The secluded mountain forest brimmed with birdsong and fragrant flowers, while the cool air by the mountain stream made everyone feel especially comfortable.
A group of people bustled about here, laughing and fooling around as they pitched tents and built their campsite.
This was a camping trip privately organized by company colleagues. Naturally, they were all young people, because carrying tents and other equipment up the mountain for a hike was beyond the stamina of older folks.
Originally, everyone had hoped the company would organize a camping trip, but the company arranged group tours every year—the kind with tour guides and coaches. So this year, many colleagues simply chose not to go with the company. Instead, they had several coworkers with outdoor experience take the lead and organize it themselves, resulting in this mountain camping trip.
Ji Yuan had only been working at this software company for two years. His head was still full of thick black hair, so naturally, he counted as one of the young people. After setting up his tent, he was playing a mobile game online with another colleague.
"Hey, hey, hey, Ji Yuan, Ji Yuan, ult me, hurry, ult me! Ah, I died!"
"What good would ulting you do? You went down two seconds after I shielded you. Better to save it for myself so I could escape. Great, now we gave their bot lane a double kill..."
"My bad, my bad... Next round, you play marksman. I'll support you!"
"No, no, no... I'd rather find a random support..."
Though this place seemed deep in the mountains, a base station could still be seen atop a distant peak. The two held their phones and played with great enthusiasm, with barely any lag.
There were naturally still places in China with terrible signal or none at all, but most people had long grown accustomed to having reception wherever they went. That was the confidence brought by well-developed infrastructure, making people forget about signal without even realizing it.
Their tents had been set up on a relatively flat hill, beside a clear little stream. It was an excellent spot for camping in the wild.
More than a dozen people had come. Most were outside taking pictures, while several others adjusted their tents. The only ones who seemed free were Wang Gang, Ji Yuan, and Li Jun.
Wang Gang was preparing to build an earthen stove for barbecuing with stones. Looking around the campsite, only Ji Yuan and Li Jun had time to spare.
"Ji Yuan, Da Jun, stop playing games and go find some firewood. We'll be lighting a fire soon. Otherwise, we'll be eating cold canned food for lunch!"
A colleague called out to the two sitting at the entrance of a tent from some distance away.
"Got it!"
"Okay."
Li Jun and Ji Yuan both answered, then looked at each other. Since their teammates had already cursed them bloody, they simply quit the game.
The two stood up and headed toward the nearby woods, entering a denser stretch of tree shade.
There was no shortage of firewood in the mountain forest; fallen branches lay everywhere. Li Jun dragged a large branch around, occasionally swinging it back and forth while shouting, "Hah hah! Ha hey!" He looked like a fool in Ji Yuan's eyes.
To avoid being infected by his madness—and to keep from being accidentally swept up by Li Jun's "mad demon" staff technique—Ji Yuan hastily moved farther away from him.
Like most young people nowadays, Ji Yuan had a whole heap of siblings in his grandparent's generation. Ji Yuan's old dad had been an only child among his father's generation, but Ji Yuan still had several aunts. By Ji Yuan's generation, however, they had become only children.
Perhaps fewer children and grandchildren meant they were more treasured. The Old Ji family's simple and brutal naming habits—names like Jin Hua, Yin Hua, Guo Xing, and Cui Fen—suddenly became poetic when it came to the grandchildren. Grandpa even consulted Great Uncle-in-law, who had once been a feng shui master for decades. After thinking it over together, they finally chose the single name "Yuan," and the entire family had been greatly pleased.
"Ah, the air in the mountains really is wonderful! This is where you should come for a trip—where the mountains are clear and the waters beautiful."
Ji Yuan sighed. He was in no hurry to gather firewood, instead wandering through the woods first. It would take less effort to bring it back on the return trip.
After wandering for barely more than a minute, Ji Yuan suddenly noticed several incomparably thick big trees ahead. Visually, they looked countless times larger than the trees around them.
"Da Jun, Da Jun, come take a look! There are some insanely thick trees here! Da Jun!"
Ji Yuan called toward the other side. Seeing that guy was still playing with his staff, he decided not to pay attention to him for now. He planned to go over and take a look himself, then bring everyone here later.
Once he got closer, Ji Yuan gained a more direct impression of the trees.
Just the outermost one had countless exposed roots, tangled and intertwined across the ground. Some of them looked as thick as Ji Yuan's thigh.
Whoa... There are trees this old here?
Ox Head Mountain was not an especially famous tourist destination, but plenty of people came into the mountains for outings, barbecues, and the like. A tree this thick should have been posted online by someone, shouldn't it?
But Ji Yuan only thought about it casually before circling to the other side, where the big trees outside had blocked his view.
"Huh!"
A puzzled sound escaped his lips.
Besides several other equally thick and strong ancient trees, he unexpectedly saw a chessboard among them. More precisely, it was a tree stump with a chessboard set on top.
Ji Yuan subconsciously took several steps forward, arriving beside the stump where the chessboard rested.
