Meng Qianzi turned a deaf ear, heading out with Meng Jinsong and Xin Ci.

Watching her pass by, a faint smile flickered across Jiang Lian’s lips. He suddenly stood up, fashioning the binding rope in his hand into a lasso, and aimed it directly at her neck.

In that split second, it was as if Meng Qianzi had eyes in the back of her head. She reached out and swiftly drew the gun from Meng Jinsong’s waist, then spun around.

Just as Jiang Lian’s noose touched the top of her head, her gun barrel was already pressed against the left side of his jaw with tremendous force, compelling him to tilt his head upward despite being taller than her.

In the blink of an eye, the situation had deteriorated drastically. As Jiang Lian hesitated whether to put up a desperate resistance, Meng Jinsong casually reminded him, “If I were you, I’d behave—your friend is still in our hands.”

This was awkward. Jiang Lian didn’t know whether to raise or lower his hands. Finally, he conceded, releasing the rope and making a surrender gesture. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I just wanted you to reconsider…”

Meng Qianzi smiled charmingly. “You were sitting there fidgeting like you had ADHD. Did you think I wasn’t prepared?”

She pressed the gun barrel harder and stepped forward. Since he was in front of her and not on a path, Jiang Lian had no choice but to back up.

The room wasn’t large. After retreating a few steps, his back hit the wooden wall. Jiang Lian stood there, forced to keep his hands raised, feeling like he resembled Jesus on the cross.

Meng Qianzi asked him, “Am I being reasonable?”

Jiang Lian tried hard to push down the gun barrel as he lowered his head, feeling like the barrel was about to drill a hole in his jaw and neck. “You’re holding a gun to me…”

The gun barrel pressed harder.

Jiang Lian changed his tune: “Very reasonable.”

“Do you have any objections to my arrangements?”

“No.”

“None? Then why do I feel you’re quite emotional about it?”

This woman must be a control freak, nitpicking even people’s emotions. Jiang Lian took a deep breath, looked into her eyes, and tried to display a flawless, sincere smile. “No objections.”

“So we have an agreement?”

I suppose so, but answering like that would surely be criticized as halfhearted.

His tone was earnest: “We have an agreement.”

That’s good. Meng Qianzi smiled meaningfully, not lowering her gun. She tilted her head and instructed Meng Jinsong: “Tie him up.”

What?

Wait, after being so cooperative, how was he still getting tied up…

Jiang Lian lay obediently on the ground for a long time.

Initially, there was a commotion of voices, with people lifting and carrying things. Under so many watchful eyes, he was too embarrassed to struggle or call for help—it would have been futile anyway.

Later, after the clamor had subsided, he began to devise a plan.

Perhaps as retribution for his untying the previous bindings, this method of restraint, though simple, was extremely brutal. Having his hands tied behind his back was one thing, but they had also specially run a rope connecting to the bindings on his feet, forcing his body to bend backward and preventing him from gaining any leverage. The slightest struggle made him sway from side to side like a roly-poly toy.

A man has his dignity. Jiang Lian didn’t want Old Ga to see him in this state, but after several failed attempts, he consoled himself that even tigers fall to the plains—it’s happened throughout history. If Old Ga saw him, so be it.

Unfortunately, Old Ga didn’t seem to be around. Jiang Lian called several times with no response.

He had no choice but to save himself. There wasn’t much to use in this room. Jiang Lian remembered that Old Ga often carved and ground his work under the eaves on the first floor, leaving his tools—axes, hammers, saws, planes—scattered about. If he could reach the first floor and get hold of a saw blade or small knife, he could cut through the ropes.

Getting down there would be challenging. Standing up was impossible; he could only roll sideways. Jiang Lian took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and shifted his center of gravity sideways. After several attempts, he finally succeeded in flipping over, like a pancake in a pan, from side A to side B. Previously, his back was facing upward; now he faced the sky.

