Nine Desolate Records

The smoke rising from the foot of the mountain comes from a bamboo grove.

It wasn't ordinary moso bamboo; it was purple bamboo, its nodes gleaming with a dark purple sheen, appearing as if soaked in oil under the post-rain sunlight. Deep within the bamboo grove, the outlines of several thatched huts were faintly visible, their roofs covered with thick thatch, and strings of dried chili peppers and corn hanging from the eaves. The sounds of roosters crowing and dogs barking drifted through the bamboo forest; everything seemed peaceful and serene, a stark contrast to the eerie atmosphere of the mountain god's temple the previous night.

The moment he stepped into the bamboo forest, the throbbing behind his shoulder intensified, as if something was struggling beneath him. Each throbbing pulled at the muscles in his back, bringing a tearing pain.

"You look terrible." Lin Qingyuan stopped and turned to look at him.

Lu Li waved his hand, signaling to keep going. He couldn't stop; if he stopped, Lin Qingyuan would see more flaws. During their escape, he had already felt some kind of change happening to the skin on his back. The scale-like patterns at the edges of the black mark seemed to be spreading outwards, slowly crawling like vines.

The bamboo path was paved with stone slabs, which were covered with moss and very slippery. After walking about a hundred steps, the view suddenly opened up, revealing a village built against the mountainside.

The estate was small, with seven or eight houses scattered around an irregular courtyard. The main hall in the center was a bit taller than the other houses, and a wooden plaque hung above the door, the characters of which were already faded and could barely be made out as "Jiang Family Estate". In the courtyard, several men dressed in short clothes were chopping wood. When they saw someone coming, they stopped and looked over.

"Who are you looking for?" A man with a scar on his face straightened up, his machete still dripping water.

Lin Qingyuan stepped forward, cupped his hands, and said, "I am Lin Qingyuan. I have come to pay my respects to Master Jiang on the orders of Mr. Xun Wenruo of Bailu Academy. This is to recommend a book."

He took out the black bird wooden plaque from his bosom.

The scarred man took the wooden plaque, examined it carefully, and his expression changed slightly. He clutched the plaque in his hand and whispered to a young man beside him, "Go and invite the manor lord."

The young man put down his work and strode towards a side room at the back of the main hall. The scarred man looked at the two men, his gaze lingering on Lu Li for a moment, especially on the dagger Lu Li held in his hand. The Zhenlong Dagger had been restored to its original state, but the two characters "Zhenlong" on the hilt were still clearly visible.

"And this young man is...?"

"My junior brother, Lu Li," Lin Qingyuan said calmly, blocking half of Lu Li's body, "is here on orders."

The scarred man nodded, asked no further questions, and simply stepped aside to make way: "Please wait a moment, the master will be here shortly."

While waiting, Lu Li carefully observed the manor. The furnishings in the courtyard were quite ordinary: a stack of firewood, a water vat, a clothesline, and a stone mill. But a few details made his heart skip a beat—

The water in the tank was the wrong color. It wasn't the usual clear or slightly cloudy water, but rather had a very faint dark green tinge. There were traces of dried water stains on the inside of the tank walls, and the patterns on those traces... looked exactly like scales.

Beside the chopped woodpile, several bones lay scattered. They weren't animal bones, but rather the shape of human finger bones, though they were blackened, as if burned.

The strangest thing is that the chickens in the yard, when they peck at food, don't look for insects on the ground, but peck at the dark green water stains seeping from the cracks in the stone slabs.

"This estate..." Lu Li lowered his voice.

"Don't speak," Lin Qingyuan interrupted him. "Let's wait and see."

Footsteps came from behind the main room.

It wasn't the sound of one person's footsteps, but that of two, one light and one heavy, one in front and one behind. The light footsteps were unsteady, like those of someone who had been ill for a long time; the heavy footsteps were steady and powerful, each step firm and solid.

The first one to come out was a woman.

She was about forty years old, dressed in an indigo coarse cloth dress, her hair neatly tied up with a wooden hairpin. Her face was expressionless, her eyes were deep-set, her cheekbones were prominent, and she was extremely thin, but her back was ramrod straight. She carried a tray with two rough earthenware bowls on it, filled with water.

"The master invites you two to have some tea," the woman said, her voice dry, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time.

Lin Qingyuan and Lu Li exchanged a glance, but neither of them moved.

