Yang Qing and the others had visited many mountains, but none had ever felt as strange as the one before them.
If it was a mountain, it seemed to have only half its height.
Its upper half looked as though an invisible sword had sliced it clean off.
If it was not a mountain, then why had it taken Yang Qing and the others an entire day and night just to reach its summit?
Indeed, after Yang Qing and the others had arrived at the foot of the mountain, the group who had brought them there had driven away in their horse-drawn carriages.
Before leaving, they had said only two words to Yang Qing: "Go up."
In the past, Yang Qing and the others would surely have wondered what unknown secrets lay behind these people abandoning them at the foot of the mountain.
Nor would they have chosen to head up immediately.
They would have needed to work out what all this meant.
This time, however, the moment they stepped down from the carriage, they shouldered their belongings and provisions and headed up without hesitation or a backward glance.
Those people wanted Yang Qing and the others to climb the mountain, so they might as well do just that. It saved them a great deal of effort.
They simply had not expected the mountain they were climbing to be so peculiar.
Now they stood at its summit.
Rather than a summit, it was more like an enormous lookout platform.
After surveying their surroundings, Yang Qing and the others discovered another mountain path leading upward from the platform.
It led to another mountain.
"This probably isn't the end of our journey." Yang Qing pointed toward the narrow path. "Let's keep going up."
This time, Yang Qing and the others walked along