The invincible female ghost is a bit love-struck.

Chapter 285 The mountains are unclaimed; all who enter become home.

Behind the three oil lamps stands a stone gate at the end of the birch forest.

The gate was no more than two zhang tall, but its body was so thick that it was impossible to tell what kind of stone it was made of.

There were no chisel marks on the stone surface, as if the entire mountain had been split in half and then reassembled with some kind of black paste.

The horizontal fissure was slowly opening as a low roar came from inside the mountain.

There were no eyeballs inside the crack, only a wet, black mass.

Countless tiny sparks floated in the darkness, as if someone was traveling with a lantern in a distant place.

Lu Yuan stood in front of the stone gate, not in a hurry to approach.

"This is not a door."

Zhou Heng asked, "What is it?"

"It's the eyelid."

Lu Yuan plunged the tip of his knife into the frozen ground beneath his feet and bent down to touch the ground in front of the door.

The soil is dry.

However, there was a layer of water on the fingertips.

The water had a rusty taste.

"The things in the mountains are watching us," Lu Yuan said. "The three lamps are three pupils. As long as the door is open, our whereabouts will be seen by the main cave."

Wang Chengan glanced at the three lamps.

"Then don't let it open."

"It's already half open."

"Can I put it back?"

"able."

Lu Yuan took out the black ash left by the iron abacus and placed the three blank stone fragments peeled off from the bone tablet, shadow tablet and mother tablet on the ground.

As soon as the three stone chips landed, the black crack inside the stone gate visibly shrank.

Lin Zhaoxuan asked, "After the characters on the stele are peeled off, can they be pressed down?"

"The stele is the tent of the evil god, and the inscriptions are the names on that tent," Lu Yuan said. "If the inscriptions are empty, the tent is shorter. But these gaps cannot be placed arbitrarily, otherwise the evil god will use the empty spaces to breathe."

He arranged the three stone chips into a triangle, and then took out a piece of red rope from his pocket.

The red rope was a guide rope brought out from the outer cave, originally tied with a wooden piece in the shape of a "回" (hui).

The rope, which had previously been entangled with the evil spirit guarding the bone tablet, was now stained with a layer of blackened blood.

Lu Yuan used a red rope to tie the three stone chips together, forming a triangular knot.

"Bone is where death is, shadow is where movement is, mother is where life is."

"Death, action, and life, when connected, can temporarily shut out the eyes of evil gods."

"But one thing is still missing."

Xu Erxiao asked, "What's missing?"

"Home."

Lu Yuan looked up at the stone gate.

"It's not a human home, it's a home in the mountains."

He picked up a small piece of birch bark from the ground and carved a square on the inside of the bark with a knife.

A gap was left in the middle of the frame.

"The house has four walls, and a crack in the door. The four walls protect life, and the crack in the door allows air to pass through. We must make this mountain realize that the evil god is not the master of this house."

Song Qinghe asked, "How can we get the mountain to recognize us?"

Lu Yuan placed the bark on the stone gate and formed a mudra with his hands.

With the left hand, make the Yin hand seal, pressing the thumb against the ring and little fingers, and bringing the index and middle fingers together; with the right hand, make the sword hand seal, pointing the fingertips downwards, first touching the tree bark, then touching the center of one's own brow, and finally touching the ground.

"Mountains are the houses, stones are the walls, veins run through the soil, and frost covers the trees."

"I now borrow three inches of land at the mountain gate, neither inviting the evil lord nor welcoming the ghost king."

"If there is an owner in the house, first verify their name; if there is no owner in the door, then return it to its rightful place."

"A home must not tolerate thieves, and a door must not tolerate usurpers."

"The imperial edict ordered the mountain to return to its place, and the imperial edict ordered the gate to close its eyes."

After reciting the prayer, he clasped his hands together and held them in front of his chest for a moment.

"combine."

A small white light shone from the square frame on the tree bark.

The white light spread along the four corners of the tree bark and finally adhered to the stone door.

The black crack in the stone gate suddenly closed.

All three oil lamps went out at the same time.

The birch forest emitted a low, grinding sound from all the trees, like hundreds or thousands of wooden doors closing at once.

"Did it work?" Wang Chengan asked.

"No, it won't work."

Lu Yuan looked at the stone gate.

"It's not closed, it's just moved to a different location."

As soon as he finished speaking, the three extinguished oil lamps were lit again.

The lights were no longer outside the stone gate, but behind the group.

