Chapter 4: Seven Stars: Corpse Cave

Third Uncle's men were veterans of the world, and I trusted them completely. As soon as Panzi said that, I immediately understood, and I took my luggage from the cart, keeping it close to me, so that if anything happened, it wouldn't be taken along with the oxcart. We had encountered plenty of swindles and scams along the way, and I had learned some basic precautions, though not much.

Big guy Da Kui also gave me a look, telling me to stick close and not fall behind. Seeing the hostile looks on both their faces, I had no idea what was off about the old man, and I started to feel nervous. At that moment, "Donkey Egg" swam back with a plop, and the old man slapped his pipe against his pant leg. "Go! The boat's here."

Sure enough, a flat-bottomed boat emerged from behind the mountain. The boat was made of cement and towed a raft behind it. At the bow stood a middle-aged man who looked like a mountain dweller. I sized him up—he was extremely ordinary, the kind you'd lose in a crowd. But maybe it was psychological, or just a feeling—when I thought about what Third Uncle had said about eating human flesh, the man seemed ghostly and had a hint of cunning.

The man shouted something to us and brought the boat alongside the rocky bank. The old man patted the ox's neck and gestured for us to board.

We loaded all our luggage into the boat's hold, and the oxcart and ox were led onto the raft behind. We had brought too much stuff this time, so there was no room to sit; we had to perch on the gunwale.

Third Uncle settled the fare with him and told him to cast off. The middle-aged man poled the boat skillfully, and we drifted out quickly. We reached the middle of the mountain stream, rounded a mountain, and suddenly a cool wind blew, opening up a magnificent vista before us.

There was still a stretch of the waterway before we reached the cave. The scenery along this stretch was extremely beautiful—both sides had steep cliffs and overlapping peaks, an absolute feast for the eyes. I exclaimed in admiration and took out my digital camera, snapping photo after photo.

The man steadied the boat, and we drifted downstream along the current. The deep mountain stream twisted and turned following the mountain range. Every time we thought we had reached the end of the stream, the boatman would turn the bow, and another beautiful view would open up before us. We traveled through the complex network of waterways for a long time. By the time I lit my third "Eight Joys" cigarette, he finally stopped the boat with a pole and said to us, "Hold on a moment. Up ahead we'll pass through a water cave. While inside, please keep your voices down, don't look into the water, and especially don't say anything bad about the Mountain God."

We exchanged glances, unsure how to respond. Panzi asked Third Uncle in Hangzhou dialect, "What do we do? Do we listen to him?"

Third Uncle thought for a moment and replied in the same dialect, "We don't know yet whether these two are really a problem. This place is full of twists and turns—more treacherous than I expected. Let's go along with him for now, one step at a time. First, get your weapons ready."

We each nodded. I had heard from some locals along the way about robberies and murders in the mountains—tricking outsiders into remote places, robbing them, then killing everyone and burying the bodies where even the gods couldn't find them. But that was stuff from before Liberation; I didn't know if it still happened now.

Panzi, having been a soldier, was very calm. His hand was already resting on his waist knife. He gave me a look, and I gripped my backpack tightly, in case things suddenly went wrong and my stuff fell into the water.

The boat rounded a nearly 180-degree bend, passing a protruding cliff, and the cave appeared before us. When we had been discussing it earlier, we had imagined it as a large karst cave, but seeing it now, we couldn't help crying out in alarm. This was hardly a cave—it was more like a hole. Its width was barely ten centimeters wider than the boat, and worst of all was its height. You couldn't even sit upright in it; you had to stoop down to barely squeeze in.

As the saying goes, a big rat doesn't go into a narrow hole. In such a cramped space, if someone inside wanted to ambush us, we wouldn't be able to move our limbs freely. Panzi cursed, "Damn, this hole is way too shabby."

