Chapter 60: Rainstorm Wild Temple 22
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In a previous commission, Yan Shixun once encountered a client who wanted him to help drive away evil spirits. The client mentioned that there had been unexplained deaths in their family, but when Yan Shixun asked for more details, the client hesitated and refused to elaborate. It was only through a face reading of the client and an on-the-spot plum blossom divination based on the surroundings that Yan Shixun was able to understand the whole story.
The client’s family had an elderly person pass away, and due to their family traditions, they decided to secretly bury the deceased in a remote mountain area. They had consulted a Feng Shui master to choose a burial location, but when they started digging the grave, a careless mistake was made by the client’s brothers, causing them to dig in the wrong place, about a meter off. They had no choice but to re-dig a new grave at the originally designated spot.
The Feng Shui master who came to inspect the site was shocked when he saw two grave pits on the ground. He urgently instructed the client’s family to fill up the wrongly dug pit.
However, the client’s brothers, in their laziness, didn’t take this matter seriously and instead taunted the Feng Shui master, driving him away.
“You only need to bury one person in your family, so why did you dig two graves? If you don’t fill it up immediately, someday your family might need that extra grave too,” the Feng Shui master left this remark before leaving in frustration.
After the elderly person in the client’s family was buried, it was customary in the area to set up a shelter by the grave and guard it for three days. Unexpectedly, on the first night, the client’s brothers got extremely drunk and, in the darkness of the night, stumbled and fell into the unsealed grave pit they had left open, resulting in a fatal accident.
A new grave was then dug next to the first one.
The Feng Shui master’s words became a grim reality. Since they were unwilling to fill the grave pit, both graves ended up being used.
It was just that by then, it wasn’t soil but a corpse that was used to fill the grave.
The person who came to seek Yan Shixun’s help was terrified and wanted to know if this matter would continue to involve other members of their family. They hoped that Yan Shixun could assist in driving away the troublesome entity.
However, at that point, after Yan Shixun had calculated the situation, he already knew.
This matter had come to an end.
Since there were two graves, the Yin Official would take away two people. Once the pattern was established, the consequence was inevitable.
Now, when Yan Shixun saw the mountain temple’s register, left in the storeroom to decay, described as “village are digging trees, and people are eating the mountains,” he couldn’t help but recall the previous job offer he had declined and the sight of Wild Wolf Peak, bare of any trees, that he had seen on the way here.
In China, there has always been a practice of summarizing events briefly. When it could be condensed into something as straightforward as “villagers are digging trees,” it certainly didn’t mean that a single villager had dug up a tree and left.
Rather, it meant that all the villagers had mobilized, digging up all the trees on Wild Wolf Peak, and converting all the resources in the mountain into money and food for themselves.
The holes left by the trees that were dug up remained on Wild Wolf Peak, covering the mountains like graves dug recklessly by villagers who were harvesting trees for sale.
Not only did it completely disrupt the Feng Shui of Wild Wolf Peak, but it also rendered Wild Wolf Peak unable to reciprocate the power of life from the plants and creatures to the Mountain God.
With the disruption of fortune and Feng Shui, Wild Wolf Peak had turned into a sieve full of holes, incapable of retaining any spiritual energy. Paradoxically, its loss of protection allowed malevolent things to seize the opportunity and become increasingly audacious in disturbing this once peaceful and prosperous land, causing havoc and chaos.
From another perspective, the loss of trees has made the soil and the original ecosystem of the Wild Wolf Peak mountain vulnerable. Even without extreme weather, just a few consecutive heavy rains could lead to problems like landslides and mudflows on the mountain. This is a disaster for the villages near the foot of the mountain.
Originally, the power of the Mountain God came from all the living beings on the land it governed. Not only did the faith and offerings of the people enhance the Mountain God’s power, but the lush forests with abundant trees, plants, and diverse wildlife also provided the Mountain God with formidable strength. This allowed the Mountain God to protect its people, deter evil worship, and ensure a prosperous and safe life for all its subjects.
As nearby villagers enjoyed bountiful harvests, they would also appreciate the protection of the Mountain God and offer prayers and offerings. Their faith would reciprocate to the Mountain God, creating a virtuous cycle.
