Chapter Twenty: The Ascending Hand Technique

With a single move called the “Heavenward Palm,” Lei Ren emerged, carrying three bowls filled with rice porridge in one hand, instantly captivating everyone present.

Any one of those three bowls, if held by an ordinary person, would barely be grasped tightly; carrying two bowls would make it impossible to walk more than five steps without spilling. Yet in Lei Ren’s hand, they were held steady as a mountain, his steps perfectly balanced.

No matter how much his body swayed, the three bowls seemed glued to his palm, the overflowing rice porridge not spilling a single drop.

At a glance, I could tell that this skill, the “Heavenward Triple Trick,” could not have been mastered without at least five years of experience serving dishes for others.

From this, I even speculated that Lei Ren must have once been a hard-working laborer, toiling under someone else.

He climbed his way, step by step, through sheer effort to become the abbot of Wuling Temple. How he later became so cunning and sly, I had no idea.

After displaying his skill, Lei Ren proudly walked to the spirit altar. With one hand, he swept the three bowls of steaming rice porridge onto the incense table laden with offerings.

Instantly, the large bowl and the two smaller ones were arranged neatly, resembling a mountain range with one big peak flanked by two smaller ones.

Thus, the “Three Mountain Contest” was formed.

I looked up at the food reputed to summon restless spirits and couldn’t help but feel a bit amused and incredulous.

That… was nothing more than three bowls of ordinary glutinous rice eight-treasure pudding, wasn’t it?

“The Three Mountain Contest is actually… eight-treasure rice pudding?” I asked, staring at the bowls in disbelief.

Eight-treasure rice pudding is a dish any cook can make. Every cuisine across the country has its own version, but they’re all fundamentally similar—glutinous rice as the base, with ingredients like longan, lotus seeds, jujubes, job’s tears, hawthorn, yellow millet, and seasonal preserved fruits steamed together.

This dish combines food and dessert, sweet and sour in taste, served either as a dessert or a main dish. Many regions also use it in Qingming and Laba festivals as ritual food offerings.

But it remains just a bowl of eight-treasure rice pudding. I’d never heard of it having the power to summon spirits!

Upon hearing my skepticism, Lei Ren was clearly displeased. He shook his head arrogantly and chided me: “You young one! You open your mouth and say it’s just eight-treasure rice pudding, acting like you know everything… Since you know so much, then can you tell me the origin of my eight-treasure rice pudding?”

I shook my head, naturally unaware. As long as the dish was made well, who cared about its history?

Now Lei Ren had found his chance to counterattack. First, he scolded me for lacking respect for tradition. Then, in broad daylight, he declared that eight-treasure rice pudding was indeed the “Three Mountain Contest” able to summon souls—and that it was a famous dish with a profound history and spiritual significance.

He even said that the tradition of using eight-treasure rice pudding for soul summoning was ancient, inseparable from its long history and special symbolism. Behind the pudding lay a bloody tale.

He told us that the history of eight-treasure rice pudding was very old, predating even the birth of the four great Chinese culinary traditions—Chinese cooking was just beginning when this dish appeared.

Its origin was closely linked to a significant military event in Chinese history: the overthrow of King Zhou by King Wu.

Legend has it that after King Wu’s victory, during a grand feast with his ministers, eight meritorious ministers requested, according to the ancient ritual of the Yellow Emperor’s campaign against Chi You, that King Zhou’s corpse be divided and eaten, and his bones distributed to pacify the people.

This proposal was firmly opposed by the imperial teacher Jiang Ziya.

Jiang Ziya argued that the Zhou Dynasty governed by rites and sought to win over the feudal lords, to nurture and restore the land. This policy fundamentally differed from the tyrannical rule of King Zhou of Shang, who used witchcraft and lawlessness. Using torture and cannibalism was unworthy of a benevolent ruler.

King Wu understood this, but could not ignore the eight ministers’ requests. After much thought, he devised a compromise.

He ordered the cooks to prepare a dish based on glutinous rice, incorporating each minister’s favorite ingredients—longan, job’s tears, lotus seeds, preserved fruits—and used red hawthorn to symbolize the flesh of King Zhou, who died on the tower. This dish of “eight treasures divided” was then shared among the ministers.

The eight ministers were delighted to find their favorite ingredients in the dish.

Thus, they understood King Wu’s mind—he had remembered their merits in toppling King Zhou—and felt satisfied and loyal to the Zhou Dynasty.

Later, these eight ministers were enfeoffed as lords of various regions. When they performed ancestral rituals, they would offer King Wu’s eight-treasure rice pudding, believing the dish symbolized the past merits of the spirits and was a royal blessing that made it easier to summon their ancestors’ souls.

From then on, eight-treasure rice pudding became a celebratory and sacrificial dish. During the Laba Festival, many places used it to call back ancestral spirits.

The story was strange, but the dish was ordinary. What mattered most was the heart.

Though so, this very ordinary dish was glorified by Lei Ren as something miraculous. I couldn’t help but feel a little deceived.

Had I known this dish could be used to “predict death,” I would have made it myself. Why should I have begged Lei Ren?

Seeing my doubtful expression, Lei Ren was unfazed and continued to boast, “Besides, my Three Mountain Contest eight-treasure rice pudding is very different from the ordinary kind!”

His words piqued my curiosity, so I examined the dish closely, wondering what set it apart from the ones I usually made.

But I remained deeply skeptical. How could a humble bowl of rice pudding, with a few extra ingredients, summon souls? And why the mysterious name “Five Sons Move Mountains”?

There was the mountain shape, but where were the Five Sons?

With this question in mind, I stared into the bowl, eyes wide, studying it for a long time—but still saw nothing unusual.

“What exactly did you add? Don’t tell me it’s just burnt bits from the pot,” I said impatiently.

The three bowls looked no different from the ones I remembered, except for some grayish-black specks on top that looked like pot residue.

Those specks were probably just accidental smudges from Lei Ren when he served them.

But at that moment, Lei Ren unexpectedly nodded and said, “Exactly those specks! But they’re not pot residue… they’re powdered flesh of the Golden Blowfish.”

At the mention of “Golden Blowfish,” the cooks present were stunned. Their eyes widened, jaws dropped, as if they’d seen a panda.

Hongye, puzzled by our astonishment, tugged at me and asked, “What’s a Golden Blowfish?”

I whispered, “’Blowfish’ is pufferfish. The Golden Blowfish is a rare species of pufferfish, said to have spiritual powers. But… it’s been extinct since the late Qing Dynasty.”

Hongye was shocked. “Extinct?!”

I nodded. “There have been no reports of its existence since the Republic of China era. The last recorded catch was in the first year of the Xuantong reign, at Wujue Creek in Guangxi, sold for three thousand silver dollars.”

Having said this, Lei Ren grew even more proud and nodded at me. “You’re knowledgeable, young one! The reason we can’t use the ‘Five Sons Move Mountains’ ritual anymore is because the main ingredient for summoning souls, the Golden Blowfish, is extinct. Mine… is a dried fish my father got from a Guangxi warlord when he was a soldier.”

At this point, I admired Lei Ren even more. He came well prepared. To get close to the Zhao family, he truly spared no expense—using an irreplaceable, extinct ingredient just to glimpse a kitchen knife?

Faced with the situation, I suddenly realized either Lei Ren truly wanted to mend relations with the Zhao family, or the allure of that kitchen knife was simply too great.

Just as I was lost in thought, Lei Ren cleared his throat and alerted us, “Everyone, pay attention! The Five Sons Move Mountains soul-summoning ritual is about to begin!”