“Before, the local people here called the shadows in these stones miluotuo,” Ghost said. “We always thought they were referring to these things in the stone. But after we studied the ancient books, we found that we had misunderstood. Miluotuo didn’t refer to these things, it meant ‘old grandmother’ in the Yao language. They referred to miluotuo as the whole mountain here.”
“The mountain?” I asked.
“The mountain is the old grandmother and these shadows are its children. When we arrived here, the Yao people weren’t completely civilized and still attached great importance to the taboo parts of their culture. At that time, when we were investigating, we found that some of the best hunters here received a strange tattoo on their bodies when they came of age. The tattoo pattern was an animal similar to the Qilin. In the early days, we conducted a deep study of this kind of behavior and through understanding the evolution of their tattoos and some legends, we found that the origin of this tattoo had two key points.
“The first point was from a Han tattoo master. According to the local elders’ legends, their tattoos didn’t look like this at the beginning. Both the technology and the shape of the tattoos were very simple and primitive. Later, a master tattoo artist of Han nationality came to teach here and the tattoo eventually became like this.
“When did this Han tattoo master come to Banai? According to their speculation, it should have been around the Ming or Qing dynasty. There was very little information about him. Only one legend mentioned that he came here to avoid sin, but it was impossible to verify and it wasn’t important. The first thing we learned was that over the past thousand years, this tattoo had been improved by a Han Chinese.
“So, no one knew what the previous tattoos looked like. Fortunately, in our next investigation, we got some supplementary information from other Yao villages.
“Legend had it that the Banai hunters created the tattoo with regional restrictions. It was said that only those hunters who hunt deep in Yangjiao Mountain need these tattoos. In everyone’s minds, Yangjiao Mountain seemed different from other places.
“The second point is, what was the purpose of getting this tattoo?
“Was it to ward off evil? Our folklore experts denied this statement. If it was a design to ward off evil spirits, then there should’ve been a corresponding cultural heritage in the village. But when we asked the villagers, no one knew the use of the tattoos. They only said that it was a custom. Moreover, a design to ward off evil spirits couldn’t be changed. If a master of the Han nationality changed the design, it would be a big event that could destroy the clan and the master would be lucky not to be skinned.
“There were many twists and turns during the process of researching the texts at that time, but that generation was very good. First, the real masters of the previous generation were still alive, so if you wanted to ask, there were always some clues. Second, all sorts of old data were slightly better than the present ones. In the end, we finally discovered the purpose.
“The tattoo was a very precise topographic map. Of course, it wasn’t in the modern sense, but after countless forays on the land, the ancient Yao people found the safest hunting path. This path was very complicated, and in a time when there were no maps or texts, ancient Yao people tattooed it on themselves.
“At that time, the tattoos were only used to record the route. But later, due to various historical reasons such as war, the original intention of the tattoos was forgotten and they became a custom without a cause. By the Ming and Qing dynasties, a Han Chinese who fled to Yaozhai had the skill to create tattoos. He improved these crude designs until they eventually became the present tattoos.”
“So, the tattoos on the hunters’ bodies were actually the route to the Yao ancient road.” I recalled Poker-Face’s tattoo, but I couldn’t think too much about it for the time being. I knew Ghost was right and we had also found this.
“Later, when we entered the Yangjiao Mountain area, we slowly started to doubt,” he said. “Why tattoo the route on the body instead of memorizing it? In other words, if the mountain roads here were so complicated and secretive, why bother going in? If the place where an iron mine was located was very difficult to get in and out of, and it took one kilogram of gold to mine one kilogram of iron, then why mine it?”
“Was it really that complicated?” I couldn’t remember the details of Poker-Face’s tattoo, but I did have the impression that it was quite complicated.
“It’s so complex that it’s impossible to remember it either with your head or by instinct. If it weren’t for the tattoo map, the hunters would’ve given up before they reached a third of the distance, and the road would be too difficult to walk.” Ghost continued, “I’m the only one in this world who can walk that road without the tattoo.”
At that time, because they found that it had no hunting value, they tried to find the end of the ancient road according to the tattoo map. The ancient Yao people had spent so much energy to open up this ancient road that it must’ve been for something more important.
They were carrying out the archaeological project of the Zhang family’s ancient building at that time and naturally thought about the two being in one place. They speculated that the ancient building’s location here had something to do with the very important things on this tattoo map.
As a result, Ghost’s team began to explore the ancient road.
But what they didn’t anticipate was that the ancient road didn’t have an end point and was actually a closed loop.
“What does that have to do with this mountain?” Fatty asked impatiently. The shadow on the wall had faded gradually as the water evaporated.
“Don’t you understand?” Ghost asked while stamping his feet on the ground.
We bowed our heads and it took me a while to react, “Is this the ancient road?”
“Yes, this ancient road was built on the rocks here. Almost every section is on the edge of the rock, and all the rocks along the road are full of such things. The whole road looks like a very complicated charm pattern that encloses the whole mountain here. All of these miluotuo are found only in this circle. They walk very slowly through the rocks, but when they reach the edge of the stone path, they can’t get out.”
“That’s… interesting. Go on.” Fatty seemed to be getting more spirited.
“Is this ancient road like a fence?”
“Yes. The ancient Yao people seemed to be raising these things,” Ghost said. “This was our conclusion. There was further speculation that these ancient roads were like the indentations on rubber trees and the Yao people cut off the surface of the mountain along these roads. These miluotuo are very sensitive to heat sources, so lighting a stove near the mountain road can lead these monsters to the surface and allow for them to be dug out. We didn’t know why these monsters came into being in the mountains or what their value was, but there were many signs that this was what the Yao people did.”
“Is it possible they were raising beautiful girls inside?” Fatty touched his chin. “This is really good. I can’t believe the people here still have this awesome technology.”
“It’s not like you haven’t seen these monsters before. They’re as green as beer bottles. Even if they’re girls, can you do it?” I was distressed by the thought of it.
“Those we met probably weren’t well-developed yet. When Bai Suzhen (1) wasn’t well-developed, her lower body was a big tail,” Fatty said. “I don’t have any reservations. Green is fine as long as those girls don’t cheat on me.”
I shook my head and looked at Ghost, but there wasn’t any change in his expression. He continued, “The question is, since they’re bred, what do miluotuo eat?” Ghost extinguished the torch and walked back, “Wu Sanxing, you know what I want to say.”
<Chapter 33> <Table of Contents><Chapter 35>
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TN Notes:
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Updated 2/17/2021
MereBear's Translation 
Thank you for the chapter translation
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