However, if during this time, the villagers were misled by the evil god and lost their reason, no longer content with their abundant life but instead harboring malicious ideas, the chain of the virtuous cycle would break.
The power of the Mountain God would rapidly diminish, while the power of the evil god would increase rapidly due to the villagers’ offerings and faith. In this fluctuation, the Mountain God might become the weaker party.
Yan Shixun lowered his gaze at the ink marks on the moist, delicate paper, his expression slightly puzzled.
Could it be this time?
19 years ago, the villagers might have, out of their own greed or under the influence of the evil god, cut down all the trees on the Wild Wolf Peak, pushing down the Mountain God who had been their protector from the temple. And instead, they might have enthroned the evil god as their new Mountain God.
So, the Mountain God’s power was completely lost, leaving behind an empty divine seat, which was shamelessly occupied by the evil god. In the end, it led to the once protective Mountain God losing its temple and being forced into a corner, barely sustained by the dwindling faith of the past believers.
…A true case of inviting the wolf into the house.
Yan Shixun had considered many possibilities, such as natural disasters or the decline of the divine realm, but he hadn’t anticipated that it was the protected people themselves who would destroy their own foundation.
He recalled the murals he had seen in the main hall earlier.
Those villagers, marked with their souls hanging on the walls, were nothing more than trophies for the evil god, receiving no nourishment or protection. Moreover, these souls were incomplete, with no chance of reincarnation.
Even more than just the murals, the spirits in the courtyard, and the scarecrow that entered the main hall… they might all have been villagers from back then.
——Was this what they wanted?
For the sake of immediate gains, they had banished the Mountain God, and worshipped the evil god who promised wealth, only to end up in such a pitiful state themselves.
A sense of sorrow spread from Yan Shixun’s heart.
He wished he could sit down face to face with the Mountain God and ask, “Do you hate them? Do you resent the villagers who abandoned you?”
“You had many ways to avoid ending up like this.”
Yan Shixun lowered his brows and calmly spoke as if he were having a casual conversation with the Mountain God.
“The villagers once offered you incense and worship. If you hadn’t given all your power back to them wholeheartedly, at the very least, you would still have the power to face crises, rather than losing the ability to fight against those malevolent creatures due to a disrupted cycle. I saw what was recorded in the Mountain God Temple’s records – the yields of the nearby villages and the wealth each household received. If it weren’t for your wholehearted coordination of the weather and your communication with the animals in the mountains to protect the farmlands, those fields wouldn’t have had such high yields back then. Even if those villagers hadn’t resorted to logging and mountain destruction, they would still have been prosperous.”
“Or, when the villagers were misled by the evil god and committed wrongs, you could have intervened in time, issued stern warnings, and punished them severely. Perhaps they wouldn’t have continued their actions without fear. In that case, you might have been damaged, but everything could have still been salvaged.”
“But you did nothing,” Yan Shixun asked the quiet air, “Why?”
The old and dimly lit house remained silent, with no echoes. Only the sound of the rain pounding on the eaves in front of the house could be heard.
After a long while, a faint sigh came from the air, so faint that it seemed like an auditory illusion to Yan Shixun.
——Because, although they made mistakes, they shouldn’t be punished… They are no longer the children who used to run around the Sacred Tree. They have their own judgment and responsibilities. They should bear the consequences of their choices, whether good or bad. The causes they chose, for better or worse, should not be interfered with by anyone, not even me.
However, the consequences of their own wrongdoing must also be borne by them. That’s all there is to it.
It was like a mother’s gentle gaze and soft words.
Even in this rain-soaked and cold house, it felt as if it was enveloped in warmth.
Yan Shixun, who had paused while rearranging the sheets of paper that had been scattered, continued to calmly tidy and stack them neatly. He placed them in a relatively dry area in the house to prevent further damage to the already heavily corroded sheets.
“But even though you said you wouldn’t interfere, you still couldn’t bring yourself to leave here. Instead, you continued to stay in the Mountain God Temple, guarding the villagers who had already perished.”
