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"I'll stop here; this isn't the way you two can go." Standing by the bridge, Qianqian smiled and bowed goodbye, just like when we first met in the reflected sunlight. With mixed feelings, we watched her slender yet strong figure disappear across the bridge of light…

"Lantern!" Icefin suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to return Qianqian's lantern. When he reached out, he was surprised to find that the pleated lantern was nowhere to be found. Only a deep purple gentian flower lay quietly in the pale ashes of his palm...

“The necromancer never lies, and she didn’t break her promise until the very end.” Icefin buried her face in the hands holding the flower. “As promised, she granted the happiness of the one she loved most…”

Amidst the drifting ashes, I softly reveal a lonely smile. Should I tell Icefin that the gentian flower symbolizes—a solitary love, and—love for your sorrowful heart…?

over

Tian Shi Zi

...And so the Heavenly Lion descended from the sky on a thunderous roar...

At that moment, lucidity, like sharp scissors, abruptly severed my already shallow dream. The bumpy train carriage...

Inside, sitting in the front passenger seat, my cousin Icefin, who is a month younger than me, turned around and asked, "Firewing, had a nightmare?"

I couldn't remember the dream I just had as soon as I opened my eyes... I shook my head and turned my gaze to the car window. Although it was just past noon, the mountain road through the towering trees was still very dark. The driver was Bingqi's father, my uncle Chonghua. My family had to repair the roof of our ancestral home before the typhoons started to increase in August. However, the old ladder was broken, and the ladders sold in the store were not tall enough to reach the height of the old house. So my uncle contacted distant relatives in the mountains of a neighboring province, rented a small truck, and went there to pick up some tall bamboo to make the ladder himself.

"I went there when I was a kid! That Lion Village was incredibly beautiful!" Uncle Chonghua encouraged Bingqi and me to go with him during our summer vacation. "Besides, the village is going to be abandoned soon and turned into a reservoir. If we don't go, it'll be gone!"

So we came, without considering that Uncle Chonghua, who's a bit slow-witted, didn't know the way at all. The car has been bouncing along this unfamiliar, rugged mountain road since early morning. I sighed and sank into my seat. It's strange... Mountains and forests should be places brimming with spiritual energy, but this place is unexpectedly quiet. There are no wandering spirits, no wood spirits, no demons; it's as peaceful as if it were dead...

"Did you hear anything, Firewing..." Icefin in the front seat suddenly asked. I stuck my head out of the car window, and a slightly damp breeze carried a faint, scattered sound, like fine snowflakes falling between my fingers in winter—the cool whispers of countless tiny bells, chattering incessantly against my eardrums. I asked Icefin, "Is that a bell?"

"A bell? I can't hear it!" Uncle Chonghua laughed. "But there's a huge string of bells hanging outside the Lion Village chief's house, so it seems we're on the right track! Since you can hear it, please give us directions!"

Things can't be that simple. Inheriting the abilities of my grandfather who passed away long ago, Icefin and I have eyes that can see those things. Unlike me, who can only hear sounds from tangible objects, Icefin can even hear sounds from that world. But if we can hear them while Uncle can't, then those sounds must be abnormal.

The sound of bells, seemingly coming from nowhere, grew closer. Behind the lush green valley, a few houses with white walls and black tiles peeked out, sparsely arranged like casual brushstrokes. Icefin and I exchanged a glance: this village wasn't small, but something was off. We couldn't quite put our finger on it; perhaps… it was too quiet, too clean. Then Uncle Chonghua exclaimed cheerfully, “We're here! Nothing's changed!” He drove without slowing down along the narrow earthen embankment straight to a house. Although the house was old and worn like the others in the village, it was exceptionally grand. A huge, dazzling flame hung from the double eaves, revealing the beautiful wood grain—a huge string of bells. If we weren't mistaken, this was the home of the Lion Village chief.

"You're here! Second Brother Chonghua." A middle-aged man came out of the old house. Judging from the address, he should be younger than Uncle, but he looked much older. He politely led us inside. The house was clean and spacious, but the ringing of the bell was extremely loud. "So noisy..." Icefin rubbed his forehead and leaned back in his chair with difficulty. Although it was cooler in the mountains, the constant ringing of the bell was really unpleasant. I fanned Icefin: "It's really noisy in there..."

Uncle Chonghua didn't care at all, he just kept asking the village chief where to find good bamboo, but as soon as the village chief heard Bingqi's complaint, his eyes changed immediately. He hesitated and looked at us, and finally couldn't help but ask: "These two... are they from my second brother's family?"

