Chapter 81: Ghost Festival
"So, was Earth created?" Jiang Hong asked curiously, while attentively driving.
Lu Xiu said, "I'm not sure, but that's what everyone believes. 'Everyone' being exorcists."
"Who created the Earth?" Jiang Hong asked further.
Lu Xiu, almost like a different person when answering Jiang Hong's questions, spoke with a seriousness befitting a teacher, and his words became much more precise.
"You can think of 'It' as the creator god," Lu Xiu said, "What do we call 'It' in Chinese culture?"
"Pangu!" Jiang Hong immediately remembered the distant name.
"Correct," Lu Xiu nodded, "What does the archway at the entrance of the Demon Association say?"
"Transformed into all things," Jiang Hong still remembered.
In the chaos like an egg, Pangu separated heaven and earth, and after forty-eight thousand years, when heaven and earth were formed, his head became the mountains, his eyes the sun and moon, his breath the wind, his voice the thunder, and his body transformed into all things.
Jiang Hong said, "But these are all legends, aren't they? Exorcism history doesn't mention it, has anyone ever proven the existence of Pangu?"
Lu Xiu said, "There wasn't any proof before, but now, there might be something that can prove Pangu's existence."
Jiang Hong asked, "What is it?"
Lu Xiu: "The Book of All Things."
Jiang Hong: "Right!"
The Book of All Things is like the backstage of the world. If its pieces come together as Chen Lang mentioned, it might indeed unravel the mystery of creation.
Jiang Hong: "But paleontology tells us that Earth formed naturally, and life originated from the aggregation of amino acids into large molecules. This conflicts with the idea of a creator god. And if Pangu created the world, who created him?"
Lu Xiu said, "The 'Primordial Soup' theory is just a hypothesis and doesn't conflict with the theory of divine creation."
"Oh, you know about the 'Primordial Soup'!" Jiang Hong exclaimed.
"Focus on driving, look ahead. Do you want some water?" Lu Xiu opened the cola and handed it to Jiang Hong.
The 'Primordial Soup' theory proposed by paleontologists suggests that Earth was originally an ocean. Under thunder and lightning, nitrogen reacted with small molecules in the ocean to form amino acids and other large molecules, which gradually aggregated to form simple cells. However, this theory still can't fully explain the evolution of life.
"I was once interested in the origins of the world," Lu Xiu said, "so I read many books in university libraries."
Jiang Hong said, "You must have wanted to know why you exist, right?"
Lu Xiu: "Not just myself, but also this complex world."
Jiang Hong found that when discussing such topics with Lu Xiu, he exuded a different aura, full of wisdom and intellect. Despite his youthful appearance, his knowledge seemed as vast and deep as an ocean, accumulated over his long life.
If there were a blackboard in front of them at this moment, Lu Xiu would stand up and start writing and drawing on it.
"There's another theory," Lu Xiu said, "suggesting that planets in the process of solidification need a 'core' to attract cosmic dust through gravity. Have you heard of this hypothesis?"
Jiang Hong said, "I think I've heard of it, what's it called?"
Lu Xiu explained, "This 'core' is called a 'Star Seed'."
"Oh right, right!" Jiang Hong remembered from his extracurricular readings, the term "Star Seed" seemed very fitting.
Lu Xiu said, "You could also understand it as Pangu being the Earth's 'Star Seed'."
"If Pangu created the Earth," Jiang Hong asked, "then who created our universe?"
Lu Xiu didn't answer directly. After thinking for a while, he said, "Hinduism believes that Vishnu floats and sleeps in the cosmic ocean, and all beings and things are part of His dream."
"That's quite beautiful," Jiang Hong remarked, "But still, no one has answered who created the universe."
Lu Xiu suggested, "Maybe you'll come to a conclusion someday?"
Jiang Hong: "That's giving me too much credit..."
Lu Xiu: "It's normal for people to be curious about creation and origins. Sometimes I even suspect the principal and his wife, in their time travels, originally went to investigate Mars and got sidetracked along the way, which is why they haven't returned."
"Where did they go?" For the first time, Jiang Hong directly inquired about the whereabouts of the elusive principal, not even knowing what he went to do.
