“Hello, could you tell me how to get to Buzhou Cliff?”
“…What Cliff? …I don’t know any Buzhou Cliff, we only have a place called Languozi Cliff here.”
“That works too.”
“Then keep heading west, the tallest mountain cliff up ahead is it.”
“Oh, thank you.”
After parting ways, the peasant woman carrying the bamboo basket kept turning back to look at the young man who had just spoken to her.
Outsiders were rarely seen in these deep mountains and old forests; the remote and treacherous terrain was one reason, but more importantly, a few years ago, a group of hikers came to climb the wild mountains, only to never come out after entering. All news of them vanished without a trace. The search and rescue team sealed off the mountains and searched for seven days and seven nights before finding the bodies of those seven people. It was said that when they were found, the corpses were so mangled that their human forms were barely recognizable and impossible to piece together completely. No one knew whether they had been devoured by wild beasts or suffered some other calamity.
This incident caused quite a stir at the time, spreading fear among the people. This area was already sparsely populated, and after that, it became even more notorious as an “ominous place”, with no one daring to come near.
Besides, these mountains were indeed eerie, especially at night. The mountain winds and the sounds of wild animals merged into a continuous, ghostly wail that was particularly sinister and terrifying. Even on sweltering summer days, the wind would make people shiver uncontrollably. Those who didn’t believe in the superstition and ventured deeper into the mountains would always meet with bizarre and untimely deaths. Over time, even the locals who had been born and raised here only dared to linger around the outskirts. Only those who weren’t afraid of death and wanted to gain attention and traffic would dare to venture deeper.
The cliff the young man had asked about, Languozi Cliff, was at the very heart of these mountains, an extremely perilous area. The peasant woman knew he was heading inward and, logically and morally, should have advised him against it, but…
Thinking of the eyes she had just seen, the peasant woman couldn’t help but shudder.
She couldn’t resist looking back once more.
It was a cloudy day today. As dusk approached, the heavens and earth seemed gloomy and murky, as if everything had turned to black and gray.
On the winding, deep mountain path, the young man who had just passed her by was already gone. Behind her was nothing but emptiness, with only dead trees and broken stones.
A chilly mountain wind howled past, sweeping up dead branches and withered leaves all over the mountain.
A chill seeped into the peasant woman’s bones, and her body trembled. She quickly turned around, lowered her head, and hurried out of the mountains.
…
Fu Sang lowered his head, stepping on the uneven mountain path as he headed deeper in. The copper spirit compass in his hand slowly rotated, seeking a direction.
West.
Indeed, he should continue west.
Fu Sang put away the copper compass and looked up at the road ahead.
His overly long hair slightly obscured his eyes, but it couldn’t hide his unusual pupil color; his right eye was jet black, just like a normal person’s, but his left eye held a dark red hue, like blood that had fallen into his pupil and then spread.
The Languozi Cliff the peasant woman had pointed out to him lay ahead, rising into the gray sky like a blunt black knife.
Fu Sang wrinkled his nose, sniffing the air that was much more turbid than usual, and frowned slightly:
“The ‘shi’ of this place is absolutely terrible.”
“Zzz… Then you still insist on going? I told you… zzz…wait a few days for me, but you… just wouldn’t listen.”
Huo Wei’s voice came through the earpiece, but the signal was poor and her words were choppy and intermittent.
“So you can come be a high-star food delivery person, or a desperate situation orator?” Fu Sang’s voice was somewhat cold as he kicked aside the pebbles blocking his path.
This area was called Black Mountain Pass, and it lived up to its name… the rocks here were extremely dark in color. Coupled with the thin mist shrouding the mountains, everything was filtered into an eerie black-gray.
“Ding-dang!”
Another gentle breeze passed, and the strings of copper bells and copper coins hanging at Fu Sang’s waist collided with each other, producing a crisp sound.
A breeze of this intensity could at most stir the lightest fabric of one’s clothes; the accessories on him wouldn’t normally move with the wind either. Only one thing could make them sound— mingxi.
Commonly known as yin energy.
“San You, that’s not how you talk. No matter how bad I am, I’m still a proper spirit master. An ordinary little ghost can’t even get near me, okay?”
**San You is a nickname.
The signal suddenly cleared up again. Hearing Huo Wei’s words, Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly, his tone cold and devoid of emotion:
“Wow, what a powerful title. Truly admirable.”
“Get lost, get lost. But seriously, just how fierce is that Buzhou Cliff? Your weeping soul coins have been rattling the whole way. It’s annoying just listening to it. Do you absolutely have to find this person?”
“…” Fu Sang didn’t respond, only glanced down briefly.
Indeed, as Huo Wei had said, the copper bells and coins at his waist had never been quiet. The further in he went, the louder they rattled. And the more intense the feedback from his magical instruments, the more unclean things there were in this place.
Wrapped in this level of yin energy, ordinary people could easily lose their way, gradually having their fortune stripped away by the yin energy until they met their death. But Fu Sang wasn’t afraid.
Because he was a spirit master.
A spirit master who couldn’t see mingling (spirits of the underworld).
