Looking at the mountain, the horse was worn out from running, and after a full two hours, the carriage finally entered that tall and dense forest at the foot of the mountain.
In the next moment, a cool breeze blew in.
It was a real cool breeze, unlike the scorching heat of summer.
The refreshing coolness seeped into the skin, like a light veil brushed by a fairy from the Ninth Heaven, instantly awakening those who had been drowsy from the heat, before drifting away.
“What a good place.” Mo Li sighed softly.
Though still far away, unable to clearly sense the spiritual energy, the strength of the earth veins was undeniable.
In the words of a Taoist, this place could stabilize feng shui, with energy not leaking out, bringing long-lasting blessings.
Of course, feng shui talk, in Mo Li’s view, was much like Ayanpuka’s brain—what you see is correct, each sentence spoken sounds serious, but the conclusion always ends up far off.
For example, the energy truly doesn’t escape, but the talk of endless blessings, flowing water and wealth, dragon shapes, and auspicious tiger formations—all nonsense. People buried here will still turn into rotten bones like everywhere else.
Finding a place rich in spiritual energy to dig a hole and bury a coffin—those who understand would call it a blessed land protecting descendants; those who don’t might think you are waiting for a corpse to transform! After all, Mo Li cultivated white ginseng in Qimao Mountain in the same way. If he wasn’t expecting it to transform, why find a spiritual energy convergence point to dig a hole and bury it? The dead cannot come back to life!
Mo Li hadn’t expected that the uniqueness of Feihe Mountain could be sensed even at the foot of the mountain.
This place was unlike any other mountain he had seen.
The terrain wasn’t steep, nor was it majestic or beautiful; one could even say the “mountain” was quite ordinary.
But it was full of vitality, from the birds flying between the trees to the trickling streams, making one immediately aware of its uniqueness.
It was “alive.”
The wind was like the breath of the mountain, the stream its footsteps, and before you even approached, you felt as though it was eagerly drawing you in.
For a dragon vein, this felt like a host warmly inviting you into their courtyard.
“… No wonder you said, back then, only Feihe Mountain in Yuanyang could possibly have a dragon vein.”
Mo Li, both surprised and intrigued, couldn’t resist jumping onto the roof of the carriage.
That light spiritual energy swirled around him, drifting between the trees, invisible to the eye, but its path could be felt as it brushed by.
So tangible, and yet so extraordinary.
No wonder even Ayanpuka was convinced this place had a dragon vein. Whether it was the experiences of the swordsman Su Li or that unusual feather, nothing was more persuasive than actually stepping into Feihe Mountain.
If Mo Li hadn’t met Meng Qi and had instead focused solely on finding companions, he might have wandered for a long time, seeing many mountains and crossing many rivers, without any success—until one day, he came here… He might have cried tears of joy.
For, as a dragon vein living in this world, one is not lonely.
As Mo Li thought of this, he climbed down from the roof of the carriage.
Sure enough, he saw Meng Qi looking somewhat displeased.
Meng Qi didn’t say a word, just kept his head down, driving the carriage.
The old horse, which had been plodding along listlessly the whole way, suddenly became extremely energetic after entering the forest, almost impossible to control without the reins.
“Did you take this same road back then?” Mo Li thought for a moment, then asked tentatively.
“No, by boat.”
Meng Qi found Mo Li’s tone a bit odd, and when he looked up, he saw the doctor with a serious expression.
Mo Li deliberately deepened his voice: “Now that we’ve arrived, I finally understand. Feihe Mountain is indeed unforgettable, especially for a dragon vein. If Ayanpuka hadn’t mentioned it last time, I wouldn’t have known how many times you returned to Feihe Mountain afterward.”
Meng Qi: “…”
Why did those words sound so strange?
It sounded a lot like jealousy, but the doctor was never one to get jealous! Meng Qi was extremely puzzled.
Mo Li laughed inwardly. To deal with someone like Teacher Meng who overthinks things, you had to drink the vinegar ahead of him, leaving the sand rat staring at an empty vinegar bowl in confusion.
—Drink vinegar? The doctor only had bitter medicine here, don’t even think about anything else.
Actually, when Ayanpuka mentioned these things last time, Mo Li hadn’t thought much about it. It was only just now, while standing on the roof of the carriage, that Mo Li, putting himself in Teacher Meng’s shoes, began to wonder what Meng Qi must have been thinking when he first arrived at Feihe Mountain. His emotions suddenly became complicated.
After traveling all the way to Feihe Mountain and discovering that there might actually be a dragon vein, Meng Qi had used up all his joy in a single day.
But once his joy was spent, the problem arose: he couldn’t find the dragon vein!
