Cambiaformas

Capítulo 25

"I wonder what caused this landslide?"

Xiao Yang stroked his chin and analyzed with an air of seriousness: "There's been a lot of rain this month. I heard that before we came, it rained heavily for several days in a row. It must be because of the rain."

“Humans have over-logged the land,” Zhang Lihua scoffed.

"I think so," Feng Qi sighed. "Fortunately, there were no casualties this time."

Just then, Xiao Yang suddenly shouted, "Ahead!"

Behind the rocks, two similar paths appeared, both overgrown with weeds and worn into the woods by footsteps. Xiao Yang looked left and right, utterly perplexed: "Which way should I go?"

Feng Qi was also unsure. The mountain was densely wooded; if they hadn't been standing on the unusual rocks at the mountainside, they wouldn't have seen the greyish-white stone path that had initially drawn them up. Now, two similar paths lay before them—which one led to their destination?

The two of them looked at Zhang Lihua at the same time.

Zhang Lihua wasn't in a hurry. He took out his compass and looked at it for a long time. Then he squatted down at the intersection of the two roads to observe. Finally, he said, "Go to the left!" His tone was full of confidence and quite certain.

Xiao Yang was somewhat suspicious: "You're not giving random instructions, are you?"

Zhang Lihua confidently stated, "Left! That's right! Look, the left path has more weeds than the right, which means fewer people usually travel on it. Since that path to the so-called treasure is rarely seen, it must be less traveled." This explanation was clearly unconvincing, leaving the other two unsure. Feng Qi thought for a moment and said, "Let's take the left path. If it gets blocked, we can always turn back."

Updated dividing line...

After walking for more than ten minutes, the three reached the end. Before them was a pile of strange rocks, and behind it, a sheer cliff. Little Yang peered down and exclaimed, "My goodness, that's really steep! If we're not careful, we might fall!"

Zhang Lihua said irritably, "I told you you're naive, but you don't believe me! You call this dangerous? Go climb Mount Hua and then come back to me. Anyone with eyes can see it's a cliff, who would go there!" After scolding Xiao Yang a few times, he asked Feng Qi in confusion, "There's nothing here, so how come there's a path?"

Feng Qi looked around and saw that some of the strange rocks had carving marks. He went closer and examined them carefully. He could see marks such as "So-and-so was here!" "So-and-so loves so-and-so" and "So-and-so is a pig". He couldn't help but laugh: "It seems that it has been regarded as a tourist attraction."

Zhang Lihua snorted, "No manners."

Xiao Yang was still resentful after being scolded, so he deliberately went against Zhang Lihua, saying, "If you have any manners, don't go digging up other people's graves!"

Zhang Lihua was about to retort when Feng Qi stopped her. Feng Qi looked up at the sky, a worried expression on his face: "It's getting late. Should we go back or find a place to rest?"

Xiao Yang and Zhang Lihua exchanged a glance and said in unison, "Of course we should rest here!"

The three hurried back to the fork in the road and walked for a while until they came to a place with a mountain spring and flat rocks, where they stopped to rest.

Although they had walked for most of the day and were all tired, they were all in high spirits. Xiao Yang, in particular, started rambling on after finishing his biscuits. Zhang Lihua wasn't as talkative as Xiao Yang, but he was quick to retort; for every three sentences Xiao Yang uttered, he would retort twice. Feng Qi, preoccupied with his own thoughts, didn't say much.

"You don't know until you climb it, and once you start climbing, you're shocked. The path looked close from the square, but how come we've walked for so long and still haven't gotten there?"

Zhang Lihua glanced at Xiao Yang, who was lying on his back on a rock, legs crossed, looking quite carefree and relaxed. For the first time, she agreed with Xiao Yang's words: "I also think that we might have taken the wrong path."

Feng Qi had little interest in the so-called treasure. He unconsciously spread his hands, letting the mountain spring water flow slowly over him. The mountain spring water was already cold, and at night it carried an even cooler sensation that seeped into his skin.

"But there's only one way up the mountain. Let's try again tomorrow. If it doesn't work, we can turn back."

