After offering the tribute to the mountain god, Qi Wu quickly gathered with the others.
The group, drenched from the rain, shivered as a cold wind blew past.
"If this keeps up, we’ll catch a cold."
The old hunter walked to a corner, picked up a handful of firewood, and grinned, showing his big front teeth. "We hunters sometimes take shelter here from the rain, so I left some firewood behind for today."
Qi Wu was delighted. "Thank you very much!"
The old hunter waved it off. "It’s nothing. Living in the mountains means you help me, and I help you. Once the rain stops tomorrow, we can collect more firewood to replace what we used."
The group quickly piled the firewood on the ground where the fire was marked. Qi Wu took out a fire talisman and lit a stick, then gently blew on it to help it catch fire. Soon, the dry wood began to burn.
As they watched the flames rise and felt the warmth, someone let out a long sigh.
"We're finally alive again."
"Qi, do you want a corn cake or a rice cake?"
"Let’s have one of each?"
One person started handing out the food, and everyone placed their rations near the fire to warm them up. Once they smelled delicious, A Yue pulled out a jar of pickled vegetables for everyone to spread on their cakes. Taking a bite, they were met with a burst of salty flavor.
"A Yue, your pickling skills are really good. You should open a pickled vegetable shop instead of following us around as a merchant."
A Yue smiled but didn’t say anything.
Thinking of what had just happened, Qi Wu asked, "Old Sun, why did you ask A Yue if someone pushed him down?"
This was the first time Qi Wu and the others had entered the mountains. They wanted to cross the mountain range to sell goods in the neighboring Qinghuai County. After searching for a long time, they finally found a local old hunter to guide them.
The old hunter’s expression turned serious. "Have you heard of the 'Charming Ghost'?"
Qi Wu and the others looked grave. They had traveled far and wide, so they knew a bit about ghost stories. One person spoke up loudly, "You mean the Charming Ghost that helps tigers?"
The old hunter nodded and spoke quietly. "This mountain is called Pine Mountain. About ten years ago, a hunter went into the mountains to hunt and then disappeared, leaving behind only a shoe. At that time, people said a tiger spirit had come and eaten him."
"At first, people didn’t want to believe it. They thought they had lived here for generations, how could a tiger spirit appear?"
"But as time passed, people reported that their hunting dogs would bark madly in one direction. When they looked, they were so scared they froze."
"There was a striped tiger, about four meters long. It jumped at the hunting dog, and the hunter ran away just in time!"
"People also noticed that people were disappearing from time to time, so they reported it to Qinghuai County. The officials heard about it and sent me to Yanjiang County, saying Pine Mountain was close to Yanjiang County, and since you only sold your catch there, it should be their responsibility."
"When I got to Yanjiang County, the officials said Pine Mountain belonged to Qinghuai County and should be managed by them."
"After going back and forth, both sides sent two cultivators to search for the tiger spirit in Pine Mountain. They searched for ten days and didn’t find a single tiger hair. Those two cultivators thought we were wasting their time and left in anger. We explained that maybe the tiger spirit was deliberately hiding from them, but they wouldn’t listen and just walked away."
"We went back to the officials, but they ignored us."
"With no other options, most people left Pine Mountain to find a new path, leaving just a few of us old folks who only knew how to hunt."
"Later, we found that while hunting, we would encounter those missing travelers. They would appear and disappear suddenly, sometimes pushing you."
"Sometimes when I took people into the mountains, those travelers would pretend to run into us and ask if they could join us. I didn’t dare agree and hurriedly left."
"The older generation used to say that there’s something called a Charming Ghost. When a tiger spirit kills someone, that person turns into a Charming Ghost, helping the tiger spirit find prey and tricking people into a place where they would become new Charming Ghosts."
"But dealing with Charming Ghosts is straightforward. As long as you refuse their requests, they won’t harm you."
Qi Wu suddenly understood. He had been puzzled about why there were so few hunters in such a vast forest. It made sense now; they were all driven away by the tiger spirit.
Seeing A Yue hesitating, Qi Wu asked, "A Yue, if you have a question, just ask."
At first, A Yue felt embarrassed to ask, but since the leader encouraged him, he decided to speak up.
"I only have one question. Do Charming Ghosts have female ghosts? Are they pretty? Do they seduce men? Is there a chance I could have a forbidden romance with one, escaping the tiger spirit and wandering the world together?"
With each question A Yue asked, question marks appeared over everyone’s heads, even the old hunter looked puzzled.
Seeing their reactions, A Yue scratched his head in embarrassment. "I’ve seen it written like this in novels, like 'A Chinese Ghost Story' and 'The Ghost and the Beauty.'"
Qi Wu was silent for a moment, then patted A Yue’s shoulder. "You should read less."
Then Qi Wu asked, "So why don’t you report this to the Five Great Sects? They uphold justice and surely wouldn’t ignore this."
"The Five Great Sects?" The old hunter looked confused; he hadn’t heard that name before.
"They are the Wendaozong, Xuankong Temple, and three other famous sects, the strongest on the continent."
"I think I’ve heard that name before," the old hunter said uncertainly. He wasn’t sure where he had heard it—maybe in a teahouse at the foot of the mountain, or from travelers entering the mountains, or perhaps he had heard it when he was young or later in life.
He couldn’t remember.
In fact, the common people knew very little about cultivators, just that it was a rare and exciting topic.
Not to mention that stories passed down orally often change, and by the time they reach ordinary folks, they can be very different from the truth, making them hard to believe.
For example, Qi Wu had heard that the Wendaozong was named so because it meant "asking the way to immortality," suggesting that the path to becoming immortal is vast and one must constantly ask themselves what kind of path they are pursuing, whether it is the righteous way or the demonic way, and not lose their true heart.
Once, Qi Wu met a disciple from Wendaozong, named Dai Bufan. He remembered clearly what Dai Bufan had said when he asked why they were called Wendaozong.
"You ask this? Then I have to talk about our founding ancestor, the Xiantian Dao Ren. To find a good location, the ancestor spent a lot of money asking people from Tiancang Sect to calculate the position. In the end, they found a place that gathered good fortune from all directions and said the sect needed to be established at a specific time and place to thrive."
"But the ancestor was lost. Even though he had marked the way, he still got lost and had to ask an old farmer by the roadside for directions. That’s how he found the sect’s location without missing the timing."
"To thank the old farmer, the ancestor named the sect Wendaozong."
(End of Chapter)