Under One Person: The Taoist Priest Descends the Mountain

Outside Heng'an County.

A white van was driving slowly on the road, at about the same speed as a bicycle.

Xia He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, sat upright, stared straight ahead, and had a serious expression as if she were going to war.

Zhang County is not far from Heng'an County, only a few dozen kilometers away. At normal speed, it takes about an hour to get there.

She had been driving for almost an hour, but there were still two-thirds of the way to go.

Cheng Mo leaned back in the passenger seat, looking out at the dark fields.

"It's so late at night, there aren't many people or cars around, why are you driving so slowly?"

Xia He didn't look at him, her eyes still fixed on what was ahead: "I just learned it, I'm just getting used to it."

"Familiar with what?" Cheng Mo pointed to the dial. "Just give it an oil rinse."

Xia He gently pressed the accelerator with her right foot, increasing the speed from twenty to thirty: "I'm afraid I won't be able to control it if I give it too much gas."

"What's there to be afraid of?" Cheng Mo leaned back in his chair. "Even if we crash at 100 km/h, we'll both be fine."

Xia He finally turned her head and glared at him: "We're fine, but the car is in trouble."

She turned back and stared ahead: "The car's wrecked, are we supposed to walk home?"

Cheng Mo took out a food pouch from his pocket and tossed it in his hand: "Don't worry, there's a tent. We'll stay one night, and Xu Si will come pick us up."

Xia He was speechless: "We're here to do serious business, how can you think like that?"

"I'm not neglecting my business," Cheng Mo sat up straight. "But if you keep driving like this, we won't get there until dawn."

He patted the steering wheel: "Look at this road, no cars, no people, wide open view, give it some gas!"

Xia He put a little more force into his right foot, and the car speed increased from 30 mph to 60 mph.

The night wind whistled in through the cracks in the car window.

"No, no!" Xia He slowed the car down to 40 mph again. "You really have to drive slowly at night, be careful, in case something jumps out and you don't have time to brake..."

Before he could finish speaking—

call--

A strange gust of wind swept out from the fields beside the road, carrying a jumble of broken and tattered objects, and swirled in the middle of the road.

Xia He slammed on the brakes, the wheels screeching as they dragged across the ground, and the car came to a sudden stop, barely managing to halt in front of the pile of rubble.

bang bang bang!

The strange wind blew the junk around and smashed it against the car, hitting the hood, the windshield, and the doors with a series of crackling sounds.

Cheng Mo shouted, "Back up!"

"Oh, oh." Xia He shifted into reverse, stepped on the gas, and the car reversed more than ten meters.

The pile of junk was still spinning in place, plastic bags were being blown into the air by the wind, and then drifted back down.

The two got out of the car.

Xia He quickly ran to the front of the car to check—

The front of the car was bumpy and dented, with several dents on the hood, a crack in the bumper, and a spiderweb-like crack on the glass cover of the left headlight.

Cheng Mo also came over and took a look: "See? You wouldn't have been in such a mess if you had just stepped on the gas."

"I was just afraid of bumping into someone," Xia He said in a softer voice.

Cheng Mo pointed at the pile of junk: "That thing isn't human, can't you even tell?"

Xia He opened her mouth.

Cheng Mo continued, "Where did you go to practice your skills for the past six months? You can't even tell the difference between a human and a ghost?"

Xia He felt a little guilty: "I was just nervous and didn't notice carefully."

She quickly changed the subject, pointing to the pile of junk still swirling in the road and asking, "What's that pile of stuff?"

Cheng Mo turned around and glanced at it, then waved his hand.

A gust of wind was pushed out from his palm and struck the spinning pile of rubble.

The pile of things shook, but surprisingly, it didn't fall apart.

"Hey."

Cheng Mo added a bit more force and swung again.

This time, the strong wind hit it, and the tattered thing shook violently a few times before scattering with a whoosh. The evil wind dissipated, and the air on the highway became quiet again, with only the occasional chirping of insects coming from the distant fields.

The two approached the pile of things.

The ground was littered with all sorts of things—half a hoe handle, rusted beyond recognition; a tattered cotton-padded coat, the cotton peeking out from the holes; several plastic bottles, their labels worn away; and a piece of tarpaulin, its edges rotten…

The most eye-catching item is a theatrical costume.