"Where is the master?" Lin Qingyuan asked.

"The master is inside." The woman placed the tray on the stone table in the courtyard. "He has difficulty walking and cannot come out to greet you. If you two have anything to discuss, please have some tea and come inside with me."

Lu Li looked at the two bowls of water. The water was clear, but some extremely fine black particles were settled at the bottom of the bowls.

"This tea..." He was about to speak when Lin Qingyuan picked up a bowl and drank it all in one gulp.

"Junior brother, drink." Lin Qingyuan put down the empty bowl and gestured with his eyes.

Lu Li gritted his teeth and picked up the bowl. The water was icy cold, with a faint, slightly fishy-sweet taste. As the black particles slid down his throat, he felt a strange sense of satisfaction from the dark mark on his back, like rain after a long drought. Lu Li forced himself to swallow, then put the bowl down.

The woman put away the tray, turned around, and said, "Come with me."

The two followed her to the side room behind the main hall. The door was ajar, and a strong smell of medicine wafted out from the crack, mixed with a more pungent odor, like a mixture of sulfur and rotting flesh.

The woman pushed open the door.

The room was dark, with only a small window covered with thick paper. By the dim light filtering in, one could see the simple furnishings: a bed, a table, two chairs, and some bottles and jars piled in the corner. A person was leaning against the bed.

That person was Jiang Yin.

Completely different from what I had imagined, he wasn't some ethereal sage, nor a monstrous madman. He was a gaunt old man with sparse, white hair plastered to his scalp, and his face covered in age spots. He was wrapped in a thick quilt, and his exposed hands were withered and thin, with long, black fingernails.

But those eyes.

Those eyes were frighteningly bright, like two lamps burning in a dry well, staring straight at Lu Li.

"Xun Wenruo...sent you here?" Jiang Yin asked, his voice hoarse but his words clear.

"Yes." Lin Qingyuan took out the wooden plaque. "Mr. Xun asked me to ask you a question: Is the agreement from thirty years ago still valid?"

Jiang Yin didn't take the wooden plaque; he just stared at Lin Qingyuan for a long time before suddenly laughing. His laughter was dry and harsh, like withered leaves rubbing against each other in the wind.

"A promise... Hahaha... A promise..." He laughed so hard his whole body trembled, the quilt slipped off, revealing the clothes he was wearing underneath—a tattered official robe from a previous dynasty, the bird pattern embroidered on the chest worn so worn that it was no longer visible.

"Thirty years ago, Xun Wenruo said he would find a solution. He said, 'Give me thirty years to guard this mountain, to protect what's in it.'" Jiang Yin stopped laughing, her eyes becoming empty. "Thirty years... I guarded it for thirty years. My hair turned white, my bones rotted, and I almost went mad. But what about him? Did he find a solution?"

Lin Qingyuan remained silent.

"No," Jiang Yin answered himself. "He didn't. So he sent you two now, two greenhorns, one carrying a fake key to the Dragon-Suppressing Dagger, the other burdened by the Lin family's sins. What does he want? To send you to your deaths? Or... to send you to take my place?"

When he spoke of the "Lin family's sins," his gaze fell on the sapphire on the sword at Lin Qingyuan's waist.

"Does the lord know about my father?" Lin Qingyuan's voice tightened.

"I know more than I do." Jiang Yin slowly pulled her hand out from under the covers, clutching a piece of cloth—a faded swaddling cloth with the character "Lin" embroidered on it. "I held you when you were a month old. Back then, your father was still alive, not yet insane, not yet... eaten by the mountains."

He tossed the swaddled baby to Lin Qingyuan. The swaddle unfurled in the air, and Lin Qingyuan caught it, noting that besides the character "Lin," there was a line of smaller characters:

"My son Qingyuan, if you see this thing, leave Cangwu immediately and never come back."

The handwriting was illegible; it was written in blood and had already turned black.

"This is..." Lin Qingyuan's hands trembled.

"It was sent out by someone three days before your father died." Jiang Yin closed his eyes, as if the memory had exhausted him. "He knew he couldn't escape; the mountain had marked him. But he wanted you to live."

The room fell silent. Only the faint sound of the wind outside the window and Jiang Yin's heavy breathing could be heard.

Lu Li stood by the door, feeling the dark mark on his shoulder throbbing heavier and heavier. He could sense something breathing slowly and rhythmically beneath the room. Each breath caused the entire room to tremble slightly.

