My girlfriend is a Miao demon.

Human constraints are sometimes a wall, sometimes a mountain. Climbing over the wall doesn't guarantee your wish will be fulfilled, and what you see after crossing mountains may not be mountains at all. However, as long as you seek truth and your desires are fulfilled, you should always be persistent in climbing over walls and persistent in circumambulating mountains.

Having witnessed the high walls of Loubei No. 93, it's time to search for the ancient castle and stone chamber.

January 2nd was a sunny day at Wangshan, and it is said that the following week will also be sunny and pleasant.

As dawn broke, the south wind naturally awoke. These past few days, his body, which had been in a coma for 46 days in the real world, had slept far enough. No one knew better than himself that, as all the test results during his coma a month earlier showed, his physical condition had already fully recovered. The reason he couldn't wake up was simply to finish that long, unfinished dream.

Early that morning, Xiang Nanfeng first bought the necessary drinking water and high-calorie food at the convenience store downstairs, then went home to pack his backpack. He waited for the outdoor equipment store in the city center to open in the morning, then went to replenish the corresponding equipment. From there, he took a taxi directly to the small roundabout at the beginning of Loujiacun South Road.

He got off at the roundabout and walked into the unnamed alley on the west side of Loujia Village South Road, which leads to the back mountain.

Xiang Nanfeng was fully prepared for this mountain expedition. He wore a mechanical watch, a professional-grade high-intensity flashlight with 12000 lumens, a high-precision GPS satellite positioning device with a built-in three-axis electronic compass, and carried a three-day supply of batteries and a pre-downloaded and printed paper contour map of the entire Shounan Mountain area.

Considering there would be no cell phone signal in the deep mountains, he even rented a satellite phone. In addition, fire-starting tools and knives for self-defense were also essential. Although he knew these things would probably not be very useful, he knew that if he really came to a "narrow encounter" with Miao demons and vengeful ghosts, he didn't know what they feared, but at least he knew what things could give him some courage.

At 11:25 a.m., I got off the bus at Nanfeng and started walking.

At that moment, seeing the wisps of smoke rising from a house deep in the west alley, he felt a strange excitement.

The reality of the dream world is repeatedly verified here. This is the very alley that Luyao led him to. After turning into the north-facing alley from a house with a red roof and corrugated steel tiles, and walking another 20 meters north, looking up towards the south wind, a huge mountain rises abruptly in front of him, shaped like a pen holder, blocking the path of urban development.

Xiang Nanfeng once again entered the mountains from behind Loujia Village. At the same time, he recorded the coordinates of the entrance on the satellite positioning device. The positioning was accurate, and the timing began.

Yes, eight days ago, that's the night he and Luyao left from here.

Fifty minutes later, Xiang Nanfeng passed through the fork in the road leading to the east and west peaks of Bijia Mountain. According to the previously downloaded contour map, the west peak of Bijia Mountain is 829 meters above sea level, and the east peak is 799 meters above sea level. The west peak is 30 meters higher than the east peak and is the highest point in the area. When he passed through the fork leading to the west peak, he encountered two groups of hikers who had entered the mountain early that morning specifically to climb the west peak of Bijia Mountain.

At that time, they had all completed their plans and were on their way down. Xiang Nanfeng asked them about their previous outdoor experiences traversing Shounan Mountain, but when he asked about the ancient sites, open areas, and abandoned old buildings in the mountains, they all shook their heads.

This answer was entirely expected, because on the 25th, when Xiang Nanfeng woke up from the hospital, he immediately logged onto a satellite map after the police investigation found the information to be false. He zoomed in on the map to the maximum and looked at the entire Shounanshan mountain area under the jurisdiction of Wangshan City three times, but he still couldn't find a suitable open area in the mountains, let alone a mountain building like an ancient castle.

So rather than saying that he went into the mountains to find ancient castles and stone chambers, it would be more accurate to say that he wanted to see what the castles and stone chambers in his dream world looked like in the real world.

At 1:50 p.m., Xiang Nanfeng arrived at the ridge of Bijia Mountain. Due to the heavy equipment and the need to ask for directions too many times, this trip took almost twice as long as their previous trip.

In the depths of winter, although the temperature in Wangshan City is not considered bitterly cold, the strong winds blowing directly on the southerly face from the mountains can cause a sharp, cutting pain to the delicate skin in no time.

