Tan Muxing hadn’t expected that stepping in to stop the chaos would somehow result in him being labeled as an accomplice to a village tyrant. Flustered, he quickly waved his hands. “No, no, I’m not a village tyrant.”
Hu Yongjin’s face twisted with anger as he shouted, “If you’re not, then let go of me!”
Tan Muxing hesitated. “Ah… this… I don’t think I can…”
Afraid that releasing Hu Yongjin might result in him lashing out violently, Tan Muxing refused to loosen his grip.
Hu Yongjin struggled awkwardly in his hold but couldn’t break free no matter how hard he tried. This only fueled his frustration. He hadn’t anticipated that someone with such a hesitant demeanor would be so decisive in action. He had planned to throw himself onto the ground and make a scene, but Tan Muxing held him so firmly that he couldn’t even fall over.
Wang Ping offered a suggestion. “Alright, stop wasting time here. He’s like a bug stuck to you. Just take him outside and toss him out.”
Tan Muxing suddenly realized. “…Oh, okay.”
With that, Tan Muxing escorted Hu Yongjin out of the building, walking him all the way to the village entrance. The village chief and others stood by the building, watching from a distance. They didn’t expect Tan Muxing to walk so far away.
The village chief couldn’t help but remark, “Master, has your friend never dealt with bugs before? You just flick them out the window; why walk so far?”
Chu Qianli replied, “That’s funny. I don’t even know if my deskmate has seen a bug before, let alone dealt with one.”
Before long, Tan Muxing returned after sending Hu Yongjin away. He still seemed a bit shaken. “Why did he have to resort to violence?”
Tan Muxing, having always lived in a big city, was used to police promptly handling troublemakers at night. He’d never encountered someone like Hu Yongjin before.
Wang Ping scoffed. “People like him are everywhere. They think their strength and local connections make them untouchable!”
“In other villages, Hu Yongjin definitely wouldn’t back down,” the village chief, Old Li, shook his head. “It’s just that the people in charge here are different. Otherwise, he’d be even bolder.”
Yinlong Village sat on the border of two provinces, with Yinlong Mountain serving as the dividing line. However, the villagers lived close to one another and frequently interacted. Hu Yongjin’s attempt to intimidate the village chief was likely part of someone’s plan to extend control over Yinlong Mountain.
Yinlong Village was more prosperous than the surrounding villages, so naturally, they refused to comply.
After praising his province’s economic development and mocking the policies of the neighboring province, the village chief finally lent his small vehicle to the three of them.
Wang Ping, who often borrowed the vehicle, drove skillfully, taking Chu Qianli and Tan Muxing up the mountain. The small vehicle was primarily used for transporting goods, with only the driver’s seat in the front. The other two sat casually in the back.
Chu Qianli spread her arms wide, enjoying the breeze as the vehicle moved. She exclaimed joyfully, “Feel the wind in the village’s very own convertible!”
Tan Muxing, noticing her dangerous posture, gently urged, “Don’t stick your arms out.”
“This car doesn’t even have a roof, and you’re still talking about windows?”
“……”
The trio drove the small vehicle halfway up the mountain, but from there, they had to walk the rest of the way. The mountain air was fresh, the vegetation lush, and the land truly rich in resources. Occasionally, rustling sounds came from the dense leaves in the forest, likely small animals scurrying in the shadows.
The green canopy blocked the sunlight, and the tall grass reached their knees.
Chu Qianli timidly hid behind Tan Muxing, whispering, “There aren’t any snakes here, are there?”
Tan Muxing hesitated. “…Probably not?”
Walking ahead, Wang Ping skillfully hacked away at dead branches, mocking, “You’re still scared of snakes after that time you saw a little green snake? Aren’t you supposed to be good at fortune-telling? How can you be so timid?”
Chu Qianli muttered, “My ability to read and predict comes from respecting the natural order. People who revere nature are the only ones suited for this line of work.”
Wang Ping snorted, “Tch, don’t movies always show people defying fate with lines like, ‘My destiny is mine to control, not the heavens’?”
“Well, that depends on how you interpret ‘heavens.’ Besides, you’d be better off trusting me than those local screenwriters. They’re all just spouting nonsense.”
Tan Muxing quietly followed behind, carrying their supplies. Wang Ping picked mushrooms and tree fungi, occasionally pulling up some wild vegetables, which she tossed into the bamboo basket in Tan Muxing’s hands.
Tan Muxing glanced down at the diverse and colorful assortment of ingredients in the basket, finding it all quite fascinating. He even paused to take pictures, marveling at the surrounding scenery.
Wang Ping, noticing the idle and carefree Chu Qianli, frowned. “Can’t you lend a hand? Your classmate grew up in a city, and he seems more responsible than you.”
Chastised, Chu Qianli murmured, “I can help pick mushrooms, but the question is, would you dare eat them?”
Wang Ping froze at the comment and immediately changed her tune. “Forget it. Don’t touch them. I’d like to live a few more years.”
Wang Ping found Chu Qianli’s idleness annoying, but the thought of her helping only made things worse, so she decided it was better to do it herself.
