Chapter 6 Eating Humans

I did not dare to believe my ears! Liu Longting wanted to sacrifice me to the Mountain God?!

“Doesn’t this god want girls who have not reached 13? I’m way past that age. He wouldn’t want me,” I told Liu Longting.

“It’s fine. To any being that has lived past a few hundred to a thousand years, age is just an approximation. Thirteen and twenty looks pretty much the same outwardly. The main differentiators are bodily attributes. A child below thirteen years of age would have a smooth, clean body. As long as you shave all the hair below your neck clean and dress up like a child, you can definitely pass off as the real thing.”

The hair below my neck, other than armpit hair there was still that area. Having a man like Liu Longting standing in front of me and saying all those things made me feel awkward.

“Other than this, is there any other way?” I asked Liu Longting, embarrassed.

Liu Longting probably guessed what I was thinking and refused to give me a way out. “This is the simplest way. If you’re not willing, we can just go back tomorrow morning. After all, this business isn’t necessary to us.”

That would not do. I had already traveled all the way to this mountain range with Grandma Li. If I were to go back, she would be very disappointed in me. Furthermore, it would cost another innocent girl’s life.

Whatever! It was nothing more than a simple shave. It was not going to cost me a life, so be it.

I agreed with Liu Longting, and Grandma Li brought me to the village to look for a razor. This village was so sparsely inhabited for such a long time that after half a night of searching, all we could find was a knife used to shave off hair from dead pigs during the new year.

I looked at the razor—that was not much different from a fruit knife—and found myself at a loss. This knife was so big… How was I supposed to shave?

Alas, even if I did not want to, I still had to shave. Looking at the blade, even though it was for pig fur, it was still very sharp. Oh well, I would just have to be a bit more careful. Liu Longting also asked me to inform everyone that the sacrificial ceremony would be held tomorrow.

Qipan Village’s sacrificial ritual was quite proper. They would hold a festival every year just to present offerings to the Mountain God—there were even temples constructed on nearby mountaintops. All the temples were more luxurious and fancy than the houses in the village. They were adorned in gold and silver and were filled with drawings of dragons and phoenixes. The temples looked very grand. The sacrificial ceremonies every ten years were also held in these temples. After the ceremony, the girls would be locked inside the temple for the Mountain God to enjoy. Then, the corpse would be removed and replaced with the new girl during the next ceremony.

After understanding all the procedures, Liu Longting took a pill out of nowhere, handed it to me, and said, “I’m not a spirit from these mountains, so in order to not raise the Mountain God’s suspicions, I can’t follow you up the mountain. This is an Anaesthetic Pill. When you meet the Mountain God later and if he wants to harm you, trick him into eating this. It’s like an anaesthetic to him which will buy some time for me to come and save you.”

Holding the pill—which was as big as a ping pong ball—I thought to myself; the pill was so large and black that even I would not eat it for a few hundred bucks, let alone the Mountain God. I then asked Liu Longting, “What if I can’t trick him to eat this? What do I do then? Will I die?”

“You won’t die but you’ll need to spend the night with him and properly become the Mountain God’s wife for a while,” said Liu Longting before he suddenly pressed against me and continued, “Bai Jing, rather than getting defiled by a stranger’s thing, why don’t we just do something magical tonight? I’ll be gentle.”

As he said that, he raised his hand toward my chin. I quickly dodged his hand, took the Boiled Numbing Pill from his hand, and told him to go away. He really was a perverted lecherous snake. No wonder Yinggu said he was not good news. If the Mountain God were to bully me I might still be able to deal with it. If he was doing the bullying, I might as well just be swallowed whole.

Liu Longting was not angered by my rejection. He placed both his hands behind his back and became serious. “You’ll need to be careful when you go to the mountain tomorrow. I suspect that this Mountain God wanting a girl every ten years is not as simple as just wanting a plaything. He definitely has another goal in mind. Of course, no matter what the goal is, you have to preserve your little life. Everything will be fine after we defeat him.”

