Jiang Lian had also thought about these questions.

He looked at Shen Gun: “People looking exactly alike can’t just be a coincidence; there must be a reason or explanation—congratulations, those things that have been troubling you all this time may soon have answers.”

He emphasized: “But there’s one thing you need to be clear about: he is he, and you are you. You are two different people. Whether he’s righteous or evil, even if he is your ancestor, his achievements won’t add to your glory, and his sins won’t bring you shame.”

Shen Gun was very grateful, knowing Jiang Lian was helping him remove his mental burden. He immediately responded positively: “I know. I am me—Shen Gun from the entrance of the small village!”

Meng Qianzi, wrapped tightly in her blanket, wanted to roll her eyes to the heavens.

She cleared her throat: “Alright, turn off all the lights in the camp. Push me to higher ground; I need to look carefully to see if there is a mountain mirage in that direction.”

As soon as she finished speaking, both Meng Jinsong and Jiang Lian simultaneously reached for the wheelchair handles.

Jiang Lian felt a bit awkward and released his grip first.

Meng Jinsong also realized he might be intruding: “You go ahead. I still need to… arrange for the lights to be turned off.”

Jiang Lian seized the opportunity: “Alright, I’ll… help push her over.”

Making a show of it, Meng Jinsong was very polite: “Thank you for the trouble.”

Meng Qianzi sat upright, pretending she didn’t care who pushed her.

Shen Gun looked from one to the other in puzzlement, feeling that the atmosphere was rather strange.

Jiang Lian carefully pushed the wheelchair up the sloping higher ground.

For safety, he didn’t venture too far from the camp. The night watchmen, including Meng Jinsong, remained scattered around. They all used night-vision drops, so being among them was almost like being “in public” or “under the watchful eyes of many.” Nevertheless, Jiang Lian was quite satisfied—after all, it was still a kind of “private time,” wasn’t it?

He sighed: “It’s not easy. You’re always surrounded by either your mother or other people. Even pushing your wheelchair requires me to compete with others.”

Meng Qianzi burst out laughing and even shared some philosophy with him: “My First Mother says rivers, lakes, and seas are all defined by their banks. Absolute freedom doesn’t exist—constraints create freedom. Despite the difficulty, it didn’t stop you from spraying that perfume.”

Jiang Lian corrected her: “The sample vial has no spray. I only applied a little bit.”

Having reached the highest point, he moved the wheelchair in the direction Shi Xiaohai had indicated. Meng Qianzi reached out into the air, grasping at nothing, then rubbed her eyes.

Jiang Lian asked curiously: “What are you grabbing?”

“The fog. When looking at mountain mirages in heavy rain, I would rub my eyes with rainwater. So, for watching in heavy fog, I should use fog, right?”

She was good at applying principles. Jiang Lian placed a stone beneath him and sat down next to her wheelchair: “Did you never know that snow mountains could also have mountain mirages in heavy fog?”

Meng Qianzi shook her head: “No, never heard of it. This place is too remote; I guess even Mountain Ghosts haven’t been here many times. There are many mountains in the northwest, but we rarely come here. As you know, our headquarters is the Mountain Gui Chamber.”

Jiang Lian was puzzled: “Since Kunlun is the ancestor of all mountains, why isn’t Mountain Gui Chamber located in Kunlun?”

Meng Qianzi glanced at him: “Who doesn’t want to live well, in a place with mild mountains and gentle waters? Living in Kunlun, apart from sounding grand, you can’t even get fresh vegetables. You’d either freeze to death or burn in the sun. Even food delivery services wouldn’t come here.”

Jiang Lian found this both amusing and sensible. Whatever she said seemed reasonable to him, and even if it wasn’t, it was at least interesting.

He looked up at her gentle profile outlined by the faint night light, paused, and then tucked in the bottom of her wool blanket. As the old saying goes, “Cold comes from below, and a hundred illnesses rise from the chill.” The weather here was cold, and with Meng Qianzi’s leg injury, she mustn’t catch a chill.

After a while, Meng Qianzi frowned: “It’s not working; it’s too far to see clearly. But that area…”

She raised her hand and pointed in a direction: “The edge is indeed distorted, completely out of place compared to its surroundings.”

Jiang Lian felt like he was hearing a foreign language. She could see “distortion”? He looked in that direction but saw only a murky gray-black.

He couldn’t help asking: “Why can your eyes… see this?”