Eight days have passed. What was originally a sweet and private date has turned into a terrifying and painful farewell. At this moment, Xiang Nanfeng looks at the endless mountains to the south. His heart is like his face, exposed to the air and the biting mountain wind, constantly ravaged by the cold wind.

He suddenly remembered that it was on this mountain road, right after they had crossed the ridge, when Gui Luyao had asked him, in a moment of joking conversation, if she were to leave one day, would he rush to find her without hesitation?

At the time, Xiang Nanfeng thought it was just a mindless test of the couple's commitment to their love, but in retrospect, his joke turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. This plan to climb Shou Nan Mountain at night was of course intentionally orchestrated by Gui Luyao, but all indications suggest that this "intention" was not as simple as she had claimed at the time.

What is Luyao's plan?

What does she actually want to do and where does she want to go?

The open space shrouded in thick fog beneath the tombstone, the ancient castle that one cannot escape or bypass, the shaft and passageway that nearly killed Xiang Nanfeng, the tomb chamber lit up by the handless ghost bride... Are these places also in Gui Luyao's plan?

As afternoon approached and the sun began to set, its warm rays bathed the golden mountains and their ravines before him. The tension, loneliness, and despair of the past few days seemed to rise like golden light. In this desolate Shounan Mountain, Xiang Nanfeng could finally shout out loud, oblivious to his surroundings:

"Luyao, Luyao, where are you!"

The vast mountains don't always seem so generous; this time, they responded with silence, stingy with even the slightest echo. When I was in middle school, Shounan Mountain in my geography textbook had the traditional label "Mountain of a Thousand Mountains."

Shounan Mountain is the largest mountain range in our city and our province. Even generations of mountain dwellers could not possibly traverse all the peaks and valleys within its range. On a map, the entire Shounan Mountain range covers a vast area of ​​5500 square kilometers.

Xiang Nanfeng knew very well that finding the location of a castle that might not even exist in such a vast and mountainous area was like finding a needle in a haystack.

Sure enough, not long after descending south from the ridge of Bijia Mountain to the valley floor, Xiang Nanfeng got lost. In the valley, the mountain path splits into three: one going east, one going west, and one going south.

At the time, Luyao chose the middle path leading south into the mountainside. She then led the way, and he only remembered the undulating terrain, seemingly traversing three or four high mountains before starting a valley crossing. Unfortunately, it was late at night and the path was treacherous. Luyao only said she wanted to see the sunrise, so he assumed he was aimlessly wandering and focused solely on the path, not memorizing it. Today, however, walking alone on the middle path, after climbing one of the high mountains and using the sunlight to view the mountain scenery and search for the path, he finally realized that the eastern foothills of Shounan Mountain actually had numerous forks in the road, quite different from his initial expectations.

The mountain paths here are numerous, not necessarily indicating the number of travelers. Very few of these paths are actually worn into the landscape by human footsteps; the vast majority are not actually paths at all, but rather discontinuous strips of exposed rock, characteristic of karst topography. Because vegetation cannot grow on these rocks, they are easy to traverse, thus becoming naturally formed pathways that require no human intervention.

Looking down at the mountain scenery from the south, the rocky trails crisscross the mountains, winding and intersecting. If you take the wrong turn, you'll inevitably go in the opposite direction. Recalling Christmas Eve eight days ago, and the feeling of your feet and the feedback from your trekking poles, it seems that since leaving the valley on the south slope of Bijia Mountain, the two of them have been walking on these rocky trails the entire time.

Xiang Nanfeng struggled to climb the high mountain, but he didn't know if he had been there eight days ago. He could only try to recall each path, starting from the first fork in the road he was sure he had taken. He would then find the one he was sure he had taken, mark it on the satellite map, and then move on to the next fork, continuing to try, search, recall, and verify each path.

Clearly, this is not a smooth and effortless process, but rather a slow and steady one, like water dripping on a stone. Yet this slow process is truly indispensable, simply because the forgetting of memories happens silently.

By 17 PM that day, as the sun set over the mountain stream, Xiang Nanfeng had only advanced two or three hundred meters from the valley fork at the foot of Bijia Mountain before turning back. At 8 PM that evening, carrying a map marked with 19 red crosses, he traveled eight or nine li west along the southern valley of Bijia Mountain, reaching Lile Village, and found a small inn nearby to stay the night.

With a bowl of wide rice noodles and a pot of tea, Xiang Nanfeng called Ningning again, asking her to help him apply for another month of sick leave after the New Year. Then he went to sleep. As soon as the rooster crowed and the alarm clock rang, Xiang Nanfeng went back into the mountains along the same route he had taken yesterday, returning to the furthest fork in the road to continue searching for the way.

