Chen Ji’s hands were bound together, secured with a garish butterfly knot at the center of his wrists. His captors seemed utterly confident; they hadn’t taken his phone. But when Chen Ji checked, there was no signal.
This room was far more opulent than the one he’d occupied that afternoon, and two guards stood watch just outside the door.
The System Cat chattered frantically in his mind: [So how did you end up following someone—again and again? Can’t you run for real? For one point, I’ll cause a short circuit while you bolt! Whoever tries to stop you, I’ll zap them dead! It’ll be ruled an accident—zero connection to you!]
[Not quite,] Chen Ji replied. [Didn’t you notice? It’s already here.]
[What’s here?] The System Cat demanded. [You’re just sick of living, aren’t you?]
[Stay out of it.] With that, Chen Ji tilted his head and slipped into unconsciousness, his body going limp as it collapsed onto the bed.
【Chen Ji…】
【Chen Ji…】
Chen Ji’s eyes fluttered open, and he beheld himself lying there on the bed.
He appeared to be in the same room, but darkness now blanketed everything. Only his physical body and soul on the bed were traced in pale gray-white lines; the rest drowned in impenetrable black.
Chang Xu had explained that the Mountain Lord couldn’t manifest physically in the mortal world. Chen Ji had expected something akin to the Dream Intrusion Technique, but this felt different—his soul had clearly detached from his body.
He glanced down at his hands, flexing his fingers lightly. His fingertips brushed his palm, then he pinched harder, steadily increasing the pressure. Pain registered sharply, indistinguishable from what his real body would feel.
【Chen Ji.】 A voice emerged from the void, crisp and unmistakable.
A sudden agony stabbed Chen Ji’s waist and abdomen. Black Mist coiled around him, wrenching him backward with brutal force. He had no chance to resist as it dragged him into a frigid embrace.
No blood streamed from his orifices. No headache split his skull. No skin erupted in cracks. This held true for both body and soul alike.
Chen Ji remained silent, his expression dazed. Subconsciously, he reached for the Black Mist encircling his waist—like a human arm in form.
It felt deathly cold, laced with an eerie void, yet his senses confirmed the tactile reality of something arm-like.
【Chen Ji.】 The voice murmured right against his ear. 【Chen Ji, why did you run away…】
Jolted as if roused from deep slumber, a chill crawled up Chen Ji’s spine. Panic seized him; he clutched the Mountain Lord’s “arm” and murmured, wits seemingly scattered: 【Mountain Lord…】
The Black Mist snaked around his ankle, inching upward. His pale skin bulged under the pressure, dark red welts rising in its wake. The voice pressed again: 【Chen Ji, why did you run away?】
A faint dizziness clouded Chen Ji’s mind. He clung to his vacant tone: 【I wasn’t running… Mountain Lord… Why would I run… I only went down the mountain to heal my eyes, and they caught me…】
His gaze drifted to his body on the bed, eyes lowered: 【I was just caught… dragged here by force… Not running…】
An unseen gaze fixed on his fleshly form. Even with his soul separated, Chen Ji sensed its intensity—likely trained on his soul as well.
Eyes upon him from every direction.
Perhaps little had changed. The room’s lights still glowed, but the Mountain Lord’s presence had smothered it all in shadow.
【Is that so?】 The voice ghosted over his earlobe. Gooseflesh prickled behind Chen Ji’s ear. An icy, damp sensation kissed the tip, then delved into his canal. He fought the urge to flinch away but mastered himself in the next heartbeat.
In his “dazed” state, resistance would betray him. Driftingly, he said: 【Serving the Mountain Lord is my duty… You protected me… Little Azure Mountain is my home… Why flee my own home…?】
The Black Mist slackened abruptly, only to bind him tighter—wrapping limbs and torso in inescapable coils. Chen Ji felt stripped bare, vulnerable as if flayed open for scrutiny.
Drawing on the calm he’d felt while inscribing talismans, he emptied his thoughts.
The voice went on, tinged with uncanny mirth and clammy chill: 【I thought you’d gone off with Chang Xu… Abandoned me.】
Bewilderment creased Chen Ji’s features: 【No… It’s strange… He feels… so close too…】
【He’s fake! He’s fake!】 The voice sharpened to a shriek. Pain lanced Chen Ji’s right ear; warm liquid trickled from within—his blood. In his peripheral vision, a solid gray-white streak trailed from his body on the bed’s right ear.
