Shao Mountain Madman

Shao Mountain, over a hundred miles outside Xishou County, Danhe Prefecture.

Outside the mountain lay a village called Yi Family Village. In the past few days, four madmen had appeared in the village.

Villagers clutched timber and raised torches, the air filled with clamor.

At the front of the crowd, four men were bound tightly with ropes, being herded by the villagers toward the fields.

"Village Chief, shouldn't we report this to the magistrate?"

"What do those officials care about a backwater village like ours? Burn these four lunatics to death and warn everyone in the village not to enter the mountain."

"The Niu Family Village inside the mountain has been completely cursed. The few survivors who escaped said there are evil spirits there that peel the skin off the villagers..."

The old village chief held his torch high as he led the way. The villagers quickened their pace, while the four bound men continued to roar wildly.

The reason these four were being dragged off to be burned was that they had committed every evil imaginable—murder, arson, and the defilement of women.

Villagers familiar with them knew that before they went up the mountain, the four had been honest, law-abiding men, but after a single trip into the mountains, their temperaments had changed completely.

The four men, their hands and feet bound, wore expressions of madness and even tried to bite those around them.

At that moment, three carriages arrived outside the village.

The carriages were traveling along the main village road, heading straight toward Shao Mountain.

"Quick, call out to them! Don't let them enter the mountain and get cursed, only to come back down and harm us later," the old village chief shouted.

The villagers at the back of the crowd hurried toward the main road, shouting from a distance.

"Outsiders, do not enter the mountain! There are monsters inside that peel people's skin!"

"Everyone who goes up the mountain goes mad! There is an evil spirit in there!"

They shouted at the top of their lungs, but the three carriages drove straight past, ignoring the warnings entirely.

The carriages passed through Yi Family Village and turned onto the wild path leading toward Shao Mountain.

In the lead carriage, the driver was a grandfather-grandson pair, Old Huang and Little Fuzi.

Both of their faces were grim; they had heard the villagers clearly—there were monsters in the mountain that peeled human skin.

"Drive with peace of mind. Once we reach the foot of the mountain, you two only need to watch the carriages; there is no need to follow us inside."

The voice of the Second Master came from behind the carriage curtains, putting the pair slightly at ease.

Inside the carriage sat four men. Shen Yushu looked out the window and said, "The villagers who entered the mountain have met with disaster. It seems the White Sun Sect still has people remaining in Shao Mountain."

Zhu Li asked, "If they still have people in Shao Mountain, could it be that the Eldest Senior Brother hasn't escaped yet?"

According to the intelligence they had gathered, the Eldest Senior Brother had appeared in Shao Mountain nearly half a month ago, with reports that he was being hunted by the White Sun Sect.

Half a month had passed; it was possible he was still there, or he might not be.

"The Eldest Senior Brother might still be there, but it is more likely he has escaped! The White Sun Sect left men behind for only two reasons: either to gather materials on the spot to refine talismans, or to wait for the Eldest Senior Brother's followers—which is us."

"Should we split up to search for clues, or move together?"

"Moving together is naturally safer. We only have one Medicine Slave, Li Si, and the White Sun Sect has Daoists of the Second Realm Two-Polarity Realm. If we run into one alone, it will be hard to escape."

Daoists refine Qi. The first realm is the One-Qi Realm, where one simply refines and nurtures Qi. The second realm is the Opening of the Two-Polarities, refining Yin and Yang, water and fire.

As for the corpse-refining, those one realm above a walking corpse, once they reach the proper level, can cultivate corpse-fire just like a Daoist.

Liu Feng lacked experience in this, so he simply sat to the side and listened to how the two planned to proceed.

After traveling four or five miles along the wild path, the carriages came to a halt.

Leaving two men behind to watch the carriages, eighteen people stepped down. They looked ahead to see the vast, tangled mountain forest.

Within Shao Mountain, besides Niu Family Village, there were several other scattered settlements of mountain folk.