"Anjie brought news," Lu Xiu said, "about the origin of demons and an unsolved mystery in the universe. I'm not clear on the details, but the principal and Chi Xiaoduo, with Anjie's help, traveled through time. Where they went, no one knows. When they'll return, there's no decision yet."
Jiang Hong said, "The 'Flashing Disturbance' has already appeared, but they haven't returned."
"Hmm," Lu Xiu responded, "Maybe they went to find a solution to the 'Flashing Disturbance'."
Jiang Hong asked, "Can't you communicate with them?"
Lu Xiu: "Occasionally, but only when he actively sends a signal to me. Using dragon language, I can receive some of their messages."
Jiang Hong then asked, "Did they say where they are?"
Lu Xiu thought for a moment and said, "The last time was near the Qilian Mountains, in a prehistoric era."
Jiang Hong wanted to ask "What did the principal say to you?" but since Lu Xiu hadn't told him at the time, it wasn't his place to ask.
"We're here!" Jiang Hong parked the car at a rest stop. It was a basic facility, mainly for refueling and providing boxed meals to truck drivers, almost desolate.
"Let's spend the night here," Jiang Hong suggested after driving around the small town. With the sun setting and no suitable lodging found, the only comfortable option was to stay in the car. Jiang Hong regretted not staying overnight in Zhangjiakou, where at least there were hotels.
"I'll cook," Lu Xiu said.
The northern summer nights were cool and dry. Old Sun played music on the side. In the twilight, the sunset was like blood in the distance. In the middle of the wilderness, Jiang Hong set up the car awning and arranged a small table and chairs, while Lu Xiu started cooking on a gas stove, clumsily tossing the pan a few times.
Jiang Hong laughed, "Where did you learn that? Last time you could only cook noodles!"
Lu Xiu didn’t answer but glanced at Jiang Hong, who kept asking persistently.
"I learned from Siguai," Lu Xiu said, "He’s planning to start a cooking and home economics class next semester."
Jiang Hong: "Siguai can cook?"
Lu Xiu: "Didn't he bake pastries? You’ve tried them."
The idea of a phoenix cooking seemed fantastical to Jiang Hong. Recalling the pastries in the activity room, he asked, "Where did Siguai learn that?"
Lu Xiu: "He learned from Principal Xiang Cheng. Xiang Cheng is very skilled in cooking."
For Lu Xiu, the most challenging part of cooking was mastering the heat. Jiang Hong, watching on the side, found it amusing and kept saying, "That's enough, it's going to burn if you keep frying it."
"What's so funny?" Lu Xiu met Jiang Hong's gaze, "Is it really that amusing?"
"I'm laughing because you actually learned cooking with Siguai!" Jiang Hong said, "It’s like the sun rising from the west!"
Lu Xiu: "Isn't it to cook for you?"
Lu Xiu’s words came out naturally but also flirtatiously stirred Jiang Hong.
Jiang Hong’s heart fluttered as he carried the dishes over, opened the drinks, and served rice from the rice cooker. Frankly speaking, Lu Xiu’s cooking was quite delicious. Though not as good as Jiang’s mother, it had a familiar taste, like the 'homemade' flavor often mentioned. Perhaps it was because it was made with the intention of feeding family and loved ones?
At the edge of the wilderness, the sun slowly set, replaced by an almost full moon. Initially pale, its light grew brighter as the night fell, illuminating the lonely, quiet land with its pure and sacred glow.
Within tens of miles, there was only their car and the two of them.
Suddenly, Jiang Hong turned to look at Lu Xiu.
Lu Xiu, still lost in thought, gazed at the horizon. At that moment, Jiang Hong felt an impulse to confess his feelings.
"What's wrong?" Lu Xiu asked, puzzled.
"Nothing... nothing," Jiang Hong hesitated, the words on the tip of his tongue unsaid. During this time, his concerns were many: his parents, his relationship with Lu Xiu, their future... Yet whenever he was alone with Lu Xiu, these worries seemed suppressed by another urge. He wanted to break through the fog, to confess, regardless of what might happen.
But each time, he held back at the last moment.
"I must be one of those guys who drives people crazy," Jiang Hong thought self-deprecatingly.
"Tired?" Lu Xiu leaned slightly forward and reached out to touch his head. The gesture comforted Jiang Hong, who yawned like a puppy, going along with it.
"You've been driving all day," Lu Xiu said, "You must be tired. Let's go back to the car to sleep."