Uncle then realized his oversight: "Oh dear, I forgot—the older one belongs to Brother Konghua's family, this one is my son!" He rubbed Icefin's slightly brownish hair.

The village chief suddenly became unexpectedly enthusiastic: "I remember you and Brother Konghua are twins, right? Here, twins are counted as one person, so these two are just separated by water but not mountains!" What kind of talk is that!

"Isn't Shi Hu about the same age as yours?" the uncle asked, referring to the village chief's only son. "Didn't he come home for summer vacation? Why haven't I seen him?"

"He just went out!" The village chief seemed less interested in talking about his children and quickly changed the subject. "Our village is holding a festival these days, so why don't we let the children stay and play?"

"Great! Great!" Uncle seemed even more enthusiastic about the invitation than we were.

"Why not borrow the joy of our relatives and have your young master perform a lion dance to pray for blessings during the festival?" The village chief's attitude was getting a bit too demanding.

"No problem!" Uncle readily agreed, while Icefin complained, "Dad, who knows how to do a lion dance?"

"It's not difficult, not difficult at all! All you have to do is put on the lion dance costume and follow the bells, the ones in front of the door!" The village chief's attention was completely focused on us. "Both young masters... can you 'hear' them, right?"

I immediately turned my face away, my expression turning grim. Icefin knew things were going badly, so she suppressed a laugh and explained, "This is my cousin!"

To avoid getting entangled with those things, neither Icefin nor I have grown our hair long. In addition, we were raised with our genders hidden by our grandfather when we were young, so even today we are used to wearing the same clothes as when we were little. Even if I am not wearing a skirt now, you can't treat me like a boy!

The village chief, however, breathed a sigh of relief, showing no intention of apologizing. Instead, he appeared quite relieved: "I was still wondering which young master would be good enough to perform the lion dance. If it's a girl, then we don't need to consider it!" What kind of family is this? Don't they know anything about manners?!

As if reassured, the village chief contentedly led his uncle to the back mountain to select bamboo. Living here was a nightmare; couldn't anyone in the house hear the blaring bell? Icefin and I took a bath, changed into homespun, leaf-colored shirts woven by the villagers, and immediately fled outside. The bell shouldn't be ringing so loudly on the path lined with wildflowers, sounding almost like an interrogation.

"What festival?" I kicked at a pebble on the roadside. "I've never heard of lion dances in July, it's not like it's New Year's!"

Icefin's complexion hadn't recovered yet. He nodded and said, "It seems that the lion dance is the most important part of this festival. Even if the customs in the deep mountains are a bit strange, it shouldn't be an outsider who presides over the ceremony. Also, Firewing, did you hear their criteria for selecting lion dancers?"

I rested my chin on a round fan painted with pampas grass and fireflies: "He seemed to say that we can all 'hear' the sound of the bells... Does that mean that not everyone can hear them, and only those who can hear them can perform lion dances?"

“That’s why it’s strange…” Icefin lowered his head. “The blessing festival is coming soon, but there’s no festive atmosphere in the village at all.”

I forced a smile: "It's probably a rather solemn festival..." Dim sunlight filtered through the dense foliage, tracing the delicate outlines of the azure morning glories with fine, golden-gray lines; dusk was approaching. The forest path, hidden beneath the ornate leaves of the peacock ferns, led us past a reclining, decaying log, and a velvety tundra unfolded before us—moist, lush, verdant, and with a softness that could be felt even to the eye. Indeed, only the rainy forests of the south could nurture such exquisite moss!

"This is terrible!" I exclaimed in surprise, dropping my fan in the process. "I'll have to dig some up and take it back to spread in the courtyard!" Watching me stagger onto the tundra, Icefin sighed helplessly, "Look at all the footprints you've left! Be careful!"

The moss is really slippery; if you're not careful...

"If you're not careful, you'll fall in!" a strange voice rang out from behind. "That's how many people fall into the Thunder Abyss."

Icefin and I turned around simultaneously. Standing at the edge of the tundra was a boy about our age. For a moment, I felt a dizzying sensation, as if I were staring directly into the midday summer sun. With a bright smile, the boy pointed ahead—because of the terrain, newcomers would never notice that beneath the smooth moss lay a deep pool! The pool resembled the gaping maw of hell, its dark water seemingly frozen. This pool gave off… a very unsettling feeling! Although there was nothing around, it was still terrifying.

My face turned pale with fright, and I stumbled back to Icefin's side, thanking the boy profusely. The boy responded with a hearty laugh.