Tucked away among the mountains, a dozen households of mountain folk were scattered about.

Under the darkening sky, not a single person emerged from these homes, save for one house from which smoke rose from the hearth.

On the mountainside, several mud-and-thatch huts stood close together. Movement could be heard from within one of them.

Judging by the sound, it was the weeping of a young woman, accompanied by the cursing of an old man.

A moment later, the door opened, and an old man in green robes stumbled out, his clothes disheveled. His hair was half-white, and he was muttering curses.

"I spent three taels of silver to marry you into this family. My son is gone, so serving me now is only right and proper."

The old man in green wore a look of madness, his knuckles stained with blood—though it was clearly not his own.

He walked a few steps into the kitchen, where a pot was steaming, boiling a large portion of skinless meat.

"Still needs more heat. Let it stew for another hour or so."

"If you keep howling, I'll stew you right along with it."

The incessant wailing grated on the old man's nerves, making him increasingly manic. He rushed out of the kitchen, intent on disciplining his daughter-in-law.

"Eh? Outsiders are coming. The True Persons have set up treasures in the mountain, yet they still dare to walk the mountain path!" The old man in green squinted into the distance, seeing a group of people appearing on the path, and immediately bared his teeth in a sinister grin.

On the mountain path, the group of eighteen had been trekking for over half an hour.

As the old man in green robes looked toward them, the eighteen men also raised their heads to gaze at him.

There was no other reason for this; among the dozen or so households in this area, only that one had smoke rising from its chimney.

"That old man's demeanor is frantic; he may have some connection to the White Sun Sect," Liu Feng observed, seeing the most clearly.

Behind the three senior and junior brothers, a scarred bandit stepped forward and said, "Fourth Master, I'll go drag that old geezer over for questioning."

Liu Feng glanced at the scarred bandit and gave a faint nod; Zhu Li and Shen Yushu, standing to the side, offered no objection.

Yet, the next moment, a bizarre event occurred.

The scarred bandit had not walked far when, without a sound or a trace, he vanished into thin air.

The seventeen men stared intently at the spot where the scarred man had disappeared, yet they had not detected the slightest movement.

"Send someone else," Shen Yushu said coldly.

The remaining thirteen bandits tightened their grips on their steel blades. A bandit known as A-Bao gritted his teeth and, without a word, charged toward the spot where the scarred bandit had vanished.

Under the dim sky, he quickly stood upon that stretch of mountain path, yet he did not disappear.

"Second Master, I'll go look for Scarface."

As his voice faded, he turned and took only a few steps before, just like the previous bandit, he vanished in the blink of an eye without a trace.

With two men suddenly gone from their group of eighteen, the expressions of the twelve remaining bandits turned grim.

They knew full well that they were being used as cannon fodder. They did not fear a straightforward death, but being forced to face something supernatural still made their hair stand on end.

Among the twelve bandits, a bald man who served as a leader glared fiercely and said, "Three Masters, let the twelve of us go together. I don't believe we can't take down one old geezer."

Five green vine branches extended from Shen Yushu's body as he said indifferently, "Tie yourselves to the vines, and we shall all go together."

Sixteen men, including the Medicine Slave Li Si, were bound together.

Liu Feng's compound eyes quietly opened, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Immediately after, he unleashed his Dharma Eye Insight and Zen Eye Technique in succession, confirming that this was no mere illusion.

Unable to fathom the mystery, Liu Feng said with a grave expression, "Perhaps we should change our position and circle around to the mountainside."

"If my expectations are correct, every place that might hold a clue has already been rigged with traps by the White Sun Sect; changing our path will make no difference," Shen Yushu said in a low voice.

The group said no more. The sixteen men, connected by the green vines, proceeded toward the mountainside.

As the distance slowly closed, Liu Feng saw more and more clearly that the old man in green robes was grinning at them with a strange, twisted smile.