Originated from mountains and seas, life never ends

The strange thing is that no matter how passionately these ghosts spoke, Ye Lanshu and Liu Hongyu never talked about their past with them.

On this day, several ghosts gathered together again and talked to Xiao about their past lives.

"Then...what about Liu Hongyu?" Xiao suddenly asked, turning to look at Liu Hongyu who had been silently watching while they discussed this topic.

The ghosts around him were all stunned, and followed him to look at Liu Hongyu.

"Yeah, you never told us anything about your life before you died." said Li Yuan, who had only half of his head left.

"You have been in Mangshan for a long time, right? You should be older than us. Why haven't you reincarnated yet?" asked the long-tongued female ghost Wen Yuanying.

The ghosts here are not static. Some of them are just passing by and have a brief intersection. Some, even if they have settled down in Mangshan, will suddenly come to their senses and reincarnate at some point.

Wen Yuanying has been here for at least a few hundred years. The souls on the mountain come and go, but only these two remain unchanged.

"...I have no intention of voting again." Liu Hongyu had no desire to say more and just replied vaguely.

With his attitude, anyone with some sense wouldn't ask any more questions.

Unfortunately, Li Yuan didn’t.

If he had it, he wouldn't have had half of his head chopped off by the robbers just because he couldn't understand the look in someone's eyes.

"So what's the reason?"

Liu Hongyu looked at him, and there was clear stupidity flashing in Li Yuan's only remaining eye.

Liu Hongyu: ...

"Why don't you go and reincarnate?" Ye Lanshu asked Li Yuan with a smile, "I remember you have been here for many years, right? Why don't you go?"

"Ah, I plan to go again in a few years." Li Yuan smiled and successfully changed the subject. "Because I see that these countries have been at war for many years, I want to wait until the situation stabilizes and a truce is reached before I go."

As he spoke, he touched the eerie white bones on his head and said, "After all, being hacked to death is so painful."

Ye Lanshu snorted and laughed, and said nothing more.

"But I'm curious..." Wen Yuanying asked with a pale face, "There are so many mountains around, why is there only this mountain with so many ghosts? Logically speaking, shouldn't you be able to live in any mountain after death? Why do most of you choose to live here?"

"Didn't you choose to stay here too?" said the one-armed Wen Shuping.

"I stayed here because there were so many of my kind here." Wen Yuanying said faintly, "But I've been to other mountains, and none of them felt as comfortable as this one. Why is that?"

After asking, Wen Yuanying looked around, only to see that the other ghosts also looked confused, obviously not knowing the reason.

"Because Mangshan didn't exist in the beginning." Ye Lanshu put away her umbrella and leaned against the tree trunk. "This mountain is different from other mountains, and the so-called mountain god... is also completely different from other mountains."

"You probably all know by now that there are gods living in other mountains. They exist because of the faith of humans and the creatures living in the mountains." Ye Lanshu said quietly, "But Mangshan is different."

"A long time ago, this was a huge mass grave."

"-No, it's not accurate to say it's a mass grave." Ye Lanshu frowned in confusion, as if she was thinking about how to describe it.

"This was once a battlefield." Liu Hongyu suddenly spoke up. "It was a long time ago, when the nations were at war and wars were frequent. After a fierce war, the corpses piled up here were as high as a mountain, and blood flowed like a river. The blood was floating on the oars. The rivers on the surrounding mountains were dyed red."

"That war was extremely brutal, because this was the last line of defense of a country. The generals responsible for the garrison had no way to retreat... It could also be said that they were incompetent. In the end, although they managed to defend the city-state, almost all the soldiers died on the battlefield. The only consolation is that they also annihilated all the enemy's generals."

"But there were too few people left to deal with so many corpses. In addition, the bodies of our enemies and ourselves were mixed together during the melee, so it was too difficult to separate them one by one. We didn't have the energy to do so at the time, so we just piled them all here. As the corpses rotted, the stench of the corpses attracted more and more people to stay away. Over time, this place became a mass grave. Decades later, mountain torrents broke out in the surrounding areas, and a large amount of mud and rock flowed back here, covering the corpses that had all turned to bones. After hundreds of years of evolution, this mountain was formed."

"No one had ever worshipped this mountain before, but because there were so many corpses on the mountain, the resentment contained in the corpses gradually gathered, and the mountain god of this mountain appeared."

Liu Hongyu said this and glanced at Xiao.

"That's your master - although I don't know what else he does besides just being a figurehead."

After Liu Hongyu finished speaking, silence fell all around.

The wind blew through the sparse grass and the cold wind passed through many ghosts, all of which were silent at the same time.

"You said that this mountain feels more comfortable than other mountains. Maybe it's because the ghost energy here is too strong." Liu Hongyu looked at Wen Yuanying and said.

Wen Yuanying: ...

"Wait a moment, this story is a bit scary, wait for me to finish." Li Yuan said, touching his head.

