Lord of the Green Peak

Mount Tai, known in ancient times as Dongyue, has stood as a pillar of the world in the land of Qilu for two thousand years. The three characters “Shi Gandang” first appeared in the Western Han text Jijiuzhang. Emperor Wu of Han visited the east to perform the feng and shan sacrifices, using sacred stones from Mount Tai to protect his palace. In the Tang dynasty, common folk raised steles and carved blessings upon them. The folk tradition of “Mount Tai Shi Gandang” has been passed down to this day as an intangible cultural heritage, bearing the enduring hope of generations of people for peace and safety. The essence of Mount Tai’s ancient blue stone, formed over countless millennia deep within the mountain, gave rise to a stone spirit named Shi Gandang, revered by the people as the Lord of the Azure Peak. Born on Dongyue and charged with guarding Qilu, he has witnessed Emperor Wu’s feng sacrifices, the Tang people carving steles, and villagers raising stones. With the righteous might of a mountain, he has kept the ancient evils beneath the earth at bay and protected the people and fertile lands for a thousand miles. The Northern Border’s evil sect covets Dongyue’s rightful place as the world’s guardian and secretly lays a chain of deadly schemes. It unleashes an ancient mountain demon to draw Shi Gandang out, sends an invading army to the foot of the mountain to keep him occupied, then uses forbidden arts to sever the main earth vein of Dongyue. It hopes to use its own corrupted northern mountain to devour Qilu’s sacred peak, which bears the heart of its rites, music, and people, and erase two thousand years of the cultural legacy protected by Shi Gandang. When the earth vein’s spiritual energy is completely sealed, Shi Gandang seems to have lost the very foundation that sustains him. Then he suddenly understands: evil magic may cut off the power of mountains and rivers, but it can never sever the legacy of Qilu’s righteousness, carried through Han histories, carved steles, the prayers of countless households, and generations of inheritance. That legacy is a blade of protection that can never be broken. One stone bears the righteousness of the Five Sacred Mountains; one written legacy protects the people of Qilu. Thus begins a confrontation over the rightful traditions of the land and the soul of its rites and music. Drawing on the historical feng and shan sacrifices at Mount Tai and the national intangible cultural heritage of Mount Tai Shi Gandang, this book uses myth and fantasy to reveal the heart of Qilu’s native culture.