Mount Daoyuan was vast.
Its ridges stretched like a dragon across hundreds of miles, layer upon layer of mountains rising into the depths of the cloud sea. From afar, it looked like a black beast lying at the edge of heaven and earth, its spine covered in ancient pines and jagged stone, its head buried in white mist that never fully dispersed.
At dawn, fog would slowly rise from the valleys.
At first, it was only a wisp, drifting low over the streams like cold breath exhaled by the mountain. Before long, it would creep over shrubs, swallow the mountain paths, and climb between the ancient trees until the entire forest was drowned in gray-white haze. Anyone walking through it could see no farther than three steps ahead. All that remained was the crack of dead branches beneath their feet, and somewhere farther off, the low breathing of unknown beasts.
After nightfall, Mount Daoyuan became something else entirely.
Cold wind passed through the ancient trees, making the crowns sway like waves. Distant ridges sank into darkness, leaving only vague outlines pressing against the sky. The roars of beasts echoed for a long time between the mountains. Sometimes they sounded like wolves, sometimes like bears, and sometimes like something deeper, older, turning over inside the belly of the mountain.
Some said ancient demon corpses were buried deep within Mount Daoyuan.
Others said immortals had once debated the Dao upon its summit, and that was why the mountain was called Daoyuan.
There were also old people who said certain places in the mountain must never be entered. When the fog grew too thick, if you heard someone calling your name from behind, you must never turn back. That voice might not belong to a person. If you answered it, your soul would be led away by whatever lived in the mountain.
But to the ordinary people below the mountain, Mount Daoyuan was no sacred peak.
There was only danger.
And the chance to survive.
There was game in the mountain, herbs, pelts that could be exchanged for grain, and countless wild beasts. Every year, people entered the mountain and never returned. Some were torn apart by wolves, leaving only half a broken bow hanging from a branch. Some fell into deep ravines and vanished without even bones left behind. Others left only bloodstained clothes fluttering between the trees.
Even so, people still entered the mountain.
Because if they did not, they could not live.
Halfway up Mount Daoyuan stood an abandoned little temple.
It was hidden behind a grove of old pines and had clearly stood there for many years. The paint on its wooden doors had peeled away until only mottled darkness remained. The threshold was blackened by rain, and one corner of the roof had collapsed, so water leaked in whenever it rained. Inside the temple, there had once been a clay statue, but its head had long since shattered. Half its body leaned crookedly in the shrine, its chest covered in cobwebs.
A child lived in that temple.
His name was Wu Chensi.
No one knew where he had come from.
The elders in the village only remembered that many years ago, a wandering hunter had arrived at the foot of the mountain carrying a swaddled infant. He said he had found the child in the snow.
Snow had fallen heavily that night.
So heavily that the mountain paths had disappeared, the streams had frozen, and even the old locust tree at the village entrance had lost several branches beneath the weight. When the hunter entered the village, his beard and brows were white with frost, but he held the bundle in his arms tightly.
The child inside was frozen purple. His lips were pale blue, and he was too weak even to cry.
Yet somehow, he still had one breath left.
Some advised the hunter not to take him in, saying that in such times, one more mouth meant one more life to drag through hardship. Others thought it unlucky. A child found in the snow might not be clean. Perhaps something in the mountain had cast him out.
The hunter ignored them.
He had no wife and no children, so he took the child back into the mountain.
The name "Wu Chensi" had been stitched into the cloth of the swaddle.
In the years that followed, the old hunter raised Wu Chensi in the mountains.
He taught him how to read beast trails, how to find the signs left behind by prey. The direction of bent grass, the depth of claw marks in mud, the fresh or old scratches on tree bark — these were the mountain's words. If one could understand them, one could know what had passed nearby: deer, wolves, bears, or something too dangerous to provoke.
He also taught Wu Chensi how to make fire in the rain.
Wet wood could not be burned directly. It had to be split open for the dry core inside. A fire striker had to be kept close to the body so the rain would not soak it. If the wind was too strong, stones had to be piled into a half-ring as a shield before dry grass was tucked into the center.
He taught Wu Chensi how to listen to the wind at night and judge direction.
"Eyes can lie. Fog can lie too," the old hunter often said.
"But wind, insects, birdsong — those things do not change for no reason. If the forest suddenly goes quiet, it means something is coming."
Wu Chensi learned quickly.
Too quickly for an ordinary child.
When other children of six or seven were still chasing one another through the mud, he could already enter the forest alone with a hunting bow on his back. At first, he only followed behind the old hunter, stepping in his footprints. Later, his steps grew steadier, and he could even notice traces the old hunter had missed.
A strip of bark scraped from a branch.
A patch of freshly turned mud.
A gray hair caught between two stones.
When he saw such things, he would crouch down and stare at them for a long time.
