Chapter 170: Mountain Peak Hotel

Lü Yang suddenly felt that one indeed needed a lot of patience to be friends with someone like Yi Ya. Yi Ya had a somewhat cold personality, not just toward Lü Yang, but it was the same impression she gave to ‘Lin Yin’.

Yi Ya did not talk much, always seeming to be lost in thought. If you took the initiative to speak to her, even if you said ten sentences, you were lucky if she replied with five. Her responses were sporadic and lacked interest, making her rather dull and boring company.

“Are you sleepy? Lean on my shoulder.” After quite a while, seeing that Yi Ya still had not answered his question and looked a bit tired, Lü Yang spoke to her.

Yi Ya glanced back at ‘Lin Yin’. She really hadn’t slept well last night. Hearing ‘Lin Yin’s’ words, she didn’t make a sound and simply rested her head on the offered shoulder.

The tour bus continued its bumpy journey forward. Lü Yang’s mind was racing rapidly. He didn’t want to be trapped in Lin Yin’s body forever; he had to break this curse as soon as possible and return to his own body.

Even the extremely dangerous Mysterious Domain had a Path of Survival, so the Curse Card, which belonged to the Mysterious Domain, probably wasn’t unsolvable either. There must be a way to lift it, but the method was likely very hidden, and the conditions for lifting it were hard to meet.

Every grievance has its cause, every debt its debtor. To untie the bell, one must seek the one who tied it.

Putting himself in her shoes, if he thought about why Zhou Ling had cast this curse, he might just find the way to break it.

…

Due to the Torrential Rain, many sections of the winding, hilly mountain road were flooded. The tour bus had to drive very carefully to avoid stalling.

Along the way, they encountered very few other vehicles traveling through the mountain road. The population was sparse, scattered sparsely on both sides of the road. The further in they went, the fewer vehicles and people they saw. From the simplicity of the houses by the roadside and the clothing of the elderly men and women sitting in front of their doors, it was clear this place was very primitive, poor, and backward.

However, precisely because of this, the entire Millstone Mountain retained a very pure, original appearance.

The tour bus rattled along for over three hours before winding its way to the place where the students would stay for the next few days. Further ahead, stone steps blocked the way, and the road narrowed, so the tour bus could go no further and stopped. Staff from the scenic area, seeing the bus coming up from below from afar, had already rushed over. They waited by the stone steps with a cart to receive the arrivals. They unloaded over a dozen large boxes from the roof and underside of the bus, loaded them onto the cart, and dragged them back into the scenic area one by one.

The students, led by their two Counselors, got off the bus one by one and walked toward the scenic area entrance. The group of students didn’t take the main road above the stone steps where the cart was traveling. Instead, led by a female tour guide who had come to meet them, they took a shortcut—a small path paved with gravel. They admired the scenery along the way as they walked toward the scenic area gate.

About ten minutes later, when the group of students arrived at the scenic area entrance and Lü Yang saw the few faded, peeling large characters above the shabby gate, he was instantly dumbfounded…

Mountain Peak Village Scenic Area!

Mountain Peak Village!?

Was this for real!?

“Xiao Ya… are we here at Mountain Peak Village for a historical site investigation this time?” Lü Yang’s legs felt weak; he supported himself on Yi Ya beside him and asked her.

“What’s wrong with you? Why is your face so pale?” Yi Ya quickly steadied ‘Lin Yin’.

Lü Yang looked into Yi Ya’s eyes, shook his head, and muttered to himself, “This isn’t right… this is very wrong…”

“What exactly is wrong?” Yi Ya looked at ‘Lin Yin’ with an even stranger expression.

“Xiao Ya, there’s something wrong with this Mountain Peak Village. We have to leave here!” Lü Yang pulled Yi Ya aside and spoke to her in a low voice.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Trust me, there’s a big problem here. Wait a moment, don’t go in yet…” Lü Yang suddenly thought of something. He hurried back along the gravel path toward where the tour bus had parked earlier. Even though he wore sneakers, the gravel still hurt his feet, but he ignored it now.

Five minutes later, when Lü Yang, panting and out of breath, ran back to where the students had gotten off the bus, the tour bus had already driven off to the distant end of the mountain road, disappearing from view as it rounded a mountain bend.

Where the bus had previously stopped, over a dozen large boxes and some big bags were piled up. Several scenic area staff were transferring them one by one up the stone steps, then pushing them along the main road into the scenic area with handcarts. It seemed these boxes and bags were goods the bus had brought into the mountains along the way.

“Why did the tour bus go back?” Lü Yang asked one of the scenic area staff.

“Aren’t you all staying here for a few days? The bus will come back to pick you up in a few days…” The staff member replied to ‘Lin Yin’ somewhat curiously.

“Does anyone have the bus driver’s Mobile Phone number?” Lü Yang asked a few others.

“No, why do you need him? Even if we had his number, there’s no signal here, so you couldn’t call anyway…”

Lü Yang was completely stunned. He shook his head again. The bus was gone, the driver’s phone was unreachable… calling it back was impossible… but… such a large scenic area should have other vehicles, right?

