Up the Mountain

In Chu Qiguang's mind, the memory was still fresh: in broad daylight, villager after villager with hideous, frenzied expressions. In this world, Daoist temples were not merely the demon-slaying saviors from the tales about the female corpse; they were a towering mountain pressing down on the common folk. Wang Family Village, where Chu Qiguang lived, was located in Qingyang County under the jurisdiction of Lingzhou. And within Qingyang County, the Wang family—who lorded over Wang Family Village—could only be considered petty landlords. By comparison, the Daoist temples in the county were the true behemoths. Not only did they oversee the weddings, funerals, scriptural sermons, worship, and demon subjugation for over a hundred thousand county residents, but countless wealthy households also transferred their fields under the temples' names through dedications, fraudulent registrations, and altered tax records, all to evade taxes. After all, Daoist temples were exempt from both taxes and corvée labor. 'From top to bottom, everyone in Wang Family Village—and indeed the entire county of Qingyang—believes in Daoist Lord Xuanyuan with extreme fanaticism. The county Daoists even seize villagers they deem fiends and drown them in the river.' As for the pretexts used to drown these people, Chu Qiguang found them both absurd and laughable. Some were suspected of being fiends simply for wearing unconventional clothes; some were seized for having a bad reputation; others were rounded up for having mental illnesses. In fact, some were seized and drowned in the river, in Chu Qiguang's view, merely because they had offended the Daoists in the temples—after which all their family's land and property were bought up for a pittance. At the thought, Chu Qiguang, who hailed from modern society, felt a chill run down his spine. He dared not rely on methods that were too far ahead of his time. 'Until I have sufficient status and power, I must handle matters using methods that fit the style of this society.' Grain taxes, corvée labor, landlords, government clerks, religion... These things weighed like mountains upon poor peasants like Ergou, suffocating them under their bulk. This year's grain tax of two taels and two qian would undoubtedly have been the final straw to break Ergou's family if Chu Qiguang had not been here. They would either have had to sell their land and gradually become slaves to the Wang family, or sell Ergou's younger sister just to barely scrape together the tax. 'And then there's this compulsion of mine where I feel like I'll die if I don't flex... Damn it! I need to improve my quality of life fast. Every single day living like this is torture.' 'Speaking of which, that orange cat might really be an opportunity.' Considering his current situation, Chu Qiguang made a quiet decision in his heart. In any case, his circumstances could not possibly get any worse. And if that cat truly was some monster or demon seeking to harm him, he would have had no way to resist a monster anyway. What Chu Qiguang failed to notice was that a continuous swell of goodwill toward the orange cat kept rising in his heart, influencing his decision today. Nearby, Ergou's mother sighed and fretted for a while. Under Chu Qiguang's comfort, she finally went into the kitchen to get busy, and before long, a savory aroma drifted out. Chu Qiguang and his sister followed the scent over, their eyes glued to the two flatbreads their mother was toasting back and forth as their mouths watered continuously. Holding the toasted flatbreads, the mother sniffed them repeatedly before reluctantly handing them to Ergou and his sister. "Go on, eat." Seeing the woman's sallow, emaciated face, Chu Qiguang couldn't bear it and said, "Mother, you should eat some too." The mother smiled faintly. "Just smelling it fills me up. You children eat." Chu Qiguang sighed quietly to himself. Beside him, Ergou's younger sister was already holding her flatbread, devouring it ravenously. Ergou's mother admonished gently, "Slow down, don't choke." Taking in the aroma of the flatbreads, she couldn't stop her stomach from clenching slightly. In the end, she went over to the water vat, poured a bowl of water, and drank it down. That night, once his sister and mother had fallen asleep, Chu Qiguang carefully got out of bed and set off toward the back mountain. ... The place known as the back mountain in Wang Family Village had no proper name. It was just a tract of wild hills mostly covered in bamboo groves. Nearby villagers often came up to cut bamboo for household use or dig up bamboo shoots to sell in the county for extra copper. At this hour, most of the mountain was shrouded in pitch darkness, and Chu Qiguang had no idea what time it was. Fortunately, the moonlight tonight was bright and clear, illuminating the mountain path so that he could barely make out the way ahead as he steadily advanced toward the summit. 'I don't even know where that cat is waiting for me. This mountain isn't massive, but it isn't small either. If a living person went missing up here, you might not find them in an entire night of searching, let alone a cat.' Having climbed halfway up the mountain, Chu Qiguang panted heavily. His body grew increasingly tired and cold, and his stomach churned with intense hunger pangs. 'This body is far too weak.' As the night deepened, several shrill cries echoed through the mountain forest, sounding like night owls or wild foxes, drifting far on the night breeze. The chilly wind blew against Chu Qiguang along with the eerie cries, giving him goosebumps as someone accustomed to modern city life. He began to feel a twinge of regret over hiking up the mountain in the middle of the night. He suddenly felt a flicker of doubt about his actions. Normally, he wouldn't have been so impulsive as to head into the mountains like this. 'Maybe I should just head back... I can deal with the Wang family using my own methods.' Just as Chu Qiguang turned around, several eerie green gleams flared up from the bamboo grove behind him, fluttering in the dark like ghost fires dancing on the wind. Chu Qiguang's heart seized. Before he could react, the clusters of ghost fire seemed to spot him and came drifting toward him. Chu Qiguang gripped the woodchopping knife concealed in his robes. The next instant, as the eerie lights broke through the shadows of the bamboo grove, two short figures came waddling out. They were as small as toddlers of a year or two, and their posture as they stood was unnatural and grotesque, making Chu Qiguang grow tenser with every second. It wasn't until the small figures were fully exposed to the moonlight that Chu Qiguang saw clearly: the figures before him were two feral cats with distinct coat patterns. The green ghost fires he had seen were actually the green glow reflecting from their eyes. 'Are these... the feral cats that were playing with my sister earlier?' What stunned and unsettled Chu Qiguang was that neither cat displayed their usual laziness or gentleness. Instead, they stood upright on their hind legs, pressed their front paws together, and bowed respectfully to him just like human beings. Chu Qiguang was inwardly startled. 'Could it be that not just the orange cat... but these two cats are monsters as well?' The leading white cat beckoned toward Chu Qiguang with a front paw, let out a meow, and turned around, seemingly intending to guide him. Chu Qiguang thought, 'The orange cat must have sent them to lead the way.' He had still felt hesitant, but the moment he recalled the orange cat from Ergou's memories, an inexplicable sense of trust welled up again. Steeling his resolve, he followed the cats into the bamboo grove.