The Yunling Mountains, Gaoligong Mountains, and Hengduan Mountains run south from the north into the heart of Yunnan, dividing the basins of the Lancang, Jinsha, and Nu rivers. For thousands of years, the rivers have worn stones smooth and bones away. All that remains are the peoples on their banks, still singing ancient scriptures again and again beside the hearth. The Twelve Slave Bureaus conceal the secret of creation; Eleteyi records the tracks of migration; Hongnong Luquan depicts the routes taken by the six branches of the ancestors; and the Guiding Scripture charts the road taken by the dead, a road the living dare not look at for long.
Yet some roads must be traveled by the living.
When the Mountain Pilgrim was entrusted by an ancient Yi god, he still had no idea what the four words "Muke Covenant" meant. Only later, after wading through waist-high grass in the miasma of Ailao Mountain, being stared down by two moons atop Gongwang Mountain until his scalp prickled, and seeing stones rise from the bottom of the Lancang River and walk, did he understand: the covenant they had to forge was not with any mountain or river, but the last umbilical cord still connecting humans and gods on this land, the last breath they shared.
Atop Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, snow lotuses bloom in cracks in the glaciers. Anyone who picks one will have their hands rot. In the valley of the Sanyuan River, the fog is so thick it cannot be parted, and those who enter never come back. Carrying rations and compasses, they stumble through one footstep at a time, leaving real tracks in places that do not appear in any county records.
Local elders say every mountain in Yunnan has a door. It stays shut, invisible, most of the time. What lies behind those doors is written only in the ancient scriptures.
The three of them are searching for those doors now. Finding one does not mean they can enter; entering does not mean they can get out.
But some things have to be done by someone.
Nourish
Beautiful! Interesting, different feeling