No matter how extraordinary the mountain appeared, the dragon vein simply refused to reveal itself! Whether it was because the dragon vein of Feihe Mountain wasn’t home, or because it hadn’t yet formed, Meng Qi had no choice but to leave in disappointment, resolving to come back and explore again another time.
He ended up walking around again and again, each time returning empty-handed.
By the end, Meng Qi could no longer confidently say that there was definitely a dragon vein at Feihe Mountain.
If there was one, why did it avoid him?
The better the first impression of Feihe Mountain had been, the greater Meng Qi’s eventual disappointment.
But one couldn’t blame the dragon vein of Feihe Mountain for that. There was no rule that a dragon vein had to reveal itself when meeting a companion. After all, it was still their domain. If you barged into someone’s home and couldn’t find them in the house, could you really blame the host for lacking hospitality?
As for the host inviting you in… that was merely an illusion brought about by the spiritual energy. He hadn’t even seen the shadow of the dragon vein, so where would the invitation have come from?
“So many years without a companion, and when you finally meet one, it turns out like this.” Mo Li gently stroked Meng Qi’s right hand.
It was the same motion he used when petting a sand rat.
Meng Qi, without thinking, instinctively gripped Mo Li’s hand in return, pulling him to sit beside him on the shaft of the carriage, leaning down as if to kiss his full earlobe.
The horse, free from the reins, neighed loudly and excitedly dashed into the forest.
The carriage began to bump wildly, and if they weren’t skilled in martial arts, they might have been thrown off.
“Slow down.”
Mo Li, half-laughing, half-crying, pulled the reins, afraid the horse would crash into a tree.
The horse had been bought by Meng Qi.
Someone who was worried about repeating past mistakes had specifically picked a slow-witted, poor-quality horse.
According to the stable hands, this old horse was deaf and disobedient, having been returned several times. Merchants who had rented it all complained that no matter how much they whipped or shouted at the horse, it always moved at the same slow pace. Whether it was carrying goods or passengers, the horse trotted along at its own speed. It didn’t work harder when fed good grass, and it didn’t care when given poor feed. The stable hands even forcefully swapped out its premium feed for coarse fodder right in front of it, yet the horse didn’t get upset and continued chewing away. In short, it was stubbornly slow, which was exactly what Meng Qi had been satisfied with at the time. But within two days of buying it, he started feeling a bit unhappy.
—Mo Li had taken care of the horse, letting it rest and feeding it refreshing melons, but the horse had remained indifferent, ignoring everyone.
Meng Qi said the horse was hopelessly dull, but Mo Li countered that it was exhibiting “equanimity in the face of honor or disgrace”—a virtue a gentleman should aspire to.
Teacher Meng: “…”
Forget it. Gains and losses, the world never allows perfection.
Now, the horse was behaving completely out of character, racing wildly. The carriage swayed left and right, holding together for a moment before, with a loud crash, the rear wheel flew off.
The horse’s body tilted with it, nearly falling to the ground.
Meng Qi leaped onto the horse’s back, wrapped his right arm around its neck, and without seeming to exert much force, the horse obediently came to a stop.
“Why did it suddenly go wild?” Mo Li had already jumped off the carriage before it flipped over.
After all, there was nothing valuable on the carriage, so there was no fear of anything breaking.
Mo Li walked over and stroked the horse’s sweaty mane, checking its mouth and nose for any signs of illness.
“It’s fine, not sick,” Meng Qi said grumpily as he got off the horse. “Probably just felt the coolness of the forest and got tired of waiting on us, only wanting to rush into the stream for a soak.”
Mo Li didn’t argue; it was indeed hot.
They might not be bothered by the heat, but the horse clearly was.
“I can hear the stream nearby. Why not lead it there for a rest?”
Mo Li patted the horse’s back and handed the reins to Meng Qi. Just then, they heard voices approaching from the forest.
Glancing at the carriage wheel that had flown far away and the old horse that seemed done with work for the day, Mo Li sighed dramatically and said, “Let it rest. Both Qixing and I are getting old, and we still have some distance to travel. We’ll need it to carry us.”
Meng Qi brushed non-existent dust from his clothes and sighed with mock regret: “It seems this ‘equanimity in honor or disgrace’—well, the horse doesn’t have it. As long as it can cool down, nothing else matters.”
Mo Li couldn’t help but laugh—why did the great dragon vein of Taijing always have to pick on the horse?
As they chatted, the distant voices grew closer, revealing a wedding procession draped in rough red cloth.
There was no wedding sedan; the bride was riding a donkey, dressed in new clothes with her hair slicked and shiny. She had no veil, and her curious eyes were fixed on them.
There was only one narrow path in the forest, overgrown with weeds. Mo Li and Meng Qi, appearing as old men, stood beside a toppled, broken-down carriage, with the wheel lying far away. It was clear what had happened.
