Chapter 3: Seven Stars: Guazi Temple

I looked at the printed silk manuscript full of characters, then at Third Uncle's expression, not understanding what he was saying. Could it be that he had already attained such transcendence that he could see "pictures" from "words"? How could this usual reprobate of gambling and carousing have any immortal roots?

Third Uncle, while scolding me, took out his reading glasses to look at the thing and said it was called the Eight Formation Script (word-picture, also known as hidden picture text). It means using a special grammar to write down the detailed geographical location of a place. It looks like a bunch of meaningless text, but actually contains very rich information. It was a kind of password used in ancient military maneuvers. I said you can't even read many characters, where did you learn all this? He said it wasn't learned, it was experience.

I couldn't help but laugh. Third Uncle was a rough-and-tumble character, most like my grandfather in conduct, a master of bragging. I suspected this Eight Formation Script thing must have been told to him by some friend of his. How much he actually understood was still a question.

Third Uncle stared at a few characters and muttered to himself, "Those half-monk refugees sure are lucky. Why have I never encountered such a thing? This time you really got a bargain."

I asked him what place this map marked. Third Uncle frowned for a long time, then finally said a few words that made my whole body jolt: "It seems... hell, it's a tomb!"

The Warring States silk manuscript is not a specialized work but something like a notebook diary or a record of thoughts. Some I had encountered earlier had miscellaneous content. Although they have high value for researching the humanities of the time, I'm not an archaeologist, so they never interested me. This one was special. I quickly asked if he could tell whose tomb it was.

Third Uncle shook his head and said to me, "I can't fully understand it now, but this tomb should be that of a noble from the Lu state during the Warring States period. Look, its location was recorded in word-picture on a silk manuscript, indicating that this person's status must be quite high. Moreover, this tomb must be very hidden, a good spot worth visiting."

Hearing that it was a large Warring States tomb, my heart churned. Tombs of Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing dynasties have treasures, but at most they are ingenious. However, an ancient royal tomb from the Warring States period, so distant in time, you can never guess what's inside. You might even find a few ancient artifacts. This kind of temptation cannot be erased by money, and its appeal to grave robbers is naturally infinite.

But then I thought, I have no chance to go anyway, so getting excited is useless. My family discipline was very strict. My father was determined to let our generation completely break away from this trade. Neither I nor my two cousins had ever touched this business. Even the Luoyang shovel was a forbidden item. When I was young, I once used a needle shovel to spear fish in a river, and almost got beaten to death by my father.

Third Uncle was the only one in the family who hadn't married and had children. He had a more unruly personality and always disagreed with my father's approach. Seeing me like this, he shook his head: "I say, you're pretty honest. Your father says you can't go down, and you really dare not go. You're in your twenties, what are you afraid of? Afraid he'll beat you? So what if he does? It won't kill you. When I was your age, I went wherever I wanted, did whatever I wanted. Your grandfather couldn't control me."

I said, "Of course. In the Sanlitun area of Hangzhou, who doesn't know that even your fart smells fragrant, Third Master Wu?"

Third Uncle gave me a dirty look, lit a cigarette, and said he'd take me to see it when he got a chance, secretly without letting my father know. The Wu family had made a living underground for centuries; this complex couldn't be cut off just like that.

I didn't know if he was serious, and didn't take it to heart. We chatted for half the night, and before I knew it I had drunk half a catty of liquor. I realized if I drank more I wouldn't be able to get home, so I said goodbye, didn't even drive, and took a taxi home.

I returned to the small rented house near Stone Bridge. By the time it was dawn, I sent a message to Wang Meng telling him to open the shop himself, then lay down on the bed and fell into a dead sleep.

This sleep lasted until the afternoon, and it wasn't very restful. My mind was filled with strange, half-dreaming pictures: ancient tombs, zombies, mixed with some racy scenes—a real mishmash.

