My girlfriend is a Miao demon.

The wind from Jinji Mountain in Aoyin County carried the damp chill unique to the mountains, swirling withered leaves and brushing against Mao Xigu's cheek.

From the moment he discovered the unusual activity in Liu Su, he immediately ended his overseas investigation and rushed back to China day and night, heading straight for the mountain forest that held clues to the Twin Gates. But for an entire day, apart from the occasional birds flying by and the sporadic shouts of villagers in the distance, no one appeared under the old tree as he hoped.

He leaned against the trunk of a mulberry tree that resembled a mulberry tree but was covered in red flowers, gazing at the mountain road leading to Jinji Pass. The grass beneath his feet had long been trampled into a messy pattern; this was the 24th hour he had been waiting here.

The Miao people are trustworthy, and the person who planted the wood spirit is clearly even more trustworthy. Regardless of life or death, he still wants to fulfill a vow he made half a lifetime ago. How could he possibly miss the three-month appointment for no reason?

He picked up a withered leaf blown down by the wind, its veins clearly visible beneath his fingertips, and Mao Xi Gu Master's gaze darkened. He knew that anyone who could track him to Jinji Mountain was no ordinary person, yet they hadn't appeared at this conventionally agreed-upon clue point. There was only one possibility—something had happened.

This thought weighed heavily on his heart like a boulder, making it harder to breathe, but at the same time, another emotion was quietly growing:

This man's disappearance precisely confirms the authenticity and reliability of the secrets within the Gu Sang tree. The clues to the Twin Gates, the path to the Miao Kingdom, and perhaps even the reason behind the series of mysterious events that his online friend Xiang Nanfeng, whom he had never met in person, had encountered in Wangshan City over the past few months—everything related to the Miao Kingdom might be hidden within this Gu Sang tree behind him. The only way to unravel the secret is to find the person who buried the wood spirit and watered the shrub spirit with blood.

Mao Xi Gu Master stood up, brushed the grass clippings off his clothes, and looked towards the direction beyond the mountains. The growth pattern of the Gu Mulberry tree flashed through his mind—it takes root in one month, grows to the sky in one month, and blooms in one month. But if he deduced backwards from this rhythm, then the time this person found the clue to the Twin Gates should have been in early November 2011. The moment Mao Xi Gu Master determined this timeline, his mind was struck as if by lightning, instantly illuminating all his chaotic thoughts.

South wind, south wind!

The name Xiang Nanfeng immediately came to mind: November 8th, wasn't that the beginning of Xiang Nanfeng's car accident in Wangshan City and the start of a series of legendary experiences?

"My original intention was to first come to Wangshan to find you, and once I found you, I would bring you to Jinji Mountain in Aoyin County to see if there was any way to decipher the identity of the person who buried the wood spirit."

In the dim light of night at the Circle Art City, the three strolled side by side. Mao Xigu Master said to Xiang Nanfeng:

"But then I thought about it again. Even if I brought you to Aoyin, it would be of no use. To find the person Grandma trusts, I would eventually have to go back to my hometown, the Miao village of Maoxi, which is located between Aoyin and Wangshan. In other words, if I want to come to Wangshan to find you, I will have to pass through Maoxi."

"So you went back to your hometown and confirmed that person's identity was Professor Zuo?"

"Yes." Mao Xi Gu Master nodded and continued, "I went back to my hometown, the Miao village, and visited my grandmother's old house. That old house is a traditional Miao stilted house. After my father went out to work in the 90s, no one lived there anymore. Sigh, the current situation is hard to describe..."

Mao west Gu Master gave an awkward dry laugh. He simply stopped talking and took out his phone, showing the two a video.

At that moment, the three of them happened to walk up to a modernist open-air sculpture at the alley entrance. The sculpture was shaped like a deformed human body, with the lower body designed as a bench for couples to lean on. Xiang Nanfeng and Zuohezi simply sat down and watched Mao Xigu's "Homecoming Adventure Video" together.

The video begins with a blinding ray of sunlight. The camera pans, and the sunlight falls on a stilted house that has collapsed halfway. The wooden pillars of the stilted house have long been eroded by time, and dark green moss is embedded in the cracks, like the indelible spots on an old woman's face.

The original timber frame, which should have been a traditional mortise and tenon joint, was crooked and slanted. The western half of the building had collapsed, revealing a dark, gaping rafter skeleton, like ribs that had been broken. The intricately carved windows were long gone, with rotten pieces of wood hanging in mid-air, creaking in the wind as if someone were weeping softly.

