My girlfriend is a Miao demon.

Mao Xigu held a teacup, his fingertips tracing the smooth glaze on the rim. The tea in the cup emitted a faint aroma, which diffused into the bubbling steam of the hot pot.

"When I was little, I heard bits and pieces about my grandmother." His voice was a little hoarse as he spoke, and the firelight reflected in his eyes, creating shimmering light, as if one could glimpse those stories sealed away in the past. "My grandmother was an orphan who married from the Northwest to the Southwest. Her adoptive parents were farmers who had no children of their own. They found her and raised her as their own daughter."

"My grandmother was an educated woman of that era, a graduate of a teachers' college. She met my grandfather at a train station in Northwest China. My grandfather was a soldier, and he was from the Maoxi region. That's how my grandmother married into the Maoxi community. Actually, I think my grandmother intentionally married into the Maoxi community. She knew that the Maoxi people were mostly Miao, and maybe she wanted to be closer to her compatriots. Maybe she knew what the Sanmiao people were like. In any case, she traveled thousands of miles to marry into the Maoxi community."

"After my grandmother married into the Maoxi village, she volunteered to become a village teacher in the Miao village. The conditions in the Miao village were extremely harsh. Even when I was a child, every family lived in an adobe house, which leaked when it rained. The whole village only had two cows."

"When I was little, I didn't understand or feel anything. But when I grew up, I realized that my grandparents probably didn't spend more than a week together in their entire lives. My grandfather went back to his unit for the first time after his marriage, but he had an accident during a mission and never came back. Then my father was born. My grandmother stayed at home to raise the children and teach. Sunrise and sunset, that was my grandmother's life."

Mao Xi, the Gu Master, finished his tea. He tasted it as if it were homemade rice wine from his Miao village; the warm liquid slid down his throat, its refreshing coolness seeping into his heart. He continued:

"When my grandmother told me about the history of Jiang Yang and Pan Hu and passed on the witchcraft to me, she said that when she met my grandfather and heard that there was never a war between the Three Miao people or even the existence of the ancestor Jiang Yang, her whole world collapsed."

"She didn't believe it, she didn't listen, but she wanted to hear it. When she actually came to Maoxi and saw the Sanmiao people there, she had no choice but to believe it. She found that the Sanmiao people on both sides were both the same and different."

"The Sanmiao people here also have witchcraft, but it's not the secret art that the Huamiao people keep to themselves. The Heimiao and Baimiao people also know it, but it's just small-scale stuff, just minor tricks."

"What's even more surprising is that the Miao people here, including the Hua Miao and Bai Miao, also venerate Panhu as their ancestor. It's not just the Hei Miao who worship Panhu. Moreover, in Maoxi, the Hua Miao are thriving, the Hei Miao are not bad, and the Bai Miao are also good. The three Miao groups even intermarry and hold celebrations together during festivals. There is no war or bloodshed, and there is not even a reason for armed conflict."

"From this moment on, Grandma began to doubt the mission she was entrusted with. She doubted not only its feasibility, but more so its meaning. The Hua Miao had not perished, Pan Hu had not betrayed the country, and even the Ancestor Jiang Yang had never existed. So how could there be any glory of revenge, restoration of the country, or bloodshed? Since both sides of the Twin Gates are real worlds, why force them to lead to different outcomes?"

"Grandma spent thirty years achieving reconciliation with herself and with the new world."

Mao Xigu's gaze became distant, as if he were seeing his grandmother:

She said she didn't understand whether her understanding and choices were right or wrong. She hadn't fulfilled the mission given to her by the ancestor Jiang Yang, and had even given up the mission on her own initiative.

"Later, she discovered that I was very intelligent. She thought I must have a great talent for practicing witchcraft, so she told me about these things and also passed on to me the two witchcraft techniques and two Gu worms that Jiang Yang had taught her. As for whether or not to search for the Twin Gates, or whether or not to go to that old world to restore the country and become the restorer of the Flower Miao, she only said that she would leave the choice to me."

