Chapter 7 Hundreds of Heads

It took me a while to come back to my senses, but during that time, I had a lot of messy dreams one right after another. In the dim light, I saw a woman in white who was standing with her back to me. I ran in front of her, wanting to see her face, but all I could see was her back. I repeatedly tried to run in front of her, but all I could see was her back, no matter how many times I tried. Just as I was wondering what was going on, I suddenly realized that she had a back on both sides. I woke up with a loud shout and saw that the sky was painted a bloody red and the sun was setting.

“Are you awake?” Pan Zi smiled at me, his face close to mine.

I squinted my eyes to adapt to the light and saw Pan Zi point to the sky, “You see that? We’re finally fucking out!”

I felt the back of my head, “You jerk, did you hit me?!”

“So what if I did? He told you not to look back. You almost got us killed, you brat.”

My memory suddenly recovered and I immediately panicked and felt my back to see if that thing was still behind me. Pan Zi laughed, “Don’t worry, it’s gone.”

“What was it?” I couldn’t seem to shake off the lingering fear.

“Little Brother said that thing is a puppet, but it’s actually the soul of that zombie woman in white. She just wanted to borrow your yang energy to get out of the corpse cave. But Little Brother didn’t tell us the specifics because he passed out after saying a few words,” Uncle Three said as he rowed. “But it seems that Little Brother has quite the background. That thousand-year-old zombie just knelt down in front of him like it was nothing. I’ve never seen anything like it!”

I sat up and looked at Poker-Face and Da Kui, who were leaning against each other and both sleeping soundly. I smiled. I didn’t feel great when we first came here, but now that I could see the sky again, I felt much better.

“Who exactly is this guy?” I asked.

Uncle Three shook his head, “I don’t really know. I asked my friend in Changsha to introduce me to an experienced helper, and they came up with him. I only know that his surname is Zhang. I tried talking to him many times along the way, but he’s either sleeping or staring off in a daze. I don’t know his background, but the person who introduced me to him is very prestigious in the industry. Anyone this person recommends can be considered trustworthy.”

As soon as I heard this, I felt that this guy was even more mysterious, but I knew that it was pointless to ask any additional questions since Uncle Three had already told us everything he knew. I glanced towards the front of the boat and asked Pan Zi, “Can you see the village?”

“It seems to be just up ahead.”

Uncle Three pointed to the dots of light in front of us, “It appears this village isn’t as shabby as we thought. It even looks like they have electricity.”

When I thought of the village, images of a hot bath, stir-fried meat, and village girls with thick braids immediately popped into my head. I couldn’t help but get more and more excited. At this time, in the sun’s dying rays, I saw the shadow of a group of people riding mules over the hills to the left and right of us. They also seemed to be entering the village. Since the hills weren’t that tall, I could vaguely see that these people didn’t look like locals.

When we got to the ferry crossing point, a little village girl saw us and suddenly shouted, “There are ghosts!”

We were puzzled, but the kid ran away so fast that we didn’t have time to ask what she meant. The ox had been well-behaved and stayed on the boat behind us the whole time without causing any problems. Pan Zi took on the role of leading it off the boat since he used to deal with cattle in his hometown. Da Kui woke up once he was finally ashore and thought that he had been dreaming just now. Uncle Three beat him first and then Pan Zi came over to give him a few kicks.

Poker-Face seemed to have lost a lot of blood and didn’t wake up, so I helped put him on the oxcart. This guy’s body was really as soft as a woman’s, and it seemed as if he didn’t have any bones at all. As I got him settled, Uncle Three grabbed a passer-by and asked where a hotel was.

The passer-by looked at us like we were a bunch of lunatics, “What do you think this place is? There are less than forty families in our village so why would we need a hotel? If you’re looking for a place to stay, you can go to the village guesthouse.”

When we finally located the guesthouse, we found that it looked like a haunted house, but it turned out to be fine. At least, it was a concrete house with a telephone and electricity. And the most important thing was that it had hot water and clean sheets. In this village, it could be considered a five-star hotel.

We each took a bath, which felt great now that we could wash the stench of those corpses away. Then we went to the dining room to eat. Poker-Face had finally woken up by this point, but he didn’t seem very energetic. We ordered him a plate of pork liver to replenish his blood and didn’t bother asking him anything. He had saved our lives, after all, so any questions could wait until after he had recovered.

We ordered beer, but since we were planning on starting work tomorrow, we couldn’t drink too much. As I ate, I teased the waitress, “I say, Big Sis, this place is pretty nice. It’s all cement floors inside and paved roads outside. Was the cement transported over the hills by mule?”