The bluestone slabs under the stilted house were covered with slippery moss, and unknown wild grasses crawled through the cracks. Wildly growing vines climbed up the pillars and wrapped the rotten wooden planks tightly. Among the dark green vine leaves, one could occasionally glimpse a few faded pieces of Miao embroidery - the patterns that used to be on the window curtains. Now only a few strands of dark red silk threads remained, swirling in the wind.

A crack appeared in the stone mortar in front of the building, filled with rainwater that reflected the gray-blue sky. Most of the roof tiles were broken, revealing the mud bricks underneath. Several gray sparrows landed on them, pecking at the broken pieces of porcelain embedded in the mud, their chirping only making the building seem even quieter.

The most striking sight is the crooked half of the railing, which was originally a place where Miao girls sewed shoe soles and sang folk songs. Now, three of the wooden railings are broken, and the rest are so rotten that they crumble at the slightest touch. A bamboo basket with a broken bottom hangs on the railing, with withered kudzu vines wrapped around its edge. It is an old item that someone left behind here.

In the shot, the mountain mist rises, and the shadows of buildings press down on the broken tiles on the ground, like an old beast lying in the mountains, panting, burying the old stories of cooking smoke, silver ornaments and songs in the folds of moss and decaying wood.

"It looks like they're practically searching for clues in the rubble and ruins?" The video was only about a minute long, and the two of them watched it quickly. Xiang Nanfeng looked up and asked.

"Yes." Mao Xi Gu Master put one foot on the deformed arm of the abstract human figure sculpture and the other foot on the ground, answering Xiang Nanfeng's question, "That old house has been uninhabited for too many years. There are indeed some of Grandma's belongings: broken tables, broken chairs, broken bed boards and the like. I searched for a long time and only found a large wooden box, which was full of clippings made by Grandma."

"Clippings?" Zuo Hezi asked, looking puzzled.

"Yes, clippings. You didn't know? Many older Chinese intellectuals had this habit before the 90s. They would cut out useful articles from newspapers and magazines and paste them in a separate notebook for easy reference later."

"Yes, that's true," Xiang Nanfeng chimed in. "I used to make these kinds of things when I was in elementary school. Were these clippings useful? Did they contain any of your grandmother's writing? Like a diary entry or something?"

Xiang Nanfeng looked up and asked Mao Xigu Master, who shook his head and said with a wry smile:

"No, my grandmother didn't keep a diary, I remember that. As for this big box of bulletins, I was very excited when I first found it. It covers more than 30 years, from the 60s to the 90s, a total of 23 large volumes. At first, I thought that I might actually find some notes in it, which is like a diary! But in the end, I was very disappointed."

"What do you mean?"

"The clippings, which were over 30 years old, were badly moldy. The three from the 60s were more than half powdered. They would be ruined if you touched them. The ones from the 90s, which were placed on top of the box, were also soaked with water and completely moldy. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that I discovered my grandmother only clipped the clippings without commenting. There were 23 large volumes, over 30 years, and she didn't leave a single word. So at that time, I thought it was all over, that there was no hope, and that my trip had been in vain."

"And then what happened?" Zuo Hezi asked.

Mao west, the master of the Gu, pointed his finger towards the south wind, and then I suddenly thought of him:

"I was just wondering what he would do in his place? I'm not trying to flatter him, but you wouldn't believe it, Ms. Zuo, that reporter Xiang is even more capable than the police when it comes to investigating cases!"

"Stop! You're just flattering me... Get to the point!"

Xiang Nanfeng immediately made a "stop" gesture. But before he could even raise his hand, Zuo Hezi blocked it halfway:

"Speak, continue, Master Maoxi!" Zuo Hezi interrupted.

"Good!" Master Mao Xi nodded and continued, "I immediately thought of Xiang Nanfeng's approach to investigating the Miaoyao Pagoda last week. We didn't know about the Miaoyao Pagoda at first, and more importantly, we had no idea what we were looking for. If it were me, I might have given up because I wouldn't know what to look for if I was searching aimlessly. But Xiang Nanfeng was different; he grasped onto something and focused on finding that one thing."

"What are you looking for?"

"Contrast"

"Contrast?"