“Don’t let her throw random stuff into the basket,” Wang Ping warned Tan Muxing seriously, fearing something bad might happen.
Tan Muxing nodded. “…Understood.”
Chu Qianli protested, “I’ll pick anything but mushrooms!”
Finally allowed to gather non-mushroom ingredients, Chu Qianli joined the other two in collecting food as they leisurely explored the mountain, enjoying a relaxing and pleasant time together.
Although Wang Ping rarely ventured far, she found herself climbing all the way to the summit that day while accompanying the duo.
Tan Muxing frequently stopped to take photos, claiming he was gathering design references. He documented every unfamiliar plant and leaf. Standing atop a large boulder on the mountain, he keenly spotted ant-like human figures in the distance and remarked, “There are other people on the mountain.”
Without looking up, Wang Ping replied, “Probably just other foragers. It’s the busy season.”
“Hmm… it looks like a group of people?”
Chu Qianli and Wang Ping perked up at this, moving closer to Tan Muxing and looking in the direction he pointed.
Squinting, Chu Qianli struggled to discern who they were. “Are those people I’ve never seen before? New arrivals to the village?”
Wang Ping decisively stated, “Nope, they’re not from our village.”
The group was far from the unfamiliar figures and their machinery, making the excavator in the distance look like a toy as it moved slowly. The people appeared to be cordoning off an area and conducting construction work.
Wang Ping frowned in displeasure and exclaimed, “Who are these people? This mountain belongs to our village!”
Tan Muxing carefully corrected her, “Well… actually, the mountain belongs to the state…”
“They must be from the neighboring village,” Chu Qianli mused after a moment of thought. “I remember coming here with Grandpa before. Part of Yinlong Mountain does belong to the neighboring village.”
“Even so, they can’t just dig here. Shouldn’t both villages discuss something like this?” Wang Ping was indignant. “I have to talk to the village chief about this. How can they let others dig up our mountain?!”
For once, Chu Qianli, usually lighthearted and joking, looked serious as she gazed at the distant excavator. She murmured, “Ah, this is bad. I can’t quite remember the layout. What if they’re destroying the Four Sacred Sands?”
Tan Muxing was puzzled. “Four Sacred Sands?”
“The four core principles of feng shui are ‘seeking the dragon, pinpointing the meridian, observing the sands, and finding water.’ You know how in movies, people search for dragons and meridians in the mountains?” Chu Qianli explained. “But actually, the hills surrounding the main mountain are just as important. Ideally, you’d have smaller hills to the front, back, left, and right, representing the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise—the Four Sacred Sands.”
“Grandpa spent a long time choosing this spot to settle down. Feng shui treasures like this are rare and hard to find.”
Chu Qianli had come to the mountain unprepared, without even bringing a compass. The poor mobile signal also prevented her from using the internet to locate directions. Years ago, she and her grandfather had agreed with the village chief not to disturb the mountain, but during her brief trip home, the neighboring village had already started digging.
As the sky darkened, Chu Qianli concluded, “Let’s go home for dinner. I’ll visit the village chief tonight.”
Noticing the time, Wang Ping drove them back down the mountain. Once home, she set about cooking the gathered ingredients and went off to report the neighboring village’s actions to the chief.
Meanwhile, Chu Qianli and Tan Muxing stayed at home, busy searching through old belongings.
Tan Muxing helped drag a large box out from under the bed, discovering it to be an area Wang Ping hadn’t cleaned. Waving away the dust that rose, he asked, “Is this it?”
Chu Qianli, sneezing from the dust, rubbed her nose and nodded. “Thanks, it should be. These are all Grandpa’s things.”
She opened the box and started looking for a compass. Meanwhile, Tan Muxing glanced around the room, noting the strange drawings and talismans on the walls. Curiously, he asked, “Your grandpa was a feng shui master?”
“Well, he mostly did feng shui for the village, but he was actually better at fortune-telling, like me. Star charts are essentially models, and Zi Wei can also be used for feng shui design,” Chu Qianli explained. “It’s like a discipline with foundational knowledge and more specialized branches.”
Hearing that both she and her grandfather studied divination, Tan Muxing felt a faint ripple of understanding.
“Hey? I remember seeing the compass before. Where is it?” Chu Qianli scratched her head, rummaging through the box. “Grandpa even showed it to me back then.”
She vaguely remembered seeing her grandfather’s compass as a child. But at the time, she wasn’t interested in feng shui and would rather play card games than touch it.
Tan muxing pointed to a wooden box in the corner of the large trunk and asked, “What’s that?”
Chu Qianli took the wooden box out. She casually unlocked the metal latch on the box and tried to open it, but after several attempts, it wouldn’t budge. “Wow, it’s been so long it’s rusted shut…”
Tan muxing took the wooden box from her and gently applied pressure. With a small twist, he easily opened the rusted box, revealing a smooth, gleaming compass with a bright red crystal in its center.
He handed the wooden box back to Chu Qianli and leaned closer to examine it. “Is the red crystal magnetic?”
“The red crystal is…” Chu Qianli paused as she stared at the gleaming red stone in the center of the compass. After a moment, she suggested, “Can you get my tarot deck from my backpack?”
