Chapter 5: A Ghost in the Tomb

The night wind along the mountain road was bleak and cold. The Maserati drove smoothly over the asphalt. Looking down through the window, Fu Yang could see the never-sleeping lights of Jingnan’s CBD in the distance.

Those colorful spotlights were usually obnoxious light pollution, but right now they felt incredibly reassuring.

Fu Yang’s heart was still pounding, his hands on the wheel still shaking. He forced himself to calm down and looked at Ji Ling through the rearview mirror. That normally quiet, shy teammate suddenly seemed utterly unfamiliar. Fu Yang’s voice came out hoarse: “Little Seven, you…”

Ji Ling kept gazing out the window, his eyes heavy: “Keep driving. Don’t stop.”

He added: “We’re not safe yet.”

Fu Yang hastily pressed the accelerator. Wang Chengxuan followed Ji Ling’s gaze, and the moment he glanced over, he screamed again and nearly jumped out of his seat.

Fu Yang’s palms were slick with cold sweat. Unable to turn his head from the road, he asked hoarsely: “What is it?”

Wang Chengxuan: “Sh-sh-sh-sh-shadows!”

The bright moon hung high, casting pale shadows on the ground—but the shape wasn’t a Maserati. It was an eight-bearer sedan chair. The sedan chair had no bearers and no horses; it slid forward at the same speed as the Maserati, as if suspended in midair.

Wang Chengxuan stared at the ground in terror. His own shadow wasn’t a modern man in a shirt with short hair, but an ancient figure in a tall crown and wide sleeves, hair tied up at the back!

He dared not look anymore. He shrieked: “F-F-F-Fu Yang! Is your shadow normal?!”

Fu Yang forgot the road for a second, glanced at the window, paused, and said in confusion: “Mine’s normal?”

His shadow had a buzz cut and a shirt, even the earring clearly visible—it was unmistakably him.

Then, as if sensing something, Fu Yang slowly looked at the shadow of Ji Ling in the back seat. His face turned deathly pale.

The back seat’s shadow was clearly a woman.

She had an elaborate coiffure, ornate hairpins, tassels hanging from the edges of her bun, swaying in the moonlight.

Fu Yang’s neck seemed rusted. He turned bit by bit, mechanically, toward the rearview mirror.

In the back sat a palace-robed woman holding a white paper lantern, her face swollen and purple. Her pale pupils were fixed unblinking on the rearview mirror, a serene smile at the corner of her lips.

This was unmistakably a corpse long dead!

Fu Yang stomped the accelerator: “AHHHHHHH!”

The sports car bolted off like a stray dog.

Wang Chengxuan hadn’t seen the back seat. Feeling himself slammed back as the car surged, he screamed along too: “AHHHHHHH!”

By now, the car’s speed was approaching two hundred kilometers per hour. The winding mountain road was narrow and treacherous to begin with. Amid the deafening roar of the engine, the Maserati charged straight at the guardrail. The iron barrier crumpled before humanity’s finest steel monster like paper, instantly crushed and torn open.

And directly ahead was the thousand-meter cliff of Goddess Peak.

Fu Yang’s pupils contracted. He slammed the brakes with everything he had.

But it was already too late. The sports car shot off the edge, front wheels leaving the ground, half the body hanging over the cliff, about to plunge.

Fu Yang was about to scream when a blue-purple face appeared outside the window. The twisted-faced palace ghost seized the door handle, as if trying to reach in.

His breath stopped, adrenaline spiking. He couldn’t tell which was worse: being strangled by the ghost, or falling to his death as pulverized meat. His breath lodged in his throat.

Then, abruptly, something changed.

Golden light flashed outside the window, and the terrifying shadow vanished. A tremendous force came down from above, smashing onto the roof. The airborne Maserati was slapped back down as easily as a child’s toy model, its chassis grinding against the cliff edge with a screech.

Fu Yang and Wang Chengxuan were thrown hard back into their seats.

They stared blankly ahead as their tilted bodies were forcibly leveled, their line of sight slowly returning to horizontal—as if someone had used the cliff wall as a lever and pried the car’s nose back up.

Before they could figure out what had happened, the Maserati began reversing slowly and steadily, the chassis scraping against dirt and rock with an earsplitting shriek. Then the car was dragged smoothly back onto the road.

Fu Yang looked blankly to the side. Ji Ling’s figure appeared outside his window.

Ji Ling bent down and knocked on the window: “Get out.”

Wang Chengxuan snapped out of it and scrambled out of the sports car, rolling and crawling. Fu Yang climbed out on legs that had turned to jelly.

