Nine Desolate Records

After traveling for half a day, around noon, the weather changed.

First, a wind rose, sweeping in from the southwest, carrying a damp, earthy smell, which flattened the waist-high weeds along the roadside. Then, clouds began to pile up, not the usual gray-white clouds, but heavy, leaden black clouds, layer upon layer, so low that they seemed within reach.

"It's going to rain." Lin Qingyuan looked up at the sky, his brows furrowed.

Lu Li also felt the oppressive atmosphere in the air. It wasn't just the weather; there was something more subtle, as if the entire earth was holding its breath, waiting for something. The black mark on his shoulder throbbed more rapidly, and with each beat, it pulled at the newly formed scale-like pattern on his back, sending a slight stinging pain through him.

"How far is it from Cangwu Mountain?" he asked.

"At this speed, we can reach the foot of the mountain before dark." Lin Qingyuan unfolded the map. Rain had already begun to fall sporadically, making a dull pattering sound as it hit the parchment. "But when the downpour comes, the mountain path will be much more difficult to traverse. We must find a place to take shelter from the rain."

He moved his finger across the map, finally stopping at a marker: "Five miles ahead, there's an abandoned mountain god temple. Let's hide there for a while."

No sooner had he finished speaking than the first bolt of lightning struck.

It didn't strike down from the clouds, but from the main peak of Cangwu Mountain in the southwest. A pale white bolt of lightning pierced straight down to the earth, illuminating the entire mountain in crystal detail. In that instant, Lu Li saw the outline of the mountain—not the gentle curves of ordinary mountains, but a ferocious, twisted posture.

The lightning subsided, and only then did the thunder roll in, its deep rumble like the roar of a giant beast, shaking the ground.

The rain finally poured down.

The rain poured down from the sky, instantly obscuring visibility to within three feet. The official road quickly turned into a muddy river, the murky water carrying withered branches and fallen leaves rushing down. The old horse neighed, its hooves slipping in the mud, nearly throwing Lu Li off.

"Hold on tight!" Lin Qingyuan shouted from the front, his voice barely audible in the torrential rain.

The two men whipped their horses desperately, charging forward by feel in the near-zero visibility of the rain. Lu Li lay prone on the horse's back, the rain lashing his face and body like whips, icy cold. He could only cling tightly to the horse's neck, feeling the old horse's body heat rapidly draining away, its breathing becoming increasingly rapid.

I don't know how much time passed, maybe a quarter of an hour, maybe the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, but finally a dim yellow light appeared in front of us.

The light was coming through a broken window.

We've arrived at the Mountain God Temple.

The temple was small, consisting of only one main hall with walls made of adobe bricks and broken tiles, through which rainwater poured in. But at least it had a roof, which sheltered it from most of the rain. The temple gate was long gone, leaving only an empty doorway. Inside, it was pitch black, with only the light from the broken window flickering in the rain.

The two men dismounted and led their horses into the temple gate.

The temple was a little warmer than outside, but not by much. In the center stood a clay statue, its paint mostly peeled off, obscuring its original features; all that could be discerned was that it depicted a warrior in armor, wielding a whip. The offering table was empty, the incense burner upside down, covered in a thick layer of dust. However, some dry grass was piled in the corner, appearing relatively dry.

That glimmer of light came from an oil lamp under the offering table.

A person was sitting by the lamp.

It's a woman.

She was wearing an indigo-blue coarse cloth dress, her hair tied up with a wooden hairpin, and she was mending something with her head down. Hearing the noise, she looked up. She had a very ordinary face, around thirty years old, with rough skin and fine lines at the corners of her eyes. Only her eyes were exceptionally bright, like two deep pools in the dim light.

"Looking out for the rain?" she asked, her voice gentle and calm. "Come in, it's small, just make do."

Lin Qingyuan gripped his sword hilt warily, remaining motionless. Lu Li also stopped three feet inside the doorway, sizing up the woman.

In a deserted temple in the mountains, amidst a torrential downpour, a lone woman was mending clothes; something seemed amiss.

The woman seemed to sense their wariness and smiled slightly: "I am not a monster. I am a widow from Lijia Village at the foot of the mountain. I came here to take shelter from the rain while gathering herbs. If you don't believe me, you can look at my herb basket."

