Night Visit to Mount Tai

"Mount Tai is haunted?!"

Wang Dao Xuan stroked his beard and laughed incredulously. "How could that be? This news is far too absurd. What kind of place is Mount Tai? The foremost of the Five Sacred Mountains, and the territory of the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak!"

"A sacred site of the Daoist tradition haunted by ghosts? That's simply the height of absurdity! If something truly were causing trouble, the ghost soldiers and divine generals under the Mount Tai Prefect would have torn it apart long ago."

Fatty Lin also cut in. "Exactly, Brother Sha. Did you happen to overhear some idle braggart boasting in a teahouse? Rumors are flying everywhere these days. We've just been through all that mess in Jinan Prefecture—we can't go stirring things up without thinking."

Only Li Yan slightly furrowed his brows, lost in thought.

He had come here in the first place because of the "change in the position of the Mount Tai Prefect."

Could this be because of that?

Seeing that no one believed him, Sha LiFei stamped his feet anxiously and shouted, "Hey, I'm not making this up! Ordinary people may pass along rumors, but if those who make their living listening for news talk nonsense, someone will smash their signboard within two days."

He cleared his throat, pulled a crumpled scrap of paper from his robes, and began explaining in detail. "First, the haunting rumors didn't come out of nowhere."

"Since last month, every night at the third watch, 'ghostly sobs' have come from around Dai Temple, shrill as a knife scraping iron. Even stranger, someone saw human-shaped 'ghost fires' drifting wildly through the ruins of Bixia Temple."

Sha LiFei paused. Seeing Wang Dao Xuan's expression turn solemn, he continued, "The second matter is a disappearance case. A student from