The setting sun was just one of countless days and nights in its 4.6 billion years. The next day, Jiang Hong woke up refreshed and continued driving towards Ulanqab on the highway. As they traveled north, the population thinned even further, until they finally saw people again near Jining District.
Every city in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region covers an enormous area, almost half the size of some southern provinces. Often, they would drive for ten minutes without seeing another vehicle, and the roadside lacked cattle and sheep, mostly barren land.
After a brief resupply in Jining, Jiang Hong drove towards the Yinshan scenic area, finding not the expected herds of cattle and sheep or fields of green grass, as pastures were limited to a few areas and there were no roadside stalls selling milk or dairy products, mostly just desolation.
"Today is the Ghost Festival. What might happen?" Jiang Hong occasionally looked outside, observing the afternoon sun. The most significant difference between the Mongolian Plateau and the Yangtze River basin wasn't the desolation, but the strong winds.
The howling wind was everywhere, buzzing in the ears, making it necessary to shout when talking if a little distance from Lu Xiu.
"Don't you celebrate the Ghost Festival?" Lu Xiu asked.
Jiang Hong: "People in Chongqing don't really celebrate it." But he had learned from books that on the Ghost Festival, the so-called "lower dimension" of the ghost realm would temporarily connect with the human world, allowing many spirits to visit their beloved ones on Earth.
Of course, spirits that had already entered the cycle of reincarnation would not appear.
Lu Xiu and Cao Bin mentioned that the lower dimension was just a transit station for reincarnation. Even if the deceased clung to the mortal world, it was futile because, over time, memories would slowly fade away. Without the protection of a physical body, the loss of memory would be even faster.
It didn't take thousands or millions of years; maybe in just five or ten years, most memories of their past lives would be forgotten, including their own identities.
For this reason, Jiang Hong initially speculated that Old Sun's previous incarnation might have been a very old spirit.
"We've arrived," Jiang Hong parked the car halfway up Yinshan. The rest was up to Lu Xiu.
Lu Xiu, wearing sunglasses, just glanced upwards and said, "Let's head to the mountaintop."
This was the backside of the Yinshan scenic area, surrounded by mountains. Legend has it that at the foot of the mountain lay the Chelechuan of 1500 years ago.
"Chelechuan, beneath Yinshan, the sky like a dome, covers all the wild."
But now, looking around, there was only desolation, the sun shining on the bare hills swept by fierce winds.
Jiang Hong, carrying the robot vacuum cleaner, followed Lu Xiu up the mountain. The path was rugged and difficult, and Lu Xiu asked, "Shall I carry you up?"
"Let's not," Jiang Hong said, "I'm afraid we'll be seen again."
Lu Xiu picked up Jiang Hong horizontally, who exclaimed in surprise as he was carried flying to the higher parts of the mountain.
There was a flat area with an altitude survey monument. As the sun began to set, Lu Xiu unpacked the camping bag and started setting up camp and the stove.
Yinshan Mountain is shrouded in many ancient legends, such as the so-called "Passage of the Shadowy Soldiers," "Taiyin Youying," and "Tiangu Eating the Moon" from the "Classic of Mountains and Seas."
On July 15th, as the moon rose, the world seemed solitary. Under the full moon, it almost seemed no different from daytime. The bright moonlight illuminated the earth, casting sharp shadows of mountains and trees even on the wilderness.
"Are those legends true?" Jiang Hong couldn't help but ask.
"What legends?" Lu Xiu countered.
With no signal on the mountaintop, they couldn't use their phones. They made a small hotpot on the stove and engaged in idle chat. Jiang Hong recalled the rumors he'd read in street literature, and after listening, Lu Xiu pondered for a moment before replying, "I don’t know, I haven’t lived long enough, but I do know Yinshan was the site of ancient battlefields spanning several dynasties."
Over a thousand years ago, Yinshan and Chelechuan were to the northern powers what Jingzhou was to the Central Plains - a strategically crucial area. In the era of Lu Quan's dominance, whoever controlled present-day Ulanqab and Jining held the prosperous Hetao region. Countless Han, Xiongnu, and Turkic people perished in battles here.
The moon slowly climbed, and the land lay in silence except for the occasional howling wind.
"What's going to happen later?" Jiang Hong asked curiously.