"Oh right, you must be Shi Hu!" Suddenly remembering the village chief's son, who was about our age, I blurted out. Icefin coughed lightly to remind me to be polite.

"Shi Hu!" The boy paused slightly, then burst into laughter. "Yes, yes, that's me!" What luck! I guessed right! Even Shi Hu himself was surprised! "So you're the ones who will be performing the lion dance!" Shi Hu frankly sized us up. "Honestly, you can't just hire girls to perform the lion dance!" This time it was Ice Fin's turn to get angry. He was indeed a bit too delicate-looking and was often mistaken for a girl. I desperately held back my laughter: "The one who's going to perform the lion dance is this guy, my cousin!"

"I knew it!" Shi Hu's reaction was almost identical to the village chief's—they really were family! But he seemed very approachable, so we asked him about the festival. "This festival... well, it hasn't been held for decades," Shi Hu waved his hand dismissively. "They say when people first settled here, evil spirits in the mountains devoured human souls, so the mountain people prayed to the heavens for protection... and then the Heavenly Lion descended from the sky on a thunderbolt..." The boy's words... they sounded so familiar...

“Tian Shi Zi…” The fragments of that dream on the mountain road, reflecting the light of Shi Hu’s language, began to flicker again in my mind…

“Yes, this festival is called the Heavenly Lion Festival! It’s held right here on this tundra.” Shi Hu nodded. “The deep pool you almost fell into was formed by lightning when the Heavenly Lion descended, so it’s called Thunder Abyss! The evil spirits of the mountains and forests are sealed there!”

No wonder I found that deep pool incredibly treacherous!

"The mountains are dangerous at night!" Shi Hu pointed in a direction. "You should go back. Don't look to either side of the road. That's the rule in our mountains!" The wind whistled through the treetops. It was already dark.

"And you?" Icefin asked, unusually speaking.

"Me?" Shi Hu laughed and turned to Lei Yuan. "I have something to do!" From a certain angle, his eyes looked somewhat strange; his pupils looked like warm, lustrous topaz.

"See you tonight!" I pulled Icefin along and started our journey home. The visibility in the forest was poor, but the path wasn't difficult. Soon, the sound of a bell drifted over, growing louder and louder until we saw the village chief's house. Just as we stepped inside, a hand braced itself against the doorframe, blocking our way.

"Go back to the city! This is not a place for you!" We were met with a stern rebuke. "Don't even think about interfering in the festival!"

In the dim light, I could make out that the person who had been cursing us was a young boy. His face, with its ruggedness typical of the mountains and forests, held an incongruous gloomy expression, perhaps because of his unfathomable black eyes. "Shi Hu! This young master is the high priest! Such rudeness, I'll lock you up!" The village chief's scolding came from amidst the clatter of bells, and we clearly heard him calling out to the boy—Shi Hu.

Icefin and I exchanged bewildered glances—was he Shihu? If he was Shihu, then who was that… the one we met in the forest?

The bell rang loudly. Shi Hu glared angrily at the bell under the eaves, reluctantly withdrew his hand, and followed us into the main house. In the lamplight, he appeared to be a composed young man.

"Where's my dad?" Icefin asked immediately when she noticed that Uncle Chonghua wasn't in the house.

The village chief laughed: "My second brother cut down too much bamboo and couldn't carry it all with him, so he's staying at the hunting lodge in the forest!"

"What! You're letting Dad live alone on the mountain!" Icefin, unusually, lost his self-control.

"Don't worry, it's very safe there, High Priest!" The village chief's respectful address to Icefin carried a hint of malice. "You just need to focus on your lion dance. Tomorrow, after the festival, as soon as everyone in the village has some free time, they can go up the mountain to help him transport bamboo down!"

Something's not right! If Uncle doesn't come back, we'll have to stay in the village forever! Are they really that afraid we'll leave before the festival ends? I shouted, "Are you forcing people to participate in this Heavenly Lion Festival?!"

In an instant, the village chief's expression changed. He pushed back his chair and moved closer to me: "What did you say! The Heavenly Lion Festival! Who told you that!"

I was intimidated by his madness: "The villagers...the other people in the village said it..."

"Liar!" the village chief roared. "No one in this village except my family knows the name 'Heavenly Lion Festival'! Who did you meet? What did he say to you! Tell the truth!" The man approached step by step, almost crazed...

Suddenly, amidst the chaotic and rapid ringing of the bell, a heart-wrenching cry pierced my eardrums...

