Chapter 296: Don't Step on Shadows, Don't Chase the Lamps

The wind at North Ridge bit harder than it had at the manor.

The group followed the ridgeline northward, the snow beneath their feet compacted by the wind into layer upon layer of hard crust that crackled with each step.

In the distance, the lights of the old logging camp never went out, but they never drew closer either. A row of dim yellow lamps hung pinned between the black pines and white birches.

Beneath every lamp hung a human silhouette.

The shadows had no faces, no clothes. Only blurred limbs, dangling upside down from the branches, swaying back and forth with the wind.

Their feet pointed up, heads down. At the ends of each shadow trailed a thin black thread that vanished into a collapsed wooden shack at the center of the logging camp.

Lu Yuan stopped at the edge of the treeline and raised his hand to halt the others.

"From here on, don't step on shadows. Don't chase the lamps."

Xu Erxiao glanced down.

Besides their own shadows on the snow, there were countless small black patches scattered across the path, like strands of hair snapped off by the wind, lying every which way.

"Senior Brother, aren't those shadows hanging from the trees?"

"The ones on the trees are shadows that were pulled away."

"The ones on the ground are the forms they discarded."

Lu Yuan took seven copper coins from his ink-box and arranged them on the snow in the pattern of the Big Dipper.

Heavenly Pivot pressed north, Heavenly Jade pressed east, Heavenly Mechanism pressed west, Heavenly Balance pressed south. Jade Scale, Opening Yang, and Shaking Light formed an arc with three coins, encircling the ground where they all stood.

"A man walks the mountain road, his shadow follows his feet."

"If the shadow walks ahead, then the road no longer belongs to you."

He pressed his right index and middle fingers together, dipped the tips in cinnabar, and dabbed a dot before each person's shoe.

"Cinnabar on the feet isn't to suppress the feet."

"It's to remind you which pair of feet is truly yours."

Asheng lifted the small green lamp, its flame swaying violently in the wind.

"Brother Lu, there's someone moving in the trees."

Everyone looked up.

At the very front, on an old pine, a shadow hanging upside down suddenly raised its arm and slowly waved at them.

Mister Meng's face went white.

At the shadow's right knee, there was a shallow notch.

"An'er?"

Meng An immediately gripped his father's arm.

"Father, I'm right here."

But the shadow in the tree opened its mouth and spoke in Meng An's voice.

"Father, I'm cold."

"Give me the lamp."

"I'm up in the tree. Hurry, give me the lamp."

Mister Meng stepped forward, and the copper coins underfoot let out a faint clink.

Lu Yuan barked: "Don't move!"

Mister Meng froze mid-step.

Lu Yuan stared at the shadow in the tree.

"That's not Meng An's shadow."

"It's a shell of a form pieced together from the old wound on Meng An's right knee."

He turned to Meng An. "How did you get that scar on your right knee?"

"A woodpile collapsed."

"Who was there?"

"My father, and... my mother."

Meng An's voice dropped.

"My mother wrapped the wound with blue cloth."

Lu Yuan nodded and raised his hand to form the "Questioning Shadow Seal." His left thumb pressed against his middle finger, the remaining fingers curling into a fist. His right index and middle fingers pointed straight at the treetop, palm facing outward.

"A shadow has no mouth. It cannot borrow a voice."

"A shadow has no heart. It cannot borrow feelings."

"If this is the true old form of its owner, then report the wound, report the pain, report the one who tended it."

"If the answer is incomplete, then it is not the true shadow."

"Question!"

The shadow in the tree went rigid.

Its mouth still produced Meng An's voice, but it shifted from "Father, I'm cold" into a blurry sobbing.

Lu Yuan asked again.

"What wood was the woodpile?"

The shadow did not answer.

"Which knee was wounded?"

The shadow trembled.

"Who sewed the blue cloth?"

The moment those words landed, the tree shadow suddenly screamed.

The notch at its right knee split open, revealing a damp, cold wooden tablet inside. Only two characters were carved on it:

"Borrowed Wound."

Lu Yuan raised his hand, and Xu Erxiao immediately whipped out the ink-line.

The black cord lashed around the branch, and Zhou Heng swung his blade to sever the black rope holding the hanging shadow.

The shadow fell into the snow. It had no flesh and blood. It was just a sheet of black paper. The edges of the black paper curled rapidly when struck by the cinnabar light, and it burned down to ash.

From the ash emerged a small wooden nail.

Lin Zhaoxuan picked up the nail, his expression darkening.

