Chapter 5 Replacement Sacrifice

“Mountain God’s Marriage?”

That sounded like some television drama, or maybe the plot of a story. Was there actually such a thing?

“Nope, but I might’ve read it in a book,” I answered Grandmother.

“Yesterday I went to Grandma Li’s house downstairs to chat and she told me about a strange custom from her hometown. She said that every ten years, they would need to pick a young child no older than 13 years of age to be wed to the Mountain God. They said it would bless them with a good harvest and allow them to be free of disaster and sickness.”

If I had heard this back then, I definitely would not have believed what Grandmother said and dismissed it as superstition. However, I was proof of the existence of superstition so I did not reject the idea of such a thing. I smiled at Grandmother and asked, “Those are all determined by nature. Even if there was a mountain god, if the heavens really wanted natural disasters and plagues to befall them, how could he control it?”

“Indeed, with technology being so advanced nowadays, people who farm crops and raise animals for a living will make money if they deserve it and will make losses if they don’t. It wasn’t so advanced back then. Plus, with families being poorer, most of them could not afford to raise their own children. Sacrificing them to the Mountain God could be counted as a way to resolve that. Nowadays, every family treats their children like gold. Who would be willing to let their kid die for no reason?”

“Then just don’t offer any more sacrifices.”

“Absolutely not! That Mountain God spoke to the villagers from Grandma Li’s village in a dream. He told them that if they did not offer a sacrifice, he would massacre the entire village and their descendants. In the past, the villagers would pool their money together and buy a little girl from human traffickers to offer to the Mountain God, but the government has been cracking down on human trafficking recently... Grandma Li has been worried sick because of this and is going back tomorrow.

I originally intended to treat this as a story to listen to, but when I heard Grandmother say that the villagers would buy kids from human traffickers, I was so angry I could not stomach my porridge. I proceeded to ask, “How the villagers could be content with this kind of god. Most deities and spirits protected people, but this god even wanted to bring harm to human life. Do the villagers have no one they could ask for help to get rid of that Mountain God?”

“They didn’t dare to ask anyone in the past, but Grandma Li told me her fellow villagers now think they should. However, they don’t know where they would find such a person and I recalled that you just started within this field, so I wanted to ask if you had any powerful sages to recommend to help Grandma Li and those little girls.”

I struggled to answer when Grandmother asked me that. Up until then, the only people I had interacted with who were related to sages were Yinggu and Liu Longting. Furthermore, I had to consider the identity of the Mountain God—a few shamans like us were definitely not his equal. I suddenly remembered that Liu Longting had some cultivation skills and even had a few siblings at home, so maybe he knew some experts.

I agreed to help Grandmother and told her I was going to ask Liu Longting for his opinion. If he had the connections, maybe we could handle that Mountain God.

Upon hearing what I had to say, Grandmother’s wrinkled face smiled at me, telling me I was a good granddaughter. She then helped me peel an egg and encouraged me to eat more.

Seeing Grandmother so happy warmed my heart. I quickly finished breakfast and headed straight to the altar. I lit some incense for Liu Longting and invited him to come out.

There was no one else at home so Liu Longting slithered straight out of the altar as a white snake and curled up on the seat of a chair. He told me that he could handle that Mountain God alone, and we would not need to ask anyone else. He wanted to see if I had any opinions about that.

I was initially wondering how to approach the subject with Liu Longting since I was still not very familiar with him, and asking him for help required me to humble myself a little. I did not expect him to give such a straightforward answer to the question in my head. I could not help but praise Liu Longting and told him that he was quite awesome.

Hearing what I said, Liu Longting raised his snake head and slithered down from the chair. He wound himself around my arm until he reached my neck and looked at me with two small, round eyes and let out a snort. “I know most of the information that you know about this case. The only thing separating us is a door that wasn’t even closed. How could I not overhear your conversation with your Grandmother?”

I did not know why, but looking at Liu Longting’s pearly white body lazily wrapped around my neck was quite amusing. Coupled with what he said earlier, he looked absolutely adorable—for just a second! I then asked him fondly, “I didn’t know you could hear us. The opponent is a mountain god. Aren’t all mountain gods quite powerful? How are you going to handle him?”

