Chapter 201: A Mountain Suspended, A River Submerged (15)
As soon as Taoist Ma realized that Zhang Wubing hadn’t done any divination before heading to Longevity Village, he immediately contacted the abbot of Haiyun Temple to explain the situation.
The abbot frowned, lifting his head from the many affairs occupying him, and turned to ask Taoist Wang, who happened to be nearby.
Taoist Wang looked surprised. “Director Zhang? Oh, right—the show that Junior Brother Yan is participating in.”
He stroked his chin and hesitated. “I think… I really haven’t seen anything.”
As he spoke, Taoist Wang’s hands moved swiftly as he began calculating the situation in Longevity Village.
However, the longer he calculated, the more serious his expression became. By the end, his face looked downright grim.
“Longevity Village… such a promising name, suggesting prosperity and long life—yet it hides the greatest danger.”
Taoist Wang turned to the abbot. “You said it’s located in the southern region?”
“There’s only one thing that comes to mind immediately when I think of that place…”
He and the abbot locked eyes, both seeing the storm of realization in the other’s gaze.
—Nanming Mountain.
At that moment, a young Taoist acolyte suddenly rushed in. He was in such a hurry that he didn’t watch his step and—thud!—kicked the high threshold, nearly tripping himself.
The abbot frowned and shifted his gaze, his expression turning serious due to the boy’s clumsiness.
The young acolyte pointed behind him and tried to speak. After gasping for breath a few times to steady himself, he shouted, “Taoist Li! Taoist Li is awake!”
The abbot froze for a moment, then sprang up from his chair. Without sparing a glance at Taoist Wang or the boy, he strode quickly toward the old Taoist’s room.
The old Taoist was the most senior and most powerful in Haiyun Temple, holding tremendous influence over the entire sect.
Whenever something major happened, the high-ranking Taoists and the abbot would always seek his counsel.
However, ever since returning from Gui Mountain, the old Taoist had frequently entered a meditative state. This time, he had been in it for nearly a whole month.
The abbot had wanted to consult him about the issue with the Yin Path, but hadn’t had the chance—he could only wait anxiously.
Without the old Taoist’s final judgment, he couldn’t feel at ease.
So when he heard the acolyte say that Taoist Li had awakened, the abbot couldn’t wait another second. Everything else became secondary.
But just as he reached the old Taoist’s room—before even setting foot inside—whoosh! a shoe came flying out.
“How can you call yourself a master! What kind of teaching led to someone like Lu Xingxing? Can’t you act a little more like a proper teacher?!”
The old Taoist’s roar rang powerfully from within the room: “Unfilial disciple! Go back and start from scratch with Lu Xingxing!”
The abbot watched helplessly as Taoist Song Yi, looking thoroughly disheveled, was chased out of the room.
Normally stern and composed, Taoist Song Yi now looked flustered. As the old Taoist followed, trying to beat him, Song Yi tried to interject and explain.
But clearly, the old Taoist wasn’t giving him that chance. Song Yi had no choice but to raise his arms to block the blows, fumbling about. Even the bandage wrapped around his chest had begun to soak through with blood—it was obvious that his old wounds from Binhai University had reopened.
“Wait, Master, I…”
Taoist Song Yi tried to speak, completely at a loss.
The old Taoist grabbed a peachwood sword from nearby and threw it at him. “If you’re injured, go heal! You show up looking half-dead in front of me—trying to
pull some kind of pity act?!”
Usually, Taoist Song Yi carried a commanding presence and could silence a room without raising his voice. But now, he was being chased in circles around the courtyard by his master, all his dignity gone.
Watching this, the abbot couldn’t help but feel a mix of emotions.
This lineage… from Taoist Li down to Lu Xingxing, and even including Taoist Yan—they all had pretty bad tempers.
Only Taoist Song Yi, in the middle, could be considered meticulous and serious. Yet even he was constantly caught between two hot-headed extremes, and his composure often cracked.
But it was precisely this lineage that produced exceptionally talented individuals.
Even the most unreliable one—Lu Xingxing—had started to settle down a bit after returning from Binhai University, genuinely applying himself to his studies under his elder master uncles.
And once he started learning, he advanced with astonishing speed.
