Chapter 189

The mouth on the skull was far larger than that of a normal person. I stared at it for a long while, only feeling that this might be a mask. Why would they wrap this savage's fur around it and throw it into the hell behind this iron door? Pangzi and I couldn't figure it out. Seeing that the fur bore traces of human processing, we also didn't know if it was worth anything.

We caught our breath for a while, feeling we could almost move again. Seeing the small musk rats scurrying about in the corners increasing in number, we dared not linger any longer and quickly left that place of sluggish white bones. For as soon as I looked at the terrain behind the door, I already understood: this iron door was not meant to block the food-sinning Barulu, but to prevent criminals who fell from above and didn't die from running out through the door. The several large holes on the sloping roof were the entrances and exits for such food-sinning Barulu. If two more crawled in, it would be troublesome to deal with.

Pangzi rewrapped the strange mask with the savage's fur, tucking it under his arm. Pangzi and I, one in front and one behind, crawled out of the secret cave. Outside, the bright moon hung in the sky, exactly midnight. On the ground of the Reincarnation Temple, bloodstains were everywhere—leftover limbs from A Dong being gnawed. The relatively more complete parts were his two legs, severed at the waist, white and plump. Aside from a few bones, his upper body had almost nothing left. It was truly too horrible to behold.

Pangzi and I discussed it: no matter what, we had come all this way together. We couldn't let him lie exposed here, but digging a grave and burying him would be too troublesome. Better to simply throw his remaining scraps into the secret cave.

The two of us, fumbling with our hands and feet, threw A Dong's severed limbs into the black iron door, then placed the silver-eyed Buddha statue back where it was. Stealing such things would surely bring retribution, so we might as well leave it in the secret chamber. Then we closed the iron door again, blocking it firmly with broken bricks and rotten wood, before returning the way we came.

On the way back, Pangzi kept sighing, feeling great sympathy for A Dong's tragic fate: "I've discovered a truth: heroes aren't something just anyone can be. As Commander Hu said, it makes sense—at critical moments, one must dare to play the scoundrel."

I said to Pangzi: "But you can't always play the scoundrel. The blind man has a saying that's quite good: people living in this world suffer many undeserved calamities. The dangers of the江湖 are not limited to storms alone. Facing various kinds of dangers with different natures, we must adopt different countermeasures. As the ancients said: attacking cities is inferior, attacking hearts is superior. From now on, we must strengthen our ideological propaganda offensive, striving to disintegrate the enemy psychologically..."

We were walking and chatting, talking without bounds, when suddenly we heard a string of footsteps behind us, as if someone were following us. I became alert, immediately stopped talking, and turned to look behind. In the silent mountain ridges and earthen forests, shadows cast by moonlight fell black upon the ground, their outlines resembling the ferocious faces of beasts. On the desolate plateau, a mournful wind howled angrily. The wind had risen—perhaps what we had just heard was merely an illusion.

Although we detected nothing abnormal, my heart pounded with unease, always feeling something was off. So Pangzi and I quickened our pace, hurrying back to the fortress where the expedition team was camped. Taking advantage of no one noticing, we slipped into our sleeping bags and buried our heads to sleep. The next morning, Ming Shu asked us if we had seen A Dong's good-for-nothing self. Pangzi and I shook our heads like rattles—no, we hadn't seen him. I said A Dong might have felt carrying oxygen bottles too exhausting, couldn't bear the suffering, and slipped away early.

Pangzi affected an even more mysterious tone: "A Dong? Isn't he in Beijing? How could he be here? Ming Shu, are you getting senile? Lacking oxygen? Hurry up and get a tube inserted."

Ming Shu could only have Peter Huang go search around. Finding nothing, he finally stopped asking—after all, it was just a lackey; whether he lived or died was irrelevant to the bigger picture.