“Ha, how can that be? Do you know how long that would take? A highway was built through here a long time ago; even those Liberation trucks came through. But the year before last, a landslide buried the road and we ended up finding a big cauldron⁽¹⁾ buried among the rubble. Many people came from all over to get a look at it. When they saw it, they said that it was something from the Warring States Period and a national treasure so they took it away. They didn’t even bother dealing with the road. Isn’t that annoying? Later, the village said that we should repair it ourselves, but there wasn’t any money to do the repairs so everything came to a halt. It’s been a year and they’re still repairing it.”

“What about the waterway? Don’t you have a ferry crossing point here?”

“That thing’s been there since before Liberation. It’s been many years since anyone has run a ferry around here. Nowadays, if someone wants you to go by water, they must be planning to kill you and take your money. You outsiders need to be careful. The water in these parts is very dangerous. A lot of people have drowned over the years and none of the bodies have ever been recovered. The old people in the village secretly say that they were swallowed up by the mountain god.”

I glanced at Uncle Three while thinking to myself, what kind of fucking guide were you looking for? It looks like you found a thief!

Uncle Three was also feeling embarrassed at the fact that he had lost some face and hurriedly took a sip of beer before asking, “By the way, are there many outsiders who come here?”

“Don’t be fooled by the fact that my guesthouse is small. I can tell you that any outsiders who come to this village end up staying here. Ever since that cauldron was dug up, more and more outsiders have been flocking here. There are even some people planning to build a villa on the other side of the mountain.”

Uncle Three suddenly stood up and shouted, “Fuck, surely they’re not willing to go that far?!” It was obvious that anyone wanting to build a villa in this wild, mountainous country was either an overseas Chinese or a grave robber.

Seeing that the waitress was startled by this sudden outburst, Pan Zi hurriedly pulled Uncle Three back to his seat, “Master Three, you’re not young anymore. There’s no need to get so riled up.” Then he turned to the woman and said, “Don’t mind him. Master Three probably just thought that it was ridiculous.”

I heard Uncle Three cursing in a low voice before he suddenly put on an embarrassed smile and asked, “Hey, do you have any historical sites or scenic spots around here? Anything to do for fun?”

The waitress smiled and suddenly lowered her voice, “You guys don’t look like you’re here to have fun. Why, you’re probably here for grave robbing, correct?”

Seeing that we didn’t say anything, she sat down next to us, “To tell you the truth, what outsider hasn’t come here to rob graves? If you really came for sightseeing, wouldn’t all that equipment in the cart be too cumbersome?”

Uncle Three looked at me and then poured the girl a glass of beer. “If you put it like that, does that mean you’re also an expert?”

“Ha! How could I possibly be? I just heard my grandfather and the others talking about how many grave robbers have come here over the years and taken a lot of good things out. But my grandfather said that the most amazing thing is still further inside. It’s the tomb of an immortal. All the gold, silver, and jewels that can be found inside are nothing when compared to the immortal’s treasures.”

“Oh,” Uncle Three became very interested. “So did your grandfather go in?”

The girl pursed her lips and then smiled, “Take care with your words. My grandfather also heard it from his grandfather, but I don’t know when this legend first came about. I heard that this immortal was sent by the Jade Emperor, and he became a great general who fought in many battles for the ruling emperor at that time.⁽²⁾ After satisfactorily completing his meritorious service, he ascended back to the heavens and his physical body was buried with the precious treasures he had used during those battles. That tomb is supposedly better than the emperor’s, but that seems like a given. Otherwise, how could he be called an immortal?”

“In that case, there must be a lot of people looking for this tomb, right?” Uncle Three asked nervously. “Has anyone found it?”

“Ah, you must not know. That place is impossible to get to now. When the mountain collapsed the year before last, that place also collapsed. Can you guess what fell out of the mountain?”

“What? Was it another one of those cauldrons or something?” Da Kui asked.

“Seriously? If it was really another cauldron, it would’ve been taken away long ago. I’ll tell you but you can’t tell anyone else.” The girl took a sip of beer before continuing, “More than a hundred heads were dug out of that place!”

<Chapter 6><Table of Contents><Chapter 8>

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TN Notes:

(1) Pinyin is “ding” (鼎). It’s an ancient cooking cauldron with two looped handles and three or four legs. Pics and info here.

(2) The Jade Emperor is one of Chinese mythology’s most important and popular deities. He is considered to be the ruler of heaven. So in this context, he sent the immortal dude down to earth to help the human/mortal emperor fight battles at the time.