In the next instant, a slick, icy glide traced up his neck to that ear, lingering there. Sticky, wet sounds echoed inside. Chen Ji battled his instincts but shuddered nonetheless.
Laughter pealed through his mind. The voice declared: 【I am your Mountain Lord.】
The words bloomed directly in his brain, bypassing his ears. Dazed, Chen Ji nodded and echoed: 【You are my Mountain Lord… You are my Mountain Lord…】
A silken, slimy caress swept across his eyes, forcing them shut. It mimicked a tongue tip laving his delicate lids, then wedged into the crevices beneath.
The Mountain Lord was licking his eyeballs.
Chen Ji’s breaths came quick and shallow. He froze, terrified of what the deity might do next—pluck them out and devour them whole?
Not beyond possibility… Losing his soul’s eyes would mean eternal blindness, surely.
The Mountain Lord instructed: 【Remember your words… Return to Little Azure Mountain.】
Chen Ji parroted: 【Return… to Little Azure Mountain.】
【Yes, return to Little Azure Mountain,】 the Mountain Lord whispered. 【Come back to Little Azure Mountain. I will shelter you…】
Brilliance flared before him. Chen Ji plummeted as if hurled from on high, impact jarring through him. He uttered a soft groan, awareness flooding back into his body.
His hands remained tied. Sticky moisture lingered in both ears. The bound spots itched with unnatural heat. His vision persisted in lines, but far crisper now—like upgrading from grainy 360p to dazzling 1080p, almost blinding.
Uncomfortably, he squeezed his eyes shut and surrendered to bone-deep fatigue, drifting into sleep.
The System Cat: [Fuck! You lived!]
[Mm,] Chen Ji murmured calmly. [Scan my body.]
The System Cat rattled off metrics, largely unchanged, then added per Traditional Chinese Medicine and esoteric analysis: [Vital energy slightly depleted. Spiral contusions on skin—will bruise purple within two hours.]
Chen Ji instructed: [Open the blackboard.]
Instantly, a blackboard materialized in his mind. His thoughts inscribed upon it:
1. Hypothesis: Every suspicious Black Mist encountered in the Mountain Lord Temple was the Mountain Lord himself. In the first dream, its entanglement left marks mimicking the Fire Dragon Waist Entwine. The second and third followed suit. Yet each intervention inflicted severe harm.
Given current events, key variables marked those two dreams. If the present Mountain Lord was in “A-state,” the dream version was “B-state”—with B far more destructive.
The latest manifestation: A-state, minimal damage.
Q1: Past temple visits allowed direct contact sans soul projection. Why force soul out-of-body now?
Q2: Mountain Lord shows no intent to kill. Recent conduct borders on clingy—unless habitual, it suggests emotions transcending lord-vassal or god-worshiper bonds. Easily soothed with the right words.
Q3: Possessing such power, why the near-month-long silence during his Little Azure Mountain tenure? It began post-initial Dream Intrusion Technique—not tied to Chang Xu’s temple presence, as Chang Xu was visibly gravely injured then, at his weakest. Absent Chang Xu’s influence, what triggered the hush?
Conclusions:
A1: Not merely attitudinal. Other deities exist; Qingjing noted Mountain Lord’s sway limits to Little Azure Mountain. Here in S City, territorial constraints likely weaken him.
A2: As Mountain God—guardian of peaks, environment, weather, and life—unlikely to pursue carnal ties with devotees. Thus, extraordinary affection. Moreover, naive and gullible.
On Q3, Chen Ji conjured a fresh blackboard, chronicling first-dream prelude and events.
Pre-dream: Encountered Chang Xu, multiple interactions.
In-dream: Pursued by the Red-Clothed Ghost—ancestral memory relayed by Grandfather. Climax near-death: First instance, Chang Xu intervened. Second, absent at that juncture—Mountain Lord appeared instead.
Always interrupted at that precipice. What did it signify?
The crux lay ahead… Both visions shared one constant: the Mountain Lord’s arrival. What if that was the original script?
Chen Ji could directly conclude that it was indeed the Mountain Lord who had saved him all those years ago. There were no other deities on the mountain. With the Red-Clothed Ghost in pursuit and his grandfather’s lifespan nearing its end, who else could he have turned to for help other than the Mountain Lord right there in front of him? It would have been impossible for them to abandon the nearest option and run all the way to the county city to beg the Lord City God. The journey alone would have been enough to kill both him and his grandfather a hundred times over.