Tan muxing, ever diligent, stood up to help. He retrieved the backpack and rummaged through it for the tarot cards. “Which deck are you talking about?”
“I only brought one deck.”
Tan muxing pulled out the Red Crystal Tarot deck and looked at the familiar starry design with a complicated expression. “So, you’ve already turned it into little cookies?”
They had once admired the original starry painting at an exhibition, and now the romantic artwork had been deconstructed into a deck of cards. He felt this was typical Chu Qianli behavior—nothing she got her hands on would remain intact.
Chu Qianli placed the compass and the Red Crystal Tarot deck under the lamp. After carefully observing them for a while, she turned to her desk mate for his opinion. “Don’t they seem a bit similar?”
Tan muxing nodded. “Yes, both have shiny red crystals.”
The center of the compass featured a beautiful red crystal, and the back of the tarot cards had a subtle red shimmer. The design elements indeed shared similarities.
Chu Qianli quickly pulled out her divination notebook. She had been using the Red Crystal Tarot for practice, and on her scratch paper, she had written: red stone, village starlight, grandpa, north-south-east-west, seven.
Did the north-south-east-west refer to the compass? Or something else?
Seeing her deep in thought, Tan muxing hesitated before softly asking, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just curious about what this stone is. Could it be a ruby?” Chu Qianli said as she stared intently at the compass.
“It’s not a ruby, and it’s not even a sapphire,” Tan muxing replied.
Chu Qianli was confused. “Uh, it’s not blue, so of course, it’s not a sapphire…”
Tan muxing patiently smiled. “Sapphire is a general term. Rubies and sapphires are both types of corundum. If corundum contains chromium, it’s red and called a ruby. If it doesn’t contain chromium, other colors of corundum are all called sapphire—orange, pink, yellow, green…”
“This doesn’t look like corundum at all. I’ve never seen a gem like this before,” he added. As someone passionate about designing clothes, he had handled many rare materials and naturally knew a lot about them.
Faced with her well-informed desk mate, Chu Qianli remained silent for a few seconds before meekly saying, “Your explanation gave me a real sense of class disparity.”
While others learned about gems for appraisal or collection, her desk mate learned about them to make clothes. It was simply absurd.
Tan muxing: “?”
Curious about the red crystal’s true nature, Chu Qianli decided she wanted to know its proper scientific name. Tan muxing suggested they take it for testing when they returned to the city.
Since they couldn’t break the compass to extract the red crystal, they decided to analyze the material of the tarot cards when they got back to Beijing to figure out what the shimmering red substance was.
During dinner, Wang Ping made a hearty stew with their day’s harvest and added a simple stir-fry of vegetables and eggs. This simple village meal was quickly ready.
While eating, Wang Ping grumbled, “The village head called the neighboring village, and they claimed they had a mining permit. That area technically belongs to them, so there’s supposedly no issue…”
“I told you Hu Yongjin was in such a hurry to get our signature because they’d already started mining behind our backs! He practically forced the village head to agree,” Wang Ping sneered. “That village really has no shame!”
Tan muxing asked, concerned, “Can’t you report this to the authorities?”
“The village head already reported it, but this is technically a cross-province matter. Who knows how long it’ll take to sort out? Our village is right on the provincial border, after all,” Wang Ping said helplessly with a shrug. “Those people are digging every day. Even if officials come, it’ll take time. The village head said he’d go to the site tomorrow to stop them, but do you think he’ll succeed?”
The village head, Old Li, was a skinny old man. While he could gather a group of burly men, the neighboring village had a provincial mining permit. At this point, it was unclear who was in the right.
Tan muxing speculated, “If they have a permit, maybe it’s been properly assessed?”
“Ha, you’re too naive. Those people are crafty. There’s always a loophole. Experts might say limited mining is acceptable, but do you know what ‘limited’ means?” Wang Ping sneered. “It’s like adding seasoning when cooking. How would the experts know if people are overmining?”
“As long as there’s money to be made, they’ll take any risk. There are plenty of people like that in the village!”
Tan muxing fell silent. Growing up in Beijing, he hadn’t encountered the kind of duplicity common in small, rural areas.
Even the worst behavior among students in the capital didn’t come close. Most people there had good family backgrounds, and in a city like Beijing, no one dared act too outrageously for fear of offending the wrong person.
Chu Qianli said thoughtfully, “Then let’s go to the site tomorrow.”
“You two kids shouldn’t bother going. Just focus on enjoying the countryside. Show your classmate around,” Wang Ping replied.
Chu Qianli smiled. “He’s never been to a rural area, so we have to show him the local specialties. That means going to the site.”
Tan muxing was puzzled. “Specialties?”
Wang Ping was confused. “Our village has specialties? Since when?”
Chu Qianli replied with a serious expression, “Of course we have specialties! Our village has a long-standing tradition of a famous folk art, with a rich history and deep cultural significance. It’s vibrant and colorful, a truly spectacular performance…”
Wang Ping: “Speak plainly.”
Chu Qianli grinned. “Our village’s best-known specialty: shamanistic dancing!”
Tan muxing: “?”