"What do you think will happen?" Lu Xiu brewed two cups of coffee, handing one to Jiang Hong, and watched him with interest.
Jiang Hong: "There’s no sign of anything right now. Have you ever been to investigate the night of the Ghost Festival in person?"
Could it be that at eleven o’clock at night, the so-called 'witching hour,' ghosts would suddenly emerge and start a party? That would be too bizarre.
"You'll see when the time comes," Lu Xiu said, glancing at Jiang Hong's watch. There was still half an hour until eleven.
Jiang Hong leaned against Lu Xiu, sipping his coffee, sitting cross-legged on the mountaintop, gazing at the vast plains north of Yinshan. In his other hand, he toyed with the Jingguang Liuli he had painstakingly collected light with on their journey.
"It's so beautiful," Jiang Hong said.
The Jingguang Liuli now contained electric light, sunlight, and starlight, these three types of light intermingling and flowing as if alive.
Jiang Hong: "Principal Cao has so many great things. The Ghost King said the Jingguang Liuli is already an antique from over a thousand years ago."
Lu Xiu replied: "He's rich for countless generations, his family indeed has many treasures."
Jiang Hong: "Did his ancestors also have the surname Cao?"
Lu Xiu: "It's been Cao through the generations, but he’s not a blood relative of the Cao family. His great-grandfather was an adopted son of Cao Kun. Later, he inherited a lot of wealth from the great warlords of the past. Tracing further back, there might be a connection."
No wonder, the great warlords of those days must have collected many antiques.
"How many more types of light do you need?" Lu Xiu asked.
"I still need the light of raging fire and the light of the bright moon," Jiang Hong thought for a moment and said, "Then it's pretty much complete. No, it’s enough, because the light of the heart lamp is unattainable."
Lu Xiu: "??"
Lu Xiu seemed to think of something, and Jiang Hong, afraid of revealing too much too soon, quickly tucked the Jingguang Liuli into his pocket.
"Are you planning to forge the Sword of Wisdom?" Lu Xiu looked at Jiang Hong as if seeing him for the first time.
"No... not really," Jiang Hong said awkwardly, "You actually know about this?"
Lu Xiu: "Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, firelight, ghost fire, lightning, heart lamp. The seven great lights of the world, this is..."
Just at that moment, Jiang Hong's watch flipped from 22:59:59 to 23:00:00.
In just that one second, a distant, melodious "dong" of a bell sounded.
"What's that sound?" Jiang Hong immediately looked up toward the source of the sound. The bell seemed to be far off in the distance, yet also as if it were right beside them.
"It's midnight," Lu Xiu said, "Prepare the formation, collect it and run. I don’t know how long I can hold it off."
"What?" Jiang Hong hadn’t yet reacted when a scene that left him dumbstruck unfolded.
It was as if an IMAX screen unfolded before their eyes, and the world suddenly transformed! The moonlight's brightness surged instantly. The bell's toll seemed to awaken the slumbering earth. In a mere second, the wilderness was shrouded in a mysterious fog, followed by a dim glow. The earth, like a waking giant, started to shift, causing tremors and emitting a deep roar!
Jiang Hong: "!!!"
Instinctively retreating, Jiang Hong grabbed Lu Xiu's hand. The fog rose, reaching nearly two hundred meters above the ground, revealing a mirage-like scene akin to celestial palaces, slowly descending from the sky.
"This is the lower dimension," Lu Xiu explained. "From now on, there will be a brief six-hour overlap, until the first rays of dawn..."
"What... what is this?!" Jiang Hong exclaimed.
The sinking mirage revealed red lanterns, and countless ethereal figures emerged from the palaces, each holding empty lanterns, dispersing in all directions.
Meanwhile, numerous figures started to appear on the ground. Ghosts had arrived!
In the past, Jiang Hong would have screamed in fear, but the sheer number of ghosts this night left him completely dumbfounded. If previously seeing a ghost felt like playing an escape room game, now it felt like watching a movie set.
The number of ghosts on the ground kept growing, reaching thousands, even millions. The ethereal figures in the sky, each holding a lantern, gathered faint blue flames. In moments, the flames converged and flew towards hundreds of thousands of empty lanterns in the sky, which then illuminated to guide the way. The ghosts then followed the guiding lights, dispersing in different directions.
