiar with it than Meng Qianzi herself, the rightful owner. He could even sketch out the general patterns from memory…
However, seeing Meng Qianzi’s indifferent attitude, he decided against it. If the emperor wasn’t worried, why should he go out of his way to be concerned?
After leaving the room, Meng Jinsong and Xin Ci almost simultaneously let out long sighs of relief, then each leaned their backs against the wall.
Meng Jinsong’s legs were genuinely weak: The entire night had been like riding a roller coaster, with multiple ups and downs, alternating between ice and fire. Even though things had finally stabilized, waves of aftershock continued to surge through him endlessly.
Xin Ci was bewildered in his typical busybody fashion: When something went wrong, his emotions needed to align with everyone else’s.
After staring blankly for several seconds, he finally said to Meng Jinsong: “Our Qianzi is incredibly bold, covering up everything with one hand, deceiving superiors and subordinates… No, just deceiving superiors, while dragging us into the deception.”
Meng Jinsong had come to his senses: “Actually, Qianzi’s approach makes sense. Making a big deal of it benefits no one.”
Having just arrived in Western Hunan, she had established her authority before making an appearance. The local mountain folk were probably waiting with excitement to see her. However, first her eye was injured, and then she lost the golden bell—how was this any different from an official losing their seal of office? If it were him, he too would find it difficult to save face. Moreover, whoever took the golden bell might try to exploit it for a high price. If they used the golden bell to threaten the Mountain Ghost Clan, that would put them in a very passive position. Open investigation truly wasn’t as effective as secret inquiry…
Xin Ci added: “I understand. If an issue can be resolved within a small circle, no one wants it to escalate. But how do we find it?”
Meng Jinsong pressed his fingers against his brow. The night’s events had indeed exhausted him: “We’ll have to rely on that fake corpse. Hopefully, when we meet Zhu Youke’s people tomorrow, we’ll get some leads.”
Zhu Youke again.
Xin Ci wondered: “Are all the people coming tomorrow Zhu Youke’s?”
More or less. Meng Jinsong nodded: “Most of them are.”
Xin Ci frowned: “This Zhu fellow seems quite influential. Is he the local boss? And what about him? Isn’t he coming? That seems rather disrespectful to us, doesn’t it?”
Meng Jinsong felt both amused and annoyed. He had been tense, but this made him chuckle, which caused him to lose his breath. He lacked the energy and inclination to explain, so he simply headed back to his room, leaving only a few words: “Make good use of the mountain encyclopedia.”
What the hell! Zhu Youke was in the mountain encyclopedia? He had thought it was some middle-aged, greasy big shot named Zhu who controlled the region.
Xin Ci hurriedly opened the app.
Unexpectedly, this “Zhu You” (sometimes written as “Zhu You”) was also known as “Heavenly Medicine,” first appearing in the medical text “Plain Questions.” It referred to an ancient method of treatment that required no surgery or medication. One only needed to find a skilled practitioner to perform spells and talismans to cure ailments. For instance, if someone fell from a height and broke all four limbs with no hope of survival, a Zhu Youke doctor would find a cat or dog, perform incantations, and the person would walk again while the animal would die with all four limbs broken. In plain terms, the animal substituted for the person, suffering the punishment of death.
During the Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi described it as “transferring,” which of course meant “relocating.” Where did the illness go? It was exorcised and moved away through rituals.
By the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, it became even more extraordinary, directly incorporated into the Imperial Medical Academy’s Thirteen Departments. This meant that Zhu Youke, like ophthalmology, dentistry, gynecology, and acupuncture, was an official branch of Chinese medicine for treating illnesses.
Later, during the Longqing era of the Ming Dynasty—specifically in 1571—for unknown reasons, the “Zhu You” and “Massage” departments were removed from the Thirteen Departments, leaving only eleven thereafter.
Xin Ci sighed with emotion: Indeed, any discipline needed a respectable identity and official recognition. After being expelled, both Zhu Youke and massage therapy seemed to fare poorly. Massage became associated with small shops glowing with pink lights on street corners, while Zhu Youke, with its spells and talismans, appeared to be purely feudal superstition.
He continued reading.
Zhu Youke specialized in talismans and incantations. Since it had once been listed among the Imperial Medical Academy’s Thirteen Departments, it was naturally used for healing and saving lives. Its methods were reportedly powerful, allegedly capable of reviving the dead. The Chen Prefecture talismans and gu sorcery of Western Hunan, described as mystical and even terrifyingly bizarre, as well as the famous corpse-driving practice, were initially categorized under… Zhu Youke.