"Actually, my grandma told me all this just a few days before I graduated from elementary school and was going to go to junior high school in town."

Mao Xigu Master's voice lowered, filled with infinite regret:

"When I went to junior high school, I went to the town. The school was a boarding school, and I would only go back to the village once every two or three months. Later I realized that the reason why my grandmother chose to tell me these things and pass them on to me at that time was because she already knew that she was going to die soon. She was afraid that if she didn't tell me, she would never have the chance to tell me."

"Wh...what? I'm going to die soon?"

As soon as Mao Xigu finished speaking, Xiang Nanfeng subconsciously glanced at Zuo Hezi beside him, and sure enough, he found that Zuo Hezi's eyes also revealed the same doubt.

"How...how did your grandmother die?" Xiang Nanfeng and Zuo Hezi asked almost simultaneously.

"No, no, I know what you two are thinking. It's not like that. My grandmother's death had nothing to do with witchcraft." The witchcraft master Mao Xi raised his head, looked at the two of them, waved his hand, and continued, "It was because of pollution."

"pollute?"

"Yes. Maoxi is a poor place, and the Miao people have a low level of education and no environmental awareness. Our village has been using traditional methods to make arsenic ash since the 50s, which is to burn it in earthen kilns without any protective measures. The arsenic ash produced is just piled up by the roadside. The wastewater produced by arsenic making is never treated and is just poured directly into the river along the field ridges."

"Over time, the rivers and groundwater in the surrounding area, covering dozens of square kilometers, were contaminated with arsenic. In the early 2000s, the government sent people to test it and they were horrified. They said the arsenic content in the river exceeded the standard by more than a thousand times. Haha, how could people not die? Even the groundwater exceeded the standard by hundreds of times."

At this point, a deep sense of helplessness and pain appeared on Mao Xigu's face:

"Arsenic is highly toxic. How could you not get sick if you drink that kind of polluted water for a long time? My grandmother died of rectal cancer. More than a hundred people in the village have gotten cancer before and after her death."

"Oh, my dad also passed away from cancer two years ago, even though my family moved out of the village ten years ago. Although the government has started to clean up the water since then, the previous one or two generations had been drinking polluted water for half their lives, and their health had already deteriorated. It was too late. I'm lucky; I left the village to study in town during junior high school, otherwise I'd be in serious trouble now. That's why I insisted on studying chemistry later on; it's kind of an obsession."

At this point, Mao Xigu Master smiled wryly, picked up his teacup, and gestured towards Xiang Nanfeng and Zuo Hezi:

"The three of us are really in the same boat! Xiang Nanfeng was born an orphan, without a father or mother; my mother ran away with someone not long after I was born because she couldn't stand the poverty and hardship of the Miao village in Maoxi; my father passed away the year before last, and now I'm all alone; Miss Zuo's mother also passed away the year before last, and now her father is gone too."

Upon hearing this, all three couldn't help but smile bitterly. The gears of fate creaked and turned, bringing together three such unfortunate souls in this way: this truly is what they mean by "We are all fellow sufferers, why should we need to have known each other before?" Though there was no fine wine at hand, only plain tea, the three raised their cups in tacit understanding, everything was understood without words.

After setting down their teacups, the three remained silent for a long time, as if they had suddenly run out of things to say. Xiang Nanfeng, the reporter, instinctively feared an awkward silence, so he quickly brought up an old topic, pressing Mao Xi Gu Master: "Mao Xi Gu Master, did your grandmother ever tell you anything about her life before she came to Mao Xi? For example, did she have any special experiences in that small mountain village in Northwest China, or how were she found by her adoptive parents?"

Mao Xi Gu Master shook his head, a hint of regret on his face: "No, I was too young back then. After listening to my grandmother's stories about Jiang Yang and the Twin Gates, I just found them amazing and didn't think to ask for any details. By the time I went to university and had more time to think, my grandmother was long gone when I finally wanted to find the Twin Gates."

