The path into Yidu was not easy to traverse, riddled with potholes and heavy with a gloomy aura. The ground was damp and slippery, clearly having gone without maintenance for many years. As darkness fell, the slow-moving “Dead Fatty” lagged behind at the rear, and Dou Man couldn’t help but take Cheng Jun’s hand.
Cheng Jun was startled, feeling her hand unusually cold today.
He himself felt a creeping chill. For some reason, even though it was only early autumn, the surrounding air felt icy and gloomy, noticeably several degrees colder than outside.
Strangely, the sky darkened unusually fast. In less than half an hour, it had turned completely black, with faint, howling gusts of eerie wind whistling through.
He began to wonder if they had taken the wrong path, as the terrain seemed to be rising steadily.
Dou Man, usually lively and energetic, was now as docile as a lamb, tightly clutching Cheng Jun’s hand, afraid of being left alone.
Under the dark sky and dim moon, even the moonlight above was murky and faint. The hazy glow was extremely weak, forcing Cheng Jun to take out the flashlight his uncle had given him.
He switched it on—hey, the light seemed decent enough. But after just a few steps, his hopes were dashed again as the flashlight’s beam quickly weakened, flickering on and off with a faint sizzling sound.
“This place is seriously eerie!” Cheng Jun cursed. Before meeting Dou Man and Wu Xiaotian, he had already tested the flashlight, and it had worked perfectly fine. The batteries even seemed freshly replaced. Yet, as soon as they arrived here, it started malfunctioning, and their phone signals had completely vanished.
“Even if it’s weak, it’s better than nothing, bro!” Dead Fatty comforted from behind. “Let’s make do with it!”
The moonlight and flashlight beam were both terribly faint, leaving the three of them stumbling forward almost in complete darkness. Suddenly, Dou Man let out a sharp scream, as if she had stepped on something hard. Cheng Jun shone his flashlight on it—it was a human skull.
Encountering something like this in the pitch-black darkness sent shivers down the spines of even Cheng Jun and Wu Xiaotian.
Dou Man was so frightened she nearly jumped out of her skin, stumbling to one side. Unfortunately, there happened to be a slope right beside her, and Wu Xiaotian had just moved closer. Cheng Jun couldn’t hold onto Dou Man in time, and all three of them tumbled down.
Fortunately, there were no bricks or stones on either side, so none of them were injured. But when they got up, they realized they seemed to have fallen into what resembled a mountain hollow.
“Since when has Yidu had a place like this?” Cheng Jun voiced the question on all their minds.
“Yeah!” Wu Xiaotian muttered beside him. “Why does it feel like we’ve stumbled into Tiger’s Den?”
“Where? Tiger’s Den?” Dou Man, having just scrambled to her feet, immediately grabbed Cheng Jun’s hand tightly. “Did we take the wrong path? Could a tiger really jump out? Why does it feel so sinister here?”
“After all, it’s been 15 years since we last came here,” Cheng Jun reassured her. “It’s normal to take a wrong turn. Tiger’s Den is close to Yidu—just cross over and you’ll reach it. It’s just a nickname for a small mountain hollow near Yidu. I’ve never seen a single tiger there! Don’t worry!”
“Exactly! Dou Man, don’t freak out over nothing. You’re making my heart race too!”
“Hahaha…” Suddenly, a faint, ethereal chanting drifted in, carried by gusts of eerie wind—barely audible, intermittent, and elusive.
“Ah!” Dou Man’s voice trembled, “Did you hear that?”
“What?” Wu Xiaotian moved slowly, and naturally his hearing and vision were dull, “Dou Man, you can’t do this, scaring people can scare them to death!”
“Shut up, you fatso! Shh…” Cheng Jun cautiously scanned the surroundings and found that there wasn’t even a single tree here, not a blade of grass grew, yet not far away there was a deep pool. By the faint moonlight reflecting off it, cold mist hung heavily over the pool.
The so-called reliance on mountains and water is the natural spiritual energy and normal state. If this were a mountain hollow, then where there are mountains, there must be vegetation, and where there is vegetation, there must be a water source.
But if not a blade of grass grows, then it must be devoid of spiritual energy, giving rise to baleful energy.
If there is water, it can still dispel the baleful energy, but this water must be flowing water, with an inlet, a waterbed, and eddies; what they saw, however, was a stagnant cold pool, precisely a place where yin energy gathers without compromise. The yin energy from hundreds of miles around all converged here, riding the wind without dispersing, stopping at the water’s boundary. According to feng shui, this is a typical “White Tiger Sitting on Baleful Energy,” extremely ominous.
Cheng Jun had also seen such a passage on an online feng shui forum. Thinking of this, he shuddered all over, as if the cold air from underground was rising up to him.
“Let’s get out of here, now!” He didn’t want to stay in such a place for a second longer. Grabbing Dou Man and Wu Xiaotian, he decisively turned to leave.
However, after walking for less than ten minutes, they found themselves back where they started; they tried a few more times, but the result was the same. In less than ten minutes, the cold pool was still ahead.
“Oh my god, we’ve run into a ghost wall!” The fatso couldn’t take it anymore and suddenly blurted out, “Cheng Jun, I heard you’re still a virgin, right?” He then glanced at Dou Man a few times.
“Fatso, are you deliberately looking for death right now?” Cheng Jun was also getting angry.
“I, I, I’m serious!” Wu Xiaotian panted, “Look how serious my face is. We’ve hit a ghost wall; we need virgin urine to break it! I’m hopeless! It’s all up to you, hehe!”