Xiao Yang immediately chimed in, "That's right! I've been wanting to say this for a while now. There's absolutely no need for us to rush like this. This afternoon, when I saw some beautiful scenery and wanted to take pictures, did you see Zhang Lihua's face? She was so anxious. Feng Qi, let's not rush. We're not digging up someone's grave. We can take our time—just like, like, well, a group of hikers going on a trip!"

Feng Qi was amused by Xiao Yang's constant refrain of "digging up other people's graves": "Stop making fun of Li Hua."

“Yang Bo, if you’re not going, you can go back now. Feng Qi and I will continue walking forward. I’m not putting a rope around your neck and dragging you along!” Zhang Lihua called Xiao Yang by his full name.

"This is too much! I've walked this far with you. Are you going to kick me while I'm at it?" Xiao Yang quickly put his arm around Feng Qi's shoulder: "If we're going to go back, it'll be just the two of us, Feng Qi and I. You can go as far as you want."

Once the battle between the two was ignited, it was never-ending. From Zhang Lihua's mature appearance and Xiao Yang's acne, to Zhang Lihua's skinny figure and Xiao Yang's height of just 1.7 meters, everything provided material for the other's attacks.

After joking around for a while, all three of them became sleepy.

It was still a dark forest, and perhaps because I was inside it, the atmosphere was even stronger, with the fragrant scent of earth mingling with the faint sound of flowing water. This was a tranquility that could not be found in the city.

When the expected dream returned, Feng Qi no longer felt the initial panic. The girl's hands caressed each passing tree as if stroking a lover, and the trees seemed to respond with awareness. The wind gently rustled every leaf, filling his ears with tender whispers. He seemed to hear the girl's joyful singing, without lyrics, just simple melodies. Then, the blurry figures appeared, still running endlessly, the trees frantically retreating, the girl's gentle pleas echoing. He knew the dream was about to end.

The instant he regained consciousness, he saw the figures clearly; they were three men.

Opening his eyes, Feng Qi was startled awake by the increasingly vivid dream, breaking out in a cold sweat. Three people—there were three of them in their group. Were the three men in his dream connected to his trip? If so, how?

The sky above was a deep, dark blue, pressing down on me and making me feel oppressed.

A sigh suddenly came from behind him, not loud, carried by the wind, and easily missed if the night hadn't been so quiet. Feng Qi turned around alertly and, unsurprisingly, saw a thin man leaning against a tree trunk. From the beginning, he hadn't believed that this man, whose eyes had remained calm throughout, would be so fervent as to embark on this unknown journey because of a legend.

"Did you have a nightmare?"

Zhang Lihua's body was hidden in the shade of the trees, his expression obscured. Feng Qi frowned, thinking for a long time before finally understanding why he felt something was amiss. Zhang Lihua's right hand remained resting on the tree trunk he was leaning against, occasionally rubbing it. In the moonlight, his hands appeared pale, with clearly defined veins, and bluish-purple veins bulging on the back of his hands. He had never paid attention to Zhang Lihua's hands before, but at this moment, his attention was entirely focused on that one hand.

Feng Qi ignored his discomfort and forced a smile, replying, "I'm probably just too nervous. I've never camped out in the wild before."

Zhang Lihua chuckled: "Sleeping in the concrete jungle of the city makes it easier to have nightmares! Is there any place more reassuring than a forest?"

"If there are no strange precognitive dreams, the air in nature is indeed better than in the city."

Zhang Lihua's smile froze: "Precognitive dream?"

Feng Qi didn't continue. He hadn't missed the change in Zhang Lihua's expression, and continued to probe, "Old Zhang, why don't you tell me about your treasure? How did you know there was a tomb there?"