A weak light shone in Yan Shixun’s narrow, long eyes, like a glint on the surface of the sea, clear and awakened.
“Otherwise, you wouldn’t have insisted on staying in the main hall, inhabiting the old god statue, or barely sustaining yourself with the meager power gathered from the Mountain God Temple records, residing in this dilapidated, leaky room.”
The Mountain God didn’t refute what Yan Shixun had said but fell into silence.
This confirmed Yan Shixun’s suspicions, as he had initially been probing to distinguish between true and false information.
—Those villagers had indeed all perished back in the day.
If that were the case, then the entire area, including the Wild Wolf Peak, had likely fallen into the hands of the evil god. There were no survivors left in the nearby villages. The villagers’ bodies had been turned into charred corpses and scarecrows by the evil god, serving as guardians of the fields or a source of power supply by absorbing the vitality of living humans.
The souls of the villagers had become the ghostly figures standing aimlessly in the courtyard.
Because the evil god had taken a portion of the villagers’ souls as a means of control and displayed them as trophies on the walls of the main hall, the incomplete ghostly figures in the courtyard showed no response to the outside world. Even if Yan Shixun stood before them, they continued to gaze upward at the evil god in the main hall.
It was unclear whether they still fervently believed in the evil god as they did in life or if they were filled with remorse, hoping to retrieve the missing parts of their souls from the evil god.
However, these events remained entirely unknown to the outside world. Even within the circles of those who had been involved in exorcising and warding off evil spirits for years, there was no information or leaks. No one knew that there was a place where the evil god had taken the Mountain God’s divine seat, turning day into night, and where all the villagers had perished.
It was likely the work of the Mountain God.
The gentle Mountain God neither wanted the villagers, who had become malevolent ghosts, to harm others nor did they want the exorcists to know the truth about the Wild Wolf Peak. Instead, they entrusted the incomplete souls of the villagers to the hands of the spirits of the underworld, preventing them from reaching their final destination. The Mountain God was well aware that the villagers, with their souls incomplete, couldn’t reincarnate and would simply disintegrate on the spot, becoming ashes. They had no chance for rebirth, whether good or evil.
So, in their final act, the Mountain God used their remaining power to protect their people one last time, trapping all the nearby villages, including the Mountain God Temple, in torrential rain. They harnessed their innate ability to control the weather and turned the rain curtain into a barrier.
Perhaps the Mountain God was waiting—for a moment when they could send the souls of the villagers who had not yet committed wrongdoing, who still had some goodness left, to gain a chance at reincarnation.
Because with the Mountain God’s silence, the final piece of the thought puzzle fell into place.
In the blink of an eye, Yan Shixun understood everything, all the pieces of the story fell into the right sequence, forming a closed loop of logic.
He finally knew the causes and consequences of the Wild Wolf Peak. He also understood why traditional methods such as divination and seeking the guidance of spirits were ineffective here, and why there were no responses from the supernatural beings.
The god was dead, the path had collapsed.
In the eyes of heaven and earth, this place had lost its virtue. The villagers had fallen from being human to becoming ghosts, and the land had lost its vitality.
It had become an abandoned place.
In the eyes of heaven and earth, this land was now tainted with sin, taken over by a god that had already perished, so there was no need to respond.
This was why Yan Shixun felt as if he were standing in a sealed metal box, unable to receive any response from the heavens and the earth.
As for those villagers…
Yan Shixun didn’t believe that if an entire village went missing or died, the authorities would turn a blind eye. He speculated that over a decade ago, the authorities had already learned about this and had sent people to try to solve the issue, but they had returned empty-handed. Faced with no other option, they had sealed the information and kept what happened near the Wild Wolf Peak from spreading.
This had become an abandoned land, a desolate place placed there by both the heavens and the authorities. For over a decade, the Mountain God had never given up on trying to wrestle power back from the evil god to continue protecting its people. As for the souls of those villagers who had already passed away, they had been trapped here for too long, becoming lost and confused.
Only the Mountain God.
Only the deceased Mountain God, who had never given up on wanting to protect its people.
From beginning to end.