"Master," Lu Li asked, "what exactly are those things in the mountains?"

Jiang Yin opened her eyes and looked at him. For the first time, a different emotion appeared in those eyes—not madness, not resentment, but a bottomless sorrow.

"You've been marked, haven't you?" Jiang Yin said. "The black mark is on your back. It will hurt at night, you'll hear the sound of water, and you'll see things you shouldn't see."

Lu Li nodded.

"Then do you know why you became a sacrifice?" Jiang Yin asked.

"Because...my blood?"

"No." Jiang Yin shook his head. "It's not because your blood is special. It's because your blood contains something that 'it' wants."

He lifted the blanket, revealing his legs.

Those are not human legs.

From the knees down, the skin turned into bluish-black scales, with dark green mucus seeping from the gaps between the scales. The soles of the feet were deformed, and the toes were fused together, as if they were evolving into webbed feet.

"This is the price," Jiang Yin said calmly. "The price of a gatekeeper. I spent thirty years in the mountains, drinking hot spring water, eating mountain food, and breathing mountain air every day. Slowly, I became like this. The mountains were turning me into a part of them."

He covered himself with the blanket again.

"And you, young man. Your blood can temporarily fool the things in the mountains, not because you are the key, but because your blood contains the 'mark' of its origin. It's like water mixed into wine; it can't tell the difference at first. But in time, it will find out. When it discovers you're not the real thing, it will be even angrier and more greedy than it is now."

Lu Li felt a chill run down his back.

"Then who owns the genuine article?" he asked.

"He's dead," Jiang Yin said. "He died fifty years ago. Thirty thousand rebels went into the mountains to find the real thing, the legendary direct descendant of King Yu the Great, a person with the 'Dragon-Suppressing Bloodline.' They found him and sacrificed him to something in the mountains. Then, the mountains were quiet for fifty years."

He paused, then added, "Your father, Lin Qingyuan's father, was a member of that rebel army back then. He wasn't some county magistrate; he was the rebel army's strategist. He personally delivered 30,000 lives up the mountain."

Lin Qingyuan suddenly looked up, his face ashen.

"Impossible..." he hissed, "My father is an official of the imperial court, how could he be a rebel..."

"An official appointed by the imperial court?" Jiang Yin laughed, a very desolate laugh. "That rebellion thirty years ago, did you really think it was a 'rebellion'? It was a joint operation between the imperial court and the Demon Suppression Guard—using 30,000 lives to feed the creatures in the mountains in exchange for 50 years of peace."

He pulled a roll of yellowed paper from under his pillow and tossed it to Lin Qingyuan.

The paper was covered with a densely packed list. The name at the very top was:

"Lin Zhengyang, courtesy name Mingde, former military strategist, was the mastermind behind the sacrificial ceremony. After the success, he was granted the official position of magistrate of Cangwu County, and his wife and children were granted titles and privileges."

Lin Qingyuan's hands trembled so much that he could barely hold the paper.

"Your father traded 30,000 lives for the wealth and glory of your Lin family." Jiang Yin's voice was soft, yet it cut like a knife. "But he didn't expect that the mountain would only be quiet for fifty years. Fifty years later, it was hungry again. This time, it specifically asked for the lives of the Lin family's descendants. Because your father promised it that if it was hungry again, he would feed it with the flesh and blood of his descendants."

"So...that's why my father went mad, and that's why he died..." Lin Qingyuan murmured, "not because of the investigation, but because...it came to collect its debt."

"Yes." Jiang Yin nodded. "But your father changed his mind before he died. He didn't want you to die, so he asked me to keep this secret, to guard this mountain, and to wait for you to grow up so you could leave this place. But..."

He looked at Lu Li.

"But Xun Wenruo sent you here. With the Dragon-Suppressing Dagger, with a fake key, with the 'mark' that the mountain most desires. Do you know what this means?"

Lu Li had already guessed, but he still asked, "What does it mean?"

"It means Xun Wenruo wants to use you to lure out what's in the mountains," Jiang Yin said, emphasizing each word. "He wants the mountain to believe that the key has truly arrived, causing it to emerge from the depths of the earth. Then, he'll use the Dragon-Suppressing Dagger to kill it completely."

"What will happen to Lu Li?" Lin Qingyuan suddenly asked.

Jiang Yin remained silent for a long time.

