Chapter 32 Street Caller

The three of us were silent for a while until Fatty eventually said, “They were already building a tomb. Could they really dig up something more unlucky than that?”

“It might’ve been unlucky for the living, but lucky for the dead,” I said.

They had simply changed the position a little bit and continued building the tomb, after all. If it had been harmful to the feng shui here, they would have definitely changed to a completely different location. On the contrary, this thing may have been beneficial to the tomb’s feng shui.

“Could it be… they dug up some treasure?” Fatty frowned. “Or maybe a giant clam?”

“Hasn’t that stuff been sold by the catty (1) in recent years?” I asked. As one of the seven treasures of Buddhism (2), giant clams were once very precious. People later began farming them and now a giant clam weighing three or four pounds could grow in about four or five years. “Guess, is the tomb passage above us abandoned or are we standing in the abandoned one?”

“Do you still have to guess?” Fatty asked back. “I took a look at the crappy thunder god statue in your tomb passage. It’s a fucking clay pot. My tomb passage is gilded. Besides, have you ever seen an abandoned tomb passage in the middle of a tomb? Oh, this tomb passage has been built and scrapped, so let’s dig a burial chamber up and down. The feng shui of this ancient tomb is only sacred as a whole, so it can’t be modified. It can’t just run any which way. The tomb passage above us is the abandoned one. If you don’t believe me, let’s go and see what magical things they dug up back then—”

I stopped him, “Hold your horses. Remember the Stagnant Water Dragon King temple?”

We had found a strange relic in an ancient underground salt mine in Fujian. At that time, we turned away and didn’t go in, so the name became a kind of representation of our determination to be good.

Fatty gave me a thumbs up, “Amazing, Mr. Naïve! Then let’s hurry up and find the main tomb so we can figure out what’s going on with your Uncle Three.”

I lifted my towel and wiped the mud off before I slapped Fatty’s hand away. We then followed Poker-Face to the other side of the tomb passage.

As we walked down the long passage, I could see that the murals were full of eyes. I looked at them carefully, noticing that the murals were layered and the eyelids were closed under the dim light. Fatty said that when there was light, the outer layers would volatilize bit by bit until the inner layers were revealed. The paint would become brighter and the eyes would become bigger with each layer that was revealed.

I whispered to him, “How did you know not to turn on the lights? Looks you haven’t lost your touch, after all.”

Fatty took out his phone, turned on the Bluetooth, and searched for Bluetooth devices around him. I saw it find a device that turned out to be Liu Sang’s phone. Its name was: “Be aware that you can’t use lights around the murals—Liu Sang”.

“Where is this kid?” I asked him.

“He won’t die. This kind of fool can live to a hundred and eight. He’s nearby, but he won’t return any of my messages,” Fatty said. “He must be pocketing all the good stuff for himself. When we get out of here, I’ll make him empty his pockets. He won’t be able to hide a single thing from me.”

I remembered the rumors Fatty had told me about Liu Sang and asked him how he knew him. Fatty sneered, “It’s a long story. Since you’re in this business, you should know about Laitou Guzi’s death. Seventeen people from Xuancheng’s old market entered Xiaomangshan and went into the Empress Dowager Chengtian’s tomb (3). He alone survived. Thirteen years ago, he was only a few years old and living as a street caller (4). Laitou Guzi picked him up because he had good hearing. After Laitou Guzi’s death, he found another master to apprentice under. This kid is clever, diligent, does a good job, and his hearing is really good. He’s become an expert in this business for some reason, but I’ve heard all kinds of rumors, so I think it’s not that simple.”

I didn’t know about Laitou Guzi since I was so young at the time, but I knew what Fatty meant. This kid was too smart. Something must’ve happened underground at that time, and if a kid could come out alive, then he must’ve committed murder.

Street callers were beggars with disabilities. Beggars in Shandong, Henan, and other places called themselves poor families, claiming that they had been poor for thousands of years. Begging was a very complicated business, and there were many different types. For example, there were “hua quian” (5) in Hubei Province, which was what Chen Pi Ah Si was back in the day. It was basically a beggar who was born to commit violent crimes. They were often fierce, cunning, spiteful, and persistent. Common beggars of poor families in the Shandong and Henan provinces were called “si nianzi”, which could further be divided into three branches: hanmen, qimen and guomen. The poor families in Hebei also included Fanjiamen, Kangjiamen, Lijiamen and Gaojiamen.

There were three kinds of common beggars: “entertainers”, “fighters”, and “street callers”. Those beggars who strong-armed people into giving them money were the “fighters”, while those who had disabilities were the “street callers”. The so-called “entertainers” asked for money by performing arts, such as singing folk songs (6), smashing cattle bones, and playing those bamboo clapper boards that were used in folk theater.

“Where’s he disabled?” I asked Fatty. Based on how he acted, I really couldn’t tell at all.

“Brain damage,” Fatty said. “It’s definitely brain damage.”

With that said, we followed Poker-Face all the way to a stone gate at the end of the tomb passage. There was a very complicated “caisson” (7) above the gate, with a large number of multi-layer dougongs (8) and sharp flying eaves. This was the path to the second immortal gate. The dougongs were surrounded by wood carvings of immortals, but the wood had rotted and cracked. Poker-Face glanced at us, “If you want to chat, finish it here. The tomb chamber is up ahead.”

Fatty looked at him, thought about it, and decided to keep talking. He stopped walking and said to me, “There’s one thing in particular I’ve heard about Liu Sang. When I say it, you’ll know why I’m so cautious around him.”

<Chapter 31><Table of Contents><Chapter 33>

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TN Notes:

(1) A catty is ~1.3 pounds or ~ 500 grams. Random tidbit of info: giant clams can live up to like 100 years and can weigh up to 400 pounds. Here’s some more info.

(2) There’s a common belief that wearing jewelry made from a giant clam pearl can calm the spirit and remove negative energy. Some random info here.

(3) Xiaomangshan= Little Python Mountain. Empress Dowager Chengtian was also known as Xiao Yanyan. She lived from 953-1009. She was a Khitan empress and military leader of imperial China’s Liao dynasty. More info here.

(4) It’s a type of beggar who shouted and begged in the streets (I guess they didn’t go up and beg people for food?).

(5) It’s mentioned in Chen Pi’s extra. Chapter 4.20.

(6) It’s really “folk theater consisting of recitation accompanied by clapper board rhythm”, but that doesn’t flow lol.

(7) A caisson, also referred to as a spider web ceiling, is an East Asian architectural feature typically found in the ceiling of temples and palaces. They would look like this:

(8) More traditional Chinese architectural stuff. They’re interlocking wooden brackets between the top of a column and crossbeams. Look like this:

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Shew, I think I broke a sweat on this one lol. Just this 1 Reboot chapter tonight dears. I’m going to try and get Tiffany’s out and then work on fixing some Vol 8 chapters for those poor suckers that are coming here after the Ultimate Note lol. So many pits to fall into, so little time. Until tomorrow~~~