Chapter 25: Beacon Fires at Green Demon Pass

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After I returned to Peace Street, I began asking around about Three-Ridge Pass. I spent more than ten days running myself ragged, and by then the bite mark on my hand was almost healed—yet I still had not heard a thing.

Too much time had passed since the affair of the three old Taoist priests. Even the immortals of Three-Ridge Pass knew only fragments of it, let alone the living.

After another day of coming up empty-handed, I trudged home in low spirits. The moment I stepped through the door, I heard Old Yuan the Rogue singing. He was singing “The Wine God Song,” the theme song from the film Red Sorghum, and not merely singing it—he kept repeating the same line over and over:

“Drink our wine, and one man dares walk through Green Veil Pass. Drink our wine, and even before the emperor he will not bow.”

I had nearly worked myself to death outside, while he sprawled in a chair singing. The sight of him immediately irritated me.

“If you don’t know how to sing, then stop singing,” I said sourly. “You sound like a donkey turning a millstone, going round and round for no reason.”

Old Yuan was not offended.

“When Red Sorghum swept the country, everyone knew how to sing ‘The Wine God Song.’ But no one realized that the song concealed a mystery!”

“A mystery?” I curled my lip. “There wasn’t a Taoist priest in that film, much less a Buddhist monk. Where would the mystery come from?”

“You ignorant wretch!” Old Yuan sat up. “Today, your grandpa is going to give you a lesson.”

He leaned toward me, his expression mysterious.

“The mystery lies in the words ‘Green Veil Pass.’ If those three words were sung by someone from the Northeast, they would be pronounced ‘Green Fiend Pass.’”

“That is the true pronunciation of those three words.”

“Stop talking nonsense!” I waved my hand. “The lyricist was from Shaanxi, not the Northeast. Besides, Green Veil Pass is in Sun Family Mouth Village, not far from where the film was shot. What mystery could there be?”

Old Yuan grew displeased.

“Then answer me this: Why must a man get drunk and work up his courage before he dares to walk through Green Veil Pass? Why are ‘daring to walk through Green Veil Pass’ and ‘refusing to bow before the emperor’—an offense punishable by death and the extermination of one’s entire clan—placed in the same line?”

“The lyricist of ‘The Wine God Song’ may not have been from the Northeast, but there were Northeasterners on the film crew. Perhaps he learned about Green Fiend Pass during some idle conversation.”

“I don’t know whether the composer deliberately wrote ‘Green Fiend Pass’ into the song, hoping to draw out someone who knew the secret, investigate the legend, and make another great film.”

“Or perhaps he simply had no idea what Green Fiend Pass truly meant and happened to put that place of death into the lyrics.”

“But I can tell you about the mystery of Green Fiend Pass.”

My interest was piqued. I hurriedly poured Old Yuan a cup of tea.

“Tell me, then. What is the story?”

Old Yuan took a sip before smugly remarking, “Use fewer tea leaves next time. This tea is too bitter.”

“Let me tell you this: If you asked an old-timer from the Northeast what kind of place Green Fiend Pass was—”

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—you could expect someone to tell you that it was the entrance to a bandit gang’s mountain stronghold. Since the entrance was hung with severed heads and willow branches, it came to be called Green Fiend Pass.

That explanation only grazed the edge of the truth.

The real Green Fiend Pass did lie in front of a bandit stronghold, but even the men inside the stronghold dared to go there. No bandits needed to stand guard. Outsiders would not dare set foot within Green Fiend Pass.

The reason Green Fiend Pass was so terrifying was that beneath it lay a Tiger Spirit, a Wolf Corpse, and the Seven-Man Fiend.

To create a Green Fiend Pass, one first had to capture a tiger and a wolf alive. Then one had to seize seven fierce soldiers who had fought on battlefields and killed men. All of them had to be nailed alive into pits prepared according to the arrangement known as “Tiger and Wolf Guard the Gate, Seven Fiends Emerge from the Mountain,” and buried alive on the spot, one after another.

