The little fox's two tails were tightly wrapped around the Jiangshi's neck, dragging it along the ground. But the Jiangshi was so fierce and brutish that it soon began pulling the little fox backward instead, scraping her across the dirt.
Just then, I rushed over with Philip. He leaped forward and landed squarely on the Jiangshi's back, pressing it down firmly. Then, he slapped a yellow talisman onto its forehead.
At first, the Jiangshi lay motionless. But after a few seconds, it began to twitch. Suddenly, the yellow Taoist talisman on its forehead sparked and burned to ashes.
"As expected—it can't be subdued!" Philip exclaimed, as though he'd anticipated this. He gripped the Jiangshi's neck with one hand, bit his finger, and drew a swastika on its chest.
"The Heavenly Dao is unkind; Qiankun lends its power—be sealed!" Philip chanted. Then, in one swift motion, he pointed at the Jiangshi's forehead. Together with the little fox's twin tails still restraining it, the Jiangshi instantly froze in place.
"Roger, kill it with the Holy Bronze Sword!" Philip suddenly shouted, placing his hopes on me.
I asked, "Can't you just use that move you did earlier? This Jiangshi's body is really tough—my Copper Coin Sword might not be enough to finish it."
Philip said no—that technique was too powerful to use repeatedly. It would be simpler to deliver a final blow by thrusting my sword through the Jiangshi's throat.
Hearing this, I felt a surge of confidence. I raised my Copper Coin Sword and plunged it straight into the Jiangshi's mouth. The blade drove deep, piercing through the back of its throat.
The Jiangshi, still bound by Philip's spell, couldn't move at all. It struggled a few times, body convulsing, before finally lying still. To be safe, Philip also twisted off its head and burned it.
"This is no place to linger—let's go!" After catching our breath, Philip urged us onward, heading straight for the mountainside.
To be honest, even Philip hadn't expected that two randomly encountered Jiangshi would be so ferocious. How terrifying, then, must be the Jiangshi that had bitten them?
And that wasn't all. Besides the Jiangshi, there was also a woman in red. I wondered if she had any connection to those who died with split mouths.
Philip had said that the area around the mountainside was a boundary—a gathering place for demons and evil spirits. As we drew closer, we were bound to encounter more.
Stein and the others were terrified, especially Jeane. Her hands trembled as she held her gun—she'd probably never seen a real Jiangshi in her life.
The moment she heard we were leaving, Jeane bolted ahead without looking back. Stein followed closely behind, and I took up the rear.
But just as I was about to step forward, I suddenly spotted a woman in red standing in the distance behind us. She stood completely still, not moving a muscle—eerily stiff, like a wooden post. She was just staring straight at me, her eyes so haunting that she didn't look human at all.
"Who the hell are you?" I shouted toward her.
The woman in red didn't answer. Instead, she began to lift her veil, and a strange guttural sound emerged from her mouth.
"Don't look—follow me!" Suddenly, Philip grabbed me by the collar and yanked me forward. Until the very end, I never got a clear look at the face beneath that red veil.
Our group of six sprinted toward the mountainside as fast as we could. Nearing the halfway point, I finally couldn't hold back anymore. "What exactly is that woman? She didn't seem human, yet she had a shadow."
Philip replied mysteriously, "Have you ever heard of the Slit-Mouthed Woman? That's her. She's neither ghost nor human—she's a type of yōkai!"
I was stunned. The Slit-Mouthed Woman isn't just a foreign legend? How could she appear in Zhongnan Mountain?
I'd heard of the legend of the Slit-Mouthed Woman—it's quite famous, even having a movie made about it.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman is a modern foreign urban legend: a demon in the form of a cloaked woman, often wearing a mask to cover her torn-apart mouth.
She typically appears as a woman in a long coat, wearing a scarf, holding large scissors, with long hair and a mask. She would approach children walking home from school and ask, "Am I pretty?"
If the child answered "beautiful," she would remove the mask and ask again, "How about now?" If the child said "not pretty," she would decapitate them with a sickle or scissors. If the child answered "pretty," she would slash their mouth open, making them "just like her."