Before liberation, deep in the mountains of Western Hunan, numerous ethnic minority villages were scattered about, predominantly Miao and Tujia settlements. Most of these villages were in remote locations, built along steep mountain terrain. Due to cultural differences, villagers rarely interacted with the outside world, closing their doors and living self-sufficiently in extreme isolation.
After the founding of the People’s Republic, the government increased infrastructure investment in key villages, helping with electricity and water supply, and extending roads as far as possible into these areas. People tend to aspire to better conditions—in simple terms, places that offer improved living standards. Consequently, large numbers of mountain dwellers relocated from their remote villages, moving toward larger settlements or even cities.
As a result, the deep mountain villages gradually emptied, most becoming completely abandoned. In the few that weren’t deserted, those who remained were mostly elderly people with limited mobility who preferred to stay put, eerily silent even during daylight hours.
Ba Hang Village was one such place.
Technically, it no longer belonged to Wuling County, bordering its edge. Originally, a dense forest in a valley, the villagers had forcibly cleared a patch of flat land for crops and houses. Being close to the forest and fearing wild animal attacks, most buildings were stilted houses with three-story cypress wood frames. The ground floor was mostly left open for livestock, while the upper two floors were living quarters, with roofs densely covered in blue-gray tiles.
Mountain folk preferred repairing the old rather than replacing it with new. When houses developed flaws, they patched them, nailing pieces here and filling gaps there. Consequently, even the newest house in the village had been built at least forty or fifty years ago.
The nearest road was over ten kilometers from the village. For the inaccessible portions, one could only travel on foot or by mule. This inevitably accelerated the village’s visible abandonment: At night, only four or five households had lights on, and the weeds in the farmland in front of the doors grew as high as a person’s waist, with no one to tend them.
It was past one o’clock in the morning, and the most imposing stilted house in Ba Hang Village still had its lights on.
Of course, “imposing” didn’t mean it was new or luxurious. It was equally dilapidated and, like other houses in the village, gave the impression of a dangerous structure in need of repair. It was “imposing” only because its frame was the tallest and largest, and because its roof featured a privately installed satellite dish for receiving television signals, as well as a cluster of shiny household solar panels.
Jiang Lian lived on the second floor and was currently bathing. Just as he had covered his head with snow-white shampoo foam, the rushing water sound suddenly stopped.
Irritated, Jiang Lian stretched out his arm and banged twice on the water heater above.
The water returned, pattering down, but just as it was enough to flatten the foam on his head, it stopped again.
With foam flowing over his face, making it difficult to open his eyes, Jiang Lian furrowed his brows and reached up to knock again. Perhaps he misjudged the force, because there was a clang, as if a screw had come loose and the water heater was about to fall.
Startled, Jiang Lian quickly stepped back, then wiped his eyes and looked up: Fortunately, the water heater had only fallen on one side. Originally hanging straight, it now tilted at a thirty-degree angle, still swaying.
Speechless, Jiang Lian cursed: “Damn it.”
He grabbed a towel to dry his hair. As he did so, he sniffed and felt the shampoo scent was still too strong, impossible to ignore. He went outside to get two bottles of mineral water, bent his head, and squeezed and poured them over his head, finally managing to complete this makeshift “bath.”
After putting on his pajamas and coming out, he heard a chopping sound from downstairs. Knowing Old Ga was still awake, he went directly over and leaned against the rickety wooden railing to look down: Below, a fire was burning in the hearth, with an iron pot supported on a frame. Old Ga was squatting on the ground, head down, chopping preserved meat on a cutting board.
Actually, local people were more accustomed to setting the fire pit inside the house for warmth, wind protection, rain shelter, and convenience in smoking preserved meat in winter. Old Ga had a fire pit inside his house too, but whenever weather permitted, he preferred cooking outside, probably out of love for nature.
Jiang Lian called out: “Old Ga!”
Old Ga looked up.
He was a man in his sixties with black hair, short, stiff bristles, but his face was deeply tanned and wrinkled. He wore a blue cloth jacket typical of what rural officials wore in the ’70s and ’80s, with sleeves rolled up to his arms and buttons fastened neatly at the collar, seemingly not minding the constriction.
Jiang Lian gestured toward the room: “One side of the water heater fell off.”
Old Ga responded with an “Oh”: “I’ll add another nail tomorrow.”
“What are you doing?”
“Eating.”
“Eating in the middle of the night?”
“I eat whenever I’m hungry.”
There was no need to confine oneself to three meals a day; one should eat whenever hungry. Jiang Lian found Old Ga’s statement quite philosophical, and temporarily couldn’t think of a more brilliant response, so he walked back to his room, to the wall-mounted mirror.
