Qi Wu finished offering tribute to the mountain god, then hurried over to gather around with everyone else.
The group, drenched from head to toe, shivered as the cold wind blew over them.
"If this keeps up, we'll get sick."
The old hunter went to a corner and brought out an armful of firewood. Grinning and showing off his big front teeth, he said, "We hunters sometimes take shelter here from the rain, so we left some firewood here ahead of time, ready for a day like today."
Qi Wu was delighted. "Then thank you."
The old hunter didn't mind. "It's nothing. Living in the mountains means helping each other out. Once the rain stops tomorrow, we can gather some more firewood and put it back."
The group quickly stacked the firewood over the old fire mark on the ground. Qi Wu took out a fire talisman and used it to light a twig. He pushed the burning twig into the dry wood, then gently blew and fanned it until the firewood slowly caught.
Watching the flames rise and feeling their warmth, someone let out a long sigh.
"Finally, I feel alive again."
"Brother Qi, would you like a yellow rice cake or a white rice cake?"
"Why not one of each?"
One of them passed around the provisions. Once everyone had some, they set the food by the fire to toast.
When the cakes began to smell fragrant, A-Yue took out a jar of pickled vegetables and let everyone spread some on their cakes. One bite filled their mouths with a salty, savory taste.
"A-Yue, you're really good at making pickles. If you ask me, you should open a pickle shop. Why go merchanting with us?"
A-Yue smiled but didn't say anything.
Thinking of what had just happened, Qi Wu asked, "Old Sun, why did you ask whether someone had pushed A-Yue down?"
It was Qi Wu and the others' first time in the mountains. They wanted to cross the range and sell their goods in Qinghuai Commandery on the other side. After searching for a long time, they had finally found a local old hunter to guide them.
The old hunter's expression turned grave. "Have you ever heard of a changgui?"
Qi Wu and the others looked solemn. They had traveled far and wide, so naturally they knew a thing or two about ghosts and monsters. One of them even called out, "You mean the changgui in 'a tiger's accomplice'?"
The old hunter nodded and lowered his voice. "This mountain is called Pine Mountain. About ten years ago, a hunter went into the mountains to hunt and disappeared. All that was left was one of his shoes. People said a tiger demon had come to the mountains and eaten him."
"At first, people didn't believe it. They thought, 'We've lived here for generations. How could a tiger demon possibly show up?'"
"But as time went on, someone said that while he was out hunting, his hound started barking furiously at something in one direction. He followed its gaze and froze in terror."
"It was a huge, striped tiger, a full four meters long. The tiger leaped at the hound, and the hunter turned and ran for his life. Luckily, the tiger didn't chase him!"
"People also found that others were disappearing from time to time, so they reported it to Qinghuai Commandery. When the officials heard about it, they told me to go to Yanjiang Commandery. They said Pine Mountain was closer to Yanjiang, and since we only sold our game there, it was their responsibility."
"When we got to Yanjiang, the officials there said Pine Mountain belonged to Qinghuai and that Qinghuai should handle it."
"After going back and forth a few times, both sides sent two cultivators to Pine Mountain to search for traces of the tiger demon. They searched for ten whole days without seeing so much as a tiger hair. The cultivators thought we'd played them and wasted all their time. We tried to explain that maybe the tiger demon had deliberately hidden from them and didn't dare show itself, but they wouldn't listen. They swept out in a huff."
"We went to the authorities again, but they wouldn't deal with us anymore."
"We had no choice. Most people left Pine Mountain to find another way to make a living. Only a few old fellows like us stayed behind. We knew nothing but hunting."
"Later, we discovered that we'd sometimes run into the missing travelers while out hunting. They came and went like ghosts, vanishing right before your eyes and then suddenly appearing to shove you."
"Sometimes I'd take people into the mountains, and those travelers would pretend to run into us by chance. They'd say we were headed the same way and ask if they could come along. How could I agree? I'd hurry everyone away."
"The old folks used to say there was something in this world called a changgui. When a tiger demon killed someone, that person became a changgui and helped the tiger demon find prey. They'd trick people into going somewhere, turning them into new changgui."
"But dealing with changgui is easy enough. Just refuse their requests, and they won't do anything to you."
Qi Wu understood. He'd wondered why, in such a vast mountain range, there seemed like there ought to be plenty of hunters, yet he'd found only a few households after searching for ages—and those households all lived together.
So the tiger demon had driven everyone away.
Seeing A-Yue hesitate, Qi Wu said, "A-Yue, if there's something you want to ask, go ahead."
A-Yue had thought his question was too embarrassing to ask. But since their leader had said that, he decided not to hold back.
"I have just one question. Are there any female ghosts among the changgui? Are they pretty? Do they seduce men? Do they suck out men's yang energy? Is there any chance I could have a forbidden romance with one, flee the tiger demon's pursuit together, and roam the world?"
A question mark popped up over everyone's head with each question A-Yue asked. Even the old hunter was no exception.
Seeing their reaction, A-Yue scratched his head sheepishly. "That's how they write it in storybooks. A Chinese Ghost Story, A Love Beyond Human and Ghost, that sort of thing."
Qi Wu fell silent for a moment, then patted A-Yue on the shoulder. "Read fewer books."
Then Qi Wu asked, "Old Sun, why didn't you report this to the Five Great Immortal Sects? They uphold the righteous path. Surely they wouldn't just stand by and do nothing."
"The Five Great Immortal Sects?" The old hunter looked bewildered. He'd never heard that name.
"The five prestigious orthodox sects, like the Ask Dao Sect and the Hanging Temple. They're the five most powerful sects on the whole continent."
"I think I've heard that name before," the old hunter said uncertainly. He couldn't remember where—maybe at a teahouse at the foot of the mountain, maybe from travelers entering the mountains, or perhaps when he was young, or when he was already old.
He couldn't remember.
In truth, ordinary people knew very little about cultivators. They only heard bits and pieces, mostly as entertaining curiosities.
And stories passed from mouth to mouth were all too easily distorted. By the time they reached ordinary people, they were often worlds apart from the truth and couldn't be trusted.
For example, Qi Wu had once heard that the Ask Dao Sect was so named because the immortal path was boundless, and one had to ask the heavens for the Dao. Cultivation was also cultivation of the heart: one had to keep asking oneself what path one sought, the righteous path or the demonic path, and never lose one's true self.
Once, Qi Wu had met a disciple of the Ask Dao Sect, a man named Dai Bufan, he thought. He'd asked him why the sect was called the Ask Dao Sect, and he still remembered Dai Bufan's answer clearly.
"You're asking about that? Well, that takes us back to our sect's founding patriarch, the Daoist Xiantian. To find a place with good feng shui, the patriarch paid the people of the Heavenly Strategy Sect a fortune to calculate the location. In the end, they found a blessed land where the feng shui of the eight directions converged. They also said that for the sect to prosper for generations, it had to be founded at a specific time and place."
"But our patriarch couldn't find his way around. Even with the route marked out, he still got lost. He had no choice but to ask a farmer by the roadside for directions, and that was how he found the sect's location in time."
"To thank the farmer, the patriarch named the sect the Ask Dao Sect."
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