Chapter 226: A Mountain Suspended, A River Submerged (40)
Twenty years ago, Ye Li had searched every corner of Nanming Mountain, from the heavens to the earth, yet still couldn’t find the soul of Ritual Master.
Whether in the underworld or the mortal world, whether alive or dead, Ritual Master was absent.
It wasn’t until this time, upon re-entering Nanming Mountain, that Yan Shixun, after discovering the missing people from the village among the hanging coffins, and distinguishing the difference between the bodies of Liu Ming and the hiking team members, realized the strange state of the villagers in Longevity Village. It was then that Ye Li concluded how Ritual Master had avoided detection twenty years ago.
The Lord of Fengdu, who governs death, rules the cycles of life and death between heaven and earth.
If there is one place that the Lord of Fengdu cannot reach, it is—
The realm of neither life nor death.
In the narrow gap between life and death, Ritual Master had hidden himself.
Yan Shixun told Ye Li that he had witnessed Ritual Master pulling himself out from another person’s body through the village chief’s mouth.
Soon after, the village chief turned into a human skin, collapsing to the ground.
Longevity Village, split into upper and lower sections, had villagers who traveled upstream along the river, and the leaderof the hiking team had clearly stated that he had died and come back to life. The villagers of Longevity Village, though devoid of life, still appeared to live normally…
Yan Shixun carefully laid out all the strange occurrences, and after Ye Li explained what had transpired in Nanming Mountain, Yan Shixun pieced together the final fragment of thought and arrived at the ultimate conclusion.
All those who had gone missing in Longevity Village were truly dead.
The hanging coffins only contained desiccated bones with no flesh or blood, and the corpses floating in the river were only flesh and skin, devoid of bones. These same corpses appeared among the hiking team members, which made Yan Shixun realize why no trace of the missing people’s presence could be found in Longevity Village.
That was because, after they died in Longevity Village, their souls and real bodies had been carried upstream by the river’s reverse current and arrived at the upper part of Longevity Village.
And there, they were all “resurrected” in the upper Longevity Village.
The four annual rituals were days when the Ritual Master drained strength from them.
They were like domesticated pigs raised for meat.
It was likely that the rooms in the village chief’s house, along with the people in those rooms who had no will to live, were treated the same way.
When Yan Shixun examined the hanging coffins, he discovered that the bones inside weren’t simply weathered over time.
Many of the coffins were still new, but the bodies inside were reduced to bones, with no flesh.
—Because it wasn’t natural weathering.
All the bodies that had only bones left had their souls trapped within the remains. The dried chrysanthemums still pinned them firmly inside the coffins, leaving them lifeless, with no chance of reincarnation.
That was because their life force had been completely drained, and they were discarded like the leftover pulp of sugarcane.
Yan Shixun had initially thought that the hanging coffins were where Ritual Master stored the “remnants” after draining the power from the souls.
But although the number of coffins was small, there were still fresh corpses like Liu Ming, whose bodies seemed to be alive and who behaved no differently from normal villagers. This made Yan Shixun realize that it wasn’t as he thought.
Some people had completed their “rebirth” in the hanging coffins and returned to the upper Longevity Village to continue managing it for Ritual Master, living like normal people in the village.
However, Yan Shixun did not see the signs of life in them.
Just like Ritual Master, these people, after experiencing two deaths and rebirths, had become creatures of neither life nor death.
In the narrow space between life and death, Ritual Master intended to use this to achieve his goal—becoming a god and ruling over a domain.
The villagers of Longevity Village, neither alive nor dead, were proof of the “god” existing and ruling over heaven and earth.
Ritual Master sought to force heaven and earth to acknowledge his existence.
Unfortunately, heaven and earth are indifferent, without any tolerance for error.
Years ago, when Ye Li could not find Ritual Master, in order to minimize the threat, he marked the boundaries when leaving Nanming Mountain.
Even if Ritual Master didn’t venture out of Nanming Mountain because of caution, if he ever tried to expand beyond the mountain, he would be stopped by the boundary left by Ye Li.
