The Mountain God's Authority

The morning air was fresh, cool, and damp.

Yunzhi had gone out to patrol the mountains, leaving Chen Du alone at the Daoist temple, while the cat raced wildly along the courtyard wall.

"First, I'll try it the orthodox Talisman School way!"

Chen Du took out a sheet of yellow paper, the kind commonly used for drawing talismans, and spread it across the seat of a grand preceptor's chair to use as a table.

Yes, he knew how to draw talismans too.

These days, even the Elixir Cauldron School had to learn the basics of the Talisman School, while the Talisman School had to study the Elixir Cauldron School's dual cultivation of life and nature. Even Buddhism and Daoism had borrowed from and blended with each other to become what they were today. Folk practitioners like him, who had no orthodox lineage, naturally had to draw on the best of a hundred schools to make a living.

He picked up his brush and began to draw, his strokes moving like dragons and snakes.

First came three circles representing the Great Emperors of the Three Offices. A stroke spiraled and flowed through the middle, signifying the endless circulation of divine golden light. Then came four more circles paying homage to the Four Sage Perfected Lords, followed by a large circle for the golden light shield, the primordial whole. Finally, he dotted in the divine lords of the four directions, completing a Golden Light Taboo Script.

There were no mistakes, and Chen Du was quite pleased.

Smack! He stamped it with the seal!

The two characters in ninefold seal script, which he had long been accustomed to seeing, now seemed full of a different sort of mystery.

But the yellow paper showed no reaction.

Nor was there any disturbance in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

"Just as I expected."

Chen Du wasn't particularly disappointed.

A talisman was a token, a credential.

Talismans held no power of their own. They were credentials for calling upon power, applications to borrow strength from the gods.

The symbols on them were actually a special kind of writing, containing a great deal of information. The Golden Light Talisman he had just drawn was essentially an internal cipher accessible only to those who met certain requirements. It was also called Golden Light Seal Script; the word "script" showed that it was essentially much like writing. Yet although its symbols were characters, they could not be analyzed or explained at will, nor read aloud casually, so they were treated as taboo and called Golden Light Taboo Script.

Chen Du did not practice the rites and talismans of the tradition, had not received a register and been entered into its rolls, and had not set up an altar to report to the gods. In other words, he was neither an employee of the heavenly court nor had he submitted a report to his superiors. Naturally, no god would respond.

"What if I used ordinary writing instead?"

Chen Du had seen that the jade plaque was directly inscribed with written decrees, rather than the Talisman School's special taboo characters, which required certain qualifications to use.

So he took another sheet of yellow paper and, copying the patriarch's example on the jade plaque, wrote a few words:

[Smash this stone to pieces]

Smack! Earth Sage!

The moment the seal came down, a gentle breeze surged in. Leaves rustled without cease as the spiritual energy of the mountains gathered toward him!

"It works!"

Then came a bang!

The talisman paper exploded into fragments out of thin air and vanished without a trace.

The stone that should have been smashed remained perfectly intact.

"Something went wrong?"

His line of thought was right, but he hadn't found the right method.

Was it the writing or the paper? Or could the seal only be used for suppression and sealing?

Or perhaps the seal itself wasn't that profound, and neither was the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Perhaps the jade plaque worked because some kind of formation or restriction had been placed on it, giving it its function, while the spiritual energy summoned by the seal merely supplied the power?

He would try it with stone instead!

Chen Du took out a slab of bluestone, wrote the same five characters on it, and stamped it with the seal.

At some point, his cat had come down from the wall and edged curiously up in front of him, watching his movements.

The gentle breeze blew again, and the mountain's spiritual energy gathered in a steady stream.

The cat gazed up at the changes around it, stars falling like rain in its eyes.

With a smack, the cat immediately leaped into the air, flipped a full three hundred and sixty degrees, and landed with its eyes wide, staring straight ahead.

The bluestone slab in its Daoist's hand had been placed atop a pile of rubble-and that pile of rubble had just been a whole stone.

What had happened?

The cat immediately moved closer for a careful look.

