Chapter 12: Three Souls and White Bones 4
Master Wei basked in the crowd’s admiration, his chin held high with arrogance.
Little did he know, Jiang Si had already seen right through him.
With a half-smile, Jiang Si stepped back, watching as Director Zhang began discussing the plan to go up the mountain. He lowered his voice and asked Xiao Fengxian, “Did you get a clear look at its face when you got close?”
Xiao Fengxian shook her head, puzzled. “I couldn’t see its face. How is that possible?”
In her century of existence, she had seen countless ghosts, but never one like this. Logically speaking, humans and ghosts were separated by the laws of heaven and earth and could not interfere with one another. But there were no such barriers between ghosts, so how could she be unable to see the face of her own kind?
She looked to Jiang Si for an answer, her expression serious.
Jiang Si’s face was grim, his lips parting slightly. “I don’t know either.”
Xiao Fengxian: “…”
Hai Di, in the backpack: “…”
“Let’s just take it one step at a time,” Jiang Si said nonchalantly.
Yanming Mountain wasn’t a single peak but a collective name for an entire mountain range. While not as breathtakingly vast as the great mountain ranges of the southwest, it was still a magnificent, sprawling expanse of continuous peaks, with dense forests that blotted out the sun.
A group of six, including the producer, began the trek up the mountain. The producer was a woman in her thirties, quiet and reserved. She hadn’t said much the whole time and showed no interest in the specially invited Master Wei, not even bothering to spare him a glance as she walked resolutely at the front of the group.
“Just a little further and we’ll be there,” Wang Zhao panted, clutching his side. “There’s a dirt path up ahead that’s a bit rough. Be careful, Old Jiang.”
He wheezed. “Phew… why is the sun so brutal today? I’m dying of heat.”
He turned his head and couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy. “How come you don’t have a single drop of sweat on your head? Are you even human?”
Jiang Si was speechless.
He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the small paper effigy clipped to the collar of his short-sleeved shirt. With a personal cooling unit on him, it would be strange if he did sweat.
“It’s because you’re out of shape,” Jiang Si said with disgust. Before Wang Zhao could retort, he strode forward, quickly putting distance between them.
At a turn in the mountain path, a cat suddenly darted out from the bushes. The producer, caught off guard, jumped in fright. Her foot, which was on the top step, slipped, and she tilted backward, about to fall. Suddenly, a long, slender hand grabbed her arm.
“…Thank you.”
The producer quickly regained her footing. She looked up to thank her rescuer as she steadied herself.
She was met with a handsome, delicate face, slightly pale, with gentle eyes filled with concern.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” the producer said again. She subtly pulled her arm away, gave him a nod, and continued walking.
Jiang Si watched her go. He seemed to recall that her surname was Xu.
Wearing a long-sleeved sweatshirt in this heat.
Jiang Si hadn’t forgotten that when he grabbed her, her sleeve had ridden up, revealing a string of red Bodhi seed prayer beads on her wrist.
She follows the Tao, yet she wants nothing to do with Master Wei. Could it be that she also saw that he’s unreliable?
He didn’t dwell on the short interlude and continued up the path. They finally reached the cave. The filming equipment that had been inside was long gone, and the cave had returned to its natural state.
Master Wei stood at the entrance, his hands behind his back, gazing out at the scenery. A ray of sunlight pierced a corner of the cave, landing perfectly on his face and creating a halo effect. It gave him an air of proud, worldly detachment.
Director Zhang was in no mood to appreciate any kind of detachment. He walked up and asked, “Master Wei, what do you see here?”
With a wave of his hand, Master Wei silenced him. Director Zhang watched as the master stood in place for a moment before turning and walking into the depths of the cave, deeper into the darkness. The cave wasn’t very deep, and he soon reached the back.
“This is the place,” Master Wei declared. “In these deep mountains, where wild grasses grow and the sun never reaches, it is easy for evil to fester. You were unlucky enough to have provoked it.”
“Ah?” Director Zhang shone his flashlight around, his eyes wide open, but he couldn’t see a thing.
However, seeing Master Wei’s certainty, he didn’t dare argue. He lowered his voice and whispered, “Is it easy to get rid of?”
