A collection of folk stories, myths, and legends from Liyue. It's quite a page-turner. This segment is on the origin of Wuwang Hill.
—Wuwang—
Hiding between the jagged peaks in the north of Mt. Qingce is a slope known as Wuwang Hill, a palpably ominous place and the setting of many tales of supernatural phenomena. It is rumored by Liyue that the spirits of the dead lurk within the woods on Wuwang Hill. They roam the perimeter of the decrepit village, wandering among the withering trees and rotting foliage, eternally yearning for things left unresolved in living years. These floating spirits often entice unsuspecting passers-by away from the main path and onto treacherous mountain tracks that leads them tumbling into a river or straight into an ambush of ravenous monsters.
It is this phenomenon from which Wuwang Hill derives its name. Wuwang means "prudence" in the common tongue, and Wuwang Hill is said to be "the hill where the prudent are punished." For even those travelers who do not act rashly or impulsively on their journey are doomed to be ensnared by the malevolence that lingers here like the mist in the mountain air.
Both innocent villagers and ignorant visitors alike are susceptible to the deception of the Wuwang Hill spirits, which draw them deep into dark woods where thick mist blots out the sky and unknown dangers lurk in the shadows. There are many means by which these sinister spirits are able to deceive mortals. Some take the form of bereavement or grief, others of regret, manifesting as voices and visages of the deceased, the love of the departed, or the remorse of another party in an unresolved dispute. The traveler finds themselves compelled to heed the spirit's cry, and follows them into the depths of Wuwang.
But Wuwang Hill was not always this way. Some signs of life remained there up until relatively recently, and in times gone by the village at the foot of the slope enjoyed a peaceful and leisurely existence, the chimneys always smoking and the lanterns always lit. That same village stands abandoned today... The buildings are in ruins and all that remains of the villagers is the indistinct murmuring from a realm beyond.
There is a fable that is oft-repeated among the children of Qingce Village. It holds that the young people of Wuwang Hill, enchanted by the whale-like song of a faraway sea monster,[Note 1] all threw themselves into the gently flowing Bishui River in pursuit of false promises and childlike dreams. Along the river they floated, making their way to the Sea of Clouds, where they became one with the waves and lost all memory of the woods and their village on the hill... Their dreams, meanwhile, became the sea monster's song. Generation after generation of young people disappeared in this way, until in the end, the sole remaining residents of Wuwang Hill were old and gray. One by one, they left this mortal plane amidst sighs of grief. The bright lights of Liyue Harbor, Rex Lapis's pride and joy, burned ever brighter, while another neglected mountain village turned into a silent ghost town.
But unlike the fleeting and fickle human mind, the ever-flowing ley lines remember all. Surging elemental energy takes on spirit form to recreate all the dreams, both fair and foul, of Wuwang Hill's erstwhile residents. Much like a mother who once lost a child and now searches desperately through their irretrievable past for a way to bring everything back, the ley lines — albeit unconsciously — repeatedly recreate the past and those who inhabited it. The way each looked, the way each child cried, the way the elderly would sigh in their twilight years. Each moment of joy, and each moment of sorrow. And like the hypnotic song of the great creature of the deep sea, it unintentionally lures toward it any nostalgic soul who would dare trespass here.