When I woke up, I suddenly felt a tightness in my chest for no reason. I got up, washed my face, and thought about going online for some entertainment, but I couldn't get online properly, so I just lit a cigarette and went to the balcony to smoke, watching the rural housewives playing mahjong in the courtyard below.

After staring blankly for a while, I realized I was thinking about the ancient tomb Third Uncle had mentioned. I called him and asked how he was planning to handle it—would he send his men or go himself, and was there anything I could help with. Third Uncle said he'd let me know after he'd thought it over, then hung up.

For the next few days, I didn't know why, but I felt absent-minded and uneasy. Every half day I'd call Third Uncle, talking about this and that, trying to worm information about the ancient tomb out of him.

Third Uncle caught on from my tone and laughed on the phone: "Stop your damned dilly-dallying. I know what you're thinking. Be honest with me—are you itching to go underground and see what it's like? What's so hard about saying it? You've been babbling like a woman for ages."

Upon hearing this, I realized that was indeed my intention, but I hadn't noticed it myself. Feeling a bit embarrassed, I said, "How would I know if what you said last night counts? You drank so much, you might forget." Third Uncle laughed for a while on the phone and said, "If you really want to go, come over now. There's a lot to prepare." I almost went crazy with joy and yelled, "Alright, even if I have to pull an ox cart, I'll go."

I rushed over to Third Uncle's place. He was on the phone with someone in Mang Mountain, saying he wanted to transfer a few experienced hands over. He wrote a list and handed it to me, telling me to help procure some things. He also warned, "Don't buy fakes, and prepare a tourist outfit, or we'll be detained before we even get there." I nodded hastily and went off to handle my tasks.

The things Third Uncle wanted were rather tricky; he might have been trying to make things difficult for me. Many items on the list weren't available in ordinary stores, like split-type waterproof mining lamps, threaded steel pipes, archaeological shovel heads, multi-purpose military knives, folding shovels, short-handled hammers, bandages, nylon ropes, and so on. Buying just half of them cost nearly ten thousand yuan, and some items had to be ordered in advance.

But these were the easy ones. The most troublesome item on the list was buying guns. Third Uncle estimated that this trip would take us deep into the forest; without guns we'd be in trouble. Not to mention monsters and ghosts, even a wild boar could be enough. We had to buy guns, and they couldn't be fake ones. I had no connections and spent days running around flea markets, inquiring on both sides of the law. Finally, I managed to get a few second-hand double-barreled shotguns.

********************************************************* Three days later, the five of us boarded a long-distance bus headed for Linyi, Shandong.

This time, Third Uncle brought three people. Two of them I had met before; they were steady folks and easy to talk to. The third was the guy I saw downstairs at Third Uncle's carrying a sword case. I didn't know his relationship with Third Uncle, but he came along. However, this guy was especially annoying—a complete burden. He didn't utter a single word the whole trip, just stared blankly at the sky as if worried it might fall! At first I tried to talk to him, but eventually I simply ignored him. I didn't even know his name.

The bus sped along the highway. The journey was long, and we killed time by sleeping, half-conscious. After twelve hours of bumpy ride, we arrived at Linyi.

Linyi was the location of the ancient Lu state, situated in a hilly area south of Mount Tai. Third Uncle compared all the terrain within the ancient Lu and Qi states and set the main target on Mount Meng in the Yimeng Mountains of Linyi. Due to the lack of data, we didn't know if that place was within Lu or Qi territory back then. We just took it one step at a time.

Mount Meng, anciently known as Dongmeng or Dongshan, stands majestically in Pingyi County, Shandong Province, in the northwestern part of Linyi. It is a branch of the Taiyi Mountain range, spanning four counties: Pingyi, Mengyin, Fei County, and Yinan in Linyi. It runs northwest to southeast, stretching over seventy kilometers. Several tourist areas had been developed there. We bought some tourist maps, compared them, and found they didn't match the map we had. The place we were looking for was probably deeper in the mountains.

