In the past, in the old society, when ordinary people went to find a fortune teller to have their fortunes told, the fortune tellers generally didn't ask for your birth time. As soon as they met you, they would start talking nonsense, speaking randomly and confusingly, so that you would be bewildered and disoriented, not knowing what was going on.

  Later, when these tactics no longer worked, they also put on a cloak of fortune telling, nominally asking for your birth time, scribbling on paper to make people mistakenly think that they were also calculating your eight-character destiny. In fact, it's not the case. They didn't use fortune-telling methods, but rather "divine functions".

  Just like Western witches, it is said to be telepathic or subjective speculation. The conclusions drawn from these "divine calculations" are often contrary to reality, false, unfounded, intimidating and have very serious side effects. There are countless examples of harm caused by this, so I advise those honest and kind people not to believe in "fairy ladies" or "goddesses". The real goddess is not something that can be manipulated or imagined by those who jump around like madmen.

  In my life, I have only seen one "goddess" named He Jin Feng. Later on, when people said someone was a fairy descending to the mortal world, or that they were very spiritual, I would just sneer at them. What is a fairy? It's definitely not some crazy woman pretending to be mysterious and eerie! A real "fairy" truly has an otherworldly aura about her!

  That day, it was drizzling as we went up the mountain. There were many people going together, a long queue, with about half of them going to watch the excitement. He Jinfeng sat in the sedan chair, humming softly to calm her mind. I felt a bit annoyed, last night's incident made me uneasy, my mouth could still pretend to be strong, but my heart was actually very empty.

  The coffin was still on the ground, untouched, and the wet floor made it difficult to stand. The crowd surrounded the area in a circle, chattering and discussing, He Jinfeng still had her eyes closed, someone held an umbrella for her, Cha Wenbin didn't say much, just standing behind her waiting.

  It's probably because there are more people and it's a bit noisy. The woman told him, "Disperse the crowd and keep them at a distance."

  Do you want to drive people away? This is not easy, rural people never mind watching the excitement, no matter how well I persuade them, those people just reluctantly retreated a few steps, who doesn't want to see how this lively scene turns out.

  I looked embarrassed, those people were still booing, the woman sighed and stood up saying: "Aren't you leaving? Later it will hail, and when your dog-like heads are cracked open, you'll know the pain."

  My words were useless, and as a stranger from outside the village, her words were even more likely to be ignored. The sky was slightly dark that day, with light rain, it didn't look like a hailstorm at all, but in the end, it did hail.

  I didn't see what the woman did, she just stood there with her eyes closed, and I saw her muttering two sentences. But in a flash of time, that day changed suddenly, and a strong wind blew up, making the surrounding trees "brush" loudly, and people were almost unable to stand still.

  That day, the sky suddenly darkened, and the clouds pressed down, watching with their eyes open. The lightning also rose, initially only in the distance, slowly getting closer and closer, "whooshing" like a golden snake dancing wildly, constantly swirling above our heads.

  This guy, this weather, the crowd is starting to get restless. The thing that this mountain fears most is a thunderstorm. Although it's just the beginning of spring, who knows if there will be a big rain, which could trigger a landslide, and that's no joke. Some people have already started to retreat on their own, in threes and fours, walking down the mountain, but there are still some people who like this kind of scene, the more unusual it is, the more excited they get!

  When about half of the people had left, the woman suddenly smiled and snapped her fingers. Suddenly, a loud "crackling" sound began to echo around us, and huge hailstones started falling from the sky like a deluge. I saw with my own eyes that the hailstones hit the ground so hard they splashed mud everywhere. It was strange, though - the hailstones seemed to be avoiding this empty space, instead falling on the surrounding areas, where the crowd of onlookers happened to be standing.

  You say this is normal weather, but what's hard to explain is that after those people went down the mountain, the weather actually cleared up! And how did that woman know it was going to hail? Moreover, the woman's complexion looked even worse than before, and she lay down again. I also saw her cough twice, looking like she was suddenly having a lot of trouble breathing.

  The crowd dispersed, and the next step was to clear the scene. Including me and Cha Wenbin, everyone retreated outside the forest. The woman had instructed that within the time of one incense stick, no one should be allowed to enter.

  This somewhat mysterious language made me think that she was fooling people, but in fact, I was wrong. The gap between the real spiritual medium and what I imagined was too big.

  I didn't hear anything, nor did I see anything. A stick of incense later, the agreed-upon time arrived, but there was no movement inside. Cha Wenbin and I crept in together, just as we entered the forest, I saw someone lying on the empty ground, wearing a red top and green pants - if it wasn't He Jinfeng, who could it be?

  Zha Wenbin quickly ran over and held the woman in his arms, patting her cheeks and saying: "Auntie, auntie, wake up!"

  I looked at the woman's face, it was so white that even the rouge on her face couldn't cover it up. I had never seen such a white face before, even her lips were as white as paper, and when she opened her eyelids to take a look, her pupils began to open!

  "Oh no, it's going to be bad!" I quickly helped lift the woman into the sedan chair. Zhang Wenbin pinched the woman's Renzhong acupoint with his hand, and I didn't care about that anymore, so I started pressing on her chest and poured some water into her mouth. After a round of commotion, the woman finally coughed a few times and woke up.