And his strength was astonishing.
Once, the old hunter saw Wu Chensi try to save a fawn caught in a beast trap. He pried open the iron jaws with his bare hands.
The trap had been forged by the blacksmith below the mountain. Its teeth were thick and heavy. Even a grown man would have needed a wooden pole to lever it open. But Wu Chensi was still young then. The iron teeth cut his hands, blood running down his wrists, yet he gritted his teeth and refused to let go.
Only after the fawn dragged its injured leg into the forest did he sit down in the snow and gasp for breath.
The old hunter stared for a long time.
That night, he sat outside the temple smoking his pipe until dawn.
The mountain wind was cold.
The firelight flickered.
Looking at Wu Chensi sleeping inside, the old hunter sighed softly.
"You child… I fear you are no ordinary person."
Wu Chensi had actually heard him.
But he did not open his eyes, nor did he ask.
Children raised in the mountains learned early that many questions were useless. The wind would not answer. The mountain would not answer. Dead beasts would answer even less.
Unfortunately, such days did not last long.
That winter, the old hunter entered the depths of Mount Daoyuan.
Before he left, he slung his hunting bow across his back, hung his hunting knife at his waist, and carried a coil of hemp rope over his shoulder. Dawn had not yet broken, and snow outside the temple had already reached the ankles. Wu Chensi stood in the doorway and watched him prepare.
"I'll go too," Wu Chensi said.
The old hunter shook his head.
"Not this time."
"Why?"
"The deep mountain has been uneasy these last few days." The old hunter placed a short knife in his hand. "You stay. Keep the fire burning."
Wu Chensi frowned and said nothing.
The old hunter seemed as if he wanted to say more, but in the end he only reached out and ruffled the boy's hair.
"Three days. I'll be back in three days."
Then he walked into the snow.
Wu Chensi stood at the temple door and watched his figure vanish little by little into the white mist and falling snow.
On the first day, the old hunter did not return.
Wu Chensi chopped firewood, lit the fire, and boiled broth as usual. He kept the temple fire burning high, as if the old hunter might push the door open at any moment and scold him for wasting wood.
On the second day, the old hunter still did not return.
Wu Chensi sat at the temple entrance and waited from morning until night. Snow covered the mountain path. Pine branches sagged heavily. From far away came the occasional howl of beasts.
On the third day, the snow fell even harder.
At night, the wind howled fiercely, rattling the broken tiles on the temple roof.
Wu Chensi waited alone inside the temple.
On the fourth night, heavy snow sealed the mountain.
The cold wind battered the temple doors, making them creak and groan. Wu Chensi curled up beside the fire, holding the short knife in his arms, staring at the door.
Until deep in the night.
Footsteps finally sounded outside.
Very light.
One step.
Then another.
As if someone were dragging heavy legs through the snow, slowly approaching.
Wu Chensi shot to his feet, thinking the old hunter had returned.
He rushed to the door and pulled it open.
Cold wind swept in with snow.
But there was no one outside.
Only a broken hunting knife stood embedded in the snow.
The blade was covered in blood.
The blood had frozen, dark and black, crusted along the edge. The gray cloth wrapped around the handle was the same cloth the old hunter had used for many years.
Wu Chensi stood in the doorway, motionless.
Deeper in the snow, a trail of enormous and strange footprints remained.
They looked like an animal's.
And yet not like any animal's.
Each print was deep, its edges charred black, as if something burning hot had stepped through the snow, melted it, and then been frozen again by the wind.
Wu Chensi did not follow.
Not because he did not want to.
But because he knew he could not catch up.
And even if he did, he might never return.
That night, he pulled the broken knife from the snow, held it in his arms, and sat in the temple doorway until dawn.
From then on, the old hunter never came back.
In the abandoned temple on Mount Daoyuan, only Wu Chensi remained.
Life still had to continue.
Wu Chensi began living alone in the mountain.
By day, he hunted.
By night, he returned to the temple and made a fire.
When he was hungry, he roasted meat. When he was cold, he wrapped himself in pelts and slept beside the fire. If the roof leaked, he dragged branches and hides over the gap. If firewood ran low, he went into the forest on clear days to chop more. When his short knife grew dull, he sat at the temple entrance and sharpened it stroke by stroke against a whetstone.
He never cried.
Nor did he fear.
Instead, he became more and more like a beast of the mountain.
At dawn, he would walk barefoot through mountain streams. The water was icy, the stones slick, but his steps were steady. At dusk, he would sit alone on a cliff and watch the sea of clouds roll below, watching the sun sink little by little behind the mountains.
The mountain wind stirred his black hair.
His eyes were bright.
Like a wolf's.
There were many beasts in Mount Daoyuan.
Black bears, mountain wolves, giant pythons… and even strange things no one could name.
But Wu Chensi never retreated.
