Chapter 648: Chapter 648

“Finally made it to the top.”

“I'm dead tired... even my ancestors must be exhausted...”

Two figures—one in blue and one in white—trudged through the snow-covered mountain path.

“Haha, Mr. Guo, you must be truly worn out to be speaking so crudely!” The man in blue straightened up, looked around, and couldn't help but take a deep breath, exhaling a puff of white mist. “Mount Zunzhe in winter is truly tranquil. Covered in snow, it has a unique charm.”

Beside him, the young man in white, leaning on a wooden staff, was so tired he could barely stand straight. Upon hearing the words, he straightened up with effort and gazed at the surrounding scenery, especially at the looming peak of Mount Zunzhe.

“Seems our luck is good today,” the white-clothed youth said between breaths. “Though Mount Zunzhe isn’t that tall, it’s known for being aloof and steeped in immortal aura. Most of the year, this so-called ‘Venerable One’ is shrouded in mist and clouds. Even if you get close, you may not catch a glimpse of his face.”

“But if one were to admire this 'Venerable One,’ then it shouldn’t be in completely clear weather either. The ideal is just like today, where the mountain is lightly veiled in wisps of cloud like a gauzy immortal scarf without being fully obscured. That’s the best kind of view.”

“Mr. Guo, your words are spot on!”

“And right at the turn of the new year, we might just be blessed with good fortune all year long.”

“May it bring us early success in the exams!”

“Eh? Mr. Jiang, look!” the man in white suddenly pointed toward the peak of Mount Zunzhe. “Is that a figure sitting at the top?”

“Mr. Guo, you mustn't point so casually! This is a mountain sacred to the immortals. What if you point at a real immortal?”

“Oh, my mistake, my mistake! No offense meant, divine one!” the man in white hastily retracted his hand. “But I really do see what looks like someone sitting up there...”

The man in blue squinted hard, craning his neck in an attempt to see more clearly, but all he could make out were vague shapes and nothing definite.

At best, he could see that the summit was uneven, with protrusions here and there.

As for a person, he really couldn’t say.

“Mr. Guo, you’ve studied so many years and your eyesight’s still that sharp? You can see someone all the way up there from this far?” the man in blue said with a laugh.

“How could I match your late-night study sessions by lamplight?” the man in white replied with a grin, still squinting up at the peak. “But the more I look, the more it really seems like an immortal seated in meditation.”

“Mr. Guo, your eyes must be playing tricks on you. Mount Zunzhe is a place of immortals, and no ordinary soul would dare defile it. Besides, the statue of the ‘Venerable One’ stands at least several dozen zhang tall, and there’s no path leading up. How could anyone possibly climb to the top? Even if it were an immortal sitting up there, this is only early spring! We’re still a long way from mid-April.”

“And the mountain’s draped in mist, how could you see clearly?”

“That’s true... Must be the swirling fog clouding my eyes,” Guo admitted.

“Or maybe you’ve got a stronger fate with immortals than I do,” the man in blue chuckled again. “Either way, I can’t see a thing.”

“Well, I hope it’s an immortal! Hahaha!”

“Whether it’s an immortal or not, if it’s truly a person who climbed to the top of this immortal mountain, they’d have to move at some point. Since we’ll be staying the night on the mountain, we’ll see soon enough whether they move—or whether they’re still there tomorrow.”

“How about we make a wager?”

“What kind of wager?”

“A meal of preserved pork and pigeon pea rice at the foot of the mountain!”

“Alright! Though Jiang here is a bit strapped for cash, I’ve still got enough left from budgeting this trip to afford one meal of preserved pork and pigeon pea rice!”

“Then it’s settled...”

The two of them burst into hearty laughter.

Though indeed quite poor, with beautiful scenery around them, heaven and earth before their eyes, lofty ambition in their hearts, and books and poetry in their minds, they strolled up and down the mountain trails, admiring the view and chatting, gathering firewood to make a fire, their laughter ringing out loud and clear.

Moments of such joy are rare in the human world.

The man in white, though weaker in stamina, seemed to have sharper eyes. He looked up toward the sky again and said to his friend, “There’s a bird up there. Looks like a swallow.”

“A bird wouldn’t be too surprising, but in this freezing weather, where would a swallow come from?” The man in blue, while tending the fire, took out a few hardened flatbreads they’d bought from down the mountain, which were frozen stiff by now, and threaded them on a wooden stick and placed them over the flames.