Meng Qianzi explained: “Because of the golden bells. Moving mountain beasts, subduing mountain beasts, avoiding mountain beasts, splitting mountains, seeing mirages, the Mountain Wind Guide—they’re all part of the ‘Nine Uses of the Golden Bells.’ All seven of my great-aunts have this talent, but…”

She tried to explain more simply: “It’s like a measuring cylinder with a one-liter mark. My seven great-aunts’ abilities are either 0.5 liters or 0.9 liters.”

Jiang Lian understood: “None of them reach one liter, but there are still differences in level. These differences determine whether they’re Mountain Shoulder, Mountain Eyebrow, or Mountain Bun?”

Meng Qianzi nodded: “But I reached one liter. Maybe I’m only slightly higher than them, but this one liter is a critical threshold, a passing line that qualifies me to ‘move the golden bells.’ These bells…”

As she said this, she bent down slightly, trying not to disturb her wound, and reached to move the blanket covering her feet. Jiang Lian guessed her intention and naturally helped: moving the blanket aside and rolling up her pant leg slightly to reveal the golden bells at her ankle.

Perhaps to keep the golden bells against her skin, she wore short socks. The exposed skin around her ankle was in the cold air, quickly cooling, and the bell plates were icy as well.

Instinctively, Jiang Lian cupped his hands around her ankle to warm it.

His palm was warm and slightly rough. As the warmth met the coldness, the heat traveled up from her ankle. Meng Qianzi’s calf felt an electric sensation, causing her to shrink back slightly. Her mind went blank for several seconds before she remembered what she wanted to say.

“Sometimes I feel these golden bells are like an amplifier, multiplying my existing abilities. The gap between my seven great-aunts and me isn’t very large, but because of the golden bells, this gap becomes a gulf.”

Jiang Lian added: “So, you’re the Throne?”

Meng Qianzi gave an affirmative sound.

Jiang Lian smiled and lifted his hand slightly, his fingertips holding a bell plate: “Such a small amplifier?”

Meng Qianzi admonished him: “Don’t be skeptical. Perhaps it’s an extremely miniature precision instrument? Throughout generations, no Mountain Ghost Throne has ever been able to identify the material of the golden bells. They’ve been taken to laboratories for analysis but remain unidentifiable. I’ve heard that the earliest computers were as large as several rooms, then they became smaller and smaller, from desktops to laptops. Now, even phones can function as computers. Perhaps with further development, they might become as small as these bell plates.”

Jiang Lian’s mind stirred.

Meng Qianzi’s golden bells were said to have been passed down from the Mountain Ghost Grandmother, and the Mountain Ghosts had established their presence during the “Yellow Emperor-Chi You” era. If Nu Wa’s molded mud figurines were indeed the “robots” of that era, then calling these golden bells amplifiers wasn’t far-fetched. Their inability to understand the golden bells was probably similar to ancient people not understanding smartphones. Ancient people would say, “Wow, this neither-gold-nor-copper palm-sized slate can sing, show directions, and display grand performances from thousands of miles away—truly a divine artifact!”

What’s called a divine artifact might just be something for which development and understanding haven’t caught up.

Jiang Lian pulled down her pant leg and re-wrapped herself with the blanket: “So what’s next? What do we do?”

Meng Qianzi thought for a moment: “To truly determine the location of the mountain mirage and see the so-called ancient scenes, we need to continue forward as Shi Xiaohai said.”

Jiang Lian hesitated: “Do you think there’s something suspicious about this Shi Xiaohai?”

A person who disappeared for several days and then reappeared always made him uneasy.

Meng Qianzi knew what he was concerned about: “Are you afraid Shi Xiaohai has been ‘transformed’ by ‘them’ and is leading us into a trap?”

She shook her head: “I don’t think so. First, He Shengzhi had Shi Xiaohai examined at the hospital. His injuries are completely consistent with what you’d expect from someone with head trauma. Second, the people they transform are Water Ghosts. There are only two exceptions: Zong Hang and Yanluo. As you know, Zong Hang wasn’t controlled at all, and Yanluo hardly was either. The person inside Yanluo could only become active for a short while when Yanluo was asleep. Shi Xiaohai is a Mountain Ghost, so transformation probably wouldn’t be that easy. Third, if Shi Xiaohai had truly been transformed, he should be leading us astray, away from our goal. Leading us into a trap wouldn’t be wise—my Seventh Mother is still providing support from the rear. If something happened to us, it would only bring more people.”

That made sense. Jiang Lian felt somewhat relieved, but immediately thought of a practical problem.

