“Old surroundings are hard to leave behind; dreams of broken mountains are the truest.” — The Peach Blossom Fan
“From now on, if there is no torch, then I shall be the only light.” — Lu Xun
The shrill sound of an alarm clock rang throughout the bedroom.
The alarm was set to ring continuously for three minutes, then go off again every five minutes. It had been ringing for nearly half an hour before An Ping finally opened his eyes.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t woken up. He simply couldn’t come to his senses.
In his dream, the deafening sounds of gunfire and artillery had left him dizzy and disoriented, his hands and feet numb. It took him a long time to realize that he was already awake. He struggled to his feet, but his legs gave way, and he dropped to his knees beside the trash can and began vomiting.
He had stayed up late studying the night before, eventually falling asleep with his head on the desk. He had caught a chill and was coming down with a cold, and his stomach was churning. Memories came flooding back like blood wrung out of a rag. Images of limbs flying through the air flashed before his eyes: the sky darkened, corpses littered the ground, bullets rained down, and rivers of blood flowed everywhere.
After finally finishing, An Ping raised his head and saw the history notes he had organized the previous night. Black ink on white paper, with battle after battle neatly listed. His emotions surged at the sight, and he bent over to vomit violently once more.
He really should have set his alarm earlier.
Like a man drained of all strength, An Ping crawled into the bathroom to wash up. He had a very important exam today. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gone to school no matter what.
The events in his dream had left him with a thousand conflicting emotions.
Suddenly, he really wanted to see Mu Geshen.
However, Mu Geshen hadn’t come to school. This wasn’t unusual. Although he hadn’t been taking sick leave as often lately, he still copied his homework whenever he could and skipped exams whenever possible. But today, An Ping had far fewer complaints about it. As he stared at the history exam paper, he didn’t write a single word for a long time. Suddenly, he felt an urge to hand in a blank paper.
Compared to experiencing all those things firsthand, the black-and-white words on paper seemed terribly inadequate.
At noon, school let out. There were still two consecutive exams scheduled for the afternoon. An Ping simply decided not to go home and bought a random stir-fried dish from the cafeteria. The tomato sauce covered his rice, forming a vivid, blood-red puddle. His appetite vanished instantly, and no matter what, he couldn’t bring himself to eat.
“Class rep, what’s wrong with you?” His deskmate, who had come to eat with him, noticed that something was off about An Ping. “Are you feeling sick?”
An Ping put down his chopsticks and waved a hand. “I’m fine.”
“Fine, my ass. I could tell something was wrong with you during the morning exam. I gave you several signals to pass me the answers, but you didn’t even respond.” His deskmate wiped his mouth, stood up, and pulled An Ping along. “If you’re not feeling well, don’t force yourself. I’ll take you to the infirmary.”
“I’m really fine…”
“Come on, this is a golden opportunity to skip an exam. Other people would kill for this chance. Can’t you be a little more sensible?”
Without giving An Ping a chance to argue, his deskmate dragged him out of the cafeteria.
“You’re just too rigid…”
Before he could finish speaking, a tremendous BOOM erupted in the distance. A series of crashing sounds followed as brick walls collapsed. Both of them froze in place, while screams erupted all around them.
His deskmate stared in disbelief and muttered, “Holy shit, did the teaching building just collapse?”
The two of them stared at each other for quite some time. Suddenly, his deskmate slapped his thigh and looked at An Ping.
“Does this mean we don’t have to take the exams anymore?”
An Ping: “…”
Soon, teachers came out to maintain order. The campus descended into chaos, and after a considerable commotion, everyone was eventually gathered on the sports field. The school administration issued a general statement about the incident.
The teaching building was old and in disrepair. Part of the ceiling on the top floor had collapsed. Fortunately, no one had been injured. The school would be temporarily closed, and the reopening date would be announced later.
“Holy shit, is this for real?” His deskmate pinched himself. “One of my lifelong dreams has always been for the school to collapse. But is our school’s construction really this shoddy? What if we have to worry about the building falling apart every time we attend class from now on…”
“That shouldn’t be the case.”
An Ping had been standing on the sports field for quite some time. His head was spinning, but he forced himself to speak.
“City No. 1 High School has been around for a hundred years. The building that collapsed just now was the old teaching building, so it must be quite old. The school would definitely have made its maintenance a priority. Something like this shouldn’t just happen out of nowhere…”
Before he could finish speaking, his vision went black, and he collapsed to the ground.
“Holy shit! Class rep! Deskmate?! … Are you okay?!”