At the same time, by entering the realm of the ghost deity, Ritual Master would have been sensed by Ye Li.
Unfortunately, the shadow Ye Li cast on Ritual Master was so deep that it caused Ritual Master to be overly cautious. For many years, he wore the skin of others, never stepping outside the upper Longevity Village, and only during the four solar terms when the forces of Yin and Yang were strongest did he gain power before retreating again.
When Yan Shixun connected all the subtle clues and pieced together the complete truth, even though he had traveled far and wide and encountered numerous evil spirits and malevolent beings, he was still shocked by Ritual Master’s caution.
To Yan Shixun, it seemed like a multi-layered verification system, a series of boxes that trapped Ritual Master’s presence to the point of near invisibility, even able to escape detection by both ghost deities and the forces of heaven and earth.
Had it not been for Zhang Wubing coming to record a variety show, accidentally entering Nanming Mountain, and finding Ritual Master before the last winter solstice ritual, perhaps Ritual Master’s plan would have succeeded, and he would have truly become a “god” through the cycle of Yin and Yang.
At that time, even Ye Li might find Ritual Master difficult to handle.
But fortunately, Ritual Master had planned everything meticulously, yet there was one thing he couldn’t foresee—The Great Dao.
What Ritual Master didn’t know was this:
The truth had been uncovered by Yan Shixun, who was now in the same place as Ye Li, the one with the power to kill him.
The exorcist, who originally couldn’t communicate with ghosts, and the Lord of Fengdu, who never responded to the living.
But because the exorcist was Yan Shixun, who never hesitated to show patience and kindness to ghosts, listening to their grievances and the truth they wanted to tell, he saw the reality amid the illusion.
And because it was Yan Shixun, Ye Li responded gently, sharing all the knowledge he had with Yan Shixun.
The two exchanged all the information they knew, clarifying and completing every action of Ritual Master without leaving any gaps or omissions.
With their combined efforts, Ritual Master had nowhere to escape.
In the end, even Ritual Master’s last hope was crushed by Yan Shixun’s kindness to the younger sister, which led the older sister to trust him and gather her final courage to help Yan Shixun.
Yan Shixun watched the older sister fall off the cliff. He instinctively reached out to catch her, but when he met her gaze, he understood the meaning behind her tear-filled and fearful yet resolute eyes.
She was saying: “Don’t mind me. Go save my sister. Go kill Ritual Master. Let the sins that have spread from Nan Village end here!”
Yan Shixun suppressed the urge to save the girl, respecting her will, and focused on stopping Ritual Master’s plan.
But when he lifted his eyes to look at Ritual Master again, his expression grew even colder with anger, his eyes slightly reddening.
Even the hand hanging by his side clenched into a fist.
Decades of planning, thousands of lives, and the entire Nan Village being used as Ritual Master’s nest in Nanming Mountain.
The destruction caused by Ritual Master was too much to count.
His sins… were unforgivable!
Rage illuminated Yan Shixun’s eyes, still shining brightly in the darkness and cold mist, glaring and impossible to look at directly.
The most severe and deadly talisman silently recited in Yan Shixun’s heart. The power surged in his veins like the roaring tide of the ocean.
Ye Li noticed the intense emotional fluctuations from Yan Shixun.
His gaze followed where Yan Shixun had previously looked, peering through the black mist and seeing the girl falling straight down from the cliff. He paused for a moment, then turned back to look at Ritual Master, who was still guarding the coffin.
“Voluntarily abandoning life and death, sealing the soul in the cracks between the two.”
Ye Li’s low voice held no warmth: “You once used this to escape judgment.”
“But now, the entire Nanming Mountain is in a state of neither life nor death—do you still have a way to escape?”
Ritual Master was also shocked by Ye Li’s swift and decisive statement.
He had left the living people in Longevity Village, carefully using them as leverage, to prevent the gods and ghosts from interfering with his success at the last moment, just like they had twenty years ago.