Jiang Lian stared at the tung oil-lacquered ceiling, which gleamed black, silently preparing for his next flip. Offending women was truly fatal—even after reaching an “agreement,” he still got “tied up.” If they hadn’t reached an agreement, who knows what suffering awaited?

With extreme difficulty, he rolled to the doorway. Fortunately, the door was open, but getting through it nearly cost him half his life. By the time he reached the stairway, he was exhausted like a dead dog. Thinking that a short, intense pain was better than prolonged suffering, he decided to just roll down—but when misfortune strikes, even drinking cold water causes toothaches. Despite pushing himself down the stairs, after bumping down just a few steps, his body uncontrollably turned sideways and got stuck.

Jiang Lian didn’t want to move anymore. Wedged sideways in the middle of the stairs, neither up nor down, he felt like a frog skewered on a roasting stick.

He somewhat regretted his decision. Why hadn’t he rolled toward the balcony instead? The village wasn’t uninhabited. From the balcony, he could have shouted a few times from his elevated position, and eventually, someone would have come to rescue him.

After waiting for an unknown length of time, there was suddenly a rustling sound from outside. Jiang Lian perked up: “Old Ga?”

Soon, someone peered in through the doorway with half their body. It was Old Ga, holding a white radish, probably preparing to cook.

They looked at each other for a few seconds.

Old Ga said, “Young Master Lian, I thought they had taken you away too.”

He couldn’t help but wonder: “Why did they tie you to the stairs?”

That was a long story.

Jiang Lian was silent for a moment. “How about you get me down first?”

The fire pit was lit again.

Old Ga was making a stew. The pot, supported by an iron tripod, bubbled with soup containing cured meat, radish, tofu, and beef and lamb tripe—deliciously fragrant. This dish had a special name in tourist areas: “Three-in-One Pot,” originally a winter food that had become popular year-round.

The rice was already prepared, topped with a layer of pickled green beans mixed with chopped chili peppers, its vibrant red color stimulating the appetite. He had also prepared sorghum wine with drinking tubes. Old Ga’s intention was clear: since Jiang Lian had been beaten, he should eat well to make up for it.

Jiang Lian boiled an egg in the soup pot, took it out, peeled it, and rolled it continuously over his face, occasionally sipping the sorghum wine. This was actually the Tujia people’s way of drinking—the brewed wine was poured into small jars without filtering, and a long, thin bamboo tube was inserted as a drinking straw. They would drink, chat, and add water, diluting it until the wine’s taste was gone.

After a few sips of wine, his scattered spirits finally gathered. Jiang Lian looked down at his reflection in the wine’s surface and felt utterly pathetic. What had he done? He had just been honestly fishing for lantern paintings, entering the mountains without even carrying a knife, being decent and compassionate. How had he been kicked step by step into his current predicament?

He wiped his mouth, looked around, and suddenly felt something was missing: “Where’s your coffin?”

“I lent it to that unfortunate fellow.”

Coffins weren’t things to be casually lent out. Jiang Lian was speechless. After a pause, he asked Old Ga: “Who are these people anyway?”

“Mountain dwellers,” seeing Jiang Lian’s blank expression, Old Ga added, “the Mountain Ghosts.”

“What do Mountain Ghosts do? I’ve never heard of them.”

Jiang Lian’s godfather had told him many strange tales from Western Hunan—like the grass ghost women who cast curses, or the Flower Cave Women who could make leaves fall with their crying—but he was certain he had never heard of Mountain Ghosts.

Old Ga said, “They don’t like to show off. Not many outsiders know about them. Mountain dwellers make their living from the mountains. In the past, the deep mountains were extremely dangerous—nine out of ten who entered wouldn’t come out. Even the Meishan Tiger Craftsmen couldn’t necessarily return in one piece. Legend says there were female spirits in the deep mountains who controlled the birds above and the beasts below. Even in Father Qu’s writings, he mentioned these female spirits, calling them Mountain Ghosts.”