"I found the clue in an old book. These days, tomb raiding novels are all the rage, and I'm really drawn to the adventures in them. Unfortunately, tomb raiding is banned in China, and the tools I had in my bag were a hodgepodge." As she spoke, Zhang Lihua sat down next to Feng Qi. "Because of reading these books, I love rummaging through the books and notes passed down from my ancestors. I wanted to see if I could find any clues and figure out a way to find the treasure. And wouldn't you know it, I found a handwritten copy hidden in the crack of my grandmother's mattress. You have no idea how excited I was!" My maternal grandmother was a daughter-in-law of a prominent family when she was young, but the family fortunes declined, and her husband died young. So, before she was 20, she remarried a boatman. However, she loved reading, and her dowry included several chests of books. Over time, some of those books were copied, some were burned, and few remained. As a child, I didn't realize how precious they were; I often dragged chests from under my grandmother's bed and scribbled on the books. Now that I'm older, it's very difficult to find such ancient books again. Therefore, when I saw an ordinary local gazetteer of Zhicheng, I was so excited that I couldn't sleep for days.

"Zhicheng?" Feng Qi was slightly surprised.

“Yes, my maternal grandmother was from Zhicheng, but she later moved to the provincial capital with my maternal grandfather.” Zhang Lihua lay down and let out a long sigh. “I’ve been to Zhicheng. It’s where two rivers meet, and the city is built against the mountains. It’s not big, but it has a certain grandeur. However, it’s too humid there, and I don’t really like it.” After saying that, she seemed to suddenly remember something and said apologetically, “Feng Qi, you’re from Zhicheng, right? I’m not saying Zhicheng is bad, it’s just that I’m not used to the weather there.”

Feng Qi smiled slightly, indicating that he didn't mind.

...

Then Zhang Lihua began to speak again: "That local history of Zhicheng didn't actually contain anything special. It was just about local customs and famous people and events since the Qing Dynasty. At the time, I was focused on finding treasure and paid all my attention to legends. Later, I actually discovered quite a few strange legends about Zhicheng."

"A strange legend?" The first thing that came to Feng Qi's mind was Yu Ye's pale face that always had a smile on it. If we're talking about strange, probably no one is stranger than that woman who calls herself a water witch.

"Don't underestimate Zhicheng just because it's small; there are plenty of legends like this! You're from Zhicheng, have you seen the twin banyan trees at Zhicheng Middle School?"

“I know that the so-called twin trees are actually one tree, but the trunk has been filled with cement.”

"Indeed, but that's not the really strange thing. I read in the local chronicles that Zhicheng Middle School didn't have this tree in the late Qing Dynasty. It was planted by a Taoist priest to suppress a couple who died unjustly. I don't know who the couple was or what their grievances were. I only know that in those years, there were frequent floods, followed by infectious diseases. The county magistrate had no choice but to invite a Taoist priest to perform a ritual to ward off evil. It was just for show, to appease the people. The Taoist priest planted a tree and ordered the county magistrate to build the school after the tree grew, and it actually worked. There haven't been any floods since."

Although Feng Qi had encountered and witnessed many unbelievable things, his inherent materialism was not something that could be changed overnight. Upon hearing this, he couldn't help but retort: "How could a single tree possibly stop a flood!"

Zhang Lihua wasn't annoyed that Feng Qi had interrupted her, and said good-naturedly, "Yes, that's the strange thing. I initially had the same idea as you, but later, I discovered the hidden truth."

"Hidden story?"

"Yes, about Zhicheng, about a family that has been passed down through generations. This family is hidden in the city and lives independently of the world. They call themselves 'water wizards'."

"Ah!" Feng Qi was astonished to hear the familiar title: "This water-based wizard is recorded in the local chronicles?" His tone was filled with disbelief.

Zhang Lihua chuckled: "How could that be? I found out by chance while chatting with an old comrade from the local history office. He is a native of Zhicheng and started collecting and researching local history in the local history office when he was in his early twenties. He has interviewed many old Zhicheng residents, so it is no exaggeration to say that he is an expert on Zhicheng."

Chapter Three: The Water Witch

(three)

"According to that old comrade, water sorcerers have a long history, perhaps even longer than the history of the Ba Kingdom. They wander among the people, sometimes appearing in public, sometimes living in seclusion. They have the ability to control water and especially like to live among mountains and rivers. Although they possess abilities that ordinary people do not have, correspondingly, the rules they must abide by are very strict. There has never been a sorcerer or witch who has come out to harm people and cause trouble on their own."