Having fished for mirage pearls before, he knew they appeared unpredictably. It was hard to say whether there would be heavy fog again tomorrow, and even if there was, the mountain mirage might not appear.

“Maybe… I remember you have the best Mirage Pearl, which you lent me in Western Hunan last time. Could we bring it here this time, too? Wouldn’t that be more efficient?”

Meng Qianzi was both amused and exasperated: “You think any pearl will do?”

“The mirage pearl from Mount Yuling is very poor in quality, but this poor quality only affects the image display. In other words, it records everything, like having an intact tape, but the projector is too poor to play it properly. That’s why you see fragmented images.”

“When I gave you the best Mirage Pearl, it was like helping to play the tape with perfect picture and sound quality. But without the original tape, even the best projector is useless.”

Jiang Lian understood: “So we still need luck, to ‘wait’ for the mountain mirage to appear, then you’ll fish for the mirage pearl. If this pearl isn’t good, we’ll use the better one to… enhance its function?”

Meng Qianzi tacitly agreed.

Theoretically, this was the case. But in reality, it was hard to say.

Mountain Ghosts all knew that mirage pearls were “packets of water,” but for a mountain mirage dependent on heavy fog, would the mirage pearl be… a clump of fog?

How was she supposed to fish for that?

The next day, Meng Qianzi didn’t rush to set out. She first discussed future arrangements with Jing Rusi.

Jing Rusi also knew that going further would likely lead them to where the eight-member team had encountered trouble. That place also had a mountain mirage, making the situation even more mysterious.

They finally agreed to slow down and proceed with caution. Meanwhile, Xian Qionghua would accelerate her pace, bringing a small team with ample spotlights, and incidentally bringing the embrace spiders to Meng Qianzi.

However, this final stretch wasn’t very long. Even at a reduced pace, they would arrive before dusk.

It was a relatively open valley between mountains, even featuring a highland lake that appeared turquoise blue in the sunlight. As the sky darkened, the color gradually changed to gray-blue, and finally to black with a watery sheen.

Shen Gun became a bit nervous as soon as he saw the place. He couldn’t clearly describe the terrain in his dream, but one thing was certain: it had to be an open flat area. Otherwise, how could those people spread out and count the boxes?

Furthermore, there was the highland lake: dragons are fond of water, and perhaps the fallen giant dragon had previously resided in this lake.

The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. But in this place, too much excitement wasn’t good. Sure enough, as his excitement grew, he started to experience oxygen deficiency.

Meng Jinsong gave him an oxygen bottle. Shen Gun pressed his nose and mouth into the funnel-like nozzle, gasping and inhaling deeply, looking quite comical.

Even more excited than Shen Gun was Shi Xiaohai, who pointed to the mountains at the edge of the valley: “Forward, forward, climb up, boom, fall.”

It was getting dark, and Xian Qionghua hadn’t arrived yet. Jing Rusi dared not risk sending someone to accompany Shi Xiaohai to climb any mountain. She ordered them to set up camp on the spot. Shi Xiaohai was very displeased, grabbing He Shengzhi and mumbling complaints. He Shengzhi was extremely annoyed but, due to his responsibilities, couldn’t be harsh with him and had to patiently pacify him.

Before dinner, Meng Qianzi received two pieces of news—one good, one bad.

The good news was that all around, vast expanses of gray with surging white mist indicated signs of fog forming.

The bad news came from Xian Qionghua, who was still en route and called via satellite phone, beginning with: “Don’t count on the embrace spiders this time. It’s dead! They’re all dead!”

She said “they” because Xian Qionghua had brought more than one.

Meng Qianzi couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

She knew she shouldn’t laugh, but couldn’t help it. Xian Qionghua’s use of such a funeral-like tone to talk about embracing spiders was strangely amusing.

Xian Qionghua was displeased: “Zier, what are you laughing at? Is it that funny?”

Meng Qianzi coughed twice: “What happened to the embrace spiders?”

“What else? They froze to death. They were fine when we checked at the base camp. I was worried about them freezing, so I had someone wrap a thick layer around the glass jars. But they couldn’t survive once we entered the mountains. I noticed something was wrong with them and kept an eye on them the whole way. Now they’re all dead. I brought three, and not one survived. They’re all stiff.”

After hanging up, Meng Qianzi realized the implications: she had already classified last night’s mirage pearl as “poor quality.” Without the embrace of spiders, it meant she couldn’t fish for this mirage pearl, nor could she repair it.

