Creating a mountain was not feasible, chiseling one was still possible
In the dead of night, snowflakes drifted softly onto the rooftops.
The wind was not strong. The night watchman yawned, shuffled to the door in his slippers, and peeked outside.
The snow layer was thin; reassured, the watchman rubbed his hands and returned indoors. In this freezing weather, he no longer had to patrol the whole county town—he only needed to strike the night drum in this small courtyard. After all, Zhushan County’s town was pitifully small, with only one street and barely a few hundred households.
This year, Magistrate Xue had instructed them to watch for heavy wind or snow during night duty; if a snow disaster threatened, they were to bang the gong and alert the yamen immediately.
It wasn’t a difficult task, and there was even a small jar of wine to keep warm during the long hours.
The wine was low-grade, the sort that fetched no price outside the northlands, distilled from potatoes—lacking the mellow smoothness of millet or wheat liquor, but strong and bracing, perfect for this season. Cheap, too; potatoes grew thick across the fields and made for food or drink, while grain spirits were luxurious for the poor.
During famine or war, even brewing was banned by the authorities; only outlaws or bandits could afford to feast and drink freely.
The watchman’s room had wine but no meat—just a small plate of perfectly braised dried tofu.
He hummed off-key as he went to the stove, ready to lift the wine jar warming on top.
“Clack, clack…”
The jar and lid made soft, rattling sounds, as if boiling.
Almost at the same time, the ground underfoot trembled. The basket hanging from the rafter began to sway.
There’d been an earthquake last year, and the watchman took fright, rushing out of the yard.
He thought something wasn’t right, rushed back to fetch the gong and drum, and frantically banged them in alarm.
“Wake up, everyone, the earth dragon is turning over.”
Like muffled thunder in the night, lamps lit up one by one in the silent homes. Some had no time to light lamps at all, throwing on blankets and clutching children as they dashed out to their courtyards and the street.
Midway, they realized there was no wild shaking or spinning, only uncertainty.
“What’s going on?”
“Wait, underfoot it’s like…”
All eyes dropped as they struggled to sense the faint trembling in their soles.
Honestly, it just felt like someone hammering the ground through a thick layer of dirt.
A dumb, dull sensation—barely noticeable, almost illusory.
They looked at each other; the watchman, red-faced, shouted, “The earth dragon really is turning—everything in my house was shaking just now!”
A bold soul went to check inside their own home—sure enough, sausages and chili peppers dangling in the kitchen gently swayed.
“County Magistrate, take a look at this…”
Steward Li shuffled over awkwardly, bundled in a cotton quilt.
Xue Ting braced himself against the thickest pine in the yamen’s rear yard, feeling a constant, faint vibration through his palm.
What was this? Had an underground river shifted? Or had a cliff collapsed somewhere on Qimao Mountain?
Xue Ting was utterly confused, personally leading others as they prepared to go investigate.
“County Magistrate, it’s too dark, and the roads are bad,” Steward Li pleaded.
The yamen had only a handful of people on duty, all of them yawning and barely staying awake.
They didn’t have enough men to comb all of Zhushan County; as Xue Ting hesitated, the strange vibration was already fading.
After a while, people drifted back toward home— not for lack of fear, but because it was simply too cold.
None dared immediately sleep; instead, they sat by doors and windows, packing away their things in case the house collapsed and buried the grain.
—The tremor grew weaker still, until one had to press an ear to the floor to make out a trace of movement.
“This isn’t like the earth dragon turning—it’s more like the earth dragon snoring.”
In the pharmacy, Aunt Ge cradled the sleepy Tang Xiaotang in her arms and declared, “Don’t stay up, just go to bed. I don’t think anything will happen.”
Uncle Ge still looked worried, frowning. “Doctor Mo and Mr. Meng went into the mountain earlier today. Who knows what it’s like at Jimao Mountain? If something happened up there, could it send tremors this way?”
“Pfft, don’t say such things.”
Aunt Ge shot a glance at the main house, hissing, “Keep your voice down, Old Mr. Qin is elderly. Do you want him to worry so much he spends the night searching the mountain for them?”
Uncle Ge instantly fell silent.
Qin Lu was not only awake but had heard every word. He did have a headache, but not from worry.
“Did my warnings to Shizhi and the others just go in one ear and out the other?”
Old Mr. Qin was rather angry; last year, when Qimao Mountain’s clouds transformed into a dragon, it had caused a huge stir, and he had earnestly warned Mo Li and Meng Qi to be careful—not to “take off” by mistake and startle the people of Zhushan County again.
So now both dragon veins had gone underground?
Qin Lu had a headache; he was distressed, wondering how to explain this to County Magistrate Xue at dawn.
Forget it, better to just sleep. At worst, play dumb.
After all, not even a miracle doctor could explain why the earth dragon would wake but not turn over.
With that, Qin Lu drifted off into a deep sleep.
Even when the trembling started again, he didn’t so much as stir an eyelid.
Aunt Ge and other villagers, meanwhile, were more and more certain it was the earth dragon snoring—witness the way it swelled and relaxed in rhythm, the regular tempo, never quite the same but always with a pattern. If this wasn’t snoring, what else could it be—someone digging through the earth to hollow out a mountain?