Through his blurry vision, An Ping could make out his deskmate’s panicked face. His head was splitting with pain, and he could no longer hold on. Eventually, he passed out.
He heard faint laughter.
It was very soft, like the downy fur on a cat’s paw, gently scratching at his heart again and again.
“…Why is this person here again?”
“Looks like he won’t be able to get out this time…”
An Ping was groggy and disoriented. He tried to open his eyes, but all he could see was darkness, with hazy red light drifting through it.
What place was this?
He sat up and discovered that he was lying on a concrete floor. His hands and feet were icy cold, but a warmth emanated from his chest, as though something there was heating up.
He leaned forward and looked. It was the jade pendant he wore for protection.
The jade pendant that had been stained with Mu Geshen’s blood.
An Ping’s mother had bought the pendant at an auction, claiming it was an antique that would ward off evil and keep him safe. He had worn it ever since childhood. Apart from the time he had accidentally wandered into the Three Paths Realm, the pendant had never really served any purpose. Even after it had been stained with Mu Geshen’s blood, nothing unusual had happened besides causing him to dream.
But now, the jade pendant was growing slightly warm. It truly seemed to be protecting him somehow.
An Ping stood up and took out the pendant, holding it before his eyes. Its warm, lustrous jade surface emitted a faint glow, illuminating a small portion of the darkness around him.
The moment he got a clear look at his surroundings, An Ping froze. His scalp tingled, and cold sweat broke out all over his body.
Although the scenery had changed considerably, there was no way he could mistake this place.
This was the Three Paths Realm!
The air was stifling and dry, thick with a murky, bloody stench and a bone-dry chill. The smell was exactly the same as when he had visited last time, only much stronger.
An Ping was stunned with fear for a moment, but quickly regained his composure. Why was he here?
This wasn’t a dream. An Ping could clearly sense the difference between his surroundings and those in his dreams. He had genuinely returned to the Three Paths Realm.
Forcing himself to calm down, An Ping rapidly retraced everything that had happened: the exam, the collapse of the teaching building, then he seemed to have fainted, and after waking up, he had somehow entered the Three Paths Realm…
The teaching building’s collapse…
An Ping instinctively felt that it must have something to do with the Three Paths Realm.
City No. 1 High School was a key public school with no shortage of funding. It was impossible that the administration hadn’t taken building inspections and maintenance seriously.
Suddenly, he remembered something Mu Geshen had said before.
“The old city district has a history of more than a hundred years. There are many ancient buildings around City No. 1 High School. This area was already densely populated during the Republican era. Likewise, when the war broke out back then, this was also where the most people died.”
“We’ve probably stumbled into one of these places where the boundaries between yin and yang are blurred. These fissures are also called the ‘Three Paths Realm.’ They lie between the heavenly realm, the human world, and the underworld. They’re essentially a godforsaken no-man’s-land, filled with things that are neither fully alive nor fully dead, neither human nor ghost.”
“The appearance of a Three Paths Realm in the human world is no small matter. Those freeloaders in Fengdu were quite alarmed and hurriedly began investigating the cause.”
The battlefield, the Three Paths Realm, Fengdu.
Somehow, it seemed as though an invisible thread connected everything together.
A terrifying suspicion suddenly crept into An Ping’s mind. Was the current Three Paths Realm somehow connected to the Yin-Yang Ladder from back then?
Was the ancient city in the southeast all those years ago actually the city where he lived now?
And then there was the inexplicable collapse of the teaching building. An Ping instinctively associated it with the collapse of Guanshan Yue in his dream—the cause had been the rampage of the Yin Soldiers.
Thinking back on everything that had happened, Mu Geshen had once said that he was someone who was already dead. So how exactly had they dealt with the Yin Soldier calamity a hundred years ago? If the Yin Soldiers had completely disappeared, why would Fengdu be so alarmed by the appearance of a Three Paths Realm?
An Ping didn’t dare think any further. He had only one thought now: get out of here alive, then immediately go find Mu Geshen.
Holding up the jade pendant to light his way, An Ping summoned his courage and walked forward.
The scenery inside the Three Paths Realm was completely different from the last time. It was no longer the teaching building from several years ago. Instead, everything had become a chaotic void. Only the staircase beneath his feet stretched endlessly onward, while faint, indistinct laughter drifted all around him, as though someone were watching his every move.
The farther An Ping walked, the more frightened he became. Cold sweat soaked through his clothes, and he couldn’t even spare a thought for his headache.
There was only one reason: this place looked far too much like the Yin-Yang Ladder from back then!