"It works!"

Chen Du was just as astonished as the cat.

After seeing a demon for the first time, witnessing magic for the first time, gaining spiritual power for the first time, and encountering the profound for the first time, this was the first time he had brought about something profound with his own hands.

And it was more wondrous than he could have imagined! Without learning magic or studying its principles in depth, he could produce such incredible power simply by writing a sentence and stamping it with a seal!

What was more, Yunzhi wasn't there, so he didn't have to pretend to be unruffled. He could show his surprise and delight naturally.

"It seems ordinary paper can't bear so much spiritual energy of heaven and earth, or perhaps the spiritual energy in the mountains has special requirements for its vessel."

Chen Du made a note of that for the time being.

This meant that even though he hadn't learned magic, he wasn't entirely without abilities.

Time to try some other functions-

[Make this blade of grass grow taller]

Smack!

The mountain wind gathered, and the little blade of grass actually grew in the wind.

[Make this flower bloom]

Smack!

Spiritual essence surged in, and the rose actually bloomed at a thought.

"Amazing!"

It was far more amazing and profound than he had imagined, almost as if his words became law.

Astonished, Chen Du continued experimenting:

[Make this treasure tree flower and bear fruit]

Smack!

Spiritual energy surged violently, and the bluestone exploded with a crack, frightening the cat into retreating far away, where it crouched low and watched in secret.

[Turn stone into gold]

Smack!

The spiritual energy surged as fiercely as before, and the bluestone exploded again.

[Find a few new slabs of bluestone on the mountain and bring them here]

Smack!

Stones flew out of the mountain and crashed down in front of him.

[Bind this cat and keep it from moving]

Smack!

A stone pinned the cat down, leaving it unable to move.

"Ha ha!"

Chen Du continued his research.

This could also be considered a kind of "talisman." On reflection, it fit rather well with a mountain god's authority. Could it be that Earth Sage possessed a mountain god's authority? Or had this seal been made from a ritual vessel belonging to a mountain god?

Chen Du tried to use this kind of "talisman" to retrieve all the treasures sealed away in the mountain, but it couldn't be done. He couldn't even retrieve a single one.

If he wanted to find them, he would have to dig in the ground-and might dig up some suppressed demons along the way.

The talisman could do the digging, though.

"Amazing..."

Chen Du couldn't bear to put the seal down now and kept writing.

[Move the ancient peach tree by the cliff at the summit here]

Smack!

The cat was bound and couldn't move, but it watched everything with its eyes wide open, a dazed look filling them.

Yunzhi patrolled from this mountain to the next, then from that one to another. After patrolling four or five mountains, she could no longer tell which was which.

At the summit, she saw peach blossoms in full bloom. There happened to be a fairly flat stone beneath them, suitable for sitting on.

She was about to sit down and rest for a moment when she noticed some crumbs on the stone and a few fine hairs beside it. At first, she thought she had found clues about a demon, but when she picked them up for a closer look, she discovered they were pastry crumbs, and the fine hairs all carried Senior Xie's scent. Only then did she realize she had walked back to the mountain.

She looked around, and a scene appeared in her mind:

Yesterday, the immortal master had sat in meditation beneath this peach tree at the summit, sipping fine wine and eating pastries at his leisure, peach blossoms and spring breezes at his side, the great Dao wondrous in his heart.

This spot also happened to overlook the place where the demon had escaped yesterday.

The immortal master must have surveyed the whole situation from here.

"Now that's an immortal."

I wonder when I'll reach such a realm.

Sighing, Yunzhi reached out to pick a peach blossom.

Her hand had only just reached out and was about to touch the blossom when, with a swish, the entire peach tree vanished without a trace.

She couldn't help being startled, her mind full of bewilderment.

That afternoon, she returned to the Daoist temple on the mountain. She was just preparing to report to the immortal master about the strange thing she had encountered that day when she saw that, at some unknown point, a peach tree in bloom had appeared at the temple entrance.