During the reign of Emperor Tongzhi of the Qing Dynasty, a baby girl was born into a wealthy family in Zhicheng. Born to a concubine, the infant cried incessantly from birth, only stopping when placed in icy water. Everyone considered this strange. A few days later, a ragged old man, having heard the rumors, came to visit. Upon seeing the baby girl, he was astonished and loudly proclaimed his desire to see the mother. The concubine, weak from childbirth, was refused by her husband. The old man, however, stubbornly refused to leave, sitting at the gate and spreading rumors that the baby girl was a reincarnated demon. The news spread like wildfire, and by the time the family tried to stop him, almost the entire city knew that a monster had appeared in their home. Eventually, even the baby's father began to doubt his own child. Unable to bear the shock, the concubine, holding her daughter who was not yet a hundred days old, drowned herself in the river.

Feng Qi had been listening intently to Zhang Lihua's story about water witchcraft, but the storyteller had gradually veered off-topic. Having interrupted several times earlier, he felt embarrassed to interrupt this time and patiently listened until the end before kindly reminding Zhang, "Old Zhang, is this tragic story related to water witchcraft?"

Zhang Lihua was lamenting the harm of rumors when he heard Feng Qi's question. He straightened up and said, "Of course it's related! This old man is none other than the chief of the Water Witch Clan at the time, and the concubine of that wealthy family was his youngest daughter who had been away from home for many years. Back then, this youngest daughter insisted on marrying an ordinary man and was willing to be a concubine. In a fit of anger, the Water Witch Clan Chief severed ties with his daughter. Later, his granddaughter was born, and all indications showed that the baby girl was a Water Witch genius, a rare talent. The level of witchcraft ability is greatly related to talent, so a witch with extremely high talent is very rare for them. The clan chief was determined to take back his granddaughter, but his daughter refused, so he had to devise a plan to make his granddaughter have no place in her father's house."

"Later, did that mother and daughter really die?" Feng Qi sighed. "That clan chief was too ruthless. Even tigers don't eat their cubs."

Zhang Lihua smiled: "You don't understand the importance of talent to a wizard. A mediocre wizard is looked down upon and ostracized by his clan from a young age, and his status will be much lower than that of someone with high magical skills. The wizard clan doesn't care about how much money they have, but they value magical abilities. That clan chief's eagerness for talent was an extreme example. However, the mother and daughter didn't die. They were originally water wizards, and their immersion in the river was like fish in water; it was all an act for the world to see. I don't know how the clan chief managed to persuade them, but his daughter and granddaughter eventually left their family and returned to their clan. Twenty years later, the story of the Taoist planting the tree came about."

"Is it that granddaughter who's causing this trouble?"

"According to my old acquaintance, the girl grew up with her maternal grandfather and had a very strange temperament. Twenty years later, when her father was on his deathbed, she secretly returned to his side. In just three months, the man who was about to die actually recovered, and later, the locals even saw the old man going out for a stroll. At that time, her family had fallen on hard times, and her half-brother had heard from somewhere that her mother was a monster, and she was the monster's daughter. He said that if you added her blood to the dye for cloth, the color would last a long time. The girl's father was once a famous weaving king in Zhicheng, but unfortunately, he had fallen into decline after she and her mother left. Her brother was also confused. He listened to a sorcerer and tricked her into entering a magic circle and then trapped her to take her blood to dye the cloth. The cloth was indeed brightly colored and would never fade."

"Blood-stained cloth?" Feng Qi recalled the blood-soaked buns described by Lu Xun, feeling indignant at the persecution of the ignorant by feudal superstition. Yet, he couldn't help but think of Song Zijin's madness. A person with a strong conviction will do anything, no matter how insane, to achieve their goals. Ruthless methods stem from a deep-seated obsession. Song Zijin was like that, Hao Jie and Xiao Xi were like that, and even he himself was like that. What they wanted might be different, but the underlying psychology was likely the same.

