Chapter 5.28 Final Chapter (Extra)

I glared at Fatty, knowing what he wanted to do. I held the fishing rod in one hand, stabbed my knife into the ground with the other, and then raised my newly freed hand to grab his collar, “Why are you saying to hit my shit? Did it fucking provoke you or something? Have you ever asked how it feels?”

Fatty yanked my hand off and pointed to the lake. “Cut the crap, there’s no time! Can you do it or not?”

Fuck you, I said to myself as I covered my stomach and looked around. I was willing to grab anything from the ground at this point, but there was absolutely nothing. Fatty looked at me and pointed to the ground. “If you can’t shit, I’ll have to dig Lei Benchang up and chop him up to complete the task!”

I turned to look at Poker-Face, but he wasn’t looking at me at all. He pulled my big Kukri from his waist, cut his palm open, and then jumped into the lake.

The water only reached his chest. The wound on his hand was deep and we could immediately see the blood flowing out of it. He slapped the water’s surface while he walked to the place where the fishing line was being pulled. The fishing line in my hand immediately leaned towards Poker-Face.

“Here it comes! Be careful!” I shouted at him, but the fishing line reversed again and then backed off. It swung in mid-air, sweeping back and forth over Poker-Face’s head.

Fatty came to a sudden realization when he saw it. “This fish is intelligent.”

Based on how it previously attacked us on shore, it was a very vigilant predatory fish that liked to use sneak attacks, which made me a little afraid.

I had seen a documentary once of a crocodile launching a sneak attack. If its attack failed, it wouldn’t immediately escape, but would stay in the same place. The purpose of a beast’s sneak attack was to get its prey. It wasn’t done out of fear for its own safety.

But this fish seemed to be testing Poker-Face right now, which was completely different from what animals at the top of the food chain would do. Its behavior was more like an animal that hunted, like a wolf.

Fatty jumped into the water, cut his hand with a fish rake, and then went after Little Brother.

I hesitated on whether to solve it by myself up on the wall or take a dump in the water. I made up my mind and jumped into the lake. All my pores immediately shrank as my whole body sank beneath the cold lake’s surface. I seemed to lose all my energy for a brief moment, but I felt calmer when I came up again. I drew my knife and cut my hand before grabbing the fishing rod with my bloody hand and chasing after Fatty. I reeled the fishing line in as I went so that it was pulled taut. We could see large ripples where the fishing line entered the water, and I continued releasing and reeling the line in as the fish swam around us non-stop.

“Don’t let go.” Fatty’s flashlight chased the fishing line, but it didn’t seem to work as good in the water. We couldn’t even catch the fish’s shadow and could only see something dark swimming away every time. We would have been very passive if not for the fishing line.

“Let’s get closer!” I shouted. The three of us continued moving away from the stone wall and headed towards the edge of the shallows. When my flashlight swept across the area, I suddenly saw that there were more things waiting there. My brain immediately buzzed and I shouted, “Fatty, it’s a trap!”

Fatty also came over to look and saw countless shadows lurking in the deep water on the edge of the salt sandbar.

“Fuck, Little Brother, they’re fishing for us!” Fatty shouted. “Go back quickly.”

Fatty grabbed him, but Poker-Face whispered, “It’s fake.”

I used a flashlight to take a careful look and found that these shadows appeared to be stone carvings. I looked down at the salt beneath my feet and suddenly realized that it wasn’t a natural lake bottom. Instead, it appeared to be the top of an ancient underwater building that was covered in salt. Were these shadowy stone carvings in the water originally the cornices?

Just as I was thinking this, Poker-Face gripped my shoulder and jumped out of the water. He put one foot on Fatty’s shoulder and the other foot on my shoulder before squatting down and saying, “Give me the line.”

When I moved the fishing rod closer to him, Poker-Face clamped the line with his two long fingers. “Turn off the flashlight!”

“We won’t be able to see!” Fatty said.

“I can feel it. Turn off the flashlight,” Poker-Face said very calmly. “As soon as I jump, lock the fishing rod and turn on the flashlight.”

Fatty and I looked at each other. Poker-Face had spoken, so what else could we do? We did as he said and immediately turned the flashlight off. As I kept loosening and reeling the fishing line in underwater, I could feel the fish immediately start to swim towards us.

The water was so cold that I started shivering after twenty seconds. I could feel the fish getting closer and closer as it swam in a spiral. After another ten seconds, the parts of my body that were in the water were completely frozen, but I could still feel the ripples from the fish’s movements start to hit me.

Fatty’s “mm-hmm” warned me that it was coming. As I gripped the fishing rod tightly and focused my whole body, I felt Little Brother adjust his movements on my shoulder and tense up.