"So there are corpses all over the ground under this mountain?" Wen Shuping looked down at the lush vegetation beneath her.

"Don't you know? Otherwise, why do you think that idiot is digging holes all day long?" Ye Lanshu asked curiously, "He is just looking for his own corpse."

Wen Shuping: …

"But in fact, it has been so many years, I may not know whether it still exists." Ye Lanshu touched her black hair.

Liu Hongyu felt someone pulling him, and when he looked down he found it was Xiao.

"So...how's that country doing?"

Mo Hanyu was stunned by Xiao's question.

Like everyone else, he was still in shock as to how Mangshan was formed, and was still thinking about something. Suddenly, he heard Xiao asking Liu Hongyu a question, and then he realized that Liu Hongyu seemed to be in a bad mood.

"That country was destroyed." Liu Hongyu smiled and touched his head, as if a heavy burden had been lifted off his shoulders. "A few months after the war."

After hearing the news, Xiao lowered his head and said nothing.

Liu Hongyu seemed to be relieved and patted his shoulder: "Don't be sad about it. Born in troubled times but without enough power to support its survival, destruction is a matter of time."

Hearing this, Ye Lanshu looked at Liu Hongyu in particular.

"Actually, I'm curious about you... Ye Lanshu." Wen Shuping suddenly asked, "How did you die? You don't have any obvious injuries on your body?"

"Someone plotted against you on your wedding night?"

"What are you talking about?" Ye Lanshu covered her mouth and smiled, "I've never been married."

"what?"

"what?"

Both Li Yuan and Wen Yuanying were surprised by this.

Li Yuan: "I thought you left with your husband because you were heartbroken after he died."

Wen Yuanying: "I thought you suddenly wanted to run away on your wedding night, but your lover didn't have the courage to do it. He secretly told others and you found out. You cried so hard that your eyes went blind, and the groom couldn't stand it and killed you in anger."

Wen Shuping: "...I thought you married the wrong person and were plotted against. When you found out, you cried so hard that you went blind. But then that heartless man stabbed you through the heart with a sword."

Ye Lanshu: ...

Ye Lanshu twitched her eyes: "You have quite a rich imagination."

"...I am an opera singer. I wore a wedding dress because I was performing a play about a beautiful woman and a ghost." Ye Lanshu closed her eyes and smiled, tilting her head. "We were performing the play when the enemy army broke in and killed all the princes and nobles. They kept us opera singers and asked us to serve them."

Ye Lanshu said "serve", but even Li Yuan knew what that meant.

Wen Shuping motioned to stop, walked behind Xiao and covered his ears, then nodded to Ye Lanshu, motioning her to continue.

Ye Lanshu: ...

Ye Lanshu smiled and said, "What are you thinking? If I had obeyed, I wouldn't have died like this."

"So how did you die?" Wen Yuanying asked.

"She guessed half of it right." Ye Lanshu said with a smile, "He was stabbed through the heart by a sword."

Ye Lanshu smiled lightly, revealing a hint of sarcasm: "The merchant girl knows not the sorrow of losing her country, she still sings the song of Houtinghua across the river..."

Liu Hongyu listened to her quietly, and for some reason, he tightened his fingers.

"There's nothing much to say about this. Compared to your ups and downs in life, mine is completely smooth." Ye Lanshu shrugged. "I have been singing opera with my master since I was young. I practiced boringly every day. When I became famous, I sang for those nobles. I sang until I died."

"...No, yours is more exciting than mine." Li Yuan gave a thumbs up, "For me, the most exciting moment in my life is when I was hacked to death by robbers."

Ye Lanshu: ...

He chatted with these people for a long time, and when he was teaching the owl to read and recognize scriptures, these ghosts realized that they scattered like birds and beasts.

Li Yuan: "No, no, my head hurts when I hear this."

Wen Yuanying: "I have studied this all my life and I don't want to see this again."

Wen Shuping: …

Wen Shuping didn't say anything, but she walked the fastest.

Ye Lanshu shook her head in amusement, took out the book she had recently exchanged with a child, looked at it for a while, and finally confirmed it.

"This handwriting is indeed very different from what I had back then." Ye Lanshu stroked her forehead helplessly.

But if you want to teach others, you still have to learn it yourself first.

While Ye Lanshu was teaching herself, Xiao followed Liu Hongyu to learn martial arts.

After Ye Lanshu learned it, daily routine became simple and regular.

Occasionally Mang Ling would appear and teach Xiao some strange things.

Time seemed to have been fast-forwarded. In the blink of an eye, Xiao had been in Mangshan for three years. His body had grown from thin at the beginning to strong, and the outline of muscles could be seen faintly under his tender skin.

Mo Hanyu vaguely felt that his body was gradually becoming lighter, and he had a premonition that he was about to break away.

Looking at the boy who was moving in a better direction day by day, Mo Hanyu felt sincerely happy for him.

One day, the souls on the mountain suddenly became agitated and became more restless than before.

