With just half a month remaining before the Global Cultivator Tournament, each country's selected teams and alternates were flown into Lingcheng by planes dispatched from China.
Upon arrival, they were transported by designated vehicles to the Cultivator Village at the foot of Yunwu Mountain near Yuanshan Ancient Town.
The village itself had once been a pig farm—formerly purchased by Song Miaozhu. After the ghost shops in the underworld stopped smuggling goods from the living world, the pig farm that had been repurposed as a warehouse fell into complete disuse. When the SEIU began planning the construction of the Cultivator Village around Yunwu Mountain, Song Miaozhu simply sold the place.
The Global Cultivator Tournament would have no live audience. All matches would be broadcast globally, and apart from the judging panel, no foreign spectators were allowed into China.
Strict restrictions were placed on contestants and judges. They were only permitted to reside in the Cultivator Village. Leaving the village required official notice, and cultivating outside the village or intruding upon private domains was strictly forbidden. Any violations would be at the individual's own risk.
In short, only within the village and the competition grounds would participants be under the tournament's protection.
Even so, Yuanshan Ancient Town grew visibly livelier by the day. Local tourists surged in, and many contestants and support teams roamed the town freely.
While each nation was only allowed to field a five-member team, the alternates, caretakers, and entourage numbered in the dozens—every one of them a cultivator.
These days, every time Song Miaozhu stood atop the old pagoda tree and looked down toward the town, she could spot unfamiliar faces drifting about near the base of the mountain. So far, no one had dared step into the misty veil of Xiaozhu Mountain.
That alone was a bit disappointing. She had been preparing for foreign intrusions for quite some time now, and had hoped to test her paper formations through their probing.
Not long after the town grew bustling, a spiritual energy tide swept in.
This time, the spiritual energy surged more intensely across both the ancient town and the Yunwu Mountain region.
As usual, Song Miaozhu worked on her paper crafts to attract spiritual energy. Soon after, one of her little paper servants notified her that someone—or rather, several people—had entered the mountain.
She took a quick glance and, sure enough, recognized them as alternate team members from various countries.
Korea, Japan, the US, even from Europe. She counted them off one by one. The only group not sending anyone was China's own SEIU.
Her paper servants within the Cultivator Village had been watching closely. She knew exactly who had arrived.
These people were moving in pairs, ignoring the dead security cameras and climbing right over the barbed wire fence. They hadn't gone deep into the mountain yet, but clearly, this was premeditated.
No wonder they had been quiet these past few days. She had thought perhaps she was being overly suspicious.
Turned out, they had planned this from the start, waiting for the spiritual energy tide to make their move. Local cultivators would be too focused on absorbing energy to notice intruders.
Song Miaozhu did not want to waste her own precious cultivation opportunity dealing with them. That would be a real loss.
Still, she had complete faith in her paper constructs.
She ordered her little paper servants to monitor the intruders and had the paper soldier constructs standing by. If the regular formations couldn't stop them, the soldiers would be sent to beat them back.
In short, anyone who entered would not be allowed to leave.
With everything arranged, Song Miaozhu turned her full attention to cultivation.
Now at Yellow Spirit Stage, level nine, her ability to attract spiritual energy far exceeded the combined total of every other cultivator in the town.
Spiritual energy gushed toward her, spreading out and saturating all of Xiaozhu Mountain.
"The spiritual energy's thickening. She must be cultivating!"
"Go!"
The intruders plunged into the white mist.
"This fog is too dense!"
"Stay close, don't get separated."
"Follow the terrain, just keep heading uphill."
Jingle—
"What was that sound?"
Jingle—
"Oh no, I can't move my legs."
"Me neither!"
"It's a trap!"
…
The spiritual energy tide lasted a full day.
Once she had absorbed all she could, Song Miaozhu asked her paper servants to check on the trespassers.
It was already the next day.
"Not a single one of them made it through?"
All of them were trapped near the base of the mountain, no more than five meters from the barbed wire fence.
It seemed they had been caught by the Bamboo Horse Boundary Marker she had placed just beyond the mist.
They hadn't even reached the formation itself. The moment they heard the faint jingling of the bamboo horse's bells, they fell victim to the illusion.
Aside from the white mist covering the entire mountain, the Bamboo Horse Boundary Marker was the outermost layer of defense.
Whenever an intruder approached, the marker would emit a crisp bell sound. Hearing it would cause the listener to hallucinate that their legs had sunk into soft, yielding mud, leaving them unable to move.
In truth, the ground was perfectly normal. They were just lying there, too dazed to stand. Their mental states were still intact, at least. Some were yelling for help, others using spiritual tools to send distress signals.
After two days without any cultivation tools or energy supplies, they had to rely on the spiritual energy stored in their spiritual platform to survive.
Luckily, all of them had decent cultivation, none lower than Green Spirit Stage. Otherwise, they'd have collapsed from hunger and exhaustion by now.
Song Miaozhu did a quick headcount. "Wait a second, why are there more of them now?"
She remembered there being eighteen two days ago. Now the number had doubled.
When she spotted more figures entering the mountain, she understood.
They had called for reinforcements.
Too bad the reinforcements weren't much better.
Even with their ears blocked, they still got caught.
Inside the white mist, visibility was practically zero. You couldn't see half a meter ahead.
Even if the ground was normal, and the people in front had only collapsed, the newcomers couldn't tell. By the time they saw anything, they were already within the boundary marker's range. Covering their ears didn't stop them from hearing the bells, nor from feeling their legs give out. At this rate, the base of Xiaozhu Mountain would be littered with fallen cultivators.
Summoning her paper qilin mount, Song Miaozhu rode to the boundary marker zone. She pulled out a palm-sized piece of silken spiritual paper, folded it into the shape of a butterfly, and infused it with her energy before letting it fly.
The paper butterfly hovered above the intruders, fluttering its wings and releasing a fine dust. As they inhaled the powder, the intruders fell into a gentle, drowsy sleep.
With everyone unconscious, Song Miaozhu ordered her little paper servants to search them. Everything was confiscated—whether spiritual tool or mundane item—and placed in a pile.
Then, with help from paper cranes circling overhead, both the people and their belongings were transported to the bamboo grove mountaintop, where Song Miaozhu had built a spiritual residence doubling as a jail.
These people were so weak they collapsed the moment they entered the mountain. Song Miaozhu actually felt a little bad about being too harsh. She didn't want to gain a reputation for cruelty.
But letting them go was a waste of time and resources.
After some thought, she had her little paper servants take portrait photos of each one. Their names, crimes, and required ransom amounts were printed underneath and posted on the barbed wire fence.
Once the ransom was paid to her account, she would release them. If not, they could rot in her spiritual jail on the mountaintop.