He was beginning to hesitate about going any farther. If he continued deeper into this place, would he actually end up in Fengdu? Besides, the Yin-Yang Ladder was extraordinarily long. At his walking speed, he might well starve to death halfway there.
Just as An Ping’s thoughts were in turmoil, a sudden burst of laughter rang out. Something patted him on the shoulder.
An Ping’s hair stood on end.
He had read more than enough horror novels to know about ghosts patting people on the shoulder in the middle of the night. Under no circumstances should he turn around!
Terrified, he took off running.
Yet the laughter seemed to chase after him, remaining faintly audible no matter how far he ran. Whenever An Ping occasionally stopped to catch his breath, something would immediately pat his shoulder. The touch was icy and bone-chilling, leaving him too frightened to stop again. He could only keep running down the staircase.
After an unknown amount of time, he finally couldn’t run anymore and had no choice but to slow down.
But before he could catch his breath, the sound of fingernails scratching against something came from below the stairs, accompanied by a cackling laugh.
Something was crawling up toward him.
“You… finally came…”
By the faint light of the jade pendant, An Ping got a clear look at the thing crawling toward him.
It was a Nightmare Puppet, exactly the same kind he had encountered in the Three Paths Realm last time.
Afterward, Mu Geshen had stayed behind to clear the area. Apparently, the old man had become so old and blurry-eyed that he hadn’t cleaned things up properly, allowing a stray creature to slip through.
Mu Geshen’s poor eyesight had really landed him in trouble.
An Ping finally realized that the laughter that had been chasing him all this time had come from this Nightmare Puppet! He had no idea what method the creature had used, but it had lured him all the way here, exactly as it intended.
He had practically delivered himself to his own death!
An Ping stared at the Nightmare Puppet on the ground and stumbled backward in terror. His foot caught on a step, and he fell backward onto the staircase.
Of all the possible moments, this was the worst one.
The Nightmare Puppet immediately let out a piercing laugh. It suddenly sprang up from the ground and lunged straight at An Ping.
Terrified, An Ping squeezed his eyes shut and screamed.
Well, death was inevitable either way! He had seen quite a few things lately. At worst, he could go to the King of Hell’s palace and find someone to help him look for Mu Geshen!
Just then, a flash of blade light shot up from below.
In an instant, the Nightmare Puppet was cleaved in two. The force of the strike snapped the red cord around An Ping’s neck. The jade pendant went clack as it fell to the ground, its light extinguished, plunging the surroundings into darkness once more.
Before An Ping could even process what had happened, footsteps sounded from below the staircase.
Someone picked up the jade pendant from the ground and paused.
“Is this yours?”
He couldn’t tell whether the voice belonged to a living person or a dead one. Still, at least this seemed to be someone reasonable enough to talk to.
With his eyes still tightly shut, An Ping nodded repeatedly.
“Yes, yes, it’s mine.”
After a pause, he added, “The antique appraisal certificate is still at my house.”
“I’m sorry. I broke the red cord around your neck.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” An Ping had no idea what sort of being the other person was. Unable to see their face in the darkness, he was so frightened that he began speaking incoherently. “I can just buy another one from a street stall outside the City God Temple.”
The other person didn’t say anything. Instead, they walked up to him and placed the jade pendant in his hand.
“Keep it safe.”
Then they grabbed him by the back of his collar.
“Excuse me.”
Before An Ping could react, he felt a tremendous force from behind. The other person actually lifted him into the air, swung him around, and threw him straight out.
The jade pendant had returned to An Ping’s hand, and its light began to glow again.
By its faint illumination, An Ping could vaguely make out a long red saber.
Suddenly, he felt that the other person’s voice sounded somewhat familiar, as though he had heard it somewhere before.
“…Class rep! Deskmate!”
When An Ping woke up, he discovered that he was lying in the school infirmary.
“You’re finally awake!” His deskmate rushed over, making a huge fuss. “You just passed out without warning! You scared the hell out of me!”
An Ping closed his eyes briefly, still somewhat confused.
“What happened?”
Wasn’t he in the Three Paths Realm? How had he suddenly returned? And why was he in the infirmary?
“You’re asking me that?! You were on the sports field when you suddenly fainted before you could even finish speaking. Luckily, the teachers were all there, so they carried you straight to the infirmary.” His deskmate said, “You scared me half to death! You’re buying me milk tea to calm my nerves later. Got that?”
“Sure.” An Ping rubbed his temples. “I owe you a milk tea. I’ll make it up to you later.”
“Forget milk tea. You young people these days really don’t know how to take care of yourselves.”
A medical staff member wearing a white coat walked over to the bedside.