Spirit masters are ferriers/guides. This lineage had been passed down through generations. The founding patriarch divided the family’s skills into three paths: the Heart Path to guide humans, the Spirit Path to guide demons, and the Nether Path to guide ghosts.
Each path had its own threshold. The Nether Path that Fu Sang cultivated had the lowest threshold and was the most flourishing. But even the lowest threshold required one condition; the ability to see mingling (spirits of the underworld).
Mingling are what the common folk call ghosts and spirits. Only by being able to see and sense ghosts could one interact with them, and then subdue and guide them into reincarnation.
Ordinary people who couldn’t see spirits of the underworld were essentially equivalent to useless waste as far as Nether Path spirit masters were concerned. But Fu Sang was somewhat different. He had extremely high talent, with immense spiritual power and a formidable sensitivity to yin energy. People in his sect always lamented for him, saying that if only he had a different pair of eyes, his name would definitely have ended up at the very top of the Nether Path pyramid within five years at most. What a pity, what a pity.
If you can’t see ghosts, you can’t guide ghosts; if you can’t guide ghosts, you can’t be a spirit master. Fu Sang was exactly this kind of half-baked practitioner, with all his skills rendered useless. So he could only bury himself in the normal world and live as an ordinary person.
Ordinary people have their own ways of living. Fu Sang couldn’t do much else, so he studied. He studied all the way to graduate school, and as graduation approached, he had to start thinking about his thesis.
He had come here today precisely for his master’s thesis.
Fu Sang majored in history, focusing on the Xuan and Li dynasties under his advisor’s guidance. The topic he chose for his graduation thesis was the famous Li dynasty general, Qi Changying.
Qi Changying had gained fame at a young age, performing miraculous feats for the Li dynasty time and again, but died young. History glossed over the cause of his death, which remains an unsolved mystery to this day. Only unofficial historical records mention that he died in a place called “Buzhou Cliff”.
Fu Sang was very interested in Qi Changying. He chose to study history for two reasons: first, the major was somewhat aligned with his background, and second, it was because of Qi Changying.
How Qi Changying died, and whether he truly died at Buzhou Cliff was now impossible to trace as nearly a thousand years had passed since then.
Of course, this only applied to ordinary people.
For a spirit master, proving the truth of the Buzhou Cliff theory was simple; just go to Buzhou Cliff in person and see if there was any yin energy belonging to Qi Changying there.
A thousand years had passed, enough time for seas to turn to mulberry fields and back. Grass and trees would wither, mountains and rivers would perish, but the traces of life’s existence would never disappear.
However, the yin energy here was far more dense and chaotic than Fu Sang had anticipated. If he had to search for one individual among all this, he would probably search for a century..
Following the mountain path upward led to Languozi Cliff. There was nothing on the cliff itself, only a few gnarled dead trees and rows of jagged, tooth-like rocks, slightly embellished by the white mist, making them look like ferocious, clawing monsters.
Fu Sang kicked aside some stones as he walked to the cliff’s edge and once again took out his spirit compass from his canvas bag.
The serpentine pointer on the compass wobbled for a moment before slowly pointing toward the precipice.
Fu Sang leaned over and peered down.
The valley below was shrouded in a hazy, pitch-black mist, making it impossible to see clearly. The one thing he could confirm was the exceptionally dense yin energy down there, several times thicker than that in the surrounding area. This was likely the source of the yin energy in this entire mountain range.
“There should be a ‘fu’ at the bottom of the cliff,” Fu Sang said, narrowing his eyes slightly.
A place where wrongfully deceased souls gathered, unable to find release, was called a “fu”.
“Is it big?” Huo Wei asked.
“I don’t know. I’m going down to have a look.”
As a spirit master, even if he couldn’t see spirits of the underworld, it was his duty to exorcise evil and dispel malignance.
A fu of this magnitude had already reached the point of threatening the daily lives of ordinary residents in the surrounding area. Even if he couldn’t resolve it himself, it would be good to document it and report it back to the family.
This wasn’t because Fu Sang was of noble character, concerned for all living beings. It was simply because both reporting and closing a case came with monetary rewards, and the bigger the case, the higher the bounty. For a slightly larger fu, the reporting bounty started at five figures. If he could secure it, he wouldn’t have to worry about living expenses for the next few months.
Motivated by money, Fu Sang surveyed the surrounding terrain.
Meanwhile, Huo Wei’s anxious voice crackled through his earpiece:
“You…are you on a cliff? How are you getting down?”
Fu Sang did not answer.
This only made Huo Wei even more flustered:
“Hey wait! No way, you’re not going to…?!”
Languozi Cliff was an extremely steep cliff with no path down except to go back the way one came and slowly circle around from the outside into the valley bottom.
Too slow. Too inefficient.
Fu Sang put away his spirit compass, pulled off an ornament from his waist, and slipped it over the fingers of his right hand.
It was five rings strung together with red thread, with three copper coins dangling beneath each ring, also on red thread.
As the magical instrument settled onto his fingers, a faint red glimmer appeared. Fu Sang raised his hand to form a seal, and the copper coins clinked together with his movements. Dark red runes flew out one after another, sinking into Fu Sang’s chest.