She could only rely on luck now, hoping this mirage pearl wasn’t too bad.

She consoled herself that the ancient people probably spoke some archaic dialect anyway, so not hearing them wouldn’t matter. As long as the images were strong, it would still be acceptable.

…

After nightfall, all the camp lights were extinguished to help Meng Qianzi observe whether a mountain mirage appeared and where it might appear.

Shen Gun held an oxygen bottle, sitting in a tent with the door flap open, waiting. This bottle was new, given to him by Meng Jinsong as a backup, who had also said: “Divine Gentleman, whatever you see, try to restrain yourself. Don’t get too excited.”

Easy for him to say! Shen Gun had been dreaming for so long, and now he might be about to experience it firsthand. How could he not be excited?

Jiang Lian sat beside him, looking at the scattered tents around. In such a place, sitting on the ground was too cold. Except for those on night watch at the perimeter, everyone had independently moved their tents toward the lower part of the valley, lifted the curtains, and sat silently in the darkness, waiting.

As he watched, Jiang Lian felt like he was waiting for a grand concert to begin.

Wasn’t it similar?

Soon, the valley center would likely be the stage, and each tent would be the mountain dwellers’ private boxes. When the lights came on, the audience would fall silent, watching an ancient drama, a timeless epic song.

…

No one knew how long they had been sitting. The north wind grew fiercer, and the temperature continued to drop. Jiang Lian was huddled in his sleeping bag, almost dozing off.

Shen Gun was a bit dejected: “It probably won’t happen tonight, will it? Little Lian Lian, you’re more familiar with mountain mirages. How often do these typically occur?”

Jiang Lian replied: “Hard to say. Different places vary. I staked out Mount Yuling for a month or two and only saw it four or five times…”

As he spoke, his eyelids drooped, and he fell into a light sleep.

It didn’t feel like he slept for long. Suddenly, his head dropped, waking him up. Opening his eyes, he immediately noticed a difference from before: the camp now had more people, who were hurriedly moving about.

Beside him, Shen Gun’s eyes were bright as he quietly reported: “The Xian girl has arrived. They’re setting up lights in various positions now.”

With the lights in place, it seemed the “performance” was about to begin. Jiang Lian perked up, quickly sitting upright. After a pause, he looked toward Meng Qianzi’s tent. She certainly hadn’t rested, continuously observing for potential mirage locations. Whether using the Mountain Wind Guide or watching for mirages, both were very draining. These past two days, although she had been carried on a yak’s back like a landlord without walking a single step, she was, in reality, the most exhausted person.

He remembered the vial of perfume in his pocket and was just debating whether to apply another stroke to greet her when he suddenly heard a sharp whistle.

This whistle served as a command. In an instant, lights blazed all around.

There were about twenty to thirty spotlights, their beams powerful and bright. The positions had been arranged, with varying heights, illuminating a corner of the valley floor in perfect detail.

With the night as a curtain and the valley as a stage, that area showed broken images, flashing rapidly, much like a television signal experiencing interference. Then suddenly, it stabilized.

Jiang Lian saw a sea of white.

It was a vast, snowy expanse. At the edge of the snow, near a ravine entrance, a yak was lumbering out, opening this grand performance.

If Jiang Lian didn’t remember clearly that although it was cold today, it hadn’t snowed when they set up camp, he might have truly believed that the yak Meng Qianzi had been riding had wandered onto the scene.

Shen Gun was startled and blurted out: “Wasn’t it supposed to be… ancient times?”

Jiang Lian turned to look at him: “After all these years, how many scenes must the mirage pearl have recorded? It might not immediately jump to the box-counting scene. We might see yak migrations, Tibetan hunting parties, who knows? There must be some prelude for adjustment…”

Before he could finish, Shen Gun’s expression suddenly changed. His eyes widened, veins bulging on his neck, nostrils flaring violently. He stammered: “That’s Yan… Yanluo?”

Jiang Lian was stunned and instinctively looked in that direction.

A second yak was emerging from the ravine entrance. On the yak’s back sat a person with raised head, wearing a Tibetan felt hat and a large necklace of turquoise and amber beads. It was unmistakably Yanluo!

However, the image remained poor, with frequent disturbances. Occasionally, Yanluo’s head would separate from his body, and the yak would suddenly have its limbs disjointed, creating an eerie effect.

A third yak followed closely.

This time, Jiang Lian didn’t need to identify the person, as at least six or seven mountain dwellers exclaimed in surprise: “Madam Duan! It’s our Madam Duan!”