Mountain God Ceremony

Shangguan Yunzhu’s fingers gently hooked the edge of the nightgown’s hem from behind.

“Ngh… Don’t! Don’t… don’t touch there!!”

Lu Qiancha’s heart felt as if it had been seized by a cold hand.

Fear, like a tidal wave, instantly overwhelmed her.

Her body instinctively began to struggle violently.

But she was not, after all, a body cultivator.

Even as a Void Refining realm cultivator, her naturally soft and small frame was like a butterfly’s wing pinned to a board in the hands of Shangguan Yunzhu, a peak Spirit Transformation cultivator who also trained in powerful combat techniques.

She could not shake the restraint in the slightest.

“Be good, listen to me…”

Shangguan Yunzhu’s voice became even softer, as if she were soothing a frightened child.

Her palm, warm yet firm, pressed against that slender back, preventing any futile wriggling.

She was utterly confused—it was just applying some medicine, why was this little one resisting so much?

‘She’s clearly trembling in pain, so why is she still so stubborn…’

Her heart ached with a mixture of anger and pity.

She scooped up a small amount of the cool, bone-chilling medicinal ointment with her fingertips and pressed it, extremely gently, onto the area most likely to be in pain from the fall.

The moment the cool, greasy ointment touched her skin—

It was as if the floodgates of the underworld had been opened.

The warmth of the fingertips.

That icy sensation.

That humiliating position of being held down from behind.

It instantly tore open the floodgate of memories that Lu Qiancha had sealed away.

Wan Shuang’s enraged, condescending face, looking down at her, seemed to appear before Lu Qiancha once again.

“Wuu~”

Immense fear seized Lu Qiancha’s throat, finally turning into a faint whimper.

Large, scalding teardrops, as big as beans, burst forth without warning, splattering onto the back of Shangguan Yunzhu’s hand, which was supporting her stomach.

“Does it… hurt that much?!”

This heart-wrenching cry made Shangguan Yunzhu’s heart clench violently.

Her fingertips froze as if they had been burned, and her voice trembled with bewilderment.

“Did… did I hurt you? I-I’m sorry…”

Shangguan Yunzhu frantically tried to move her hand away.

“Wuu~ No, don’t hit me…”

Without Shangguan Yunzhu’s restraint, Lu Qiancha, like a terrified fledgling, shot off her lap and rolled away, curling up into a trembling blue furball, her two paws clutching her tail tightly as she buried herself within it.

“Please… I know I was wrong… I’m sorry… wuu, wuu…”

Her sapphire-like eyes were completely blank, devoid of all light, with only endless fear spreading through the emptiness.

“Who’s going to hit you?! Senior Brother Qiancha! Little Qianqian! Look at me!”

Shangguan Yunzhu was utterly panicked.

She anxiously tried to push aside the tightly held tail to meet those vacant eyes.

“It’s me! Yunzhu! No one is going to hit you!!”

She couldn’t comprehend the sudden change before her, only feeling that the small, huddled figure, crying and pleading incoherently, was like a needle piercing viciously into her heart.

‘I was just trying to apply medicine, how did I… scare the child like this?!’

Thick confusion and panic were instantly replaced by a more surging heartache and guilt.

She had done nothing wrong, yet looking at the little wolf cub, whimpering brokenly out of fear, an intense self-blame, like a giant boulder, pressed down on her, so heavy it was almost hard to breathe.

“Wuu… I’m sorry… I know I was wrong…”

Lu Qiancha was still sobbing and apologizing unconsciously, her voice fragmented, her small body trembling violently with each whimper, as if she were enduring some horrific torture all alone.

Shangguan Yunzhu could bear it no longer.

She suddenly leaned down and pulled the trembling blue furball tightly, so tightly, into her own embrace.

Her arms closed around her, as if to use her own body heat and presence to completely melt away the icy fear in her arms.

She lowered her head, her cheek pressed tightly against the trembling little blue head, her voice trembling with a guilt, panic, and pleading that she couldn’t control.

“I’m sorry! It’s my fault! I’m the one who scared you!… Be good… we won’t apply the medicine, we won’t… don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid anymore… Sister Yunzhu is here… no one can hurt you… don’t cry… I’m begging you… please don’t cry…”

Shangguan Yunzhu murmured incoherently, and a warm liquid blurred her own vision as well.

And so, a young woman and a young girl sobbed in the small wooden cabin, until Lu Qiancha, having cried herself tired, felt the warmth in the embrace and slowly drifted off to sleep.

Lu Qiancha slowly opened her eyes amidst a slight rocking.

Her hazy vision gradually focused—uneven, ancient tree branches passed over her head.

She was currently nestled in Shangguan Yunzhu’s arms, the faint, clean scent of dandelions from Shangguan Yunzhu’s body lingering in her nose… Clearly, they were already on the winding mountain path to worship the Mountain God.