“Sorry for the trouble, could you wait a moment?” Mo Li realized their carriage was blocking the road.
The people in the wedding procession were simple villagers, and one of them immediately responded in a thick Jingzhou accent: “What are you talking about, old sir? Unexpected things happen on the road. We are just simple fishermen; there’s no such thing as an auspicious time for us. Once the bride arrives, we celebrate. A slight delay is no problem.”
He even offered, “Why don’t you take your things out of the carriage, and we’ll help you lift it?”
Mo Li, of course, couldn’t lift the carriage single-handedly in front of so many people while disguised as an eighty-year-old man, so he graciously accepted their kind offer.
The villagers weren’t suspicious of Meng Qi and Mo Li.
They looked older than the village chief, standing straight and tall, clearly of some status.
Fortunately, they weren’t dressed in silks and brocade, or the villagers wouldn’t have dared even greet them.
“This wheel isn’t broken; it can be fixed! We just don’t have the right tools. Why don’t you come back to the village with us?”
“That’s right. It’s getting late, and once the sun sets, the forest gets dark and eerie.”
Meng Qi seized the opportunity, agreeing easily, and gave Mo Li a knowing look: Now do you see why we’re disguised as old men?
—Not everywhere is like Taijing, where looking good is enough.
Young, unfamiliar outsiders, no matter their status, would always make villagers wary. But an eighty-year-old man couldn’t be a bandit, a tax collector, or someone running off with someone’s daughter or wife. And since they were celebrating a wedding, inviting them over was just a matter of offering a cup of wine and an extra pair of chopsticks—no one would mind.
“Old sir, where are you from? Your accent sounds familiar.”
“From the south of Jingzhou, here to visit relatives,” Mo Li said casually.
The longer he spent with Meng Qi, the easier lies seemed to flow from his mouth.
Thanks to his extensive reading of geographic and historical records in Taijing, Mo Li picked a location and spoke convincingly.
It turned out someone in the village had actually been there, and they nodded in agreement.
By the time they reached the village, everyone was thoroughly convinced that Mo Li had indeed come from that region.
The forest grew denser as they walked, but it also became cooler.
After rounding a small slope, the view suddenly opened up, revealing two streams flowing out from Feihe Mountain, one on the left and one on the right, merging here to form a lake.
The fishing village sat on the lakeshore. Most of the houses were rudimentary, with only a few scattered brick-and-tile buildings.
The village had already prepared a banquet, just one long table that looked like it had been hauled out of an ancestral hall, covered with large bowls and plates holding stews, pork, and all sorts of fish and shrimp.
Poor families had no access to fancy seasonings; using oil and soy sauce already made for a great dish. The wedding guests were so eager to eat and drink that they didn’t even bother watching the newlyweds bow to each other. With the weather so hot and the food perishable, the hosts loudly urged everyone to eat and drink quickly.
The village chief, a frail old man, was helped by his grandson to meet the village’s guests.
When he opened his mouth, goodness, there were only two teeth left.
His speech was slurred and airy. Not only Meng Qi, but even Mo Li, who had studied dialects, couldn’t make out what he was saying.
The village chief’s grandson hurriedly explained, “Grandfather says you are esteemed guests. A few days ago, the Taoist from the temple said that soon, distinguished guests would arrive from the north.”
Mo Li furrowed his brow, and a villager at the nearby table, busy chewing on meat, laughed, “That’s wrong! These two old sirs came from the south to visit relatives, not from the north.”
“What temple? Where did the Taoist come from? And where is this temple?” Meng Qi spoke for the first time, startling everyone.
He spoke in the official dialect, which more than half of the villagers didn’t understand.
Mo Li had to repeat the questions.
“Oh, it’s just up ahead.” The villager, still busy fighting for meat, didn’t even lift his head, merely pointing forward with his chopsticks.
With his sharp eyesight, Mo Li could vaguely make out the top half of a low wall hidden behind trees on the other side of the lake.
One of the older villagers suddenly slapped the hand of the man pointing with chopsticks, scolding, “That’s the Mountain God! How could you be so disrespectful?”
“Mountain God?”
“It’s Lord of the Mountain and the Marshes, protector of us poor folk. There’s no statue or anything, we just offer a bowl of rice and light some incense during festivals.” The village chief’s grandson, noticing Meng Qi and Mo Li’s dignified demeanor, treated them with great courtesy, offering water and bringing chairs.
Mo Li and Meng Qi exchanged a glance, and Mo Li couldn’t help but ask, “Is the Mountain God… effective?”
The villagers all answered in unison, “Very! Especially effective!”
Author’s note:
Sand rat crossing its arms: Doctor, let me tell you, that shut-in Feihe Mountain spirit is super annoying. Don’t bother trying to befriend him.