Lin Zhaoxuan turned around and looked back, his expression changing slightly.

The stone steps they had walked on were gone.

Behind us, a narrow wooden boardwalk stretched out.

On both sides of the boardwalk stood rows of low wooden houses.

Each wooden house has a wooden sign hanging at its door.

The characters on the wooden signs are all different.

There is a character "屯".

There is a "shop".

There is a "station".

There is a "home".

At the end of the wooden boardwalk, the sound of a horse-drawn carriage moving slowly could be heard.

"Don't go back," Lu Yuan said.

But it was too late.

Suddenly, the ground beside Wang Cheng'an cracked open, and a muddy hand reached out from the crack in the wooden plank and grabbed his ankle.

He swung the broken frame of the abacus and smashed it.

The hand immediately retracted.

However, the doors of the wooden houses on both sides of the plank road were opened at the same time.

There was no one inside.

There was a table in each room.

There are bowls, chopsticks, and steaming sorghum rice on the table.

In the innermost wooden house, old cotton-padded coats, felt hats, and leather boots were still hanging.

These things all look like someone just walked through them.

"This is the law of family monuments."

Lu Yuandao.

"It doesn't reveal its true form; it first builds a village."

"To make people think they've already left the mountain."

Zhou Heng gazed at the wooden houses.

"These rooms have kang beds (heated brick beds)."

"It's not really true that there's a heated brick bed."

Lu Yuan pointed to the wooden sign under the eaves.

"Look at the brand."

The words on the wooden sign began to change.

The character “家” has been changed to “借”.

The character “屯” has been changed to “葬”.

The character “铺” has been changed to “供”.

The character “站” has been changed to “等”.

The closed black eye behind the stone gate is reflected on every wooden plaque.

It didn't give up spying; it just hid its spying inside the house.

"The family monument is on this road," Lu Yuandao said, "but we can't go inside. If we go inside and sit down, the house will trap our shadows."

Xu Erxiao asked, "Then how do we get there?"

"Walk in the middle."

"Is the boardwalk also part of the house?"

"A road is only a road if it has no shadow."

Lu Yuan took the black wooden plaque from his waist and threw it forward along the wooden plank road.

The wooden sign landed on the ground and did not bounce back.

It was immediately covered by a layer of black frost.

"The road is also blocked."

Lu Yuan drew his sword and held it horizontally in front of his chest.

"Then open one."

He took out the black fragments he had peeled from the wooden core of the mother monument, placed them on the back of his knife, and pressed them down with his thumb.

"Home is defined by walls, and roads are defined by feet."

"There is a path in the mountains, but the path does not accept people."

"Today, we borrow a line from the monument to split open the fake village."

"No house should welcome you, no door should hide you; no cooking smoke should nourish your health, no fire in the kang should retain your spirit."

"open circuit!"

Lu Yuan swung his sword and slashed diagonally.

As the blade fell, a white line immediately split open in the middle of the wooden plank road.

The white line stretched from in front of everyone's feet all the way to the end of the road.

The sorghum rice in the wooden houses on both sides instantly turned into black mud, and the bowls and chopsticks fell to the ground.

A series of cries came from inside the house.

An elderly person was crying, a child was crying, and a man was whispering from behind the door, "Come in."

"It's cold outside."

"There's a kang (heated brick bed) right inside."

"Once you're in, you're family."

Xu Erxiao broke out in a cold sweat, but he didn't stop.

They walked forward along the white line.

With each step, a hand would emerge from a crack in the wooden planks beneath your feet.

Those who couldn't grab people could only frantically dig and claw outside the white line.

Halfway there, the door of a wooden house on the right suddenly slammed open.

A huge black memorial tablet flew out of the house and stood upright in the middle of the road.

The memorial tablet reads: "There is no master in the mountains; all who enter shall be home."

Behind the memorial tablet stood a tall man wearing an old long robe.

The man's face was ashen, and a red cloth was stuck to his lips.

He didn't leave; he simply stretched out one hand and pointed to the memorial tablet.

"Leave your name."

Lu Yuan stopped in his tracks.

"You're guarding the family monument?"

The man nodded.

"Leave your name and you may enter."

"What are you doing inside?"

"Eat, keep warm, sleep."

"and then?"

The red cloth covering the man's lips twitched slightly.

"Leave."

"How long will you stay?"

"Stay until you die."

"Dead?"

"When you die, you go home."

