Chapter 78 Sacred Snowy Mountain

Poker-Face stood on the snow-capped mountains with a solemn expression on his face. I didn’t know what kind of emotion this was, but I knew that these snow-capped mountains held special meaning to him.

I imagined his heart couldn’t be empty at this time, as everything here must’ve had a certain origin with him, but I didn’t even have any sort of direction to speculate.

Poker-Face stood like this for a long time.

We didn’t move on that night. Instead, we dug a nest in the snow, covered it with a tarp, lit a smokeless stove, and passed the night.

The next day, we set off again with our equipment and continued our journey into the mountains.

Along the way, I kept talking about the beauty of the world, telling him of all the places he had never been to and all the delicious food there. He never spoke or showed any signs of boredom.

In reality, I didn’t know what he was interested in, so I searched through all my previous experiences with him, looking for something he seemed to like. For example, he always looked out the window so I thought he might have a special preference for traveling.

In the beginning, the intensity of my persuasion was quite high, but in the end, the road became more and more difficult to walk and my physical exertion became greater so I could only keep silent. After walking for several days in a row, we reached the snow-covered crest of the mountains. There wasn’t a bare surface in sight. As I stood on the high ground and looked behind me, I noticed that none of the villages could be seen.

At first glance, I could see the Changbai Mountains stretch as far as the eye could see, with thousands of peaks and valleys, many of which were inaccessible. I had been unable to determine whether the route we took this time was the same as the one we took the last time we entered the mountain.

I remembered that when Shunzi brought us here, he told me the names of some peaks, including the Three Sacred Mountains and the Yaozi Mountain. The appearance of those peaks at that time seemed different from what I was seeing now. I also remembered that Pan Zi had told all kinds of jokes, but the mountains and the people were different now.

We put up a tent on the third night. It was very close to the line I had set for our separation, which I estimated was only a day away.

We found a dry place and lit a fire. While sitting in front of it, Poker-face looked at me silently for the first time.

I also stared at him for a long time. Since he kept looking at me like this, I began to wonder whether the focus of his gaze was actually on me. When I found that he was really looking at me, however, I felt very strange. “Is something wrong with me? Is there a monster behind me?” I asked him several times, but he didn’t respond. I knew he wasn’t very normal at ordinary times, but I certainly couldn’t— and didn’t need to— understand this situation now. But after a while, he suddenly asked me for a cigarette.

I handed it to him, thinking that he would chew on it like before, but I didn’t think he would put it in the fire and light it. Then he really started smoking.

Wow, he really knows how to smoke, I said to myself in horror.

In the light of the fire, he suddenly asked, “How long are you going to follow?”

I couldn’t help but be shocked, “It has nothing to do with you, it’s my own business.”

“If you continue to follow me, I’ll knock you out tomorrow,” he replied.

I looked at his expression and knew that he was definitely not joking. Feeling overwhelmed, I stammered out, “You… what do you want to do? Don’t mess around.”

“You’ll be fine,” he said.

It was so ridiculously funny that I retorted, “I won’t let you knock me out.”

“Then you can run away now,” he said quietly, “or keep a long distance from me from now on.”

“How far?” I asked him.

“As long as you’re no more than a hundred meters away from me, I can hit you with a stone,” Poker-Face said. “I’ll carry you to a safe place, and when you wake up, you won’t find me.”

At that moment, I paused. I had suddenly realized that although this dialogue was fun, the meaning contained within it was very clear.

He didn’t want me to continue following him. He obviously didn’t believe the idea that I would give up when I reached that line. He was still following his own pace and felt that it was time to part.

“Can’t you think it over again?” I asked him. “Is there any meaning for you to do this now?”

“Is it significant to have such a thing as meaning?” Poker-Face showed little concern for the word “meaning”. He looked at the burning fire and said, “The word ‘meaning’ has no meaning in and of itself.”

I looked at him for three minutes without saying anything before I turned and walked into the tent.

I gave up. I really had nothing to say, but if it was possible, I really wanted to go up and slap him a few times. I didn’t think it likely that he would immediately turn over and knock me out, but it was very likely that I wouldn’t reach him since he was too fast. And scolding him was just like scolding a stone; there was no pleasure in it. I had said all the right things, so I knew it was no use doing anything now.

It was only a day’s journey, anyways. Instead of going to the line I had set myself, continuing to struggle helplessly until I collapsed, and then being knocked unconscious by him, it was better to give up here. I could stay here and watch him disappear in the snow.

At this time, I had already decided that I would go back first thing at dawn. I would make a mark here and visit every year to sweep the tomb.

I lay in my sleeping bag, feeling so depressed that I was unable to sleep. After lying down for more than ten minutes, Poker-Face came in and began to tidy up his things. After a while, he said, “Goodbye.”