"A shadow-pinning nail."

"Ground from the bones of the dead."

"Hammer it into a tree, and you can drag a living person's shadow up and hang it there."

Lu Yuan took the nail and weighed it in his fingers.

One side of the nail was carved with "Stay." The other side was carved with "Return."

"Stay the shadow, return to the mountain."

"The old logging camp isn't offering shadows."

"It's offering the one thought left behind by people who left the mountain and wanted to look back."

Wang Cheng'an said, "People can make offerings of that?"

"They can."

Lu Yuan looked down the mountain.

"Xiaoman Stockade, Ma family gully, Northern Guan Righteous Manor. All of them are places where refugees gathered."

"Some survived. Some died on the road. Some wanted to go back but never could."

"So the evil thing nails that thought into the mountain."

"The farther a person walks, the easier their shadow is stretched."

"Once a shadow stretches long, it's like there's still a thread tied to the mountain."

Song Qinghe gazed at the row of dim lamps in the forest.

"So it can recognize people through their shadows."

"And it can use shadows to bring people back."

Lu Yuan nodded.

"Every shadow in the trees is an old road."

"The logging camp is empty ground left behind by lumberjacks. The trees were cut down, but the roots are still there."

"It uses the roots as threads, tying both a person's origin and their destination back to the mountain."

The small green lamp in Meng An's hand suddenly flared.

Within the flame's core, the name "Li Xiulan" surfaced faintly.

Then the flame tilted, pointing toward a birch tree on the west side of the camp that had been struck by lightning.

The trunk was studded with wooden plaques.

The plaques were old and new. Some bore names. Some bore hometowns. Some only had a childhood nickname.

At the very bottom hung a plaque. Its front read "Li Xiulan," but its back read:

"Shadow returned, yet not home."

Meng An hurried forward.

Lu Yuan didn't stop him, only said: "Stop three paces away."

Meng An halted.

The snow beneath the tree suddenly bulged. Dozens of black hands thrust up from the snow layer, grasping at his shoes.

Meng An clenched his jaw and raised the small green lamp to his chest.

"My name is Meng An."

"My mother's name is Li Xiulan."

"Her shadow is not an offering, and it is not a mountain road."

The black hands paused for an instant.

Lu Yuan immediately stepped into the formation. His left foot trod on the Kan position, his right foot on the Gen position. He walked a half-circle of Big Dipper steps around the tree. The broken blade remained sheathed. He first tapped the trunk three times with the scabbard.

Thump.

A hollow echo came back from beneath the bark.

"The tree is dead, but the roots haven't scattered."

"The shadows hang on the branches. The threads are hidden in the roots."

Lu Yuan wedged a copper coin into a crack in the trunk, then used cinnabar to draw a vertical line along the split.

"Wood returns to wood. Shadow returns to person."

"Roots stay in the earth, not on the road."

"Whoever nails a person's shadow to a dead tree, the nail retreats, the thread severs, and the form returns to its owner."

"Release!"

The trunk shuddered violently.

Every plaque nailed to it flipped over at once.

Dozens of names surfaced in the snowy night, and the shadows hanging upside down from the treetops all struggled at once.

They didn't fall immediately. Instead, they were dragged toward the center of the logging camp, as if by some greater force.

From the collapsed wooden shack came a dull sound of timber snapping.

Then, an old wooden cart without shafts slowly slid out from the building.

Its wheels were half-buried in the snow, yet it turned on its own, following the shadow-lines.

There were no corpses on the cart. Only a row of upright wooden planks, each one with a shadow nailed to it.

On the foremost plank was written:

"Those who left the mountain, leave their shadows."

On the final plank was written:

"Those who return to the mountain, become offerings."

The "Surplus Altar" wooden plaque left by Liang Chenglin clattered violently inside the ink-box.

Lu Yuan's face darkened.

"This isn't the Malevolent Deity's true body."

"It's its last offering vessel."

"The Life-Protecting Cart collected people's names. The Old Forest Cart collects people's shadows."

Xu Erxiao gripped his short sword.

"Then let's split it."

"We can't just cut it down."

Lu Yuan said, "Every shadow hanging on that cart belongs to a living person."

"If the cart is destroyed, the shadows scatter. When a shadow scatters, at best it means a grave illness. At worst, the person becomes an empty shell."

The Old Forest Cart came to a stop in the snow.

The shadows on the cart planks began lifting their heads one by one.

There were old men, women, laborers in short jackets, and children carrying school satchels.

They looked at the group at the treeline and spoke in unison.