As soon as he finished speaking, lights came on in all the surrounding wooden houses.

Countless dark figures peeked out from the house.

Each of the dark figures had no face, but wore a wooden sign on its chest.

The man extended his second finger.

"Leave your name."

Lu Yuan did not answer, but instead took out a blank offering paper from his pocket.

"Whose name do you want?"

The man pointed at Lu Yuan.

"your."

"What if I don't stay?"

You are homeless.

3

"Just because you're homeless doesn't mean you can't leave?"

"cannot."

Looking at the memorial tablet, Lu Yuan suddenly said, "A family monument isn't for collecting names."

"It takes in those who have nowhere to go."

The tall man's body trembled slightly.

Lu Yuan continued, "A true home is not defined by ancestral tablets, nor by the size of the house."

"Home is in all directions, and people are in it. You have left the houses and taken the people away, and thus you have made this false road."

The red cloth covering the man's lips suddenly tightened.

"nonsense."

"Then tell me, why don't any of the wooden plaques have a surname?"

The man did not answer.

"Why are there meals in every room, but no stoves?"

Still no answer.

"Why are all the shoes placed facing out the door, yet stuffed full of black dirt?"

The surrounding wooden houses suddenly shook.

The wooden signs under the eaves broke off one after another.

The sorghum rice behind the man turned into muddy water, flowing from the table to the ground.

Lu Yuan raised his knife and pointed it at the memorial tablet.

"Because this is not home."

"It's an offering table set up for the corpse after the person is trapped."

The man finally roared in anger.

He tore off the red cloth covering his mouth.

Underneath the red cloth was not a mouth, but a tear filled with black stitches.

Countless black lines shot out from the crack and wrapped around the feet of the crowd.

"Let's do it!"

Lu Yuan gave the order.

Xu Erxiao snatched the red cloth and swept it horizontally towards the left eaves.

The red cloth struck the eaves, and the white snow on the roof crashed down, collapsing the two wooden houses.

Wang Chengan smashed the broken frame of the abacus against the wooden sign on the right.

The wooden sign broke, and the shadowy figure inside the house immediately let out a scream.

Lin Zhaoxuan flicked out the ink line, which wrapped around the tall man's waist and dragged him away from the memorial tablet.

Zhou Heng seized the opportunity to rush forward, slashing horizontally with his short sword and cutting off the black line that the man was extending.

Song Qinghe carried an oil lamp and shone its light on the back of the memorial tablet.

There was no wood grain behind the memorial tablet, only dense red lines.

The red line extends from the bottom of the memorial tablet to below the wooden boardwalk.

She shouted, "The base of the monument is underground!"

"Don't dig it up," Lu Yuandao said. "We need to cut off the roots, not destroy the monument."

He grabbed a handful of black mud from the ground, mixed it with cinnabar, and smeared it on the blade.

Then, he took seven steps, using his left foot as a pivot.

The first step is to step through the Heavenly Gate.

The second step is to "tread the earth" (a traditional Chinese practice).

The third step is to step through the door.

The fourth step is to step through the gates of hell.

The fifth step is to step through the Gate of Life.

Step six, step into the deadly gate.

Step 7: Return to the central palace.

With each step, Lu Yuan recited, "The Heavenly Gate remains closed, the Earthly Gate remains unopened."

"Humans guard their names, ghosts guard their bones."

"The gate of life is not to be lent out, nor is the gate of death to be opened to those who are not allowed to enter."

"The central palace establishes the boundaries, and the four directions return to their proper places."

With the final step, he turned and thrust the blade into the ground.

"I'll cut off your false home, but not the bridge of your nose!"

The blade pierced the wooden board.

There was no loud noise.

The entire plank road seemed to be constricted from the middle by an invisible rope, causing all the wooden houses to shrink inwards at the same time.

The character for "home" on the memorial tablet is cracked.

A grain of grayish-white rice was visible through the crack.

The grain of rice kept pulsating, as if a heart was hidden inside.

Lu Yuan held a grain of rice between two fingers and recited: "House is made of earth, rice is made of food, fame is a guest, and wish is the host."

"No one shall be left alive in a house without an owner."

"Food without life cannot nourish an evil fetus."

"Return to the earth."

He pressed the rice grains into the gaps in the wooden board.

The wooden houses along the entire road suddenly fell silent.

The doors closed one after another.

The bowls and chopsticks on the table shattered on their own.