That day, the guide told us we wouldn't be moving today. Last night, the wind had blown for most of the night, and it looked like there would definitely be a heavy rain today. Our team had too many yaks, and on the plateau, yaks aren't afraid of wolves or Tibetan blue bears, but they fear thunder most. If they encounter thunder and lightning on the road, they will surely panic and scatter. So we had no choice but to delay one more day, waiting until tomorrow to set out for Sangge Zangbu.

We thought: anyway, we already had a rough grasp of the general location of Kunlun Mountain's Kalamaili. Even if we reached Kalamaili, we couldn't enter the mountain yet, because equipment and supplies hadn't arrived. Once everything was ready, it would practically be a crossing of the Tibetan plateau—long journey, so there was no need to argue over these one or two days. Thus we stayed in the fortress ruins. Sure enough, before noon, the sky darkened with thickening clouds, and finally the rain began.

People in the ancient castle drank butter tea and waited, as the rain lowered the air pressure further. A Xiang felt difficulty breathing and had stayed inside the room sleeping. The others discussed their next steps' action plan, and then Pangzi gave Ming Shu and the others a lecture on his tumultuous life as a grave robber, leaving those people stunned one after another.

I took the opportunity to call the lama and Shirley Yang to my stone bedroom, where I brought out the savage's fur and the papier-mâché mask to show them. I briefly recounted what had happened the previous night, but regarding A Dong's death, I said it was best not to tell Ming Shu, to avoid misunderstanding—he might think Pangzi and I had murdered A Dong for money, and I didn't want to invite trouble.

Shirley Yang, upon hearing this, grew a little angry: "You two are far too bold—daring to play pranks in the ancient city's ruins at midnight with bare hands. It's a shame you once served as a mid-level officer for several years, yet you show no steadiness at all. If something really happened, what would we do?"

I said to Shirley Yang: "A true hero doesn't rely on past bravery. Recalling those bygone years of vigor, last night's events, including what came before, have already become a tiny ripple in the long river of history. We shouldn't dwell on those already objective pasts. Look at the characters on this mask—can you recognize them? This is the only text-bearing object in the Reincarnation Temple. The Reincarnation Sect and the Demon Kingdom's faith share many similarities; perhaps this contains some valuable information."

Shirley Yang said helplessly: "You're too eloquent—you shouldn't be a soldier; you should be a lawyer, or perhaps some kind of politician." After saying that, she took the mask and examined it, then remarked strangely: "This is the Bible written in Portuguese."

Besides being skilled in the "Seek Dragon Decree," I also have a talent: when someone asks me a question I don't want to answer, I pretend not to hear. So I asked Shirley Yang: "Do you still understand Portuguese? I said these characters look like a string of grapes when written."

Shirley Yang shook her head: "I can only understand a little, but I'm very familiar with the Bible—this is definitely the Bible, no mistake."

With the lama assisting nearby, we finally determined that this mask was an image of a demon from the Reincarnation Sect, made from the Bible into such a terrifying visage—likely related to past conflicts between Tibetan religious extermination laws. The Himalayan savage's fur was a prized treasure beloved by ancient Tibetan nobility, said to have insulating properties; wrapping a corpse in it could even prevent decay. When hunting, noble officials liked to drape it over their backs as a cloak to mask human scent in the wind. Another theory holds that this fur can bind the soul, preventing it from ever escaping.

Shirley Yang wanted to see what secrets lay within the mask, so she began peeling off the dry paper layers one by one. She discovered that within the pages of these Bible texts were drawn many winding, twisting lines—a map, showing waterways, mountain ranges, and castle towers, though it was unclear where it depicted.

Since we had no other basis, we could only infer from the terrain in the map: this might be the land of the Great Peng Bird, or a map of the Ancient Elephant Xiong Dynasty. It could also be a map of Kunlun Mountain's Phoenix Divine Palace, since the already-extinct Ancient Guge Dynasty had deep ties with these two landowners, possibly preserving information about these two ancient relics. Foreigners had secretly copied it out, preparing to go treasure hunting—or do something else—but before they could bring it out, they met misfortune: people were thrown into hell and fed to the food-sinning Malu. Meanwhile, the Bible used to draw the map was made into a demon's face, wrapped in savage fur, and cast into hell together. But the details are beyond our speculation. In short, this nearly unrecognizable map still holds some value.