The mirror was as old as the stilted house—a rectangular half-body mirror with a gold-painted wooden frame that had almost completely worn off. In the bottom right corner of the mirror was an almost detached green and red landscape painting with peeling edges. The inscription read: “Beautiful Mountains, Beautiful Waters, Beautiful Times.”
In these beautiful mountains, beautiful waters, and beautiful times, Jiang Lian’s appearance was reflected.
He wasn’t very old, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight at most. His hair, due to vigorous towel-drying, stuck out in all directions without any style. His face was handsome, the kind that stood out in a crowd with high recognition and turned heads. His eye corners curved slightly upward, a shape said to indicate a somewhat arrogant personality. His eyes were even harder to describe—people say eyes are the windows to the soul, but through these windows, beyond a glimpse of casual indifference toward everything, nothing else could be seen.
Suddenly, Jiang Lian drew in a sharp breath, quickly unbuttoning two buttons and pulling one side of his collar open: On the side of his neck, where the bamboo pole had struck him, a spot that hadn’t broken earlier but had swollen significantly like a reddish flesh-colored worm, had now ruptured with streaks of blood flowing out, some light, some deep—altogether an unpleasant sight.
Jiang Lian pulled out some tissues to wipe it, then applied some ointment, tentatively dabbing at the edges of the wound before pulling back with a pained hiss, muttering: “Too vicious.”
This was practically banditry, striking first thing… Well, not exactly. Before striking, she had shouted something—he hadn’t heard clearly, something about a “fox” and “kidneys,” probably some code language.
Master Gan was right; these deep mountains and forests of Western Hunan truly produced ruthless characters. That woman’s strikes were fast, accurate, and merciless. Who knew what her background was? Especially that initial backhand strike—no exaggeration, if it had been a knife, he would have been decapitated on the spot. Even so, the force had nearly reached his skull, almost giving him a concussion, causing him to see darkness throughout the fight with a dazed mind.
After treating the wound simply, Jiang Lian put down the ointment bottle, sat in a chair, and picked up a chain from the table to examine closely.
The material was unclear, resembling an alloy with a brass-yellow color. The chain consisted of thin, flat spiral clasps interlocked like shackles, with a round metal piece dangling every few links. In ancient times, this was a type of bell—counting; there were nine metal pieces in total. This design looked like an ankle chain, though it was unclear why that woman had worn it at her waist.
Of course, how it ended up in his possession was equally strange: When he grabbed the glass jar, he had grabbed this as well. Later, when the woman struck his hand with the bamboo pole, his joints immediately became numb and stiff, unable to extend for a long time. He had fled across several mountain peaks, clutching the glass lid and this chain. Only when he thought of discarding them did he realize he was still holding the chain.
In the yellowish light, he could see that each metal piece had indecipherable engravings.
Jiang Lian retrieved a German-made SCH portable magnifying glass from his suitcase. Such lenses were typically used for examining jewelry, watches, and stamps—perhaps a waste of talent for this purpose. As he examined the chain closely, he kept paper and pen nearby, attempting to copy the patterns.
He had just drawn two when a murmuring conversation came from downstairs. A barely perceptible trace of resignation flashed across Jiang Lian’s eyes. He pushed the chain aside, covering it with the flipped paper, creating a chaotic desktop appearance, then picked up the ointment bottle and casually dipped his finger in, unhurriedly waiting.
Soon, Wei Biao’s voice sounded from outside: “Jiang Lian!”
Before his voice faded, the door was already banged open.
Jiang Lian mentally muttered “how rude,” then immediately smiled broadly, scooping out some ointment and applying it to the edge of his neck wound: “Brother Biao.”
The visitor was about thirty years old, tall and sturdy, with the build of a tiger-backed bear. His face was fairly regular, but the hard angles constantly conveyed an impression of “fierce,” making people instinctively keep their distance, reluctant to get close.
“Old Ga told me that young master Lian came back covered in mud and water. Oh, you’re injured?”
Jiang Lian very generously showed him his wound, and raised his hand to show two fingers swollen like sausages: “It was dark, raining in the mountains. I wasn’t careful and tumbled down a slope, resulting in this.”
As he spoke, his gaze drifted outside: Kuang Meiying had also arrived, perhaps woken by the noise, still in her nightgown, though she didn’t enter, just standing at the doorway, slender and thin, as if a gust of wind would blow her over.
Wei Biao smiled without humor, placing both hands on the table edge, looking down from above: “But Jiang Lian, every time it rains at night, you run into the mountains. What are you running for? Is there money waiting for you to pick up?”
As he finished speaking, his gaze grew colder, and the corner of his lip unconsciously raised slightly to one side, as if pulled by an invisible string.