There's a famous underground canyon in the scenic area of the Yimeng Mountains; the entrance was similar to this. I thought it would be a karst fissure with stalactites hanging from the roof. But once we entered, I realized it was nothing like I imagined. The first stretch of the cave was still bright, but after turning a corner, it became pitch black. Panzi turned on a miner's lamp and shone it ahead. We saw that the cave walls all around were smooth and damp, glowing with a strange green, as if covered in a layer of moss.

Da Kui looked at the ceiling and gasped, "Third Master, this cave is no ordinary thing. It looks like... like a grave robber's tunnel!"

Third Uncle reached out and touched the cave wall, a puzzled look on his face. "Damn it, it really is a grave tunnel. Round at the top, square at the bottom—it's been here for quite a while."

The middle-aged man was crouched at the bow, kneeling on one knee, poling the boat with one hand, dipping and pushing. Hearing us, he butted in, "Oh, looks like you know your stuff. That's right. This mountain we're passing through is called Five Graves Ridge. According to old tales, the whole mountain is actually an ancient tomb. There are quite a few water holes like this around here, big and small."

"Oh, so you're an expert too," Third Uncle said politely, offering him a cigarette.

He shook his head and said, "Not an expert. I just heard from people who came here before. I've heard enough to be able to say a few things, but that's all I know—just the basics. Please don't call me an expert."

Panzi and Da Kui both had their hands on their knives, chatting and laughing, while vigilantly watching their surroundings. On the surface, I couldn't sense anything wrong with the atmosphere, but unbeknownst to me, cold sweat began to form on my palms.

Third Uncle lit a cigarette and asked the boatman about the cave. The boatman said he didn't really know the whole story, but there were rules passed down from above—for example, you mustn't talk loud, mustn't look into the water. As long as you followed them, nothing would happen. His family had followed these rules for generations, and no one had ever broken them, so he couldn't say for sure if they were really true.

As we were chatting, suddenly the Poker-face waved his hand and whispered, "Shh, listen! Someone's talking!" Startled by his sudden movement, we immediately held our breath and indeed heard a rustling sound coming from deep within the cave.

The sounds were very ethereal, echoing through the cave, giving a very strange feeling. I tried to make out what they were saying, but I felt like I could almost understand, yet couldn't.

After listening for a while without making sense of it, I asked the middle-aged boatman if this sound often occurred in the cave. I asked a few times, but no one answered. I turned around—the boatman was nowhere to be seen at the bow. He had vanished.

Shocked, I cried out. I turned my head again—hell, the old man was gone too.

"Panzi, where did they go?" Third Uncle shouted in panic. "I don't know. I didn't hear the sound of anyone jumping in the water," Panzi said, also panicking. "I feel like I just spaced out a moment ago."

"Damn it. We don't have corpse aura on us. I don't know what's going to happen!" Third Uncle cursed in frustration. "Panzi, you fought in Vietnam. Did you ever eat any dead people?" "Are you joking, Third Master? When I served, the withdrawal was already underway. I barely even fired a gun!" Panzi pointed at Da Kui. "Fat Kui, didn't you say your family used to sell human-meat buns? You must have eaten plenty when you were a kid."

"Bullshit! I was just making that up. Besides, human-meat buns were sold to others. Who the hell would eat their own product?"

Seeing they were about to start quarreling, I quickly made a timeout gesture and said to them, "The three of you combined are over 150 years old. Aren't you ashamed?"

Just as I finished speaking, the boat suddenly shuddered. Panzi quickly shone the miner's lamp into the water. By the light, we saw a huge shadow swimming past beneath the surface.

Fat Kui's face turned pale with fear. He pointed at the water, his jaw trembling for a long time, unable to utter a single word. Afraid he might faint, Third Uncle slapped him hard and cursed, "Useless! What are you stammering for? Even the two kids haven't said a word. You've been following me for so many years—were you eating shit?"

"My god—Third Master, that thing is way too big! The few of us probably wouldn't even be enough for its first meal," Fat Kui said, still terrified as he looked at the water. He had been sitting on the gunwale, but now his butt had moved to the middle of the boat, as if afraid something in the water might suddenly leap out and snatch him away.

