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Chapter 67




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<b>Chapter 67: Landslide (2)</b>
 
 
 
“Buzz~~ Mountain ~~~ Buzzzz~~ Collapsing~~~”
“Mountain collapsing, what does it mean by the mountain collapsing?” Mi Wan asked her other three companions puzzledly.
“The mountain is collapsing? How can a mountain just collapse out of nowhere, I think you mean a landslide~~” Han Xiao surmised.
“A landslide?” Mi Wan froze.
“Ptui! Such ominous words! We’re still on this mountain. If there’s a landslide, won’t we be buried?” Jin Mingxuan spatted violently as goosebumps covered his arms that might not have anything to do with the freezing weather, “Let’s hurry down.”
“Mi Wan, why did you say the mountain is collapsing?” Only Liu Gu found Mi Wan’s reaction to be quite strange, and could not help but ask.
“I heard a voice just now, and it told me the mountain was about to collapse and wanted us to flee.” Mi Wan answered.
Everyone’s faces immediately turned into a shade of green, and even Jin Mingxuan, who was the most skeptical of the bunch, dared not utter a word.
“You really heard someone’s voice? But why didn’t we hear anything?” Han Xiao whispered.
“I heard it. It started out as a buzzing sound, and then there is a persistent voice urging us to flee.” To convince them, Mi Wan added, “It was the same as before.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Jin Mingxuan shrieked. Had they known such strange things were happening, they would have left the mountain a long time ago.
“I wasn’t sure the first time and thought I was hearing things. I was afraid it would just scare you guys.”
“Well, that’s definitely scary.” Han Xiao looked over at Liu Gu.
Liu Gu’s expression was ghastly. His entire body shook, and his lips turned a sickly shade of purple: “If this is true… and a landslide is about to happen, then the village…”
“Liu Gu, don’t assume the worst, it might not even happen.” Han Xiao grabbed Liu Gu by the arm and reassured him.
“But what if it’s true? Doesn’t multiple days of heavy rain happen before a landslide? It’s been raining non-stop for the past few days.” Liu Gu felt more and more convinced of the possibility, “Mi Wan heard the deity’s warning after I prayed to the tree deity.”
“But she could have also misheard it.” Jin Mingxuan remained unconvinced.
“Better safe than sorry.” Mi Wan repeated Liu Gu’s words when he prayed to the tree deity, and made a decision for the group, “Regardless if it were true or not, let’s inform the village chief and avoid staying on the village grounds today. We can argue about it tomorrow when the weather clears up.”
“But why would they believe us?” Liu Gu panicked, “With the exception of a few elderly folks, most of the villagers are not superstitious.”
“Then say you saw several rocks rolling down the mountain while you were up here, and we can vouch for you.” Han Xiao suggested.
Liu Gu froze and looked uncertain. But what if there is no landslide?
“What are you waiting for? Who cares if it’s true or not, we can talk about it once we leave this mountain.” Jin Mingxuan urged, “Call your parents first so they can start warning people. Whether it happens or not, hiding away for a day can’t hurt.”
Regardless of the truth behind Mi Wan’s words, since they’ve already made a decision, there was no time to waste.
The three guys stood by their idea and started running down the mountain. Li Gu pulled out his cell phone and called his mother as he ran. While he was doing that, Han Xiao realized that Mi Wan was missing.
“Where’s Mi Wan?” The group turned and realized that Mi Wan was running in the opposite direction.
“Mi Wan!” Alarmed, Han Xiao turned around with the intent to catch up to Mi Wan.
“Go down the mountain first, I’m heading to the tree deity.” Afraid that Han Xiao might chase after her she lied, “I think I heard another sound, the tree deity is calling me to go over there.”
Han Xiao stopped, and stood bewildered, unsure if he should chase after Mi Wan or continue down the mountain.
“Hello, Little Gu, what’s wrong? Did you make it down the mountain yet?” Mama Liu could not help but ask, as she heard the clamorous thunder from the other end.
“Ma, take Pa and leave the village quickly. The mountain might collapse.” Liu Gu anxiously replied.
“What?!”
“Gather the villagers and hide, I’ll be there soon.”
Mi Wan was extremely fast, disappearing up the mountain trail in a matter of seconds. That rigorous body movement was the complete opposite of how she was acting while she was on the bottom of the mountain. Even if the group wanted to chase after her, they couldn’t.
“Let’s head down first.” Perhaps it was due to the terrifying circumstances surrounding them, but the formerly skeptical group had now started to act like the landslide was definitely happening.
Mi Wan threw aside her umbrella, and single-handedly raced through the downpour, following the mountain trail, and arrived in front of the tree deity.
“Was it you who spoke to me?” Mi Wan yelled at the ancient tree before her.
“Hurry~~ Flee~~ I~~ Can’t~~hold it back~~” The voice rumbled once more.
Mi Wan looked around once more and realized that the voice was not coming from the tree deity, but from the stone altar that was housing those burning incense. Mi Wan walked over and crouched down in front of the stone altar. Staring at the spirals of green smoke inside, she frowned with a look of realization.
This was the power of belief.
It was Liu Gu’s sincere prayer that granted this large tree its last bit of strength.
Mi Wan ran back under the large tree and sent a surge of her own spiritual power inside of it. Following the weak voice, she finally found the tree deity’s spiritual source – a withered and pitch-black demonic source with only a sliver of demonic essence. The ancient tree wasn’t refusing to speak to her, it was simply too weak to talk. It had depleted its final life force, sending warnings to the outside world repeatedly about the impending landslide, while also clinging on to the surrounding soil with its body as best as it could.