But what Ritual Master never expected was that the gods and ghosts had not been coerced at all.
Not even a trace of hesitation.
This coldness made Ritual Master’s soul tremble.
“Madman, you’re really a madman!”
Ritual Master gritted his teeth and growled, “Why does Heaven acknowledge someone like you but refuses to recognize me?”
“Isn’t what I’ve done for those people enough?”
Ritual Master nearly collapsed, shouting desperately, “I gave them happiness!”
“You mean, the state of those people, neither dead nor alive, is what you call ‘happiness’?”
Yan Shixun’s voice rang out.
He looked coldly at Ritual Master: “I thought that’s what people call hell.”
Ritual Master sneered and countered, “Exorcist, have you ever seen the human world?”
“I have witnessed the suffering of Nan Village for a hundred years, heard the pleas and cries of the dead used as sacrifices—the souls of those infant girls who were thrown to their deaths, and the young mothers who died during childbirth… Their souls ask me why life has to be so painful.”
Ritual Master recalled twenty years ago when he stood at the fork in the road in Nan Village and saw the elderly woman joyfully running towards him with the dead infant girl in her arms. He felt no joy, only sorrow.
When the young mother who died in childbirth cried and asked him why her life had to be so miserable, all Ritual Master could offer was a gentle, sorrowful sigh.
He softly closed the young mother’s eyes and promised to bring her a new and happy human world.
That was the shared hope of all life.
Ritual Master thought, when he truly created the utopia that everyone longed for, that would be the moment he truly ascended to divinity.
“And those people from outside the mountain—through their souls, I saw all the suffering beyond Nanming Mountain.”
The travelers wandering around Nanming Mountain, their souls tired and decaying, like flowers that had lost their nourishment, only still clinging to a lie of being alive.
But the pressure, family, work… everything that weighed heavily on the traveler’s heart as soon as they opened their eyes.
Ritual Master heard the thoughts of the travelers. They were saying, “Why does life have to be so exhausting? I no longer want to live, but I also do not dare to die.”
And then there were those who, burdened by severe illness, did not want to drag their families down.
Their souls were angrily questioning, shouting, “Why me? Why not someone else? Why is it me who is sick? We’re all human, yet some live in luxury and ease, while I must bear all of this.”
Misfortune always chooses those who are already suffering.
Ritual Master had seen so many souls like this, so he responded to them. He said: Here on Nanming Mountain, you can lay down all your worries and troubles and live in peace and happiness.
If you are neither alive nor dead from the start, then you will not have to endure the sufferings of birth, aging, illness, and death.
If all your worries and sorrows are wiped from your memory, then what reason would you have not to be happy and peaceful?
“I and those lives have mutually obtained what we each desired. What’s wrong with that?”
Ritual Master questioned Yan Shixun, “The life they don’t want, I take. The happiness they want, I give.”
“What have you done for the world before speaking such words to me?”
The viewers in front of Yan Shixun’s screen clearly heard the words coming through the lens.
Many were silent. Some thought of their own families, of elderly parents suffering in pain, unable to afford proper care. They thought of loved ones struck by sudden misfortune, of every agonizing moment outside the operating room and funeral home.
All the cries were heartbreaking. They didn’t want to endure the pain of separation between life and death, and some even naively wished that they and their families could die on the same day, so none would have to bear such torment and pain.
Some thought of the crushing weight of their work, of the time when their boss slammed a file in their face, when clients scolded them like children, and they had to smile helplessly, even when they were forced to drink alcohol to the point of vomiting.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to throw in the towel and say, “I’m done, let it be.” But when they thought of their parents, their children, their families… they endured, smiled bitterly, and moved forward.
Arguments, trivial matters, stress, illness.
No one dared to say that their life was without a trace of pain.
What Ritual Master said might have sounded like a happiness that didn’t exist in this world, but under the influence of his hypnotic voice and persuasive questioning, many viewers wavered.
They asked themselves, “If it were me, and I were offered a ‘Peach Blossom Spring,’ what would I choose?”
