Chapter 19

Chapter 19

“Uncle Cheng!” I slid down the slope.

I grabbed Uncle Cheng by the arm. He was alive. He was really alive!

And not only was he alive, he looked much better than before.

Uncle Cheng waved at me frantically, then pulled me down into a crouch.

My head was full of questions, but then I saw Uncle Cheng point toward the far side of a large tree ahead.

I looked over, just in time to see a tail striped in black and yellow whip out from behind it!

That thick, powerful tail slammed into the trunk with a bang, gouging a deep dent into the wood and stirring up a gust of wind.

In that instant, I realized what it was.

No wonder it had been so quiet the entire way up.

It was early morning, yet I hadn’t even heard a single bird call!

Uncle Cheng and I crouched beneath the tree, not daring to move a muscle. Only after a long while did that bright yellow shadow finally vanish completely.

Rustling footsteps began to rise around us, and the cries of all kinds of animals gradually returned.

For a moment, it was as if all living things had come back to life.

“Uncle Cheng, you…?”

Uncle Cheng smiled at me. “I don’t know what happened either. I was just looking for a place to wait for death, but when I got here, I fell asleep.”

“When I woke up this morning, the king of the forest was less than three meters away from me.”

“I played dead and didn’t dare move at all. Luckily, it seemed like the old lord had already eaten its fill. It wandered around for a bit and then left.”

I still couldn’t quite believe it until Uncle Cheng unbuttoned his shirt. The black chrysanthemum I had seen on his chest before had completely disappeared!

“I keep feeling like it was this forest that saved me,” he said.

Uncle Cheng and I returned to where the car was parked.

I had gotten out in such a panic earlier that I hadn’t even taken my phone with me. Only then did I discover that Tang Ling had called me many times that morning. When she couldn’t get through, she had sent messages instead.

“I found the last few lines of the prophecy!”

“I don’t know what my master was thinking. She had clearly divined them, but she hid the last sheet of paper inside her clothes.”

“This morning, before she was taken into the funeral hall, I was straightening up my master’s remains and found it!”

I opened the final lines of the prophecy Tang Ling’s master had divined before her death: “A life saved fifteen years ago, a seed of disaster buried, hatred born in the dark. The black dog protects its master but cannot prevail; old grudges come knocking, and life nears its end. In the graveyard forest, fire rages, survival hangs by a thread; to save the common people from sinking into ruin. Ten thousand beasts arrive with grass in their mouths to repay a debt; the Mountain Lord rides the wind and breaks the dark clouds. Evil ghosts scatter in terror, daylight appears; good people should reap good rewards!”

In the end, Uncle Cheng faced the direction of the forest and kowtowed heavily three times.

He had protected the forest his whole life. And in his old age, that ancient, far-reaching home of all spirits had summoned the Mountain Lord and done everything in its power to save his life.

As for Tang Ling’s master, Fortune Teller Liu, the reason she had hidden the final lines of the prophecy may have been because she had already seen the outcome.

Tang Ling said her master had passed away with a smile.

Not long after that, I heard news of Wu Si again.

He was dead…

In the dead of winter, after drinking too much, he quietly breathed his last outside his house.