For the next three days, Xiang Nanfeng searched for the right path, but all he found was a golden osmanthus tree in a ravine 1.3 kilometers vertically from the western peak of Bijia Mountain. His efforts were minimal. What was even more disheartening was that, having found this place, he was no longer sure if the golden osmanthus tree was the same one he and Luyao had encountered that night, simply because his memory was hazy and there were too few markers.

We can't keep blindly searching for directions; we must change our approach and find clear landmarks. But what can serve as clear landmarks?

After much thought, Xiang Nanfeng felt that everything else was too absurd. Only the bluish-white stone tablet that he and Luyao regarded as their tombstone might belong to the real world and serve as a clear landmark. However, finding a stone tablet in the vast Shounan Mountain was still like finding a needle in a haystack, and he was afraid he wouldn't be able to find it in a short time.

So, who is probably the person who understands Shou Nanshan the most?

During his three-day search, although he didn't find the path very far, he unexpectedly discovered some other clues along the way. Shounan Mountain is the backyard of Wangshan City, but its highest peak is on the western slope, and the most scenic Xiangnong Creek also originates from the western slope. Therefore, whether tourists or hikers, most people's destination is the western slope, not the eastern slope that enters the mountain from the back of Loujia Village. This is also why Xiang Nanfeng has been to Shounan Mountain many times but has never been to the eastern slope.

Because there are few outdoor tourists, and the limited number of tourists choosing off-the-beaten-path routes, most visitors only climb the west and east peaks of Bijia Mountain, look south at the surrounding mountains and north at the city, and then head back home. Therefore, during the last three days of searching for a route south of Bijia Mountain, Xiang Nanfeng didn't encounter a single person. However, although he didn't meet anyone, he did see sheep droppings on all three nearby mountains.

There weren't just one or two sheep droppings, but many, many, which means that the sheep grazing here weren't just one, but a whole flock.

Xiang Nanfeng carefully observed the environment and geographical features of the sheep droppings. He discovered that all three locations were found under forests in the high mountains.

The altitudes of the three locations are all between 850 and 1000 meters. Around the areas where sheep droppings were left, there were widespread traces of sheep grazing on plants. He took photos of these grazed plants and sent them to Zhang Ningning's boyfriend, Mu Yao, a graduate student at Wangshan University who happened to be studying botany. Mu Yao, recognizing the plants from the pictures, said the grass the sheep were eating was called Epimedium brevicornu.

Epimedium is a traditional Chinese medicine used to arouse male virility. The term "ephemeral sheep" refers to sheep that are prone to estrus and have a strong sex drive, while "Huo" refers to the leaves. Therefore, Epimedium is a wild herb that can induce estrus in goats, and goats particularly enjoy eating this herb.

Although Epimedium is a wild grass, its growth has relatively demanding requirements regarding altitude and sunlight: it needs a mid-to-high altitude of over 650 meters, and it is sensitive to light, requiring about 80% shade to thrive. However, as a karst mountainous region, the soil layer in Shounan Mountain is relatively thin. The thicker soil layers are mostly concentrated in the low-lying valleys, where there are few rocks and much soil, few cliffs and many trees. The trees in the valleys can provide suitable sunlight for Epimedium growth, but the altitude there is insufficient. While the altitude on the mountain itself meets the requirements, the mountain is mostly rocky, and the area that can truly form a forest and provide sufficient shade is very small. Therefore, the distribution of Epimedium in the mountains is very scattered, which is probably one of the reasons why Shounan Mountain is not suitable for sheep grazing.

For a shepherd, feeding a flock of sheep might only require crossing three hills on an earthen hill, but on a rocky hill, it might require crossing ten or twenty. Furthermore, because the pasture is scarce and the soil fertile, shepherds cannot graze their sheep along the same route every day. Once the pasture on a hill is completely depleted, they must wait until the next crop grows before returning. This is likely why, after four days of herding southwards, all that can be seen is sheep droppings, not the flock itself.

In short, because Shounan Mountain itself is unsuitable for sheep grazing, and given the high level of economic development in Wangshan City, Xiang Nanfeng had previously assumed that there were no shepherds in the area. However, the presence of sheep dung has clearly proven his assumption wrong. So, in this remote eastern foothills of Shounan Mountain, could the wandering shepherd be the one who knows this place best?