“You’re awake?”

Shangguan Yunzhu immediately noticed her movement and lowered her head, her voice extremely soft and gentle.

Her amber eyes were filled with concern and a soft, almost maternal affection.

“Are you… still feeling uncomfortable anywhere?”

“N-no…”

Lu Qiancha subconsciously shook her head, but a faint blush quietly crept onto her cheeks.

She looked at Shangguan Yunzhu’s gaze, full of maternal radiance, and felt a little unused to it…

It was the first time she had been looked at like that by someone her own age… ‘Wuu~ It feels so embarrassing…’

Remembering how she had been scared to tears by the other person… ‘It’s over, I’ve really been treated like a small child…’

‘Wuu~ It’s so embarrassing…’

Lu Qiancha was so annoyed that her little face burned hot.

She instinctively burrowed deeper into Shangguan Yunzhu’s embrace, trying to hide herself.

This action, like a fledgling seeking shelter, was interpreted by Shangguan Yunzhu as proof that she was seeking comfort from the aftershocks of fear.

“Don’t be afraid, I’m here…”

Shangguan Yunzhu’s heart softened, and the excessive gentleness in her eyes was almost overflowing.

She reached out and gently rubbed the pair of fluffy, pointed ears and the soft blue hair on top of Lu Qiancha’s head.

“Ngh…”

The gentle touch on her head made the blush on Lu Qiancha’s face instantly explode, burning even hotter.

She let out a whimper and buried her head even deeper into the other’s embrace, leaving only a small section of her burning blue ears exposed.

They traveled in silence for an unknown amount of time, and the long procession came to a halt on a wide platform halfway up the mountain.

“We’re here.”

Shangguan Yunzhu’s voice woke Lu Qiancha from her shameful ostrich-like state.

“Mmm…”

Lu Qiancha responded with a barely audible sound, and as if she had been burned, she quickly struggled out of Shangguan Yunzhu’s embrace and leaped lightly to the ground.

‘No… it still feels so embarrassing… Wuu~ I have no face to see anyone.’

Lu Qiancha squeezed her eyes shut and, almost instantly, shrank behind Shangguan Yunzhu’s tall figure, using her spiritual sense to investigate the situation for her.

Seeing Lu Qiancha’s timid appearance, Shangguan Yunzhu let out a silent laugh.

She took the opportunity to firmly grasp the small, fluffy paw that was sticking out from behind her, unconsciously tugging at the corner of her clothes, and wrapped her five fingers gently around it.

Then, she shifted her gaze to the villagers who were worshipping in front of them.

Her gaze also fell upon the Mountain God temple at the edge of the platform.

Several stout villagers were working together to lift a huge wooden platter.

The platter was piled high with large, plump, and enticingly colored honey peaches—a particularly eye-catching sight in these green, rocky mountains.

The wooden platter was steadily lifted to the foot of a rather crude stone statue of a mountain god, roughly hewn from a single piece of bluestone.

Then, a long and devout, almost numb, worship ceremony began.

Complex prayers, kowtows, offering of incense… every step was meticulously carried out, yet it was permeated with a suppressed, deathly stillness.

At the end of the ceremony, the Village Chief’s hoarse and withered voice pierced the air.

“Close your eyes—and kowtow—!”

“Wait for the great Mountain God… to enjoy the offerings—!”

As his words fell, the villagers on the platform, like puppets controlled by invisible strings, all prostrated themselves deeply in unison, their foreheads pressed tightly against the cold stone ground, their postures one of extreme humility and reverence.

In an instant, only suppressed breathing could be heard on the entire platform.

Shangguan Yunzhu and Lu Qiancha exchanged a glance, then also sat down cross-legged in the same manner, placing their hands in front of them in a gesture of respect, and lowered their heads with their eyes closed.

Although the two of them also had their eyes closed and mouths shut, their spiritual senses were working nonstop, keenly capturing the most subtle fluctuations in the air, trying to find any trace of abnormality in that dead silence.

Just as Lu Qiancha’s divine sense swept across the surface of the mountain of fresh, beautiful peaches—

Hiss—!

A chill, mixed with a wet, sticky malice, emerged in her heart.

Her spiritual sense detected—

Beneath the rosy, enticing peach skin, several rice-grain-sized, soft-bodied worms, their bodies a strange pale green or sickly orange-yellow, were wriggling as they pierced through the smooth peach skin, greedily gnawing on the fresh, tender flesh.

What was even more nauseating—every time they gnawed off a part, they would spit out a turbid, translucent, viscous substance from their tiny mouthparts.

These disgusting secretions, as if they had a life of their own, spread rapidly, perfectly mending the gaps in the peaches, making them look as good as new.