Having understood everything, Yan Shixun couldn’t help but be moved. Soft emotions surfaced in the corners of his sharp eyes and eyebrows, accompanied by respect and admiration for the Mountain God.
“If it were me, I would definitely be willing to let them experience the punishments of the underworld. That way, they would come to realize what they did wrong.”
The man who had been quietly standing by the door suddenly spoke. His deep, magnetic voice carried an air of authority, as if the words he spoke were the final judgment.
The man, with a pale complexion and thin lips that showed a faint smirk, said, “They should be grateful that they encountered a god as overly compassionate as you—a god who would feed the land, even at the cost of breaking oneself to pieces, is quite rare.”
There seemed to be a bitter laugh in the air.
It was a recognition of the man’s words, as well as a chuckle at her own predicament. However, in that laughter, there was still no hint of regret; it remained gentle as always. Even if there were mistakes, she would only blame herself.
— The Mountain God is not just a god; it is the earth and the mountains, the lakes and the fields. Whether I exist or not doesn’t matter; my power should return to where it came from. The strength borrowed from the plants and creatures should be used to protect them.
I just couldn’t bear to see those good children being trapped on Wild Wolf Peak because of their families. They shouldn’t be confined there, I wanted to witness them leaving for the next phase of their lives. So, I’ve been guarding the Mountain God Temple, using my remaining power to provide them with one last sanctuary, waiting for time to work its magic. And now, I’ve finally reached that moment.
The great path is forty-nine, but the hexagrams only count to sixty-three.
The heavens and the earth will never allow things to reach true perfection; instead, they bring them to the brink of perfection but leave a glimmer of hope for exploration and resistance.
And now, that glimmer of hope, the one, the Mountain God had finally arrived.
Due to heavy rain washing out the originally planned route to the Wild Wolf Peak, Director Zhang Wubing had to change the route. However, as he was leading the way, he accidentally stumbled upon a barrier set by the Mountain God due to his physical condition, and he entered the rain-drenched Wild Wolf Peak. This also led Yan Shixun to enter the Mountain God Temple, where he saw the Mountain God and malevolent ghosts that had been trapped there for over a decade.
The final incomplete path, the last uncounted hexagram, had finally come to fruition at this moment.
In the void, the Mountain God’s gaze fell gently upon Yan Shixun, astonished by this entirely different exorcist from the mortal realm.
Amidst the chaos of the heavens and earth, Yan Shixun remained composed. Though he existed within the boundary of spirits and ghosts, he did not rely on their power but took pride in his identity as a human. With his mortal body, he shattered the evil god, capable of slaying even gods.
Rather than blindly adhering to the rules of heaven and earth, he possessed his own judgment and a clear sense of right and wrong. This exorcist of the mortal realm was the miracle she had been waiting for over a decade…
Yan Shixun sensed the gaze upon him, like warm sunlight bathing him, making him feel cozy and relaxed, gentle and at ease, in stark contrast to the cold and gloomy surroundings.
Was it the old Mountain God?
Without delving into the mysteries of the man’s sudden words, Yan Shixun’s expression turned serious, and he said, “Since the villagers of Wild Wolf Peak have already passed away, the deceased and the living have a natural boundary. They should no longer linger in the mortal realm, even if they are trapped here. It’s not a safe practice.”
“The deceased have a place they should go… and you, too, have accompanied them through countless journeys. It’s time for parting.”
Yan Shixun slowly raised his slender hand forward, reaching out into the void, palm open as if waiting for someone’s hand to grasp his.
“Mountain God…”
His expression was solemn. “It’s time to let go. Remove the restrictions of the torrential rain and allow those confused remnants of souls to go where they should. I assure you, all karma will be settled. Those who haven’t done wrong shouldn’t and won’t receive a harsh fate.”
“As for those who committed evil deeds, even causing the death of the god,” sharp light flashed in Yan Shixun’s eyes, and his lips uttered ruthless words without hesitation. “They should proceed to the underworld, facing their own judgment. In the pain of hell, they should repeatedly contemplate the evils they committed in this lifetime.”
In the originally empty air, ripples suddenly appeared, and even the surrounding scenery became blurry.
