Chapter 50: The Tree Demon of Black Mountain

Wang Xinyue walked entirely alone down the desolate, empty street in the dead of night, beneath dim and lonely streetlights. Suddenly—a paper figurine plummeted from the sky, landing squarely and precisely in the palm of her hand. Upon closer inspection, she realized the figurine was thoroughly saturated with malicious sorcery.

Before long, the tiny paper figure slowly straightened its torso and stood upright, as if awakened by an invisible force. Its facial features were exquisitely detailed and lifelike, especially its eyes, which shimmered with an unusual glow. Immediately afterward, the paper figure split its blood-red mouth wide, curling it into an intensely eerie smile.

She violently flung the paper figurine away. The moment it hit the ground, the figure instantly twisted and transformed into a thick plume of dense dark fog that billowed outward. Recognizing the mist as the manifestation of the Black Mountain Old Demon without a moment of hesitation, Wang Xinyue turned and ran.

The dark fog seemed to possess a life of its own, clinging to her like a shadow as it closely pursued her. It expanded steadily with every step she took, rapidly swallowing the entire street and inch by inch beating back the light. Wang Xinyue exerted every ounce of her strength until she burst out of the street. As she reached a certain area, a manhole cover on the ground ahead was abruptly pried open from within. A young girl leaped out nimbly, grabbed Wang Xinyue, and both of them plunged almost simultaneously into the deep, dark manhole, quickly concealing themselves within the shadows.

To Wang Xinyue's profound shock, the young girl who had just saved her was Wang Shiting, a friend of hers who had passed away many years ago. Wang Shiting had lived in poor conditions during her childhood, frequently suffering from hunger, and had died of stomach cancer not long after reaching adulthood.

She and Wang Shiting squatted together in that narrow, cramped space, holding their breath. Unaware that Wang Xinyue had been rescued, the dark fog continued to spread forward on its own until it quickly vanished without a trace.

Afterward, Wang Shiting cautiously pried open a tiny crack in the manhole cover, peered left and right, and, certain that the Black Mountain Old Demon was completely gone, urged Wang Xinyue to leave quickly. "This place lies between the netherworld and the mortal realm. Mortals cannot stay here for long."

As Wang Shiting led her away, she told Wang Xinyue along the way that she had come not only to save her but also to reveal the truth about Fei Tongtong's birth.

"Affairs of the mortal world cannot be hidden from the underworld. I investigated in the underworld and discovered that Fei Tongtong was an abandoned infant. Originally, her surname was Wang, and her biological parents had given her a name containing the character for 'ting.' She was the youngest of three children, born after two older brothers. Fei Tongtong's grandfather had some rudimentary knowledge of matters concerning yin and yang. From the moment she was born, he sensed an ominous aura radiating from her, and he made the executive decision to abandon Fei Tongtong on the street, where she was eventually found and adopted by her current parents."

Wang Shiting continued, "Back then, when Fei Tongtong was classmates with Xu Xiaoqian, she harbored deep jealousy toward her. She envied everything Xu Xiaoqian possessed—her family, her parents, and her appearance. At the same time, she held a possessive, perverted affection for Xu Xiaoqian; her primordial spirit, the Black Mountain Old Demon, adored Nie Xiaoqian, feeling both envy and love for her."

Wang Shiting stopped walking and pointed out the direction. "You can leave this place once you turn past that large tree ahead. I cannot go any further. You should head back—"

Before Wang Shiting's voice had even faded, the dark fog transformed by the Black Mountain Old Demon rushed toward them like a specter of the night. It twisted and spiraled in the air, gradually condensing and stretching into a humanoid shape, accompanied by a rough, hoarse laugh that made the air vibrate: "Ha, so this is where you were hiding..."

"Run—if you're late, you won't be able to go back—" Urgency tinged Wang Shiting's voice with undeniable force. She spun around abruptly and used all her strength to shove Wang Xinyue away into the distance.

Wang Xinyue did not dare to hesitate for even a second, sprinting forward with all her might. Her heart pounded like a war drum until the towering ancient tree came into view. However, the shadow of the Black Mountain Old Demon had already closed in right behind her, and the dark mist swirling around its body silently latched onto the tips of Wang Xinyue's shoes. Instantly, an invisible gravity shackled her feet like iron chains, making it nearly impossible for her to take another half-step.