"Come back."

"There's a home in the mountain."

"Come back."

"The mountain isn't cold."

"Come back."

"There are people in the mountain waiting for you."

The voices weren't shrill. They carried a weary gentleness.

Wang Cheng'an's face slowly drained of color.

"I've been beyond the Great Wall too."

"I've been to North Gully too."

"I've been to..."

Lu Yuan slapped him once on the center of his back.

"State your name!"

Wang Cheng'an jolted and immediately grabbed his abacus.

"My name is Wang Cheng'an!"

"I'm right here!"

"I haven't gone back yet!"

The shadow beneath his feet suddenly shrank, nearly peeling away from his shoes.

Lin Zhaoxuan hurled the ink-line, wrapping it around Wang Cheng'an's waist.

"Guard your Heart Fire!"

Song Qinghe moved the bronze lamp to the center of the group. The lamp's flame illuminated the shadows beneath everyone's feet. Aside from Lu Yuan, every person's shadow was tilting slightly toward the Old Forest Cart.

Lu Yuan understood. The Old Forest Cart didn't rely on force.

It simply took the road each person had walked and wanted to walk back, and laid it out again beneath their feet.

"None of you listen to it saying 'come back.'"

Lu Yuan's voice was very low, but it reached every ear clearly.

"It isn't talking about going home."

"It's talking about returning to the place where it can take you."

He walked to the front of the Old Forest Cart, took out a sheet of yellow talisman paper, and pressed it to the center of the cart's front board.

Four characters were written on it:

"Verify Shadows, Return to Owners."

His right hand formed the "Shadow Dividing Seal," thumb pressed at the base of the ring finger, index and middle fingers raised, the backs of the fingers facing forward.

"Shadows emerge from the body. The body is sustained by fate."

"The living have form, and shadows never leave form."

"The dead have no form, and shadows cannot borrow form."

"Shadows on the cart, each reports its true owner."

"Verify!"

The yellow talisman blazed bright.

The first shadow on the cart spoke:

"Zhao Xiaohe."

The second:

"Ma Youfu."

The third:

"Li Guilan."

The fourth:

"Zhou Heng."

Zhou Heng's expression changed.

His shadow was indeed nailed to the deepest part of the cart plank, a black nail driven through its chest.

"I've never been here."

"Your shadow has."

Lu Yuan said, "You once walked the old road across this mountain."

Zhou Heng gritted his teeth, trying to remember.

"The year I fled from inside the pass, I followed a group over North Ridge."

"At night, there was a heavy blizzard. A lot of people died."

"I looked back once."

"That was the one time."

"When you looked back, your shadow fell into the logging camp."

Lu Yuan raised his scabbard and pointed at the black nail in Zhou Heng's shadow.

"You pull it out yourself."

Zhou Heng gripped his short blade and walked to the cart.

Xu Erxiao whispered, "Can he do this?"

"It's his shadow."

"If someone else pulls it for him, what gets pulled out is his road."

Zhou Heng stood before his own shadow, his arm trembling slightly.

The shadow looked up at him, and spoke in the voice of a young woman.

"Zhou Heng, don't go."

"Didn't you say you'd take me beyond the pass?"

Zhou Heng's face went white in an instant.

Song Qinghe glanced at him but didn't ask.

Lu Yuan said, "Who is she?"

Zhou Heng was silent for a long time.

"My little sister."

"She died at the foot of North Ridge."

"I never went back for her."

The shadow spoke again.

"You come back, and I'll be waiting for you on the cart."

Zhou Heng's hand holding the blade dropped.

Lu Yuan's voice was calm.

"If she truly is your sister, then ask her one question."

"What question?"

"Ask her what she wanted you to do at the end."

Zhou Heng closed his eyes.

"Before she died, she told me not to look back."

The shadow was silent.

Zhou Heng opened his eyes. Tears had frozen on his face.

"You're not her."

"She would never tell me to come back."

He seized the black nail, and his short blade cut across it.

The moment the nail entered his grip, Zhou Heng let out a muffled groan. His right shoulder felt like a piece of flesh had been carved away. But he didn't let go. He yanked the nail out with all his strength.

The shadow on the cart plank dissolved into a wisp of black smoke, sliding back along the snow to beneath his feet.

Zhou Heng's shadow reattached itself firmly and finally stopped tilting.

The black nail fell to the ground. Two characters surfaced on its shaft:

"Look Back."

Lu Yuan crushed the nail under his foot.

"The Old Forest Camp survives on looking back."