The village chief stopped what he was doing. He glanced back at his only son, Shi Hu, with a hint of fear. The gloomy mountain boy narrowed his long, narrow eyes with a calm composure: "It's started again... the curse of the Heavenly Lion... it will never forgive us for abandoning the village to build the reservoir..."

"It really won't let us leave!" the village chief muttered brokenly. "It really is going to kill everyone!" A sudden, urgent knocking on the door rang out. Outside, someone cursed the village chief for arbitrarily deciding to abolish the village, and cried out that someone in their family had fallen ill as a result, collapsing to the ground.

"I'll go take a look..." The village chief hurriedly put on his coat and instructed Shi Hu, "Keep an eye on them, don't let them escape!" With a sharp sense of foreboding, Bingqi and I watched the village chief's figure disappear into the pure and dark night of Lion Village.

Shi Hu sneered and crossed his arms: "You...you've been to Thunder Abyss, haven't you!" He pointed to my shoes—still covered in the moss of the tundra—"You saw him, didn't you—that Heavenly Lion!"

...Beside Lei Yuan, we only saw that cheerful, sunny young man. He wasn't a spirit, because I could hear his voice; and he didn't give off any monster vibes. He was completely like a human, even more approachable and warm than a human. Could he be... the Heavenly Lion?

“This Lion Dance Festival… it’s a sacrificial ceremony, isn’t it!” Icefin calmly looked at Shihu. “To put it bluntly, it’s a blood sacrifice made with people!” Shihu gave us a cold glance. Icefin was fearless: “I found it strange from the beginning: it’s supposed to be a lion dance for blessings, but there’s not a sound of anyone practicing instruments in the whole village, not even the sound of gongs and drums!”

“Yes! The festival is being held on such slippery tundra. The lion dancers, guided by the bells, could easily fall into the Thunder Abyss! Isn’t it dangerous that the chief priest is an outsider?” I questioned as well.

"This festival is meant to lure the lion dancers into the Thunder Abyss! Lions are bloodthirsty animals, and to quell the curse of the Heavenly Lion, human lives are needed!" Icefin stared at Shi Hu. "Although I don't understand the details, if I'm not mistaken, Shi Hu, you can hear the bells too! This time, the sacrifice—should have been you!"

A cold smile spread from Shi Hu's eyes: "Yes, if you hadn't come, I would have been the one to go to Tian Shi Zi's place."

At that moment, I hesitated. If the boy on the tundra only wanted human lives, why did he warn me of the danger ahead? I simply couldn't reconcile that cheerful boy with a bloodthirsty demon; besides, legend had it that he descended to earth as a protector! I muttered to myself, "I don't think the Celestial Lion could be that ferocious..."

"Firewing!" Icefin scolded me, "This mountain doesn't even have a single demon, yet it doesn't give off a clean feeling at all, precisely because there's something powerful here!" Indeed, the boy's presence was excessively strong!

"That doesn't mean it's evil!" I retorted. "It did save me, after all!"

Icefin sneered: "Whether that boy is good or evil, didn't you see his eyes? They're topaz eyes, like a lion's!"

"A young man?" Shi Hu narrowed his long, phoenix-shaped eyes. "The young man you encountered at the Thunder Abyss?"

"Yes! What else would you suggest?"

"The Heavenly Lion I'm talking about is... the giant rock by the Thunder Abyss—a giant rock shaped like a lion!" Shi Hu revealed an inscrutable expression.

“No!” I was puzzled. “Are there any giant rocks near Thunder Abyss?” Icefin shook his head, indicating that he hadn’t seen what Shi Hu was talking about either.

In an instant, Shi Hu's stern gaze changed, and he even looked somewhat warm. "Come with me!"

Standing beneath the enormous string of bells at the entrance, the round bells shimmered with a faint golden light in the night. "Look closely!" Shi Hu whispered. Bingqi and I leaned closer to the string of bells, which almost touched the ground. In the hazy light, we were astonished to discover—none of the bells had the tiny bead that makes the sound! No wonder ordinary people couldn't hear the supposed ringing! These weren't bells that could produce sound at all!

I murmured to myself, "What exactly was that sound we were hearing?"

"It's here!" Shi Hu pointed into the darkness. In the distant, indistinct outlines of the trees, a tiny golden light slowly drifted closer. It wasn't a firefly; though equally small, it shone with a far more brilliant light! This faint light meandered closer and disappeared into the string of overlapping golden bells right before our eyes.

