The valley had no wind, but it was cold.
It wasn't the kind of cold that blew in from outside. It seeped up from underground, as if the bones of the entire mountain were cold. Dark-purple moss covered the rock walls on either side. Every so often, a few drops of water fell from the cracks in the stone, but the sound of them striking the ground was swallowed by the valley. There wasn't even an echo.
Yingning walked at the very front. She wasn't smiling anymore. She seemed like an entirely different person, her steps light and swift, her ears twitching faintly as if she were listening to something no human could hear.
"Black Mountain Demon's territory is huge," she said in a lowered voice. "From this valley entrance to the depths of the mountain, it's probably around thirty li. Lots of things live in there—ghosts, demons, spirits, you name it."
"How do you know all that so well?" Wu Wei asked.
Yingning was silent for a moment. "Spirit Fox Valley isn't far from Black Mountain. My mother told me before that the Black Mountain Demon... wasn't always evil."
"Wasn't always evil?" There was obvious doubt in Wu Wei's voice.
"He was originally an old tree in this mountain. It took him several hundred years of cultivation to awaken his intelligence." Yingning's voice was soft, as if she were telling a story she'd heard long ago. "After awakening his intelligence, he was kindhearted. He couldn't stand seeing all those homeless ghosts wandering outside, so he took them into the mountain and gave them somewhere to stay."
She paused.
"But more and more kept coming. The wrongfully dead, the unjustly dead, those who died violent deaths, those who'd been murdered... Every ghost carried resentment. One or two weren't a problem, but when dozens or hundreds piled up together, the resentment was like ink soaking in water, slowly dyeing the entire mountain black."
Wu Wei frowned. "So he was corrupted by the resentment?"
"It wasn't just corruption." Yingning shook her head. "My mother said he'd cultivated to the Spirit Condensation stage and wanted to break through to the Resonance stage. But resonance requires a deep response with a core spirit object, and his roots were embedded in this mountain. The mountain was full of resentment. When he resonated with the mountain, all that resentment poured in with it."
She stopped and looked back at Chen Yu.
"After that, he was sometimes lucid and sometimes not. When he was lucid, he still remembered who he was. When he was confused... all that was left was the resentment making decisions for him."
Chen Yu said nothing. After thinking it over, he felt the story sounded like a good person opening a shelter, only for the negative emotions of the people he'd sheltered to turn around and swallow him whole.
Pretty tragic.
But tragic or not, they were currently standing inside the stomach of that very tragedy.
They followed the valley inward for about fifteen minutes.
The path grew narrower and narrower, while the rock walls on either side rose higher and higher. The sky overhead had been squeezed into a thin gray line. Strange things began appearing on the ground—scattered strips of cloth, broken wooden wheels, rusty iron chains, and several pieces of wood gnawed down to their frames. From their shape, they looked like the remains of a carriage.
"These were left behind by the people driven in here by the mountain patrol beasts," Yingning said flatly. "Most of them never made it back out."
Wu Wei swallowed.
Xiao Nian, inside the oil-paper umbrella, hadn't said a word. Ever since she had said, "I think I've been here before," she'd gone quiet—too quiet for her.
Chen Yu lowered his head and glanced at the umbrella tucked beneath his arm. The canopy wasn't trembling, and there were no sobs from inside. But he could feel an extremely faint, icy chill seeping out of the umbrella, as if Xiao Nian had curled herself into a tiny ball.
He didn't ask what was wrong. Some things didn't need to be asked about. He could wait until she wanted to talk.
After walking a little farther, the valley suddenly opened up.
They entered a clearing. It wasn't large, about the size of a courtyard, with black rock walls surrounding it on every side. A dead tree stood in the center. Its trunk was so thick that three people couldn't have wrapped their arms around it, but every branch and leaf had withered away. Its bare limbs stretched toward the sky like countless dry, withered fingers.
Dozens of tattered cloth sheets hung beneath the tree.