"But later, when I went home to register my household registration, I went to the local police station and found in the household registration system that my grandmother's household registration had been moved to Shuyu County in Northwest China." At this point, his eyes lit up, as if he had grasped a lifeline. "That summer, I didn't go home. I bought a train ticket and went to Shuyu County. Following the information about my grandmother's place of registration, I asked around and actually found the village where her adoptive parents used to live."

"But that village no longer exists. Due to ecological migration, the villagers were all moved to the town, and the original village had been abandoned for many years. Luckily, I found one of my grandmother's adoptive father's nephews in the town, who was my great-uncle? Anyway, he was of the same generation as my grandmother. He was quite old at the time, but he still remembered some things about my grandmother. According to him, my grandmother's adoptive father found her when he went up the mountain to chop firewood around the time of liberation."

"So, when your grandmother came to our world through the Twin Gates, she was also an orphan? Just like me?" Xiang Nanfeng interrupted him during his pause and asked.

Mao west Gu Master paused for a moment, then nodded and said:

"Yes, that was indeed the reason why I initially suspected your background."

His gaze was fixed on Xiang Nanfeng, and his tone became serious:

"I've also wondered if you, like my grandmother, were also a little Gu witch sent into the Twin Gates by Jiang Yang? And the Basili Gu on your body, could it not be the so-called Gu witch from the dream world who gave it to you here, but rather the same as the 'Child Loss Gu' that the ancestor Jiang Yang kicked into my grandmother's arms at the end, something Jiang Yang deliberately left for you, something you brought from there yourself?"

Xiang Nanfeng's heart clenched. This conjecture was like a thunderbolt. He thought for a long time before muttering to himself in a slightly trembling voice, "If that's the case... then Gui Luyao really was just a dream? There was no sorcerer from a dream world entering the real world, and I myself am the sorcerer from another world?"

The more he thought about it, the more horrified he became: "If that's the case, then in the old city east, in Nanfeng Lane, there should also be a twin gate hidden there? Did I come from that twin gate?" This thought was like a poisonous weed, growing wildly in his mind, only to be uprooted by himself. "No, no! This is impossible! This is absolutely impossible!"

"Yes, I had my doubts at first," Master Mao Xi said frankly. "But I eventually dismissed the idea. You're too young. Didn't you say you were only a few hours old when you were discovered? How could Jiang Yang send a baby only a few hours old to save Hua Miao? How could a baby possibly know witchcraft? Don't you all agree?"

The two people opposite him nodded repeatedly. At this moment, Xiang Nanfeng continued to ask:

"What about Sanwei Mountain? Master Maoxi, have you found Sanwei Mountain in Shuyu County? Have you searched for the twin gates your grandmother used to pass through?"

Mao west Gu Master shook his head again, a hint of helplessness on his face:

"The entire Shuyu County is mountainous, with endless, rolling peaks and no plains at all. I asked many people in the town, and none of them knew what Sanwei Mountain was. Perhaps the mountain had another name, or perhaps the name had been lost to time because it was so old."

"At that time, based on the descriptions of the town's residents, I did find the abandoned village where my grandmother's adoptive parents used to live. The village was surrounded by dense woods, with weeds growing taller than a person. The dilapidated mud-brick houses were filled with clutter, and it looked desolate and deserted."

He recalled the scene, his tone tinged with melancholy:

"According to my uncle, my grandmother's adoptive parents passed away one after another in the 70s, both due to illness. Since my grandmother came to Maoxi with my grandfather, she has never returned to Shuyu County, nor has she contacted her relatives here. Perhaps it is because she cannot let go of what happened back then, or perhaps it is because the journey is too far."