“The patient in that family just passed away!” Shi Hu sneered. “Do you understand now? These bells are the transformations of those who were taken away by the curse of the Heavenly Lion. The sound of the bells is the lament of those souls who could not ascend to heaven!”

Amidst our shocked expressions, Shi Hu slowly reached out, grabbed Bingqi's hair, and pulled him close: "...Run away..."

Where could we escape to? But when we came to our senses, we were already running away. Why was the mountain forest so quiet at night? Like a stuffy canister! A few insect sounds, a night bird, or even a wild beast wouldn't matter—it was this deathly silence that was truly unbearable!

In the chaos, I slipped and fell. Icefin, while helping me up, picked up a round object—it wasn't the shape of a natural object! In the pitch-black jungle, by touch, we determined it was a fan. If we weren't mistaken, the fan should be decorated with reeds and fireflies—it was the fan I'd left on the tundra by Thunder Abyss! This is… Thunder Abyss! Don't move! One wrong step in the darkness and you'll fall into Thunder Abyss!

Only then did we remember that we had disobeyed the boy's advice—when walking in the mountains at night, you must never look to either side of the road!

Suddenly, our vision was illuminated by a soft golden light. The delicate sound of bells spread out like vines, and the huge string of bells seemed to swim across the boundless darkness, following us! "Thank goodness we didn't escape! Let's begin, the Heavenly Lion Festival..." The village chief's strange voice came from within the sound of the bells. The outline of the lion dance costume was outlined by the fluorescent light, and beneath the lion's head was the village chief's face, filled with uncontrollable ecstasy. "I'm handing you over to the Heavenly Lion!"

"We are not substitutes for your son!" Icefin shouted, blocking my way.

"Oh...you already know? That's not up to you...how could a city kid understand? It's not fair! Our family has always been sacrifices to the Heavenly Lion!" The village chief's eerie smile twisted. "A legend about the Heavenly Lion has always been passed down in this village: In the past, humans could not live in the deep mountains, so my ancestors prayed to the Heavenly Lion in the mountains. The Heavenly Lion blessed us with peace and a bountiful harvest, but the price was that it would devour the souls of the villagers. To escape the lion's jaws, their souls turned into bells, waiting for their chance to ascend to heaven! My family keeps these bells, and each generation's patriarch, in a certain year, when the gates of hell open in July, throws himself into the Thunder Abyss during the Heavenly Lion Festival! While the Heavenly Lion is only concerned with devouring our souls, it allows the souls of the villagers to ascend to heaven!"

In an instant, a breeze swept through my mind... The vanished dream on the mountain path flickered in my heart, not quite the same—the legend of the village chief and the legend of the boy...

“I saw my father devoured by Lei Yuan when I was only two years old! That fear, even at such a young age, is unforgettable…” The village chief took a deep breath. “But later I wasn’t afraid anymore… Who decided that we all had to die… It’s just a legend, isn’t it? Did we live to this day because of the power of the Heavenly Lion? We cleared farmland and built our homes in the mountains ourselves! What Heavenly Lion? It only appears during festivals to take lives! This village willingly supports the demon that is Lei Yuan’s Heavenly Lion! And I have to risk my life for such a village?”

This is getting stranger and stranger... Didn't that boy say that what was sealed in Thunder Abyss was an evil spirit that devoured human souls and was subdued by the Heavenly Lion?

"What Heavenly Lion Festival! I refuse to hold it!" The village chief raised a bell that dragged on the ground. "See this? So many soul bells accumulated since my father's death, making noise every day! But compared to living, what is this noise? I will never be eaten by the Heavenly Lion! Nor will Shi Hu!" The village chief raised the lion dance costume and slowly approached Ice Fin. "I will abandon this village and let the Heavenly Lion sink to the bottom of the water forever! You will be the final sacrifice! Don't be afraid, the sound of this bell will attract the Heavenly Lion, and it will be over in a moment! You will replace my Shi Hu..."

"Do you really think... you can escape?" In the calm voice, another lion appeared... The figure of the boy appeared on the other side of Lei Yuan, behind him was a huge strange rock - a lion-shaped rock.

This stone wasn't there when I came during the day!

"It's... Shi Hu! That's forbidden territory! You'll die there!" The village chief threw down his bell and dancing clothes and ran towards Lei Yuan, wanting to bring back his son who had broken the taboo. He ran so fast that he seemed to have forgotten that this was the tundra, and Lei Yuan was right in front of him...

In the village chief's eyes, did this boy really resemble Shi Hu that much? I clearly saw—he had topaz eyes!