Just as despair crashed over her like a tidal wave, the long-silent ancient tree miraculously began to tremble, bursting with dazzling, blinding golden light from among its branches and leaves—a brilliance almost too intense to look upon. That radiance contained an ancient and sacred power capable of banishing all darkness and evil in the world.

Jolted awake by the sudden light, Wang Xinyue found the scenery before her shifting as she realized she was lying in her own bed.

The moment she woke up, she eagerly rushed to tell me this story.

I suddenly recalled that during the period when Fei Tongtong and I were closest, she had indeed confided in me that she was found on the street by her current parents, and that when she was found, there was a piece of jade in her bag with the character for 'Wang' carved onto it.

Back then, I thought Fei Tongtong was just making up stories for me, but thinking about it now, it matched the details Wang Xinyue had dreamed of last night down to the very last detail.

Because Xiao Yuanbing had refused to eat or excrete for the past few days, its belly was swollen round like a ball. Sensing something unusual, I video-called Zhong Yang, hoping to use her divine eyes to take a closer look at what was wrong with Xiao Yuanbing.

Zhong Yang's eyes, flashing with an eerie green light, swept slowly over Xiao Yuanbing's round belly, observing it intently for a long time. "Xiao Yuanbing's stomach is tightly packed with a thick, dense black vapor that has condensed into a massive black sphere, completely blocking its stomach. The entrance to its stomach is tightly bound by a red thread, preventing the ingested food from being digested, and its intestines are likewise firmly constricted by a red thread, making it unable to excrete. The Black Mountain Old Demon did this!"

Blazing fury ignited within my chest as I said indignantly, "It's fine if the Black Mountain Old Demon comes after me, but Xiao Yuanbing is just a baby with no grudge against it. How could it be so vicious!"

Zhong Yang's eyes widened into perfect circles. "I saw the Black Mountain Old Demon... Holy crap... it is so damn ugly!"

In that split second just now, Zhong Yang had seen a black mountain materialize in midair. Atop the peak stood a man draped in a black robe, with bulging eyes and pupils that seemed to harbor endless gloom. His face was extraordinarily broad with prominent bones, rough and dark skin, and sharply pointed ears protruding upward. It was none other than the Black Mountain Old Demon.

As I watched, the Black Mountain Old Demon produced a red bridal gown and pressed it against its cheek, continuously stroking it. The gown was brightly colored and incomparably magnificent, clashing jarringly with the gloomy aura surrounding it. In a hoarse, rough voice, it rasped, "Xiaoqian, back then at Lanruo Temple, you should have worn this bridal gown and become my most beautiful bride. Since you refused to marry me, then let me become you..."

What did "let me become you" mean? Before Zhong Yang could figure out the implication behind the Black Mountain Old Demon's words, a scene unfolded before her eyes that left her utterly dumbfounded. She watched as the Black Mountain Old Demon slipped the red bridal gown onto itself. A hulking, hideous monster wearing the magnificent bridal gown meant for a bride—the scene was bizarre beyond description, twistedly beautiful and shockingly ugly all at once, defying the power of language to convey its strangeness.

Realizing the discordance itself, the Black Mountain Old Demon slowly opened its rough palm and grabbed forcefully toward the void, as if summoning something. "Come here—" A violent gale suddenly whipped up across the mountain forest, carrying some unknown object within its currents before finally fluttering down lightly and gently into its palm.

It was a face, thin as mutton-fat jade. Holding it up to the light, the Black Mountain Old Demon unfurled the skin flat; even when laid out flat, one could still glimpse from it the kind of soul-stirring beauty the original owner's visage must have possessed.

Zhong Yang found the face looking strangely familiar. Who did it remind her of?

Just as Zhong Yang was racking her brains trying to figure out who the face resembled, she saw the Black Mountain Old Demon press the skin against its own face. In an instant, brilliance shifted across the surface, and its features underwent a miraculous transformation, turning into the likeness of Yu'er. However, it captured only the form without the spirit, lacking Yu'er's unique charm and liveliness.

Suddenly, understanding dawned on Zhong Yang: the Black Mountain Old Demon had stolen Yu'er's face.