[Sorry… I know what this person says sounds strange, but my life has been so painful. I can’t hold on anymore. I want to go to Longevity Village. I’m sorry, I just want to be happy.]
[Ha, I used to call those people looking for health in Longevity Village fools, and I believed those words. But thinking about it, if it were me, I might go too. I don’t want my parents to spend all their retirement savings trying to cure me.]
[Am I the only one crying? I really support what he said. He’s not wrong.]
[My mom’s in the hospital, and when I couldn’t come up with money, I thought the same thing. Why me? Why do I have to go through this?]
[Suddenly, I kind of hate Brother Yan. If he really destroys the Peach Blossom Spring, where will I go? I want to be happy too.]
[Even if it’s fake, I don’t care. My life is too exhausting. I just want to go there.]
[As long as he can make me happy, take my life if you want. It’s just a worthless life. It’s better to trade it for a few days of good days.]
Yan Shixun lifted his eyelids and looked at Ritual Master, his gaze still firm and clear, without a trace of wavering.
Ritual Master asked him if he had seen the world.
The answer… was of course yes.
During the years he traveled with Li Chengyun, and the time spent wandering alone, Yan Shixun had walked through streets and alleys, dealing with people from all walks of life. He had encountered evil men who threw tantrums and stubborn ghosts without any malice.
The world of mundane life, with its chores and the simple things of everyday living, had always been around him.
He lived alongside life itself.
Many exorcists would choose to serve the rich and powerful for money and fame, reveling in the prestige and wealth of their clients, using the price of their services as a gauge for their own abilities.
But from the start, Yan Shixun had rejected practices like fortune-telling and altering fate, which could have easily earned money by flattering the wealthy and powerful.
Even when people scolded him, calling him “pretentious,” Yan Shixun would only remain indifferent, silently walking among the crowd, reaching out to those in urgent need of help.
He had never told anyone where the money he received—as the price for settling karmic debts—actually went.
—It went to every place where money was desperately needed.
To Wild Wolf Peak, which needed its ecosystem rebuilt. To the aging parents who had lost their doctor son. To the grieving families mourning Lan Ze’s death…
The money that came from the people, returned to the people.
But at this moment, when Ritual Master interrogated Yan Shixun, he kept silent about all that.
As if, to him, those were merely the most ordinary actions expected of a exorcist.
Ritual Master questioned him in anger, but Yan Shixun remained calm—his tone nearly indifferent.
“I’m just an ordinary person, no different from the living souls you see everywhere in the city. I live under the same sky and on the same earth as they do.”
Yan Shixun spoke calmly: “What I can do is no more than the smallest of things—so small, they’re not worth mentioning.”
As Yan Shixun’s voice passed through the screen and reached the ears of the audience, many who had been crying and blaming others suddenly fell silent in shock.
It was as if Yan Shixun was a bitter but sobering medicine, dragging many people’s muddled and confused minds back from the edge of deception.
Some viewers gradually started to come to their senses.
[If someone like Brother Yan is considered to have “done nothing,” then what does that make me?]
[My mom’s a Buddhist. She told me once: Subhuti becomes Subhuti by doing good deeds—but the moment Subhuti thinks he is doing good, he stops being Subhuti. I didn’t get it then. But now, watching Brother Yan, I think I understand a little.]
[It’s weird… When that old man spoke just now, no matter what he said, I felt like it made sense, like I’d been drugged or something. It wasn’t until Brother Yan spoke that I snapped out of it.]
[Now that I think about it, that old man actually creeps me out. He’s scary.]
[I just want to ask—has anyone gone to help Lu Xingxing yet?!]
[Look closely at that old man. Doesn’t he look like he doesn’t have any bones?]
[Oh crap, you’re right! Where are his flesh and bones? He looks like… just human skin!]
[Oh my god! My scalp’s tingling!]
Yan Shixun murmured, “But…”
The incantation he had been silently chanting in his heart finally took effect.
