Chapter 10 Traveling Notes

The head lama briefly explained how the cave was discovered—one of the younger lamas came here to cultivate and ended up stumbling across it, although no one was inside of it. This so-called discovery actually lasted for half a year, but during that time, the young lama didn’t see anyone come by the cave.

Since the daily necessities in the cave were still relatively organized and didn’t look like they had been depleted during that time, the head lama thought that the person living in the cave must have climbed to the top of the mountain.

The cliff was so sheer that it was practically vertical, so if you wanted to reach the top of the mountain with your bare hands, you’d have to climb for three days. It was also completely covered in snow.

“There’s a high probability that the person fell to their death and their body was eaten by the mountain vultures,” the head lama theorized. “We left them a letter, but we didn’t receive any response so we began to clean out the cave and restore it to its original appearance. As a result, when we demolished the mud wall, we found those wooden beams hidden behind it.”

“Do these beams hold any kind of significance to the temple?”

When I asked the head lama this, he shook his head and said, “No, they don’t. The only noticeable thing is that the color of the wood is the same as that of the wood used to build the temple.”

This matter really was so trivial that they honestly didn’t need Poker-Face to make a decision at all. I looked at the head lama, suddenly feeling that there must be something he hadn’t mentioned yet.

He silently met my gaze for a long time before he finally spoke, “These wooden beams seem to have been used to enclose this hot spring. This is a medicinal spring, and in these beams, there should be hibernating medicinal snakes.”

The head lama unloaded all that information on us without making a conclusion and then sat down at the entrance of the cave, looking out at the distant scenery while waiting for our answer.

The three of us remained in the cave. Fatty looked towards the entrance and whispered to me, “His cultivation level doesn’t seem that high. Isn’t his speech a bit…?”

“It’s not mystifying enough, right?” I finished for him.

Fatty nodded, “If you think about the old head lama, he was a high-ranking monk who achieved the Dao.⁽¹⁾ When talking to him, you’d think you understood what he said, but when you left and thought about it later, you’d realize you couldn’t make sense of what you heard at all. But this guy…it seems like he’s just not very good at explaining clearly. What medicinal snakes? Do you understand what he’s talking about? I don’t understand a thing at all.”

“Have you heard of Dezhong Hot Spring?” I asked him. “It’s in Dezhong Village in Menba Township in Mozhugongka County. It’s not only a bathing place for the locals but also a medicinal spring specially used to treat diseases. That hot spring is said to be very powerful. You can soak in it even when it snows, and it can also cure tumors. There are stones next to the hot spring where snakes reside. The snakes will enter the hot spring and soak their venom in the water, which increases the medicinal properties of the water.”⁽²⁾

“What does that have to do with these wooden beams?”

“If the medicinal snakes don’t appear for many years, people will go up to the mountains to find dead old trees and put them by the edge of a hot spring. Soon, the medicinal snakes will appear again. It’s said that the snakes lay eggs in the trees, so if you put the dead wood by the hot springs, the warm temperature will help the eggs to hatch and then the snakes will come out of the trees. Those medicinal snakes have never hurt anyone.”

“So—” Fatty looked back at the hot spring. “The hot spring is a big deal for the people here.”

“Only those divine springs that can cure diseases. I think what the head lama is trying to say is that these wooden beams are special and that there may be medicinal snakes in them. So, the hot spring here must have been identified as a divine spring by the people who came here at that time.”

I looked at Poker-Face. If this were indeed true, then it really was a big deal. But it wasn’t something for us to decide; it was up to Poker-Face to choose how to deal with this hot spring. Whether to ignore it, expand it, or block it back up was all up to him to decide.

As I was lost in my thoughts, Fatty had already stripped naked and stepped directly into the hot spring. He then leaned back, looked up at the sky, and hummed happily, “It really is a divine spring. Truly divine.”

I wasn’t in a position to decide what to do for Poker-Face, so I silently pondered over it instead. But as I was thinking, I suddenly saw Poker-Face walk out.

I didn’t think it was appropriate to listen in on his conversation with the head lama, so I glanced at Fatty, took off my clothes, and jumped into the hot spring as well.

I instantly felt relieved as that warm water enveloped my whole body and flooded it with warmth.

Fatty looked at me lying down next to him and said, “Oh ho, I didn’t think you’d dare come in here until tomorrow at the latest. You should be more reserved on a day like today. Why are you suddenly following my example now?”

As I lay there in the hot spring, looking up at the hole in the ceiling above, I could see the blue sky and clumps of snow falling down from above. As soon as those clumps entered the warm cave, they instantly disappeared.

“Dezhong Hot Spring… I remember that it can also cure sadness,” Fatty said. “I wonder what this spring will cure?”

“Fatty, I’m not sad,” I said as I looked up at the sky. “I’m just happy. Everything is going well so I want to do a little more to make it better.”

“Oh, then in that case, you can actually open a training school and train people who are in a similar situation to you,” Fatty said.

“I’m not a good teacher,” I argued.

“What do you think Little Brother will do with this hot spring? Will he let us open a hot spring resort?”

“With the little savings from our restaurant, we can’t even afford to invest.”

“True. You can sell Wushanju,” Fatty said.

I looked up at him, only to see the head lama coming back in and waving at me.

<Chapter 9><Table of Contents><Chapter 11>

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TN Notes:

(1) In super simplistic terms, following the dao (or “tao” as it’s also referred to) means to follow the flow of nature. Dao can mean path/way, and is the source of everything and the ultimate principle underlying reality. Here’s an article I’ve linked before and here’s the wiki article on Daoism/Taoism.

(2) Dezhong Hot Spring is a real place but I honestly wasn’t finding much about the snake thing. Here’s a scientific blog/article that talks about the history but nothing about the supposed medicinal properties of these snakes. 

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Ha! I knew it! Place your bets, how many chapters til Wu Xie actually sees the snakes? lol

Pic added 8/26/2023 (fan translation courtesy of me).