Zhong Yang relayed the scene she had just witnessed to me and remarked, "I feel like the Black Mountain Old Demon's obsession with you is extremely heavy. It is a genderless yin-yang spirit; on one hand, it fancies you, and on the other hand, it wants to become you. Furthermore, it probably hasn't married in this lifetime, and it's because it envies you for having a child that it cast evil magic on Xiao Yuanbing."

Zhong Yang asked me, "Have you invited the portrait of your mother here yet?"

I showed her the portrait of Goddess Tianfei hanging on the wall behind me. I had carefully selected this portrait of Goddess Tianfei online after a long search, as it looked the most like my mother. In the portrait, Goddess Tianfei was supremely beautiful, clad in a bright yellow embroidered brocade skirt draped with a red satin robe, her feet shod in upturned cloud shoes inlaid with jadeite. On her head rested gold ornaments and hairpins dotted with numerous embedded pearls, and from her lobes hung tassel earrings set with deep-blue sapphires.

Zhong Yang gasped in admiration, "Your mother is so gorgeous!"

I replied with a smug sense of reflected glory, "My mother and the Goddess of the Luo River are both renowned beauties in the divine realm. They look identical, and I owe it all to my maternal grandmother, the Green Tara Bodhisattva. She is an absolute super-beauty; otherwise, how could everyone in our family be dashing men and stunning women, and how could I have been born with such looks?"

Full of curiosity, Zhong Yang probed, "Then who on earth is your maternal grandfather? To be able to win the hand of such a gorgeous Green Tara Bodhisattva, his status must be exceptionally high!"

"My maternal grandfather is the Heavenly Venerable of Primordial Beginning, one of the Three Pure Ones."

Zhong Yang chuckled and said, "So your maternal grandfather is the Heavenly Venerable of Primordial Beginning! What a coincidence—my grandfather is the Heavenly Venerable of Numinous Treasure, occupying one of the Three Pure Ones seats just like your grandfather."

Then, changing the subject, she asked, "Aren't you going to ask your mother to help you deal with the Black Mountain Old Demon? Your mother should be able to beat it!"

Dejectedly, I replied, "I invited her yesterday, but Teacher Xing said my mother cannot intervene..."

Yesterday, I had asked Teacher Xing to use his intent to invite a wisp of a split spirit belonging to Goddess Tianfei—the wife of the True Martial Great Emperor—to reside within this portrait. A streak of rainbow light had flashed swiftly across the sky, condensing into a swirling orb of iridescent light. The light orb fluttered around me for a while, as if taking its time to look at me after such a long separation, before finally flying toward the portrait with a hint of lingering reluctance, vanishing into it without a trace. Simultaneously, the portrait seemed imbued with life, erupting with a dazzling rainbow brilliance. Once the glow faded, the entire painting radiated an indescribable spirituality.

Teacher Xing had told me: "Even if you invite your mother here, she can only protect your life at your most critical juncture. She cannot help you resolve the matter of the Black Mountain Old Demon because the heavenly laws and statutes of the divine realm dictate that gods above are not permitted to casually interfere in mortal affairs."

Since my mother could not deal with the Black Mountain Old Demon, the only option left was to ask Teacher Xing to take action. We had to reclaim the face of my primordial spirit.

During our video call today, Teacher Xing wore a solemn expression and spoke with strict gravity. "Black Mountain is a mountain in the demon realm, and the Black Mountain Old Demon is merely a title. It is actually a Black Mountain flora entity that cultivated to a certain tier and became known as the Black Mountain Old Demon. Tree demons themselves are not difficult to deal with, but its subordinates and demonic minions are numerous. To cut the weeds and eliminate the roots, this must be a major battle requiring the dispatch of millions of heavenly soldiers and horses to annihilate them."

Deploying such a massive army required a fairly large expenditure of incense money, but I agreed without the slightest hesitation, eager to thoroughly sever this nightmare that had plagued me for years.

Teacher Xing had taken Teacher Yang back to their hometown for a period, setting up a ritual altar in their house there. Burning incense and submitting formal petitions at his hometown altar, he dispatched millions of divine soldiers from the Kunlun Mountains to Black Mountain with orders to wipe out the demons completely.
However, by evening, Teacher Xing told me with a grave expression, "The Black Mountain Old Demon escaped..."