"What about the mountain where the Twin Gates are located?" Xiang Nanfeng's emotions became agitated again. He leaned forward, his eyes full of urgency. "In the fairy tale that Miss Zuo just told her father, didn't it mention that Jiang Yang took your grandmother to climb a triangular mountain and crawled into a cave under a blue stone under a big maple tree on the mountain? That triangular mountain has such distinctive features, it should be easy to find."

"Are there mountains with this shape around the abandoned village where Grandma's adoptive parents used to live? If you're going to chop firewood, you can't go too far; it's usually within a few kilometers of the village. If you find a contour map of Shuyu County, mark the location of the abandoned village, and draw a circle with the village as the center and a radius of 2 kilometers, you should be able to find that mountain. Once you find the mountain, you can find the big maple tree and the cave under the bluestone—that's the entrance to the Twin Gates!"

Mao Xi Gu Master glanced at Xiang Nanfeng, then at Zuo Hezi beside him. Both could sense that Xiang Nanfeng was overly agitated and his obsession with finding the Twin Gates was too strong. Zuo Hezi frowned slightly and softly advised:

"Xiang Nanfeng, calm down. Even if there really is such a triangular mountain, five thousand years have passed. Five thousand years is enough time for many things to change. That big maple tree should have died long ago, and maybe even the stump is gone; that blue stone may have been washed away by rain, buried by a landslide, or taken away by the local villagers to build houses or pave roads."

She paused, then continued:

"Furthermore, half of the story my father told me back then was about the Twin Gates, which means that he and Mao Xigu's grandmother must have been focused on the Twin Gates back then. They were both very knowledgeable people, and they must have made the same conjectures as you, and may even have personally investigated the area around that abandoned village in Shuyu County. But in the end, they did nothing and left no clues about the Twin Gates. This means that the Twin Gates that 7-year-old A Duoya walked through are either impossible to find, or even if they were found, they could not return by the same route. Otherwise, they would not have done nothing back then."

Mao west, the Gu master, also chimed in with advice:

"Zuo Hezi is right, calm down first. The existence of the Twin Gates must have extremely strict spatial and temporal rules, and it's not something we can find just by wanting to. Don't say that we only gleaned relevant details from a fairy tale a father told a two-year-old, as the information itself may be biased; even my grandmother, who personally experienced the Twin Gates and knew the location of the entrance, ultimately chose to give up and didn't take any action, didn't she?"

"Besides, even if we do find the Twin Gates, you can't leave. The most important thing right now isn't finding the Twin Gates you came from, but finding the Twin Gates that Gui Luyao is going to. Gui Luyao's purpose is unclear, and the Gu magic she possesses is so strange. If we let her pass through the Twin Gates smoothly, who knows what kind of consequences it will cause."

"We should focus all our energy on this matter now, finding the path to the Miaoyao Tower. That path is very likely the only way to the Twin Gates that Gui Luyao is going to."

Listening to their advice, Xiang Nanfeng took a few deep breaths, trying to calm his agitated emotions. He knew they were right; he had indeed been too impatient, blinded by his obsession with finding the Twin Gates. He remained silent for a long time, then picked up the water glass on the table, took a large gulp, and the cool water slid down his throat, finally calming his restless heart.

He put down his water glass, looked at Mao west Gu Master, and slowly said, "Alright, alright, I admit I got too excited. So now..." Xiang Nanfeng changed the subject, asking, "So now, can you tell me exactly how you found Miss Zuo? Didn't your grandmother never tell you who the person she was compatible with and trusted was? How did you determine that he was Professor Zuo, and how did you find your way here?"

The simulated charcoal fire still flickered, its orange-red flames casting long, long shadows of the three. The two men's gazes returned to the Mao Xi Gu Master. The Mao Xi Gu Master nodded, then looked at Xiang Nanfeng, pointing to the hot pot that no one was eating anymore, and said:

"Looks like everyone's finished eating? Should we ask the restaurant to take the hot pot away? Let's go for a walk outside!"