Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The villagers performed a complex ritual. First, they forced me to my knees before the statue, chanting a long string of words under their breath. The general gist was thanking the Flame Emperor for his blessings, asking for the health of the villagers and for their prosperity to endure for generations.

Then, they had me sit on a chair by the bonfire. Every time they finished a verse, they threw a large handful of herbs into the flames.

“The Xiaoyang and the Gui Gu, joined in eternal union.”

A group of people circled around me. The smoke billowed, making my head spin and my vision blur. Before long, I drifted into a daze and fell asleep in the chair.

When I woke up again, the sky was just beginning to pale with the first light of dawn.

Fifth Grandpa, who was standing beside me, tucked a dagger into my belt and then slid a bamboo tube over each of my forearms.

I stared at him, completely bewildered.

Fifth Grandpa leaned down and whispered his instructions:

“If the Wild Man grabs your shoulders, don’t resist. That is your good fortune.”

“If he grabs your wrists, pull your hands out of the bamboo tubes and stab him in the eyes with the dagger.”

I felt a flicker of disdain deep down. The legends of the Wild Man had been around for ages, yet no one had ever found one. I had no idea what these villagers were playing at.

Supported by others, I was helped to my feet and onto a sedan chair. Four villagers hoisted me up and carried me out through the back gate of the Ancestral Hall, heading toward the mountains.

The entire village turned out to see us off. Brother Wang and his wife stood at the very front, dressed in brand-new clothes and supported on either side by others. Sister Wang was weeping so hard she went limp against Brother Wang, while the villagers tried to comfort her.

After she had cried for a while, Fifth Grandpa waved his hand, and the group set off once more.

The terrain gradually rose. The lingering clouds in the sky were as thin as gossamer, and a morning mist blanketed the mountains. The air was crisp and cool. I took a deep breath, feeling some strength return to my limbs and my mind clear significantly.

I looked down at the bamboo tubes on my arms. I couldn’t shake the feeling that these things were eerily familiar.

As we walked, the villagers kept their heads down in silence. The mountain slopes became higher and the path increasingly steep and difficult to navigate. Yet the villagers carrying my sedan chair possessed the strength of oxen, walking as if they were on level ground.

With that kind of strength, they could earn at least a thousand a day hauling bricks at a construction site.

Finally, a valley appeared ahead. Steep cliffs on both sides squeezed the sky into a narrow sliver, and the mouth of the valley was overgrown with a dense thicket of vines and thorns. The villagers pulled out machetes, hacked through the vines, and entered the narrow pass. After walking about one or two hundred paces, the view suddenly opened up.

There was a flat grassy clearing, roughly the size of a sports field, with a towering tree standing in the center.

I had never seen such a massive tree in my life. Its trunk was thick, at least two meters in diameter.

Dense vines extended from the canopy, reaching all the way to the tops of the surrounding cliffs like a giant net, shrouding the entire valley.