Chapter 8 Traveling Notes

When I arrived at Jila Temple, I went to my room, where I did a lot of things back then. After dropping off our luggage, we made plans to rest first before having dinner.

During the many years I had been away, no one had stayed in this room. Everything was exactly the same as it was when I left, but I could see that it had been cleaned not too long ago.

I told the two of them that I’d like to stare into space for a while, and then I had no memory of what happened after that. I must have fallen asleep at one point—maybe it was the warmth from the stove, maybe I was just tired, or maybe it was the altitude sickness.

When I woke up again, it was already the next morning. The sunlight was streaming in through the window and I could hear the sound of someone walking outside. My whole body felt sore all over, so I stretched all my muscles, heaved a big sigh, and finally got up.

Both Fatty and Poker-Face weren’t in the room. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked around—there were scones and highland barley next to the stove and hot butter tea in a pot.

I closed my eyes, took a few breaths, and found that I had fully adapted. It seemed my body had quickly found its balance because I looked at my hands and saw that they had stopped shaking.

I suddenly had the impulse to go and take a look outside, but I restrained myself.

This kind of feeling was almost like someone was standing in front of me, pointing at my nose, and saying, “How can you be so impulsive? You know the rules!”

It was in this room that I realized I must never follow any impulsive urges that my mind or body came up with.

I started moving all my sore muscles to get the blood flowing until I was sweating a little bit. Then I sat by the fire and patiently finished my breakfast and drank all the butter tea.

Now I felt like I was finally back to normal.

When I opened the door and went out, my earlier eagerness had disappeared and been replaced with a serene calmness. I saw Fatty and Poker-Face leaning against the wall by the door, waiting for me.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked.

“I thought you were dead, so I was waiting for the old lama to come over, perform a ceremony, and then drag you off for a sky burial,” Fatty said.

“No, seriously,” I said to him, “what are you two doing at the door?”

“Discussing an issue,” Fatty said. “There’s a situation that I think you might want to know about it.”

“Go ahead, I won’t pass out again. I think you were driving too fast and the altitude was too high,” I said to him.

“You know Deren, right?”

I nodded. Of course I knew. In fact, I knew better than anyone else. “Is that tradition continuing?”

“It’s started up again,” Fatty said. “Now there’s a Deren in the temple.”

“That’s great,” I said. “Did you guys eat last night? Why didn’t you wake me up when I fell asleep so suddenly?”

Instead of answering me, Fatty said, “You have to know who this Deren is first before deciding on whether it’s a good thing or not.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know. This Deren told the people in the temple that when we came here, they can’t tell us who it is. So, we won’t know who the Deren is until he comes back from the mountains,” Fatty said.

“Oh.” I nodded. “Deren is a great master after all. Those people are bound to have a weird temperament.”

“I don’t think it’s right. I think this Deren has some aspirations. Will he swallow up Little Brother’s property rights and not give them to us?” Fatty wondered.

I glanced at Poker-Face, knowing that this definitely wasn’t what they had been discussing just now. Fatty might have changed the subject, but I didn’t want to know either. They were probably discussing my health or something like that.

“I feel fine now. Did you take a look around yesterday? What’s changed here?” I asked.

Fatty shook his head and said, “Nothing’s changed. It snowed again last night, though.”

I looked around and found that the top of the temple and the places where people usually didn’t walk were indeed covered in a thick layer of snow.

My perception of time and space suddenly became distorted again.

Since nothing had changed here, there were no traces of the passing of time, which meant that it was easy to get distracted.

“So what’s the plan? Should I show you around and tell you about all the things I saw in those days, or do you want to show us around and talk about what happened to you back then?” I asked Poker-Face.

“Let’s meet the current head lama first,” Fatty suggested. “We all turned in pretty early yesterday.”

I nodded and started heading to the head lama’s room out of habit, but Fatty quickly grabbed me.

“The former head lama has passed away, and the new head lama’s room is in a different direction,” he said.

I paused. Oh, that’s right. Fatty pointed in the other direction, so the three of us started making our way over. There were still many people out on the paths, but when they saw us coming, they immediately made way and saluted us.

There wasn’t a hint of shyness in their eyes as they stood there, waiting to see Poker-Face.

There were probably hundreds of people along the way, but no one said a word. The only sound that could be heard was the snow falling from the temple roof.

<Chapter 7><Table of Contents><Chapter 9>

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Ok guys, don’t get used to this multi-chapter upload lol. But since these are WAY shorter than the vol 1-5 stuff, I might be able to at least post once a day if I’m not utterly exhausted after work. Fingers crossed (ᵔ◡ᵔ). The Deren stuff was mentioned in Chapter 9 of Tibetan Sea Flower if you need a refresher.

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Pic added 12/3/2022 (fan translation courtesy of me).