Chapter 5.7 New Year’s Celebration (Extra)

We looked out at the rolling hills from the edge of the pine forest at the back of the mountain. I sighed deeply in my heart and thought, this is Fujian. I never thought that I would re-examine the landscape here with this mentality.

There were endless mountains and hills in Fujian, which really fit the saying that there were eight mountains, one river, and one field (1) here.  We could see Fujian’s topography clearly from where we were at, along with the Hengshan Mountains that stretched out before us with no end in sight. Most of these mountains were neither tall nor short, but they were all similar in shape and difficult to distinguish from one another. Other than the numerous mountains, the water system in Fujian was also amazing. Most of Fujian’s water actually originated within its own borders. China’s water system was closely related to Chinese dragon veins and feng shui, but Fujian’s system often originated within its own mountain areas and directly flowed into the sea. Essentially, its feng shui had its own vein. I checked the information on the internet and found Xu Shen’s Han Dynasty dictionary called “Shuowen Jiezi” (2), which said: “Fujian, Southeast region, snake species”. It defined the Fujian people as snake-worshipers. I found it interesting that there were seven snake tribes here before, but there was no mention of any strange fish.

At this time of year, the snakes were also freezing to death.

I lit a cigarette and shivered. “Let’s get to work.”

Fatty pulled out the hammer drill, put on work gloves, and looked at the small forest behind him that was full of Chinese red pines. The mountains near here were covered in shrubs and small forests. These red pines had grown very well, and seemed to be more than twelve years old.

They had been artificially planted.

Twelve years ago, someone planted these trees here without any rhyme or reason. The reason I say this is because they were too close to the village. There had to be stone slabs in the ancient tomb under the forest, which needed to be drilled or blasted through. But you would be captured and killed if you were caught blasting directly at the back of the mountain. If this afforestation started more than ten years ago as a cover, then this wasn’t an ordinary thief.

Without the proper equipment, Fatty had to rely on the silly drill. Fortunately, the forest covered up our activities so we weren’t afraid to do it. Before long, Fatty found a place, shoveled away some of the soil, split through the fake soil covering the surface, and exposed the grave robbers’ tunnel below.

I took a deep breath. The tunnel was old and had clearly been made a few years ago, so it was probably all empty.

It was a really crude job.

The three of us did rock-paper-scissors, and Fatty ended up losing. He cursed, took off his coat, and poked his cigarette lighter into the grave robbers’ tunnel. I wanted to give Poker-Face a fist bump, but he looked at my fist and then at me again, not knowing why I wanted to continue playing since the winner had already been determined. In the end, he slowly made a “paper” gesture.

Fatty went down to open the coffin, and scolded the other party for not doing a good job. I dropped a lunch box down and then pulled it back up with a rope. The whole area immediately filled with an unbearable stench. I covered my mouth, noticing that the lunch box’s lid wouldn’t fit and there was a lot of yellow juice squeezing out of it. The dragon coffin fungus was inside, but I wasn’t interested in opening it.

Fatty crawled back out and packed it in a plastic bag while I washed my hands with mineral water. The two of us had frustrated looks on our faces.

When we went back to the village, we saw that the old man had been preparing his fishing rod. He was carefully selecting the weapon he’d use for the final battle by swinging it and forcefully bending it to test the tension. I was intrigued by his focus, and went over to get a closer look. The old man had first chosen some conventional carbon and bamboo ones, and then I saw one that was made of steel.

In fact, the other fishing rods were very strong in their own rights, so I couldn’t help looking at the steel one in doubt. Nowadays, some fishing rods—especially those used for catching large fish—were stronger than steel bars. This steel fishing rod was very thick, and I couldn’t hold it for long even though my arm strength had vastly improved compared to before.

A fishing rod that couldn’t be lifted was useless.

I asked the old man what it was for, but he only smiled mysteriously and didn’t answer me. I saw him expend a lot of effort to lift the fishing rod to his waist and place it on one of those fishing rod belts I had seen before.

A lot of yellow cloth had been tied to the fishing rod, which made it look like a magic weapon. I felt a jolt in my heart as I realized that this steel fishing rod wasn’t used for normal fishing, but for fishing corpses out of the Yellow River.

Was the old man trying to catch the bodies of those people who had sank into the deep pool?

The old man’s equipment box was very heavy. After opening it, I could see that there were at least a few hundred hooks ranging from single hooks, double hooks, anchor hooks, and bomb hooks. There were all kinds of things I could name, and many others that I had never seen before. In addition, there were various kinds of bait and materials to make fish food. The hooks were very old and had been used for a long time, but they were oiled and well maintained. There was also something in the box that could be used to wash away the oil, for fear that the fishy smell would affect the taste of bait.

The old man had to spend a long time preparing, so we copied the address of the motorcycle group he had found for us. His status in the village wasn’t low. He not only helped us transport our things back to our village, but also picked up our truck and helped me get back to the village so I could meet my guests. Since there wasn’t enough time, we made an appointment to start on the seventh day. That way, we could go back and celebrate the New Year first, which somewhat relieved me.

When we said goodbye to the old man, he gave us more than a dozen pieces of bacon. We then got on the motorcycles and finally rushed back to the village before the big troops arrived.

I almost immediately forgot about the old man as Fatty and I got to work. We boiled water, cut radishes, and washed the meat while Poker-Face killed the chicken with a knife. Upon hearing the aunt next door scolding: “That’s my chicken!” I quickly told Fatty to give her some money.

The aunt next door conducted business in Wuyishan City and had a lot of opinions about me. This was all because after I came to the village, I was the most well-behaved citizen and stole her thunder. Her husband worked in the town’s finance bureau, so she was regarded as the family member of a government official. She always went against me no matter what.

I looked at the time on my phone and calmed down. My magic weapon this time was bamboo shoots, because the ones here tasted very good. My parents loved bamboo shoots, Uncle Two loved chickens, and Xiao Hua and Xiuxiu liked salty things. The boiled eggs with pork ribs and white soup here should be good with some wine. Wine, wine, wine.

I turned pale and suddenly realized that I had forgotten to buy wine.

“Fatty!! It’s over!!” I rushed out and saw Fatty quarreling with the aunt next door, “Fuck you. You’re bullying my pretty boy, right? How can you prove that this chicken is yours? Will it respond when you call it?”

I went up and immediately apologized, “Sister, I’m sorry we killed your chicken.” I motioned to Fatty: this elder sister must have a gift of wine from someone in her house. No matter what it looks like, I have to ask for it even if it’s in a clay jar.

<Extra 5.6> <Table of Contents><Extra 5.8>

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TN Notes:

(1) It doesn’t specifically refer to a certain mountain, river, or field, but refers to Fujian Province as a whole (because there are more mountains and less land). According to Baidu, mountains and hills account for more than 80% of the total area of ​​the province.

(2) Shuowen Jiezi is the original Han dynasty Chinese character dictionary with 10,516 entries, authored by Xu Shen in 2^nd century. It was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them. More info here