Volume One: Descent into the Wilds

Chapter 001: Descent into the Wilds

Milky-white clouds of mist rolled between heaven and earth, while the endless Mangya Ridge stretched across the vast wilderness, looming amidst the fog like a blue dragon.

Amidst the hazy mist, a young boy, carrying a small rattan medicine basket on his back, gripped a vine hanging from the cliff, searching for footholds among the jagged, sharp rocks as he struggled to climb toward the mountain ridge.

The boy wore animal-hide clothing, his waist tied with a grass rope. Beneath his messy hair was a delicate face; though he looked thin and weak, his exposed arms were muscular, bearing several bloody cuts from the vines and jagged rocks.

He had left the village before dawn, climbing for most of the day. By the time he reached halfway up the mountain, he was utterly exhausted. The boy found a stone hollow sheltered from the wind. Seeing that it didn’t look like the lair of any fierce beast or bird, he took off his medicine basket and crawled inside to rest.

The dampness halfway up the mountain was especially heavy. Dew seeped from all four walls of the stone hollow, making the ground slick and wet. The boy found a stone slab to sit on, reached into his medicine basket, and among the herbs he’d picked along the way, pulled out a piece of roasted beast meat from the night before, tearing off a small chunk to gnaw on.

After finishing the meat, the boy wiped his hands on his animal-hide clothes and took out a scroll of silk from his chest.

There were just over twenty silk pages, their corners worn soft from who knows how many hands. The writing and illustrations on the scroll had become blurred, but the boy cradled it carefully, reading with great interest:

"Mount Tu, the foremost of the western wild ridges, sheer cliffs ten thousand fathoms high, valleys filled with pines, paulownias, vines, and kudzu, jagged strange rocks, beasts shaped like sheep with horse tails, whose fat can heal lacerations..."

When this thin scroll of just over twenty pages first came into Ethan Brooks's hands, the cover still bore the faint characters "Western Wilds." Later, the writing faded until only pale gray traces remained.

Ethan Brooks didn’t know how many times he had read the scroll. He had memorized nearly every word and picture, but whenever he had a spare moment, he couldn’t help but take it out and read it again, hoping to uncover more secrets of this world.

But with only three or four thousand words in these twenty-some pages, how many secrets could Ethan Brooks really discover?

Outside the stone hollow, the endless Mangya Ridge stretched for eight or nine hundred li, and that was just a branch of the northern ridge of Mount Tu.

The main ridge of Mount Tu in the forbidden lands of the Western Wilds extended for ten thousand li, yet even this vast ridge was only a corner of the Western Wilds, which itself spanned over a hundred thousand li—and the Western Wilds was but one of the nine domains of the boundless Yunhuang Continent...

Just how vast was this world? It was beyond the imagination of Ethan Brooks, who had been trapped in Mangya Ridge for over three years.

The Western Wilds teemed with ferocious beasts and birds; only near the tribes was it somewhat safe.

For more than three years, Ethan Brooks hadn’t been able to leave the hundred-li area around him, let alone explore how vast the world outside truly was.

Ethan Brooks took a deep breath and stood up, walking to the edge of the stone hollow to gaze at the surging sea of mist in the distance, at the ridges looming in and out of view, winding like the fangs of a giant serpent, stretching endlessly.

Stirred by this scene of clouds and mist, Ethan Brooks's stifled mood eased a little. He stooped to shoulder his medicine basket, preparing to continue on his way.

Though the village at the foot of the mountain was only twenty or thirty li away, the dangers after nightfall were unpredictable. If he couldn’t reach the next ridge by noon, Ethan Brooks would have to turn back early.

Ethan Brooks tied the grass rope hanging from the bottom of his medicine basket around his waist, securing it firmly. He had barely climbed out along the cliff when dark clouds began to gather in the eastern sky.

The sea of mist had not yet dispersed, and now storm clouds were coming. Accustomed to the ever-changing weather of the Western Wilds, Ethan Brooks clung to the cliff, watching the shifting clouds with caution.

The mountain wind grew stronger, howling fiercely among the jagged cliffs.

The grasses and trees in the valleys surged like waves, countless dead branches and leaves swirling up, flying everywhere.

The rolling sea of mist was soon swept away by the gale. The dark clouds dimmed the sky and earth, and faintly, the mournful roars of giant beasts could be heard. Huge, arcing lightning bolts struck the distant ridges, and a curtain of rain swept rapidly from afar.

Ethan Brooks nimbly scrambled back into the stone hollow. Watching the rain pour down outside like a waterfall, he thought that even if the rain stopped now, the cliffs would be slick and treacherous—there was no hope of climbing up to pick the black bell grass today.

The stone hollow sloped inward, and rainwater quickly pooled into a puddle. Ethan Brooks found a higher spot, sat against the wall, and laid his short-handled wooden spear across his knees for protection, in case any wild beasts also sought shelter here.

The rain didn’t let up, and Ethan Brooks was trapped inside, unable to leave. With nothing to do, he could only recall the strange events that had happened to him over the past three years:

Three years ago on Earth, he was just a young man who had just graduated from medical school. After graduation, with two leisurely months before he had to report to the hospital where he’d signed his work contract, he packed his bag, carrying the sorrow of a recent breakup, and set off alone on a journey to the heights of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.