Chapter 5.10 Set Out (Extra)

Black Glasses’ WeChat Moments was hardly updated, and no one knew what he was doing. But he posted a picture just now that had the word “poor” on it (1), with a caption that said, “Feel free to employ me at the beginning of the year. I’m waiting for dinner.”

Xiao Hua and I liked it at the same time, but didn’t say anything.

That night, we all went to bed late.

My house in the village was actually very big, so I arranged a room for everyone to sleep with electric blankets. When I returned to my own room, it was almost four in the morning. I slowly washed up and lay down on the bed, only to realize that my heart was excited under the extreme sense of ease.

I fell asleep quickly and slept until noon. When I woke up, everyone had already played their second game of mahjong, and Fatty had just gotten the first thirteen orphans hand of the year.

I washed my face with warm water, and then braved the cold air outside to stand in the yard. I watched Little Brother dig out some of our previous equipment and check to see if it was still usable.

My parents, Uncle Two, Xiao Hua, and Xiuxiu all left at about seven that night. They also had their own New Year’s plans, so we sent them to the town and said our goodbyes. On the way back to the village, there was only the three of us left. Uncle Two and I had chatted for a while after dinner, but he didn’t embarrass me. Instead, he just told me to think about what my parents would do in a few years.

Fatty was driving and I was sitting in the passenger seat. I picked up my phone and clicked on Lei Benchang’s text message. It contained the place, time, and things we might need to prepare ourselves. There was no New Year’s greeting.

No one in the vehicle spoke.

This job was a bit shameful for us retirees. I still couldn’t figure out why we had accepted it, and I especially couldn’t figure out Little Brother’s reason for it. But I kept feeling like he wanted me to see something.

Time flew by. Fatty and I did some recovery training over the next few days to at least get our joints adapted to running and jumping again. I also sorted through and did some research on the examples Lei Benchang had sent me. Fatty cooked all of Lei Benchang’s bacon and we ate it. Based on the facts, that bacon was the down payment, so my last chance to back out was gone. But it did taste good.

When the time finally came, we all met at the town. It was early, so many of the shops were opening one right after another. The old man was waiting for us with his tractor and fishing equipment at the entrance of a breakfast shop. I looked at the things in his tractor while eating ding bian hu (2), and found that he was really a skilled expert. Although much of the equipment was ready-made, it had all been modified.

Good modifications wouldn’t make you feel apprehensive, but would actually make you feel more reassured. Even if the workmanship was very unattractive, I could instinctively feel that these changes were effective just as soon as I looked at them.

We drove the tractor into the mountains for fourteen hours, settled at a farm Lei Benchang had arranged for us, and then drove the tractor to a remote mountain village. I had heard of this kind of village before. I called it a cut off village since there was no way for the road to extend back to it. It was often backed by mountains or too far away from the next village. This particular village that we went to had been built near Mt. Wuyi.

There was a ridge at the end of the village road that had a forest graveyard with modern cement graves. We got off the tractor and walked through the graveyard until we reached the wild mountain area. The forest on the mountain was very contained since there were no towering trees or particularly dense clusters of trees. As we walked through it, we could see the remains of abandoned stone steps in many places, along with the shadow of Mt. Wuyi in the distance.

Fujian didn’t really have genuine uninhabited areas.

After walking for half an hour and climbing a hill, I looked around in interest. There was a green mountain ridge in the distance, along with terraced fields set behind another hill. Even though this was deep in the mountains, it was clear to see that some people were still farming. We did this two or three more times and finally entered the mountains.

The deep pools that Lei Benchang had mentioned weren’t too far away and we finally reached them after a few hours. The mountains here were magnificent. The big southern mountain peaks had an unusual abundance of water and there were waterfalls everywhere. I thought the waterfalls in Rain Village had the highest density, but the water system in the mountains here was comprised of a dizzying number of streams, waterfalls, and deep pools. Every time Fatty passed through a pool, he would ask Lei Benchang a bunch of questions. Lei Benchang would patiently answer whether there were fish or not, the name of the pool, what its origin was, what fish it had, and when and how many times he had been here.

He didn’t hesitate and stepped down confidently, which clearly showed that he was very familiar with this area.

When I arrived at the final deep pool, I realized that it was completely different from what I had thought. It was located under a huge rock that covered the pool’s surface like a cap. Most of the pool was under the shadow of the rock, so only one side was exposed. It was only when I got to the edge of the rock that I realized why those people had gone further into the pool at that time. The deepest part of the pool was in the innermost area under the rock, so they had to wade under the rock before they could cast their line to the bottom of the pool.

The sunshine was very bright, so we could see that there were several huge mountain rocks at the bottom of the shallow areas. They had been corroded by the water to form a circle of shell-like lines that were very slippery.

We put down our equipment and pitched a tent nearby. Poker-Face looked around as Lei Benchang prepared his fishing hook like usual. He had broken the dragon coffin fungus up and mixed it with bean cake and shrimp paste, but it was useless according to Poker-Face’s theory. We weren’t experiencing any type of special weather, so the fish definitely wouldn’t swim up from the underground lake.

As Poker-Face continued to look at the mountains around us, I asked him what he was looking for. He didn’t speak, but Fatty answered for him, “Your skills have certainly deteriorated. I can tell with just one look that Little Brother is looking for a stone quarry. If you build a wall in the mountains, it’s necessary to use the local materials. Look here. The top of that hill is missing a piece. The path they made to build the wall is bound to be close by.”

Lei Benchang knelt down by the edge of the pool, lit three incense sticks, and then placed them in a gap in the rock. I lit a cigarette and suddenly realized that there was something the old man didn’t tell us.

<Extra 5.9> <Table of Contents><Extra 5.11>

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TN Notes:

(1) Tiffany found what Black Glasses’ picture would look like if you’re interested in it. It was even used in the Reboot drama where Black Glasses’ avatar had this picture as Wu Xie was using his phone:

(2) Ding Bian Hu is a characteristic dish of Fuzhou cuisine, a branch of Fujian cuisine, consisting of a rice flour batter poured around the side of a cooking wok to form a thin noodle. It’s then scraped into a stock to simmer and served in broth.