Chapter 7: Seven Stars: Over 100 Heads

I didn't know how long had passed. I had many chaotic dreams over and over; in the haze, I seemed to see a white-clad woman with her back to me. I wanted to see her face, so I ran in front of her, but still saw her back. I ran back and forth repeatedly, but no matter how I ran, I could only see her back. Just as I was wondering what was going on, I suddenly realized that she actually had two backs—both sides were her back. I yelled out and woke up. When I opened my eyes, I saw the blood-red sunset clouds and the sky!

"Awake?" Panzi's big face smiled at me.

I squinted to adjust to the light. Panzi pointed at the sky and said, "See that? Damn, we finally got out!"

I touched the back of my head and said, "You bastard, did you hit me?"

"How could I not? I told you not to look back, you nearly got us killed."

My memory suddenly came back. Terrified, I frantically felt my back to see if that thing was still there. Panzi laughed heartily and said, "Relax, it's already gone."

"What was that thing?" I asked, still shaken. "That young fellow said it's called a gui, actually the soul of that white-clad female zombie. She just borrowed your yang energy to get out of that corpse hole. But he didn't tell us the specifics; he only said a few words before fainting." Third Uncle paddled as he said, "But it seems that young fellow has quite a background. That thousand-year-old zombie knelt down to him like that. Who knows what level of cultivation he has!"

I sat up and saw Poker-face and Da Kui leaning side by side over there, both sleeping soundly. I smiled. When we came, I didn't think much of it, but now seeing the sky felt especially good. I asked, "Who exactly is he?"

Third Uncle shook his head. "I really don't know. I

When I heard that, I found this person even more mysterious, but since Third Uncle had spoken, there was no point in asking further. I looked ahead and asked Panzi, "Can you see the village yet?"

"Seems like it's just ahead."

Third Uncle pointed at the scattered lights in the distance ahead: "Looks like the village isn't as run-down as we thought. There seems to be electric light."

The thought of a village immediately made me think of hot baths, stir-fried game, and the long braids of the village girls, and I got even more excited. Just then, against the setting sun, I saw a group of people on the ridge to our left and right. They were riding mules, seemingly heading into the village as well. Since the mountain wasn't too high, I could make out that these people didn't look like locals.

We got off at the ferry dock. A little kid in the village saw us and suddenly screamed, "Ghost!"

We were puzzled, but the kid ran off like lightning, leaving us helpless. The ox obediently stayed on the boat behind us, completely docile—a really good ox. Panzi had herded oxen back home, so he took on the role of ox-herder. When we got ashore, Da Kui woke up and thought he had been dreaming. First, Third Uncle gave him a beating, and then Panzi added a few kicks.

That Poker-face seemed to have lost too much blood and hadn't woken up. I helped him onto the ox-cart; he was really something—his body was as limp as a woman's, as if he had no bones. I settled him down. Third Uncle grabbed a passerby and asked where there was a hotel. The man stared at us like we were insane: "What do you think this place is? Our village has only about thirty households. A hotel? If you want a place to stay, go to the village guesthouse."

We had no choice but to go to that haunted-house-like guesthouse. Surprisingly, it wasn't bad inside—at least it had phones and electricity, and the building was concrete. The best part was hot water and clean bedding. By village standards, this was probably five-star.

We each took a bath—what a relief! The stench of corpses was washed off. Then we went to the hall to have dinner. That Poker-face finally woke up, but he was in very low spirits. We ordered him a plate of pork liver to replenish his blood and didn't ask him anything. After all, he had saved our lives; we'd wait until he recovered before talking.

We ordered some beer but couldn't drink too much since we had work the next day. As we ate, we joked with the waitress: "Sis, this place of yours is pretty nice—concrete floor, concrete road outside. Did you guys carry all this concrete over the mountain with those mules, load by load?"

"No way! That would take forever. We used to have a road here. Trucks could come through. Then the year before last, a landslide buried the road, and it also unearthed a huge tripod. The provincial government sent a lot of people. They said it was a Warring States artifact, a national treasure, so they took it away and didn't care about the road anymore. Maddening, isn't it? The village tried to fix it themselves, but with no money, they work on it on and off. It's been a year, and it's still under repair."

"What about the water route? Don't you have a ferry dock here?" "That's from before Liberation. It hasn't been used for years. If anyone still tells you to take the water route, they're definitely trying to rob and kill you. You out-of-towners need to be careful. The shoals here are very sinister. In recent years, a few people have drowned, but not a single body has been recovered. The old folks in our family say secretly that the mountain god swallowed them."

I glanced at Third Uncle, thinking, Damn, what kind of guide did you hire? He looks like a thief. Third Uncle was embarrassed, his face burning, so he quickly took a sip of wine and asked, "By the way, are there many outsiders here?"

"Don't underestimate my little guesthouse. I tell you, every outsider who comes here stays with us. Lately, ever since that tripod was dug up, more and more outsiders have been coming. Some are even planning to build villas on the other side of the mountain."

Third Uncle stood up with a start and yelled, "Damn, no way!" Building villas in this desolate mountain could only mean either overseas Chinese or tomb raiders.

The waitress was startled. Panzi quickly pulled Third Uncle down: "Third Master, you're getting on in years. Don't be so jumpy." Then he said to the girl, "Nothing's wrong. Third Master is just a bit shocked."

I heard Third Uncle mutter a curse under his breath, then force an awkward smile and ask, "So, do you have any famous historical sites or interesting places here?"

The waitress smiled sweetly, then lowered her voice and said, "You folks don't look like tourists. What, here for tomb raiding, I presume?"

Seeing that we didn't say anything, she sat down next to us: "To be honest, every outsider who comes here is here for tomb raiding. If you were real tourists, wouldn't all this gear be a burden?"

Third Uncle looked at me, then poured the girl a glass of wine: "So, you're an expert too?"

"Hah, not me. I heard it from my grandfather. In recent years, a lot of tomb raiders have been coming here and taken away plenty of good stuff. But my grandfather says the really valuable stuff is deeper inside—an immortal's tomb. Forget gold and jewels; compared to the immortal's treasures, they're nothing but crap."

"Oh?" Third Uncle was very interested. "So your grandfather has been inside?"

The girl sipped her wine and smiled: "Come on. My grandfather heard it from his grandfather. This legend has been around who knows how long. They say the immortal was sent down by the Jade Emperor, turned into a great general to fight for the emperor of that time. When his mission was complete, he ascended to heaven. His mortal body and the weapons he used in battle were buried with him. The tomb was even more magnificent than an emperor's—no wonder they call it an immortal's tomb."

"Since that's the case, surely many people have gone looking for this tomb?" Third Uncle asked nervously. "Did anyone find it?"

"Oh, you don't know. That place has been impossible to get into for a while now. When the landslide happened two years ago, that area also collapsed. Guess what came out of the mountain?"

"What? Some tripod or something?" Fatty Qu said.

"No way. If it were a tripod, it would have been taken away long ago. I'll tell you, but don't tell anyone else." The girl took a sip of beer and said, "They dug up over a hundred human heads in that place!"