When Yun Dahai saw that the earth-dragon heating system worked and confirmed it with his own hands, he hurried out to tell the villagers. Winter was approaching, and they needed to finish building earth-dragons for the entire village before the snowfall. With enough firewood stored, everyone on Great Snow Peak Mountain wouldn’t freeze.
While Yun Dahai was busy helping the villagers build earth-dragons, Yun Xi continued teaching. At the same time, she prepared to build another small house in her courtyard specifically for cultivating orchid mushrooms. After all, keeping them in her own room made the smell difficult to tolerate.
Since the village chief’s family was building a house to grow orchid mushrooms—the same mushrooms everyone adored and praised—the villagers took the initiative to help him build the smaller house. In just a few days, it was completed. Yun Xi had them move the nearly mature orchid mushrooms inside, and she also installed an earth-dragon in the small house so the mushrooms wouldn’t stop growing during winter.
One day after school, Yun Xi went to the small house to check the mushrooms’ growth. More than half had already been harvested, and she had begun cultivating new cultures for the next round of planting.
After inspecting the place, she returned to her room to rest and drink some water. As she lifted her tea, she noticed the books on her table—the ones Yun Dahai had given her. She had already read them several times. Suddenly, she recalled the descriptions of the Yun Kingdom and her own suspicions and guesses. Her curiosity about the back mountain rose once again.
She really wanted to see what was there. Why did the people of Yun Village guard it generation after generation? The more she thought about it, the more restless she became. She stood up and went to call Yun Lu over. Yun Lu now listened to her unconditionally, but the moment he heard she wanted to go to the back mountain, he refused outright.
“No, absolutely not, Xi’er. The back mountain is very dangerous. The elders of Yun Village say that anyone who goes there never returns. No one has ever successfully entered.”
Yun Xi didn’t want to tell him that Yun Dahai had already gone countless times. “Yun Lu, we’re just going to take a look. If it’s dangerous, we’ll come back immediately.”
“No, no, it’s too risky. You’re the village’s teacher now—you can’t take such risks. If Uncle Yun finds out, he’ll punish both of us.” Yun Lu shook his head like a rattle-drum, firmly refusing.
“Are you going or not? If you won’t, I’ll go by myself.” Yun Xi knew Yun Lu worried about her and wouldn’t let her go alone.
Seeing her determination, Yun Lu asked, “Xi’er, why do you insist on going there?”
“I’m curious, all right? I heard there might be treasure there.” Yun Xi said mysteriously.
“Treasure? What treasure?” Yun Lu instantly followed her as she walked.
“You’ll know when we get there. We’re just going to look from a distance.”
“Fine… but we need to go quickly and come back quickly. It’s getting dark.”
Once they agreed, the two immediately headed toward the back mountain. Since the villagers had been going up the mountain often recently, seeing the two climb up didn’t seem strange—they simply greeted them and went on with their work. The two soon reached the boundary stele beside the back mountain path. The trees here were dense, and since it was late autumn, only bare branches and tangled vines remained.
Seeing the large characters carved on the stele—“Back Mountain Forbidden. Enter and Die.”—Yun Lu grew nervous. He had learned many characters recently, and most of the words on the stele were familiar to him. Even if he didn’t recognize some, he could guess the meaning. “Xi’er, maybe you should reconsider… It’s really dangerous.”
Yun Xi shot him a look. “Let’s go. We’re going in.”
Yun Lu glanced at the stele again, then tremblingly walked to her side and stepped over the boundary with her. Because no one ever entered the back mountain, there was no proper path. The branches were even more tangled and dense, making it difficult to move forward—sometimes they had to crawl to pass through.
After walking for some time, Yun Xi noticed the air becoming more humid. She could already hear running water, and the temperature was noticeably higher than at the foot of the mountain. Yun Xi felt puzzled. Normally, higher altitude meant lower temperature. Why was it warmer up here?
She continued forward, full of doubt.