A semi-transparent figure slowly materialized from the air.
The Mountain God’s eyes and brows were gently lowered in compassion. Despite having experienced the betrayal and harm of the people she once sheltered, even losing her divine status, and being on the brink of shattered death herself, there was no trace of resentment or anger on her gentle face. She remained as tender as ever.
The children who used to chase and play around the village’s Sacred Tree had grown up. They had families and even had their own children. They were no longer content with the rice fields, the picturesque scenery of the mountains, and the peaceful life in the village. All they saw was money, an endless pursuit of wealth.
Greed led those children to willingly break free from her protection, rushing into the arms of the evil god. They listened to the sinister whispers of the evil god, sacrificing the entire Wild Wolf Peak for their momentary wealth.
But, everything gained must be repaid one day…
The evil god didn’t use its power to protect those children but constantly tempted them to exhaust the spiritual energy of Wild Wolf Peak. It convinced them that doing so wouldn’t cause any problems, causing the living beings of Wild Wolf Peak to lose everything they depended on for survival, turning it into a land of death.
And those children whose eyes were blinded by greed also faced the moment when they had to repay their debts.
The evil god came to demand the debts owed for the excess wealth.
Unable to repay in wealth, they used their flesh and souls as collateral. Those children became the servants of the evil god, tending to the fields to yield harvests, attempting to harm innocent people to transfer their power to the evil god…
The Sacred Tree had long been cut down, and the colorful ribbons once joyfully hung on the Sacred Tree by the elderly and children had faded in the wind and rain.
It had been a long time since anyone remembered the existence of the Mountain God.
However, the Mountain God, who had lost her divine position and was on the brink of dissipation, suddenly heard someone crying and pleading to her.
—”Mountain God, please save me. I don’t want to be trapped here, seeing the faces of these family members and neighbors who have done wrong, day after day.”
A young woman wept in the mural, clearly under the control of the evil god, but her pure intentions and strong belief, untainted by wrongdoing, allowed her voice to reach the ears of the Mountain God.
The Mountain God recognized her; when she was a child, she had tied a red string she had woven herself to a branch of the sacred tree, blushing as she called it a gift for the Mountain God.
She was a good child who shouldn’t be trapped here.
—”Mountain God, I know I was wrong. I’m willing to worship you every day from now on. Please save me and my family.”
——“”Mountain God! I once brought offerings of rice for you, as a token of gratitude for a bountiful harvest in the coming year. But now, I stand in the rice fields, unable to move, serving as a scarecrow to ward off birds, my soul restless day and night, unable to find peace, all because I owe that rat a debt. Why? Why are you not merciful?”
——”Mountain God Grandma, I want to see my mother. Can you help me? She went to the Mountain God Temple and never returned. Brother took my eyes, and my father said my mother was taken away by the god. I can’t find my mother, Mountain God Grandma, can you bring her back to me?”
——”Mountain God… I’ve toiled in the fields my entire life, never withholding the offerings we presented to you. I’m grateful that for decades, you’ve allowed us to feed our children, fill our stomachs, and even have a surplus to prosper our homes. But why, in my old age, must I suffer like this? Please save me, let me truly rest in peace.”
——”Mountain God…”
……
Various voices blended together, constantly echoing in the ears of the Mountain God.
She gazed gently at the handsome young man before her, extending her hand adorned with a faded red cord towards his outstretched hand, the contours of her soft palm fitting perfectly into Yan Shixun’s hand.
“Very well.”
“Please send those good children to the next phase of life they were meant to have.”
A golden light suddenly lit up in Yan Shixun’s hand.
In that instant, the Mountain God’s words became an unalterable vow, forming a covenant with Yan Shixun.
The god was entrusting the human to do what she couldn’t.
Yan Shixun looked into the gentle eyes of the Mountain God, and his sharp eyes couldn’t help but shimmer with a rare tenderness.
“Alright.”
“Please rest assured, your request, I will fulfill.”
“Karma cycles, divine justice prevails. Those who sow evil shall reap its fruits, while the virtuous shall be granted new lives.”
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