Through her spiritual force, Mi Wan could distinctly sense that the soil in the ground had begun to scatter, with nothing binding it together. The moment this large tree loosens its roots, insurmountable amounts of heavy soil mixed with rainwater would slide down the mountain. The large cypress tree refused to give up, constantly pushing its roots to the deepest parts of the mountain until they wrapped around almost half of Mount Gu Yuan.
But it couldn’t hold on much longer, because half the soil that made up the mountain walls was loosening.
“Hurry~~Flee~~Hurry~~ Run~~”
Using its final life force, it was offering the villagers living at the foot of the mountain and the animals living in the mountain, a chance to escape with their lives.
Mi Wan didn’t know what she could do, but gathered up all her own spiritual energy, and focused it straight into the tree deity’s withering demonic source, hoping that it could hold on for a little longer. But Mi Wan knew that even if she exhausted her entire body’s spiritual energy, it was not going to last.
Grinding her teeth, Mi Wan pressed a hand against the tree’s trunk and took out her phone with her other hand to call Han Xiao.
“Mi Wan, are you down yet?” Han Xiao asked anxiously, “We saw a lot of fleeing animals along the way.”
“Class President, listen closely. You only have 15 minutes.”
“What?” Han Xiao was confused.
“Landslide.” She and the tree deity could only hold on for another 15 minutes.
“Are you here yet?” Han Xiao asked.
“I’m already down.” Mi Wan hung up and threw her phone to the side. Focusing both hands on the tree trunk, she inserted her own spiritual energy.
Time trickled slowly while the rain became more and more intense. Mi Wan could faintly hear buzzing noises in her ears, but she did not have the energy to confirm, because her spiritual energy had already been rapidly exhausted.
Before her soul floated away, Mi Wan saw her body gradually keel over, the tree deity’s giant roots were torn apart by the mountain’s eroding soil, and the branches that stood proud and tall for centuries showed their first signs of drooping.
Mi Wan’s soul continued soaring higher and higher into the skies, allowing her to see more and more of the mountain view. She saw her body get buried under the landslide. She witnessed half of Mount Gu Yuan cascading down towards the village at the speed of the tumultuous Yellow River. She really wished she could float towards them, to check on the Class President and the boys, and wondered if they were able to warn the villagers, but her soul continued to ascend.
“AHHHHH… THE MOUNTAIN IS FALLING”
Someone yelled as the large mountain began to topple, causing those who had fled to safety, like Liu Gu and his friends, to watch in horror.
The landslide is really happening?
“What do we do? The surrounding villages have not completely evacuated.” Mount Gu Yuan’s village chief paced about in frustration while calling the next-door village chief relentlessly.
Mi Wan’s soul continued to float. As she watched the inevitable unfold before her eyes, she suddenly began to consider her future. Fan Chen and her have severed ties, so there’s no way of knowing if Fan Chen would return her soul back to her body. Besides, her body’s currently buried under a landslide. Can it even be retrieved? Can she still use it even if they do manage to dig it back up?
Suddenly, in the midst of the violent landslide, sprouted numerous green vines that branched out and grew at a speed faster than the eroding soil, and formed a net by the edge of the cliff that suspended numerous falling rocks. Countless animals scrambled up the green vines that suddenly appeared, dodging the impact of the eroding soil and rocks, and perched timidly on the vines like washed-up survivors on a deserted island.
Fan Chen?!
At the sight of the green vines, only one person came to Mi Wan’s mind. The pull suddenly weakened, and Mi Wan found herself stopping on the peak of Mount Gu Yuan, and the person on her mind was standing right before her eyes.
Right now, half of Fan Chen’s body was buried in the ground. Needless to say, Mi Wan knew that he was using his own body to stop the soil from eroding. Both his hands had transformed into countless vines, weaving in all directions along the mountain range, saving all the desperate animals from their precarious situations.
The landslide was neutralized quickly, taking no more than a few minutes, but in order to stabilize the remaining mountain range, Fan Chen spent an entire hour remaining in that position. He needed to use his demonic powers to awaken the grass and other surrounding vegetation that got buried in the ground, coaxing those roots to grow, intertwine, and grasp tightly onto the soil, so that come next spring, they can once again sprout and bring about new life to the land.
It was utter silence. Mi Wan who was afraid of disturbing Fan Chen, suddenly discovered something terrible – The wound on Fan Chen’s chest was worsening.
“Fan Chen, your wound~~” Mi Wan could not help but yelp. Though Fan Chen’s wound had never shown signs of improvement, it had also never deteriorated.
“It’s fine.” Fan Chen paid no attention to his chest wound, and after confirming that all the animals had been saved, pulled his body out of the ground, and transformed his vines back into a pair of hands and legs. After changing back to his human form, Fan Chen wobbled unsteadily. He didn’t fight the urge to remain upright and sat on the ground cross-legged.
“You look terrible.” This was the first time Mi Wan has ever seen Fan Chen this feeble, the seemingly limitless demonic energy now reduced to a thin layer.
“I’m fine. Just need a little rest.” Fan Chen turned to look at Mi Wan, “where did you float from?”
“From the middle of the mountain.” Mi Wan replied.
Fan Chen froze. “You helped that cypress tree hold on this entire time?”
“Mmhmm.” Mi Wan nodded.
“Let’s go.” Fan Chen suddenly stood up.
“Where to?”
“To dig up your body. You can’t use it if it’s buried too long.”
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