They looked around and simultaneously locked onto Ji Ling’s position.

Ji Ling had already walked to the back of the car.

Although they didn’t know exactly what kind of expert Ji Ling was, he was undoubtedly their only lifeline; safety lay by his side. They quickly moved to stand behind him. Wang Chengxuan glanced at his beloved car and let out another strange wail.

Ji Ling looked at the Maserati’s bumper: “It was an emergency. Sorry.”

Wang Chengxuan’s eyes bulged. He couldn’t get a word out. He pointed at Ji Ling: “Y-y-y-you!” Then at the bumper: “I-i-i-it?!”

That rock-solid bumper was now twisted and deformed, bulging outward—as if it had borne an enormous force strong enough to bend steel.

An absurd thought surfaced in Fu Yang’s mind: The car went off the cliff… did this teammate drag it back by the bumper?

It sounded ridiculous. The Maserati weighed nearly two tons; combined with the car’s momentum, even a mammoth couldn’t withstand such force, let alone his slight, thin teammate. But the deformed bumper and the sound of the chassis scraping against the cliff told Fu Yang the truth without a doubt.

But was that even something a human could do?

He looked at Ji Ling with complicated feelings. The young man was still that handsome, delicate figure—his back could almost be called frail.

Ji Ling didn’t notice Fu Yang’s expression. He surveyed the area. Goddess Peak was utterly silent in the dead of night—even more so now, without a single cicada or bird. It was as if the world held only these uninvited guests and the sound of wind rustling through the treetops.

By this point, Ji Ling couldn’t be bothered to keep up the act. He closed his eyes; golden light surged at his fingertips, weaving into a fine net that rapidly spread outward. Two minutes later, he opened his eyes: “We’re still inside. We haven’t gotten out.”

After that brush with death, Wang Chengxuan was fully sober. He stuck close behind Ji Ling like a little tail following its boss, and hurriedly asked: “We’re still inside what?”

Ji Ling: “A ghost’s daoist domain.”

Wang Chengxuan stammered: “What… what domain?”

“Deities and ghosts can refine a small world of their own, called a ‘daoist domain.’ Within the domain, its master is the maker of rules. Some domains are only the size of a fingernail; others can encompass an entire mountain.”

Fu Yang: “Do all deities and ghosts have domains?”

Ji Ling paused. “Yes.”

Actually, not all. Take Ji Ling himself—he didn’t have one.

Bai Ze’s domain could cover a stretch of river; the nameless female ghost of Goddess Peak could cover half a mountain. But Ji Ling had none. No matter how he cultivated, he could never form a domain.

Fortunately, with his strength, he didn’t need one. He skipped the topic and asked: “Are there any legends about this mountain?”

The ghost of Goddess Peak was so strong that even Ji Ling couldn’t spot its weakness at first glance. This couldn’t be its first time acting; there had to be information left behind.

Fu Yang nodded: “There are.” He thought carefully. “Legend says that on this Goddess Mountain, there is a Goddess.”

The Jingnan region had been prosperous since ancient times, serving as a secondary capital for several dynasties. But it had also suffered war repeatedly—the history books alone recorded three massacres of the city, and countless raids. In local legend, whenever war came, the poor could enter Goddess Mountain and pray to the Lady Goddess for protection. The Goddess would take apart her own ornaments, exchange them for gold and silver, and give them to the people who could no longer survive.

Wang Chengxuan said: “Oh, there’s a Temple of the Lady Goddess on the mountain. It’s said to be very efficacious; the locals come to worship often. The first incense offering of the new year can be bid up to a million or more.”

Ji Ling frowned: “That doesn’t sound like an evil deity who takes lives.”

He looked up at Goddess Peak: “Just now from the car, I saw this peak standing alone, flanked by two mountains embracing it, a flat open space in the center, and streams flowing on both sides. It really is excellent feng shui. But…”

Wang Chengxuan stiffened: “But what?”

Ji Ling said: “But this feng shui isn’t suited for enshrining a god. It’s only suited for building a tomb.”

He stepped forward: “If you sit on that central open space, with Goddess Peak at your back and Jingnan City before you, treating the main peak as a chair’s backrest and the two side peaks as armrests, that’s excellent Daoist feng shui—’Son of Heaven Seated in the Bright Hall.’ It’s typically used for burying princes and nobles.”

Wang Chengxuan said: “I remember there’s always been a rumor in Jingnan that in the Republic era, a gang of tomb robbers camped on Goddess Peak, trying to loot a great tomb nearby. They brought cannons and firearms to blast open the tomb gate, making more noise than local warlords. But in the end, they all died on the mountain. None came down.”

