Chapter 55

Chapter 55

Cui Tong met those eyes and felt a chill rise from the soles of his feet, but before he could react, the child on the bed had fallen unconscious again.

That indescribable chill dissipated along with it.

Zhou Xia set the child down on the bed, tapped his forehead, and grumbled unhappily, "After all these years, how do you still remember that lousy name? Your surname is Zhou now, your name is Zhou Xiaozhu, got it?"

The unconscious child on the bed showed no reaction.

Cui Tong didn't bother listening to her rambling, so he followed Zhou Ping outside.

Outside, the sky was still pitch-black, with no stars or moon. The dark clouds overhead pressed down, making the sky seem very low and the air hard to breathe.

Zhou Xia saw him standing in the yard, dazed, and called out, "Daoist, it's getting late. Should I go make your bed?"

Cui Tong thanked her and lingered in the yard until Zhou Xia came out to call him in.

His room was right next to the couple's. The soundproofing in these houses wasn't great, and lying in bed, he could hear their voices coming through the wall at the head of the bed.

Mostly it was Zhou Xia chattering away, with Zhou Ping occasionally responding impatiently. Soon his snoring was thunderous, and Zhou Xia's voice stopped too.

Cui Tong listened to the thunderous snoring and actually felt a little reassured.

This place was deeply strange, so he naturally wasn't bold enough to close his eyes and sleep here. He rested his head on his arm, listening to Zhou Ping's snores, hoping daylight would come soon.

He waited and waited, and finally, a hint of pale light appeared on the horizon of the dark sky. That brightness softened the oppressive darkness, the sky shifting from deep blue to light blue, and then half the sun emerged, trembling, from the horizon, gilding the light blue with gold and red.

Cui Tong quietly got up, stretched his stiff limbs, and suddenly noticed that the room had become eerily quiet.

He realized the snoring that had gone on all night had stopped at some point without his noticing.

Cui Tong held his breath, pressed his ear to the wall at the head of the bed, and listened. There was not a sound from next door. He left his room and crept over to the next room.

To his surprise, the door was open, the bedding neatly folded, and no shoes by the bedside. It looked as if the couple had already gotten up and left the room.

But Cui Tong hadn't heard them get up, and he didn't hear any sounds of human activity outside either.

It was that familiar, dead silence.

Cui Tong steeled himself and went out, checking Xu Muchan's room first—it was empty too.

The family of three that had appeared last night had vanished into thin air, leaving behind only a desolate, lifeless house.

He came out and stood in the yard, looking out. He was startled to see the overlapping houses ahead—last night, when he'd looked out, everything had been pitch black.

But now, from the yard, he could see the village ahead.

He vaguely remembered that Zhou Ping's house was further back, not in the village center. According to Zhou Xia, Zhou Ping's ancestors had moved in later, so their homestead was farther out, separated from the other houses.

Cui Tong pushed open the courtyard gate and indeed saw a winding little path extending toward the village.

But the path, paved with broken bricks and stones, was overgrown with weeds, clearly not walked on for years.

Cui Tong followed the path a good distance and looked back to find that Zhou Ping's house hadn't disappeared, but the entire building had become remarkably old and dilapidated, with thick climbing vines covering nearly half of it.

The warm morning sunlight couldn't reach inside, giving the whole house an eerie, haunted look.

Cui Tong didn't dare linger and hurried toward the house he was staying at.

Yang Zhao had been eaten by the monster last night—there might still be body parts left there. If the hosts got up early and saw them, the village would be in chaos again.

Cui Tong was still thinking about how to explain things if the police came, but when he arrived, he saw that Zhou Kun, the man of the house, was already up, a towel draped over his shoulder as he wiped sweat, mud-stained bare feet, clearly just back from the fields.

Cui Tong paused mid-step and instinctively looked at the first-floor window—the one the monster had smashed last night was now perfectly intact.

Zhou Kun was surprised to see Cui Tong and greeted him with a smile, "Daoist Cui, you're up early. I thought you'd still be asleep."