I found a few local mountain guide villagers and asked about the ancient place names marked on the map, but got no results. That area had endured many wars; many villages had been burned down by the Japanese during the Anti-Japanese War, making research very difficult. With no leads, we wandered around several scenic spots, then decided to head into the mountains first. We took a local bus to a point about forty kilometers west of Melon Seed Temple, then switched to local motorcycles to go further down the paths, and finally took an ox cart along a winding mountain track. When we got off the ox cart, we saw nothing but endless hills before us, with no sign of modern civilization.

Thinking we had arrived, we all jumped off the ox cart. Just then, a dog ran towards us. Third Uncle laughed and joked with the old man driving the cart, "Old man, next leg are we going to ride this dog? I'm afraid this dog might not manage!"

"How could we ride a dog?" the old man laughed heartily. "This dog is for sending messages. For this last leg, there's no vehicle at all. We have to take a boat. The dog will bring the boat over."

Saying that, he drove the ox cart down a slope, and we hurriedly followed. The hills here were different from those in the south; they were higher in altitude. Because there had been no human activity for ages, the shrubs were dense, and the ground was covered with a thick layer of humus. The soil was black, and one step could sink you up to your knees. We cut a few branches as walking sticks, probing the path as we walked, very carefully.

When we reached the valley floor, a green mountain stream appeared before us, about five or six boat-lengths wide. The bottom was not visible, and we didn't know how deep it was. On both sides of the stream, except for the flat rock we were standing on, there were towering cliffs with dense foliage covering most of the sun, making the surrounding temperature drop a few more degrees. Third Uncle, leaning against the ox cart, asked the old man, "Can this dog swim?"

"Swimming nice and easy, swimming nice and easy," the old man said, sitting on the cart, tapping the dog's head with his pipe. "Donkey Egg, go take a swim and let us see."

That dog was truly clever. With a "woof," it leaped into the river, paddled around in a circle, then came back up, shook off its fur, and lay down on the ground, sticking out its tongue.

We all laughed. The old man looked up at the sky and said to us, "It's still too early now. That boatman definitely hasn't started work yet. Let's rest a while and have a smoke."

I checked my watch: "It's 2 PM and he hasn't started work yet? What kind of schedule does this boatman keep?"

"He's the only boatman around here, and he's the best. He starts work whenever he gets up. Sometimes he doesn't work all day, and it can really drive people crazy." The old man chuckled. "No way around it. For miles around, there's only his family running boats. He does whatever he wants, and even the village chief can't do anything about him."

"Then why don't you hold a representative meeting, fire him, and hire someone more efficient?" Third Uncle asked him.

"We've thought about it, but you're from out of town, so you don't know. The mountain god here only respects him. Anyone else who goes into that cave will definitely never come out. Only he can lead people through. Nobody knows why."

"Ah, so up ahead we have to go through a cave?" Third Uncle was startled. He immediately took out the map, looked at it, and seemed to suddenly understand. "So it's a river cave. Old sir, does this cave really eat people?"

The old man laughed softly. "That's a story passed down from a few generations back. I don't remember it clearly. I've heard it from family, but I don't know if it's true."

We thought it might be related to an ancient tomb, so we urged him to tell us. Seeing our interest, the old man got excited, took a puff of his pipe, and began to tell us a story.

It turned out that before the village existed, the cave was already there. Unfortunately, no one knew that the cave went straight through from one side to the other. The cave was extremely eerie—people who went in never came out. Over time, the villagers said there was a snake spirit inside that had set up hidden stakes in the water to keep boats from entering.

Then one day, suddenly a man came out of that cave in a small boat and appeared at the edge of the village. He claimed to be a traveling peddler from outside. The villagers didn't believe him and said he was the snake spirit transformed and wanted to beat him to death. Fortunately, there were some women from neighboring villages in the area who heard his accent—it was distinctly from western Hunan—and recognized him. They said he really was a peddler, came to their village every year, and the rouge he sold was brought in from elsewhere.