Liu Longting made it sound easy. Preserving my little life with this big pill? Trying to think of a way to trick the Mountain God into swallowing the huge pill made me worry so much that I had no appetite.

As I was resolving myself, the villagers did not sleep and were busy prepping for the ceremony. At the break of dawn, the village chief arranged for a few old ladies to help me with things like washing up and doing my hair.

It was the first time that I had ever experienced such a treatment since I was born. Not only did they help me bathe, they even helped me put on makeup and a white wedding dress. I was curious and asked why wedding dresses were not red in this village, and an old lady told me that society was moving forward after all. A wedding dress was compulsory since I was going to be married to the Mountain God, and a white wedding dress was appropriate since I was giving up my life. Dead people wore white, so the clothes I had on me were both for a wedding and a funeral.

After bathing, I was sent to a palanquin similar to what old officials used to have. I was accompanied by the tunes of trumpets and oboes the entire way as the palanquin carried me all the way up to the temple atop the mountain. Before I got off the palanquin, there were many people in front of the temple there to receive me. There was a pile of bones in front of the gates—I figured they were the bones left by the last sacrifice.

Grandma Li was worried for me and helped me down the palanquin. She asked me if I was confident, and if I was not, we should delay it.

Everything was already underway so even if I wanted to delay it, we could not. I shook my head at Grandma Li and told her it was fine. If I was not the replacement sacrifice, we would not have a way to deal with that evil god.

The group of villagers made an affair out of bringing me to the temple but did not go down the mountain quickly. They kept up with the music almost the entire day and only when the sun had almost set did they packed up and headed back.

I had originally thought that my death was likely to come from the hands of the Mountain God, but I was so hungry, I could faint. An elderly woman from the village told me in the morning that the Mountain God’s wife could not eat tainted food from the mortal realm, and so they did not serve me breakfast. I had not eaten an entire day and was not even able to move around for most of the day. Now that everyone was gone, I hurriedly sneaked toward the offering table, thinking to steal some fruits in front of the Mountain God’s statue to eat.

However, before I could even reach my hand out to take it, a strong, dark gust of wind suddenly blew in from the outside. Half of the candles within the temple were immediately extinguished! It was pitch-black!

The temple gates opened, and from outside the temple came in rays of bright moonlight. A black shadow wearing a wide gown with large sleeves walked in imperiously from the mountain gate…

It was the Mountain God.

I initially thought that the Mountain God would be some wizened old man or an ugly beast. I used the dim candlelight to see the appearance of the man who walked in more clearly. He had a loose mop of pitch-black hair, thin lips, and almond-shaped eyes. His face looked lady-like, and his skin tone was as white as barley. His chestnut-shaped face emitted an aura of masculinity.

Seeing that I was about to steal the fruits from his offering table to eat, a surprised look flashed across his face. However, he quickly smiled at me and asked, “Is my little wifey hungry?”

I almost asked him who his little wifey was—after all, I was not even a real child—but I felt a sense of trepidation in my heart and was afraid he would be able to tell that I was a twenty-year-old woman. I quickly shouted in high-pitch, “Yes husband, I’m hungry.”

I almost killed myself from disgust at saying that. Thankfully the Mountain God was as Liu Longting had mentioned and could not differentiate between a 20 or 13-year-old. Seeing me act like a spoilt kid, he laughed and began peeling a tangerine. Looking at the color and style of his clothes—broad gown, large sleeves, and the likes—he must either be from the Qin or Han dynasty. If this Mountain God was from that time period, he must have been cultivating for at least two thousand years. No matter how powerful Liu Longting was, he still only had a few hundred years of cultivation!

I started to get anxious thinking about that. The man finished peeling the tangerine, but held it up in the air out of my reach. An innocent smile was plastered on his face and he said, “I’ll let you eat this tangerine, but later, you need to let me eat too. I want to eat you.”