Shirley Yang busied herself restoring the map, while I turned and went outside to pour butter tea to drink. Outside, the rain had lessened somewhat, but thunder rumbled continuously, as if still brewing heavier rainfall. The sky was dark and heavy, as if it were night—whether the weather would clear tomorrow remained uncertain. In the outer room, Pangzi sat by the fire, talking animatedly. Ming Shu, Peter Huang, Han Shuona, and the guide named auspicious Zaxi all had their mouths wide open, listening intently.

All we heard was Pangzi spitting foam as he said: "Pangye I disassembled the old zongzi in the big coffin into eight pieces, buried the head by the roadside, arms and legs buried separately in East Mountain and West Mountain, with the remaining torso section in the middle—I just kicked it into the river."

Pangzi said to Peter Huang: "Do you know that Prince Whatever His Name Is of the West Sarmatia? You know that old geezer? Just as he came to our China, the whole streets were filled with waist-drum teams welcoming him. The Foreign Ministry insisted I go meet him—damn it, I don't have the time, I hate the hassle! So I avoided going to the countryside, found a place said to have had seventeen deaths in it—a haunted house—and moved in. Pangye has this temperament: I don't believe in that stuff—whether it's a haunted house or a yin house, I live there without fail. At night, I start tallying the burial goods I took from the old zongzi—crack, crack, crack—just as I began counting, I damn it! You guess what happened?"

Ming Shu shook his head: "Are you kidding? If you don't tell us, how are we supposed to guess? Exactly how many burial goods did you take?"

Pangzi said: "Forget it! Burial goods? I had just counted halfway when the door was kicked open by someone. Outside, thunderclap followed thunderclap, the door swung open by itself, and something rolled in from outside—it was exactly the human head I had buried by the river."

Ming Shu and the others found listening to Pangzi's tall tales boring, though they knew he was spouting nonsense. But at that moment, the thunder outside was close, and this abandoned ancient castle was dark and gloomy, so they couldn't help but feel tense.

I felt amused in my heart, thinking: Pangzi, you really are something—just keep talking, best if you scare Ming Shu into having a heart attack, then we'd have an excuse not to bring all this baggage to Kalamaili to search for the "Dragon Peak."

I walked to the tea kettle, just lifted the bowl to pour some tea to drink, when suddenly I heard a woman's startled cry from inside—sounded like A Xiang. Isn't she sleeping? At this, everyone in the room sprang to their feet, including the iron staff lama and Shirley Yang, who also came out.

Everyone was worried A Xiang had something happen, and were about to go in to see her, but saw A Xiang barefoot, running out and throwing herself into Ming Shu's arms. Ming Shu quickly comforted her: "Good girl, don't be afraid—what happened?"

A Xiang stared with her pair of dull, lifeless eyes, scanning everyone in the room, and said to Ming Shu: "Godfather, I'm so scared—I saw A Dong covered in blood, walking back and forth in this room."

Others didn't think much of it, but I and Pangzi and a few others who knew A Dong was dead felt a chill run down our backs. At that moment, the iron staff lama stepped forward and said: "He has become an intermediate-state being; we must quickly perform the intermediate-state liberation, or else he will still harm the living among us."

The iron staff lama said that an intermediate-state being is not a vengeful spirit, but is similar to one. In Esoteric Buddhism, it is believed that after a person dies, until they are reborn, this state is called the intermediate state. The lama asked A Xiang: Can you now see where the intermediate-state being is?

A Xiang tremblingly raised her hand; everyone instinctively stepped back, yet saw her finger pointing straight at the iron staff lama.