Gray, black, and dark red, all different lengths, as if they'd been ripped down from tents somewhere. They hung from the dead branches, swaying faintly despite the lack of wind.
Yingning stopped.
"Tent ghosts," she said in a very low voice. "Don't touch those cloths."
"What are tent ghosts?" Chen Yu asked.
"Ghosts who did bad things while they were alive. After they died, the Black Mountain Demon took them in, wrapped them in cloth, and trapped them inside." Yingning's gaze swept over the swaying sheets. "When he's lucid, he keeps them under control. When he's confused, he lets them out to patrol and act as enforcers."
The instant she finished speaking, the nearest cloth sheet began to shake violently.
It tore free from the dead branch and floated in midair like a bedsheet caught by the wind. But there was something inside it—a blurry human shape twisted beneath the cloth, as if someone were struggling while wrapped inside.
Then the sheet split open.
A man's ghost crawled out. He wore a tattered set of coarse clothes. His face was ashen, his eye sockets sunken, and one corner of his mouth twisted upward. At a glance, it was obvious he wasn't a good man. Half a hemp rope was still tied around his neck, as if he'd been hanged.
He opened his eyes and swept his murky gaze over Yingning, Wu Wei, and Chen Yu, finally stopping on the oil-paper umbrella beneath Chen Yu's arm.
He stared at the umbrella for two seconds.
Then he smiled. It was an ugly smile, like a crack forcibly squeezed into a parched mudflat.
"Well, well," he rasped shrilly. "I know the little girl inside that umbrella."
The oil-paper umbrella gave a violent shudder.
Xiao Nian's voice came from inside, tiny and broken, as if something had its fingers around her throat.
"...Uncle Wang?"
The tent ghost tilted his head, his smile widening. "The little girl still remembers Uncle Wang? Uncle Wang took you to find your mother. Do you remember? Your mother is waiting for you on the other side of the mountain. Come with Uncle Wang—"
His tone was exactly the same as someone coaxing a child. Practiced, slick, and carrying a kind of horrifying familiarity.
The oil-paper umbrella burst open.
Xiao Nian shot out of it, her entire body glowing blue-white. Her hair flew loose, and her eyes were wide—not with fear, but with something Chen Yu had never seen on her face before.
Hatred.
"You lied to me!" she shrieked, lunging at the tent ghost. "You said you'd take me to find my mother! You brought me here and abandoned me! I walked around here for three days and three nights! No one came looking for me! I called out for three days and three nights! No one heard me!"
Her voice grew sharper and more fractured, like a pane of glass cracking bit by bit.
"When I starved to death beneath that tree—" Her voice suddenly dropped, so low it was almost inaudible. "I was still calling for Daddy."
Xiao Nian's attack sent the tent ghost floating several steps backward. The smile vanished from his face, replaced by a numb bewilderment. He seemed not to remember these things very well anymore—or perhaps being trapped inside the cloth for too long had blurred most of his memories.
But he did remember one thing.
"Your stepmother told me to do it," he muttered, sounding as if he were talking about something that had nothing to do with him. "She gave me fifty taels of silver to take you into the mountains and abandon you. She said your father's estate was too large, and you were in the way—"
He never finished.
Wu Wei's talisman was already stuck to his forehead.
Lightning exploded. The tent ghost let out a horrible shriek, his entire spirit convulsing several times as if he'd been electrocuted. Then he and the cloth sheet both turned to ash, scattering beneath the dead tree.
Wu Wei withdrew his hand, his face livid. He was only twelve, but at that moment his expression was graver than any adult's.
"Child trafficker," he forced through clenched teeth. "You deserve to die."
Xiao Nian floated in midair, staring motionlessly at the pile of ashes on the ground.
She didn't cry. That outburst seemed to have burned away every one of her emotions. Now she simply floated there, hollow, like a lamp that had been blown out.
Chen Yu walked over, picked up the oil-paper umbrella scattered on the ground, dusted off the ash, and held it out to Xiao Nian.
