I’m the Land Immortal of the Northeast

My name is Chen Shan. I grew up in Lalin Town, Wuchang City, Heilongjiang Province. When I was twenty, a strange illness brought me to my knees. The hospital couldn't find its cause. My body swung between burning hot and freezing cold, and every night I dreamed of a fiery red fox coiling around the rafters.

One day, by the Lalin River, the deranged Old Madam Wang grabbed my arm and shouted, “The Fox Immortal is on your shoulder, the Yellow Immortal is wrapped around your waist. You can't escape!” A few days later, beneath the old elm at the village entrance, a yellow weasel stood upright and bowed, asking whether it looked more like a human or a god. I was so terrified I collapsed to the ground, and the beast glared at me before darting into the cornfield.

Later, deep in Songfeng Mountain, an old ginseng hunter pried open my eyelids and said, “It's not an illness. The fox spirit your great-grandfather saved all those years ago wants you to serve as its incense medium.” I didn't believe him. But while I resisted, the family's chickens and ducks started dropping dead one after another, and my father fell on the mountain while gathering firewood and broke his leg.

With no other choice, I followed the old ginseng hunter and established a spirit altar. Master Hu Tianming presided over the altar and settled disputes. Huang Cuihua searched far and wide for lost belongings. Chang Tianlong could tell whether the earth's energy was favorable, while Hui Wanfu specialized in finding secrets hidden in cracks in the walls. Over the years, I helped Aunt Zhang move the dead tree in front of her ancestral grave and break a marriage curse, persuaded the Li family's mother-in-law and daughter-in-law to cook separately and put an end to their quarrels, and even used the Yellow Immortal's guidance to find the Wang family's ox in a snowdrift.

The Songhua River froze and thawed again and again before I finally understood: immortals weren't all-powerful. They simply let us borrow their eyes to see through the knots in people's hearts. Like the cooking smoke in Lalin Town, always curling around the mountains, so-called spiritual destiny ultimately has to take root in the everyday life of this black earth.