It was like that one genius student in class who usually fooled around, relying on talent to scrape by with average grades.
But once he got serious, the brilliance that had always been hidden under his lazy grin finally came to light.
The one whom Taoist Li loved the most, and who was also the youngest among his junior brother, was Hermit Chengyun—an extraordinarily gifted prodigy rarely seen in the world.
Even Hermit Chengyun’s disciple, Yan Shixun, possessed a rare and ominous trait: the Evil Spirit Bone Transformation. What was more astonishing, he was the only one with such a condition who had ever survived.
As the abbot sorted through these thoughts, he couldn’t help but feel a sliver of doubt alongside his admiration.
Could it be that only those with such fiery tempers could more easily touch the Great Dao and advance further along the path of cultivation?
The abbot stroked his chin, deep in contemplation.
When Taoist Song Yi saw the abbot, he specifically paused to offer a respectful bow in greeting.
Back at Binhai University, Taoist Song Yi had been the most seriously injured of all the Taoists who went. He hadn’t even expected to return alive and had mentally prepared himself to lay down his life to protect the students of Binhai.
Had it not been for Yan Shixun’s critical intervention that reversed the situation, Taoist Song Yi would have already sacrificed himself for the Dao, leaving his bones buried in Binhai.
Even though he returned alive, Taoist Song Yi had been bedridden for a long time, completely immobile. It was only recently that his condition had improved enough for him to scold Lu Xingxing.
—Yet even so, after coming out of his meditative state, the old Taoist master had still dragged him back, and because of the incident with Lu Xingxing, ended up reprimanding him as well.
The Taoist robe that Taoist Song Yi had hurriedly draped over his shoulders before rushing out had already slipped off and been thrown aside by the old master. He was now holding it in his hand, not having had time to put it back on.
His hair bun was still a little messy, and his clothes were disheveled from the old master chasing and hitting him. The bandages wrapped around his chest were faintly stained with blood, which had also seeped into the white inner garments underneath, making him look quite battered.
The abbot couldn’t hold back a smile and waved a hand at Taoist Song Yi. “Taoist Song, hurry back and continue your rest. The winter wind is cold—you don’t want your wounds to worsen.”
The old Taoist, upon hearing the abbot’s voice, let out a grunt and allowed him to enter.
“Taoist Li, many things have happened while you were in seclusion. The Yin path…”
The abbot bowed deeply toward the old master, about to express his deepest concerns.
But the old Taoist raised his hand to stop him.
“I ask you—what is going on with Mount Nanming?”
The old Taoist’s expression was grave, his graying eyebrows tightly furrowed. “While in meditation, I caught a glimpse of Heaven’s will, and it pointed directly at Mount Nanming.”
Ever since he had peered into fate many years ago and nearly died from the backlash, the old Taoist had been aware that the Great Dao was on the verge of collapse and chaos was looming over the world.
From that moment on, he had always been prepared to sacrifice himself for the Dao.
The old Taoist saw it clearly: the divine possessions and spirit-channeling rituals he often witnessed his master and master uncles perform in his youth had grown increasingly rare as he aged.
Even in the most renowned Taoist temples in the country, successful spirit-invocations were seldom heard of.
These days, the talismans only drew down the faintest traces of divine power—
—And not all Taoists could even manage that.
More alarmingly, even the shamanic sects who relied on spirit mediums were spreading word that no deities could be seen.
This made the old Taoist begin to suspect: had the gods of this world all perished?
The increasingly unstable underworld was the clearest evidence of that theory.
During this recent meditation, the old Taoist’s soul had drifted through the Grand Void, and he saw faint glimpses of something unlike anything he had ever seen before.
—Mount Nanming, teeming with vitality, flourishing far beyond the human realm.
But just as the mountain reached its peak of life energy, the collapse of the Great Dao accelerated.
In the human world, malevolent spirits ran rampant. The wailing of the dead was endless, and the number of people dying from ghosts and monsters surged dramatically within just a few months. The underworld, which had only just barely restored order, once again became overwhelmed.
A flood of newly dead souls crowded the still fragile and incomplete underworld, quickly pushing its barely functioning system to the brink of failure.
The underworld collapsed, and the dead had no place to go. Evil spirits escaped into the human realm.
Death spread across the land. Corpses floated in the rivers.
