Secondary natural disasters

Rain in the mountains could fall at a moment's notice. Even the locals could not predict the mountain lord's temper.

The weather could change three times a day.

Sunshine in the morning, rain at noon, then strong winds beneath a bright moon and sparse stars at night—none of it was unusual.

A thunderclap rang out. A while later, bean-sized raindrops began pelting the tents. It was nearly eleven in the morning, yet the mountain already looked as though dusk had fallen. Beyond fifty meters, it was too dark to make out much of anything.

Inside a tent.

Everyone sat together.

Someone spoke.

His tone was heavy.

"She's taken the medicine, but her temperature still hasn't come down. Thirty-eight degrees Celsius. I'm afraid we'll have to take her down the mountain and get her to a hospital."

The local man spoke to the doctor who had hurried over.

It was not as though they had no doctor here.

But as the saying went, even the best cook could not make a meal without ingredients.

There was plenty of medical equipment they simply did not have.

The doctor's expression darkened at his words.

"This doesn't look like a simple cold and fever. There's probably inflammation somewhere in her body. Let me examine her first."

The doctor picked up his stethoscope and briefly listened to her lungs. His expression changed.

"This is bad. There are abnormal sounds in her lungs."

He kept his explanation as brief and understandable as possible.

"This isn't something we can treat up here. She needs to go to the township clinic at the very least—no, she'll probably need the county hospital. She can't stay on the mountain. If she does, this young woman won't last more than a few days."

The doctor looked around at everyone in the tent and said they needed to take her down the mountain.

Everyone in the tent looked weighed down by worry.

"Down the mountain? In this weather?"

The local man was no different. His face was bitter.

He knew how dangerous it would be to descend at a time like this. But the doctor had made himself clear: if they stayed, the girl might die on the mountain.

They had no choice.

Professor Han remained silent. He looked utterly defeated, as though his spine had been pulled out.

The other senior students seemed frightened and did not dare speak.

The doctor grew anxious.

Just before entering, he had heard some troubling rumors.

They sounded very much like eerie stories people made up to scare others.

But what made those eerie stories frightening was their atmosphere.

Just like now. The doctor did not believe in such things, but under these circumstances, even he felt uneasy, his palms sweating.

"We have to come up with a plan! We can't just stand here and watch this girl die!"

The doctor spoke.

Professor Han still said nothing, but when the man from the security department heard "watch this girl die," he finally made up his mind.

He slapped the table, startling everyone around him.

At least it shook some life back into them.

He seemed to have let out a curse.

At a time like this, his swearing actually helped rally their spirits.

"What the hell are you all thinking?"

His accent still sounded northern. "Saving her comes first. Get her down the mountain. Whatever the hell's up here, I don't believe it can do anything to us!

"Saving her comes first!

"Look at you lot, all acting like a bunch of sissies. I'm telling you, nothing matters more than a human life. That settles it. We get this young lady down the mountain first, then figure out the rest!"

With someone finally making the decision, everyone else sprang into action. They strapped Xu Nian onto a stretcher, secured a waterproof bag over her, and prepared to descend.

But as they worked, Xu Nian began to mutter deliriously from her high fever.

Her voice was still perfectly clear.

"Everyone is going to die."

"You dug in the wrong place. The wrong place. It's all wrong."

"The sacrificial burial pit holds the past, and it holds the present."

"They've all come back. They've all come back."

Xu Nian's delirious muttering made everyone's hearts grow heavier.

Even Professor Han's hands were shaking.

Just as they were about to take Xu Nian down the mountain.

Professor Han suddenly called out to stop them.

"Wait. Please, wait!"

He shakily stood and removed a carved rhinoceros-horn object from around his neck.

It was an artifact.

The rhinoceros horn appeared to have been carved into a statue of a Taoist spirit officer.

Spirit officers were Taoist guardian deities. The one who stopped Sun Wukong in Journey to the West was Wang Lingguan, known as the chief of the five hundred spirit officers.

Put simply, he was one of the gods' toughest fighters.

How could a guardian deity not be formidable?

It was worth mentioning that Wang Lingguan's emergence was inextricably linked to Taoism's campaigns to raze shrines and bring gods fed with blood sacrifices into its fold.

Professor Han approached the stretcher and hung the rhinoceros-horn statue of Wang Lingguan around Xu Nian's neck. Only then did he wave them on and watch her leave.

His gaze lingered, reluctant to let her go.

After they left, the rain grew heavier and heavier. More than that, a strange fragrance suddenly spread through the entire camp.

It reached everyone's noses.

Viewed from a distance.

The whole camp looked like an isolated island, surrounded by curtains of rain and dragged into darkness.

The rain kept growing heavier.

Those escorting Xu Nian also encountered difficulties. Fortunately, their powerful lights still helped, but the local man leading the way felt his skin crawl, as though a wild beast were watching him from the woods.

He kept looking back.

It was possible for a wild beast to stalk them on a rainy day.

There were indeed plenty of carnivores in the uninhabited mountains they had entered. It was entirely possible that those animals would come out to hunt.

"Everyone, be careful."

The local man murmured a few words in his dialect, praying for protection.

The doctor, the security officer, and the local man all grew wary.

Meanwhile.

Xu Nian's delirious speech became even worse.

What she spoke was no longer normal human speech. Her cadence sounded like singing, her voice high-pitched and deeply unsettling.

It sent wave after wave of goose bumps over everyone accompanying her.

"What is she saying?"

Finally, someone could not help asking the local man beside him, "Her cadence sounds a little like your dialect."

The local man looked miserable and frightened too.

"I don't know either."

He was not lying.

He really did not know.

Here in the Western Hunan Mountains, where three provinces met, there were many other ethnic groups. Accents changed every few miles; farther apart, people could not even understand one another.

Besides, the words Xu Nian spoke should not have been intelligible to anyone at all.

Her words sounded thirty percent like the Miao language. As for the other seventy percent, the local man could not make sense of them either.

"Forget about that. Let's get down the mountain first!"

That was all he could say.

Everyone nodded and continued making their way downhill.

What they did not know was.

A stretch of mountain trail not far from them.

Had collapsed.

The heavy rain was about to trigger mudslides and landslides.

They could no longer get down the mountain!

Fog City.

"You suck, but you just can't stop playing."

Lin Feng had returned from the market long ago. In six cages, thirty rabbits were growing drowsy after consuming the blessed medicine.

Making Ritual Incense required some time for things to settle.

The previous night had passed without incident.

Lin Feng had kicked away all those otherworldly fellows last night. He had discovered that the dragon-tiger qi in his body inflicted burning damage on them. When they gathered together and their baleful energy seemed to begin pooling, he went downstairs to deal with them.

He went to the old medicine seller's shop and bought a feather duster. The old man's shop was open twenty-four hours a day, with his bedding right behind the counter. Whenever he got sleepy, he simply went to bed. Customers could take what they needed and leave the money themselves.

After seeing this several times, Lin Feng could only remark, "Such honest folk." Feather duster in hand, he swung it repeatedly, driving away the fellows trying to gather together.

Lin Feng did not know where those fellows had gone now, but they no longer seemed to be congregating.

So he left them alone.

He was not an exorcist, after all.

Putting the helmet on his head, Lin Feng entered the game.

Before he opened his eyes.

He heard the guide's voice again.

The same familiar feeling, the same familiar presence, the same familiar strength.

"The mountain trail has collapsed."

Lin Feng opened his eyes. "So it's collapsed. We'll take another route. Let's try Yin Roadwalking!"