There had been two dream visitations. The first time, Chang Xu appeared first, followed by the Mountain Lord. The second time, the Mountain Lord showed up first, and then Chang Xu came to his rescue. In both cases, the result was the same: the two of them fought.
During that first dream, after Chang Xu appeared, the Mountain Lord immediately followed. The Mountain Lord pulled Chen Ji aside and let dozens of Red-Clothed Ghosts surround and attack Chang Xu. Chen Ji had struggled and resisted, and only then did the Red-Clothed Ghosts turn their attacks on him as well. This meant that before that moment, the Mountain Lord had only intended to enter his dream for some other purpose—not to kill him. It was only because Chen Ji wanted to help Chang Xu that the Mountain Lord decided to take him out too.
Based on Question 2, he could even draw an outrageous conclusion: the Mountain Lord had probably just wanted to use the dream as an opportunity to see him. He hadn’t expected his mortal enemy, Chang Xu, to show up… and naturally, the two of them started fighting.
Chen Ji stared at the densely packed blackboard, suddenly overcome with the urge to slam the table and curse.
—What the hell was all this crap!
System Cat: [What the fuck is this bullshit! Is any of this reasonable?!]
Chen Ji suppressed his anger and let out a long breath, forcing himself back to the main topic: gathering clues.
The key wasn’t why the two of them fought, but why the Mountain Lord had fallen silent after that first dream visit. What had he done? What had Chang Xu done?
That dream had been utterly brutal. Chen Ji remembered every detail clearly. To break free from the Mountain Lord’s control, he had used a Five Thunder Talisman. It struck the Mountain Lord, who released him in fury and declared that they should all die together. The Red-Clothed Ghosts then attacked him. He slapped a Profound Penetration Talisman onto the High-Voltage Electric Baton, dealing real damage to the Red-Clothed Ghosts. Then the baton’s battery exploded, he set the Mountain Lord Temple ablaze, and he woke from the dream.
There were only two critical factors here: he had wounded the Mountain Lord with the Five Thunder Talisman, and he had burned down the Mountain Lord Temple.
Which of these two had caused the Mountain Lord to enter his silent period? Factor 1, Factor 2, or both?
Chen Ji switched back to the first blackboard and backtracked through the previous three questions.
The symptoms—like bleeding from all seven orifices or skin splitting open from simple sounds, gazes, or touches—only occurred in the B-state during dream visits. Compared to the A-state of ordinary contact, Chen Ji believed the B-state was closer to the Mountain Lord’s true form. To fight Chang Xu, He would have had to bring His full power.
So, was the B-state the Mountain Lord’s true appearance?
If he damaged the Mountain Lord in the B-state, did that mean real, genuine harm?
Chen Ji put a period at the end of his note on the blackboard.
Even though many conditions remained unfulfilled, he could test them one by one.
The System Cat hid the blackboard. [Chen Ji…]
[Yeah?] Chen Ji responded. Only then did the System Cat cautiously say: [Has anyone ever told you… that your malice toward the Mountain Lord might be a bit too much?]
Step by step, his deductions were all leading toward how to harm the Mountain Lord—or even kill Him.
There was a chilling calmness in Chen Ji’s voice: [If it’s possible, why not?]
[I just think…] the System Cat said. [If the Mountain Lord really has feelings for you beyond the ordinary, maybe you could try living in peace? You don’t have the strength to fight Him at all. Your life and death are in His hands. What if He just crushes you one day?]
[Why not just live your life normally? You like that mangy tiger so much, just keep it outside. The Mountain Lord can’t do anything to it anyway…]
[Actually, I wanted to say this earlier. The way you’re putting it makes it sound like I’m the main wife, and I’ve taken a concubine on the side—and the main wife can’t touch the little one.] Chen Ji suddenly interjected. [Have you forgotten why I came back to Little Azure Mountain?]
The System Cat asked in confusion: [Wasn’t it to do quests for me?]
[Tricking you was part of it.] Chen Ji chuckled lightly. He was just about to explain when the room suddenly grew ice-cold. The phone sitting nearby on the table rang abruptly, even though there was no signal. Chen Ji hadn’t been able to make out the screen before, but now he saw it clearly: black lines swirling around the edges, and in the center, blood-red lines forming the number: 444-4444-4444.
System Cat: [Holy shit! What the hell is that! Retreat, retreat, retreat—!]
Chen Ji tapped the answer button. A ghostly chill of a voice emanated from the speaker: [Chen Ji…]
“I’m here,” Chen Ji replied without batting an eye.