The entire river running through the breadth of Mount Nanming was filled with corpses who had died unjustly and could not rest in peace.
In stark contrast stood the vibrant, surging vitality of Nanming Mountain.
It was like one half was hell, and the other a peach blossom paradise.
The eerie contrast sent chills down one’s spine.
Just a few glimpses of these scenes had nearly drained all of the old Taoist’s life force, and his soul had almost failed to return to his body.
When he opened his eyes, the old Taoist immediately felt the weakness in his body—it was as if his oil had run dry and his lamp would go out at any second.
And when he briefly and concisely reported what he had seen to the abbot, the abbot watched in shock as the old Taoist’s once jet-black hair, youthful like a middle-aged man’s, began to turn white strand by strand. His once rosy and full cheeks rapidly sank in, and deep wrinkles began to pile up on his face.
His voice became hoarser and hoarser, and a frothy mix of blood welled up in his throat, which he barely managed to swallow back down.
Yet it still stained his teeth red.
The abbot was horrified—almost as if his soul had split apart.
He lunged forward and pressed the old Taoist down onto a nearby chair, loudly stopping him from continuing to speak.
“Taoist Li! Enough, don’t say anymore!”
The abbot’s eyes were red with grief and anger, his heart pounding wildly, and his hands trembling uncontrollably.
This was… this was the price of peering into the secrets of heaven!
How could a mortal body bear the weight of the great Dao of heaven and earth?
And yet, it was precisely a mortal body that had braced against the collapsing world and firmly protected the common people within a safe space.
Even if it cost him his life, he still wished to safeguard life itself.
That was his Dao.
The abbot was shaken to the core, never before having so intimately felt the justice and cruelty beneath the cold indifference of heaven and earth.
It wasn’t until the old Taoist finally fell silent and his rapid aging slowed to a stop that the abbot’s heart still refused to calm.
The old Taoist quietly gazed at the abbot before him.
Even this abbot, who was universally respected beyond the sect, looked to him like a mere child—just a young successor of Haiyun Temple.
And seeing the worry in the abbot’s eyes, the old Taoist suddenly felt like laughing.
Not a single descendant of Haiyun Temple had ever shamed its name…
Even if he died here, so what? There would be more disciples to take up what he had left unfinished, continuing to shoulder the great Dao of heaven and earth, standing resolutely before all life.
But since he was the elder, for now, he would be the one to hold up the sky.
The old Taoist smiled faintly, no trace left of the irritability he had shown when facing Taoist Song Yi earlier.
“I won’t say more, but you understand, don’t you?”
His voice was calm, and his gaze locked onto the abbot, wanting a definite answer.
The abbot nodded repeatedly, eyes growing moist.
“Taoist Li, rest assured—Nanming Mountain… will be safe.”
The abbot choked slightly, “We’ll depart for Nanming Mountain at once and vow to contain the crisis within the mountain, not letting it spread or affect any nearby residents.”
The old Taoist stared at him for a long time, then let out a light laugh.
“Good.”
……
Even after returning to his office, the abbot remained dazed for quite some time.
Although the old Taoist had just emerged from his meditative state, those few brief words had severely depleted his life force. The other senior Taoists still in Haiyun Temple had already rushed over, and the doctor they had summoned was on the way.
The abbot sat at his desk, staring blankly at the towering stack of documents before him.
After a long silence, he got up and pulled out the case file on the Nanming Mountain incident from years ago. One by one, he laid the documents out, every word and sentence brutally detailing what had happened back then.
And the Taoists who had died in Nanming Mountain because of it.
The mass of corpses in Nanming Mountain had shaken not only Haiyun Temple, but other sects as well.
Whether they were shamans, spirit channelers, Taoists, or monks, they had all gone to Nanming Mountain seeking the truth.
But many never even found the mountain.
They got lost in the surrounding areas.
Located in the far south, Nanming Mountain had an extremely peculiar geography. The chaotic magnetic fields and unpredictable weather had made this undeveloped, primordial forest into an extremely challenging environment.
To search for the truth under such conditions, one first had to face the complete failure of traditional positioning methods, compounded by disrupted supply lines. Getting lost in the mountains often meant death.