She pointed to the corner of the wall. Sure enough, there was a bamboo medicine basket there, filled with some herbs, which were damp with rainwater and gave off a faint bitter fragrance.

Lin Qingyuan stepped forward, carefully examined the medicine basket, and then looked at the woman's hands. Her palms were rough, and there were traces of dirt and grass juice under her fingernails, which were indeed the hands of people who had worked for many years.

He relaxed his guard slightly, cupped his hands, and said, "Thank you, elder sister. My brother and I were on our way to Cangwu Mountain when we were caught in this downpour. We apologize for the inconvenience."

"Mount Cangwu?" The woman paused in her needlework. "Going to Mount Cangwu at this time of year? That's..."

She didn't finish speaking; she shook her head and continued mending.

Lu Li also walked to the fire. The woman had built a simple stove under the offering table with a few stones. On top of it was a small earthenware pot, and something was bubbling and steaming inside, emitting a strange fragrance.

"What did you cook, eldest sister?" he asked.

"Wild vegetable soup, with some wild mushrooms added." The woman didn't even look up. "The rain isn't going to stop anytime soon, so you should have some to warm yourselves up."

Lin Qingyuan took out some dry rations from her bag and gave some to Lu Li. "Thank you, elder sister. We brought some dry rations."

Outside the temple, the rain poured down, and thunder roared incessantly. Lightning flashed intermittently, illuminating the temple in a stark white light. With each flash of lightning, Lu Li could see the woman's profile. In that instant, her expression would become strange, not one of fear, but of an almost devout focus, her eyes fixed on the direction of Cangwu Mountain outside the temple.

"Elder sister is from Lijia Village. Do you know anything about Cangwu Mountain?" Lin Qingyuan asked tentatively.

The woman's hands never stopped sewing: "I know a little. The older generation always says there are dragons in the mountains, and the hot springs are the tears of dragons. But that's just for kids; not many people really believe it."

"Does the older sister believe it?"

The woman was silent for a moment before slowly saying, "Whether I believe it or not is not important. What's important is whether the mountain believes it or not."

That was a strange remark. Lin Qingyuan and Lu Li exchanged a glance, both seeing wariness in each other's eyes.

"What...does your sister mean by that?"

The woman finally finished sewing what she was doing—a child's bib, made of coarse cloth, embroidered with a crookedly shaped duck. She folded the bib neatly and tucked it into her bosom before looking up at the two men: "You're not ordinary people, are you? Demon-Slaying Guards? Or people from the academy?"

Lin Qingyuan placed his hand on the sword hilt again.

"Don't be nervous." The woman smiled, a hint of weariness in her smile. "I can tell. Ordinary people wouldn't try to brave Cangwu Mountain in this kind of weather."

She stood up, walked to the broken window, and looked out at the torrential rain. The downpour showed no signs of abating; on the contrary, it intensified, turning the world into a white expanse.

"Fifty years ago, it was a rainy day just like this," the woman suddenly spoke, her voice very soft, as if talking to herself. "Thirty thousand rebels went into the mountains and never came out again. The village elders said that the rain that day was even heavier than today, and lightning struck all night long, shaking the mountains. The next day, when the rain stopped, some people mustered up their courage and went up the mountain to look, only to find clothes, armor, and weapons scattered all over the ground. Not a single person was left."

She turned around, her gaze landing on Lin Qingyuan's face: "Your father went up the mountain back then, didn't he?"

Lin Qingyuan shuddered, his sword already drawn three inches from its sheath: "Who are you?!"

"Who I am is not important," the woman said calmly. "What is important is what your father saw back then that drove him mad and caused him to die."

She walked to the offering table, took out a small cloth bag from the bottom of the medicine basket, and opened it layer by layer. Inside was a copper coin.

It was exactly the same as the one Lu Li had seen—the front read "Peace Under Heaven," and the back had twisted, intestine-like patterns and a mouth deep in the cracks.

"This copper coin was left by your father." The woman placed the coin on the altar. "Before he went mad, he gave this coin to someone and asked him to take it down the mountain. That person was my grandfather."

Lin Qingyuan stared intently at the copper coin, his fingers clenched so tightly they turned white.

"My grandfather said that when your father handed him the copper coins, he kept repeating one sentence." The woman paused, then repeated, word by word, "'It's not a dragon, it's a prisoner. The mountain is crying because the prisoner wants to escape.'"