He knew what retreat meant.
The weak died.
The old hunter had taught him that, and the mountain had taught it to him again and again.
Once, he encountered a maddened wild boar in the forest.
The boar was enormous. Its bristles were like steel needles, and its tusks were sharp as blades. It seemed to have just fought something. Half its body was covered in blood, and its eyes were frighteningly red.
Wu Chensi had meant to avoid it.
But the wind suddenly shifted.
The boar caught his scent.
It gave a low roar, pawed the earth with its hooves, and charged.
With just one collision, Wu Chensi was sent flying.
His back slammed hard against a tree trunk, shaking loose a shower of dead leaves. Pain struck so fiercely he could barely breathe. His chest felt blocked by stone, and blackness flashed before his eyes.
The boar did not stop.
It turned, lowered its tusks, and charged again.
Wu Chensi gritted his teeth and stood.
He had no bow in hand, and there was no time to draw his knife.
He grabbed a stone from the ground and threw himself forward like a mad thing.
The boar charged with a roar.
At the final moment, Wu Chensi twisted aside and slammed his whole body into its neck. The force dragged him several stumbling steps. One tusk tore a bloody line across his shoulder, but he clung fiercely to its coarse bristles and refused to let go.
The boar thrashed its head wildly, trying to fling him off.
Wu Chensi locked his legs around its forelimb, half hanging from its neck. He raised the stone and smashed it down again and again against the boar's skull.
Thud!
Thud!
Thud!
Blood splattered.
When the stone cracked, he grabbed another.
When shards cut his palms, he still did not release.
Only when the boar finally crashed to the ground, its hooves twitching a few times before going still, did Wu Chensi collapse beside the stream, his face covered in blood, gasping for breath.
It hurt so much he bared his teeth.
But before long, he laughed.
There was a beast-like stubbornness in that smile.
The villagers below gradually learned that the abandoned child living on Mount Daoyuan was not to be provoked.
Some even said he was born with divine strength.
Wu Chensi did not care.
He only occasionally carried pelts down the mountain to exchange for grain and salt. Most of the time, he was silent. Once the trade was done, he left alone.
The villagers regarded the child from the ruined temple with a measure of fear.
Because he was always covered in blood when he came down from the mountain.
Sometimes he carried a wolf carcass over his shoulder.
Sometimes venomous snakes hung from his waist.
Someone had even seen him drag the corpse of a black bear larger than himself down the mountain path, step by step.
The bear's head dragged along the ground, leaving a long streak of blood in the mud. Wu Chensi walked slowly, but he did not stop once. In the sunset, his thin figure looked nothing like a child.
But Wu Chensi himself never thought anything was wrong.
Life in the mountain was simply like this.
He had understood that long ago.
At sunset, Mount Daoyuan became especially quiet.
Evening wind passed through the forest, and leaves rustled softly. From far away came the occasional low roar of a beast, like muffled thunder rolling out from the belly of the mountain.
Wu Chensi would sit at the temple entrance, sharpening the old hunter's short knife stroke by stroke against the whetstone.
Firelight shone on his young yet calm face.
No one knew how many nights that child, living alone in the deep mountain, had spent fighting beasts for his life.
Until that day.
Below Mount Daoyuan.
A great fire rose into the sky.
That evening, the wind on Mount Daoyuan was strange.
Dark clouds hung very low, almost touching the ridges. Birds and beasts in the forest scattered in terror. Even the fiercest mountain wolves tucked their tails and fled deeper into the woods. Birds rose in flocks from the trees, scattering wildly beneath the gray sky.
Wu Chensi was chasing a gray wolf through the mountain.
The wolf's hind leg was injured, and drops of blood marked the dead leaves, leading down toward the foot of the mountain. Wu Chensi held his short knife, lowered his body, and followed the trail.
Suddenly.
A dull rumble came from far away.
Then a pillar of fire shot into the sky.
Wu Chensi stopped abruptly.
He stood on the slope, staring down the mountain.
In the direction of the village, great flames had risen.
Thick smoke churned upward into the clouds.
Faintly, screams came through the wind.
Wu Chensi's pupils shrank.
"Not good!"
He turned and ran down the mountain.
Branches whipped across his face. Loose stones flew beneath his feet on the rugged path. Wind roared past his ears, carrying cries that grew clearer with every step.
And the closer he came to the village, the stronger the stench of blood became.
At last.
Wu Chensi burst out of the forest.
But the sight before him froze him in place.
The village had become a sea of fire.
Corpses lay everywhere.
Houses burned. Beams snapped. Sparks rolled upward with black smoke. Blood ran along the mud, gathering in the roadside ditches. Cries and screams tangled together like an invisible net tightening around his throat.
And the things slaughtering the villagers—
They were not human.
Their skin was gray-black, their fangs jutting outward, their eyes crimson.