Cui Tong's cheek twitched as he replied dryly, "Yeah, the morning air's good, so I went out for a walk."

"Haha, I know—you're doing your cultivation practice, right?"

As the two were talking, Zhou Kun's wife poked her head out of the kitchen window, holding a spatula, calling out, "Food's ready! Come and eat!"

Then she saw Cui Tong and her tone softened, "Daoist Cui is here too? I've made breakfast—call Daoist Yang to come eat too."

Cui Tong looked at the closed door of their room.

The guest room they were staying in was next to the main hall, and its door was visible from the entrance. With a wary expression, Cui Tong hesitated, wondering whether to open the door and check, when it opened on its own. Yang Zhao emerged, still sleepy-eyed, and said "morning" when he saw Cui Tong.

Cui Tong's gaze shifted to his waist, and the veins on his forehead stood out.

Ignoring Zhou Kun and his wife, he strode over, shoved Yang Zhao into the room, and slammed the door shut behind them.

Cui Tong shoved him hard—Yang Zhao hit the wall and hissed in pain. Before he could say anything, Cui Tong slapped several talisman papers onto his face and body. His expression fierce, he declared, "Demons and monsters, show yourselves now!"

Yang Zhao tore the talismans off his face, looking bewildered: "Brother Cui, what's wrong with you?"

Cui Tong stared at him darkly, then looked at the glass window, closed tight.

There wasn't a mark on the glass from forced entry.

Yang Zhao saw Cui Tong's grim expression and didn't dare say another word, pressing his back against the wall and standing there obediently.

It was a long while before Cui Tong asked, his expression strange, "Do you remember what happened last night?"

"What happened last night?" Yang Zhao was even more confused. "I lay down and went right to sleep last night."

"That monster came in through the window last night. It bewitched you... it got you from here—"

Cui Tong gestured at Yang Zhao's waist: "...bit you in half right here. Only your upper half remained, crawling to the door, crying and begging me to save you. You don't remember any of that?"

Yang Zhao was silent for a moment, touching his waist with a strange look.

Cui Tong's nerves were on edge, ready to strike, but then Yang Zhao's expression shifted and he burst out laughing: "Brother Cui, don't scare me. If I'd really been bitten in half by a monster, I'd be dead. How could I be standing here talking to you?"

"Besides, with all that racket, Zhou Kun and his wife should have heard it too, but they never mentioned anything." Yang Zhao looked at Cui Tong oddly and said, "Brother Cui, could it be you were the one hallucinating...?"

Cui Tong's face turned ashen, and for a moment, he couldn't argue back.

After seeing the unperturbed Zhou Kun and his wife, and a very much alive Yang Zhao, he couldn't tell anymore whether last night had been real or whether he'd been the one seeing things.

His face pale, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Having been on edge all night without sleep, his head was throbbing.

Just then, someone knocked on the door again, and the village chief's voice came from outside: "Daoist Cui, Daoist Yang, are you in there?"

Yang Zhao glanced at Cui Tong and opened the door. "Yes? What's up?"

The village chief said, "We've gathered most of what you asked for. The missing items were sent down the mountain to buy early this morning—they should be back by noon. I came to ask when the ritual can be held."

He was clearly anxious. With villagers dying one after another, everyone wanted the ritual done early so they could feel at ease.

Cui Tong looked at the village chief, still finding it hard to believe that everything from last night was merely his own hallucination. The monster's revolting appearance was still burned into his memory.

The creature's stitched-together body had unmistakably feminine features, and the screaming faces on its back were all women's faces. It was a monster pieced together from many female corpses and the vengeful spirits of women.

Cui Tong made himself calm down and said to the village chief, "The date for the ritual must be chosen carefully. I'll need to read the stars tonight before I can confirm it."

Hearing this, the village chief, though still somewhat anxious, was a lot more relieved. If the Taoist master was this careful about the date, he was clearly taking it seriously.

He rubbed his hands together and let out a couple of "eh, eh" sounds.

Seeing that he was about to leave, Cui Tong stopped him and, after a moment's thought, asked, "Have a lot of women died in this village before?"