What’s more, the tragic situation of Nanming Mountain made it painfully clear—there was something malevolent hiding in the mountains.
The ghost hunters entering the mountain had to ensure their survival while also guarding against potential attacks from the shadows… something easier said than done.
However, despite all of this, many sects did not expect that their sent people wouldn’t even be able to locate Nanming Mountain.
The Taoists and masters who got lost came back with blank expressions, unable to recall what had truly happened.
According to their accounts, their memories stopped at the point when they were about to enter Nanming Mountain, and when they regained awareness, they found themselves in the surrounding mountain fields or nearby villages.
The only thing they could clearly remember was a feeling of bliss so complete that they didn’t want to leave.
“I don’t know, but it was like the original purpose of life itself.”
One returning Taoist said, bewildered: “Life shouldn’t be about suffering, even if we call it cultivation, do we really need it? Why not seek happiness and joy instead?”
“There’s no need to make difficult decisions or think about things that make us sad and pained; we only need to live happily and healthily… doesn’t that sound like paradise?”
That Taoist’s heart was severely shaken, and not long after, he abandoned the Taoist path and left Haiyun Temple.
When he left, he said that he wanted to pursue his own paradise, unwilling to endure the hardships of cultivation or sacrifice his life to protect others.
From that day on, no one saw that Taoist again.
However, the Taoist’s friend, a diviner, found that he had already passed away.
And other Taoists returning from Nanming Mountain were also not in good condition.
Some were mentally disoriented, others could no longer make any progress in cultivation, and some quickly died at the hands of other ghosts and demons.
There were even a few sects where their disciples had disappeared without a trace—no body, no signs of life.
Haiyun Temple had tried several times but always returned empty-handed.
They hadn’t solved the problem and had instead lost several Taoists, which had a wider impact.
For the sects at the time, Nanming Mountain had become a constant worry.
They wanted to uncover the truth of what was happening on Nanming Mountain but did not want to sacrifice any more disciples.
In desperation, the exorcists had to resort to a compromise, surrounding Nanming Mountain and containing the danger firmly within the mountain, preventing its influence from spreading further.
However, even then, the nearby villages below Nanming Mountain were still affected.
People in the village kept dying one after another.
At first, the relatives of the deceased would cry out in sorrow, solemnly preparing funeral rites, and burying their elders in coffins they had prepared in advance.
But soon, the deaths weren’t just among the elderly; even middle-aged and young adults started to fall.
The villagers, after seeing their elders off, had to bid farewell to their families’ pillars of support and the young ones as well.
The nearby coffin shop quickly ran out of stock, and the grave carvers worked tirelessly, day and night.
But even that couldn’t keep up with the rate of death among the villagers.
What had once been elaborate mourning halls and fine coffins had now turned into hasty funerals and cheap coffins.
Eventually, the villagers could no longer even buy coffins, and the corpses in their homes began to rot under the hot weather. The corpse fluids soaked through the beds, insects and flies covered the walls, buzzing loudly.
The remaining villagers had no more tears left.
They had become numb to death, feeling no more pain.
Some families even suffered total annihilation, with no survivors.
The bodies piled up in their homes, but no one was left to handle their funerals.
Neighbors, too, were busy with their own funerals, too exhausted to speak, let alone have the energy to deal with the bodies of entire families next door.
When the Taoists from Haiyun Temple came to check on the situation in the village, one of them was Taoist Wang.
As soon as young Taoist Wang stepped into the village, he was nearly knocked over by the overpowering stench of the corpses.
Insects and flies buzzed in the air, and the abandoned farmland had scattered paper money that fluttered in the breeze.
The streets of the village were empty, with no sound from the houses.
Even the children who used to play were nowhere to be found.
It was dead silent and desolate.
Taoist Wang stood at the village entrance, feeling as though his heart was gripped by the heavy silence of the scene, his heartbeat slowing as if it could barely continue.
He felt a sense of total desolation.
At the village’s intersection, confused souls wandered, lost, unsure of which direction to go.
In the village, where no living souls remained, the confused spirits sat on chairs, with their decayed bodies lying at their feet.
The deeper Taoist Wang walked into the village, the more shocked he became.
The sight left him unsettled, as he couldn’t understand how the village had turned into this state. Being young and inexperienced made him more prone to empathy, and he felt a deep sympathy for the villagers. He wanted to save the living and help the deceased find peace.
