Folk Tales: Starting as a Mountain Treasure Seeker

Xu Jun awakens to the sound of model operas blaring from loudspeakers and the rhythmic chants of laborers in the fields, only to discover he has been granted the mystical ability to sense hidden treasures. Disoriented, he finds himself standing once again at a critical crossroads in life. It is 1975, the very night before he was originally destined to sever ties with his friend Sun Weidong and the female educated youth Chen Xiaqing in order to return to the city. In this new lease on life, Xu Jun changes his mind and decides to stay. Armed with his treasure-seeking gift, the surrounding mountains reveal themselves as a boundless repository of wonders. Beneath old tree stumps in the ancient forest lie centipede pearls; buried in mass graves are golden millstones used to suppress earth energy; within mountain-top ginseng pools rests a fifteen-tael wild ginseng spirit; and beneath the Yellow Immortal Temple lies an ancient gold vein. Simultaneously, a host of supernatural entities begin to emerge: the bone mounds and Old Lady Bai in Dead Man’s Gully, the weasel spirits in the abandoned Yellow Immortal Temple below the Stone Pillar Tomb, the Black Third Master residing in the village widow’s home, and white-furred bats lurking in cliff crevices. A mysterious and eerie world gradually unfolds before him.