Outside the temple, a bolt of lightning struck, exploding almost directly on the roof. The entire temple shook, and dust fell in a flurry. The flames of the oil lamps flickered violently, nearly going out.

The dark mark on Lu Li's shoulder suddenly throbbed with pain.

It wasn't throbbing, it was tearing, as if something was trying to burst out of it. He groaned and grabbed the wall to keep from falling.

The woman looked at him, her gaze becoming complicated: "You have... the mark of that thing on you."

"What is it?" Lu Li asked through gritted teeth.

"Prisoner of the Mountain." The woman walked up to him, reaching out to touch the back of his shoulder, but stopped three inches away. Her fingers trembled slightly. "You've been marked, like those rebels fifty years ago, like those who died thirty years ago, like... your father."

The last sentence was addressed to Lin Qingyuan.

Lin Qingyuan's sword was fully drawn, its tip pointing at the woman: "Explain yourself, or don't blame me for being impolite."

The woman laughed, a sorrowful laugh: "I can't explain it. Because I don't know what it really is. I only know that every few decades, the mountain becomes 'hungry.' It needs offerings, lots and lots of offerings. And you..." She looked at the two of them, "you are the new offerings."

The moment the words left his mouth, the area outside the temple suddenly fell silent.

It wasn't that the rain had stopped—the rain was still falling, but the sound had vanished. Thunder, wind, rain—all sounds were instantly removed, leaving only an eerie, absolute silence.

Then, a sound came from underground.

It was exactly the same as what I heard at Shetiyi last night, but closer and clearer, as if it were right under the temple.

The oil lamp on the offering table began to change color—from a warm orange to a cold, ghastly green. The green light illuminated the entire temple, and the mottled stains on the walls revealed strange shapes in the green light: twisted human figures, coiled snake shadows, and... countless open eyes.

The woman retreated to a corner, grabbed a handful of powder from her medicine basket, and sprinkled it in front of her. The powder landed and ignited into a ghostly blue flame, protecting her within it.

"It's awake," she whispered, "because the offerings...are all here."

Lin Qingyuan pulled Lu Li behind him, holding his sword horizontally across his chest. The sapphire on the sword shone brightly, forcing the approaching green light back three feet. But more and more eyes appeared on the walls, opening one after another, their pupils pure black with no whites, all staring intently at them.

The sounds from underground grew louder and louder.

Suddenly, the ground beneath the offering table cracked open.

It wasn't a crack, but a circular opening with smooth edges, as if it had been gnawed out by some enormous maw. From deep within the opening, a viscous, dark green liquid gushed out, carrying with it white bones—not complete skeletons, but fragments, piece by piece, forcibly pieced together by some force to form deformed human figures.

The first humanoid figure crawled out.

It has a head and four limbs, but its skull is made up of three different skulls, with green flames burning in its eye sockets. Its chest cavity is open, containing no internal organs, only a writhing mass of flesh covered in tentacles. It crawls like a spider, with its limbs bent backwards at the joints, each step producing a clacking sound of bones grinding together.

Then came the second, the third...

In just a few breaths, seven or eight such skeletal monsters crawled out of the temple. They surrounded the two people and the corpse, but did not attack. Instead, they stared intently at them with their eyes burning with green flames, especially at the spot behind Lu Li's shoulder.

"What are they waiting for?" Lin Qingyuan asked in a low voice.

"Wait for orders," the woman in the corner said. "Wait for that thing in the mountains... to give the order to start the meal."

As if to confirm her words, the voice from underground suddenly rose in pitch, becoming a sharp sound. Upon hearing this sound, the fleshy monsters simultaneously raised their heads and opened their mouths—their mouths contained no tongues, only clumps of writhing tentacles.

Then they pounced.

Lin Qingyuan unleashed a sword strike. The sword light flashed like a bolt of lightning, cleaving the three foremost monsters in two at the waist. Dark green pus gushed from the severed wounds, splashing onto the ground and hissing white smoke. But the severed monsters were not dead; their upper bodies continued to crawl, while their lower bodies dissolved into pools of pus, reforming into new, smaller monsters.

"Cannot be killed!" Lin Qingyuan's expression changed.

Lu Li also drew his dagger, but instead of attacking, he stabbed at the black mark behind his shoulder.

He didn't know why he had to do it, but his intuition told him he had to.