Chapter 81: Ghost Festival
"So, was Earth created?" Jiang Hong asked curiously, while attentively driving.
Lu Xiu said, "I'm not sure, but that's what everyone believes. 'Everyone' being exorcists."
"Who created the Earth?" Jiang Hong asked further.
Lu Xiu, almost like a different person when answering Jiang Hong's questions, spoke with a seriousness befitting a teacher, and his words became much more precise.
"You can think of 'It' as the creator god," Lu Xiu said, "What do we call 'It' in Chinese culture?"
"Pangu!" Jiang Hong immediately remembered the distant name.
"Correct," Lu Xiu nodded, "What does the archway at the entrance of the Demon Association say?"
"Transformed into all things," Jiang Hong still remembered.
In the chaos like an egg, Pangu separated heaven and earth, and after forty-eight thousand years, when heaven and earth were formed, his head became the mountains, his eyes the sun and moon, his breath the wind, his voice the thunder, and his body transformed into all things.
Jiang Hong said, "But these are all legends, aren't they? Exorcism history doesn't mention it, has anyone ever proven the existence of Pangu?"
Lu Xiu said, "There wasn't any proof before, but now, there might be something that can prove Pangu's existence."
Jiang Hong asked, "What is it?"
Lu Xiu: "The Book of All Things."
Jiang Hong: "Right!"
The Book of All Things is like the backstage of the world. If its pieces come together as Chen Lang mentioned, it might indeed unravel the mystery of creation.
Jiang Hong: "But paleontology tells us that Earth formed naturally, and life originated from the aggregation of amino acids into large molecules. This conflicts with the idea of a creator god. And if Pangu created the world, who created him?"
Lu Xiu said, "The 'Primordial Soup' theory is just a hypothesis and doesn't conflict with the theory of divine creation."
"Oh, you know about the 'Primordial Soup'!" Jiang Hong exclaimed.
"Focus on driving, look ahead. Do you want some water?" Lu Xiu opened the cola and handed it to Jiang Hong.
The 'Primordial Soup' theory proposed by paleontologists suggests that Earth was originally an ocean. Under thunder and lightning, nitrogen reacted with small molecules in the ocean to form amino acids and other large molecules, which gradually aggregated to form simple cells. However, this theory still can't fully explain the evolution of life.
"I was once interested in the origins of the world," Lu Xiu said, "so I read many books in university libraries."
Jiang Hong said, "You must have wanted to know why you exist, right?"
Lu Xiu: "Not just myself, but also this complex world."
Jiang Hong found that when discussing such topics with Lu Xiu, he exuded a different aura, full of wisdom and intellect. Despite his youthful appearance, his knowledge seemed as vast and deep as an ocean, accumulated over his long life.
If there were a blackboard in front of them at this moment, Lu Xiu would stand up and start writing and drawing on it.
"There's another theory," Lu Xiu said, "suggesting that planets in the process of solidification need a 'core' to attract cosmic dust through gravity. Have you heard of this hypothesis?"
Jiang Hong said, "I think I've heard of it, what's it called?"
Lu Xiu explained, "This 'core' is called a 'Star Seed'."
"Oh right, right!" Jiang Hong remembered from his extracurricular readings, the term "Star Seed" seemed very fitting.
Lu Xiu said, "You could also understand it as Pangu being the Earth's 'Star Seed'."
"If Pangu created the Earth," Jiang Hong asked, "then who created our universe?"
Lu Xiu didn't answer directly. After thinking for a while, he said, "Hinduism believes that Vishnu floats and sleeps in the cosmic ocean, and all beings and things are part of His dream."
"That's quite beautiful," Jiang Hong remarked, "But still, no one has answered who created the universe."
Lu Xiu suggested, "Maybe you'll come to a conclusion someday?"
Jiang Hong: "That's giving me too much credit..."
Lu Xiu: "It's normal for people to be curious about creation and origins. Sometimes I even suspect the principal and his wife, in their time travels, originally went to investigate Mars and got sidetracked along the way, which is why they haven't returned."
"Where did they go?" For the first time, Jiang Hong directly inquired about the whereabouts of the elusive principal, not even knowing what he went to do.