Master Wei nodded, then shook his head. His brow furrowed as he looked back at the group. “Have you heard of wood sprites and mountain demons? In mountains rarely trodden by man, anything is possible. It’s hard to say if what you’ve provoked is a ghost or some other kind of monster. I can only do my best to drive it away. The rest will depend on your own fates.”
While the others were scared into silence, the assistant director nodded repeatedly. “That’s right, that’s exactly right.”
“What do you know?” Director Zhang asked.
The assistant director adopted a profound air. “Wood sprites and mountain demons, wild rats and city foxes. The North has its Five Great Immortal Families, while the South is rife with mountain spirits and goblins. Master Wei’s words are indeed true.”
Director Zhang: “…”
Jiang Si: “…”
So he’s the hype man.
Seeing that someone agreed with him, Master Wei nodded. “Let us go outside first. I must perform a ritual to expel these malevolent beings.”
Jiang Si had completely lost interest. He fell to the back of the group, walking at a leisurely pace.
The faint white shadow was still following blankly behind the assistant director. Mixed in with the group, it was surprisingly inconspicuous. The more Jiang Si looked at it, the more familiar it seemed, as if he had seen it somewhere before.
As he was lost in thought, the backpack on his back was quietly unzipped. Hai Di grabbed the edge with one hand and Jiang Si’s collar with the other, slowly pulling himself up.
By the time Jiang Si noticed, Hai Di had already climbed up the strap and onto his shoulder. He propped his head on his arm and leaned in to whisper in his ear.
“Jiang Si.”
“Hm?”
“I think I smell something,” Hai Di said. “A very sweet, yet stinky, rotting smell.”
“…”
His description instantly dragged a long-faded memory to the forefront of Jiang Si’s mind. A sweet, cloying, rotten smell…
When he was five or six, he had run off by himself to play by the river. He came across a group of people busy on the riverbank and went closer to see someone had drowned.
He was too young to understand death and watched with curiosity.
The body, bloated beyond recognition, was a deathly, ghastly white. The moment it was pulled from the water, a thick, sweet, and rotten stench exploded on the riverbank like a giant firecracker, spreading, permeating everything. It was the smell of decay and despair, an inescapable miasma of death that enveloped everyone before they could react.
Little Jiang Si had thrown up everything in his stomach and ran a high fever for several days afterward.
As the fever raged, the line between dream and reality blurred. He saw a white shadow constantly floating by his bed. Although he couldn’t see its face, he could feel its chilling, venomous gaze.
Jiang Si had always thought he couldn’t see its face because of his fever-addled mind. But now, he wondered if maybe its face had been indistinct to begin with.
Because its body had been submerged in the water for so, so long, its soul had been unable to break free from the endless watery abyss.
“Jiang Si?”
“Jiang Si?”
Wang Zhao’s fingers waved in front of his face for a long time before snapping him out of his daze. “You’ve been spacing out. What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“I think I understand now,” Jiang Si murmured.
Wang Zhao only saw his lips move. He was about to ask again when several gasps erupted from the group, startling him into turning around.
It was Master Wei, performing his ritual.
He had brought a large stack of yellow paper money, which he now tossed into the air. The papers scattered like butterflies, fluttering in the wind. Some drifted far away, tumbling and spinning high in the sky until they vanished into invisible dots.
Next, he pulled out a long wooden sword, held it to his lips while muttering an inaudible incantation, then snapped his eyes open. He flicked the sword out, spearing a piece of paper money on the ground and pointing it toward Director Zhang.
Director Zhang was bewildered. “W-what is it?”
“Light it.”
Director Zhang immediately complied. The yellow paper burned quickly, turning to light ash in the blink of an eye. Before the flame went out, Master Wei used it to ignite the entire pile of paper money on the ground.
An even more magical scene unfolded: the orange-red flames gradually turned a bluish-purple.
The wind swirled the ashes around the cave, and everyone could smell the distinct odor of burnt paper.
“When a ghost draws near, the flame will change color,” Master Wei explained. “You can all rest easy now. I have driven away everything that was attached to you.”
“Holy crap! That’s incredible!” Wang Zhao exclaimed in shock.
Jiang Si looked at Master Wei, a little puzzled himself. “This guy actually has a few tricks up his sleeve.”
But how come he’d never heard of this phenomenon?
Hai Di’s voice sounded softly beside him. “Sulfur burns with a blue flame when ignited.”