“Fatso, you, you, you…” Hearing Wu Xiaotian say such a thing, Cheng Jun felt like banging his head against a wall.
Only that little minx Dou Man, not at all shy or blushing, was surprisingly calm at this moment. She blinked at Cheng Jun, her spirited eyelashes fluttering, “Cheng Jun, maybe Wu Xiaotian’s idea isn’t bad. I’ve heard of it too. Why don’t you give it a try?”
“Haha, since you say so, I’m relieved now!” Wu Xiaotian kept grinning mischievously at Dou Man.
“Try your head!”
Just then, “Ah-ha ah-ha…” From the depths of the silence, a faint, ethereal female humming drifted over, and movement began to stir by the cold pool.
The hairs on their bodies stood on end, their eyes wide open, voices trembling, “Ah… Could there really be something?”
Suddenly, many white filaments drifted over, like the long hair of a white-haired ghost woman, floating and drifting over the surface of the cold pool. The stagnant water began to ripple slightly.
“Ah!” A scream.
“What’s this?” Cheng Jun pulled the two of them back hastily.
“Ha-ah ha-ah…” The moon, unnoticed when it began to brighten, cast its silvery light like a silver ribbon. The moonlight was hazy, the water misty, and the humming seemed to be getting closer and closer.
Under the silver moonlight, a woman in white, with long silver hair and dressed in ancient attire, seemed to ride the wind, ethereal as an immortal. She floated above the pond, her back turned to the three of them. “Haha… The reeds are lush, the white dew turns to frost. The one I long for is on the other side of the water. I try to follow her upstream, but the path is long and treacherous…”
The three were startled. In the silent, deep valley, such an ancient and poetic beauty felt like a dream.
In this land of concentrated yin and great malevolence, such a scene far exceeded Cheng Jun’s expectations. Was this person human, ghost, or immortal?
“The reeds are lush, the white dew turns to frost. I try to follow her downstream, and she seems to be in the center of the water… So poetic and picturesque!” Dou Man fluttered her long eyelashes, her expression full of longing, and she even recited a few lines herself.
Suddenly remembering the old man’s warning—”If you encounter a white-haired woman, avoid her at all costs”—Cheng Jun immediately interrupted Dou Man. “What are you doing reciting poetry at a time like this? Don’t be reckless! Move!”
Cheng Jun grabbed the other two and decisively retreated, breaking into a run.
“Hahaha, the world is drunk, but I alone am sober… After all these years, why must you still avoid me?” The white-haired woman, who had been floating on the water, moved again. Her sleeves fluttered as she turned and glanced back.
If the world’s beauty is like water, then turning and glancing back is its most beautiful moment. The three, in their frantic retreat, couldn’t help but stop and look back, their faces filled with awe.
Her expression was as calm as water, devoid of joy or anger, resentment or hatred. Her body was as light as drifting clouds, her face as smooth as porcelain frost. With a wave of her hand, she stirred the wind and snow; with a glance, she flowed like cold stars.
The three were astonished that such an exquisitely beautiful and extraordinary woman existed in the world. The chubby man gaped, swallowing hard, his small eyes bulging. “A goddess!”
“Shh…” Dou Man whispered, “So beautiful, even a woman would be moved!”
Strangely, after just one glance, Cheng Jun felt his mind waver. He stopped, his feet rooted to the ground, unwilling to move further. But his momentary fascination quickly faded. “Don’t look at her. It’s dangerous!”
He covered the eyes of the other two, but the woman in white chuckled softly. “I’m not a ghost. Why are you afraid of me? Is my appearance not beautiful? Is it frightening?”
“Who are you, really?” Cheng Jun mustered his courage and shouted sternly.
“Alas! Who am I? And who are you?” The white-haired woman sighed softly, rising ethereally into the air, floating mid-sky. “You were born before me, I was born after you grew old. I regret not being born in the same era, to be with you day by day. I was born before you, you were born after I grew old. I am far from you, beyond the horizon, and you are distant from me, across the seas…”
Without warning, she began to sing this strange ancient tune. Cheng Jun’s face instantly paled as he recalled hearing this song in Niujiao Village. Could it be… “Could she be the one from the Savage Mountain?”
Thinking this, Cheng Jun quickly grabbed Wu and Dou and retreated once more.
Suddenly, the woman in white waved her sleeves. “A thousand mountains in twilight snow, a lone shadow startling as a swan. Drinking alone under the moon, with three shadows for company. I am but a lonely shadow! And your shadow. This is not a place you should be!” Her voice grew terrifyingly sharp in the last two lines.
“My shadow?”
Whoosh— Before Cheng Jun could understand what was happening, he was swept up by a gust of wind.
But at that moment, he strangely felt as though he were alone in the void, while Wu and Dou had vanished. It was as if, mid-flight, he was struck down by a powerful force.
At the moment they were captured in the photo, Wu and Dou suddenly reappeared beside Cheng Jun.
“What’s this?” Cheng Jun was greatly puzzled, while Wu and Dou both stared at him. “Where did you just go? How did you suddenly disappear?”
“Wasn’t it you two who suddenly vanished?”
“Us?” Wu Xiaotian exclaimed in shock, “Dou Man and I didn’t move at all, brother. You must have been bewitched—be careful not to get lured away!”
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—the cold pond, originally still water, began to surge with white currents like tides, the chilling wind and yin energy pressing in menacingly.
The three immediately retreated in haste, and the pond water instantly swelled violently. “Hahaha…” Suddenly, the cold tide surged and spread in all directions. Only then did they realize that it was no mere water tide—it was clearly a terrifying pool of white hair cascading upward like a waterfall.