"Twenty or thirty years ago, the villagers of Shutang and Zhengjiagou both lived up in the mountains. Black Mountain was vast, more than enough to feed our two villages."
The old man speaking was Shu Yang, one of Changfeng Village's two current village chiefs.
"But at some point, a few young fellows who went up to chop wood and hunt started saying they'd run into something... er, ghost walls."
"Ah..."
"At first, we thought they'd been drinking and talking nonsense. But later, more and more people said the same thing. Back then, someone surnamed Zheng still ran Zhengjiagou. I discussed it with them, and we had the men from both villages take their weapons up the mountain to have a look."
Listening to the old man, Song Yan felt as though he were hearing a strange folk tale.
"In the end, one young man from Shutang and one from Zhengjiagou died on the mountain."
"Everyone who came back said there really were ghosts. They couldn't get out of Wuzhiping or Lotus Flower Grave, no matter what they did. They just kept going around in circles there."
"Some said it was a warning from the mountain ghosts."
"We had no choice. Our families had been nothing but common folk for generations. How could we withstand that kind of torment? We could only discuss it with Changfeng Village down below, then move our entire village, along with Zhengjiagou, to settle at the foot of the mountain."
"The old villages were abandoned."
A reminiscent look came over the old village chief's face. "Later, Old General Xiao was stationed here. When he heard about mountain ghosts and demons, he went up to investigate..."
What followed was a storyteller's tale of General Xiao's unparalleled valor and his slaying of the Tiger Demon.
"Though the Tiger