"Look back at the dead. Look back at your hometown. Look back and recognize the old road."

"It doesn't care if your looking back is guilt, longing, or fear."

"As long as you look back, it can keep your shadow."

The Old Forest Cart let out a creaking groan.

Countless root tendrils extended from beneath its wheels, burrowing into the snow in every direction.

One by one, the dim lamps in the distant trees turned red.

The shadows beneath the red lamps no longer swayed. Instead, they all bowed their heads toward the center of the logging camp.

The flame of the green lamp in Meng An's hand shrank suddenly.

"My mother's shadow is in the cart."

Lu Yuan looked at the cart planks.

A woman's shadow was nailed to the rear of the cart, her arms seeming to hold something against her chest. She made no sound, only lowered her head to gaze at the lamp in Meng An's hand.

Meng An took a step forward.

"Mother."

This time, Lu Yuan didn't stop him.

The shadow slowly raised her face.

Her features were blurred, but her eyes were calm.

"An'er."

Tears fell from Meng An's eyes.

"Are you really my mother?"

The shadow didn't answer "yes." She only asked:

"Does the wick in your palm still hurt?"

Meng An froze.

"You know?"

"When you were little and hurt your right knee, you always said it didn't hurt."

"But when your hands hurt, you'd hide your left hand in your sleeve."

Meng An looked down at his own palm.

That was something only he knew.

But Lu Yuan still didn't relax.

"Ask again."

Meng An took a deep breath.

"The day I was born, the blue cloth I was wrapped in. What character was sewn on it?"

The woman's shadow raised her hand.

"It wasn't a character."

"It was a crooked little swallow."

"Your father sewed it wrong, so I tore it out and sewed it again."

Meng An's whole body trembled.

Mister Meng's eyes reddened too.

"It was a swallow."

"I remember."

Only then did Lu Yuan raise his broken blade.

"This is Li Xiulan's true shadow."

"Her shadow was nailed to the cart, but her name was already returned."

"So it hasn't been completely devoured by the evil thing."

He looked at Meng An.

"You pull the nail."

Meng An gripped the small green lamp and walked step by step toward the rear of the cart.

The other shadows on the cart immediately stirred.

Countless voices began to shout.

"Don't pull it!"

"If she leaves, the cart will overturn!"

"If the cart overturns, we'll all scatter!"

"We don't have names!"

Meng An stopped before the woman's shadow.

"My mother has a name."

"So will all of you."

He set the green lamp on the cart plank, and its flame illuminated the black nail pinning the woman's shadow.

On the nail was carved:

"Mother Returns to the Mountain."

Meng An raised his hand and formed a clumsy hand seal.

It was the "Life-Fixing Seal" that Lu Yuan had taught him in the manor when teaching him to recognize names. Thumb pressed against the middle finger, index finger raised upright, palm pressed against the heart.

"Li Xiulan is my mother."

"She is not the mountain's mother."

"She gave birth to me. She raised me."

"Her shadow belongs to herself."

"Pull!"

Meng An seized the black nail with both hands and wrenched it outward with all his strength.

The nail didn't come out immediately.

The Old Forest Cart shuddered violently. Root tendrils climbed up the wheels and coiled around Meng An's legs.

Song Qinghe stepped forward with the lamp, burning through several black tendrils with green fire.

Xu Erxiao and Wang Cheng'an braced against the wheels from both sides. Lin Zhaoxuan drew the ink-line taut, sealing the yin positions on both flanks of the cart.

Lu Yuan stood at the cart's head, and for the first time, the broken blade left its sheath.

The blade already bore cracks, but under the cinnabar light, it gleamed with a dark red glow.

On the front board of the cart, a faceless face surfaced.

"You severed names, wishes, life, death, home, and shadows."

"But the offering remains."

"As long as the offering continues, I cannot be destroyed."

"Who is offering to you?"

Lu Yuan asked.

The faceless face split open.

"The mountain offers to me."

"The mountain cannot make wishes."

"People make the offerings in its place."

"Who?"

"Everyone who cannot walk out."

Lu Yuan suddenly looked beneath the Old Forest Cart.

Those root tendrils hadn't buried themselves in the earth.

They all pierced through the snow and drove into the chests of half-buried white bones.

The hundred bones were countless. Far more than thirty-seven.

Some wore old cotton jackets. Some still had tattered felt hats. Some clutched travel passes, wooden combs, tobacco pouches, or broken baby shoes in their hands.

They weren't the nameless corpses in the Righteous Manor.