Once the reversal seal had merged into his heart meridian, Fu Sang took a few steps back. Amid Huo Wei’s horrified screams and protests, he suddenly sprinted forward, launching himself off the edge of the cliff and plunging downward!
Gravity dragged Fu Sang down into the valley, and Fu Sang did not struggle.
He closed his eyes slightly, feeling the wind whistling past his ears and hair as he fell, along with the overwhelming sensation of weightlessness that seemed ready to swallow his very soul.
If nothing unexpected happened, he would hit the bottom of the valley in a few seconds and be smashed into a pulp of flesh.
That was fine. After ten minutes, when the reversal seal he had placed on himself took effect, his shattered bones and flesh would all reknit themselves.
The process would be rather painful and prolonged, but compared to taking the long way around, the method he was using was clearly much more convenient and efficient.
Fu Sang closed his eyes, intending to just ride it out. But the next moment, he felt something was wrong and snapped his eyes open!
The wind was wrong!
Rather than wind, it felt more like a fierce suction force, pulling him toward the cliff face!
Dusk was falling, and the sky was darkening. Sand and dust were blown into the air by the wind. Sharp stone shards scraped against Fu Sang’s arm, cutting through his jacket and skin, leaving a thin trail of blood.
When things go against the norm, there must be something sinister behind it. This place was heavy with yin energy, and it wasn’t impossible that an unusually powerful spirit had taken up residence here and was causing trouble.
But Fu Sang himself couldn’t see spirits of the underworld. Since he couldn’t see them, he couldn’t establish a connection with them, and this neither could directly harm the other.
‘So what was this now…?’
“Boom!”
Before he could finish the thought, Fu Sang suddenly heard a deafening bang.
Rocks and dust scattered everywhere. A section of the deep cliff face suddenly burst open, with the strange wind constantly pulling at Fu Sang, trying to send him there!
Realizing this, Fu Sang immediately raised his hand, and five strands of “ghost-blood entanglement” shot out simultaneously, anchoring themselves into the ground.
His intention was to use the ghost-blood entanglement to stabilize himself. But who could have guessed that when the evil wind tugged again, the very ground the ghost-blood entanglement had pierced would be ripped up entirely? Fu Sang instantly lost his foothold and was swept into the pitch-black cave by the evil wind, as light as a scrap of paper.
Fu Sang felt the world spinning around him, countless rocks and mud pummeling his body, slamming him heavily onto the ground.
“Hey… zzz… Sang… zzz… are you alright…”
“Ahem ahem…”
Buried under countless heavy objects, Fu Sang coughed a couple of times and slowly pushed himself up.
Dirt slid off his hair and body, kicking up another cloud of dust.
The call completely lost signal and went off, so Fu Sang simply took off his earpiece and put it in his pocket.
He felt a sharp pain when he raised his hand, and only then did he realize that something warm seemed to have trickled down his arm.
He lowered his head and saw a trail of blood slowly seeping through the sleeve of his jacket, flowing from the back of his hand over the contours of bones and veins to his distinct knuckles, then gathering at his fingertips before dripping down.
“Ding-dang!”
Fu Sang froze.
He heard an all-too-familiar sound.
It was the distinctive ring of copper coins acting as magical instruments.
But the cave was pitch black, and Fu Sang couldn’t see anything.
He narrowed his eyes, followed the sound and crouched down, then pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight to illuminate the area.
The glow of the electronic device cut through the darkness, and Fu Sang then saw that several red strings lay before him. The sound earlier came from the copper coins suspended from these red strings.
Fu Sang gently pinched one of the copper coins and examined it closely.
This coin was quite old, covered in patches of mottled rust, along with the drop of blood he had just shed.
Fu Sang frowned slightly, about to wipe his blood off the coin with his sleeve, but the coin trembled again. The next moment, a cyan-green flame suddenly ignited beneath his fingertip. Startled, he immediately let go and stepped back.
The cyan-green flame spread along the red strings, quickly dividing the darkness into lines of flame.
As the flames burned, the copper coins, bells, and talismans hanging from the red strings vibrated incessantly. The small space echoed with the soul-stirring hum of activated magical instruments.
Red and green intertwined, and a cold wind suddenly rose within the cave. Fu Sang stepped back half a pace and quickly surveyed the arrangement of those red strings by the firelight.
This was a seal.
Fu Sang determined almost instantly.
The copper bells rang, and the green flames danced wildly.
The red strings, along with the bells and talismans, all trembled together. Amidst the pealing of bells, there seemed to be a faint, hoarse chanting sound spreading through the air.
A purifying ghost fire was burning, weeping soul coins rang out, and incantations of the Cease-Delusion Command rang out.
Hidden within this unremarkable Languozi Cliff was a sealing formation that only appeared in ancient texts; the Seven Watch Blood-Crying Prison.
A seventh-rank crimson evil was actually imprisoned here.
New novel, excited ~
There’ll be seven arcs relating to the seven deadly sins. Everyone is welcome to jump in the pit!