Father Qu referred to the Grand Master of Three Cangs, Qu Yuan. It was said that after Qu Yuan was exiled by the King of Chu, “his body was cut off from the Ying Palace, but his footprints covered the banks of the Xiang River.” He had traveled throughout the Yuan-Xiang region and even expressed that even in death, he would “rather plunge into the Xiang River, to be buried in the belly of river fish.” So after his death, the people of the Yuan-Xiang region respectfully called him Father Qu, built many Qu Yuan temples, and continuously commemorated him with dragon boat races and rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival.

“Only the Mountain Dwellers could enter and leave as they pleased. People said they worshipped the female spirit Mountain Ghost as their ancestral grandmother, receiving her protection for safe passage. So people also got used to calling them Mountain Ghosts.”

It didn’t sound particularly special. Jiang Lian switched to rolling the egg on the other side of his face. “What happens if I cross them?”

Old Ga didn’t answer immediately. Wei Biao and Kuang Meiying had both been taken away, and anyone could guess that Jiang Lian wouldn’t just let it go. Though he was sitting quietly by the fire pit now, he might chase after them to seek revenge the next moment.

He stirred the pot with a wooden spoon. “You wouldn’t want the Mountain Ghosts as enemies.”

Jiang Lian became interested. “How so?”

“Everything has its territory. Curse-casting belongs to the Miao areas, corpse-walking to the Hunan-Jiangxi-Sichuan-Guizhou region, the Falling Cave is limited to greater Western Hunan, and authentic Chen Prefecture talismans are only recognized in the ancient Chen Prefecture, which is now the Huaihua Yuanling area. But what about the Mountain Ghosts?”

“Young Master Lian, anywhere with a named mountain peak, there are likely Mountain Ghosts. How many mountains are there nationwide? I, Old Ga, have seen the wide world. To speak broadly, in the northeast, there’s Old Xueling, in the northwest, there’s the Tianshan Mountains, in the middle, the Kunlun connects to the Qinling Mountains, and the great north-south stretch is the Hengduan Mountains. To speak narrowly, just in our Western Hunan, there are the Wuling and Xuefeng Mountain ranges—count how many people they must have. Since the year Father Qu wrote about the Mountain Ghost, how many generations have they passed down?”

Jiang Lian didn’t respond, just wondering how Old Ga’s geography had suddenly improved so much.

“Anyone with thick skin, hard bones, and a strong head who can climb high could cross them, but think about whether it’s worth it. How many enemies would you make? How much trouble would you create? You might die with no one to carry your body.”

Old Ga got carried away and inadvertently slipped into some local dialect.

Jiang Lian couldn’t help laughing. He looked up at the mountains layered one after another in the distance. This wasn’t just like an egg hitting a stone—it was like bumping into a mountain.

He couldn’t afford to provoke them.

“Will they mistreat Meiying and the others?”

Old Ga served Jiang Lian some rice. “You don’t need to worry about that. The Mountain Ghosts always value peace and harmony for prosperity. Think about it—they’re ‘dragons crossing the river,’ making friends with ‘tigers guarding their territory’ everywhere. If they weren’t peaceful and reasonable, could they have coexisted peacefully for so many years? The Mountain Ghosts care most about their reputation. They won’t do things that would make people gossip.”

In Western Hunan dialect, they called passing powerful figures “dragons crossing the river” and local powers “tigers guarding their territory.” No matter how strong the dragon was, the tiger might not yield. When they met, it was almost always a battle between dragon and tiger. To maintain a long-term friendship, the attitude of the dragon crossing the river was key—remember, even a sharp edge becomes dull after three years, but flowing water lasts ten thousand years.

Jiang Lian’s heart eased somewhat, but he still felt angry. “That woman is fierce.”

Old Ga handed him a bowl full of rice. “Meng Qianzi?”

So her name was Meng Qianzi. Jiang Lian took the bowl, shoveled several mouthfuls, then picked some food from the pot, chewing with extra force.