Some ran on all fours like wild dogs.
Others held broken blades and butchered people wildly through the village.
Wu Chensi did not know what they were.
But he knew one thing.
Those monsters were killing people.
A small black-furred demon hound lunged at a fallen villager.
The villager screamed and struggled, both hands desperately holding back the hound's head. But the beast was too strong. Its claws pinned his chest down, and it opened its mouth full of fangs before biting down hard.
Blood sprayed instantly.
Wu Chensi's head buzzed.
A surge of fury rushed into his chest.
"Get away!"
He seized the short knife at his waist and charged forward like a madman.
The demon hound had just raised its head.
Wu Chensi was already in front of it.
Bang!
He slammed his fist into the beast's skull.
The hound was knocked rolling across the ground.
Wu Chensi did not stop.
He threw himself onto it and pinned its neck down. The demon hound thrashed madly, its fangs snapping and tearing bloody cuts across his arm. Its claws raked wildly, shredding the cloth at his shoulder and cutting into flesh.
But Wu Chensi was like a beast gone mad.
The veins on his forehead bulged. One hand pressed down on the hound's head while the other gripped the short knife and drove it viciously into the creature's eye socket.
Squelch!
Black blood sprayed across his face.
The demon hound shrieked, its body convulsing violently.
Wu Chensi gritted his teeth and stabbed again and again.
One strike.
A second.
A third.
Until the thing no longer moved.
He panted heavily.
His whole body was drenched in blood.
Just then.
From far away came a terrified shout.
"Wu Chensi!"
The voice was full of fear.
Wu Chensi jerked his head up.
It was Yuan Qingshan.
One of the village children who often talked with him.
The one who always said he would become a blacksmith, though he could barely swing a small hammer properly.
The next instant.
Wu Chensi ran toward the voice like a madman.
All along the way, houses were burning.
Villagers lay in pools of blood.
Wu Chensi could no longer care about anything else.
He ran with everything he had.
When flames blocked the road, he climbed over fallen beams. When smoke choked his throat, he covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve. His foot slipped on something underfoot, nearly sending him sprawling, but he scrambled up at once and kept running.
"Yuan Qingshan!"
He shouted.
No one answered.
Only fire.
Only weeping.
Only the low snarls of monsters.
At last.
He rushed into a small courtyard surrounded by flames.
Then he stopped abruptly.
In the center of the courtyard, Yuan Qingshan sat collapsed on the ground, his face deathly pale, too frightened even to cry.
And before him stood a tall demon soldier.
It was far more terrifying than the demon hound.
It wore broken black armor over broad shoulders. Gray-black skin showed through the gaps in the plates, like stone burned by fire. Scraps of flesh and blood still hung from the corner of its mouth, and its crimson eyes were fixed on Yuan Qingshan.
Slowly, it opened its fanged mouth.
As if savoring the fear of prey before death.
Yuan Qingshan trembled all over and crawled backward.
"Don't… don't come closer…"
The demon soldier gave a hoarse, low laugh.
The next instant.
It reached out sharply toward Yuan Qingshan.
"Wu Chensi!"
Yuan Qingshan screamed in despair.
Boom!
Wu Chensi smashed through the courtyard gate and charged in.
He grabbed a wooden stick from the ground and roared as he threw himself at the demon soldier.
"Let him go!"
The stick smashed down toward the demon's head.
But this time—
Bang.
The demon soldier did not move at all.
The wooden stick snapped in half, and one broken piece flew away.
The demon soldier slowly turned its head.
Its crimson eyes fixed on Wu Chensi.
The air seemed to turn cold in an instant.
Wu Chensi gripped the broken stick, his chest rising and falling violently. Blood ran down his arm and dripped from his fingertips, but he did not retreat. He stared at the demon soldier like a little beast driven to the end of its path.
He knew this thing was not like the demon hound from before.
Not at all.
The demon hound had only been savage.
But the thing before him was like a wall that could devour people.
Yet Yuan Qingshan was behind it.
Wu Chensi threw away the broken stick, drew his short knife, and charged again.
The next instant.
The demon soldier lashed out with a kick.
Boom!
Wu Chensi was sent flying.
His body smashed through half a wall and crashed heavily into the rubble.
Pain swept through him in an instant.
It felt as if a huge stone had slammed into his chest. His breath stopped at once, and darkness flashed before his eyes. Broken earth and splinters rained over him. His short knife flew from his hand and landed nearby.
He tried to get up.
But the moment his palm pressed against the ground, pain tore through his chest so fiercely he nearly coughed blood.
Yuan Qingshan's voice trembled in the distance.
"Wu Chensi…"
The demon soldier slowly turned around.
It split its mouth open.
Revealing a strange and cruel smile.
"Next…"
"It will be your turn."