“It really does look like a swallow.”

“In the dead of winter, all the insects are hiding underground. If there really was a swallow flying around, it’d have starved by now.”

The man in white frowned slightly, starting to wonder if something was wrong with his eyes, or if perhaps it was a sign of some strange fate tied to the immortals. He also took out a flatbread and skewered it to toast over the fire.

“In this season, with this view... if only we had a few skewers of grilled meat, and a pot of hot wine or tea, how carefree would that be!”

“In times like these, we shouldn't wish for too much. Besides, we're traveling light—just having bread to eat is already a blessing. Let the mountain scenery stand in for the meat, and the biting wind for the wine.”

They weren’t even from well-off families, and they barely qualified as poor scholars. After years of frugal studying, they'd managed to save a little money through selling their calligraphy and paintings, enough to make this trip and lift their spirits. Just having some bread to eat was already a luxury.

And it was all thanks to Swallow Immortal that half of their bread was made from Swallow Potato, the other half from Swallow Rice. The breads were cheap, filling, and quite tasty.

“Swallow Immortal?” The man in white blinked in surprise.

“Mr. Guo, you're exhausted, aren't you?”

“Wait! Mr. Jiang, look! Over there, there’s a cat. A calico! And what a beautiful one!”

“Mr. Guo, you’re really seeing things up here. There might be wild cats on the mountain, sure, but what kind of beautiful cali… Wait, that is one!”

Both of them sat in front of the fire, holding out their bread skewers, and turned their heads in the same direction.

By a cluster of thorny bushes on the mountainside sat a long-haired calico cat. It was poised and perfectly still while staring right at them.

“Told you, didn’t I?”

“What a gorgeous cat! So clean!”

“Probably came up the mountain with a visitor. Cats are wild-natured, it probably slipped away and got lost.” The man in white reasoned, then shook his head with a sigh. “Snow and ice all over the mountain... for a cat to survive here on its own… What a hard life.”

“Mr. Jiang! That’s how you call a dog! You’ve got to do it like me...”

The man in white reached out his hand and called softly, “Mew mew mew...”

The calico cat remained sitting upright, still staring at them. She even tilted her head slightly, a flicker of confusion in her eyes.

“Looks like she’s not too friendly,” he said, then lifted his stick and broke off a small piece from the roasted Swallow Rice flatbread. It was golden yellow, quite appealing, and now nicely warmed by the fire, releasing the sweet aroma of millet and lard.

The piece of flatbread was tossed toward the cat.

She was rather bold. The flatbread arced through the air and landed by her paws, rolling over twice, but she didn’t flinch or bolt. Her eyes simply followed its movement as it flew and fell, raising and lowering her head accordingly. When it stopped moving, she lowered her head to stare at it, the confusion in her eyes deepening.

Then she lifted her head again and tilted it to one side, staring back at the two men.

“It’s edible! It tastes great!”

“This is celestial grain gifted to the mortal realm by the Swallow Immortal!”

“It’s good for you! If you don’t eat, you’ll starve!”

The two of them took turns coaxing, half-trying to persuade her, half just amusing themselves out of boredom in the mountain wilderness.

But the cat simply kept tilting her head further and further with each thing they said, her expression growing ever more puzzled, so much so that even an ordinary person could tell just how confused she was.

Then, without warning, she stood up and began to walk away, leaving the two men quite perplexed.

“This cat’s a little strange...”

“She really is… almost too beautiful and lively. And those eyes, they look like she could speak.”

“This is deep in the mountains, and it’s just the two of us here today. Mr. Jiang, tell me...”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Guo! We conduct ourselves with integrity, our actions are clear and our hearts are sincere. Even if a demon or ghost did appear before us, what is there to fear? Besides, this is a mortal realm’s immortal mountain. Over the years, who knows how many people have encountered immortals here? Even if some beast or plant spirit did become sentient in these mountains, it would never dare harm the innocent!”

“Well said… Wait, the cat’s coming back!”

The two men watched as the calico cat came trotting back, her tiny paws padding lightly and briskly.

The man in white, who indeed had sharper eyes, was the first to notice that the cat had something in her mouth.

It was dark green, with antennae and legs. It was quite odd.

When the cat got closer, at least closer than before, she stopped on the other side of the fire pit, less than a zhang away from them. She lowered her head and placed the object down.