“Friend,” I said to him, “let’s go tomorrow. I won’t follow you.” He nodded, took out his night watch equipment, and then left the tent.

At this time, my heart was filled with despair.

A very good friend of yours was determined to die. You looked at him, but couldn’t stop him. There was a layer between you and him that couldn’t be penetrated by any tool. You could touch this thing in any way, but you couldn’t find a gap to break through it.

After I made the decision, I felt very sad, but I also felt that I should try and understand Poker-Face’s sentence: the word “meaning” had no meaning in and of itself.

I turned away, slowly calmed down, ignored the guy outside, and closed my eyes.

I fell asleep before I knew it. I didn’t know how long I slept, but I was awakened by a strange sound. It sounded like a group of weird people singing in their sleep, and the number of people singing seemed to be particularly large. It was very strange to hear it in such a place.

When I woke up, I opened my eyes and realized that it was the sound of the wind.

My tent was swaying from side to side and the lantern we had used seemed like it would fall off at any moment as the light occasionally brightened then dimmed. I got up and went out, finding that there was a strong wind around me that was carrying snowflakes into the valley. Poker-Face wasn’t around and his luggage was missing.

God damn it, he left without saying goodbye. I felt my head to see if he had knocked me out while I was sleeping, but it was fine. It appeared he had seen me fall asleep and didn’t even bother to knock me out.

I looked at the sky again and knew that it was going to be bad. This kind of weather… if you hesitated any longer, it would definitely bring disaster. The first heavy snow in Changbai Mountain was definitely coming today.

If you went further into the mountains, you just might die. I noticed that Poker-Face didn’t even take any food with him and my heart filled with emotion, knowing that it was a foregone conclusion.

The wind was getting stronger and stronger, and the tent was almost blown away. I looked at the time and estimated that if I walked back for three days, I could find a place where I could stock up on supplies. The earlier I left, the less chance I had of being caught by the snowstorm, so I began to tidy up everything. When that was done, I saw that the snow on all of the surrounding slopes was blowing in mid-air, and everything seemed as if it would collapse at any time.

Before that, I thought Poker-Face still had a chance of survival. Even after I returned to the tourist area, if I told them that one of the people in the mountain was missing, they might send someone out to search. If there were a lot of people, they might even be able to tie Poker-Face up. With this weather situation, however, I was afraid that even if a regiment or a division was sent to search, Poker-Face had no chance of survival.

The good news was that he had no relatives or things to worry about.

There was an old saying in China: determined to eat the steel-yard weight. No one could change what Poker-Face had decided, and I had already tried my hardest when I came here. So, I suppressed all kinds of sadness in my heart and began to walk back.

The wind was getting stronger and stronger. I had only taken a few steps when the snow on the slope in front of me suddenly slid down in large areas and my path started to become more and more difficult to walk.

After walking several hundred meters, I went around a mountain pass and found that my situation was bad. All the mountains in front of me had collapsed, and I saw a bit of snowpack(1) I had never seen before.

I climbed a few meters and nearly fainted at the sight. These snowpacks completely messed up the route I had taken when I came here, and I couldn’t tell which way I should go.

I lit a cigarette and took a few puffs, wondering what to do. It was still relatively close to the tourist area, after all, but I had to find a way to get out. I was afraid that if I went in the wrong direction, I would be in trouble. Although I was very sad about Poker-Face’s fate, it was still very depressing to think that I would probably die before him.

It was like having a person who was dying of a serious illness. Basically, you were the type of person who was going to attend his memorial service, but when you arrived, the dying man was waiting for you with a submachine gun. He swept you away in a rain of bullets, you fell into a pool of blood, and then he himself fell into the coffin and died. As you lay there on the ground and watched your body bleed out… think of how complicated your emotions would be.

This was how I felt now.

After finishing my cigarette, I continued to climb when I suddenly found that there were a bunch of fist-sized snowballs falling from overhead.

The snowballs varied in size and were obviously formed naturally. I looked up and saw that the snow above had slid quite severely, and pieces of the snowy slopes kept breaking off and falling down. I climbed up carefully, reached the top of the mountain, and immediately found the path to continue.

Now that my heart had finally settled down, I made my way down from the top of the mountain to the other side where it was very sunny. I looked up and saw the sun rising from behind the mountain and noticed that the snowy slope opposite was like a huge mirror. I felt a warm feeling wash over me, and then I suddenly found that everything around me had turned pink and became very fuzzy.

Stunned, I wondered what was going on. Then I realized that it was snow blindness. I immediately closed my eyes, knowing that I couldn’t use them again. If I did, it would be completely dark and I wouldn’t be able to see anything in front of my eyes.

<Chapter 77> <Table of Contents><Chapter 79>

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TN Notes:

(1) A snowpack is the snow that falls and remains on the ground, not melting until temperatures rise.

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Updated 11/15/2021