He looked left and right. There were no warning signs telling tourists to take care, and naturally, there was no one playing chess either.
Black pieces and white pieces crisscrossed the board. The black pieces formed an army, the white pieces a dragon. It was a typical Chinese game of Go, and the match was only halfway finished.
That made Ji Yuan somewhat curious. Could Ox Head Mountain be planning to develop this place into a scenic attraction?
Yet the chessboard and its surroundings were covered with fallen leaves and dead branches. Bird droppings and rotten fruit were scattered among them. Whether this was from a real game or merely a decorative arrangement, it had clearly been here for a very long time.
Then his gaze swept over a peculiar object behind the chess game. Beside an old tree lay a rust-covered item, visibly swollen and warped from excessive corrosion.
Ji Yuan stepped closer and examined it carefully. After thinking for a moment, he felt it looked like an outrageously rusted axe.
Wait! Could this be the legendary Rotten Axe Chess Game?!
The thought amused Ji Yuan himself. This setup really did look the part, and it also stirred his interest.
He returned to the chessboard and studied it carefully. Looking at the board full of black and white pieces, Ji Yuan, who had never understood Go particularly well, suddenly felt that this white dragon looked more and more awkward. It could clearly have been connected seamlessly, yet it lacked one point of connection. It also seemed threatened with being encircled and killed by the seemingly chaotic black pieces.
The key was that, for some reason, the missing corner of the white dragon made Ji Yuan's obsessive tendencies flare up. He glanced several times at the two wooden chess boxes beside the board, then, as if possessed, reached out and picked up a white piece.
The chess piece felt extremely weighty in his hand, like an iron piece, yet it felt like ceramic to the touch. Ji Yuan weighed it in his palm, looked left and right again with the guilty air of a thief, then reached out and placed the white piece at the very center of the board—the point known in Go as Tengen.
"Perfect. That feels much better now!"
Ji Yuan clapped his hands and pulled out his phone from his pocket, intending to take a few pictures and record some video before calling everyone over to have a look.
But he pressed the phone's unlock button several times, and no unlock prompt appeared.
"Damn it! What's going on? Did it really run out of battery?!"
His phone really had no power. Ji Yuan held down the power button, and the phone vibrated, started up, then automatically shut down again. When he pressed it once more, it would not even turn on.
He had had at least eighty percent battery after finishing the game just moments ago, yet now it had shut down on its own without him noticing.
Ji Yuan turned his head and looked outside, but he could not see Da Jun, who had been swinging his staff earlier.
Forget it, I'll go get my power bank.
With that thought, Ji Yuan headed toward the campsite. After only a few steps, he realized the sky had somehow grown dim.
After walking for several minutes, Ji Yuan was dumbfounded. He saw the gently flowing stream and the flat hill, but where was the campsite?
Forget about the people from the company—every single tent was gone too. What the hell was going on?
It was not April Fools' Day, and setting up tents and building a campsite was so much work that only a fool would immediately tear it all down for a prank.
Ji Yuan looked around and saw two people in some kind of uniform resting beside the stream farther away. He quickly approached them to ask.
"Guys, excuse me, have you seen where the people camping up ahead went? We only finished setting up our campsite a little while ago!"
The two men's bodies visibly jolted. The sudden voice had startled them.
They turned their heads and stared at Ji Yuan in surprise. Though they had been resting, they had kept watch over their surroundings. This man had seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Hearing Ji Yuan's question, one of them answered instinctively.
"Camping? Just now? No one's been camping on Ox Head Mountain these past two days. Everyone's busy searching for a missing person."
"Huh?"
That answer left Ji Yuan even more confused.
"Someone went missing in the mountains?"
The company had checked before organizing this trip. Nothing had happened here, and even the weather had been good.
"Yeah, he's been missing for more than half a month. A young man named Ji Yuan, who came camping with his company colleagues. By the way, who did you come into the mountains with? Where are your companions? Don't you know about the search for the missing person?"
As the search-and-rescue member spoke, he carefully examined the person before him. He felt the man's features looked somewhat familiar. Meanwhile, Ji Yuan froze completely upon hearing those words.
Missing? Me?? More than half a month???
Ji Yuan's first reaction was that it was absurd. His second was the feeling that something was terribly wrong.
Before the stunned Ji Yuan could say anything else, a powerful wave of dizziness struck him.
His vision went black. It was as though Ji Yuan had instantly lost all his strength. Intense weakness and vertigo came crashing down upon him, then his legs gave way and his body collapsed.
Moreover, during the process, Ji Yuan's body visibly grew thinner at a speed discernible to the naked eye, while his lips seemed to weather away and become incomparably chapped.
"Sir? Sir, what's wrong? Careful!"
"Catch him, catch him!"
"This is bad! Call for reinforcements, quickly!"
The final sounds Ji Yuan heard in this life were the startled cries of the two search-and-rescue workers, as though they came from beyond the heavens.