Chapter 5.6 Where to Stay (Extra)

“Just think about it. The underground river’s current is fast, but it can only be rushing in one direction. If there are two fast currents flowing in opposite directions between the two pools, then it must not be an underground river, but a huge lake. There’s a circular current at the bottom of the lake, just like when you’re stirring soup. So, I used these two pools that are thirty kilometers away from each other as the focal points of the two currents.”

We watched the old man fumble around under the tea table, pull out a marker, and start marking the walls. He looked just like a madman. It was really similar to what I had done when I deduced everything before, which was a little disconcerting.

“I drew a circle with a diameter of thirty kilometers and figured out how all the deep pools in this circle worked. But there were two strange pools in the middle that were only a few kilometers apart. No matter what I tossed in there, it would take a few months for it to appear at the bottom of another pool.” The old man tapped his marker on two of the deep pools that were very close to each other. “I was puzzled and kept asking myself why it was like this.”

“Why?” Fatty asked.

“I’ve thought about countless possibilities, but it’s really amazing. It’s the simplest possibility, which I never thought of before. I’ve been thinking about the water flow’s direction for many years. The underground river here is like a spider’s web. I’ve made a lot of assumptions, but I’ve never been right. Who would’ve thought it was because—”

“Because there’s a wall.” Poker-Face quietly interrupted him.

The old man choked and could do nothing but stare as Poker-Face took his marker and drew a curved line between the two pool centers on the wall.

Now there was a thirty kilometer diameter circle with a curved line in the middle, and two pools on either side of the line.

“Well I’ll be damned.” Fatty said surprised. “It’s a Taiji (1).”

The old man looked at Poker-Face, “Correct. I told you that the lake below is artificial.”

“Which pool did the deaths occur in?” Poker-Face asked.

The old man pointed to one of the Taiji’s dots and said, “Here.”

“What day did it happen?”

The old man was a little hard-pressed to remember and stood still for a long time before giving a date in 1995. Poker-Face looked at me, and I knew what he wanted to do. I calculated silently and said, “Yihai year (2).” With that said, I took out my phone and began checking the information. It all became clear once I did. “There was a rare spell of high temperatures in Fujian during the Yihai year. The water evaporated and the underground lake’s water level dropped, forcing the fish up from the bottom of the deep pool.”

Poker-Face said, “After the high temperatures, there were heavy rains in the mountains. When the water level rose again, the fish went back. You can’t catch this fish again unless the temperature is as high as it was that year.”

The old man looked at Poker-Face with bright eyes. “Little brother, I already know everything you’ve just said. I want to go fishing. I want to—” He pointed to the line with his marker. “Since the fish are stopped by the wall, it means that the wall reaches above the underground lake’s surface. I want to go fishing on the wall, and I want you to send me down. I don’t know who designed this underground Taiji, but there must be a mystery behind it. And whatever comes of that mystery is all yours. I just want to go fishing.” After that, the old man looked at me again, “Is it a deal? Does everyone agree?”

Poker-Face looked at me, and I asked the old man faintly, “If it’s like you said, you know you’re basically not coming back, right? You’re so old.”

“At my age, I no longer have the luxury of time to think about where I can come back to. What I need to think about is, where do I want to stay?” The old man looked at the drawings on the wall, as if he were looking at his home. “You’re the same. One day, you’ll be considering where you want to stay as well!”

I looked at Fatty and then at Poker-Face, and told myself that it was different. There was one person here who didn’t need to think about it.

I snapped my fingers, and they followed me out the door, “Don’t worry, we’ll take a vote.”

Once the three of us were outside, I rubbed my face and asked the other two, “What do you think?”

Fatty said, “Your parents and Big Hua are stuck on the highway. The news said that there was an eighteen-car collision. We still have some time. We just have to send the old man down before your parents arrive. But I figure it’ll probably be difficult. We don’t have diving equipment.

“And the most important thing,” Fatty continued, “is that this underground lake wall definitely wasn’t built by ordinary people. There might not even be treasure there. Even though we always manage to make a narrow escape, it’s New Year’s. It doesn’t seem worthwhile.”

I nodded to Fatty and said, “You’ve grown. So, you mean we should refuse?”

Fatty shook his head. “I mean, you two shouldn’t go. It’s not worthwhile. I’ll go with him. I don’t have a big family like you anyways. The old man is going to die on New Year’s Day, so this admirable spirit should be fulfilled. If we’re lucky enough and this is just a trifling matter, let’s open a sauna in the village. That’ll make things better.”

When I looked at Fatty, I knew he wasn’t being honest. He was always courting disaster, so his heart was probably itching to do something. But the main thing was that Fatty couldn’t stand to see the old man just die here, and it was the same for me. We could’ve still run away if it was before, but now we couldn’t leave when we saw the old man crazy like this. If he sank headlong into the deep pool during New Year’s Day, there was no way we could claim we didn’t bear any responsibility.

Fatty started to comfort me when he saw that my face wasn’t good. “Don’t worry, I’ll take him to that place to get a look at it. He can’t go down if we don’t have any equipment, so he should give up after a few days. If we don’t spend time trying to figure this out, there’s no way for him to go down, right? Go back and celebrate the New Year.”

It was useless to persuade people like Lei Benchang, who had a demon in their heart. He almost reminded me of the ninety-year-old Chen Pi Ah Si. It turned out that they were quite similar. I was feeling irritated at this time, which was an emotion I hadn’t experienced for a long time after returning from Changbai.

I shouldn’t have gotten out of the truck earlier. There definitely wouldn’t have been so much trouble if I had stayed in the vehicle.

Just as I was starting to get angry, Poker-Face said, “You can get down there using a road; otherwise, the wall couldn’t be built.”

Fatty looked at Poker-Face in surprise, not expecting him to be on his side. “Two masters,” I said. “Today’s the New Year. While you’re pitying the old man, can’t you also pity me?”

Poker-Face didn’t answer me. I took a deep breath and Fatty handed me a cigarette and said, “Wu Xie, we’ll grow old, too. At that time, where do we want to stay? Little Brother will accompany us then as well.”

<Extra 5.5> <Table of Contents><Extra 5.7>

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TN Notes:

(1) Chinese cosmological term for the “Supreme Ultimate” state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which Yin and Yang originate. Basically, looks like this pic which I’m sure everyone is familiar with lol:

(2) Yihai= 12^th year B12 of the 60-year cycle. So 1995