The Seal in the Mountain

Right after that, a wisp of smoke rose from the woods.

The mountain wind blew steadily that evening, yet the smoke did not immediately disperse in the air. Stranger still, it did not coalesce into anything resembling a figure or a face, but when it abruptly made half a turn in the air, Chen Du inexplicably had the feeling that "it had noticed him and turned to look at him."

The next instant, it fled down the mountain.

It had not been dispersed by the wind, because it had not dispersed. Nor had it been blown away, because it was faster than the wind.

What was that thing?

Chen Du was full of questions.

When he looked down again, the black dot that had been pulsing earlier, one of those making up the illusory mountain on the seal, was gone.

What did that mean?

Chen Du could not help pondering it.

He had not originally thought the illusory mountain on the seal had any definite meaning. It might have been a mark, a decoration, an indication of what the seal represented, or a sign of ownership over the mountain. He had even wondered whether the seal possessed some authority akin to a mountain god's, and whether the black and white points of light were like pixels or ink dots.

Since this was a Daoist temple, black and white were perfectly natural colors, symbolizing yin and yang.

Now it seemed they had a deeper, more specific meaning.

His thoughts took only a moment, but when he looked again, the wisp of smoke had already flown off the mountain and vanished from sight.

Chen Du weighed his options before making a decision.

"Let's go take a look!"

He had intended to carry the cat over, but unexpectedly, she quickly wriggled free of his arms and, as soon as she landed, ran ahead of him.

A Daoist and a cat hurried down the mountain.

Any tourist who saw them would surely find it a strange sight.

Another figure was hurrying up the mountain.

If anyone had seen her in the deserted mountains at sunset, clad in flowing ancient robes, moving with flying steps and treading on grass without leaving a trace, she would probably have frightened quite a few people.

One party was descending the mountain and the other ascending, and with roughly the same distance to cover, they actually arrived here at about the same time.

"What brings you here?"

Chen Du stopped and looked at Yunzhi.

"Please forgive me, Immortal Master. Yunzhi was obeying your command and keeping watch over the temple below, but while sweeping the courtyard, I suddenly sensed some strange commotion. I looked up and saw a yao fleeing in a wisp of smoke. I remembered that you said you were cultivating a secret technique and should not use spells, and I thought that since the sun was already setting, most likely no one else would come up the mountain. So after some hesitation, I rashly came to see whether there were any small tasks you needed me to perform. Please punish me, Immortal Master."

"Thank you for your consideration."

Chen Du could tell that she had become noticeably more eager after he gave her the spirit fruit.

Sure enough, once you painted someone a pie, you had to deliver it quickly.

"There's no need to rush when something like this happens again. If I need you, I'll call for you. If you decide to stay at the temple long-term, I can even buy you a phone."

"A phone?"

"The thing I'm always looking at..."

Having painted another pie, Chen Du said no more. Instead, he stepped into the grass and went closer to examine the large pit.

Yunzhi's expression grew slightly serious-

The thing the Immortal Master is always looking at? The thing people down the mountain often hold in their hands when I go down there? If everyone has one, perhaps having one is what makes you a person of this era?

"A phone..."

She repeated the words silently, committing them firmly to memory.

Then she hurried over as well.

Ahead of them was a pit about three or four meters wide, but less than two meters deep. It looked as though something had pushed it open from within with tremendous force, piling the soil all around the outside.

The bottom of the pit had been churned into a complete mess. The marks were nothing like the usual footprints of a large animal or a person; instead, the soil was covered in marks that looked as though they had been made by slashing blades, chopping axes, and pounding sticks.

The soil inside was damp, and it would be easy to dirty one's shoes.

Without hesitation, Yunzhi stepped in first and bent down to examine the jumbled marks in the soil. Before long, she turned back to the Immortal Master and said, "If the thing that escaped from here was a yao, it might have been a bug with a very large true form. It might have many legs, with hair on them, and they're very sharp..."

Yunzhi paused mid-sentence, as if she had suddenly discovered something. She reached down and dug a palm-sized object out of the soil.

"So hot!"

Holding it in one hand, she was about to wipe the dirt off with the other before giving it to the Immortal Master. Suddenly, as if burned, she tossed it into her other hand. After one wipe, she tossed it back, passing it from hand to hand.

In the end, she dropped it at Chen Du's feet. Through the dirt, a color similar to green grass faintly showed.

Chen Du felt a little apprehensive before trying to pick it up.

It was a plaque carved from jade. It felt damp and cool to the touch, perfectly ordinary, with no heat or any other sensation.

Yunzhi stared at it in surprise.

Chen Du did not look at her. Instead, he wiped the dirt off the plaque and examined it intently.

Rich spiritual energy swirled around the jade plaque. It was extremely complex, as if every kind of spiritual energy were present. He could not tell whether there was any pattern to it; all he could see was that the energy was rapidly dissipating from the plaque.