"Anjie brought news," Lu Xiu said, "about the origin of demons and an unsolved mystery in the universe. I'm not clear on the details, but the principal and Chi Xiaoduo, with Anjie's help, traveled through time. Where they went, no one knows. When they'll return, there's no decision yet."
Jiang Hong said, "The 'Flashing Disturbance' has already appeared, but they haven't returned."
"Hmm," Lu Xiu responded, "Maybe they went to find a solution to the 'Flashing Disturbance'."
Jiang Hong asked, "Can't you communicate with them?"
Lu Xiu: "Occasionally, but only when he actively sends a signal to me. Using dragon language, I can receive some of their messages."
Jiang Hong then asked, "Did they say where they are?"
Lu Xiu thought for a moment and said, "The last time was near the Qilian Mountains, in a prehistoric era."
Jiang Hong wanted to ask "What did the principal say to you?" but since Lu Xiu hadn't told him at the time, it wasn't his place to ask.
"We're here!" Jiang Hong parked the car at a rest stop. It was a basic facility, mainly for refueling and providing boxed meals to truck drivers, almost desolate.
"Let's spend the night here," Jiang Hong suggested after driving around the small town. With the sun setting and no suitable lodging found, the only comfortable option was to stay in the car. Jiang Hong regretted not staying overnight in Zhangjiakou, where at least there were hotels.
"I'll cook," Lu Xiu said.
The northern summer nights were cool and dry. Old Sun played music on the side. In the twilight, the sunset was like blood in the distance. In the middle of the wilderness, Jiang Hong set up the car awning and arranged a small table and chairs, while Lu Xiu started cooking on a gas stove, clumsily tossing the pan a few times.
Jiang Hong laughed, "Where did you learn that? Last time you could only cook noodles!"
Lu Xiu didn’t answer but glanced at Jiang Hong, who kept asking persistently.
"I learned from Siguai," Lu Xiu said, "He’s planning to start a cooking and home economics class next semester."
Jiang Hong: "Siguai can cook?"
Lu Xiu: "Didn't he bake pastries? You’ve tried them."
The idea of a phoenix cooking seemed fantastical to Jiang Hong. Recalling the pastries in the activity room, he asked, "Where did Siguai learn that?"
Lu Xiu: "He learned from Principal Xiang Cheng. Xiang Cheng is very skilled in cooking."
For Lu Xiu, the most challenging part of cooking was mastering the heat. Jiang Hong, watching on the side, found it amusing and kept saying, "That's enough, it's going to burn if you keep frying it."
"What's so funny?" Lu Xiu met Jiang Hong's gaze, "Is it really that amusing?"
"I'm laughing because you actually learned cooking with Siguai!" Jiang Hong said, "It’s like the sun rising from the west!"
Lu Xiu: "Isn't it to cook for you?"
Lu Xiu’s words came out naturally but also flirtatiously stirred Jiang Hong.
Jiang Hong’s heart fluttered as he carried the dishes over, opened the drinks, and served rice from the rice cooker. Frankly speaking, Lu Xiu’s cooking was quite delicious. Though not as good as Jiang’s mother, it had a familiar taste, like the 'homemade' flavor often mentioned. Perhaps it was because it was made with the intention of feeding family and loved ones?
At the edge of the wilderness, the sun slowly set, replaced by an almost full moon. Initially pale, its light grew brighter as the night fell, illuminating the lonely, quiet land with its pure and sacred glow.
Within tens of miles, there was only their car and the two of them.
Suddenly, Jiang Hong turned to look at Lu Xiu.
Lu Xiu, still lost in thought, gazed at the horizon. At that moment, Jiang Hong felt an impulse to confess his feelings.
"What's wrong?" Lu Xiu asked, puzzled.
"Nothing... nothing," Jiang Hong hesitated, the words on the tip of his tongue unsaid. During this time, his concerns were many: his parents, his relationship with Lu Xiu, their future... Yet whenever he was alone with Lu Xiu, these worries seemed suppressed by another urge. He wanted to break through the fog, to confess, regardless of what might happen.
But each time, he held back at the last moment.
"I must be one of those guys who drives people crazy," Jiang Hong thought self-deprecatingly.
"Tired?" Lu Xiu leaned slightly forward and reached out to touch his head. The gesture comforted Jiang Hong, who yawned like a puppy, going along with it.
"You've been driving all day," Lu Xiu said, "You must be tired. Let's go back to the car to sleep."