He decided to go back and regroup with Yi Ya and the others first, then figure out another way.

After returning to the scenic area, Lü Yang found relevant materials for their small class’s historical site investigation from Lin Yin’s personal belongings. He confirmed that the focus of this investigation was the ruins of Mountain Peak Village on Millstone Mountain!

When Yi Ya mentioned going to Millstone Mountain before the trip, Lü Yang never imagined that Mountain Peak Village was located on Millstone Mountain. If he had known, he would never have let Yi Ya come here.

The Mountain Peak Village scenic area was very run-down. Not far inside the entrance was a hotel called the Mountain Peak Hotel. The Mountain Peak Hotel consisted of four small buildings, each three stories high with over ten rooms per floor. Altogether, the four buildings could accommodate over three hundred tourists at once.

But clearly, the Mountain Peak Village scenic area was not managed well. Currently, only one building of the Mountain Peak Hotel was operational; the other three were locked up tight, looking like they hadn’t been used for a long time.

Within the Mountain Peak Village scenic area, surrounding the Mountain Peak Hotel was a large circle of residential houses. People raised livestock and also sold snacks, mountain products, jade items, and the like. Calling them shops was a stretch; they were essentially just homes. When there were no tourists, the so-called shop owners and proprietresses… who were actually just mountain folks… played mahjong, joked loudly with each other, while children chased and fought nearby, making noise, giving the place a bit of vitality.

From the materials in his hand, Lü Yang learned that Mountain Peak Village was a place that students from various departments of the Central Arts Institute, where Yi Ya and Lin Yin studied, visited every year for investigation and inspiration. Lin Yin and Yi Ya studied art design and came here for cultural historical site investigation. Though called an investigation, it basically amounted to wandering around the Mountain Peak Village ruins and a few shabby scenic spots in the nearby mountains and forests.

After entering the Mountain Peak Hotel, everyone received some unfortunate news: the landline phones at the Mountain Peak Hotel couldn’t make any outgoing calls these past two days either. It was said that the nearby mobile and telecom base stations were built together and had both been struck by lightning and burned down during the recent thunderstorm!

Lü Yang felt more and more that all of this was very wrong…

The so-called scenic area wasn’t very large in terms of inhabited area. Just a short distance away from the Mountain Peak Hotel, it seemed rather deserted. In the distance, you could see vast stretches of vegetable fields, orchards, and the like, but hardly any people. The sounds of crowing roosters and barking dogs, however, rose and fell continuously.

Lü Yang quickly walked around the nearby area. He couldn’t find any vehicles. Then he asked some of the so-called scenic area staff… the situation was indeed not good… Currently, there really were no means of transportation available in the scenic area to leave the mountains.

These staff members in the scenic area were clearly self-sufficient farmers. Millstone Mountain covered a very large area. Although called a mountain, its top, true to its name, was like a large millstone—mostly flat like a plain. The land was fertile, with ample sunlight and water sources, so the mountain folks grew crops, vegetables, fruit trees, and some specialty mountain delicacies nearby. They raised chickens, ducks, pigs, and fish, which not only supplied themselves and the students on investigation trips, as well as the occasional tourist, but they even had surplus to sell outside the mountains for money.

The scenic area used solar and wind power for electricity and channeled water from the Mountain Top Lake. These power and water facilities were all built together several years ago when the scenic area was heavily developed. They had been in use ever since. Although some parts were damaged, they basically met the needs of the scenic area, making this place seem like a secluded paradise.

Apart from the tour bus, the scenic area did have one truck that traveled in and out of the mountains, transporting goods out and bringing daily supplies in. But right now, that truck wasn’t in the scenic area, and it was uncertain when it would return.

This time, the tour bus brought the students into the mountains and also delivered over a dozen boxes of goods, mainly oil, rice, and flour, to supply the investigating students. They had brought enough for several days. The bus probably wouldn’t return until the investigation was over.

Aside from the initial large investment during its construction, the Mountain Peak Village scenic area had received almost no maintenance in the last year or two. The stone-paved paths within the scenic area were mostly completed, such as the long mountain road leading to the Mountain Peak Village ruins. But other planned scenic spots were abandoned before construction even started, leaving the entire so-called scenic area mostly in its natural state. However, this wasn’t the main reason the Central Arts Institute chose it for historical site investigations.

The most important reason the Central Arts Institute selected it as a key site for student cultural historical investigations was actually that the person responsible for developing the Mountain Peak Village scenic area, i.e., the owner of this scenic area, was a relative of a certain dean in charge of logistics at the Central Arts Institute. The Central Arts Institute was a leading large art academy in the central region. The various investigation fees paid by students each year represented a sizable pie. With such an opportunity, of course, they kept the benefits within the circle.

For example, this kind of investigation could clearly involve hundreds of students coming together, which would lower the costs significantly. But the School deliberately arranged for only a few classes to come at a time, claiming it was to protect the natural scenery of the scenic area. But the underlying trickery was obvious.