I didn’t feel cold anymore as all my senses started searching for movements in the water. It was almost a second after Little Brother tensed up that he leaped off of our shoulders.

As soon as I felt the weight lift off my shoulder, I pulled the fishing rod out of the water, opened the lock reel, and Fatty immediately turned on the flashlight. I saw Poker-Face holding the fishing line in one hand and throwing himself at a huge fish shadow one meter away on the water’s surface.

He immediately landed in the water with a huge splash. Then, a huge fish tail sprang up out of the water and hit Fatty, smacking him directly into the water.

This was the first time that I had seen this fish directly. Its tail was covered in fine scales that were a dark yellow color with black lines on them. It seemed to be a kind of eel that had a tail as thick as a telephone pole.

Fatty resurfaced and yelled, “Fuck, it’s a millennium eel!”

The reel in my hand kept spinning as the fishing line continued to be pulled. I could only watch as the shadow kept rolling incessantly, revealing the copper scales that had been molded to its flesh. Fatty wanted to attack it with the fish rake, but I immediately stopped him for fear that he would accidentally hurt Poker-Face. The fish resurfaced again and knocked Poker-Face out of the water. He landed beside me, and I could see that he was covered in fishing line that was connected to the fish. When the fish dove back down, Poker-Face was immediately dragged into the water as well.

I immediately understood what he was trying to do.

He was going to tie the fish up with the fishing line. This kind of big fish was very difficult to fight in the water, and it was only when its whole body was wrapped up that it would panic. The more it struggled, the more tangled the line would become, making it harder for it to break free.

By this point, Poker-Face seemed to have succeeded. The fishing line had circled around the fish hundreds of times, but he had also become entangled in it and was about to drown.

As the fish struggled violently, I threw the rod away and pulled out my flashlight with one hand. I then went up with Fatty and grabbed the fishing line, but it couldn’t be pulled at all. As long as that fish continued to struggle, our fingers would be torn to pieces. Fatty was so enraged that he went up to punch and kick it. “Cut the line!” I shouted. “Little Brother is going to die!”

Just as Fatty took the fish rake to cut the line, I suddenly felt the ground go out from beneath my feet. I had reached the edge of the shallows and fell down.

Both the fish and Poker-Face had also fallen into the deep part of the lake. I moved my hands and feet but became furious when I found myself entangled in the fishing line.

All three of us sank into the dark water together.

The temperature towards the bottom of the lake was lower and there was a strong current that immediately sent us spinning. I turned around and grabbed my Kukri, ready to cut the fishing line. I knew the fish might break free if the fishing line was broken, but we would die at this rate.

I saw a light overhead and knew that Fatty had dove down with a flashlight to save us, but he was too far away. The current had sent us hundreds of meters away and there was an undercurrent of an underground river here. If we were swept away to the underground river, we would die.

I bit my flashlight and pulled out my knife, but a hand reached out from the darkness and grabbed me. I saw Poker-Face floating calmly in the water. He still had the fishing line wrapped around him, but he was looking in a direction other than the fish.

I swept my flashlight through the void and saw a huge ancient building covered in salt clusters looming out of the dark lake bottom. It stretched out on both sides with no end in sight. There were countless carved windows that were frozen and decayed, and numerous flying eaves and columns that were covered in mottled salt clusters. The most surprising thing was that I could see the incomparably clear and colorful carvings, painted beams, and red columns amidst the salt clusters. They hadn’t faded at all.

We floated on one side of it, as if we were flying in the air and looking at a hanging temple on the cliff. As my flashlight moved over it, red halo-like lanterns started to appear in the building for some reason. The red lights turned bright and dark, as if there were some monsters inhabiting the building.

The current turned sharply and I found that all the water here revolved around this huge submerged structure. The more it sank, the quicker the current became.

I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I found that after smoking, I couldn’t hold my breath as long as I used to. I grabbed Poker-Face’s hand and he cut the fishing line. When the two of us broke free, the huge eel did as well. As it quickly swam towards the middle of the building, I finally got a good look at it. I didn’t know what kind it was or why it was covered in copper coins, but it really looked like a little dragon.

I looked up in a panic and saw a fishing line stretching down from the water’s surface and heading straight into the building. Poker-Face grabbed me with one hand and the fishing line with the other, maintaining our position in the fast-moving current. He lifted me up and climbed along the taut fishing line bit by bit, heading towards the surface.