But not even tunnelling could produce this: nine soft tremors, one strong—what was this, grinding soybeans?
Some were lulled to sleep by the shaking itself.
Others put on padded coats and fur hats, grabbed lanterns, and set out to see for themselves.
Too scared to go up the mountain in the dark, they searched for the strongest shaking spot but couldn’t find it anywhere in town. Only the bitter cold drove them home again, hands chafed, to warm themselves by the fire and sleep.
By the fourth watch, the strange tremors were gone.
The next day, almost the whole town slept until the sun was high—including Xue Ting.
Startled awake, he saw clear sunlight outside, the wind still, the snow stopped; he couldn’t even remember when he’d fallen asleep. He’d toppled onto the bed still fully dressed, drifting off so thoroughly he half-suspected someone had drugged him.
After frantically checking himself over, Xue Ting realized he felt refreshed—no soreness from sleeping awkwardly.
He was still one of the first to wake, and only after plenty of shouting did he rouse Steward Li and the yamen runners, all of whom seemed muddled, unsure why they were curled up here napping instead of in proper beds.
Finally recalling the previous night, Constable Qin wondered if it had been a dream.
After all, the houses hadn’t collapsed, nothing was broken, and no one was hurt—how could the ground have simply shaken for no reason?
“Could it be…a prelude to the earth dragon turning over?”
Steward Li thought of everything. He’d read all sorts of local chronicles, in which people claimed to have seen golden light in the mountains before earthquakes, or heard bubbling in wells, even rumbling cart-wheels.
There was no shortage of strange occurrences in history, not a single one with a reasonable explanation.
After pondering, Xue Ting decided Steward Li had a point—he should inspect the fields in person. If it really was the earth dragon turning, then snakes and frogs, though hibernating, ought to be coming out, and rats could become a scourge.
“Wait, send someone to the pharmacy with word.”
***
No snakes emerged. No rats were running wild.
—Because it wasn’t an earthquake, but a merging of earth vein spiritual energies.
Every household’s chickens in their coops slept even more deeply than people. Qimao Mountain, for once, had been generous; in such times, what creature within a hundred li would pass up a blessing?
The yamen messenger who went to the pharmacy found nothing—Qin Lu had already gone into the mountains.
—Of thirty-six stratagems, retreat is best.
—Even if he couldn’t find the dragon veins in the mountain, he could stay at the mountain god’s temple and wait for them to come to him.
Xue Ting couldn’t find fault—Qin Lu had often ventured into the mountains to gather herbs while in seclusion; he knew Qimao Mountain well. Now that he worried about any mountain mishaps, who better to go than he? What gave Xue Ting pause was that he hadn’t seen any sign of Mo Li or Meng Qi.
“Doctor Mo and the others went up the mountain yesterday…”
No sooner had they gone than something happened—how could he not have doubts?
But this kind of commotion—humans couldn’t cause it! Xue Ting was deeply troubled, feeling the truth was just one step away, separated not by a wall but only a paper screen—yet he simply couldn’t see through it.
The true culprits were sleeping soundly.
Still within the cavern with the spiritual spring pool, sunlight poured in through a gap in the dome, falling in golden rays onto the water’s surface.
Since last night, the spring had been bubbling as if brought to a boil.
Then a thick white mist rose, spreading to fill the whole cave, finally escaping through cracks high above, reaching skyward, parting the clouds, even pushing aside the night’s heavy snow so that, by the second half of the night, wind and storm had ceased altogether.
The mist took on the form of a dragon merging into the earth veins.
Coiling together, gold and black intertwined, their scales seamlessly joined.
All of it was veiled by night; few people ever set foot in the mountains, so no one saw this spectacle.
The rocks were solid; any anomaly in the earth veins was far less obvious in Qimao Mountain. In flatter lands, and especially by rivers, the signs were stark: where the ice had sealed everything, now there were only shards, water stirring the pieces with rhythmic knocks and scrapes.
At times violent, at times gentle.
Finally, the ice melted and broke apart; the river churned up foamy white layers.
As the earth’s vein energy slowly faded, these foams and ice shards froze again with the morning, creating a strange new landscape.
Day rose, night fell; now it was noon.
As heaven and earth’s energies converged, the cave’s mist fully dispersed. In the pool, the shadow of a fish appeared first, and then, above the water, in a golden net of sunlight, a little furball.
Inhale, exhale—the tides rose and fell.
“Splash.”
The shadow solidified: the gerbil fell into the water.
The drenched mouse opened its eyes and pawed at the surface.
—Why was it still sinking?
In an instant, the gerbil vanished, and Meng Qi appeared—a version that could swim, at least.
He reached out and caught hold of a fish in the water.
The cold feel of scales hadn’t faded when he met Mo Li’s eyes.
White skin, with traces of black scales on forearms and waist, strange and bewitching.
“A-Li, come bask in the sun.”
“…”
Four arms entwined, utterly close.
Soaking in the icy pool with nothing on but a dozen rays of sunlight overhead—who could say it wasn’t basking?
