The Chivalric Records: The Mountain Elder

A curious book recording many knight-errants from Liyue street legend. Some tales are old, yet still much loved by common readers.

— Mountain Elder —

The stone forests of Jueyun Karst north of Liyue are veiled year-round in cloud and mist; among herb-gatherers many legends of adepti and spirits circulate.

Years ago a medicine merchant named Qian Gu entered Jueyun to survey herb distribution, only to be followed into the mountains by four or five bandits. That night, seeing him briefly off guard, they knocked him out, robbed him, bound him hand and foot, and left him in a valley.

Deep night—the merchant woke. He struggled hard and cried for help. The high peaks and deep ravines of Jueyun ignored the wounded merchant; only his own wretched shouts echoed in the deep woods, startling night birds.

Just as Qian Gu suffered for want of rescue and moaned in grief, amid owl cries and mountain wind an old voice came:

"Get up!"

"I can't get up!" he wailed, scaring off a night-walking fox. Yet as he struggled he found the ropes on hands and feet already loose.

The merchant stood. Before he could thank, the voice directed again:

"Go up the mountain."

Qian Gu climbed the winding path to the summit; the eastern sky was already paling. On the peak he saw a bent dead pine jutting beyond the cliff. The earlier bandits hung from it, bound hand and foot, the pine branch creaking under their weight.

On a strange rock to one side sat an old man white of hair and beard. Seeing Qian Gu's sorry state he laughed heartily and returned every scrap of property.

At Qian Gu's questions the old man said he was of the mountain folk, living anywhere, sleeping on the ground. The merchant thanked him a thousand times; the old man only smiled. Under Qian Gu's insistence he took only one Mora—as a wedding gift for when his beloved daughter married.

After this ordeal—perhaps misfortune turning to fortune—Qian Gu's pharmacy gradually thrived, and he became a rich merchant famed far and near in Liyue Harbor. Some say after he rose he specially sought the man in Jueyun, but found nothing but a few broken tents and old wine bottles. Some saw the old man on Yaoguang Shoal dressed as a miner, sure-footed on sheer cliffs. Others called him a fisherman who only saved those who fell from great ships. Legends are many and various, but none knew the old man's name.

A pity—Qian Gu is now old and frail, and his precious daughter Qian Xi is still unmarried. So the mountain elder's chance to attend a wedding banquet still seems far off.