  The ground is no longer what it used to be, I don't know if anyone can draw two pictures on the ground in the time of a stick of incense, and these pictures are vivid and lifelike. They can often be seen in small houses in some mountain villages. I can recognize them at a glance, they are the god of land and the goddess of land, the picture is formed by mud sinking into the ground, shallow and three-dimensional, with clear facial features and body shape, and the woman lies between the two pictures.

  After a long time, she finally managed to speak, but it was still very difficult. She beckoned to Zha Wenbin to lean down, her voice very soft, and I couldn't hear it at all. After saying this sentence, the woman fainted again, and Zha Wenbin hastily called for people outside to come in and carry her away. These few people were all relatives of the Gao family, and they had been forced to stay behind reluctantly.

  Everyone left, and Cha Wenbin said to me: "I met Zhangzi, she said that this thing can't be burned."

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "There is something called the 'Undying People', which ancient books only mention in a few words: The Undying People are to their east, they are black-skinned and immortal. Another account says they are in the eastern part of the Xiongnu country." Zhang Wenbin continued, "Some people have thought that this thing is the origin of Chinese zombies, but actually zombies are not often seen, especially in distant years, occasionally encountered ones are mostly after the Qing dynasty, before the Ming dynasty they have basically become extinct."

  I said: "No wonder when watching movies, zombies always wear Qing dynasty official uniforms, I was puzzled before."

  "It's actually related to the Ming dynasty's campaign to eliminate jiangshi. In the past, there was no term for 'jiangshi', only 'shī biàn'. Shī biàn refers to the accumulation of heavenly and earthly grievances, dark energy that gives rise to it. It doesn't age, doesn't die, and can't be destroyed, rejected by heaven, earth, and humanity, the three realms, wandering aimlessly outside the six paths of reincarnation, without a place to belong."

  Their bodies are stiff, and they rely on resentment to survive in the world of humans, feeding on blood to vent their endless loneliness. Zombies were originally a mysterious creature in ancient people's legends, possibly the most terrifying and harmful monster in human mythological stories.

  Is this monster really exist, in fact, there are many different opinions, occasionally heard in the folk, later during the Ming Dynasty Chengzu Yongle Emperor's reign, something happened. This emperor wanted to move the capital to Beijing and personally built the Forbidden City, just below the throne of today's Taihe Hall, at that time, workers excavated an ancient tomb of a previous dynasty. In this ancient tomb, there was a coffin that was taken out, at that time it was decided to be destroyed, after a fire was set, unexpectedly, from inside came out a person with a completely charred body, this 'person' had incredible strength, and could also fly over the eaves and walls, taking people's souls, at that time, many workers who were recruited to repair the imperial palace died or were injured. For a while, the entire project stopped, later someone recommended to Zhu Di a Taoist priest, this was Zhang Sanfeng, the founder of Wudang Mountain.

  Zhang Sanfeng went alone, but couldn't get that thing even a little bit. In the end, he could only seal it on the night of the moon eclipse, using a copper coffin as bait. After the event, Zhang Sanfeng ordered people to carry the copper coffin back to Wudang Mountain and built the Xuanwu Stele, which is composed of the seven stars of the Big Dipper, namely Dou, Niu, Nu, Xu, Wei, Shi, and Bi, to permanently suppress the copper coffin under the stele.

  Later, Ming Chengzu ordered 300,000 workers to enter Wudang Mountain ten years later to suppress evil spirits. After thirteen years of construction, it became the present-day Wudang and enshrined Zhenwu Emperor, making it a royal Taoist temple to bless the great Ming forever.

  During the years of his reign, the status of Taoist priests rose sharply. Zhu Di secretly issued an order to kill zombies and other evil spirits throughout the country. Those who could not be exterminated were sent to the foot of Wudang Mountain to be suppressed and resolved by Taoist law, which had been going on for nearly twenty years.

  This zombie was originally difficult to form, requiring extremely yin places. In that intense campaign to eliminate zombies, almost all Taoist priests took it as their duty to eliminate zombies, especially the Wudang and Maoshan schools. At that time, anyone who caught a zombie would be heavily rewarded by the imperial court, and many Taoists were active day and night in various places where zombies might appear.

  And so it was that zombies were almost wiped out in that era.

  By the time of the Qing dynasty, Buddhism had surpassed Taoism in status, and Taoist priests began to dwindle, gradually losing their movement to suppress zombies. Whether in the East or the West, this kind of thing has always been considered to exist, it's just that the zombies that appear now are no longer the kind our ancestors encountered back then, you've seen them too. Later, my master told me that what Zhang Sanfeng encountered back then was not a zombie, but an immortal, this kind of thing appeared a total of three times throughout the entire zombie-suppressing movement, and none of them were eliminated, instead they were all sent into Wudang Mountain.

  "You mean to say that this is an immortal?" I frowned, thinking that the current Wudang Mountain was a world-class tourist destination, and if I and Cha Wenbin carried this coffin over there to suppress it, wouldn't someone think we were crazy...