Old Ga said, “She has people under her command—how could she not be fierce? Could she get things done if she were smiling all day?”

So she was a minor leader. No wonder she was surrounded by people who carried out her commands. Jiang Lian felt the men of Mount Wuling were truly lacking in spirit. “Mount Wuling is such a large mountain area, how come it’s managed by a woman?”

Old Ga ladled some soup into his bowl. “The Mountain Ghost of Wuling is managed by Liu Guanguo—that man who was busying himself downstairs just now.”

Wait, Jiang Lian paused his chopsticks. “Meng Qianzi’s rank is even above Liu Guanguo?”

He licked his lips. Surely he couldn’t be this unlucky, to have offended someone so important? “Don’t tell me all the Mountain Ghosts of Western Hunan are under her command?”

Old Ga looked up at the sky, pointing upward with his chopsticks. “Not just that.”

“Hunan Province?”

Old Ga’s chopsticks pointed even higher, suggesting something bigger.

“The two Hu provinces?”

The chopsticks continued pointing upward.

“Not the entire country?”

Old Ga’s uplifted chin finally lowered. He took a big swig of wine. “That’s right! She sits in that highest chair at the very peak of the mountain. That’s why I told you not to go against her.”

Jiang Lian put his empty chopsticks in his mouth, his mind racing like galloping horses, clattering with rolling sand and stones, dust flying. What kind of luck did he have to provoke someone at the national level?

Old Ga continued talking nonstop. “Whatever she asks you to do, just do it, and there won’t be any problems. Besides, the matter isn’t entirely unrelated to you…”

He took a big sip of wine, picked up a large portion of beef and lamb tripe with his chopsticks, and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing loudly. “I’ve heard that if you hadn’t cleared things up, wouldn’t the Mountain Ghosts have determined it was you who did it? The killer had ill intentions, deliberately directing trouble toward you, trying to make you fight each other. Doesn’t it make you angry to be manipulated like this?”

Jiang Lian gave him a sidelong glance. “Are you taking benefits from the Mountain Ghosts to act as their spokesperson?”

Old Ga was ambiguous: “Something like that.”

No, calling him a spokesperson was too polite. “You’re monitoring me, right?”

Old Ga’s answer remained the same: “Something like that. But tell me, aren’t you angry?”

This tactic of diverting attention and using others as weapons was indeed vicious. Jiang Lian reached for the wine jar, a flash of sharpness in his eyes, though his tone remained languid. “Angry? Of course I’m angry.”

“Right, exactly,” Old Ga, having drunk too much, was starting to get light-headed. Abandoning his usual taciturnity, he raised his hand holding the wine jar, spilling some wine. “If you’re angry, go after them!”

Jiang Lian couldn’t help but laugh.

“Dai” (meaning “to get” or “to do”) was practically an all-purpose verb here. Eating was “dai food,” drinking was “dai wine,” making money was “dai money,” and even taking photos was “dai me a picture.”

Jiang Lian found it a bit strange at first, but after hearing it more, he found the word particularly endearing, filled with a kind of ferocity and roughness that felt especially satisfying to say.

He raised his wine jar. “Alright, let’s dai.”

Having said that, he was about to take a big gulp, but the jar stopped at his lips. He looked around and asked Old Ga: “Where were you when the incident happened?”

Old Ga hiccupped from the wine, his face flushed red, pointing ahead with his hand. “Over there.”

“Were you watching this place the whole time?”

“I was watching.”

“After Meng Qianzi and her people entered the house, did anyone come out through the door?”

“None.”

Then they must have slipped out through the back door. Jiang Lian pulled out a burning stick from under the pot, grabbed a carving knife, and headed toward the back of the house.

Old Ga called after him: “Hey, you haven’t finished eating! Where are you going?”

“I’m full. Just taking a stroll in the back mountains.”

“No need to look, the Mountain Ghosts already searched there…”

Before he could finish, Jiang Lian had already disappeared.