Judge of Souls - Chapter 38

Mother Jiang suddenly stopped speaking, and Jiang Feng was already sitting at the corner of the table starting to eat his boxed meal.

Mother Jiang pointed at the little Mountain God and said, “They couldn’t possibly know each other! My son was sent to the Walking School more than a year ago. How old was this kid back then? How could he have met my son? Besides, I asked the security guards at the community, and that child at the entrance specifically said he was coming to my home, stating the address very clearly. How could there be such a coincidence? He saw my son and my son changed? When my son went downstairs and reappeared, he was wearing different clothes. Isn’t that strange?”

The police officer squatted down beside the little Mountain God and asked, “What were you two talking about?”

“We were talking about his dad,” said the little Mountain God. “Why doesn’t his dad like him?”

The officer felt very awkward. Changing the subject, he asked: “When did you two meet?”

Little Mountain God: “We met last time.”

The officer thought that “last time” must have been the encounter at the entrance.

The officer continued asking: “Did you see a young man who looked exactly like him at that time?”

The little Mountain God shook his head.

The police officers were clearly materialists who believed in science, and they refused to follow Mother Jiang’s way of thinking.

Another officer said, “This is complete nonsense. If you really don’t believe it, just do a DNA test. Then you’ll know if he’s your son or not.”

Mother Jiang: “What I’m saying is—this situation isn’t normal!”

The police officer laughed in frustration. “Then that’s not something for us police to handle.”

As Mother Jiang tried to speak again, the police officer suddenly stopped her and said, “Mrs. Jiang, think carefully. He is your son, and currently appears to be your only son. He’s still young, and you’re his guardian. Of course, you can torment him, beat him, scold him, or even send him to a Walking School to be killed, but what about when you’re old? Do you really not want this son? He’s still the closest person to you in this world.”

Mother Jiang hesitated. “I…”

The little Mountain God ran over to the edge of the table, watching Jiang Feng eat with obvious hunger, and asked politely, “Is it good?”

Jiang Feng said, “It’s good.”

The food at the police station was genuinely delicious. It lived up to its reputation.

The officer said, “Oh, little one, are you hungry? Let me order another portion for you.”

Jiang Feng immediately refused. “He’s on a restricted diet recently. He can’t eat this. He needs to take medicine when he gets back.”

Little Mountain God: “…feeling pitiful.”

The police officer asked the little Mountain God more details about his visit to the Garden Community that day. The little Mountain God answered smoothly and naturally, with clear speech and quick thinking. Since he was still too young to notice anything unusual, Jiang Feng was allowed to take him back first.

Jiang Xiayuan looked at him reluctantly.

Little Mountain God asked, “What if his parents send him back to that school?”

Jiang Feng looked down at him and said, “I don’t know.”

Jiang Xiayuan wasn’t an adult yet, and his parents were his legal guardians. The teachers and instructors at the Walking School could take him away as long as his parents signed the forms.

****

Chu Xuanliang and Huang Yu stood at the foot of the Shaoling Mountain range, following the markers on the map to find the Walking School.

After the collective deaths of the instructors and the disappearance and return of the students, the school was finally shut down, even though it had been operating without a license all along.

Chu Xuanliang circled around the entrance, looking for a gap to climb in, but since he didn’t make his living with his fists, his physical skills weren’t particularly good. His main business was feng shui reading and performing rituals, only doing frontline work when forced to.

That’s when he unfortunately encountered Jiang Feng.

Meanwhile, Huang Yu was browsing news on her phone. She believed in patterns and preferred to start with reality. Also, she was quite gossipy by nature.

Although this school was located in a remote area, it had been exposed by the media before.

Several students had died at the school, mostly by suicide or accidents. A female student who had left the school gathered the courage to report to the media, but due to lack of evidence and being only local news without much promotion or hype, the story quickly sank without a trace. The school continued to operate as usual, and no parents came to take their children back.

The tuition for the Walking School wasn’t cheap; in fact, it was quite expensive. Ordinary families might not be able to afford it, so many parents were doctors, teachers, white-collar workers, and other highly educated intellectuals.

After the school was closed, these same parents came forward to defend the school. That they maintained such an attitude even after knowing their children had been subjected to this kind of abuse was simply unbelievable.

These parents’ explanations were extremely uniform, essentially saying: they didn’t believe their children’s statements, thinking they were exaggerating and lying to skip school. These children were beyond their ability to discipline, and they sent them to the Walking School to suffer a bit to prevent them from harming society. The results proved it was effective—after returning home, the children became more attentive and obedient, and they were satisfied with these results.

It wasn’t clear if they truly believed this or were just deceiving themselves.