Several clan elders sent fast runners to the neighboring village to ask, and it turned out to be true. Only then did they release him. After that, the cave seemed to recognize people. Only the boatman's family could go in and out freely, and for hundreds of years, nothing went wrong.

"Was the dog okay?" I asked, puzzled. "Wasn't it used to send messages?"

"I wouldn't know about that, old man. It's all talk passed down through generations—who knows if it's true?" The old man tapped his pipe on the ground. "We rarely take this water route. There's a mountain path on the ridge that we usually take. But you have too much stuff, and the mountain has been unstable in recent years, with rocks falling all the time. Several people have been crushed. We're not in a rush for this breath of air; waiting a bit is fine."

Looking up from below, I saw that the mountains here were steep and layered, with no other travelers in sight. I couldn't tell if what he said was true. Third Uncle listened to the old man's words, lost in thought. After a moment, he clapped his hands. "Donkey Egg, come here."

That dog was really obedient. It trotted right over. Third Uncle picked it up and sniffed it, his expression changing. "My god, what is that smell…"

I also picked it up and sniffed. The doggy stench hit me so hard I coughed. The dog's owner was really lazy—who knows how long it had been since the dog had a bath.

One of his men, Panzi, burst out laughing. "You want to imitate your Third Uncle? You're still too green."

"This damn dog, why is it so stinky!" I grimaced in disgust.

"Panzi, come over and smell this too!" Third Uncle waved him over.

"Me? Better not," Panzi said. "I really can't stand dog stench. If I throw up, it'll be embarrassing."

"Stop talking nonsense. Come here and smell it. The smell on this dog is too strange."

Panzi had no choice. He walked over, grabbed the dog, and gave it a quick sniff under his nose. His face changed instantly. "This… it's the stench of a corpse…"

"No way!" I was so scared my hair stood on end. Even the silent young man's expression changed.

Third Uncle lit a cigarette, frowning as he looked at the dog. He said to us, "Bring all the gear. That cave up ahead might be a corpse cave. Stay on high alert."

Another one of Third Uncle's men was a big fellow we called A Kui. He was almost as big as the ox pulling the cart, but very timid. He asked quietly, "What exactly is a corpse cave?"

"I don't know. A few years ago in Taiyuan, Shanxi, I found a similar cave. It was a place where the Japanese had massacred and stacked corpses. Anywhere with a corpse cave must have had a massacre—that's for sure. Back then, I was curious and did experiments. I put dogs and ducks on bamboo rafts, set up cameras, and pushed them in. The cave was at most about a kilometer long. I prepared enough cable. But by the time all the cable had been pulled out, the raft still hadn't come out. It was pitch black inside—I don't know where it drifted. Later, I tried to pull the raft back out. After just a few pulls, the raft suddenly flipped over, and then…" Third Uncle spread his hands. "In the end, I only saw half a face on the screen, too close to tell if it was an animal or something. To cross a cave like that, in ancient times they'd send a mix of dead and living people through together. If something alive went in, it would never come out! But I've heard that in some parts of western Hunan, people feed their children human flesh from a young age, accumulating corpse energy in their bodies. By the time they grow up, they're no different from the dead—even ghosts can't see them. Old sir, your boatman's ancestors came from western Hunan, didn't they?"

The old man's expression shifted slightly. He shook his head. "I don't know. That was back in his great-grandfather's time, not even the same dynasty." Then he looked at the sky and called to the dog, "Donkey Egg, go bring your master's boat over!" The dog let out a whimper, jumped into the water, and swam around behind the mountain.

At that moment, I saw Third Uncle give Panzi a meaningful glance. Panzi secretly took a backpack from the luggage and put it on. The young man sitting on the side also stood up and took his own bag from the pile. As Panzi walked behind me, he whispered in Hangzhou dialect, "This old man is suspicious. Be careful."