The calico cat ate while glancing at Brian Carter.

"……"

I was being inconsiderate.

Brian Carter silently withdrew his hand from the steamed bun.

"Are you going to eat?" the calico cat asked him. "Mary can catch two more for you."

"No need, I don't eat bugs."

"They're really tasty."

"I appreciate it."

"What about mice?"

"No need either, thank you."

"Hmm…"

"Have you heard of Mary?" Brian Carter asked while eating the steamed bun. "There's a place up ahead called Shoupa Rock. It's especially steep, but the scenery is excellent."

"What is Shoupa Rock?"

"It's a section of cliffside path that you have to climb with your hands to get across."

"How do you know about it?"

"I stayed at the temple a few days ago and heard the martial artists talking about it."

"I rarely listen to them talk."

"It's pretty interesting."

"Are we going there?"

"I want to."

"Hmm…" The calico cat suddenly leapt up again, precisely catching a bug. This time Brian Carter saw clearly—it was a grasshopper. The cat only said to Brian Carter, "Anyway, Mary will follow wherever you go."

Brian Carter nodded.

The sun slanted westward.

When Brian Carter asked the third local household, he finally arrived at the foot of Shoupa Rock.

An old man weaving lanterns, wearing a bamboo hat, stood at his doorway and pointed high to the left at the cloud-piercing cliff, saying to Brian Carter, "Up there is Shoupa Rock."

One person and one cat craned their necks to look.

A sheer thousand-foot cliff seemed to press right up against them. It was so close that, for a moment, all they could see was the towering precipice—nothing else.

"Shoupa Rock is indeed a shortcut, but hardly anyone takes it anymore. The path is very dangerous, wet and slippery, and there are often monsters and ghosts in the mountains. Every night you can hear wailing and howling. People do go up there to have fun, but always during the day—they go up and come back the same day. No one dares to spend the night up there." The old man kindly advised the young little Taoist, "It's too late now. If you want to enjoy the scenery, you should wait until tomorrow. If you go up there, you must come back before dark."

"May I ask, sir, how long does it take to climb up?"

"Climbing up takes one hour, coming back is another hour. If you go down the other side, all the way to the end, it takes two hours."

"One hour…"

Brian Carter did the math—it was still doable.

But the old man glared at him disapprovingly. "You want to go up tonight? You'll have to walk in the dark. There really are ghosts on that mountain."

"It's no problem."

When people die, they become ghosts; ghosts are inherently weaker than the living.

"Even if you're not afraid of ghosts, walking at night is very dangerous," the old man continued. "Over the centuries, countless people have fallen to their deaths up there."

"Sir, sell me a lantern, please."

"I only have lanterns, no candles."

"That's fine, that's fine."

"You Taoists never listen to advice!"

Brian Carter just smiled, spent sixteen coins, and bought a simple lantern from the old man. It was a common shape, with a slender, lightweight bamboo frame, covered in a layer of off-white paper, slightly yellowed, with no other decorations.

One person and one cat headed up the mountain path.

"Cloudy skies, rainy nights, ghosts wailing in the dark…"

Brian Carter murmured, a smile on his lips.

That was how people described Shoupa Rock.

Climbing up through the forest, following a two-foot-wide cliffside path that slanted upward, at the very top was the famous Shoupa Rock.

This section of cliff was vertical, and the path was carved out along natural cracks and by human hands—a narrow trail not even as tall as a person. The widest parts were maybe three or four feet across; the narrowest just barely allowed a person to squeeze along the cliff face. The whole way, you had to bend over, or else use both hands and feet.

Mary had no trouble at all; it didn't affect her in the slightest. Brian Carter, on the other hand, had a much harder time.

He had to bend over as he went, always worried about slipping and falling.

For those undaunted by the long, arduous trek, the mountains rewarded them with the most breathtaking scenery.

From this angle, the valley below was covered in green, like a dark-colored carpet. Occasionally, unknown trees clung tenaciously to the cliff, their roots a mystery, growing stubbornly along the rock face, shaped by years of mountain winds to lean in one direction, as if welcoming brave climbers.

Amazingly, in such a perilous place, those before had not only carved out a path, but also left countless cliffside stone carvings above and along the rock face.

There were scriptures to guide lost souls, statues to ward off evil spirits—many were already fading, time slowly wearing them down. For a thousand years, they had witnessed wave after wave of people passing by, and who knew if they would last another millennium.

Brian Carter moved slowly—not just out of caution, but also to savor the dramatic scenery below, or to look up and meet the gaze of the deities carved into the stone.

These cliffside carvings spanned many eras, so their styles varied. Some deities looked bizarre, some had a gentle, feminine style, while others were deliberately depicted as strong and muscular. These reflected the people's imagination of the divine at different times, showing the social atmosphere and folk preferences of each era. From this, you could roughly judge which dynasties the carvings came from.

The oldest ones were probably over a thousand years old.