They were living people who had tried to cross the mountain, only to be dragged back by their shadows in the old logging camp.

Their bodies died in the snow. Their shadows were nailed to the trees. And in the end, even the thought of "leaving the mountain" became an offering.

"This is the real Surplus Altar."

Lu Yuan's voice turned cold.

"It uses the people who look back to feed the shadows, and the people who can't walk out to feed the mountain."

The faceless face laughed.

"They came back willingly."

"They just couldn't find the road."

"If they can't find the road, they can only return to the mountain."

"Returning to the mountain isn't returning to you."

Lu Yuan planted one foot on the cart's shaft.

"The mountain has its own king. The snow has its own roads."

"The dead can be buried in the mountain, but they cannot have their names eaten by it."

He took out the "Surplus Altar" wooden plaque from his chest and flipped it over.

The back of the plaque had been blank. But now, a line of small characters slowly surfaced:

"Thirty-seven left the mountain. Thirty-seven shadows remained."

Lu Yuan finished reading, then snapped the plaque in half.

"This plaque records the count of offerings, not names."

"Then let's start by destroying your count."

He raised his left hand and formed the "Disperse Count Seal."

His index and middle fingers pressed together, tapping the wheel, the shaft, the plank, and the rear of the cart in sequence.

"One person, one shadow. That does not make a count."

"One life, one name. That does not make an offering."

"Thirty-seven, each returns to their own body."

"They shall not be combined. They shall not be mixed."

"Disperse!"

The white bones beneath the snow trembled simultaneously.

One by one, hands thrust up from the snow. But they didn't grab at people. They slowly gripped the root tendrils embedded in their own chests.

The Old Forest Cart tilted violently.

The shadows on the cart planks began to fall away.

The faceless face let out a roar. Hundreds of red threads burst out from beneath the cart and lunged straight at Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan didn't retreat. He drove the broken blade into the center of the cart's front board.

"Zhaoxuan, press the cart with the Seven Stars!"

Lin Zhaoxuan's ink-lines, already laid across the snow, snapped taut.

Heavenly Pivot pressed the left wheel. Heavenly Jade pressed the right wheel. Heavenly Mechanism pressed the shaft. Heavenly Balance pressed the rear. Jade Scale, Opening Yang, and Shaking Light locked onto three root tendrils respectively.

Wang Cheng'an slammed his abacus down onto the snow, flicking beads like falling rain.

"Name, one bead. Wish, one bead. Life, one bead. Death, one bead. Home, one bead. Shadow, one bead. Offering, one bead."

"Seven accounts settled separately. No mixing the books!"

Every time a bead clicked, one red thread snapped.

Xu Erxiao gritted his teeth and braced the wheel. The back of his hand was laced with blood from the black tendrils, but he refused to let go.

"Brother Lu, the cart is about to flip!"

"Let it flip!"

Lu Yuan pulled out the broken blade and formed the "Overturn Altar Seal" with both hands.

His left palm faced down. His right fingers pressed together and pointed up. Then his hands crossed and clashed together.

"An altar stands on offerings. Offerings stand on deceit."

"Now that the root is known, the form is overturned."

"The cart is not a temple. The wood is not a god."

"Shadows shall not be sacrificial animals. Bones shall not be beams."

"Overturn the cart today. Sever the mountain tomorrow."

"Overturn!"

The broken blade cut horizontally.

The axle of the Old Forest Cart snapped with a sharp crack.

The massive wooden cart toppled onto its side, and every black nail on the cart planks burst free at once. Meng An clutched the small green lamp. Li Xiulan's shadow transformed into a pale white light in midair and fell into the lamp's flame.

The flame blazed up suddenly.

In the core of the fire, the three characters "Li Xiulan" finally appeared in full. Beside them, the character "Shadow" slowly faded away.

Meng An knelt in the snow, holding the lamp with both hands.

"Mother."

The flame flickered once, gently.

There was no sound.

But on Meng An's face, a quiet calm slowly emerged, the calm that comes after weeping.

After the Old Forest Cart overturned, the white bones beneath the snow surfaced one by one.

Every skeleton had red threads coiled around its chest.

Lu Yuan didn't burn the threads immediately.

He walked to the first skeleton and saw a soaked travel pass in its hand. Only one character remained legible on it: "Zhang."

At the feet of the second skeleton lay an embroidered shoe with the character "Gui" sewn into the sole.

The third skeleton had half a jade pendant hanging at its waist. On the back was carved "Hedong."

"These people can't just be left to scatter."