Only then could the baleful energy and resentment within them be used to create this place of supreme evil by human hands.

Once Green Fiend Pass had been completed, three human heads had to be cut off every year as a blood sacrifice to the spirits below. In addition, a section of Green Dragon Wood, scaly and clawed, had to be placed across the ground. Only then could the malignant spirits and fiends beneath be prevented from turning back and slaughtering the bandit gang that had created them.

The Green Dragon Wood had to be a yin-wood tree split by lightning. It had to lie where it fell for three years, until its trunk was covered in moss; only then could it be said to wear scales.

Nor could the wood be entirely without branches. It needed at least four branches splitting away from the trunk before it could be called clawed.

To outsiders, seeing the Green Dragon Wood meant that one had reached Green Fiend Pass.

The name Green Fiend Pass had itself been given by people who did not know the truth, based on the Green Dragon Wood.

Green Fiend Pass normally remained closed. It existed only to keep out the various mountain gods and wild ghosts in the hills. It would be opened only when the bandit gang faced mortal danger.

When the bandits charged out of Green Fiend Pass, the baleful energy entered their bodies, and they were no longer human. They became evil ghosts who could still crawl up and kill people even after being chopped into several pieces.

In those days, there had been tens of thousands of bandits in the Northeast, but not every gang possessed someone capable of creating a Green Fiend Pass.

Only a gang with a true Mountain Tiger could build one. And only the Mountain Tiger himself dared touch the Green Dragon Wood at its entrance.

Other bandits, unable to create a Green Fiend Pass, could do no more than hang willow branches there for appearances.

Old Yuan deliberately paused at this point.

“Is that all?” I asked, looking at him. “Why are you telling me this?”

Old Yuan gave a sly chuckle.

“I’m telling you because I discovered that someone lived at a Green Fiend Pass for more than twenty years.”

“That Green Fiend Pass lies on Casket Ridge, northwest of Three-Ridge Pass. In those days, that was where banditry was at its worst.”

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My eyes lit up at once.

Old Yuan continued, “The family’s surname is Ye. There are only a grandfather and his grandson.”

“The old man calls himself Old Ghost Ye. Outsiders call him the Old Mountain God. He makes his living rescuing people from the mountains.”

“I asked around, and this Old Ghost Ye is no ordinary man.”

Whenever someone went missing in the mountains, their family would come to Old Ghost Ye for help.

Other people might send two or three hundred men searching the mountains for days without finding the missing person, yet Old Ghost Ye could tell where they were without even leaving his house.

If Old Ghost Ye told a family, “Your relative isn’t lost. Take his shoes to the doorway and burn them. You’ll see him before nightfall,” then the missing person would walk home before sunset.

The most astonishing thing was that even when the search-and-rescue teams refused to declare someone dead, Old Ghost Ye would dare tell the family outright:

“Your relative is gone. Search beneath such-and-such a cliff, where the fallen-green marks grow. You’ll find him there.”

And when the family went, they truly found the body.

Old Ghost Ye had become a famous mountain god far and wide through this ability.

Old Yuan puffed at his cigarette.

“Those tricks of Old Ghost Ye’s are all skills passed down by mountain hounds. What do you say? Should the two of us go take a look at him?”

I stood up immediately.

“I’ll go right now.”

“What are you rushing for? It’s almost dark. Are you planning to catch him in bed?” Old Yuan said. “Go prepare some food first. Tomorrow morning, we’ll go together.”

“It’ll be grandfather against grandfather, grandson against grandson!”

My face fell at once.

“Grandfather against grandfather, grandson against grandson? I might be able to handle his grandson, but can you handle his grandfather? Don’t let the old man chase your trousers off and trip you up.”

Old Yuan flew into a rage and chased me around, swinging at me. Fortunately, I was quick enough to get away.

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