The village chief was taken aback, then shook his head and said, "Never heard of anything like that. Why do you ask, Taoist master?"

Cui Tong frowned and studied his expression, didn't see any sign he was lying. He thought for a moment, then it hit him that the village had a tradition of worshipping the mountain god, and asked further, "What did you guys usually do when you worshipped the mountain god back then?"

Afraid the village chief might be reluctant to speak, he made a point of adding, "We're outsiders after all, unfamiliar with your mountain god. Tell me in detail, so we don't accidentally break any taboos."

Hearing this, the village chief was happy to explain everything in detail.

"It's actually not that complicated. We offer the three sacrifices—livestock, incense, and candles—then pick a young, pretty girl from the village, and carry her in a decorated sedan chair to the beat of gongs and drums all the way to the Mountain God Cave."

Cui Tong thought, "Called it." Then he asked, "Do those girls ever come back after that?"

The village chief looked confused and said, "They're brides given to the mountain god. Once the god accepts them, how could they come back? They've all married the mountain god, became immortals and went off to live a good life."

Cui Tong said, "But Xu Muchan was also married off to the mountain god, so why is he still in the Mountain God Cave?"

The village chief said, "Well, he's a boy after all. Sure, he's good-looking, but the mountain god can't exactly make him a wife. But in the past, no living person could enter the Mountain God Cave—anyone who went in was kept by the god, and no one ever came back out. Yet he went in and came out not long after, and he's been living in the cave ever since, and nothing's happened to him. The village elders discussed it and figured the mountain god must have allowed him to stay, so they built him a small house and left him alone. After all, he belongs to the mountain god now—he's not our problem anymore."

After hearing this, Cui Tong understood. The monster from last night was most likely made up of the restless spirits of the girls who had been married off to the mountain god over the years.

Though it looked more repulsive, it was basically the same thing as the "Falling Flower Cave Maidens."

In some parts of China, there were legends of such maidens.

According to the legends, some unmarried women who were old enough to marry without finding a lifelong partner would fall into a trance-like state, their faces glowing like peach blossoms and their eyes sparkling like stars. The locals believed this meant they had been chosen by the Cave God, so they would pick a lucky day to send the woman into the cave to marry the god.

After entering the cave, these women would neither eat nor drink. If they were still alive after a few days, they'd go home. But even at home, they still wouldn't eat or drink, and die within days.

For a cultivator like Cui Tong, some so-called "Cave Gods" did exist, and most of these young women became food for them after being sent into the caves.

But "Cave Gods" didn't exist everywhere, so in reality, most Falling Flower Cave Maidens either starved to death in the caves or at home, ultimately becoming wronged spirits.

When these spirits gathered in large numbers, they would transform into malevolent ghosts. Cui Tong had even caught one himself before.

But none of those were as nasty as the one in Thunder Duke Village.

Based on what the village chief had said, these wronged women would at best become vengeful spirits causing trouble. Even if Guiyi Mountain was a yin-heavy place, it shouldn't have nurtured such a terrifying monster.

Moreover, according to the village chief, these women had died quite some time ago. If they were going to cause trouble, they should have done so long ago. So why now?

Something clicked in Cui Tong's mind, and he thought of the missing Ghost King.

Could it be that something had happened on Guiyi Mountain that he didn't know about, causing the wronged spirits to suddenly get a lot stronger and stir up trouble, even giving birth to a new Ghost King?

His mind was racing, but he couldn't confirm any of it for now.

Yang Zhao was acting strangely and couldn't be trusted. He'd have to look into this himself. It seemed he'd have to go check out the Mountain God Cave.

With a plan forming in his mind, Cui Tong casually made up an excuse to shoo the village chief off.

After breakfast at Zhou Kun's house, Cui Tong wandered around the village, thinking about how to shake Yang Zhao without making it obvious.

Because of the upcoming ritual, every household in the village had sent someone to help set up the altar, so the place was buzzing. The two of them stood by watching, occasionally chiming in with a tip here and there.