Hearing this news, I was so startled I nearly jumped three feet into the air. "How could it manage to escape? Won't it come back to take revenge on me—!"

Looking somewhat exhausted, Teacher Xing explained to me, "This morning, Teacher Yang and I went into town to see the dentist..."

Teacher Xing had been suffering from a toothache for the past two days, so that very morning he drove Teacher Yang into town. As they drove along a country lane, a wild cat with pitch-black fur suddenly darted out from the bushes. Caught completely off guard, they were startled, thinking desperately not to run over the black cat. Yet the black cat acted as though it were deliberately staging a scam, charging straight toward the car's tires. Teacher Xing immediately slammed on the brakes to stop, but it was a fraction too late, and a loud "bang!" echoed out.

The two of them hurriedly got out of the car to check whether the black cat was dead.

Upon stepping out, they were astonished to find that despite being hit by the car, the black cat was completely unscathed; it merely tumbled over, got back up, and scampered away at high speed. At the time, Teacher Xing and Teacher Yang exchanged glances, both sensing something amiss, though neither could pinpoint what was wrong—until the millions of divine soldiers dispatched to subdue the Black Mountain Old Demon returned to report their mission and informed him that the demon had escaped with one of its souls intact.

Only then did the realization dawn on Teacher Xing: the black cat he had hit with his car that morning was an operative sent by the Black Mountain Old Demon to test its fortune.

Back in the day, when King Zhou of Shang had Bigan's heart carved out, Bigan—stripped of his exquisite heart with seven apertures—wandered the streets like a walking corpse, asking a vegetable vendor selling hollow-hearted greens, "Can a person live without a heart?" He was testing his own fate against the populace.

As it turned out, the vegetable vendor was a demon in disguise who, gloating over the imminent doom of Bigan, coldly replied, "If a person has no heart, they die."

The Black Mountain Old Demon had long calculated that the Kunlun Mountains would send divine soldiers to deal with it, so it ordered a subordinate to transform into a black cat to test its luck. If the black cat had truly been crushed to death, it would have meant the Black Mountain Old Demon had run out of vitality. However, because the cat was not crushed by the car, it symbolized that the Black Mountain Old Demon would manage to slip through this mortal tribulation.

Little did we expect the Black Mountain Old Demon to be such a ruthless entity, willing to cast away all its cultivation and Taoist power just to preserve a single soul and escape.

Although the Black Mountain Old Demon managed to cling to life, it lost its Taoist power entirely and would have to start its cultivation from scratch. It wouldn't dare show its face again for at least a millennium.

Hearing this, I couldn't help asking, "What will happen to Fei Tongtong in the mortal world?"

Teacher Xing said in a deep voice, "When you first mentioned Fei Tongtong at the altar, I could already see that she was possessed by numerous demons and evil spirits. If her family has never found someone versed in these matters to resolve it, she is likely a raving madwoman by now."

No wonder Fei Tongtong had exhibited such obsessive, paranoid behavior toward me; a large part of it was because her mental state had already cracked back then.

I remembered what Teacher Xing had told me last time—that I was Nie Xiaoqian.
I hadn't had the chance to ask then, but now I inquired, "In the story of A Chinese Ghost Story, wasn't Nie Xiaoqian a female ghost?"

Teacher Xing explained calmly, "Nie Xiaoqian was a disciple of Yan Chixia. Like Yan Chixia, she was a demon slayer. They lived together in Lanruo Temple to subdue demons and ghosts and had joined forces to fight the Black Mountain Old Demon. It's just that the common people of the world did not understand the truth of what happened back then, and through hearsay and exaggeration, the events were altered. Pu Songling was merely a chronicler who collected tales of ghosts, gods, foxes, and spirits to record them with his brush, and from then on, Nie Xiaoqian became the female ghost of Lanruo Temple in Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio."

Remembering that the story of A Chinese Ghost Story also featured a male protagonist named Ning Caichen, I pressed on with eager curiosity, "Then who was Ning Caichen?"

Teacher Xing countered with a question of his own, "Who do you think Ning Caichen would be?"

A scholar as bright and gentle as jade suddenly surfaced in my mind. His features grew clearer and clearer by the second. He was...

Erlang Shen?!