The sun was shining brightly, and the mountain breeze was crisp and cool. There wasn’t the slightest trace of any sinister aura.
Unable to figure it out, Lu Yun shook his head and decided to let it go. He continued walking up the mountain.
’Perhaps I was overthinking it. The man must just be crazy.’
’Even if ghosts were real, they wouldn’t appear in broad daylight. At least, most ghosts aren’t that powerful, right?’
At the peak, several quaint pavilions and halls stood in a scattered arrangement, their upturned eaves, crimson railings, and jade-green tiles glinting under the sun.
This was the highest point of Shuangfeng Gorge, the final destination for most tourists.
From here, one could lean against the railings and gaze out, taking in the entire view of Nanfu City.
At this moment, tourists were scattered about the pavilions in twos and threes, resting their feet. Some were drinking tea, some were eating snacks, and others were pointing into the distance, chattering away.
A few men and women who looked like foreigners were holding up their cameras, the shutters clicking away—CLICK, CLICK, CLICK—as they photographed the scenery below.
After stepping onto the last stone stair, Lu Yun’s gaze swept over the bustling scene.
The six uniformed security guards were scurrying through the crowd, their heads whipping back and forth. They were clearly looking for that crazed man from the Yellow Heaven Corps.
But the man had vanished from the peak without a trace, as if he had evaporated into thin air.
"Damn it, where the hell did that lunatic run off to?"
The man from earlier, Brother Song, stood with his hands on his hips, cursing under his breath as sweat beaded on his forehead.
Just then, a young guard pointed to a nearby trail, nearly invisible and choked with overgrown weeds, and said hesitantly, "Brother Song, you don’t think that lunatic went that way, do you?"
Brother Song followed the direction he was pointing.
The path was less a trail and more a fissure in the mountainside.
Wild grass grew rampant, and thorny bushes choked the entrance, almost completely sealing it off.
Deeper in, there were sheer cliffs. One misstep would mean plummeting into a bottomless abyss.
Seeing this, Brother Song’s expression flickered for a moment before returning to normal.
He spat. "Who cares! If he’s dead, he’s dead! Those lunatics are a menace to society anyway!"
The next moment, Brother Song waved his hand, calling to his men. "Come on, let’s go! Stop looking! As long as he doesn’t cause trouble up here, I don’t give a damn where he goes to die!"
Then, he clapped a few of the guards on the shoulder, a smile spreading across his face.
"Alright, alright, stop worrying about pointless stuff. We’re off in a few hours!"
"Let’s go for a drink tonight!"
The guards’ faces instantly lit up. They followed Brother Song toward a row of brick-and-tile houses on the summit.
That was where their dorms and duty office were located. A few faded, washed-out uniforms were hanging out to dry by the door.
"Hahaha, let’s go, let’s go!"
"If Brother Song’s treating, we’ve gotta drink our fill!"
"That huadiao wine Brother Song bought last time was great. Looks like we’re in for a treat tonight."
Their laughter faded into the distance. Lu Yun remained standing where he was, his gaze fixed on the weed-choked path.
He retracted his gaze and started walking toward the path. The location on his map was in that direction.
After walking a short distance, Lu Yun stopped and looked down at the ground on the overgrown trail.
’Footprints?’
Sure enough, there were several fresh footprints in the dirt. The tread patterns were clear, obviously left a short time ago.
The footprints led deeper into the trail, disappearing into a thicket of thorns.
It seemed the crazed man from the Yellow Heaven Corps had indeed run this way. But Lu Yun didn’t follow the footprints, because his destination lay elsewhere.
Lu Yun turned and headed down a different, even more hidden fork in the path, one almost completely covered by vines.
Using his Purple Vine Staff to push aside the obstructing branches, he walked for about ten minutes until the path suddenly opened up.
A huge, ancient tree stood alone in a small clearing.
Its trunk was so thick it would take several people with arms outstretched to encircle it. Its canopy was like a massive umbrella, blotting out the sky, while its gnarled, tangled roots dug deep into the earth.
’The Immortal Flesh is just over ten meters beneath this tree. That Overlord Chu must have been bored out of his skull to bury something here.’
Then, Lu Yun looked past the ancient tree into the distance. From this spot, he could see a section of the stone steps leading up the mountain, about fifty meters away.
’So I’ve just walked in a huge circle.’
Plenty of people were laughing and chatting as they made their way up. Among them were those few men and women who looked like foreigners, who were now pointing in Lu Yun’s direction and chattering about something.
’No rush. Too many prying eyes right now. I’ll come back tonight.’ He retracted his gaze and turned back toward the pavilions on the peak.
「Night fell.」 As the bustling crowds of daytime tourists dispersed, Lu Yun sat alone and motionless on a stone bench in one of the pavilions.
Meanwhile, in a cave somewhere on the mountainside—a shallow cave, only four or five meters deep, its entrance half-hidden by vines that blocked the moonlight, plunging the interior into pitch-black darkness.
In the darkness, the man in the yellow clothes was curled up in a corner, trembling violently, his eyes wide enough to split.
He stared intently into the empty space before him, where there was actually nothing at all.
Except, in the eyes of the man in yellow, someone was standing there.
No, not a person. It was a pitch-black shadow, without features or a clear outline, with only two dark, pupil-less orbs for eyes staring directly at him.
"Was the flesh of my people... tasty?"
The shadow’s voice continued, "After waiting for hundreds of years, I can finally emerge again."
"Your physical form has been nicely... modified by the flesh and blood of my people."
It began to draw closer. The man in yellow could feel the power of the "Divine Flesh" bestowed upon him by the Incense Master boiling and churning wildly within him.
The man in yellow finally found his voice, his words laced with a near-maniacal obsession: "No! The Blue Sky is dead... the Yellow Sky shall rise!"
"I will slaughter all the traitors! Slaughter the foreign devils!! Slaughter them all...!"

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