Suddenly, a slender, pale hand emerged from the screen, followed by crimson sleeves and intricate embroidery… and then a deathly pale face.
Zhang Cheng plopped down right beside Chen Ji. Looking at the butterfly knot tied around Chen Ji’s wrist, he couldn’t resist teasing: [That’s some fancy bondage. Did I interrupt something?]
Chen Ji raised his wrist to show it off. The rope appeared to be made of fine silk—high-end stuff. It looked soft, but it had already dug into his skin. He suspected that if it stayed on much longer, his hands would be ruined.
He had already tried struggling against it before the Mountain Lord arrived, but it wouldn’t budge.
Chen Ji might look skinny, but he wasn’t frail. He’d spent months on the mountain, hiking up and down, chopping wood, carrying water, even hauling bricks and laying walls. None of that was possible without real strength. Yet he couldn’t break free from this silk ribbon. Clearly, it was no ordinary thing.
“Brother Zhang, quit teasing. Help me get this off,” Chen Ji said with a helpless laugh.
Zhang Cheng’s nails—sharp as little daggers—reached over and flicked the ribbon. The silk that Chen Ji couldn’t snap cracked open effortlessly.
Blood rushed back into his hands with a sharp sting. As Chen Ji rubbed his wrists, Zhang Cheng eyed his disheveled shirt. The pattern wasn’t Chen Ji’s style at all, and from head to toe, it reeked of a familiar aura to Zhang Cheng. Leg crossed over knee, Zhang Cheng grinned. [Someone’s got you marked, huh? Need a hand?]
“No need. I can handle it myself,” Chen Ji said.
Zhang Cheng nodded, then reached into his sleeve. Chen Ji thought he was pulling out some tool or weapon, but instead, out came Second Master Huang.
Chen Ji: “……?”
Zhang Cheng casually tossed Second Master Huang into Chen Ji’s lap. [Smuggled him out. Keep Brother Huang on you. He’ll have your back if anything goes down.]
Zhang Cheng’s presence was too conspicuous. A full-on Red-Clothed Ghost like him hanging around would easily trigger some demon-exorcising do-gooder if he started anything. Then a horde of self-righteous types would swarm in. Second Master Huang wasn’t much better off, but he was still a legitimate spirit at least—a little immortal with official standing from his days under the Mountain Lord. No one would usually mess with him unprovoked.
Second Master Huang smacked his lips but said nothing. Chen Ji found it odd. “Second Grandpa not talking today?”
[We’re on someone else’s turf. Gotta keep a low profile,] Zhang Cheng answered for him.
When you’re on someone else’s territory, everything comes down to cause and effect. If Second Master Huang suddenly bit someone out of nowhere, that was on him—but if someone kicked him first and got bit, they had it coming.
Chen Ji got the point. He asked curiously, “What about you then, Brother Zhang…?”
[I used to live in S City!] Zhang Cheng pulled out a mirror and admired his makeup with delight. [This is basically my second hometown. What’s wrong with me throwing my weight around a bit? Can’t a guy go home?]
“…” Chen Ji was momentarily speechless.
Zhang Cheng checked that his makeup was flawless. [Alright, if that’s all, I’m out. Got an event tonight—off to have some fun!]
Chen Ji asked on reflex, “What kind of event?”
[Costume parade at W Mall! I even prepared some special goodies. Blending into the crowd will be a piece of cake!] With that, Zhang Cheng vanished in a puff.
Chen Ji: “……”
He decided he’d steer clear of those kinds of events from now on.
Suddenly, there was a noise at the door. Second Master Huang’s eyes darted around, and he scrambled under the covers. Chen Ji’s leg hid him perfectly—no one would spot the bulge. Anyone who dared push Chen Ji down and squash Second Grandpa was in for a bite!
With the ropes off his wrists, Chen Ji didn’t bother hiding. He just sat there. Three people entered the room, and this time, Chen Ji could clearly see their faces. One was Yun Shaoyang, who had come with Zhao Chengying before. He didn’t recognize the other two, but they looked familiar from the banquet.
Yun Shaoyang saw that Chen Ji was awake and chuckled. “Woke up quick.”
“You?” Chen Ji shot back. “Why’d you tie me up and drag me here?”
Yun Shaoyang grinned. “To tie you up and take out some payday loans in your name, obviously.”
He still held a grudge from last time!
Chen Ji paused for a beat. “You guys wouldn’t all be here because you took out payday loans for some premature spending spree, would you?”
