The circular wooden stump was probably an offering table. Although called a wooden stump, its texture was actually extremely hard and imperishable, likely a rare semi-fossilized wood. Carved on it was an idol of a Yellow Weasel wearing human clothes, its expression extremely bizarre, carrying a hint of terror within the mystery.
Fatty didn't care what was on the wooden stump; he was only concerned with explaining to me that he got so fat in preparation for infiltrating the Enemy from within. I waved my hand at him; there was no time for talking now. It seemed we had entered a Mountain Ghost shrine dedicated to the Yellow Great Immortal, which could be seen from the carving on the offering table and the dilapidated clay statues inside the stone hall.
The collapsed clay statues in the stone hall resembled the forms of City God and Stove Gods found in ordinary temples, with beast-faced, human-bodied attendants and judges on both sides. Behind the offering table was a clay sculpture of a Yellow Weasel spirit. The hall preserved many bizarre Inscriptions and diagrams, which depicted nothing more than terrifying scenes of Yellow Weasels Becoming a Spirit and eating people. Most of the content recorded in those Inscriptions was strange material I couldn't comprehend.
The Stone Door deeply embedded in the earth and stone, and the chaotic, ruined state of the hall, all indicated that a natural disaster like a Landslide had occurred here previously, causing this stone-built Ghost Yamen to be half-buried underground. However, the Passage in front of the Stone Door was clearly dug out later by someone. I wonder why those who dug the Tunnel went to the trouble of excavating this ancient shrine? Were they looking for something important? What could possibly be in a Ghost Yamen in the desolate mountains? I truly couldn't figure it out, but it was precisely because the unknown elements were increasing that my resolve to investigate further grew unconsciously.
Yanzi, full of Superstition, naturally harbored a Fear of the Legend of the "Ghost Yamen." She wiped a dust-covered stone bowl next to the round wooden stump with her glove. The bowl was filled with dark brown solidified matter, which reminded her of the Legend of the Mountain Ghost drinking human blood. Thus, she began to suspect that the Yellow Immortal Aunt had deliberately led us into this Mountain Ghost Temple, and the more she thought about it, the more frightened she became.
Fatty and I didn't believe the Little Yellow Weasel possessed such arrogant reactionary fervor as to dare to cause trouble under the nose of the Tai Sui? So, we carelessly said to Yanzi, "Trying to lure us into an ambush? Is it trying to rebel against us? Besides, although Yellow Weasels are cunning, they are ultimately just beasts. How can they over-exaggerate the power of ghosts and monsters? This ideological tendency is dangerous. You must know that the iron fist of the Proletariat can smash all reactionary forces."
The conclusion Fatty and I finally reached was that the mountain people were overly superstitious about the Yellow Great Immortal. It seems that to water a tree, you must water the roots; to educate a person, you must cultivate the heart. Machines rust if not cleaned, and people become revisionists if they don't study. This shows that our ideological education work is not sufficient; we should make Yanzi realize that a Yellow Weasel is just a Yellow Weasel; even if it wears human skin, it cannot become a spirit.
Yanzi cursed angrily, "You two scoundrels are talking nonsense! What good can I say about you two? The Legend says that anyone who enters the Ghost Yamen will be caught by the Mountain Ghost and have their blood drained. Look at the stone bowl under this wooden offering table; it’s soaked with human blood! This is a bloody fact! How can you call me superstitious?"
I thought to myself, a Mountain Ghost drinking human blood? That's quite sinister. Could such a human tragedy really have occurred? I looked down at the stone bowl Yanzi mentioned, supposedly used to hold human blood. Sure enough, beneath the round wooden offering table was a very large stone bowl. In the Northeast, such an extra-large bowl is called a sea bowl. This stone bowl was also very old, heavily worn, and its edges were chipped and incomplete.
I wanted to see if the dark residue in the bowl was human blood, so I picked up the stone bowl, turned it over, and knocked it onto the ground. Many dark purple powders shook out of the stone bowl. I then looked at the sculpture of the Yellow Weasel spirit on the table and suddenly understood. I waved my hand downwards, making a gesture of chopping off a head, and said to Fatty and Yanzi, "This round wooden stump isn't an offering table; it's a guillotine, definitely used for chopping off chicken heads and draining chicken blood. Look at the dense knife and axe marks on the edge of the wooden stump. After chopping off a chicken head here, the chicken blood must have been poured into the stone bowl as an offering to the Yellow Great Immortal. Why do I say chicken blood? Because the deity worshipped in this stone hall is a Yellow Weasel, and Yellow Weasels don't eat people. The idea that Yellow Weasels like to eat chickens is absolutely a rumor; they don't eat chickens. They steal chickens not to eat the meat, but because they only like to drink chicken blood."
My explanation made Yanzi nod repeatedly; the analysis was logical and reasonable. Such customs indeed existed in the old days, convincing her that this stone hall was just a temple dedicated to the Yellow Great Immortal from long ago, not some "Ghost Yamen" where Mountain Ghosts drank human blood. Yanzi feared Mountain Ghosts but not Yellow Weasels; after all, every Hunter in the mountains had trapped a Yellow Weasel before. Her mind became Calm down, and her thinking became much clearer. She stopped just wanting to drag us away to escape. Seeing the stone bowl used for the Yellow Weasel drinking chicken blood, she suddenly recalled an ancient Legend that had circulated for many years. She said that speaking of the Yellow Great Immortal Temple, there really seemed to have been one near Tuan Shanzi in the past.
Many, many years ago, there was a Gold vein beneath Tuan Shanzi. They dug for Gold in the mountains during the day and camped by the bank of the Chaganha River at night. Because there were too many people, when night fell and lights were lit in the camp, the Valley was illuminated brightly. Those searching for the Gold mineral veins all believed in the Yellow Great Immortal, thinking that the Gold in the mountains belonged to the Great Immortal Master, and that allowing them to dig was the Yellow Great Immortal showing mercy to aid the poor wretches. They were all grateful and often went to the foot of Tuan Shanzi to worship the Yellow Great Immortal Temple there.
That temple existed before, abandoned for many years. But precisely because the location of this Yellow Great Immortal Temple was special—directly facing the open camp below the mountain, which is the current Tuan Shanzi Forest Farm—the gold diggers eating and lighting fires for warmth was equivalent to offering incense to the Yellow Great Immortal. Because there were too many gold diggers, the Yellow Great Immortal in the temple "received thousands of tables of offerings daily and ten thousand sticks of incense lit nightly." What deity could enjoy such treatment? As a result, the Mountain God learned of this, becoming jealous and envious, and caused a Landslide, crushing many people. From then on, that Yellow Great Immortal Temple was gone, and the Gold vein in the mountains vanished without a trace. Another version says that someone dug out a Bronze Box in the mine tunnel; that Box belonged to the Yellow Great Immortal, and mortals must never open it. Once opened, the mountain collapsed. No one knows what was inside the Box; everyone who saw it died.
Finally, Yanzi said, "These are stories from the elders, I don't know how many centuries old the Legend is. If this place isn't a Ghost Yamen, it must be that Yellow Great Immortal Temple built by the gold miners in ancient times."
I nodded. This sounded more plausible. I never expected that this remote, rarely visited Deep mountains old forest had once prospered for a period due to the excavation of a Gold vein. If I hadn't seen this buried Yellow Weasel Temple with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. However, I certainly didn't believe the Landslide was related to the Mountain God's anger, nor did I believe the mountain collapsed because a Bronze Box was dug out. An Earthquake is an Earthquake; why must sensational elements be forced onto it?