"Of course, those effects might have been fabricated by later generations to add a mysterious atmosphere to the story. The story goes that the girl was trapped and had her blood drawn daily. Perhaps the Taoist priest truly possessed some skill, or perhaps the girl herself didn't want to come out; in any case, the girl was trapped for more than ten days. After more than ten days, news arrived that the girl's father had died. Upon learning this, the girl, trapped in the formation and on the verge of death, escaped. From then on, Zhicheng experienced months of torrential rain, causing massive floods that submerged vast tracts of farmland and houses. That year, Zhicheng and even the downstream areas yielded almost no harvest, and hundreds of thousands of people were homeless, subsisting on mud and tree bark. Gradually, a legend arose that the girl was the daughter of the river god, and that the people of Zhicheng had offended the river god, thus bringing about this great disaster. The girl's brother deeply regretted his actions and decided to follow the Taoist priest to find his sister and beg for her forgiveness. Led by the Taoist priest, he arrived in the deep mountains hundreds of miles from Zhicheng, where he unexpectedly encountered the girl's mother."

“He changed his mind, didn’t he? He originally planned to apologize, but then he kidnapped his stepmother,” Feng Qi analyzed with a sneer. Zhang Lihua nodded: “Yes, he changed his mind. He took her back to Zhicheng, set a trap, and when the girl came, he killed her and then sealed her with a banyan tree.”

"A very good story." Feng Qi broke the silence with a light laugh: "It's a pity it doesn't have a sleep-inducing effect."

Zhang Lihua didn't seem to care: "Now we're getting to the point! Do you know which mountain those two Taoist priests went to?"

Feng Qi raised an eyebrow: "Here?"

Seeing Zhang Lihua's approving smile, Feng Qi knew his guess was correct, but what exactly did Zhang Lihua want to say after going through all this trouble?

"This is the secluded place of the Water Witch, and I want to explore it. Don't you want to know the truth of history?"

Faced with Zhang Lihua's question, Feng Qi could only manage a forced smile. In the past, he would have been the most responsive person, but now, having come this far, he couldn't give himself a reasonable answer.

A silence fell between them, broken only by the croaking of frogs and chirping of insects in the open forest. The night was deep, and the starlight, sometimes bright, sometimes dim, shimmered in the air and on the stream. It was quiet, utterly quiet. His breathing, Zhang Lihua's breathing, and Xiao Yang's cheerful snoring rose and fell. Suddenly, Feng Qi felt a strong urge to confide in someone. Whether it was the gentle moonlight, the rugged mountain ridge, or the shimmering stream, he couldn't tell.

"I once met a water sorceress..." he began with difficulty, slowly recounting his story to the stranger before him, about a girl named Mo Ran who called him brother and would give him her most adorable smile. It was a missed romance, a bloody revenge, and the struggle of a woman yearning to be loved.

Zhang Lihua was a competent listener, far more so than Feng Qi, who always liked to interrupt. He listened quietly to Feng Qi's rambling narration and then offered appropriate guidance.

"When she passed away...it was so quiet...unlike her former flamboyant and melancholic self, and unlike the madness and madness she displayed after going insane...She smiled at me, but she was so thin, holding her hand, I couldn't feel any warmth in it...Her hands were so cold, so very cold. I wanted to pull away, yet I also wanted to hold her tightly in my arms, to warm her. You know? The first time I saw her after I grew up, I thought to myself, this girl is so beautiful, with such bright eyes, so bold, and intimidating...But in her final moments, she was as docile as a kitten basking in the sun. She said to me, 'Brother, why didn't you find me sooner?' Yes, why didn't I find her sooner? If only I had found her sooner...if only..."

Having finally said everything, Feng Qi felt much lighter, as if the pent-up repression in his heart, which had been growing deeper day by day, had finally found an outlet. Zhang Lihua looked at the speechless Feng Qi and handed him a handkerchief. Seeing Feng Qi looking at him blankly, she sighed, "Wipe your face." Feng Qi wiped his face, his fingertips feeling icy cold.

She actually cried.

The next morning, Xiao Yang, who had eaten and slept well, was naturally the most energetic and skipped ahead, completely forgetting that he had said he would turn back the day before.

