Zohlupuii Sailung ✧ (TRUSTED)

As the first grey light touched the sky, she climbed the summit of Sailung—a razorback ridge the locals called Thlaler (The Abyss of Ghosts). There, she stripped off her puan and stood naked before the wind, her white hair whipping like a war banner. She began to sing.

“What do you hear, strange one?” the village boys would mock. Zohlupuii Sailung

You will hear it. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. As the first grey light touched the sky,

Zohlupuii walked out of the mist, her silver hair dragging through the moss. She pointed one long finger at the three chiefs. “This mountain belongs to no man’s ram (domain),” she said. “It is my puan (my cloth, my body). Spill blood here, and I will weave your bones into my hair.” “What do you hear, strange one

The chiefs, proud as they were, dropped their weapons and fled. To this day, no village on Sailung has ever fought a war. And the elders say that if you climb to Thlaler at midnight and whisper, “Zohlupuii, let me hear the heartbeat,” you must press your ear to the stone.

But the people of Hrireng smile. They know. It is Zohlupuii, the queen of the whispering peaks, watering her mountain from a gourd that will never empty.

“The mountain has a heartbeat,” she would reply. “And it is sad.”