"A key is used to unlock locks," he said. "Once the lock is open, the key is useless."

The room was deathly silent.

Lu Li felt his blood running cold. He remembered Xun Wenruo's calm face, the words "Be careful of the academy," and the blood-stained words on the tombstone of the old Demon Guard Li Muzhi.

It turned out to be the case.

He is not a pawn.

He is the bait.

It's a key destined to die in the keyhole.

"I don't believe it," Lin Qingyuan suddenly said, his voice hoarse. "Mr. Xun isn't that kind of person. If he wanted to kill the creatures in the mountains, he could have sent more experts. Why resort to such methods..."

"Because ordinary experts can't kill it," Jiang Yin interrupted. "Only the Dragon-Suppressing Dagger can kill it. And the Dragon-Suppressing Dagger can only be activated by someone with a 'mark,' even if it's a fake mark. Xun Wenruo searched all over the Nine Provinces and only found this young man. So he gave him the Dragon-Suppressing Dagger and sent him here."

He looked at Lu Li, his eyes filled with complex emotions: "Young man, you have two choices now. First, turn around and leave, never to return to Cangwu Mountain. But the black mark will always follow you, and one day it will completely devour you. Second, stay and do something for me. After you do it, perhaps you will still have a glimmer of hope."

"What is it?" Lu Li asked.

Jiang Yin sat up in bed, a simple action that left him breathless for a long time. He pulled something else out from under his pillow—a half-rolled, tattered parchment map.

Fragment of the "Yu Gong Tu" (Map of the Tribute of Yu).

"This half-roll of the painting was left to me by your father," he said to Lin Qingyuan. "He said that if his son ever came, he should give him the painting and let him take it with him. But now..."

He looked at Lu Li.

"Now, I need the two of you to help me with something. I want you to take this half-scroll to a place, in the mountains, at the source of a hot spring. There is an altar there, and half of a stone slab is missing from the altar. Place this half-scroll on it to complete the altar."

"And then what?" Lin Qingyuan asked.

"After it is completed, the altar will temporarily suppress the things in the mountains."

"It's getting dark," he said. "After dark, the mountains become more active. If you set off now, you can still reach the source of the hot springs before midnight. Remember, midnight is the time of transition between yin and yang; completing the altar at that time will be most effective."

He handed the incomplete copy of the "Yu Gong Tu" to Lin Qingyuan, and then took out a black stone from his pocket and handed it to Lu Li.

The stone is about the size of a fist, with a smooth, mirror-like surface that reflects a person's image.

"What is this?" he asked.

"The Mountain Heart Stone," Jiang Yin said. "With it, the things in the mountains won't attack you for the time being. But remember, it can only last for three hours. After three hours, the stone will shatter, and you must return here before it breaks."

Lin Qingyuan took the incomplete manuscript, and Lu Li took the mountain heart stone. The stone was cold to the touch, but the moment it touched his palm, the black mark on his shoulder suddenly quieted down.

"Master, why don't you go yourself?" Lu Li suddenly asked.

Jiang Yin stared at him for a long time before slowly lifting the blanket to reveal his mutated legs.

"Because I can't leave this room," he said. "My roots are here."

Jiang Yin lay back down and closed his eyes: "Go. Come back alive."

The woman who had served the tea pushed open the door and gestured for the two of them to follow.

As Lu Li walked out of the house, he looked back once.

Jiang Yin lay motionless on the bed, as if asleep. But Lu Li noticed that his blanket was rising and falling slightly, the rhythm of which was perfectly synchronized with the breathing of the entire mountain.

So, the gatekeeper really does mean exactly what the literal meaning is.

He is not guarding the mountain.

He was trapped here by the mountains.

It became part of the mountain.

As they left the village, the woman handed them two lanterns. The lanterns were made of white paper, with candles lit inside, their light flickering in the night breeze.

"Follow this path uphill until you see purple mist; that's the source of the hot spring," the woman said, her voice still hoarse. "Remember, no matter what you hear or see along the way, don't turn back. If you do, your soul will remain in the mountains."

After she finished speaking, she turned around, went back to the manor, and closed the gate.

Lin Qingyuan and Lu Li exchanged a glance, picked up their lanterns, and stepped onto the mountain path.

The night was as thick as ink.

The light of the lantern can only illuminate three feet below.

Behind him, Zhuangzi's silhouette gradually faded into the darkness.