"Here's your umbrella," he said in the same calm tone as always. "It's cold outside."
Xiao Nian looked at him for a long time.
Then she took the umbrella and curled herself back inside.
The moment the canopy closed, a very soft "Thank you" came from within.
The other cloth sheets began to move too.
One, two, five, ten—the dozens of cloth sheets hanging from the dead tree began shaking violently all at once, as if awakened by some signal. The ghosts inside them let out low, muffled growls, like a pack of beasts that had been locked up too long and had caught the scent of blood.
Yingning's expression changed completely.
"He's confused," she said, genuine fear appearing in her voice for the first time. "He's released all the tent ghosts—the Black Mountain Demon is in his confused state!"
Wu Wei pulled out a handful of talismans, but his hands were trembling slightly. He could handle one tent ghost, but if more than a dozen charged them at once, his spiritual power wouldn't hold out.
Chen Yu pulled the brass lamp from the book chest and gripped it in his hand. The totem on its body grew faintly warm, but it didn't light up. He still hadn't fully recovered from using the holy light last time.
"Can we run?" he asked Yingning.
Yingning shook her head. "The valley entrance is guarded by the mountain patrol beasts. If we go deeper..." She hesitated. "Going deeper will take us to the Black Mountain Demon's main lair. When he's lucid, he'll call the tent ghosts back."
"So we have to find a demon who's sometimes lucid and sometimes out of his mind, and bet on catching him during one of his lucid moments?"
Yingning didn't answer, but her expression said everything.
Chen Yu was silent for two seconds.
"Fine." He shoved the brass lamp back into the book chest and turned to run. "We'll take the gamble."
The cloth sheets burst open behind them, and the tent ghosts shrieked as they gave chase.
They sprinted through the dark valley, their feet pounding over loose stones and dead leaves, the strip of sky overhead growing narrower and narrower. Yingning ran in front, leading the way, while Wu Wei flung talismans behind him as he ran. Lightning exploded through the narrow passage, illuminating the gray, surging wall of cloth sheets rushing toward them like a tide.
Xiao Nian hugged the oil-paper umbrella and curled up in Chen Yu's arms without making a sound.
They ran for a long time.
At the end of the valley stood a gigantic cavern. Black vines covered the entrance, and dark-purple flowers bloomed along them. Their petals slowly opened and closed in the windless air, as if breathing.
The cavern was dark, but not completely black. A ghostly green light seeped from the walls, as if the veins of the entire mountain were glowing.
Yingning stopped at the entrance.
"We've arrived," she panted. "His main lair is in here."
The tent ghosts chased them to the entrance but did not go inside. They drifted outside, their cloth sheets rolling and twisting with a rustling sound, like a pack of stray dogs afraid to cross a boundary.
A voice came from inside the cavern.
It was deep and ancient, carrying an exhaustion that was impossible to describe, like the groan of an old tree in the wind.
"Again... Someone else has been driven in..."
The voice paused.
"I don't want to take in any more... Don't come anymore... I can't fit you all in..."
Then the voice changed. It grew shrill, violent, and full of murderous rage, as if two completely different things lived inside the same mouth.
"Come in! All of you, come in! You're all staying here! This is my mountain! Mine!"
Yingning took a step back, her face pale.
Chen Yu stood at the cavern entrance, listening to the voice inside tear itself back and forth between gentleness and violence. He was silent for a long time.
Then he said, "He isn't evil."
Wu Wei glanced at him.
"He's just carrying too much that doesn't belong to him," Chen Yu said calmly. "So much that it broke him open."
The voice inside the cavern suddenly fell silent.
It remained silent for a long time.
Then the ancient, exhausted voice spoke again, this time with a faint trace of lucidity.
"You... You're right."
A sigh came from deep within the cavern, heavy enough to make it feel as though the entire mountain had collapsed another inch.
"I can't fit any more in."