Yang Zhao was holding an ice pop given to him by a villager, looking relaxed and carefree, not acting weird at all. Cui Tong watched him out of the corner of his eye and saw him suddenly pull the ice pop from his mouth and point toward the village entrance. "Hey, looks like three people are coming over there."

Zhou Kun, who was nearby, looked up and said, "They're not from the village. Who'd come here?"

With that, he gathered a few people and went to meet them, cutting off the three strangers. "Where are you from? What are you doing in our village?"

The three looked to be in their thirties, wearing outdoor jackets and carrying hiking backpacks, sticking out like sore thumbs among the villagers. The man in the lead introduced himself as "Huang Wei": "We're here for tourism and sightseeing. We heard you have a very efficacious mountain god temple here, so we came to check it out. These are my companions, Wei Zixiang and Zhang Ming."

Wei Zixiang and Zhang Ming, quick to catch on, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and handed them out to the village men one by one, breaking the ice with them and striking up conversations.

"We'll probably stay here for a few days. Do you have any empty rooms to rent? Price is negotiable, and it'd be even better if meals are included."

The Yundong area was rich in tourism resources, and it wasn't uncommon for young people to venture into the mountains. The villagers had no suspicions, and some, eager to make some extra money, had already started pitching their own homes.

Cui Tong and Yang Zhao stood at the back of the crowd, both with grim expressions.

The villagers couldn't tell what these three really were, but they could see at a glance that they were fellow practitioners, most likely also after the Ghost King.

The three also noticed Cui Tong and Yang Zhao. The two parties exchanged a brief glance across the enthusiastic villagers, silently agreeing to keep their distance and not interfere with each other.

After dropping off their luggage at the villager's house where they were staying, Huang Wei and his group began wandering around the village.

Watching them head toward the Mountain God Cave under the villagers' guidance, Cui Tong thought for a moment and decided not to follow.

He had been wanting to explore the Mountain God Cave again anyway—might as well let these three greenhorns charge ahead and test the waters first.

"Is there really a Ghost King here? Zhang Ming, are you sure you weren't mistaken?" Huang Wei said as he walked, scanning the surroundings while holding a compass with a complex dial.

Logically, if there were a Ghost King, there should be a ghost domain nearby, but the compass showed no reaction at all.

"I'm not mistaken," Zhang Ming said. "Guiyi Mountain is quite large. Maybe it's not in the village but deeper in the mountains."

Huang Wei was skeptical but said, "Then let's head into the mountains first."

Wei Zixiang, who had been silent until now, pointed at something in the distance. "Look, that must be the Mountain God Cave the villagers mentioned."

"Whoa! That's a big locust tree." Huang Wei exclaimed in surprise. "A locust tree planted in front of the Mountain God Cave—they're practically inviting ghosts in."

"But the area does seem pretty clean." Zhang Ming said, puzzled. "The yin energy here is thick, yet there's not a single ghost to be seen. That's strange."

"Hey, there seems to be a small house inside the cave. Let's go take a look." Huang Wei put away his compass and walked over first.

Zhang Ming still had some reservations. "But didn't the villagers tell us not to enter the Mountain God Cave? They said once you go in, you never come out."

Wei Zixiang rolled his eyes, a round insect crawling across his fingertip. "You actually believe what the villagers say." He bent down and placed the insect on the ground. The round insect moved nimbly toward the Mountain God Cave and slipped through the cracks of the crude door.

"Looks like someone's here from outside." Xu Muchan was sitting cross-legged on the bed doing practice problems, while Wei Xilou sat by the bedside with a phone in front of him, frowning as he played Dou Dizhu.

The other two were Wen Dajiang and Wei Yao as usual. These two had recently become obsessed with Dou Dizhu and would drag Xu Muchan into games at every opportunity. But Xu Muchan had terrible luck, and compared to playing cards, he'd rather do practice sheets, so he handed the phone to Wei Xilou to play for him.

Wei Yao, completely unaware that the person across from him was his own ancestor, kept nagging: "Hey, hey, hey, why are you hitting me? Wen Dajiang is the landlord! Hit him instead! We're on the same team, don't you know that?!"