Cheng Mo bent down, picked it up, and shook it.

The costume was reduced to a small piece; the collar and hem were torn off, leaving only the middle section.

The material is indeed of good quality, with black patterns embroidered on a dark red background, edged with gold thread. The pattern is a python design, with five claws coiled together, baring its fangs and brandishing its claws.

The cuff was still there, embroidered with a pattern of sea and cliffs, with several mountains standing in the middle, and red pom-poms embroidered on the mountain peaks.

There was a row of characters embroidered on the collar, but only half of the character was recognizable—it was the upper half of the character "天" (tian, meaning sky), consisting of two horizontal strokes and one vertical stroke.

Xia He leaned closer to look: "Is this Zhong Kui's costume?"

Cheng Mo turned the costume over to look at the back.

The back is embroidered with the outline of a mask, in red with black flowers, but only half of the mask is embroidered; the lower half is torn off, revealing the linen lining underneath.

"It has the foundation of Peking Opera," Cheng Mo said, holding up the costume to examine it in the moonlight. "But the embroidery style has the feel of Kunqu Opera. Look at the python pattern, with its round and round stitches. Kunqu Opera likes to embroider like this."

Xia He took the costume and looked at it: "So, which genre is this?"

"It's a hodgepodge of every genre, a real mixed bag." Cheng Mo tossed the costume back into the pile of rubbish, then turned to Xia He and asked, "Are there any villages around here?"

Xia He took out a map, laid it on the hood, and turned on her phone's flashlight.

Moonlight shone through the clouds, making the paper appear white.

She looked around on the map and pointed in a direction: "There are several villages around here—three kilometers to the east is Liujiagou, five kilometers to the north is Zhaojiawa, and two kilometers to the west is Wangjiapo."

She looked up and said, "That direction has the most." She pointed to the west side of the highway.

Cheng Mo put the map away: "Let's go take a look."

The two walked west along the road.

After walking for about twenty minutes, the dirt road turned into a gravel road, and the gravel road turned into a mud road. On both sides were fields with wheat seedlings that had just turned green and were lying short and close to the ground.

After walking for another ten minutes or so, a ravine came into view ahead.

On both sides of the gully were loess slopes, covered with some unidentified trees. Their branches were bare, each one pointing skyward like taut wire. The branches were covered with thorns and had no leaves, appearing white in the moonlight.

The night wind blew in from the ditch, carrying a strange smell, like a mixture of many different flavors—

The smell of burning paper money, the smell of aged wood, the smell of moldy cloth, and a cloying, indescribable sweetness all mixed together, making one's head spin.

Xia He waved her hand in front of her nose: "What's that smell?"

Cheng Mo didn't say anything, but pulled her inside.

The loess slopes on both sides grew higher and higher, and the sky above became narrower and narrower, leaving only a sliver through which moonlight leaked down, illuminating the path at the bottom of the gully.

After walking about two hundred meters, the ditch suddenly widened, and the loess slopes on both sides receded by twenty or thirty meters, revealing a large flat area.

A stage was erected on the flat ground.

The platform wasn't big, only about the width of three rooms. The platform was a little over a meter off the ground, with a stone base and wooden planks on top.

The pillars were two pine logs, each as thick as a bowl. The red paint had long since faded, revealing the grayish-white wood beneath, and several rusty nails were still embedded in them.

Half of the roof tiles were missing, revealing the rafters and reed mats underneath. Several rafters were broken and drooping, swaying in the wind. A clump of grass grew on the remaining half of the roof, swaying back and forth in the wind.

Xia He whispered, "This stage was built during the Republic of China era. Back then, this place was a gathering place for several nearby villages. They would put on operas here during festivals, and it was very lively."

She pointed to the hillside behind the stage: "There are still the foundations of a few rooms over there, which used to be a small shop and a tea stall."

Cheng Mo glanced over there and saw several piles of jumbled rocks under the moonlight, with weeds growing out of the cracks in the rocks, some as tall as a person.

Xia He continued, "Later, when the highway was built, the distribution center moved to the side of the highway, and this stage was abandoned. It was repaired once in the 1950s, and again in the 1980s, but after that, no one came..."

She was speaking when she suddenly stopped.

His gaze fell on the open space next to the stage.

There was a person squatting there.