Chapter 107: Main Text Chapter One Hundred and Eight: Dense Forest

Main Text Chapter One Hundred and Eight: Dense Forest

Hearing Pangzi say he had found the entrance to the Insect Valley, I and Shirley Yang also raised the binoculars hanging from our chests and looked in the direction he indicated. After adjusting the focus, I saw a large expanse of yellow-and-white wild flowers on the distant hillside, with swarms of golden swallowtail butterflies fluttering among the blossoms. These butterflies were fairly large, flying in groups back and forth, never leaving that flower patch.

Shirley Yang exclaimed, "Those flowers must be butterfly orchids; I never expected they would attract so many golden swallowtail butterflies… and also golden-banded swallowtails… and even the rare golden-line great swallowtails—it's just like the golden tree leaves blown by the sea wind in the gods' garden of Aegean Sea in ancient Greek mythology."

I know nothing about butterflies, and after looking through the binoculars for half a day, aside from the butterflies and wild flowers I saw no sign of any valley or streambed. The vegetation here is so thick that all terrain is completely concealed, making it impossible to tell where a valley is and where a stream flows. From above, all I see is undulating greenery—dense plants typical of the area near the Tropic of Cancer; the higher patches aren't necessarily higher ground, just uneven plant growth. The primeval forest here is quite different from the familiar primeval forest of the Greater Khingan Range.

As the saying goes, 'Trees that stand out in the forest are destroyed by the wind.' In the Greater Khingan Range, tree canopy heights are fairly uniform, and the trees can mutually shelter each other from strong winds. Here, however, situated in the region where two rivers and three mountains intertwine, the central basin valley lies low, and because Yunnan's climate is uniform year‑round without monsoon seasons, the lower the terrain, the more severe the moisture buildup. Temperatures stay around 25–30 °C all year, and it rarely blows even once, so plants grow luxuriantly. Underground water sources are abundant and the air is extremely humid, allowing plants to grow unchecked however they like; this causes the forest's thick‑stemmed vines, woody and herbaceous epiphytes to vary in height according to their own traits, creating an uneven, patchy canopy. The tallest are the famed Yunnan 'gazing‑heaven' trees, which normally grow only south of the Tropic of Cancer, but the unique environment of this mountain hollow has produced many towering specimens.

Only a few relatively large ponds have their surfaces free of plant cover, and in the deeper, secluded areas mist often shrouds the view, making it hard to see what lies within from afar; we cannot simply rush into the forest based on a few groups of golden butterflies. The environment here is exceedingly complex and cannot be gauged by ordinary reasoning.

The human‑skin map was drawn in the Han dynasty and has been passed down to the present, two thousand years later; the terrain features marked on it have changed greatly compared with today. Aside from a few specific markers and places, the human‑skin map can no longer be used for precise reference with the forest beneath Cover Dragon Mountain.

According to the blind man, several decades ago his group of mountain‑moving strongmen entered the Insect Valley carrying homemade explosives. In the valley—more precisely, the gorge formed by the Snake River—they saw a huge swarm of butterflies, but no one can guarantee that butterflies won't appear elsewhere outside the valley. For now we cannot confirm that the valley's entrance is there; we must locate the other spot the blind man mentioned. Inside the valley there is a remnant wall, a man‑made ancient wall built on the Snake River that resembles a dam, constructed to cut off water flow while building the Xian King's Tomb in the lake; after the Xian King was interred, the wall was torn down, restoring the water eddy before the tomb.

Only by finding that remnant wall can we have a reliable basis for confirming the valley's location. The safest method is to do what those mountain‑moving strongmen did back then: leave Cover Dragon Mountain, not enter the forest, but follow the mountain range northward to locate the Snake River, a tributary of the Lancang River, then proceed along the river into the valley, ensuring we won't go astray and will never lose our bearings.

Pangzi suggested another method: rediscover the artificial canal inside Cover Dragon Mountain and follow the old riverbed to find the Snake River. However, the waterways inside Cover Dragon Mountain have become interconnected and tangled due to heavy rains upstream on the Lancang River, possibly even diverting underground; the old canal has long been completely buried by plants and soil, so Pangzi's proposal is not feasible.

The three of us briefly discussed it; seeing that it was 3:30 p. m., we had been riding bamboo rafts into Cover Dragon Mountain since around 9 a. m. without a break, so we decided to make this spot a temporary rest point, rest for twenty minutes, then head north, aiming to find the valley's entrance before sunset, set up camp there, and enter the valley early the next morning.

We found a slightly level slope, sat down, took out some bait‑cakes and beef to ease our hunger, but then Pangzi brought up those man‑eating fish, recalling how the mountain pools were filled with bright‑red blood, resembling the legendary blood pools of hell, which killed my appetite. Suddenly I felt a chill: what if those razor‑toothed fish, whose teeth are faster than a saw, also swam into the Snake River? With those creatures in the water, we could never dive into the Xian King's Tomb.