Wei Xilou said nothing, only playing cards to keep Wei Yao in check, while Wen Dajiang was cracking up like a fool on voice chat.

Xu Muchan saw that Wei Xilou wasn't responding, so he had to throw on his shoes and answer the door himself.

As he walked to the door, he noticed a fat, gross-looking bug crawling into the house. He grimaced, stomped it flat, then picked it up with a tissue and tossed it into the trash bag before opening the door.

Huang Wei and his two companions were blocking the doorway. The flimsy wooden door was yanked open from inside, catching them off guard, and an androgynous face poked out from the gap: "What are you guys doing hanging around my place?"

Zhang Ming drew in a breath, not expecting to find such a looker out in these backwoods—he thought this person was better-looking than those influencers on Douyin. Being a total sucker for a pretty face, he shoved past his two buddies to go shoot the breeze: "Hey, handsome, we're just out sightseeing. The villagers said there's some mountain god cave around here, so we got curious and figured we'd check it out. Didn't expect someone actually lives in this house."

"How come you live way out here all by yourself?"

While talking, Zhang Ming tried to peek through the door gap, but Xu Muchan was too tall and the gap too narrow, his body nearly blocking the whole view. He couldn't see a thing inside, but he could hear faint voices.

Xu Muchan wasn't buying the stranger's friendliness. Keeping his guard up, he asked, "You need something? If not, I'm closing the door. And stop skulking around my place—the walls are thin, I can hear everything from in here."

Seeing he wasn't taking the bait, Zhang Ming glanced at the other two.

Huang Wei nudged Wei Zixiang with his elbow. Wei Zixiang frowned and gave a slight shake of his head.

The gu worm he'd sent out a moment ago had suddenly gone silent. His carefully refined gu worms weren't ordinary insects—each type served a different purpose. The one he'd just released, the "Eavesdropper," was not only great at hiding but also sharp as a tack, capable of gathering intelligence for him. It had never gone quiet on him before.

There was definitely something off about this mountain god's cave.

But Zhang Ming couldn't convince the other, and Huang Wei wasn't willing to give up just yet. He nudged Wei Zixiang again, signaling insistently—if sweet talk didn't work, they'd play rough.

Wei Zixiang glanced at the young man who was already growing impatient. Figuring that as long as he didn't go into the cave, a few questions wouldn't hurt, he grudgingly pulled out the "Bell Tone."

The Bell Tone gu was a kind of mind-bending gu. The bell-like sound it made could mess with people's heads, which was how it got its name.

The little Bell Tone gu crawled off the back of his hand, hit the ground, and scurried toward Xu Muchan.

As it crawled, faint bell chimes rang out every now and then.

Huang Wei and Zhang Ming had already backed off, leaving the spotlight to Wei Zixiang.

Seeing the Bell Tone gu make it to Xu Muchan's foot, Wei Zixiang looked at the impatient young man and asked again, "Why do you live out here alone? What's the deal with this mountain god's cave?"

He paused, then asked again, "You ever seen the ghost king?"

Xu Muchan: ????

He stared at the weirdo spouting nonsense in front of him, then suddenly felt something tickling his foot. Looking down, he saw a green beetle crawling across his instep, its sharp little mouthparts looking like they were trying to drill into his skin.

Xu Muchan shook his foot, flicked the beetle off, and crushed it under his shoe. At the same time, he thought it was weird—why were there suddenly so many bugs in the house?

Although the cave was in the mountains, in all the years Xu Muchan had lived here, he'd hardly ever seen a snake, bug, rat, or ant. It was like even the little critters knew to steer clear of the mountain god's cave.

The thought barely crossed his mind before he looked up. To his shock, the guy in front was bleeding from his nose and mouth, while the two behind him were staring at him with murder in their eyes.

Xu Muchan was startled, figuring they were trying to pull some scam, and instinctively went to shut the door.

But Wei Zixiang was quick, blocking the door. Wiping the blood off his face, he sneered, "So you're one of us, huh. In that case, let's cut the crap and see who's really got the skills."