Chapter 12 Putizhang and Banquet Attendees

My whole body went cold as I looked at the corpses, zipped my pants up, and walked over to Poker-Face.

This time, the feeling was too strange. Throughout all my past experiences, I had never encountered such a large-scale strange situation aboveground. But this time, I could see the fins very clearly, so I immediately asked Poker-Face, “Do you see those fins? What are those things near their ears?”

Poker-Face thought for a while and then turned to look at me, “I can’t see them.”

I glanced at him—he wasn’t the type to joke—and then turned to look at the corpses again. Sure enough, I could clearly see that there was something in their ears.

I immediately broke out in a cold sweat, but this time, the cold sweat was very special—I could smell death in the sweat.

This was the first time that I had seen more information than Poker-Face. I didn’t know what was so special about me, but if Poker-Face couldn’t see it and I could, it meant that Poker-Face’s vision was limited. If a problem arose and my judgment on the situation was unclear, it might cause him trouble.

Poker-Face would hardly let anyone get hurt if he could control the whole situation but I couldn’t do it. In fact, I had never done it. People around me kept having accidents, and this time, there was also Jin Wantang, who was our core weak link. Although this guy was a bastard, I didn’t want anyone around me to die.

I turned around and called Fatty and Jin Wantang over to see the situation for themselves. When Fatty brought the binoculars over, the both of them looked pale. We really hadn’t encountered this kind of situation before. It was just like a confrontation. I asked Fatty if he could see those fins.

Fatty also found it strange, “Fins? What fins?”

I looked at the corpses and strange things in their ears and felt my hands start to go numb. Fatty can’t see them either, I thought to myself. It’s over this time.

“Little Master Three, have you recently opened your heavenly eye and can see people’s putizhang?” Jin Wantang asked.

I gave him a look that seemed to say, “I really don’t know what putizhang is.”

“It’s just that some people can see strange things that other people are carrying on their bodies. These things are related to a person’s fate. Some are inscriptions, some are plates, and some are dead pieces of wood. This is called putizhang. People who can see putizhang are the ones whose head sutures don’t close (1). You know that a person has two heavenly eyes, one of which is on top of your head. Once this heavenly eye is opened, you can see spirits. People usually cultivate this eye to see things that are outside of the five elements. There is also a heavenly eye near the temple, but it can be on the left or right side. This eye lets you see putizhang.”

“Do you understand this?”

“I understand a little,” he said.

I looked at the fins on those corpses and suddenly thought to myself, my temple was kicked earlier. Was Poker-Face the one who kicked me, which caused my heavenly eye to open by accident? It did hurt a little bit when I pressed it, but it wasn’t a fracture or anything.

I made an action that was similar to jug ears and asked Jin Wantang, “You know those dinosaurs that have two crests on their necks that can be opened like an umbrella? That’s what those fins look like. What’s that symbolize?”

Jin Wantang was puzzled and obviously didn’t know what a Dilophosaurus was. “Little Master Three, no one understands putizhang.”

“Should we pitch camp a little further back?” Fatty asked me.

I looked at Poker-Face and found that he was looking up at the moon. It was very bright tonight—although you couldn’t really tell in the woods—but there were clouds in the sky.

If these things moved in the dark, then by the time the moonlight reappeared after being obscured by the clouds, these corpses may already be beside our sleeping bags.

Of course, it was also possible that they couldn’t leave the small forest. But we couldn’t take any risks, so the four of us finished eating dinner and withdrew the camp about a kilometer away. Now, we couldn’t see the corpses at the edge of the woods.

Jin Wantang asked us what we had found, so I hastily explained it to him. Since I was on first watch tonight, the others went to sleep quickly.

China’s rule of law was very good now, so Fatty didn’t get to bring a gun with him. I was able to bring a controlled knife with me, but our main weapon now was actually Ping Lian, the big dog. This dog was very arrogant and apathetic. It went to bed earlier than all of us, so all I could do was look at the grassland and keep the bonfire going strong.

Seeing that everyone was asleep, I took advantage of the silent night and went up to the two bodies to observe them carefully. I was extremely curious and my experience over the past ten years ensured that I was confident enough. I hesitated for a second and then sharpened my knife and cut the stomach of the first middle-aged corpse open.

The smell was extremely strong. I lit a kind of smoked tobacco but it was still difficult to cover the smell. I couldn’t help but miss the time when my nose didn’t work very well. I put my hand into the incision I had made in the corpse’s stomach and then took the contents out.

Strangely enough, all I could feel were round beads that were about the size of grapes and had an irregular surface to them. I took one of them out and held it under the flashlight. I found that his stomach was full of these beads, which were made from a strange black stone that I wasn’t familiar with.

I pulled a lot of these beads out, taking out more than half of them. I counted them and found that there were more than forty. This many beads already filled up the stomach a lot, but there were still more in there.

This kind of thing was absolutely impossible to digest, and it was so heavy that it would definitely be hard to eat.

I cut the other corpse’s stomach open and found the same thing. Were all these stones eaten at the banquet? I wondered. I took one and stepped aside to clean it.

The moon was still high in the sky and the clouds seemed to be dense. I put the stone grapes next to that ceramic figurine piece, which happened to be a part of the face. The paint on it had been blackened by the fire earlier. Just as I was carefully thinking about it, Ping Lian suddenly stood up and began growling at something in the distance.

I stood up and looked at the moon again but found that it was still there. That’s odd, I thought to myself. I took a few steps and suddenly saw several lights appear on the grassland, passing by us slowly.

Herders?

I grabbed Fatty’s binoculars from off to the side and saw that it was a group of people. I knew at a glance that it was one of Jin Wantang’s teams. There were about five unkempt people sitting on horses and heading in the direction of the woods. I couldn’t see their ages but their rucksacks were bulging.

They all had lights on their shoulders, and one of them was probably a local guide.

The bonfire in our camp was very big, but they didn’t seem to have any interest in it. Instead, they just continued in the direction of the grove. When I adjusted the magnification on the binoculars and zoomed in, I saw that they were all holding the banquet porcelain that the other corpses had been holding before.

Are these the last two tables for the banquet?

<Chapter 11><Table of Contents><Chapter 13>

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TN Notes:

(1) Per Tiffany: The spaces between a typical baby’s skull bones are filled with flexible material and called sutures. These sutures allow the skull to grow as the baby’s brain grows. Around two years of age, a child’s skull bones begin to join together because the sutures become bone. In Chinese culture, some people say that babies can see paranormal beings because the bones of their skulls haven’t joined together. That is how one of the heavenly eyes is considered to be on the top of the head. Once the bones join, the babies will stop seeing paranormal beings. Heavenly eyes can also be called “inner eyes” in some cultures.

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After driving 10+ hours and listening to my sister bitch about my driving the whole time (I swear, you’d think I drive blindfolded with my feet or something), all I have to offer you are 2 chapters. I might get something out tomorrow or I might sleep like the dead. We’ll see. Til next time darlings~

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