The peach tree was ancient and gnarled, its trunk black with age. There was no telling how many years it had grown on the mountain or how many storms it had weathered. Now, with the returning warmth of spring and the mountain's spiritual energy, its branches were laden with blossoms. The tree and its blossoms complemented the ancient temple in the mountains perfectly, each adding a touch of reclusive, immortal charm to the other.

Wasn't this the very same peach tree from the mountain?

Even the bird's nest was still in it!

"Immortal Master..."

Yunzhi pointed at the peach tree, a look of astonishment on her face.

"Oh, don't make such a fuss," Chen Du said truthfully. "Yesterday, Side-Swept Bangs and I went up the mountain to enjoy the spring scenery and sat beneath this peach tree for a while. Side-Swept Bangs even slept in the bird's nest in the tree. After coming back, Side-Swept Bangs missed it quite a bit, so I summoned it here."

"This..."

It was another immortal method beyond her imagination. But she found that she seemed to be getting somewhat used to it already.

"Reporting to you, Immortal Master: Yunzhi spent the day going around the five or six mountains nearby and found no trace of that demon." Yunzhi also reported truthfully. "Yunzhi is worried it might have run down into the mortal world and gone into hiding, so I'm planning to take advantage of the nights over the next few days to make a round of the more distant mountain villages and have another look."

"Is there any need to go at night?"

"There's something you may not know, Immortal Master. Although Yunzhi doesn't have that demon's ability to turn into smoke and escape, I do have a way to travel on the wind. The wind is stronger at night, so I can travel faster, and if I use Night Tour of the Palace as well, the villagers at the foot of the mountains won't easily notice me."

Yunzhi couldn't help feeling somewhat anxious.

To put it in the words of the Three Kingdoms, she had only just entered the Daoist temple and had yet to earn a shred of merit. How could she not be anxious?

"That's fine too."

Chen Du felt much more confident now:

"If you find it, act within your means. You don't have to confront it. If you want to play it safe, you can also lure it back to the mountain. As long as it comes back, even though it's inconvenient for me to use my magic power, I can deal with it by other means."

"Yes!"

Only then did Yunzhi remember that the immortal master was practicing a secret art and couldn't use magic or magic power.

Then how had he summoned the tree into the courtyard?

Had he merely spoken, and the ancient tree had come of its own accord?

In the mortal world below the mountains, two hundred li away, in the city of Yidu.

The young woman had changed into pajamas covered in abstract memes. Sitting on the sofa, she picked at her feet while holding her phone in her other hand and editing a video.

Thinking back on her trip to the mountains last weekend, especially her time at the Daoist temple, she still found it all wonderfully strange. Nothing clearly unusual had happened, nor had anything completely overturned her understanding. Everything had been vague and hazy, yet when she occasionally reflected on it, that very sense of haziness felt like the clouds and mist shrouding the mountain, itself a part of its spiritual energy and immortal aura.

After a moment's thought, she pressed send.

[My weekend mountain-climbing adventure]

The title appeared at the bottom left, while captions appeared over the video:

[I just picked a nearby wild mountain I'd never climbed before for a casual weekend hike. It wasn't very high, so I didn't think there'd be much to see. I was just going for a leisurely climb, but the experience turned out to be amazingly magical]

[The Daoist temple on the mountain. I wasn't planning to go in, but my bestie insisted I take a look]

[Didn't see the Daoist priest at first, but there was a young lady in hanfu. The hanfu was gorgeous, and she was even more beautiful]

[The temple cat, so well-behaved and pretty]

[The temple's architecture was lovely too. Made for gorgeous pictures]

[Met a snake on the way out. So scary]

[Went back to ask the Daoist priest for help, and he told the kitty to catch it. The kitty actually went! (It could actually understand human speech)]

[Kitty chasing the snake away (so shocked)]

[Couldn't resist going back to leave a little incense money. Wanted to ask for a talisman but didn't get one; I guess fate wasn't on my side. Then I left the temple]

[Thinking about it now, it still feels so magical]

The young woman watched it through once more, wondering when she could go back again, before finally putting down her phone.