Abstract

Centuries ago, an Emperor planted the seeds of immortality somewhere in the Yellow Mountain and a group of villagers were asked to protect until a great sage comes to claim them. However, the village headman consumed those seeds and bore the curse of living ceaselessly like an Undead, or Jiangshi. A group of foreign students stepped into his territory and countered unnatural events that unravelled the mysteries of the vampire village and those magical seeds.

Chapter I

 

The sun had gone to rest; the moon took its place as the darkness began to surround us. We were walking carefully down the narrow mountain trail full of lichen-covered boulders. The mountain path had become slick under the autumn rains, and the only clues to the ruts were the chilly puddles. The slope dropped steeply and at the end it was rimmed with bushy rhododendron trees, which had no flowers in the late autumn, but standing like skeleton guards at the end of the mountain path. We saw the silhouette of a small, slender man ahead of us and shouted, “How long, Zhu?”

Our friend Zhu or Xiarongh Zhu did not reply. Aylmer shouted again, “We can’t sleep in the forest, Zhu. Please say something….”

The man running ahead of us suddenly stopped and turned back. We stopped and looked around. We found no traces of civilization in the wilderness. Zhu replied, “This place is not good, we have to reach the town at any cost.”

“But, why?” Judith asked, “There are plenty of forest villages and I am sure, the villagers will not refuse us.”

Zhu walked closer to us and said, “No….”

“I know, why are you saying that,” Aylmer grinned broadly, “you believe in the ancient legend of the vampire village that is located somewhere in this area.”

“Shh….” Zhu pleaded with us not to utter the name, but Judith couldn’t hide her smile. I looked at my sister critically. It might have offended Zhu; after all, we were guests here. I just recalled yesterday’s incident, when we were chatting in a pub just before dinner and Aylmer was asking about Eastern folklore. Zhu mentioned that in the Yellow Mountain area, there is a village, where vampires still exist.

Aylmer broke into laughter. ‘Vampires in the twenty-first century?” It offended our new friend Zhu. I apologized, but he told me seriously that vampires really exist, even in this age. He narrated the ancient legend of the Yellow Mountain.

“Do you know anything about the Yellow Mountain?”

“Yes, Huangshan Mountain range of East China,” I replied.

Zhu appreciated my knowledge, “But, do you know why it is called the Yellow Mountains?” I remained silent.

Zhu went on, “It was named after Huang Di or the legendary Yellow Emperor of the Quin dynasty. There is a popular legend that the Emperor cultivated the pills of immortality in the Huang Shan mountain range. There are seventy-two peaks in the mountains, but no one knows exactly where he planted those seeds. However, during a trekking expedition in that region, we learned from a local villager that there is a village somewhere near Knife Peak, known as Jinqu or forbidden village. He requested us not to stay in the forest after nightfall because the

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Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 28.04.2024
ISBN: 978-3-7554-7953-6

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