CHAPTER 75: CHAPTER 75 PILGRIMAGE TO THE SACRED LAND OF TELEVISION DRAMA

EDITOR: DRAGON BOAT TRANSLATION

In the same TV drama, some people see love that reaches the ends of the earth, while others spot fleeting opportunities.

Wang Jun didn’t see the opportunity, but others did, and so he was given one—the chance to lead the way.

"Based on the landscape you described, it should be right here," Wang Jun, accompanied by a group of foreigners with blue eyes and high noses, arrived at a Nameless Mountain near Mang Mountain. "Only from here can you overlook the Mount Taibai of Mang Mountain—finding me was really lucky for you, as not everyone knows where Mount Taibai is."

In recent days, many peculiar exploration teams had increased on Beimang Mountain, which stretches several hundred miles east to west from Luoyang City.

Beimang Mountain has historically been a favored burial site for emperors and generals, described in poems such as, "What matters do not follow the waters of East Luo, whose family wouldn’t bury in Beimang Mountain?" portraying this ancient and long-standing burial hill.

As a branch of the Qinling Mountains and Xiao Mountain, Mang Mountain covers a vast area. Since entering the twenty-first century, the tombs located there have been identified as key national cultural preservation sites.

Many scholars believe that Mang Mountain still conceals more ancient tombs. However, due to changes over time, shifts in earth veins, and the addition of new tombs, damaged ancient tombs have turned to ruins concealed among the rocks. There are hardly any reliable instruments available for detection, and excavation might also affect existing tombs.

However, while there are typically some archaeological teams on Mang Mountain, the large number seen recently, including both domestic and foreign teams, is quite rare.

Wang Jun’s profession was that of a local companion—essentially a local tour guide responsible for showing tourists around the scenic spots of Luoyang. He was very familiar with the areas around Luoyang, which is why this foreign exploration team had sought him out.

In an unfamiliar place, hiring a tour guide is naturally the simplest and most convenient option. Moreover, the foreign team had a Mysterious Country interpreter, so they weren’t afraid of being scammed by unscrupulous guides.

But the place this particular exploration team wanted Wang Jun to take them to baffled him. He had handled assignments for academic teams before; occasionally, domestic professors would bring students to the Mang Mountain tombs for study and research. However, those were always in the vicinity of Mang Mountain. This request from a group of foreigners to visit a Nameless Mountain outside Mang Mountain was a first for Wang Jun.

What surprised Wang Jun even more was that not long after he brought this group of foreigners here, more people arrived!

And not just one group—several!

"Brother Wang, you’re here too?" A local companion from Luoyang who knew Wang Jun, seemingly just as surprised by the situation on the mountain, came over to speak with him. "Is your assignment to come here too?"

"Yes," Wang Jun stomped his foot on the ground, puzzled. "There aren’t many trees or much scenery here... Could they be treasure hunting?"

"Or maybe there’s a large tomb underneath?" the companion suggested, making a shoveling gesture with his right hand. "But even foreigners are drawn here... Who knows, it might be an Emperor’s tomb!"

"Stop your wild guesses," another young female local companion, who had brought a group of domestic tourists up the mountain, came over. She held out her smartphone to them, saying, "They are here for a Pilgrimage to the Sacred Land."

"A Pilgrimage to the Sacred Land?" Wang Jun and the male companion were baffled. "What does that mean?"

They looked at the female companion’s phone screen. The image resembled the current landscape but was slightly different—the Nameless Mountain in the picture was surrounded by dense forest, whereas now, the Nameless Mountain had become barren due to soil erosion.

"It means visiting scenes that have appeared in movies and TV dramas to take commemorative photos," the female companion explained, pointing at the researchers taking pictures all over the mountain. "This kind of thing is quite rare in the Mysterious Country, but it’s a very popular tourist activity in Flourishing Sakura. They even have specialized tours for locations featured in anime."

Anime? A Pilgrimage to the Sacred Land?

"So..." Wang Jun, who had some general knowledge, pointed at the researchers—a diverse group including old and young, people of various ethnicities, men and women—and said uncertainly, "They are actually all..."

"Anime fans?"

The term was so peculiar that even the female companion couldn’t help but say, "Don’t you guys even go online? Look it up yourselves. The TV show is called ’Over My Dead Body’."

Wang Jun scratched his head and quickly pulled out his smartphone to search. It wasn’t that he didn’t go online; however, his online activities mostly consisted of reading web novels like *Urban Soldier King*. He seldom watched videos—they consumed too much data, and he was often out and about without access to Wi-Fi.

Hmm... ’Over My Dead Body’ is a TV series that airs four episodes consecutively each day. This pace is similar to those hastily produced domestic spy dramas... After looking for a while, Wang Jun finally summarized a few keywords: Mortal, Cultivation, Monsters, Romance, Progression, History... There are too many elements; I can’t quite grasp it all.

Just then, the young woman from the exploration team responsible for translation approached Wang Jun. "Guide Wang," she said, "we want to go to Mount Taibai."

"To Mount Taibai?" Wang Jun replied. "We’d have to go down the mountain and take a car. You can see it from here, but the direct route is through high mountains and dense forests with no actual road. We’d have to take a detour by the main road, which will take at least an hour or two."

"No problem."

However, when Wang Jun led this group of foreigners down the mountain, the other teams also followed them. Surprisingly, they all got into vehicles at the bottom and headed in the direction of Mount Taibai!

Mount Taibai was actually an ancient place name, a part of Mang Mountain. Aside from a very few locals, not many people remembered this name. Wang Jun only knew about it because his grandfather had told him.

However, as he directed the driver onto a road section near Mount Taibai, they were stopped by traffic police. Several police cars were blocking the road, leaving no way through.

