Legends and Facts Often Deviate

Qi Wu finished offering his tribute to the Mountain God and quickly gathered with the others.

The group, soaked to the bone, shivered as a cold gust of wind swept through.

"At this rate, we'll catch a disease."

The old hunter walked to a corner, brought out a bundle of firewood, and grinned, revealing his large teeth. "We hunters sometimes take shelter here from the rain, so we left some firewood here in advance, waiting for today's use."

Qi Wu was overjoyed. "Then we thank you."

The old hunter didn't mind. "It's nothing. Living in the mountains is about helping each other. When the rain stops tomorrow, we'll just gather some more firewood and put it back."

The group nimbly piled the firewood onto the fire marks on the ground. Qi Wu took out a Fire Talisman, lit a twig, and held it to the kindling, gently blowing and fanning it until the dry wood slowly caught fire.

Watching the flames gradually rise and feeling their warmth, someone sighed in relief.

"Finally alive again."

"Big Brother Qi, do you want yellow rice cake or white rice cake?"

"One of each?"

One of them distributed dry rations, and after receiving their portions, the others placed them by the fire to bake.

Once they smelled fragrant, A Yue took out a jar of pickles for everyone to spread on their cakes, taking a bite filled with salty aroma.

"A Yue's pickle-making skills are really good. If you ask me, A Yue, you might as well open a pickle shop. Why bother doing business with us?"

A Yue smiled but said nothing.

Qi Wu, recalling the earlier scene, asked, "Old Sun, why did you ask A Yue if he had been pushed down?"

Qi Wu and the others were entering the mountains for the first time, hoping to cross the mountain range to sell goods in Qinghuai Commandery on the other side. They searched for a long time and finally found a local old hunter to guide them.

The old hunter's expression was grave. "Have you ever heard of Ghouls?"

Qi Wu and the others looked serious. They traveled all over and naturally knew about ghosts and monsters. One of them exclaimed, "Are you talking about the Ghoul who works for the Tiger Demon?"

The old hunter nodded and said in a low voice, "This mountain is called Pine Mountain. About ten years ago, a hunter entered the mountain to hunt and then disappeared, leaving behind only one shoe. At the time, some people said that a Tiger Demon had come to the mountain and eaten the hunter."

"At first, people didn't want to believe it, thinking that they had lived here for generations, so how could a Tiger Demon appear?"

"But as time went on, some people said that while hunting, their hunting dogs barked madly in one direction, and when they looked in that direction, they were frozen in fear."

"It was a striped tiger, fully four meters long! The tiger leaped and pounced on the hunting dog. Seeing this, he ran for his life, and luckily, the tiger didn't chase after him!"

"People also discovered that people were disappearing from time to time, so they reported the situation to Qinghuai Commandery. After the officials learned about this, they asked me to go to Yanjiang Commandery, saying that Pine Mountain was close to Yanjiang Commandery, and you only sell your prey to Yanjiang Commandery, so it should be their responsibility."

"When we arrived at Yanjiang Commandery, the officials said that Pine Mountain belonged to Qinghuai Commandery and should be their responsibility."

"After several back-and-forths, both sides sent two cultivators to search Pine Mountain for traces of the Tiger Demon. They searched for ten days in a row and didn't even find a tiger hair. The two cultivators felt that we were playing them, wasting so much time for nothing. We explained that the Tiger Demon might be deliberately hiding from them, afraid to come out, but the two cultivators didn't listen to our explanation and left in a huff."

"We went to the government again, but the government ignored us."

"We had no choice. Most people left Pine Mountain to find another way to make a living, leaving only a few old guys like us who don't know how to do anything but hunt, staying here."

"Later, we discovered that when hunting, we would encounter those missing travelers. The travelers were elusive, suddenly disappearing from your sight and suddenly appearing, giving you a shove."

"Sometimes when I take people into the mountains, those travelers pretend to meet us by chance and suggest that everyone is going the same way, asking if we can take them with us. How would I dare agree? I hurriedly take people away."

"The older generation said before they died that there is something in the world called a Ghoul. When the Tiger Demon kills someone, the person turns into a Ghoul, looking for prey for the Tiger Demon, luring people to a place to turn them into new Ghouls."

"But dealing with Ghouls is easy. As long as you refuse the Ghoul's request, the Ghoul won't do anything to you."

Qi Wu suddenly understood. He had been wondering why there should be many hunters in such a large forest, but it took them so long to find only a few families, and these families lived together.

It turned out they were being forced by the Tiger Demon.

Seeing A Yue hesitating, Qi Wu asked, "A Yue, ask whatever you want to ask."

Originally, A Yue felt embarrassed to ask his question, but since the boss had said so, he didn't hide it.

"I only have one question. Are there female Ghouls? Are they good-looking? Do they use seduction? Do they absorb men's Yang Energy? Is it possible for me to have a forbidden love with her, hiding from the Tiger Demon's pursuit and wandering the world together?"

For every question A Yue asked, a question mark appeared above everyone's head, including the old hunter.

Seeing everyone's reaction, A Yue scratched his head in embarrassment. "I saw it written like this in storybooks, A Chinese Ghost Story, an unfinished love between humans and ghosts, and stuff like that."

Qi Wu was silent for a moment, then patted A Yue on the shoulder. "Read less books."

Then Qi Wu asked, "Then Old Sun, why didn't you report this matter to the Five Great Immortal Sects? The Five Great Immortal Sects uphold justice and will definitely not sit idly by."

"The Five Great Immortal Sects?" The old hunter looked blank, never having heard of this title.

"It's the Dao Seeking Sect, Suspended Temple, and the other five famous righteous sects, also the five most powerful sects on the entire continent."

"I seem to have heard that name before." The old hunter said uncertainly, not knowing where he had heard it, maybe in a teahouse down the mountain, maybe from a traveler entering the mountain, maybe when he was young, maybe when he was old.

He couldn't remember.

In fact, the common people know very little about cultivators; they just listen for the novelty and excitement.

Not to mention that stories passed down by word of mouth are too easily distorted. By the time they reach the ears of the common people, they are often very different from the real stories and cannot be trusted.

For example, Qi Wu had heard that the Dao Seeking Sect was called the Dao Seeking Sect because it meant seeking the Dao from the heavens in the vast immortal path, and that cultivating immortality meant cultivating the heart, requiring constant questioning of oneself about what kind of path one was pursuing, whether it was the righteous path or the Demonic Dao, and not losing one's original intention.

Once, Qi Wu met a Dao Seeking Sect disciple, whose name seemed to be Dai Bufan, and asked him why the Dao Seeking Sect was called the Dao Seeking Sect. Dai Bufan's answer was still very clear in his mind.

"You're asking about that? Then I have to talk about our Dao Seeking Sect's founding ancestor, the Innate Daoist. In order to find a treasure land with good feng shui, the ancestor spent a lot of money to hire people from the Heavenly Strategy Sect to locate and calculate, and finally found a celestial land where the feng shui of all directions converged, and said that if the sect wanted to prosper, it needed to establish itself at a specific time and place."

"As a result, the ancestor was bad with directions. Even though he had marked everything, he still got lost. He had to ask an old farmer by the roadside for directions before he found the sect's address and didn't miss the time."

"To thank the old farmer, the ancestor named the sect Dao Seeking Sect."