Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Song Tianming kept shaking his head, looking Song Feifei up and down like she was an idiot.

“All right, all right. I appreciate the thought. But it’s the middle of the night, and the woods aren’t safe. You girls need to stop making trouble and go home.”

Song Tianming raised a hand and shooed us away like flies.

I was completely baffled. According to Song Tianming, nothing had happened to anyone.

After their group got off the bus, they had gone up the mountain as planned and entered the Little Western Paradise scenic area.

Inside the scenic area was a place called the Land of Mahayana, and that was their destination.

For the past few days, they had all been staying in the Land of Mahayana. The monastery had people receiving them, and every day they attended morning prayers, listened to Buddhist teachings, and were provided with three free meals.

I asked him, “Room and board included? Then what were you crunching on just now?”

Song Tianming scratched his head, looking a little embarrassed.

“Well, the monastery only serves vegetarian food. I was so hungry I couldn’t take it anymore, so I snuck out to eat some snacks.”

As he spoke, he tossed the wrapper for a pack of “XX Chicken Feet” onto the ground.

“Anyway, I’m going back to sleep. You should leave. A bunch of girls running around in the middle of the night-what kind of behavior is that?”

Phoenix Mountain wasn’t large. The police had searched it for days and hadn’t found them at all. Yet Song Tianming insisted he had been right there inside the scenic area the whole time.

Everything about this was strange. Of course we couldn’t just leave. After a lot of persuading, Song Tianming finally agreed, reluctantly, to take us to see the Land of Mahayana.

“Let’s get one thing straight. I can only put you up for one night at most. Tomorrow, you leave.”

Song Tianming led the way, but he didn’t head toward the summit. Instead, he went downhill the entire time, ducking through all sorts of unexpected nooks and crannies.

Sometimes it was obvious there was no path ahead, but Song Tianming would circle behind a tree, then get down on the ground and crawl through a thicket. After several twists and turns, another narrow trail would appear in front of us.

I found it incredible. It was the middle of the night in the deep woods, and he didn’t even have a lamp. His sense of direction was ridiculously good.

We walked for nearly an hour. My vision was full of overlapping shadows of branches and leaves scraping past my face, and I was dizzy enough that I couldn’t tell where we were at all.

Then Song Tianming suddenly stopped and pointed ahead.

“We’re here.”

We were in a canyon. Towering bare rock walls rose on all sides. When we shone our flashlights around, the soil layers alternated between yellow and purplish red, somewhat like the Danxia landforms in Zhangye.

Song Tianming told us this was the multicolored loess of Xi County.

The lowest part of the canyon, however, was covered in green vegetation, mostly low shrubs and ferns. There were a few scattered trees here and there, but none of them grew very tall.

From that dense forest just now to this canyon, I honestly couldn’t remember where we had come through.

I pulled out my phone to check our location, but when I turned on the screen, I realized Song Tianming had been right. There wasn’t a single bar of signal.

Song Tianming stretched in a very relaxed manner.

“Now that we’re at the Land of Mahayana, you need to be careful. You have to follow the monastery’s rules.”

I looked around.

“Where is the Land of Mahayana? I don’t see any temple.”

Song Tianming shook his head and smiled smugly.

“A single leaf can blind you to Mount Tai. That’s exactly what you’re doing.

“Walk a little farther forward.”

I did as he said and took a few more steps. My foot nearly landed on empty air.

Luckily, I reacted quickly and stopped in time, leaning backward to steady my center of gravity.

A huge circular pit had suddenly appeared in front of me.

The bottom of the pit was lush and green, filled with flourishing trees. At the very center of the round pit stood a majestic temple complex. It was surrounded by mountains on all sides, with layers of pavilions rising behind it and a Buddhist pagoda towering high above. It looked exactly like the scene that had appeared in the game Black Wuneng.

Song Tianming burst out laughing.

“There are steps up ahead. Be careful.”