Lu Yuan said, "Their shadows were returned, but their names haven't been found yet."

Song Qinghe asked, "Then what do we do?"

"First, we establish temporary names."

Lu Yuan took out yellow talisman paper and cut it into thirty-seven sheets.

"The nameless dead can no longer be called offerings."

"If their full names are unknown, we use their belongings, their hometowns, or the names their companions called them as leads."

"When their descendants come to claim them, then we correct their true names."

On the first sheet, he wrote:

"Zhang, proven by travel pass."

On the second:

"Guiniang, proven by embroidered shoe."

On the third:

"Guest of Hedong, proven by jade pendant."

For each sheet he wrote, he pressed a copper coin on the skeleton's forehead.

"Name incomplete, do not insult."

"Home unknown, do not abandon."

"Bones return to earth. Shadows return to names."

"Temporarily established!"

Thirty-seven sheets of yellow paper spread out in the snow, and the red threads around the skeletons' chests loosened one by one on their own.

The faceless face shattered completely.

But beneath the shattered black planks of the cart, a narrow stone well was revealed.

There was no water in the well. Only a black stone mirror tilted downward.

Reflected in the mirror was a deeper mountain hollow.

At the center of the hollow stood a colossal tree with no crown.

Its roots coiled around a black stone core, and its branches were hung with seven-colored offering lines.

And beneath the giant tree, a blurred human figure was walking outward.

When Lu Yuan saw that figure's back, he suddenly tightened his grip on the blade.

The person wore an old long robe, walking with steady steps.

He walked to the black stone mirror and slowly raised his head.

In the mirror appeared a face with no features.

But on that face's forehead, there was one extremely clear surname.

"Lu."

Everyone fell silent.

Xu Erxiao was the first to speak:

"Senior Brother, what does this mean?"

Lu Yuan stared at the mirror.

"It's still borrowing my surname."

"No."

Meng An held the small lamp, his voice very soft.

"It isn't speaking of your surname."

"Then what is it?"

Meng An looked at the giant tree in the mirror.

"I saw it in the lamp at the manor."

"The Malevolent Deity wasn't first called a god, and it wasn't called a mountain either."

"The people called it..."

He didn't finish.

The faceless man in the black stone mirror raised his hand, and a line of blood-red characters surfaced on the mirror's surface:

"The Lu family returns to its roots."

Lu Yuan raised his blade, the tip pressing against the mirror's surface.

"I have no family. No clan."

"Where does the Lu family come from?"

The figure in the mirror slowly spoke.

Its voice wasn't the whisper of the Malevolent Deity, nor was it anyone's cry.

It sounded like an entire mountain breathing.

"You think you came from beyond the mountain?"

The black stone mirror split open with a crack.

The fragments didn't fall. They dissolved into countless black moths, surging deeper into North Ridge.

Every dim lamp in the old logging camp went out at once.

Only the small green lamp in Meng An's hand still burned.

The flame pointed northwest.

There, clouds pressed against a taller peak. Its summit was veiled in snow, but a section of broken stone steps was faintly visible.

Liang Chenglin had said before that beyond the root temple there was a skylight.

Now, the direction of that skylight had finally revealed itself.

Lu Yuan sheathed his blade and handed the thirty-seven sheets of temporary-name yellow paper to Song Qinghe.

"Take these back to Northern Guan Righteous Manor first. Set them beside the new stele."

Song Qinghe accepted the papers.

"What about you?"

Lu Yuan looked at the stone steps.

"I'm going to the skylight."

"Alone?"

"No."

Lu Yuan turned to look at the others.

Xu Erxiao, Wang Cheng'an, Lin Zhaoxuan, Zhou Heng, Asheng, Meng An, and Mister Meng all stood in the snow. Not one of them stepped back.

He was silent for a moment, then nodded.

"Then we go together."

"But from here on, we can't use the roads it gave us."

He lifted his foot and stamped the black cart tracks leading northwest into the snow.

"It wants me to acknowledge its roots."

"So I'll go and see."

"To find out who planted the suffering of a group of living people into a mountain that feeds on men."

The wind and snow at North Ridge grew fiercer.

Behind them, the thirty-seven sheets of yellow paper in the old logging camp trembled slightly in the snow, like thirty-seven names that had not yet been fully called out.

Ahead, the broken stone steps vanished layer by layer into the mist.

And the shadow beneath Lu Yuan's feet no longer dragged toward the mountain.

It lay flat against the snow, following his steps, moving quietly forward.