I heard the origin stems from a foreign family whose ancestors were cursed for using Inugami to commit evil and profit through dark means. Their descendants were born with split mouths, unable to move on after death, instead transforming into monsters.
But these are all foreign legends and supernatural tales—what do they have to do with us? Why would she appear here in Zhongnan Mountain?
Philip explained, "So-called 'foreign' countries learned many things from us since the Tang Dynasty. That country is just that—nothing special. Although the demonic legend of the Slit-Mouthed Woman emerged in modern times, we've had similar entities here for a long time."
"The first recorded appearance was during a peasant revolt. After it was suppressed, the lingering resentment of the executioners condensed into the form of the Slit-Mouthed Woman. How exactly it came to be, no one knows. Later, I heard it was sealed away and never seen again."
After listening to Philip's explanation, I couldn't help but shudder. Could it be that she was sealed within Zhongnan Mountain? And now the seal has been loosened or broken, allowing the Slit-Mouthed Woman to emerge once more?
Thinking back to what just happened—it was dangerous. If I had answered her question, who knows what might have occurred? I'd probably have ended up like those eight victims. Thankfully, Philip stopped me both times, preventing me from answering her or seeing her face.
This Slit-Mouthed Woman demon is extremely eerie—far more sinister than an ordinary yaoguai. Even the little fox is no match. What kind of demon she truly is… remains unclear.
"Mr. Roger, that's the mountainside up ahead—let's hurry up and climb it," Antonio said excitedly.
I looked forward and sure enough, we had reached the mountainside. The air was clear here, with no miasma hanging over it—but it was high enough that we had been climbing for almost four or five hours.
"Let's go!" I hurriedly led everyone upward toward the halfway point of the mountain.
There was no real path—only steep, treacherous terrain to climb. One misstep, and you'd fall straight down. From this height, you'd be lucky to escape with your life. The rocks were sharper than knives; even a slight scrape could leave you hanging on the stones.
Ladies first. We let Jeane and the little fox climb ahead. The little fox was sure-footed and needed no help, but it was Jeane's first time climbing such a high and dangerous mountain. She was inevitably nervous and afraid, climbing every step as if walking on thin ice. I asked the little fox to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't fall—otherwise, I wouldn't be able to explain it to Daphne.
Next came Stein, then Antonio and me, with Philip bringing up the rear. In that order, the six of us slowly made our way up the mountain. If all went well, we'd reach the halfway point in about eight minutes.
But after just two minutes of climbing, Philip suddenly froze behind me. He stopped moving and stared sternly down the mountain.
"What's going on?" I asked urgently. Was something coming after us? It couldn't be the Slit-Mouthed Woman, could it?
"There's corpse energy—and it's strong!" Philip's face was grim, his eyes still fixed behind us, his ears alert.
Very strong corpse energy… Could it be the Jiangshi that bit those two?
A few seconds later, not only Philip—but all of us—heard the sound: thump, thump, thump… as if something were hopping, bouncing closer and closer toward us.
Just then, Philip suddenly roared with frantic urgency, "Climb! Now! Move like your life depends on it!"
Seeing Philip like this, we realized the seriousness of the situation. We didn't dare hesitate any longer—everyone began scrambling upward madly on hands and feet.
But as fast as we climbed, the weird bouncing sound closed in just as quickly. It was so heavy that I could even hear the crunch of gravel being crushed beneath it—as though something immense was approaching.
That could only mean one thing: whatever was coming after us was extremely powerful.
Luckily, we weren't too slow. The eight-minute journey was cut to just over four minutes in our panicked rush. Jeane was the first up, followed closely by the little fox, Stein, and the others. Antonio was skilled enough to leap up in less than a second. Soon, only Philip and I remained.
But just at that moment, a hideous face emerged from the darkness of the night. A Jiangshi wearing the official uniform of some unknown dynasty leaped into view—its two horrifyingly long fangs were longer than my fingers.
"Oh shit, it's a Flying Zombie!" Philip said, his face turning pale.