“You caught a chill and have a low-grade fever. Your heart rate is unstable too. Were you up late last night?”
“Yes.” An Ping nodded, his nose somewhat congested. “I didn’t sleep well.”
“I know you students have a lot of academic pressure. You finish your homework in the middle of the night and then play on your phones. Before you know it, you’re staying up all night.” The medical staff member snorted. “I’ve prescribed some medicine for you. Remember to pick it up before you leave. Since the school is closing temporarily for repairs anyway, go home and get some proper rest. Where are your parents? When you get home, eat something light. Don’t go overboard with greasy or spicy food just because you like the taste.”
At the mention of his parents, his deskmate glanced at him and whispered, “Have your parents come back yet?”
“Not yet. They probably won’t be back until the New Year.” An Ping shook his head. “It’s fine. I can take care of myself.”
“Want me to come over to your place?” His deskmate looked at him with some concern. “You can just let me copy your homework later.”
Before he could finish speaking, the infirmary door was suddenly kicked open, and someone walked in.
“I’m his guardian.”
An Ping froze. The person who had arrived was actually Wu Bi You.
“You’re his guardian?” The medical staff member looked suspiciously at the young man standing before them. “Are you even an adult?”
Wu Bi You didn’t bother answering. He walked straight up to An Ping and glared down at him with a sour expression.
“Come with me.”
“Who’s this guy? Your younger brother? I never heard you had a younger brother.” His deskmate leaned toward An Ping and whispered, “Why does he look so pissed? Do you owe him money?”
An Ping thought to himself: I don’t owe him money, but Mu Geshen might.
Still, he knew that Wu Bi You’s sudden appearance at City No. 1 High School was no coincidence. The young man looked gloomy and irritable, so Mu Geshen must have sent him on some errand. Having already experienced Wu Bi You’s temper firsthand, An Ping didn’t say much. He simply stood up and said, “Let’s go.”
His deskmate was worried about him, but Wu Bi You’s expression was so intimidating that he didn’t dare stop them. All he could do was secretly send An Ping a text message:
Call me if anything happens. If things get bad, call the police.
Don’t worry, An Ping replied. He’s a city management officer. He won’t break the law.
Wu Bi You had actually driven over to pick him up in the cargo tricycle used by the city management bureau. The three-wheeler came to a swaggering stop right in front of City No. 1 High School. He hadn’t even bothered to remove the key. The loudspeaker blared an ear-splitting rendition of “Happy Birthday to You,” attracting a crowd of curious onlookers.
Wu Bi You yanked a shared bicycle off the back of the cargo tricycle and tossed it to An Ping.
“That old bastard wants to see you. Get your ass to the City God Temple yourself.”
“What happened?” An Ping stopped Wu Bi You. This guy rarely listened to Mu Geshen’s instructions. The fact that he had specifically come to the school to pick him up meant that something must have happened to Mu Geshen.
“I delivered the message. Why do you have so many questions?” Wu Bi You clicked his tongue impatiently, shoved An Ping aside, climbed into the vehicle, and shut the door.
“Go ask him yourself.”
With that, he stepped on the accelerator and drove away.
An Ping stood there, looked at the shared bicycle beside him, and decisively parked it by the roadside before taking a taxi to the City God Temple.
This time, the scalper at the entrance didn’t stop An Ping to make him buy a ticket. He simply waved him through, as though he already knew why An Ping had come.
“He’s in the courtyard. If you can’t find him, go call him in the side hall.”
As soon as An Ping entered, he spotted Mu Geshen.
The man was standing beneath the ginkgo tree, still dressed in his usual pajamas and holding his enamel mug. He had a copper coin pinched between his fingers. Hearing the footsteps, he turned around, smiled at An Ping, and said, “You’re here.”
An Ping walked over, about to say something, but Mu Geshen held out the enamel mug to him.
“Drink this.”
The mug was warm, and a faint medicinal smell drifted from it. An Ping sniffed it.
“What is this?”
“Brown sugar water with sweet osmanthus. Nourishes the qi and replenishes the blood. Specially for women.”
Great. An Ping rolled his eyes and drank everything in the mug. He immediately felt much warmer, and his head was no longer quite so heavy.
“You knew I was sick?”
“I have a pretty good idea of what you dreamed about.” Mu Geshen rubbed the ghost-patterned coin in his hand. “City No. 1 High School collapsed?”
“Yes.” An Ping nodded. “Did you calculate that?”
“No need to calculate. The time has come.”
Noticing An Ping’s gaze, Mu Geshen handed him the copper coin.
