Starting Cultivation During a Trip

Yujing City, Thirty Miles East of the City.

A solitary moon hangs high, its eerie white light spilling across the Deserted Mountain, where the wind-stirred forest stands like the raised hackles of wild beasts.

Ancient texts state, ”In the Southern Dynasty, there were four hundred and eighty temples, lost amidst the mists and rains.”

Just the Land of Jade Capital alone captures the best scenic beauty of Jiangnan. It’s hard to imagine, compared to the distant vibrant city, that there could still be such a desolate mountain near Yujing City...

The dense forest grows wildly, the coarse grass is tall and tenacious. The mountain appears suddenly menacing, perilous and unpredictable.

”Yujing City is the capital of Jiangnan Province. They say it’s the tiger crouching and dragon coiled, the most spectacular under the heavens. How is there such wasteland...”

Far from the Deserted Mountain, in an open, deserted land, bright headlights pierce the night.

A young man steps out of the car, looking up at the distant shadowy mountain, unable to resist making a joke.

”Senior brother, the yin qi here hangs thick like miasma, the evil qi spins fiercely like it’s foreboding. Every ten steps reveal desolation, it’s a place where corpses gather and ghosts are nurtured. How could such a place exist near Yujing City?”

Just then, another young girl steps down, sharply aware of the surroundings, she can’t help but look towards the driver’s seat.

Click...

The car door opens, and a man wearing a Daoist Robe steps down from the driver’s seat. He is Qi Ji from Maoshan.

”The heavens have black and white, qi has yin and yang. No matter how good the feng shui is, there is always a division of yin and yang, the wonderful cycle...” Qi Ji said calmly.

As it’s said, solitary yin does not grow, and lone yang does not flourish.

Even a provincial capital city like Yujing City, despite its distinguished semblance of tiger crouching and dragon coiled, cannot bear yang alone and exterminate yin. There is always a place where the black and white flows, where yin and yang converge.

In a city, the negative qi will always flow towards that place where extreme yin converges, serving as a venting point.

If there is no such place, then the city will most likely face problems.

The Deserted Mountain is the place of extreme yin in Yujing City’s yin-yang pattern.

”This is indeed a good place to cultivate Daoist Skill.” The young man observed his surroundings, unable to resist saying.

”That’s why I brought you to this place when I came down the mountain this time,” Qi Ji said calmly.

The young man and woman in front of him, the man called Jifeng Pavilion, and the woman called Mo Yun, are both rising stars from Maoshan.

This descent from the mountain is to give them experience, nourish their mind, and increase their Daoist Skill.

Within a ten-mile radius of the Deserted Mountain, yin thrives while yang declines. Wandering Souls and Fierce Ghosts frequently appear, and spirit monsters practice in the mountains, making it the perfect place for those in the Daoist Sect to hone their skills.

This is also why the city’s planning didn’t include paving roads to this place.

The paths you can walk are all muddy, pothole-filled, and rocky roads; no one would come during the day.

In earlier years, the open ground established by Qi Ji and others still had a village, but later many bizarre things happened.

Especially that year, there was a bachelor in the village. When his food supply was cut off in winter, he went into the Deserted Mountain, hoping to find food but returned with a baby girl instead.

The villagers were greatly surprised and asked about the origin of the baby girl, but the bachelor said nothing and moved to the east end of the village, rarely interacting with others.

And so it was, by the time the little girl was sixteen, already of marriageable age, though she was very beautiful, her origins seemed to deter any matchmaking desires within the village.

Until the year she turned seventeen.

That night, the sky was as dark as a curtain; a drunk villager found a wedding procession on his way home. Who would have a wedding in the dead of night?

Emboldened by alcohol, the drunk followed them, watching as the wedding procession arrived at the bachelor’s door.

Pale yellow lanterns, with a big red bridal sedan, the bride came out from the courtyard, covered with a red veil, and entered the sedan chair.

The drunk watched from afar, feeling increasingly eerie, unable to make out the appearance of the wedding party, their figures thin and flickering as they played music and entered the deep mountains.

The drunk, full of courage, followed them in. Yet, as the fog thickened, he quickly lost them.

Late at night, the drunk sobered up, vaguely hearing sounds of gongs and drums, leading him to follow the sound.

Soon, he saw in the forest, it seemed there was a grand banquet, shadows of candles flickering, cups were being clashed, and the bride sat at the head position.

As the drunk approached closer, he was so scared that his soul almost left him; the guests were actually foxes, the largest with yellow fur like satin, shimmering in the light, as big as a mountain wolf.

The drunk let out a scream of terror, alerting the foxes. A pair of emerald-green eyes glanced towards him, and he fainted on the spot. He was only discovered by villagers who entered the mountain the next day.

Gradually, the rumors about the old bachelor and the ghostly bride became the talk of the town.

People in the village became increasingly wary of the old bachelor. Many years later, he died alone, only ever by himself.

It is said that on the night he died, the village dogs were silent, and many foxes appeared around his house, bowing repeatedly and letting out cries akin to wailing.

The reputation of Wild Fox Village gradually spread. Over time, people in the village continued to die mysteriously, and the remaining villagers moved away.

”Wild Fox Village... Senior Brother, I read in the mountain chronicles, back then some of our sect’s elders came down the mountain to see the village,” Jifeng Pavilion stood in the night breeze, recalling a record he had seen in Maoshan.

”Was it really the work of a fox spirit?”

”In the famous mountains and rivers of the world, foxes become spirits watching the moon, and their numbers are the most abundant...” Qi Ji said calmly.