The setting sun was just one of countless days and nights in its 4.6 billion years. The next day, Jiang Hong woke up refreshed and continued driving towards Ulanqab on the highway. As they traveled north, the population thinned even further, until they finally saw people again near Jining District.
Every city in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region covers an enormous area, almost half the size of some southern provinces. Often, they would drive for ten minutes without seeing another vehicle, and the roadside lacked cattle and sheep, mostly barren land.
After a brief resupply in Jining, Jiang Hong drove towards the Yinshan scenic area, finding not the expected herds of cattle and sheep or fields of green grass, as pastures were limited to a few areas and there were no roadside stalls selling milk or dairy products, mostly just desolation.
"Today is the Ghost Festival. What might happen?" Jiang Hong occasionally looked outside, observing the afternoon sun. The most significant difference between the Mongolian Plateau and the Yangtze River basin wasn't the desolation, but the strong winds.
The howling wind was everywhere, buzzing in the ears, making it necessary to shout when talking if a little distance from Lu Xiu.
"Don't you celebrate the Ghost Festival?" Lu Xiu asked.
Jiang Hong: "People in Chongqing don't really celebrate it." But he had learned from books that on the Ghost Festival, the so-called "lower dimension" of the ghost realm would temporarily connect with the human world, allowing many spirits to visit their beloved ones on Earth.
Of course, spirits that had already entered the cycle of reincarnation would not appear.
Lu Xiu and Cao Bin mentioned that the lower dimension was just a transit station for reincarnation. Even if the deceased clung to the mortal world, it was futile because, over time, memories would slowly fade away. Without the protection of a physical body, the loss of memory would be even faster.
It didn't take thousands or millions of years; maybe in just five or ten years, most memories of their past lives would be forgotten, including their own identities.
For this reason, Jiang Hong initially speculated that Old Sun's previous incarnation might have been a very old spirit.
"We've arrived," Jiang Hong parked the car halfway up Yinshan. The rest was up to Lu Xiu.
Lu Xiu, wearing sunglasses, just glanced upwards and said, "Let's head to the mountaintop."
This was the backside of the Yinshan scenic area, surrounded by mountains. Legend has it that at the foot of the mountain lay the Chelechuan of 1500 years ago.
"Chelechuan, beneath Yinshan, the sky like a dome, covers all the wild."
But now, looking around, there was only desolation, the sun shining on the bare hills swept by fierce winds.
Jiang Hong, carrying the robot vacuum cleaner, followed Lu Xiu up the mountain. The path was rugged and difficult, and Lu Xiu asked, "Shall I carry you up?"
"Let's not," Jiang Hong said, "I'm afraid we'll be seen again."
Lu Xiu picked up Jiang Hong horizontally, who exclaimed in surprise as he was carried flying to the higher parts of the mountain.
There was a flat area with an altitude survey monument. As the sun began to set, Lu Xiu unpacked the camping bag and started setting up camp and the stove.
Yinshan Mountain is shrouded in many ancient legends, such as the so-called "Passage of the Shadowy Soldiers," "Taiyin Youying," and "Tiangu Eating the Moon" from the "Classic of Mountains and Seas."
On July 15th, as the moon rose, the world seemed solitary. Under the full moon, it almost seemed no different from daytime. The bright moonlight illuminated the earth, casting sharp shadows of mountains and trees even on the wilderness.
"Are those legends true?" Jiang Hong couldn't help but ask.
"What legends?" Lu Xiu countered.
With no signal on the mountaintop, they couldn't use their phones. They made a small hotpot on the stove and engaged in idle chat. Jiang Hong recalled the rumors he'd read in street literature, and after listening, Lu Xiu pondered for a moment before replying, "I don’t know, I haven’t lived long enough, but I do know Yinshan was the site of ancient battlefields spanning several dynasties."
Over a thousand years ago, Yinshan and Chelechuan were to the northern powers what Jingzhou was to the Central Plains - a strategically crucial area. In the era of Lu Quan's dominance, whoever controlled present-day Ulanqab and Jining held the prosperous Hetao region. Countless Han, Xiongnu, and Turkic people perished in battles here.
The moon slowly climbed, and the land lay in silence except for the occasional howling wind.
"What's going to happen later?" Jiang Hong asked curiously.
