Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The moment we entered Skyfire Bay, the village’s drought hit us full force.
Dead trees lined the roadside, their branches without so much as a speck of green. Yellow sand hung in the air, and everything in sight seemed coated in a layer of gray.
My throat was so dry it felt like it was about to smoke. I opened my mouth, and the sound that came out was like the exhaust pipe of a motorcycle running out of gas.
“Huff-cough, cough-ptah!”
I spat the sand out of my mouth and tossed my backpack onto the ground.
“Huahua, are you sure Ji Kang is here?”
“This village doesn’t even have a paved road. Why would he come to a godforsaken place like this?”
My name is Qiao Moyu. I’m a junior at Nanjiang University, and also the only Earth Master successor of this generation.
As the saying goes: a first-rate Earth Master reads the stars, a second-rate wind master seeks the water mouth, and third-rate practitioners wander everywhere. Most of the ones still walking the world today are ordinary feng shui masters. In ancient times, those who truly mastered the arts of observing the stars and reading qi all served in the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, working for the imperial household.
The ancestors of my Qiao Family were once directors of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, and hereditary Feng Sect Masters as well.
Some time ago, my friend Hua Yuling’s prospective boyfriend, Ji Kang, was killed by the villain Tong Fusheng on Mount Tai. Well, not exactly killed. He fell off a cliff together with a jiao serpent, and ever since then, no one had seen him alive or found his corpse.
Hua Yuling received word that Ji Kang had appeared somewhere in northwestern Gansu, so she brought us here to look for him. We’d searched for more than half a month straight, but hadn’t found a single clue.
Hua Yuling sighed and came over, plopping herself right down on my backpack.
“I’m not sure. The direction that person gave covered this whole area, and all these barren mountains look pretty much the same. I lost track ages ago.”
“You’re not sure?” My eyes widened. “You weren’t sure, and you still dared make me walk two days to this crappy village? The soles of my shoes are almost worn through! Those are Warrior sneakers worth 128 yuan!”
Hua Yuling spread both hands and uttered the four most powerful words in existence.
“What can we do?”
“We’re already here. Want to go in and take a look?”
No Chinese person can resist those four words. I glanced toward the village, then lowered my head in resignation.
“Fine, fine. Get up.”
I picked up my backpack again and followed behind Hua Yuling, trudging dejectedly into the village.
The village sat in a valley, with houses built along the slopes on either side and a broad yellow dirt road running through the middle.
We walked the whole way without seeing many people. It wasn’t until we reached the deepest part of the village that we spotted an old man sitting beneath the eaves, fanning himself with a cattail-leaf fan.
The moment he saw us, the old man’s eyes flew wide in shock, and the fan in his hand dropped to the ground.
Jiang Haoyan smoothly pulled a pack of cigarettes from his bag and handed it to the old man.
“Sir, we’d like to ask you something. Have you seen this young man recently?”
Jiang Haoyan pointed to the photo on his phone, but the old man didn’t look at the screen. He just stared wide-eyed at me and Hua Yuling.
Jiang Haoyan raised his voice and asked two more times.
The old man still didn’t speak. Hua Yuling and I exchanged a glance.
“Is he deaf?”
The old man jolted all over, then suddenly seemed to come back to himself. A stiff smile squeezed awkwardly onto his wrinkled face.
“You’re here for tourism, right? What do they call it… backpackers out exploring?”
“Come, come, hurry inside and sit. I’ll have my wife pour you some water. Xiulan-guests are here! Xiulan-”
The door opened, and an old woman carrying a large porcelain bowl stepped out. When she saw me and Hua Yuling, her eyes lit up.
“Oh my, what pretty young ladies.”
The old couple warmly ushered us inside. The old man scooped half a ladle of water from the water vat. A thin layer of dust floated on the surface, but I didn’t care at all. I drank it down in one breath.
After drinking, the few of us recovered some energy and asked the old man about Ji Kang.
The old man took the phone and squinted at it for a long while before hesitantly nodding.
“A few days ago, I think I saw a young fellow like this in the back mountain.”
“He’s a companion you got separated from, right?”
“Don’t worry, youngsters. It’s getting late today. Stay at my house for the night. Tomorrow morning, I’ll call some villagers to go look with you.”
This was the first time we’d heard someone say they had seen Ji Kang. We were all excited, but we also knew this wasn’t something we could rush.
The back mountain the old man mentioned didn’t look far to the naked eye, but there was an old saying: a mountain in sight can run a horse to death. The terrain in the northwest was wide open, with barely anything blocking the view. Places that looked close could turn out to be so far away you might not reach them even after walking an entire day.
It was already past seven in the evening. The temperature in the mountains swung wildly between day and night, and we weren’t familiar with the surrounding terrain. Heading out at night really wasn’t a good idea.