"Bah!" Third Uncle glared at him. "We've got weapons and men here. I, Wu Jia Laosan, have been digging in the sand for years—what demons and monsters haven't I seen? Don't you fart around here for no reason."

Panzi's face was deathly pale, but for him, it was more shock than fear. In such a narrow space, something so huge had just swept by under the water—it wasn't surprising that everyone's mind went blank for a moment. Panzi looked around and said, "Third Master, this cave is weird. I've got a bad feeling. Let's talk about it after we get out. What do you say?"

Fat Kui immediately agreed. Actually, I was also eager to get out, but since I'm Third Uncle's nephew, I had to wait for him to state his position before speaking.

At that moment, Third Uncle actually looked toward the Poker-face, as if seeking his opinion. Given Third Uncle's personality, he doesn't give a damn about anyone, not even the Heavenly King. But now he seemed very cautious of this kid. I found it strange.

The Poker-face wasn't listening to us at all. His originally stone-still expression had disappeared, and his eyes were fixed on the water, as if he was concentrating on looking for something.

I wanted to ask Third Uncle who this guy really was, but the occasion wasn't right. I had to quietly ask Panzi. Panzi shook his head and said he didn't know either, only that this guy had some skills. He especially pointed with his chin at the man's hand and said, "Look at that hand. How many years of training do you think it takes to get it like that?"

I had never really noticed the man's hand before. Looking now, it was truly unusual. His index and middle fingers were exceptionally long. I immediately thought of the ancient "Faqiu Colonel" technique of probing tombs with two fingers. I had seen records of it in my grandfather's notes. A master of the Faqiu Colonel art could have fingers as steady as Mount Tai and tremendous strength, easily disarming the delicate traps inside tombs. To master such a skill, one had to start training from childhood, and the process was undoubtedly agonizing.

I was still wondering what was so special about his hand when I saw him raise his right hand and plunge it into the water like lightning. The movement was so fast, it was almost a flash of white light, and then his hand was already back, holding a blackish bug between two unusually long fingers. He tossed the bug onto the deck and said, "No need to panic, that's what it was."

I looked down and couldn't help but be startled: "Isn't that a water beetle! So that big shadow just now was just a swarm of water beetles swimming by?"

"Yes," the man said, wiping his hands on his clothes.

Although we still couldn't fully accept it, we were already relieved. Fat Kui suddenly stepped on the bug and crushed it. "Damn, scared me half to death."

But then I thought again, that can't be right. How could so many water beetles be active at the same time? And these water bugs were way too big! I turned to look at the Poker-face, and saw that he was also looking at the water with a puzzled expression, not knowing what he was thinking.

Fat Kui stomped the bug's corpse into a pulp, probably trying to save face after his earlier loss of composure. Third Uncle picked up a broken leg, sniffed it, and said in alarm, "This isn't a water beetle. It's a corpse beetle." We were all stunned, feeling that this was bad—the name alone sounded ominous.

"This kind of bug eats carrion. They thrive where there are dead things, and if they eat well, they grow big. It looks like upstream, there must be a place where corpses accumulate. And it's not small either." Third Uncle gazed at the pitch-black cave.

"So, do these things bite living people?" Da Kui asked timidly.

"If they were normal-sized, they definitely wouldn't bite people, but look at this one's size. I can't be sure if it bites or not." Third Uncle looked at it in puzzlement. "These things usually stay in places with lots of dead people and don't swim around often. So why are they migrating in such a large group now?"

That Poker-face suddenly turned his head toward the depths of the cave. "I think it might be related to that strange sound we heard just now. Did any of you make out what it was?"

Fat Kui shook his head. "No matter how I listen, I can't understand. It feels like, if you don't listen carefully, it seems like someone is talking, but when you listen closely, you can't understand—"

Poker-face nodded. "It feels a bit like someone whispering behind your back... Could there be something nearby watching us?"