Ji Ling nodded: “Let’s go up the mountain.”

If he guessed correctly, there was a great tomb on the mountain—and that tomb was the key to breaking the domain.

The Maserati was completely dead; it wouldn’t start. They could only climb on foot. And Boss Wang clearly had no mood to mourn his beloved car. He and Fu Yang flanked Ji Ling like bodyguards, boxing him in between them. After hesitating, Wang Chengxuan reached out and clutched the hem of Ji Ling’s clothes.

He smiled radiantly, trying to cozy up: “Master, that fire you lit with a whoosh—and then the wall vanished with a crash—what was that all about?”

Ji Ling said: “That wasn’t a real wall. It was an illusion. The fire was True Solar Fire, which happens to see through all falsehood.”

True Solar Fire—the ancestor of all fires under heaven, the lifebound spirit flame of the Great Emperor Fusang, with the power to slay evil and sweep away filth. Such a supreme and exalted flame normally couldn’t be wielded by Ji Ling. But his guqin was made from a branch of the Fusang Tree, which rose and set with the sun and naturally contained a spark of spirit flame—which allowed him to borrow True Solar Fire.

Wang Chengxuan rubbed his hands: “Master, is that the True Solar Fire from mythology?”

Ji Ling paused. This CEO surnamed Wang claimed to understand mythology, yet he didn’t even know the Great Emperor Fusang. Ji Ling had no idea what mythology he’d been reading. He said vaguely: “Probably.”

“To command such a powerful flame, Master, you must be incredibly strong!” Wang Chengxuan’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Could you tell me your revered title? I’ll set up a shrine for you at home.”

Ji Ling looked at him with a complicated expression.

He thought: I, unworthy as I am, am none other than the R card Ji Ling from your game—the one who’s not even worth mentioning.

But if he said that now, Wang Chengxuan might fall to his knees on the spot.

Under Boss Wang’s eager gaze, Ji Ling silently swallowed the words, turned his head, and said: “Empty titles, not worth mentioning. Let’s go.”

They left the mountain road and found a small path up the mountain. The path was paved with cement, about a meter wide. Wang Chengxuan said: “This should be the tourist trail.”

They followed it up and soon saw a boxy wooden building. The three went around to the front and looked up at a hanging plaque reading “TICKET OFFICE.” Behind the ticket office was an iron fence enclosing a large area.

Wang Chengxuan gripped the fence and stood on tiptoe to peer inside. Pines and cypresses shaded the grounds; among the lush trees, vermilion upturned eaves were faintly visible. In the center stood a square bronze incense burner with smoldering ash inside.

Wang Chengxuan turned: “We’ve circled around to the Temple of the Lady Goddess!”

He explained: “The Lady Goddess has been the faith of Jingnan’s people since ancient times. This temple dates back to the Five Dynasties period. It’s been burned down and rebuilt several times. Now it’s a 5A tourist scenic area—you need a ticket to enter.”

Before he finished speaking, Ji Ling touched the iron fence and, like a martial arts master treading water, vaulted over it lightly.

Wang Chengxuan: “?”

Before he could be shocked, Fu Yang rolled up his sleeves, used the gate as a springboard, his biceps bulging, and vaulted over too.

Wang Chengxuan: “…”

He sized up the height of the fence, swallowed, grabbed the bars, and said nervously: “You’re not going to leave me here, are you?”

The place was thick with ghostly aura. If both Ji Ling and Fu Yang went in, he’d probably die of fright on the spot.

Ji Ling was already nearly ten meters away. He raised a hand and snapped his fingers; the lock clicked open.

Wang Chengxuan hurried in after.

The scenic area was sizable, with over a dozen buildings scattered about. At the center stood the temple of the Lady Goddess. They reached the square before the temple, and Wang Chengxuan bowed three times to the main hall, muttering some gibberish about praying for the Goddess’s blessing. Then he pressed his palms together and knelt on a cushion, looking utterly devout.

Ji Ling walked past him and said coolly: “This Goddess is a Daoist deity. You’re using a Buddhist gesture.”

Wang Chengxuan, still holding his palms together, looked confused: “Huh?”

Ji Ling didn’t elaborate. He walked around the kneeling Wang Chengxuan and headed elsewhere.

Wang Chengxuan was startled: “Aren’t we going into the temple?”

“No.” Ji Ling’s voice came from a distance. “There’s no deity in this temple. But beneath the temple is a tomb, and in that tomb there are ghosts. I’ve already seen them.”