Getting paid to solve problems for people... Wang Jun thought. He got out and asked the traffic police loudly, "Can’t we get through ahead?"

"No way through!" a traffic officer replied. "A criminal suspect has fled into the area ahead. This entire stretch of highway is closed. You’ll have to turn around and find another route."

"Catching a criminal, huh?" Wang Jun was taken aback. He returned to the vehicle to explain the situation to the translator.

The female translator relayed the information to the foreigners. One of them, an older man who appeared to be in his fifties or sixties, said something. The translator then asked Wang Jun, "Is there any other road to Mount Taibai?"

"If the main road is truly blocked, then no," Wang Jun said. "Even if we tried to take a mountain path, there’s a section in the middle suffering from severe soil erosion where nothing grows. We’d be easily spotted if we tried to pass through there."

The translator conveyed this to the group. After a moment, she turned back to Wang Jun and said with a sigh, "So... it seems we can only leave."

***

***

On a nearby mountain, not far from Wang Jun, Li Dan, whose eyes were as dark-ringed as a national treasure’s, glanced at the vehicles being stopped by the traffic police in the distance. "These people really have keen noses... Shouldn’t we detain them?"

"There’s no need. Most of those who can be sent here are genuine scholars, unlikely to be Cultivators," said a person in Black Body Armor standing in front of Li Dan. "The priority now is to find the Taibai Plains Spirit... Deputy Captain Li, I’m afraid we’ll have to trouble you to stay here for a few days."

"It’s no trouble at all," Li Dan waved his hand. "It is my duty to serve the country."

"Although we haven’t confirmed the intelligence is correct, theoretically, the Taibai Plains Spirit should be more easily attracted to Awakeners," the figure in Black Body Armor said. "But you’ll only need to stay for a few days at most. If it doesn’t pan out, the higher-ups won’t waste any more time here..."

Li Dan chuckled and continued wandering the mountain with these people, but inwardly, he couldn’t help feeling a certain... exasperation.

Yes, he was on a Pilgrimage to a Sacred Land. A goddamn pilgrimage for a TV show, of all things. Or perhaps, he was trying to find a shred of reality in a work of fiction.

In ’Over My Dead Body,’ the Mountain and Earth Spirits, as portrayed in the TV show, were supposed to be immortal. Even if their Spirit Veins were suppressed, they would merely be forced into slumber, re-emerging when Spiritual Energy revived.

And now was the time of Spiritual Revival.

Once these premises aligned, it naturally led people to wonder: could these Earth Spirits reappear in the modern era?

If it were just a few Awakeners with overactive imaginations entertaining such a notion, they would, at most, organize a small group to search the mountains.

However, when the entire nation came to believe in this premise... it escalated into a meticulously planned and rigorously executed operation.

When ’Over My Dead Body’ began airing, all Awakeners near Sky Capital were mobilized, and Li Dan was no exception. His superior, Yu Kuangtu, had to rush back to Lianjiang City to manage affairs there, as he was in charge of that area, and thus did not participate in this operation.

The operation had a single objective: to find the Earth Spirits that appeared in ’Over My Dead Body.’

When Li Dan first heard of this absurd mission, his initial reaction was to wonder if the higher-ups had water in their brains.

How could anyone believe the content of a TV show with no credited director, actors, or production company?

But he quickly composed himself.

Firstly, ’Ren Naiser,’ the one who posted the videos, had a track record of being right twice before. It was natural for the nation to operate on the principle of ’better safe than sorry,’ or rather, ’better to believe it and be wrong, than to disbelieve it and be wrong.’

Secondly, Li Dan knew Yu Kuangtu’s old teacher, Ren.

When he saw the depiction of the Ren Family in the TV show, Li Dan almost instantly thought of him.

Ren seemed to be the founder of the Mysterious Country’s cultivation system and was a key figure at the Spiritual Energy Research Institute. If he endorsed it, the country’s leadership might genuinely believe the settings in ’Over My Dead Body’ were real.

If Ren was indeed a descendant of the Ren Family, he might even be able to replicate their earth-shattering Spells.

Those Spells... even Li Dan found them terrifying. If their existence could be confirmed, even without specific methods to learn them, it would provide a crucial research direction for the Spiritual Energy Research Institute!

And finding an Earth Spirit would be the best form of confirmation.

It wasn’t just about finding an intelligent being similar to humans with whom they could communicate. More importantly, these Earth Spirits possessed vast memories. If they had truly experienced a revival of Spirit Veins during the Three Kingdoms Period, encountered the Ren Family, and even undergone ’Spiritual Exchange’ with those humans, they would surely retain those memories!

Moreover, as ’Over My Dead Body’ continued to air, even Li Dan began to believe in the TV show’s authenticity. Ghost Soldiers, Starved Ghosts, Demons... these enemies were gradually appearing before members of the Mysterious Country’s Tactical Bureau as Spiritual Energy revived.

Li Dan himself had encountered Ghost Soldiers and Starved Ghosts. The detailed descriptions of these Demons and Ghosts in the TV show, along with the methods to deal with them, almost perfectly matched his own experiences!

Just learning how to fight these Demons and Ghosts from the show was a significant gain in itself!

Not to mention, it also explained the reasons for their formation. The Ren Family, being small and weak, couldn’t stop them. But once the state machinery of the Mysterious Country was mobilized, it could completely crush these Demons and Ghosts at their nascent stage!

When Li Dan couldn’t sleep, he would rewatch ’Over My Dead Body’ and sigh inwardly:

’Ren Naiser... what exactly are you trying to achieve...?’

***

***

Damn.

The screen displayed a scene of a portly man transforming into a handsome young man and ascending to the heavens, accompanied by a "Healing Failed" notification.

Meanwhile, Ren Suo stared at the smashed controller in his hands, lost in thought.