“?” Jiang Si was a humanities student; he’d long since returned his middle school chemistry knowledge to his teacher. He had no idea.
But what shocked him more was…
“You can’t even remember your own family, but you remember that?”
What kind of overachiever was this? Forgetting everything but his textbook knowledge.
Hai Di nodded calmly, though he couldn’t hide the smile in his eyes.
The two of them chatted as if no one else was there. Wang Zhao listened with an expression of enlightenment. “You know, modern AI is really amazing. It can even understand and respond to context in a conversation.”
Jiang Si changed the subject. “Let me ask you, have you guys smelled anything strange these past few days?”
“A smell? No. The environment here is well-protected, and the mountain air is fresh. Besides the scent of the plants, there’s nothing else.”
“I smelled it,” Hai Di said. “It’s nearby.”
“What can you smell? Do you even have a sense of smell?” Wang Zhao asked skeptically.
Hai Di ignored him and looked at Jiang Si.
Jiang Si hadn’t smelled it either, but Hai Di’s words gave him a clue. It was highly likely that the film crew had unintentionally disturbed a nearby corpse.
In other words, someone had died on this mountain, and their body had yet to be found.
Meanwhile, Master Wei had put on a spectacular show, completely fooling the two directors. They believed every word he said.
Now, Master Wei looked up at the sunny sky and made a proclamation. “Within the hour, there will be a heavy rain.”
“I have dealt with the matter here. I suggest you all head down the mountain as soon as possible.”
Director Zhang nodded vigorously, gathered their things, and followed him down.
“That’s it? We’re just leaving? For real?” Wang Zhao was dubious. “The sun’s so bright. How can it just start raining?” He was pulled along by Jiang Si anyway.
As Jiang Si passed by the producer, he offered a gentle reminder. “The path down is dangerous. Please be careful.”
The producer was taken aback for a moment, then nodded. “Thank you.”
“Old Jiang, you’re acting weird!” Wang Zhao had noticed something was off on the way up. Jiang Si wasn’t a talkative person, so why was he repeatedly approaching and showing concern for a stranger?
“I finally get why you never dated in school. Girls your own age just couldn’t catch your eye. You’re into the older sister type, aren’t you!”
“What is wrong with your brain?” Jiang Si was speechless, but he couldn’t very well explain the real reason.
“Aww, don’t be shy!” Wang Zhao waggled his eyebrows at him. “Ms. Xu is good-looking and rich. Besides, with a face like yours, it’d be a waste not to be a pretty boy and live off a wealthy woman.”
Embarrassed, Jiang Si glanced back. Seeing that the producer was out of earshot, he breathed a small sigh of relief. He then pinched the flesh of Wang Zhao’s arm and twisted it viciously, warning through gritted teeth, “Don’t spread rumors.”
“Ow, ow! That hurts! Bro, let go, let go!” Wang Zhao yelped, begging for mercy. Once Jiang Si released him, he immediately started rubbing the sore spot.
“Okay, okay, topic dropped. So, do you have a plan? Director Zhang has been completely fooled by that ‘master,’ and we’re about to resume filming. I really don’t want to run into anything weird again.”
“I have a few ideas. Let’s head back first. It’s about to rain.”
Wang Zhao looked up at the sky. “Where do you see rain?”
.
Master Wei’s second trick proved true the moment their front feet stepped into the guesthouse. A torrential downpour began instantly, a deluge so intense it felt as if the sky was falling and the mountains were collapsing.
Seeing this, Director Zhang’s small eyes went wide. “Holy crap, he was spot on!”
The guesthouse owner came forward to greet them. “I was just getting worried about you all. It’s a good thing you’re back. It would have been dangerous coming down the mountain in a storm like this.”
“Hahahaha, thankfully Master Wei warned us, so we made it back in time. We really have to thank him. He’s been a huge help.”
“Is that so?” the owner said, beaming. “I’m just glad I could help. You are all important people. It would be such a waste of money to be held up by this.”
Jiang Si had no patience for their pleasantries. He walked straight past them toward his room. Wang Zhao followed. “This is so weird. How did you all know it was going to rain today?”
“…Don’t sleep too soundly tonight,” Jiang Si said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jiang Si pretended not to hear. At that moment, the elevator arrived with a ding and the doors slid open.
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