"Did you know? People from other mountains are coming here." Li Yuan and Ye Lanshu whispered to each other.

"Come over if you want." Ye Lanshu was dissatisfied with his shouting, "This is nothing new."

"...No, this is not a ghost, nor is it one of those mountain gods." Li Yuan said.

Ye Lanshu still didn't take it seriously: "So what? It's none of our business anyway."

Li Yuan wanted to say something, but after thinking about it carefully, he realized that it was true, so he stopped talking.

This day was just like any other, Xiao followed Ye Lanshu to learn until the sun set.

The setting sun is like blood, illuminating the sky scarlet.

Just as Ye Lanshu finished her last sentence and was about to let Xiao go to play with Liu Hongyu as usual, a gust of cold wind blew and Xiao shivered suddenly.

Suddenly looking back, I saw a huge snow-white beast standing behind me.

The giant beast was tens of meters tall, with its two broad front paws standing apart, one of which fell next to the boy. It looked like a wolf, with a black horn on its head and long snow-white hair all over its body. When the breeze blew, its body looked like rolling snow waves, smooth and delicate.

The giant beast lowered its head and looked at the boy with its bright golden eyes, as if it was thinking about something.

"what?!"

Ye Lanshu was startled and quickly stood in front of Xiao.

"Aren't there any wild animals like this in the surrounding mountains?"

The owl stared blankly into the giant's eyes, as if frightened.

When the giant beast heard Ye Lanshu's words, its eyes turned slightly and looked at her.

"…This is not a beast." Liu Hongyu's voice came from behind.

Just as Ye Lanshu was about to ask, the giant beast in front of her suddenly emitted a dazzling light. When the light faded, a tall and straight man appeared.

The man's snow-white hair fell to the ground, black lines flashed on his forehead. He raised his eyes slightly, and his golden pupils seemed to be able to see through everything in the world. His gaze passed through Ye Lanshu and shone directly at the boy behind her.

Mo Hanyu was stunned when he saw his face clearly.

There is snow between her eyebrows, eyes like autumn water, and fair and smooth skin. Everything is perfect. Just standing there, she is a beautiful landscape.

Moze...

Mo Hanyu stared at the mark on his forehead in a daze.

How could he… ?

"Are you the child adopted by Mang Ling?"

Mo Ze spoke, his voice as cold as ice and snow, asking without any emotion.

"You... who are you?" Ye Lanshu stared at him closely, her soul shaking unconsciously.

When she saw him just now, a strong fear suddenly arose in her heart. She didn't know what she was afraid of, but she just felt panic unconsciously.

Mo Ze glanced at her and didn't answer.

"Don't be nervous." A faint black gas rose, and Mang Ling appeared beside Xiao.

Ye Lanshu suddenly turned around and looked at Mang Ling.

Mang Ling raised an eyebrow at Mo Ze and put his hand on Xiao's shoulder.

"it's him."

Xiao looked at Mang Ling blankly, not knowing what he was going to do.

"When will it be returned?" Mang Ling ignored his question and asked Mo Ze.

"Not sure, it should be about two years." Mo Ze said calmly.

"...What, what do you mean? Are you going to send this child away?" Ye Lanshu was a little flustered.

"It's not a gift." Mang Ling looked at Mo Ze, as if asking him to speak.

"Bai Ze wants to see the child. The news that you adopted a child in Mangshan has spread." Mo Ze looked at Ye Lanshu and said coldly, "They are all very curious and said they want to see it."

Ye Lanshu: “…Ah?”

"Are they all so boring?" Ye Lanshu wondered.

"Why did it spread?" Liu Hongyu asked.

Mo Ze turned his gaze to Mang Ling: "Ying Zhao said so."

Mang Ling: ...

When Mang Ling heard the name, a hint of impatience flashed across his face.

"Then I'll take this kid away." Mo Ze said, and seemed to see Ye Lanshu's tangled expression. He paused and continued, "I'm just taking him out for a walk. He won't be dangerous."

Ye Lanshu still frowned, seeming a little reluctant.

At this moment, Mo Hanyu suddenly felt a powerful suction force, as if it was going to tear his soul apart.

Everything in front of him became blurry, and the sounds he heard seemed to be blurred by a layer of water. Mo Hanyu struggled to take another look, but lost consciousness the next moment.

When she opened her eyes again, she found that her face was covered with tear marks. The moment she saw Qin Xiao, the face in front of her suddenly overlapped with the boy in the dim hut. Her heart ached and she couldn't stop crying.

Although it was much better when I got to Mount Mang...

But my childhood was miserable.

Mo Hanyu felt a sore nose and tears fell down.

"——Stop crying."

Hearing Qin Xiao's slightly helpless voice, Mo Hanyu cried even harder.

Unlike his previous emotional outbursts, Mo Hanyu's brain was working wildly.

If Qin Xiao asked again later, how should he tell him?

Hide it? Or tell the truth?

Mo Hanyu didn't know.