Huang Yu touched her lips and said, “I’m saying these people must be sick, right? Specifically hiring perverts to abuse and humiliate their own children—can they not tell the difference between real improvement and fear? Even in the old society, human nature wasn’t this twisted, was it?”

“Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. They can’t bear to hit their children themselves for fear of being accused of domestic violence, but they still think the kids deserve to be hit, so they send them somewhere for others to do it,” said Chu Xuanliang. “Besides, it’s a mixed bag here. Among the students sent here, there are some who truly are no good. It’s just that they’re minors, so nothing can be done about them.”

“If they really didn’t know, I could understand—thinking the parents were deceived by the school. But…” Huang Yu sighed. “Sigh. If my son ever dared to be this rebellious in the future, I would definitely beat him to death myself, not hand him over to others.”

Chu Xuanliang turned around and said, “Stop looking! Come help me.”

The two began to set up a magic array around the school gate, placing talismans.

Chu Xuanliang stood in the middle, chanting incantations, summoning ghost officials from the five directions to search for the ghosts of several instructors to question them.

However, after the array began to take effect, the five ghosts didn’t appear. Golden light flashed from the talismans, a gust of wind blew past, and the surroundings fell silent for a second, as if something had been interrupted. The feeling was quite strange.

The two cautiously retreated from the array, holding talismans ready to defend themselves.

Huang Yu’s eyes felt irritated; she blinked hard, then opened them to check the surroundings.

It was still the same school gate, and she couldn’t quite identify what had changed, but something felt off. Just then, a figure walked past in front of them.

“Damn! There’s someone!” Huang Yu said. “Looks like an instructor!”

The person seemed neither to hear nor see them and continued walking forward.

Chu Xuanliang first stopped her, looked around, and said, “This mountain is a bit strange. We might not be in the same place as before.”

Huang Yu didn’t understand. “What’s strange about it?”

Chu Xuanliang pointed upward. “There’s a mountain top.”

Indeed, this mountain peak connected to the Mountain God Temple, which had clearly been taken away by the little Mountain God, yet now it appeared complete.

“Has the Mountain God returned it?” Huang Yu said. “Call Jiang Feng and ask him.”

Chu Xuanliang took out his phone, swiped it, then put it back. “No signal.”

Huang Yu exclaimed in surprise at the mountain top. “Is the color layered?”

Chu Xuanliang confirmed. “The leaves have changed somewhat.”

Winter leaves had mostly withered and fallen, but the mountain top now looked even more desolate. Looking from a distance, the color contrast was quite noticeable.

A long-lived pine tree stood at the school entrance, with other plants on both sides of the road. They hadn’t paid much attention before, but they knew that after a month without maintenance, there should be many fallen leaves on the ground. However, there weren’t any—it looked as if someone had been regularly cleaning it.

“What’s going on?” Huang Yu’s nose twitched as she gripped her staff tightly and said, “The yin energy is so heavy; this place is haunted. Everyone is gone, so who’s still causing trouble here?”

She was about to enter the school to look around when Chu Xuanliang grabbed her. He raised his hand and pointed to the mountain top.

The two temporarily left the school and headed towards the mountain top.

Only after crossing that line of color division did they directly experience the difference between the two areas.

The air smelled different between the two places, and the wind direction was also different—it was too strange. The intuition of cultivation practitioners told them that the lower part of the mountain had a constricting, dull, oppressive feeling, like a lifeless object with no vital energy. While up above, there was an indescribable feeling of comfort that made their mood much lighter.

Chu Xuanliang took out his phone again and said, “There’s a signal now.”

Huang Yu was surprised. “Really?”

Having a signal actually made things feel even more mysterious.

Chu Xuanliang didn’t answer and started typing on his phone.

The signal in this area was weak to begin with, and Chu Xuanliang’s message took a full minute of spinning before it was successfully sent.

Soon, Jiang Feng replied that the little Mountain God was still with him.

Chu Xuanliang sent another message, but this time his luck was even worse—it kept spinning and spinning without sending. He simply gave up.

With this line as a boundary, upward was the main body that the little Mountain God had taken away—the peak of a mountain in the Shaoling Mountain range. Downward seemed more like an illusion.

Chu Xuanliang said, “I guess the little Mountain God, due to insufficient magic power, only took away a mountain top, but since his true form is the Shaoling Mountain range, the entire map was automatically filled in. If I’m not mistaken, the time there should still be…”

Huang Yu: “So we’ve… entered the Mountain God’s territory?”

“There must be some connection between the mountains in the Shaoling range that we stumbled upon,” Chu Xuanliang wasn’t sure either. “The yin energy is very heavy down there, and there are indeed ghosts….forget it, let’s go take a look.”