The tall man was entangled in the ink line, his body rapidly collapsing, revealing a skeleton made of door panels and memorial tablets beneath his robe.

It reached out and grabbed at Lu Yuan.

"You have no home."

Lu Yuan stepped back half a step, avoiding the claws.

"I don't need you to build one."

The wooden plaque on the chest of the skeleton was split in two.

The character "家" (family) on the "家碑" (family monument) slowly faded away, leaving only a blank stone slab.

The wooden plank road also collapsed.

At the same time, everyone's feet lost their footing, as if they were falling from a great height.

Lu Yuan grabbed the edge of the stone steps with one hand and pulled Xu Erxiao with the other.

Wang Chengan, Zhou Heng, and Lin Zhaoxuan each gripped the wooden stakes on the stone wall tightly.

Song Qinghe was swept downwards by a black gust of wind.

Lu Yuan flicked the red cloth from his waist.

"catch!"

Song Qinghe wrapped the red cloth tightly around her arm.

Five people were suspended in mid-air.

There were no stone steps below, only a pitch-black abyss.

The sound of countless wooden planks breaking echoed from the abyss.

The birch forest, the wooden houses, the fake village—everything was falling.

But the blank fragment of the family monument was not lost.

It hovered in mid-air, slowly drifting towards the depths of the abyss.

Lu Yuan saw that beneath the fragments, an upside-down grotto was emerging in the darkness.

The grotto resembles a giant bowl upside down inside the mountain, surrounded by black wooden stakes.

A pale white lamp hung on each of the wooden stakes.

Stone plaques hung under the lamp.

"Father, Surname, Voice, Wish —"

The remaining inscriptions were all in that upside-down grotto.

Deep inside, a huge black shadow lurked in the center of the cave.

It has no complete shape, like a face that has not yet opened.

But around that face, seven eyes of different sizes had already grown.

One of its eyes was looking at Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan's heart sank.

The evil god had not yet fully awakened, yet he had already seen them.

A voice came from the shadows.

It was neither a male nor a female voice.

It was as if all the stones on the mountain spoke at once: "Someone else has come to name it."

"Then leave your life behind."

As soon as he finished speaking, countless black chains suddenly extended from beneath the feet of the people suspended in mid-air.

Lu Yuan severed two of the tendrils with a single stroke, but the third tendril had already wrapped around his ankle.

A tiny word was engraved on the chain: "Surname".

Lu Yuan looked down.

That one word is absorbing his blood.

At the same time, deep within the upside-down grotto, a stone tablet slowly lit up.

"Surname Stele".

Lin Zhaoxuan shouted, "Senior brother, break the chains first!"

"No."

Lu Yuan looked up at the grotto.

"The chains aren't meant for us."

"It's looking for a surname that can be written down."

"As long as we have a surname and a given name, the evil god can use that name to nail us all into the mountains."

He sheathed the blade at his waist and grabbed the chains binding his feet with his other hand.

"Let's go down."

Wang Chengan was startled.

"Go down?"

"The main cave is down below."

Lu Yuan looked at the seven slowly rotating eyes, his voice calm.

"Now that it has seen us, we can no longer follow the path it has laid out for us."

"It wants us to keep our surname."

"Let's bring the empty monument to it."

Lu Yuan suddenly tightened the chains.

A tremendous pulling force came from the other end of the chain, and all five people fell towards the upside-down cave at the same time.

The wind whistled past my ears.

In the darkness, the seven stone tablets lit up one after another.

Father's monument.

Surname stele.

Sound monument.

Monument to Wishes.

And the last three steles that have not yet appeared.

In the center of the grotto, the enormous black face slowly opened.

Its first eye was opened to its limit.

There were no pupils in his eyes, only a dark path leading to the bottom of the well.

Lu Yuan drew his sword as he fell, the blade pointing diagonally downwards.

"Protect your heart."

"Don't listen to it calling you."

"Don't answer its questions."

"Once we land, destroy the lamps first, but don't touch the monument."

Below, that massive voice rang out again: "Lu Yuan."

As the sound fell, the chains binding his ankles tightened abruptly.

Lu Yuan's body suddenly sank.

But he didn't turn around, nor did he agree.

He simply pointed the tip of the knife at the open eye.

You called me by the wrong name.

He whispered as he fell.

"My name is none of your business."

The five figures then fell into the upside-down cave together.

Darkness closed in.

Deep inside the grotto, seven white lamps were lit simultaneously.