Shirley Yang said, "There's nothing to worry about on that score. I used to work as a photojournalist for a geography magazine and have read plenty of material on wild animals and plants; dagger‑tooth viper fish are found in the waters of India, Myitkyina, Laos, and in the Americas near the Tropic of Cancer at about 20 degrees latitude."

Ancient India had the most occurrences; Buddhist scriptures record that during Emperor Ashoka's reign, a year‑long outbreak of dagger‑tooth viper fish caused a great disaster. At the time there was a once‑in‑a‑century Ganges flood, and an underground river from the Donggaozhi Mountains reversed flow into a nearby city, burying countless people and livestock in the fish's bellies.

The ancestor of the dagger‑tooth viper fish can be traced back to the post‑glacial marine tiger‑tooth fish. Those fish lived in the ocean, bore a light‑emitting organ, and schools of them could instantly bite to death the ocean's overlord, the dragon‑king whale. Later, due to the massive flooding of the secondary glacial period, these organisms were gradually eliminated by nature's harsh selection, and their descendants evolved into freshwater dagger‑tooth viper fish.

Although dagger‑tooth viper fish are formidable, they have a major weakness: they can survive only in relatively cold water. Near the Tropic of Cancer, only the yin‑cold waters of dissolved limestone caverns suit them. Those waters produce a large number of eyeless hard‑shell shrimp, but even that is not enough to feed the fish, so they often turn on each other. In huge populations, after September each year only about one percent survive to reach the final spawning season.

Around the Mid‑Autumn full moon is the dagger‑tooth viper fish's spawning season. Though they cannot survive in excessively hot areas, they inhabit the slightly warm vicinity of the Tropic of Cancer precisely so they can later migrate to warmer waters to spawn en masse; after spawning the adults die immediately. The eggs develop into fry in the warmer currents, then swim back to the cold waters to continue living. It is now late June, also the peak of activity for dagger‑tooth viper fish; normally it is rare to see such large numbers of them.

Moreover, because dagger‑tooth viper fish have high environmental demands and consume large amounts of resources, in recent decades signs have appeared that they will gradually go extinct.

Most importantly, this season is before the spawning period, so we need not worry about them swimming back out of the caves. However, when we return we must be cautious, because the waterways inside Cover Dragon Mountain have recently become an interconnected network due to heavy rainfall; if we return by the same route we might still encounter them in some cavern channel.

After hearing Shirley Yang's detailed explanation of the dagger‑tooth viper fish, I and Pangzi felt a little relieved; we'll leave the matter of returning for later consideration. Pangzi felt he had shown a bit of weakness earlier and wanted to regain face, so he said to me and Shirley Yang, "What kind of fuss could these stinking fish and rotten shrimp kick up? I only feel they're a little… uh… what's it called… because Chairman Mao once taught us that in tactics we must take the enemy seriously."

Shirley Yang said, "Those fish aren't worth worrying about. I've been thinking about the inverted human figurines suspended in the waterway; their purpose probably isn't as simple as feeding a python…… but the corpse‑preserving arts are so mysterious that I can't fathom them. Fortunately, a swarm of dagger‑tooth viper fish happened to appear out of nowhere; otherwise we wouldn't know what might happen. Even before entering the Insect Valley we've already run into so much trouble—we must proceed step by step, staying vigilant."

I nodded and said, "This dipper is notorious for being hard to tip over; since we've come, we'll bring all our skills to bear and match wits with it." I patted the back of my neck and added, "Even if it's for this, I can't help but stake my life on this big gamble."

Shirley Yang and Pangzi also grew solemn; this time upending the dipper is a matter of life and death. On the cliff there's no room to retreat when running the horses—only success, no failure.

After resting a while, we took out the contour map of Cover Dragon Mountain—this map is extremely simple, with a large margin of error; we zeroed the compass, re‑confirmed altitude and direction, corrected the map, marked the exit direction, and the three of us then set off again to seek the Snake River.

The Lancang River basin is vast, running from north to south through all of Yunnan and emptying directly into Vietnam; in Vietnam it is called the Mekong River, but that need not detain us. Speaking only of Yunnan, the smallest tributary of the Lancang River within the province is precisely the Snake River we are seeking. This river winds past a stretch of Cover Dragon Mountain, rushing with great turbulence and a huge drop; some sections flow underground or through marshland in the forest, while others plunge straight down the mountainside in a series of waterfalls; the river is full of massive whirlpools that no boat can navigate, and because of its extremely winding, serpentine course it is named the Snake River. The local Bai people call it 'Jielaluo' (pronounced Jie La Luo), meaning 'the evil dragon subdued by the great snow mountain.'