When we finally came out of the water, I found that this fishing line was Lei Benchang’ corpse-catching line. The line was similar to those used for catching big sea fish since it was very strong. I noticed that the steel bar was still wedged into the dam’s stone wall. We sent Fatty a signal with our flashlight when we climbed ashore. He came running over from the shallows and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that we were alright.

We were soaking wet and all had injured palms, so we went back to camp and changed clothes. After a while, Fatty said, “This fish must have been put here by the people who built this place. Some say that there may be more than one millennium eel or ten-thousand-year-old turtle. It seems we won’t be able to catch this fish if we don’t try to figure out what this fucking place is.”

I recalled that the underwater palace should have been built on an underwater cliff in the same way as hanging temples. Those bright colors may have been carved from precious stones. It was very common to have a shrine dedicated to the Dragon King on the water, but it seemed like the one here was built by two groups of people. The Stagnant Water Dragon King was probably an ancient eel that usually lived inside that submerged structure. I just didn’t know what those lantern lights in the structure were.

But without bait, I really didn’t know how to catch the fish again. And after seeing its true face, I didn’t even know what we could do if we caught it.

Killing it seemed unnecessary. And unlike the previous times, we really seemed to be provoking it now. Why should we have to kill this fish that had managed to live for so long?

Even if we did catch it, could we really eat eel noodles?

But I was already starting to feel the curiosity that had been lying dormant in my heart for so many years start to swell up violently. I stared at the water in a daze. Could I leave here? The familiar feeling of being addicted to thrilling activities made me terrified, and I kept asking myself, can I leave here? I had proved many times that I could give up. And if I could do that, why not give up when I felt it was dangerous instead of giving up when nothing had happened?

After entering the Stagnant Water Dragon King’s palace, could I give up any time I thought I should? I didn’t go in because I knew I couldn’t quit once I was in there.

If this wasn’t open-mindedness, then was I lying to myself?

I suddenly realized something after all this time. After blocking off all my curiosity and thoughts, I was reluctant to step into any mystery. It suddenly dawned on me that I had made some mistakes.

“Let’s go.” I clenched my teeth and patted Fatty before looking at Lei Benchang’s grave and picking up my equipment. Poker-Face also started picking stuff up and Fatty gave an “aye aye”.

“We’re leaving?” He asked. “Just like that? You don’t have to explore the Dragon Palace, but you have to at least fish.”

I lit a cigarette and said, “Who says we’re not fishing? We’ve got to catch that fish. And we have to go to the Dragon Palace and have a look.”

“Then what are you doing now? It’s ok, we’ll definitely have enough bait when you have another stomachache.” Fatty said.

Instead of answering him, I grabbed him and started walking back.

I had actually figured some things out in my head. I still didn’t know what Poker-Face was trying to tell me, but at least I understood one thing.

I definitely wanted to catch that fish, but now wasn’t the time. One day—maybe a few days later, maybe a few years later—the three of us would come to catch this fish and finish the task Lei Benchang had entrusted us with. It was a pity we didn’t complete this adventure, didn’t know everything, and didn’t have content hearts.

After going back, I would think of this underwater building every time I dreamed, just like how I would think of that giant door. The only way I persisted during those ten years was because of the thoughts in my heart, my curiosity, my competitive nature, and my promise.

It definitely made my life more interesting.

I wasn’t running away from anything by staying in the village. Just as Fatty was digesting all the pain, I had to learn to digest everything from my past instead of feeling nothing. That was why staying in the village was my choice. But even if I wasn’t staying in the village, I could still decide whether I wanted to advance or retreat.

I had gone through a kind of reincarnation, from being a young boy to who I was now. What was the next step? When I knew everything, would I become the same innocent Wu Xie again? Was it even possible?

Yes, because humans were the kind of animals that circled around. When I realized that I had returned to my original place but was on a different plane, I was able to treat everyone with the same attitude as before without getting hurt. I could trust others and protect myself at the same time.

There was one thing I had never told Fatty and Poker-Face before, which had always bothered me. But when we went back to the village this time, I suddenly knew what to do.

I took out my old equipment bag, which contained my old phone and old number that I used to use in the past. I charged the phone in front of Fatty and then went to the text messages. The latest one had been sent to me on New Year’s Eve from an unknown number.

It was just one short message: East Nanjing Drum Tower, Arctic Pavilion Weather Museum, locker 221. Happy New Year.

I had a strong feeling that this short message was from my Uncle Three.

<Extra 5.27> <Table of Contents><2017 Chinese New Year Special Extra 6.1>

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Guys!!! Guys guys guys!!! That’s the text message Wu Xie got towards the end of episode one of the Reboot drama! We’re almost there!!! Just one more (shorter) New Year’s Special to go!