Chapter 2

3.

"The thing in the mountain... has woken."

Old Zhong's voice trembled.

A strange herbal smell rose from his incense burner. Breathing it made me dizzy.

I forced myself to calm down and told him everything that had happened.

His face grew graver as he listened.

"Young Lin... I'm afraid the mountain really has kept her."

He said there was an old belief in these parts. When people died with an attachment too strong to let go of, their souls couldn't leave. They became "mountain-bound spirits," repeating the actions of their former lives day and night.

"She's waiting for you." He looked at me, his expression unreadable.

"You have to go. Leave at first light, or you'll be kept here too."

I shook my head.

I'd come for an answer.

Now that it was right in front of me, how could I leave?

"Mr. Zhong, is there something you know?"

I stared at the burner in his hands.

The moment he'd appeared, all the strange disturbances had stopped.

Except for the record player, still playing that eerie music.

He was no ordinary innkeeper.

And why would a shabby inn deep in the mountains have a record player anyway?

Under my gaze, he shifted uneasily, looked away, and tucked the burner behind his back.

"What would I know? Just a few old wives' tales passed down through the generations."

As he spoke, he tried to close my door.

"Since you won't leave, get some rest. Don't dwell on it. Go down the mountain first thing tomorrow!"

Then the record player stopped.

Dead silence filled the room.

We both stiffened.

Click.

A faint sound came from the window.

Like the latch being released.

Cold air rushed in, tossing the curtains.

My scalp prickled. Slowly, I turned.

The window stood wide open.

A dark figure sat on the sill with its back to us.

Slender, dressed in hiking clothes.

Lin Wan.

She sat motionless, as though gazing into the dark depths of the mountains.

"Wanwan?"

I tried calling to her.

No response.

Summoning my courage, I started forward for a closer look.

"Don't go near it!"

Old Zhong seized me, his voice urgent.

"That's not her!"

The figure moved.

Slowly, with terrible stiffness, she turned her head.

In the dim light from the corridor, I saw her face.

White as paper. Bloodless.

The features were Lin Wan's, but the expression was horrifyingly wrong.

Her mouth stretched into an impossible smile, reaching all the way to her ears.

Her eyes had no whites—only two black hollows, fixed on me.

"At... last... you can... see me..."

The broken words sounded as though they were being forced through a punctured pipe.

Then she sprang from the sill.

Landing on all fours like a spider, she scuttled toward me.

Impossibly fast!

My mind went blank with terror as Old Zhong dragged me backward.

"Run!"

He hurled the incense burner at the thing.

It shattered on the floor.

Herbal ash burst out, filling the room in an instant.

"Lin Wan" let out a piercing, inhuman shriek and faltered.

Old Zhong seized the moment, hauling me down the stairs.

We fled the inn.

The cold mountain wind struck my face, bringing me a little closer to my senses.

I looked back.

At the second-floor window, "Lin Wan" leaned halfway out, her mouth split wide.

Those black eyes were still staring at us.

4.

"What the hell was that?!"

I could barely catch my breath.

Old Zhong sank to the ground. He looked worse than I did.

"A mountain wraith. Once it marks someone, it eats away at their soul, little by little. Eventually they become like it, luring in the next victim."

He told me a mountain legend.

Long ago, a woman had waited here for her lover.

She waited until she died, but he never came.

Her resentment lingered. In the end, she became a mountain wraith, taking the form of whoever a person loved most to lure them into the mountains and kill them.

"Young Lin... caught its eye."

His voice was full of despair.

"What was in the burner?" I asked.

"Soul-steadying incense. It can drive evil things back for a while, but it treats the symptoms, not the cause."

He wiped away cold sweat.

"There's only one hunter in these mountains who knows how to deal with it. Master Shan. He lives in a cabin at the summit."

Before dawn, we decided to go find him.

Old Zhong said he was afraid to stay at the inn alone and insisted on coming.

The mountain path was rugged and treacherous. We stumbled and climbed with difficulty.

All around us, the black forest gaped like countless enormous mouths.

I kept feeling unseen eyes watching us.

After about two hours, a pale light began to show along the horizon.

At last, we found a solitary cabin near the summit.

A shaggy-bearded old man with sharp eyes emerged.

An old hunting gun rested on his shoulder.

Master Shan.

When we'd explained why we were there, he merely frowned.

"Come in, young man."

We moved to obey.

But the instant I crossed the threshold, he reached out behind me and stopped Old Zhong.

"Zhong. You wait outside."

Old Zhong's expression shifted. Several times he seemed about to speak, but he held his tongue.

Master Shan led me inside.

He rummaged in a wooden chest and took out a wolf's fang threaded on red cord.

"Wear this. The wraith won't approach you lightly."

He handed it to me.

"But it knows your scent now. Wherever you go, it'll follow."

His eyes lingered on me, as if he'd seen through something.

"Your girlfriend... didn't simply die in a climbing accident, did she?"

My heart clenched. I nodded.

"Before she disappeared, she sent me a message. She said she'd discovered a secret."

He was silent for a while, then sighed.

"The secrets in this mountain... are better left unknown."

He told us the mountain wraith was only a lure.

The truly frightening thing...

Was the mountain itself.

He said it was alive.

It "ate people."

"Go back. Burn everything that belonged to her. Cut your attachment and leave as quickly as you can."

His cold tone dismissed me.

"What about Mr. Zhong? His inn's right at the foot of the mountain," I asked.

Master Shan glanced at Old Zhong.

His gaze turned strange.

"Him?"

"He can't leave this place."

The cryptic answer only deepened my suspicions.

I had a hundred questions, but he'd made it clear I was to go. He would say no more.

Outside, Old Zhong was squatting in sullen silence, smoking.

When he saw me, he tossed down the cigarette butt and slowly started along the path downhill without another glance at us.

By the time we got back, it was broad daylight.

Everything at the inn was normal again, as though last night's terror had been only a nightmare.

Following Master Shan's advice, I prepared to burn all of Lin Wan's belongings.

As I emptied her backpack, my hand touched something hard.

A small voice recorder.

Something stirred in me.

I pressed play.

First came the rustle of wind.

Then Lin Wan's voice, struggling to contain her fear.

"He's not human... He's been lying to me all along... He wants to offer me to..."

Her voice broke into a terrible scream.

Then the recording cut off.

My whole body went cold.

Who was the man she meant?

Was it Old Zhong?

Recorder in hand, I rushed downstairs to find him.

He was in the lobby, slowly wiping an old picture frame.

Inside was a yellowed black-and-white photograph. A woman in a long dress smiled gently.

"Mr. Zhong, do you know her?"

I hid the recorder behind my back and pointed at the picture.

His hand stopped.

As he looked at it, a fathomless sorrow filled his eyes.

"She was my wife. When we were young, she too... disappeared in this mountain."