The ancient and mysterious talismanic script glowed golden, characters spiraling around his arms in rings. They pierced through the thick, sight-obscuring black fog, like sunlight breaking through darkness.
Yan Shixun lifted his gaze. After his fury peaked, what remained was a chilling rationality.
“I respect life. I protect life.”
His deep voice rang with power. Every word was spoken with clenched-teeth clarity, as if each syllable carried its own weight: “I won’t interfere with others’ karma or choices lightly. But if someone needs my help or protection, I won’t hold back.”
“You say this is a Peach Blossom Spring?”
Yan Shixun’s cold laugh was laced with scorn. “Why don’t you go ask the corpses in the hanging coffins what they think?”
As soon as the words left his mouth—and before Ritual Master could respond—Yan Shixun shot forward like an arrow from a bow, golden light in hand, charging straight at Ritual Master.
He was incredibly fast. In an instant, he swept the black fog aside along his path, like an arrow piercing the air, creating booming shockwaves.
At the same time, Ritual Master also gave it his all, recklessly wrapping the entire coffin with his stretched-out human skin.
In his panic, he couldn’t open the coffin. He couldn’t devour Nan Tian as planned, so this was his fastest option.
Even if it meant the Winter Solstice ritual would be greatly weakened—he no longer cared.
Huge clusters of chrysanthemums burst through the torn gaps in his skin, blooming from his flesh, gently swaying.
His whole body, bloated and grotesque, was stretched out by the sharp edges of the coffin inside him. He could barely be recognized as human.
Viewers watching this scene were nearly scared out of their wits—some were so nauseated they began to gag.
—It was as if human bodies were being used as vessels, flowers sprouting from their flesh and skin!
And yet, none of the three people locked in confrontation at that moment showed the slightest sign that anything felt wrong.
Even Ye Li and Yan Shixun didn’t flinch, their expressions completely steady.
Just as Yan Shixun’s attack was about to strike Ritual Master, the old man suddenly grinned—a strange, twisted smile.
The face that had once seemed kind and godlike now looked utterly monstrous.
“Yan. Shi. Xun.”
Ritual Master spoke Yan Shixun’s full name, drawing it out deliberately. A wicked grin stretched across his face, pulling all the way to his ears. “I heard it—Nan Tian spoke your name. He was resenting you, wondering why you didn’t come to save him, why you let him suffer.”
“That’s why I’ve decided… to answer his plea.”
His voice dropped to a low, hoarse rasp, gravelly and grating: “The ghost deity favor you, doesn’t he?”
“Then you can all remain forever trapped here, between life and death on Nanming Mountain.”
At the same time, a series of loud explosions echoed from the cliffside above.
Bang!
Bang!
And following those blasts came the heavy sound of objects crashing down into the valley.
The chaotic mix of sounds reverberated through the empty canyon, adding an eerie weight to the atmosphere, thick with dread.
The golden light from Yan Shixun’s hand pierced through Ritual Master’s chest—yet it felt like stabbing into cotton, weightless, without resistance.
Ritual Master’s grin widened—then in the next instant, his entire body exploded into a storm of flower petals.
Startled, Yan Shixun turned around sharply, only to see that the hanging coffins along the cliffside—one by one—were bursting open.
The crashing sounds from earlier had been the lids of those coffins flying off.
Thousands of corpses began to rise slowly from their coffins.
Some were nothing but dried-up skeletons, empty eye sockets staring straight at Yan Shixun. Others still looked eerily alive—like Liu Ming, whose face wore a strange, peaceful smile, as though he had just awoken from a beautiful dream.
But now, in the darkness, pairs upon pairs of crimson eyes began to glow.
Every single pair was locked onto Yan Shixun and Ye Li.
“Kill them, show them who the real god is.”
Ritual Master’s raspy voice echoed through the darkness.
The next moment, the corpses swarmed up the cliff like a tide, rushing toward Yan Shixun and Ye Li.
Like starving beasts lunging at prey, ferocious and merciless.
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