Only then did they see it clearly that it was a large shrimp, about the size of a human hand!

And judging by its appearance, it wasn’t a freshwater shrimp; it looked like a sea shrimp!

The two men turned to look at each other, utterly baffled. This place was at least a thousand li from the sea.

Just then, the cat looked up at them, then back down at the shrimp. She reached out a paw, gently nudged the shrimp a bit closer to them, then lifted her head and stared at them again.

The cat then made a sound back at them. “Tsk tsk tsk...”

Lady Calico, having had her fun teasing the two mortals, watched as their confusion grew. They wondered how seafood had appeared on a snow-covered mountain, and were beginning to realize that this cat was no ordinary creature. When they tried to speak to her, she tilted her head with a deadpan seriousness, pretending not to understand.

And when they tried to follow her to find out where this strange cat was hiding her stash of seafood, she darted into the forest and vanished like a streak of smoke.

In the distance, the sound of the two men’s bewildered chatter still floated on the wind. It had already faded to almost nothing to a human ear, but the cat could still hear them perfectly clearly.

Deeper in the forest, soft whispers of little monsters could be heard.

“It’s only been a few days, there’s still plenty of time. Don’t you want to go play by the sea?” the swallow asked the cat.

“I will stay right here.”

“Mr. Song doesn’t really need us guarding him.”

“They’ve started roasting the sea shrimp you gave them. They seem pretty brave.”

“Lady Calico, don’t go scaring them too badly.”

“I’m going to bring them a sea snail next, and go tsk tsk tsk at them again.”

It was already the New Year of the eighth year of Da'an.

The two men in blue and white never did see that figure on the peak of Mount Zunzhe move or disappear. Shrouded in mist and clouds, and viewed from afar, it was only natural for them to assume it had just been a rock outcropping vaguely shaped like a person.

In the end, the man in white lost the bet.

Early the next morning, the two of them loudly thanked the cat in the mountain, then—with her watching from a distance—grabbed their walking sticks and descended the mountain, likely headed toward a hot meal of cured pork and pea rice waiting for them below.

Such is the coming and going of people in the mountains.

And just a few days later, it stopped snowing on Mount Zunzhe altogether.

At the border between Yaozhou and Langzhou, the climate was relatively mild. After several consecutive days of clear skies, the spring breeze began to blow from the east. Even atop Mount Zunzhe, the vegetation was already beginning to bud.

More and more people began hiking up the mountain. Read full story at novel-fire.net

Where once only one or two people might reach the summit in a day—sometimes none at all—that number gradually grew to three or four, then five or six.

Lady Calico spent her days cultivating and frolicking through the mountains, perfectly content. Just like many years ago when she lived alone, she was more than capable of taking good care of herself. Each afternoon, when she had free time, she would run to the open clearings along the trails where visitors often stopped to rest, seeking them out to play and tease them. It added quite a bit of color to her days.

For several days in a row, those ascending and descending the mountain spread a tale, saying that there was a spiritual cat on the mountain, full of intelligence and charm. She would often carry seafood from who-knew-where and offer it to the hikers in the mountains, chirping out a strange “tsk tsk tsk” sound as she did so. While the recipients were still in shock and confusion, she would disappear, lurking in the forest and watching them from the shadows.

And within the heavens and earth, a strange mystery lingered.

This mystery seemed to emanate from the “Revered One“ at the front of the mountain, yet at the same time from somewhere unseen, intangible, and ever-shifting, or perhaps it came from the mountain itself. Naturally, ordinary people coming and going on the mountain couldn’t sense such things, but if anyone did, they would surely be considered someone with a rare spiritual root and innate affinity for cultivation.

Then, one day, the spiritual resonance surged forward in full force. The heavens and earth subtly shifted, though everything appeared unchanged on the surface.

At least, to the naked eye, nothing was visible. But the path to the heavens had been altered.

From that day on, this place would only allow mortals to ascend to the heavens. The Heavenly Palace could no longer use this place to descend beams of divine light, nor could they leak out celestial energy to bestow incense offerings, or aid divine spirits in pre-forming their sacred bodies and divine forms.

The authority to bestow godhood returned to the mortal realm. It was no longer in the hands of the Celestial Emperor.

Atop Mount Zunzhe, the Daoist finally opened his eyes. His first glance was upward toward the heavens.

The Heavenly Palace, no doubt, had already been shaken.