Feng Qi, sporting dark circles under his eyes and looking exhausted, lagged behind, while Zhang Lihua walked in the middle as if nothing had happened.

After walking no more than a hundred meters, Feng Qi stopped. A precipice appeared before him, strikingly similar to the one he had seen before, yet with subtle differences. Just as he was about to stop and discuss the rest of the journey with the other two, Feng Qi saw Xiao Yang, who was in the lead, approaching the edge of the cliff. Xiao Yang seemed oblivious to the precipice before him, one foot already dangling over the edge, about to step out with the other.

Startled, Feng Qi quickly ran a few steps past Zhang Lihua, grabbed Xiao Yang's arm, and yanked him back. Xiao Yang, pulled by Feng Qi, lost his footing and fell to the ground, yelling at Feng Qi, who was still holding his arm, "Old Feng, what are you doing!" Feng Qi's back was already drenched in cold sweat. He glanced at Zhang Lihua, and in that single glance, he knew that Zhang Lihua had definitely also seen the cliff face.

"You saw it." It was a statement of fact. After a night of talking, Feng Qi thought the two should have grown much closer, at least he had confided his deepest secrets. But judging from Zhang Lihua's decision not to stop Yang Bo from continuing even though he clearly saw the cliff, his confidence with him might not be the same for everyone else. After all, how could he expect sincerity from someone he'd only known for a few days? Feng Qi chuckled self-deprecatingly, raising his hand to point to the cliff: "Don't tell me you didn't see that part of the cliff."

Yang Bo glanced at Feng Qi, then at the silent Zhang Lihua, and finally realized what was happening. He had been arguing and bickering with Zhang Lihua the whole way, but he didn't believe Zhang Lihua was the kind of person who would disregard human life. He stood up, patted his sore backside from the stones, and wanted to take a few steps to see what was going on, but worried about falling, so he remained rooted to the spot, peering again and again in the direction Feng Qi was pointing. But there were still lush trees there, and the narrow path stretched into the distance along the varying heights of the mountainside; there was no sign of a cliff.

After craning his neck and looking for a long time, but the scenery hadn't changed at all, Xiao Yang slumped his shoulders in frustration and asked the two who had been silent all along, "You saw a cliff? Why didn't I see anything? It's still the same road as before."

Feng Qi stared intently at Zhang Lihua, remaining silent, as if determined not to give up until he had explained everything clearly. Zhang Lihua sighed softly and said helplessly, "Fine, I'll tell you everything."

Chapter Four: The Wood Witch

(Four)

"Feng Qi, I told you about the water witch of Zhicheng last night. You haven't forgotten in just one night, have you?"

"What? What funny things did you guys talk about while I was sleeping last night?" Xiao Yang interrupted Zhang Lihua, complaining.

Feng Qi raised an eyebrow. Ever since meeting Zhang Lihua, not a single word he had said had been credible. Before going up the mountain, he had lured the two of them up under the pretense of digging up graves to find treasure; last night, he had recounted the past of the water witch of Zhicheng, claiming that his trip up the mountain was driven by curiosity. Now, let's see how he explains this bizarre situation.

"Did you know that besides the water sorcerer, there are four other types of 'sorcerers' in this world?" Zhang Lihua saw the fleeting look of surprise on Feng Qi's face and knew that his guess was correct. He continued, "No wonder, the chances of encountering a sorcerer are already rare. Zhicheng is located at the confluence of two rivers, and it is humid and rainy, which has always been favored by water sorcerers. As for the other sorcerers, the 'wind sorcerers,' 'earth sorcerers,' 'fire sorcerers,' and 'wood sorcerers,' they each have their own gathering places." After a pause, Zhang Lihua smiled helplessly, "I am a member of the wood sorcerers, and I possess the power to manipulate plants and trees."

"Wooden witch? You also use power to take people's lives for profit? You made it sound nice before, but in the end, witches are just anomalies." Feng Qi frowned deeply. He had always been prejudiced against Yu Ye, and when he heard that the man in front of him was also a "witch," his tone became sharp and sarcastic.