It was as though it had broken or lost its effect.

It did not look natural either, so this was very likely the first implement Chen Du had encountered that had been left behind by an ancient cultivator.

Once the dirt was wiped away, he saw words carved on it:

"A yao falsely claimed to be a door god and emerged to commit evil, greatly alarming and disturbing the people. Considering that it has yet to eat anyone, and taking pity on the bloodline within it, I have suppressed it for a hundred years."

There was a seal at the lower right.

It looked like an ordinary red cinnabar imprint, but even after being buried underground, covered in dirt, and wiped by Chen Du, it had not faded in the slightest.

It bore two intricate characters in ninefold seal script:

Earth Sage!

Chen Du immediately fell into deep thought.

"Immortal Master, there are some stones here too. They look like fragments of a stone box or cabinet."

Yunzhi was still searching vigorously. She dug more broken stones out of a corner of the pit. Apart from their rough broken edges, they had smooth, flat surfaces and right-angled corners.

"They might be from its coffin, something used to suppress it, or something that held the jade plaque."

With that, she continued searching the pit.

Before long, she found something unusual in the corner on the other side.

"Immortal Master! There's an intact stone casket here too. These two were buried close together!"

She dug as she spoke, truly brimming with enthusiasm.

Seeing this, Chen Du thought to himself, Sure enough:

Painting pies really works!

But just as she cleared the dirt off the intact stone casket and brought her hand close, before she even touched it, a wisp of green smoke immediately rose from her fingertips. A force then sent her flying.

Fortunately, she was nimble and landed steadily. Far from looking disheveled, she instead cut a graceful figure.

At the same time, the dirt on the stone casket was blasted away.

"Immortal Master, there's a restriction on it!"

Chen Du saw that it was a very ordinary stone casket, about twenty centimeters wide, less than ten centimeters thick, and more than a meter long. It had no decoration or radiance. Even when he focused intently, he had sensed only a slight fluctuation at the instant it sent Yunzhi flying; afterward, it had completely withdrawn.

He picked up the seal in his hand again.

As expected, a white dot beside the black dot that had disappeared earlier was trembling.

There was clearly some connection between the two.

"Let me take a look."

Chen Du was eighty or ninety percent confident, but still somewhat apprehensive. His expression remained calm and unhurried as he tried stepping forward and reaching out.

He appeared casual, but was actually prepared to snatch his hand back at the slightest unpleasant sensation.

As for being wrong, he was not afraid either, because this had clearly been left by the ancient patriarchs of the Earth Sage Temple. Since they were patriarchs, it was only natural for them to be more formidable than a junior like him.

Yunzhi held her breath too, watching him intently.

In just an instant, the Immortal Master's fingertips reached the place where she had been burned.

The stone casket did not react.

The next instant, the Immortal Master touched the stone casket.

Yunzhi's eyes widened involuntarily.

The stone casket that had burned her and sent her flying was now utterly docile, and the restriction on it seemed not to exist.

As expected of the Immortal Master.

"Hmm..."

The stone casket felt cold to Chen Du's hand and seemed ready to open at any moment, but he was hesitant.

For one thing, he did not know what had escaped earlier, or whether it was good or evil. For another, he did not know what all these black and white ink dots meant. Clearly, the temple's inheritance had been interrupted, leaving him unable to tell whether he should open it or bury it again exactly as it was.

Yunzhi did not dare make a sound, quietly awaiting his decision.

Even the cat came over through the wet mud, all four white paws filthy. She was also curious about the stone casket and leaned close to sniff at it.

Unexpectedly, at that very moment, the stone casket opened.

It was divided into upper and lower halves, seemingly a base and a lid. The two halves were identical, with no joint, hinge, or mortise-and-tenon connection; the places where they met were smooth and flat. Changes in the soil layers had left it tilted, so when the cat came over and touched it with the tip of her nose, the upper half slid straight down the slope.

This gave the cat a fright. She first looked down and stared in astonishment at the fallen half of the stone casket, then looked up and watched Chen Du warily.

"It's not your fault."

Chen Du said this and looked down.

There in the lower half of the stone casket lay a piece of decayed cloth, a simple, ancient-looking longsword in the middle, and a palm-sized jade plaque.

This jade plaque was clearly intact. It gave off no spiritual aura or mysterious signs; it was clean and also bore a line of engraved words: "The sword carried by an old friend. Seeing the sword is like seeing my old friend, and I cannot bear to abandon it. Now that the spiritual energy of heaven and earth is running dry, I seal it here."

A seal was stamped at the lower right as well:

The two characters for Earth Sage, in ninefold seal script.

Yunzhi's eyes widened further and further.

Seals, fortuitous encounters.

Yao, ancient treasures.

Though she had never experienced such strange events herself, having been born in the Age of Dharma Decline, she had heard of them in many stories of immortals passed down from ancient times.