"Yes, it's all about contrast. In the agrarian society of Shounan Mountain, a Western-style building suddenly appears. The agrarian society, the deep mountains and forests, and the Western-style building are the contrast. He recognized this contrast, so he found the Nanshan Pavilion, and because he found the Nanshan Pavilion, he followed the clues and discovered the Miaoyao Pagoda behind it."

"My God, you really are a genius!"

Zuo Hezi couldn't help but cast an admiring glance at Xiang Nanfeng. Perhaps because the two were so close, this intense gaze made Xiang Nanfeng feel uneasy. He instinctively stood up, and as if shy, slipped behind the sculpture, muttering:

"Master Mao Xi, you're really something! I asked you to say something, but you're so weak, just get to the point! Stop with all this nonsense!"

"Look at him, he got all worked up when I praised him!" Mao Xigu said with a laugh. "When I was faced with that box of poorly preserved clippings, I thought of Xiang Nanfeng's method of looking for 'contrasts' when he was looking for something. I went through all the clipping books I could, and sure enough, I found a 'contrast' in the 1982 book. There was a page in this book with wrinkled and curled edges, obviously it had been frequently read, but the place where the clippings should have been was empty. Look, I took a picture of it."

As Mao Xigu spoke, he pulled out his phone again to show them. This time it was a photo, with a crumpled piece of yellow paper in the center. The paper wasn't originally yellow; it had yellowed due to oxidation. However, the unevenness wasn't due to oxidation, but rather because the paper was thin and had been wet before, which caused it to wrinkle after drying. Clearly, the dried water wasn't ordinary water, but glue. A newspaper clipping had originally been pasted there, but for some reason, the clipping was lost.

"Where's this clipping? Is it lost?" Xiang Nanfeng asked.

"I don't think so. I checked inside the box, and it wasn't there. It probably didn't fall out."

Upon hearing this, Xiang Nanfeng enlarged the photo and passed it around with Zuo Hezi.

The shooting conditions and the phone's camera resolution weren't great, but when you zoom in on the photo, you can indeed see a slightly grayish layer of paper fibers on one side of the crease.

Newspaper printing uses special newsprint, which is thinner than the paper used for other publications such as magazines and books. The ink used in newspaper printing is also special newsprint ink. Because newsprint ink has a thin ink layer and easily penetrates into the paper fibers, the black ink layered on the light gray background of the paper makes the overall tone of the newspaper grayish.

Clearly, the layer of gray paper fibers indicates that newspaper clippings were once pasted here, and since this layer of paper fibers is still well preserved after 30 years, it means that the clippings were originally pasted quite securely.

"It was torn off!"

Xiang Nanfeng's gaze sharpened. Just then, a gentle breeze blew through the abstract arms crossed on the upper body of the human sculpture, and a coolness, carrying with it the sound of swaying branches, swept over the three people in the garden. Zuo Hezi also stood up.

Mao Xigu nodded.

"Beautiful!" Xiang Nanfeng praised, then asked, "And then? What did you do?"

Mao Xigu Master revealed a sly smile and said:

"Haha, what else can I do but continue to learn from you and head straight to the library! This time it's much easier for me than yours. I know Maoxi very well. Before 2000, it was extremely isolated, with inconvenient transportation and poor communication. Our county could only subscribe to two newspapers, one of which was the national Citizen Daily, and the other was the local Maoxi Daily."

"Moreover, my grandmother always made the clippings in chronological order, and they were arranged very neatly. Although I didn't know the date of the torn clipping, the dates of the two clippings that were next to it were clearly displayed. The first one was March 10, 1982, and the second one was March 14. So the amount of work I had to do to find the information was almost negligible. I went to the county library and found the information in less than 30 minutes."

"Oh? What do you mean?"

"All the newspapers and periodicals in our county library are preserved on microfilm, and we can access them all from 1973 onwards. I found those eight newspapers from that period and compared them to the shape of the missing clippings in my scrapbook, looking for a section with that shape. And coincidentally, judging from the creases in the scrapbook, the torn clipping wasn't a regular rectangle, but a square. So I quickly found the clipping, the article. It was a book news item from the 'Book World' section of the *Maoxi Daily*. Look!"

As Mao Xigu spoke, he pulled out his phone again. The photo on the screen was clearly a microfilm of an old newspaper article. The two men who took the phone widened their eyes the instant their gaze fell on the headline, because the headline clearly displayed the following line of Song typeface:

— Renowned professor Zuo Sigong returns to China, and his book "Primitive Witchcraft and Primitive Religion in East Asia" is published in China!