The moment the dagger pierced the skin, there was no pain, only a chilling coldness emanating from the wound. The coldness spread rapidly, and wherever it passed, fine golden lines appeared on the skin's surface—extensions of the scale-like patterns at the edges of the black mark.

The golden patterns lit up, emitting a faint golden light.

Where the golden light reached, the skeletal monsters that had pounced upon them abruptly stopped. The green flames in their eyes flickered violently, as if in fear, or perhaps in worship.

The sharp sounds from underground abruptly ceased.

Instead, a deep, resonant voice, seemingly from ancient times, resounded directly in the minds of the three:

"Blood...talisman..."

His voice carried confusion, greed, and a hint of fear.

The skeletal monsters all knelt down, their heads touching the ground, and remained motionless.

The temple fell into a deathly silence.

Only the chill emanating from the wound on Lu Li's shoulder continued to spread. The golden light grew brighter and brighter, enveloping his entire body. Through the golden light, he could see that every bone and every piece of flesh on the kneeling monsters was engraved with extremely fine runes, the same as the runes that appeared in the wound from his dagger.

"So that's how it is..." the woman in the corner murmured, "You are not a sacrifice, you are the key."

Lin Qingyuan looked at Lu Li with an extremely complicated expression.

Lu Li himself was also in shock. He looked down at the blood on the dagger—the blood wasn't red, but a pale gold, flowing along the patterns on the dagger, dyeing the entire dagger gold.

The dagger began to heat up.

No, it was the dagger itself that was glowing. The silvery-white line on the blade disappeared, replaced by a flowing golden light. The light grew brighter and brighter, until finally the entire dagger seemed to transform into a lightsaber.

On the hilt of the dagger, two characters began to appear on the originally plain wooden surface:

"Suppressing Dragon"

It wasn't carved on; it's a natural formation of the wood grain, which had just been hidden from view before.

"The Dragon-Suppressing Dagger?" the woman exclaimed. "How...how did this dagger get here?!"

Lin Qingyuan also recognized the two characters, and his expression changed drastically: "This is one of the nine artifacts used by King Yu to suppress the Nine Rivers! It has been lost for a long time, how could it be..."

Before he could finish speaking, an angry roar suddenly came from underground.

It wasn't a sound, but a shockwave of thought, sweeping in like a tsunami. The kneeling, fleshy monsters instantly exploded, turning into a shower of pus and blood. The temple walls began to crumble, and roof tiles rained down.

"The mountain is angry!" the woman shouted. "Quick, run! It's discovered the key is fake!"

"Fake?" Lu Li was taken aback.

"That's right! The Dragon-Suppressing Dagger requires the true bloodline of Yu the Great to activate! You're just a marked fake; you can't unleash its true power!" The woman rushed to the cave entrance, turned back, and roared, "But your blood has temporarily intimidated it! Take this opportunity, run!"

Lin Qingyuan grabbed Lu Li and rushed towards the temple gate.

Behind them, the underground opening began to widen, and something emerged from it.

It wasn't a hand, nor a tentacle, but a gigantic arm pieced together from countless white bones, each joint covered in twisted runes. The arm reached for the spot where they had just stood, its five fingers clamping together, carving a deep crater in the ground.

The two rushed out of the temple gate, and a torrential downpour immediately began. The horses were gone; they didn't know if they had been frightened away or dragged underground. They could only run towards Cangwu Mountain by instinct.

Behind them, the mountain god temple completely collapsed.

The woman didn't follow them out. She remained in the temple, in that eerie blue flame. In the instant before the temple collapsed, Lu Li saw her turn and glance back at them, her lips moving as if to say:

"Watch out...the gatekeeper..."

Then, she was swallowed up by the falling beam.

In the torrential rain, the two ran for their lives.

They ran for an unknown amount of time before the rain finally began to subside. When they stopped and collapsed in the mud, panting, they realized they had reached the foot of the mountain.

Ahead, the official road glistened with water under the sunlight after the rain.

Behind them, Mount Cangwu was shrouded in a light mist, so quiet that it seemed as if everything that had just happened was just a nightmare.

But Lu Li knew that wasn't the case.

He raised his hand and looked at the dagger in his palm, which had been restored to its original state.

The two characters "镇龙" (Zhenlong) on ​​the handle are still clearly visible.

The dark mark on his shoulder throbbed even more heavily.