As I was saying that, my hand reached out to pet Liu Longting on his small white head. He did not avoid it but rather wrapped around me even more tightly. However, he turned back into a man—possibly because it was not convenient to talk to me in that state—and stood in front of me with his back toward me as he stared out the window.

“All gods, especially mountain and water gods, only exist because of human belief. The more people believe in the god, the more powerful the god is. Consequently, if people say he’s a demon, then he’s a demon. The villagers in that area had long since lost faith in that god. Without faith, he no longer has the power of a god and is just a supernatural being with cultivation just like me. If that’s the case, we can give it a shot.”

In conclusion, I was not going to be the one who would go up against the Mountain God, and I was not that familiar with how powerful Liu Longting actually was, thus I did not ask for details. I then asked, “How confident are you that you’ll beat him?”

“About eighty percent confident. After all, I've been cultivating for more than 700 years.”

He answered me with a sideway glance. The sun was just beginning to rise; sunlight pierced through the glass windows and illuminated his body. The contrast made his face look fair and elegant, as if it was crafted from a piece of white jade. The more I looked at his face, the more I wanted to ask him how he was so good looking.

That was a relief, but I still had something to ask Liu Longting.

“Last night, did you come to look for me?”

“And what if I did? Are you going to ask me what I did to you?” Liu Longting answered with a raised eyebrow, his reply dry and concise.

D*mn! That was exactly what I wanted to ask him, but his reply was so blunt that I felt awkward continuing the conversation. I told him that it was nothing, and we would go back with Grandma Li the following day.

Liu Longting looked at me with a smile on his face and did not say a word. I took it as a silent agreement as he disappeared from where he stood, leaving behind the golden ray of sunlight.

I told Grandmother what Liu Longting told me word for word and she went downstairs to give the good news to Grandma Li. Grandma Li brought a few boxes of gifts to my house and apologized for troubling me this time around. After hearing from Grandmother that I went under tutelage with a sage, she considered asking me for help. However, she was scared that I was new and that she would be dragging me into a situation I could not handle. Now that I was willing to help her on my own volition, and had so much confidence, she wanted to thank me on behalf of those deceased little girls and her fellow villagers.

Grandma Li’s gratitude made me feel slightly awkward. The next day, as I was on the bus to the village with her, I asked Grandma Li why she still adhered to this custom even though she was married away at an early age, and was not one of the villagers anymore.

I instantly regretted asking because Grandma Li cried out in anguish, “It’s inescapable. Inescapable! Our entire village grew up drinking the water that flows from the mountain. He remembers every single one of us. One of my elder sisters was chosen as a sacrifice when she was young and was dragged deep into the mountains, left to starve to death in front of the Mountain God’s temple…”

I had not experienced anything like that before, and could not imagine such a cruel and backward thing happening in modern society. Looking at Grandma Li cry in such anguish, I did not know how to console her…

Grandma Li’s old home was as far as could be. We started off on a bus, switched to a train, swapped to a coach, and even had to get on a trishaw for the last stretch across mountain roads. When we finally got to Qipan Village, all one could see behind it was a wide mountain range.

The village was exactly as I thought it would be—broken and battered beyond recognition. All that was left in the village were a few old folks in their eighties and nineties. Most of the villagers had moved out just like Grandma Li. Now, because of a custom that they could not break, everyone had to rush back home.

The village chief was an old man. The wrinkles on his face looked like deep gorges shaped by the mountain winds. In his hand was a smoking pipe. When Grandma Li told him she found a way to deal with the Mountain God, his expression remained unchanged and he grunted as if in agreement.

The sacrifice would be performed in a few days, so when I settled down in Grandma Li’s house, I asked Liu Longting what our plan was to deal with this Mountain God.

Liu Longting was the definition of calm when he appeared in front of me in his human form. His eyes gazed at my entire body calculatingly, and told me, “We’ll use you to replace the other girl, and offer you up as a sacrifice.”