However, an elderly yet vigorous woman, whom everyone called Grandma Nan, stopped him.
“The ones who died were all guilty, young man, you should not involve yourself in this matter. Leave the village at once.”
Grandma Nan, who claimed her surname was Nan, explained to Taoist Wang with sharp clarity the cause behind the strange occurrences.
Before their deaths, the villagers all experienced similar phenomena — their souls would leave their bodies.
This happened not only to the deceased but also to the living.
Some souls were trapped in the underworld, while others safely returned to life.
Grandma Nan herself had gone through the same ordeal.
“The King of Hell is angry. He is taking all the guilty souls to be judged, and those who are guilty must pay for their sins.”
She said coldly. “If some people had not tried to kill their newborn daughters in hopes of a golden grandson, they wouldn’t have met this end. If others had not driven young wives to their deaths, they wouldn’t be facing judgment from the King of Hell.”
“Some people even tried to join that spirit from Nanming Mountain, risking their lives, offering sacrifices like evil sorcerers. What difference is there?”
Taoist Wang was taken aback. He never imagined that there could be such a deeper reason behind it all, leaving him stunned and speechless.
Grandma Nan urged him to leave, saying that the dead had their sins, and he shouldn’t waste his sympathy on them.
“I’ve already sent off my little ones. Now, I’m heading into Nanming Mountain to beg that spirit to stop.”
Grandma Nan said, her eyes resolute. “The remaining villagers share the same intent. Since we participated, we have the duty to stop it.”
As a well-respected elder in the village and the one who conducted funerals, Grandma Nan had a clear understanding of what had happened.
Still young and inexperienced, Taoist Wang was driven out by Grandma Nan. Not daring to make any decisions on his own, he left the village to consult with the other Taoists at Haiyun Temple.
When the Taoists arrived at the village, they found it completely deserted. Grandma Nan and the other surviving villagers had vanished.
The Taoists tried to follow the trails left by the villagers, hoping to reach Nanming Mountain, but they became lost once again, eventually circling back to the village. It seemed like Grandma Nan had stopped them from entering to protect others from dying in vain.
Afterward, the missing villagers were never found, and the village slowly fell into ruin.
Fortunately, after that year, the deaths that had erupted from Nanming Mountain gradually ceased. The river no longer carried any bodies, and all ghostly occurrences seemed to disappear.
It was as though the place had suddenly transformed from a hell on earth into a paradise.
The events of Nanming Mountain were eventually forgotten. The younger generations no longer knew what had transpired there. All records were archived in Haiyun Temple.
Years later, the abbot brought out the documents and files, which resurrected the deaths from those years.
But as the abbot’s gaze casually swept across the hand-drawn map from that time, his eyes froze in shock.
— He saw that the river flowing down from Nanming Mountain passed through a village located deep in the mountains. This village was called Mountain Hollow Village.
It was the original name of Longevity Village.
A chill ran through the abbot. He immediately called the official in charge.
“It’s not Longevity Village. It’s Nanming Mountain!”
The abbot exclaimed, his voice trembling. “Longevity Village is downstream from Nanming Mountain, with the river flowing through it.”
“It seems that Longevity Village… is just like Nanming Mountain.”
The abbot was stunned. It was in Nanming Mountain that dozens of exorcists had lost their lives, and many were still missing their bodies. Now, something had happened again under the name of Longevity Village.
The abbotwas at a loss for how to resolve the Nanming Mountain issue. Even ten years ago, during the battle between humans and the unknown, they had never won.
If it weren’t for the sudden halt of Nanming Mountain’s deadly threat, they would have had no idea how to handle it.
Now, as the production team entered Longevity Village to film, things had gone awry again.
Live broadcast footage showed rotting corpses, and the guests seemed to have forgotten…
The abbot recalled the analysis report given to him by the official in charge. The report noted that Longevity Village was famous for its paradise-like happiness, and the river flowed through the village.
This scene seemed eerily similar to what had happened more than a decade ago!
A heavy silence fell on both sides of the phone.
The official in charge, who knew about the Nanming Mountain incident, froze in place.
The phone slipped from his hand.
It shattered into pieces.
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