Chapter 5: The Jade Dragon Palace on Beiming Mountain

A few days later, in the dead of night, a figure appeared in the depths of the mountain in X City. He was holding an old smartphone and was struggling along a mountain path. From his slightly youthful appearance, one could tell he was a teenager - none other than the protagonist of this book, Li Jin, who had dropped out of school and returned home a few days ago.

Fortunately, as a farm boy, climbing mountains was no difficult task for him. He had prepared well, packing food and water in his backpack, enough for a day's journey.

The smartphone was a hand-me-down from his uncle, who had given it to Li Jin since his parents planned to let him go out to work.

Though an old phone, it had 500 yuan in talk time and a 20 yuan 2G data plan that Li Jin had stubbornly asked his uncle to set up, saying he would get bored in the factory without being able to go online.

Li Jin finally had his first smartphone with internet access. He had installed various programs like QQ, PPS, novel readers, and even Google Earth navigation on his uncle's computer. Though he didn't have a computer himself, a dormitory mate had secretly brought an iPhone, and Li Jin knew Google Earth was a high-definition mapping software that could quickly locate places by entering coordinates.

As Li Jin trudged along the pitch-black path, he muttered while holding the smartphone's navigation, "The coordinates should be around here! The beggar had written the latitude and longitude on the banknote, but there's nothing unusual around here. Was it just a prank?"

It turned out that the high school student had entered the coordinates written by the beggar on the banknote into Google Earth, which had quickly located it in the suburb of X City, not far from his village.

The small mountain there was only a few hundred meters high, with orchards, especially peach trees, covering the slopes and foothills. Li Jin often went there during school breaks to help out and earn some pocket money.

Though the saying is not to go up the mountain at night, the young and bold Li Jin had set out before dawn, as the orchard keepers would have already come down the mountain by then, with the damp autumn air making the warm kang (traditional heated bed) more comfortable.

Apart from encountering the occasional night bird or wild animal, Li Jin's journey was uneventful. Though familiar with the mountain paths, precisely reaching the coordinates was not easy, as the trails were narrow and few. By the time he reached the vicinity, dawn was breaking - he was tired, munching on his dry biscuits and wondering if his parents were out searching for him.

He glanced at the coordinates on his phone and then looked around at the scenery, realizing that he had slowly climbed to the top of the mountain, but the coordinates were still slightly off, with the latitude a few degrees off.

It was because he had tried every means to get close to the coordinates that he had ended up taking a winding and circuitous route, sometimes even having to cut through grass to move forward, and yet he had still reached the mountain peak!

On the mountaintop, the vegetation was sparse, with rugged jagged rocks everywhere, and thick fog rolling in and out, so he had to carefully move around and wait for the strong winds at the peak to blow the fog away before daring to advance.

Suddenly, he noticed a path of broken stones emerging from the fog in front of him. The stones were densely packed and perfectly flat, as if built by human hands, winding along a steep cliff to the back of the peak.

Li Jin's curiosity was immediately piqued, and he muttered to himself, "Hmm, how could there be a path here? After taking a few steps forward, I'm even closer to the coordinates! This path is so strange, in this place that's normally never visited by anyone, how could there be such an apparently man-made path? Could it be haunted?"

At this point, he no longer cared about such matters. Looking at the neat and orderly path, he didn't feel any sense of the uncanny. On the contrary, he felt that this path was like a golden road, silently guiding him forward, as if it would lead him onto an extraordinary path in life.

Finally, he stepped onto the path surrounded by the thick fog. The feeling underfoot was incredibly comfortable, far surpassing the difficulty of the journey so far. This curious young man gathered his courage and slowly walked along the path into the enveloping mist.

The fog grew increasingly dense, soon obscuring even the closest things from view. Li Jin's heart gradually filled with fear - the treacherous mountain path made him worried about losing his life, as his parents were counting on him to earn money and start a family. His hands gripping the phone began to sweat, while a chill ran down his spine from the mountain winds.

As he slowly advanced, the navigation coordinates on his phone were gradually getting closer to the strange location the beggar had given him. Although anxious, Li Jin's innate curiosity and fearless nature as a young man led him to continue walking step-by-step towards the end of the path.

Suddenly, he lurched forward and fell heavily to the ground - something had tripped him up. His phone flew out of his hand and landed not far ahead. Li Jin cursed angrily, "Damn, what tripped me? I could have broken my neck!"

He crawled forward, determined to retrieve the smart phone his uncle had given him, not wanting it to be damaged just two days after getting it, or else he would surely face his parents' scolding.

He quickly picked up the phone, wiped the screen, and checked that it was undamaged, relieved. Sitting up, he looked back at what had tripped him, and saw a long, rectangular object resembling a stone stele lying there.

There were faint characters carved on the stele, but he couldn't make out how long it had been there on the path.

The curious youth approached the stone object, shining his phone's flashlight on it. Sure enough, it was an ancient-looking stone stele, jet black in color with strange, abstract patterns carved on the corners. In the center were six square characters in an archaic seal script style.

Li Jin used his fingers to carefully clear away the moss and dirt in the indentations of the characters, slowly deciphering them: "North Sea Mountain Jade Dragon Palace."

As a literature student who consistently ranked near the top of his class, Li Jin had a deep foundation in classical Chinese language and literature. He avidly read ancient poetry, historical texts, and was well-versed in traditional scripts.

This allowed him to easily recognize the significance of the "North Sea Mountain Jade Dragon Palace" inscription - it was reportedly an elusive Taoist relic that local historians had long searched for, hidden away on this unassuming hilltop surrounded by orchards.