"What do you think will happen?" Lu Xiu brewed two cups of coffee, handing one to Jiang Hong, and watched him with interest.
Jiang Hong: "There’s no sign of anything right now. Have you ever been to investigate the night of the Ghost Festival in person?"
Could it be that at eleven o’clock at night, the so-called 'witching hour,' ghosts would suddenly emerge and start a party? That would be too bizarre.
"You'll see when the time comes," Lu Xiu said, glancing at Jiang Hong's watch. There was still half an hour until eleven.
Jiang Hong leaned against Lu Xiu, sipping his coffee, sitting cross-legged on the mountaintop, gazing at the vast plains north of Yinshan. In his other hand, he toyed with the Jingguang Liuli he had painstakingly collected light with on their journey.
"It's so beautiful," Jiang Hong said.
The Jingguang Liuli now contained electric light, sunlight, and starlight, these three types of light intermingling and flowing as if alive.
Jiang Hong: "Principal Cao has so many great things. The Ghost King said the Jingguang Liuli is already an antique from over a thousand years ago."
Lu Xiu replied: "He's rich for countless generations, his family indeed has many treasures."
Jiang Hong: "Did his ancestors also have the surname Cao?"
Lu Xiu: "It's been Cao through the generations, but he’s not a blood relative of the Cao family. His great-grandfather was an adopted son of Cao Kun. Later, he inherited a lot of wealth from the great warlords of the past. Tracing further back, there might be a connection."
No wonder, the great warlords of those days must have collected many antiques.
"How many more types of light do you need?" Lu Xiu asked.
"I still need the light of raging fire and the light of the bright moon," Jiang Hong thought for a moment and said, "Then it's pretty much complete. No, it’s enough, because the light of the heart lamp is unattainable."
Lu Xiu: "??"
Lu Xiu seemed to think of something, and Jiang Hong, afraid of revealing too much too soon, quickly tucked the Jingguang Liuli into his pocket.
"Are you planning to forge the Sword of Wisdom?" Lu Xiu looked at Jiang Hong as if seeing him for the first time.
"No... not really," Jiang Hong said awkwardly, "You actually know about this?"
Lu Xiu: "Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, firelight, ghost fire, lightning, heart lamp. The seven great lights of the world, this is..."
Just at that moment, Jiang Hong's watch flipped from 22:59:59 to 23:00:00.
In just that one second, a distant, melodious "dong" of a bell sounded.
"What's that sound?" Jiang Hong immediately looked up toward the source of the sound. The bell seemed to be far off in the distance, yet also as if it were right beside them.
"It's midnight," Lu Xiu said, "Prepare the formation, collect it and run. I don’t know how long I can hold it off."
"What?" Jiang Hong hadn’t yet reacted when a scene that left him dumbstruck unfolded.
It was as if an IMAX screen unfolded before their eyes, and the world suddenly transformed! The moonlight's brightness surged instantly. The bell's toll seemed to awaken the slumbering earth. In a mere second, the wilderness was shrouded in a mysterious fog, followed by a dim glow. The earth, like a waking giant, started to shift, causing tremors and emitting a deep roar!
Jiang Hong: "!!!"
Instinctively retreating, Jiang Hong grabbed Lu Xiu's hand. The fog rose, reaching nearly two hundred meters above the ground, revealing a mirage-like scene akin to celestial palaces, slowly descending from the sky.
"This is the lower dimension," Lu Xiu explained. "From now on, there will be a brief six-hour overlap, until the first rays of dawn..."
"What... what is this?!" Jiang Hong exclaimed.
The sinking mirage revealed red lanterns, and countless ethereal figures emerged from the palaces, each holding empty lanterns, dispersing in all directions.
Meanwhile, numerous figures started to appear on the ground. Ghosts had arrived!
In the past, Jiang Hong would have screamed in fear, but the sheer number of ghosts this night left him completely dumbfounded. If previously seeing a ghost felt like playing an escape room game, now it felt like watching a movie set.
The number of ghosts on the ground kept growing, reaching thousands, even millions. The ethereal figures in the sky, each holding a lantern, gathered faint blue flames. In moments, the flames converged and flew towards hundreds of thousands of empty lanterns in the sky, which then illuminated to guide the way. The ghosts then followed the guiding lights, dispersing in different directions.