The two returned to the school gate.

Inside, the instructors were assembling the students, seemingly preparing to take them mountain climbing. The formation was temporarily lined up in the open space in front of the school gate, while an instructor was explaining precautions.

Indeed, this whole area was an illusion. The people inside couldn’t see them at all.

The side gate was already open, and the two walked straight through the crowd with confidence, beginning to search for any evil spirits in the area.

Huang Yu pinched a spirit-gathering talisman that Chu Xuanliang had given her between two fingers, feeling the flow of spiritual energy to detect the direction of evil spirits. But no matter which direction she faced, the talisman showed no reaction. Theoretically, the spirit-gathering talisman was the most sensitive, and in a place where even she could directly sense the yin energy, the talisman should have shown a very strong reaction.

Huang Yu said suspiciously, “Your spirit-gathering talisman seems broken. It must have gotten damp from being stored too long. Inferior product.”

Chu Xuanliang frowned. “Don’t talk nonsense. My talismans are in high demand; there’s no chance they got damp.”

Huang Yu: “But it’s just not working.”

Chu Xuanliang: “Then it must be something about this place.”

The two were arguing while standing in front of the illusory crowd when a woman’s voice suddenly rang in their ears. “How did you get here?”

The voice was very thin and small, barely perceptible amid the instructor’s rough voice, but its tone was so distinctive that both clearly heard it.

They both looked in the direction of the voice, showing surprise.

The girl was hiding in the assembled formation, obscured and not very noticeable.

Their gazes met in midair, and the girl, like a startled bird, tensed up and instinctively wanted to run away. After turning around, she bit her lip and stopped. She asked, “Who are you? Are you living people?”

Chu Xuanliang smiled and said, “I’m a Taoist priest. Don’t be afraid.”

The girl nearly wept with joy upon hearing the words “Taoist priest” and asked, “Did the little Mountain God send you to save us?”

Chu Xuanliang didn’t respond directly, but nodded slightly and asked, “Why are you standing among them?”

The girl’s face turned pale as she beckoned them over and said, “I’m scared. I’m hiding from someone. Please speak softly.”

Chu Xuanliang: “Hiding from whom?”

“Hiding from the instructors. They chased us down from the mountain,” the girl added. “They’re already dead; their ghosts are here.”

Chu Xuanliang walked over to her.

His overall demeanor was reassuring, and his identity helped—indeed, as he approached, the girl’s expression improved considerably.

Chu Xuanliang: “What do you mean? Take your time, no rush.”

“They’re ghosts….When the little Mountain God rescued us, he accidentally let the ghosts in too, but he couldn’t drive them out, so he let us hide in the Mountain God Temple. He said ghosts couldn’t enter the temple.”

Chu Xuanliang: “Then why did you come down?”

“We…” the girl said, “We were originally hiding in the Mountain God Temple. That day, to help Jiang Xiayuan get out—he’s one of our companions who said he wanted to go home—we opened the temple door. Of course, the instructors were secretly hiding outside, and they rushed in. We were scared and ran down the mountain, mixing in with the students. Since then, I’ve been hiding in this place.”

The girl spoke, choking with sobs. “I’m so scared… We got separated. This place is terrifying; I can’t take it anymore. I never know when the instructors will appear. I’m afraid to go out at night, and I’m afraid to leave during the day. I don’t even know where the others are now.”

Huang Yu: “Wait, why don’t you go home? Why are you hiding with the little Mountain God? Didn’t all the other students go back?”

“We’re afraid the instructors will take revenge and kill us,” the girl wiped her tears. “That day, it was because twelve of us ran up the mountain to hide that the instructors led a team up the mountain, wanting other students to help search for us. As a result, there was a landslide, and they all died.”

Huang Yu: “Wait, that’s not right. If you’re not going home, then who are the people at your homes?”

“They’re mountain sprites raised by the little Mountain God,” the girl said. “We didn’t want to go home at the time, so the little Mountain God had mountain sprites impersonate us.”

Chu Xuanliang tapped his fingers, then asked, “What’s the date here now?”

“It’s the day of the landslide,” the girl sniffled. “They’re assembling now, and then they’ll go up the mountain. I need to go with them, or the school will be empty, and when the ghosts of the instructors come, they’ll find me… but I…”

She held her head in despair, “But I… I watched them get buried in the earth, crushed into a bloody pulp, and then I walked back down the mountain path alone, repeating the exact same day. I’m also so scared; I’m nearly scared to death!”

The two felt very sympathetic watching her.

Chu Xuanliang patted her shoulder to comfort her. “It’s okay now, don’t cry. I’ll get you all out of here.”