“This is a Mountain Ghost Coin. You should have seen plenty of these in your dreams.”
An Ping certainly had. He had frequently seen these copper coins in his dreams. The Heavenly Calculation Sect’s direct disciples each possessed forty-nine Mountain Ghost Coins. The ancient copper coins were covered in a layer of patina, clearly showing their considerable age.
“Why aren’t you using those ordinary coins of yours today?” An Ping suddenly realized that he had never seen Mu Geshen use Mountain Ghost Coins in real life.
“I woke up this morning feeling that something was wrong, so I performed a divination.” Mu Geshen explained, “The result showed that something would happen to you. But there are too many entanglements between us, so ordinary coins couldn’t give an accurate reading. I had no choice but to use the Mountain Ghost Coins.”
As he spoke, he glanced at An Ping and stated matter-of-factly, “You fell into the Three Paths Realm again.”
“Yes.”
Only then did An Ping remember the important matters. He immediately fired off a whole string of questions.
“What does the school’s collapse have to do with the Three Paths Realm? Is it connected to the Yin Soldiers from back then? Is the Three Paths Realm actually the Yin-Yang Ladder? Oh, and someone saved me. Who was that person?”
“Slow down. One question at a time. I’m getting old. My memory isn’t what it used to be.”
Mu Geshen waved his hand at the barrage of questions.
“Some things you should have already figured out. This is the very city where I lived back then.”
Just as he had suspected.
“Back then, the Yin Soldiers went on a rampage, and we forcibly suppressed them. But the price was enormous, and gaps appeared in my memories as well.” Mu Geshen continued, “You should have realized this when you were dreaming. Some of the crucial parts were blurry and unclear.”
An Ping froze for a moment before asking, “Then how much do you still remember?”
“I only know a few clues. Back then, we forcibly wiped out the Yin Soldiers, and the casualties were devastating. However, there were still some lingering resentments that we couldn’t completely eradicate. I used up one of the Mountain Ghost Coins to seal them away again.”
Mu Geshen spoke slowly.
“The Three Paths Realm isn’t the Yin-Yang Ladder itself. Rather, it’s a space formed by the resentment leaking out of the Yin-Yang Ladder. Those lingering resentments have been sealed inside the Yin-Yang Ladder for a hundred years, but the seal has begun to weaken. City No. 1 High School was built directly over an earth vein. That’s why it suddenly collapsed.”
An Ping shuddered.
“You mean… those Yin Soldiers from back then are about to emerge again?”
The horrific scenes from his dreams were still vivid in his mind. Whenever he closed his eyes, he could see an overwhelming sea of blood.
The Yin Soldiers had required an unimaginably heavy price to suppress in the first place. If they returned once more, he couldn’t even imagine the consequences.
“Don’t worry. I’m here.”
Seeing An Ping’s expression, Mu Geshen smiled.
“Do you know what the street outside the City God Temple is called?”
“West City Street…” An Ping suddenly realized something. “What does this place have to do with West City Pass?”
“Many people think West City Street is called that because it’s located at the westernmost edge of the old city district. But that’s not the case. At the end of this street lies the place where the Yin-Yang Ladder was sealed back then.”
Mu Geshen had lived in the City God Temple for a long time precisely to guard this place.
He patted An Ping on the shoulder.
“As long as I’m here, this place is West City Pass. The Yin Soldiers won’t be able to get out.”
An Ping looked at Mu Geshen, momentarily at a loss for words.
“You’ve been inside the Three Paths Realm and have picked up some of its aura. The earth veins have been unstable lately, so it’s very easy for you to fall into it again.” Mu Geshen led An Ping into a nearby side room. “Stay here tonight. Once the rain passes and the skies clear, everything will be fine.”
“Once the rain passes and the skies clear?” An Ping looked up at the sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. “The weather forecast says it’s going to be sunny for the next few days.”
“The weather forecast isn’t accurate.” Mu Geshen tossed the Mountain Ghost Coin in his hand. “There’ll be heavy rain tonight.”
“Don’t be frightened if you hear any strange noises tonight. My daughter will come. The young man’s temper is a little bad, but he isn’t evil at heart.” Mu Geshen said leisurely, “And I wasn’t the one who sent him to pick you up. The moment he saw the result of my divination, his expression changed, and he hurried off to City No. 1 High School to save you.”
That was certainly unexpected to An Ping.
“Then who was the person who saved me inside the Three Paths Realm?”
“An old acquaintance from back then.”
Mu Geshen smiled calmly, looking completely unhurried.
“Don’t worry. You’ll find out in due time.”