Chapter 66 Swamp Demon’s Domain (Part 1)

After Poker-Face finished speaking, we didn’t immediately understand what he meant and just stared at him in shock for a while. When we finally realized what he was saying, I was completely baffled: they had all said that the body had been dead for a long time, so how could it suddenly become A Ning’s corpse? Plus, she was standing right next to us, alive and well.

As we all looked at each other in confusion, A Ning frowned, wondering what Poker-Face meant by this.

Poker-Face ignored our questioning looks, carefully took the bracelet off of the corpse’s wrist bone, and handed it to A Ning, giving her a look that seemed to say, “See for yourself.”

Clearly baffled, A Ning took it, glanced at Poker-Face, and then looked down at the bracelet. At first, her expression was puzzled, but after staring at it for a few seconds, her expression suddenly changed and all the color drained from her face.

The rest of us were standing off to the side watching, but seeing her expression change like that had me breaking out in a cold sweat. Something’s wrong, I thought to myself. What kind of expression is that?

“What?” Fatty blurted out. “Is this corpse really you?”

A Ning didn’t speak, but when she turned to look at us, her face looked kind of green. She handed us the bracelet Poker-Face had given her, and then held her right hand up in front of us.

On A Ning’s wrist was a bracelet of copper coins strung together, which I had noticed back in Hainan. When we were lost in the devil city, she used this string of copper coins to leave markers under the rocks. There were seven coins in total, each a copper coin with a face value of ten wen⁽¹⁾ and minted in Anqing City in Anhui Province. At that time, I joked with her that these might be the most valuable trail markers in the world. She told me that she chose to make a bracelet out of these copper coins because it would be the only one of its kind in the world.

It was because of this conversation that I knew what her intentions were when she held up her hand and the female corpse’s bracelet right in front of me.

I quickly took a closer look at the female corpse’s bracelet. I didn’t pay much attention to it when I first looked at it, but now I found that the whole bracelet was covered in a thick layer of patina. After scraping off the top layer, I saw that there really were a few rusted copper coins underneath, all with the faded words “Guangxu Yuanbao” inscribed on them.⁽²⁾

I didn’t believe it at first, but when I scraped off a little more of the patina, I saw the Manchu inscription hidden underneath.⁽³⁾ Feeling shocked, I looked up at the bracelet on A Ning’s wrist.

“No need to check, they’re ten-wen copper coins,” A Ning said to me. “Seven in total.”

“This….” I was speechless. How was this possible?

This female corpse was also wearing a bracelet made of seven ten-wen copper coins, but those were very rare… The seven coins that made up A Ning’s bracelet had been collected one by one over a ten-year period. Even if we didn’t take into account how rare these copper coins were or how unlikely it was that this was all a coincidence, what were the chances that another woman would also have the idea of making a bracelet out of ten-wen copper coins, as well as the financial resources and channels to buy seven of them? Plus, she also did field work, and came here, where we ultimately found her body…

Such a thing was not only confusing, but simply impossible…

The others still didn’t understand what was going on, so I explained how valuable these copper coins were. But even after my explanation, they still didn’t get it. “So there are two identical copper coin bracelets,” Pan Zi said. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence. There are tons of fake copper coins like this out there on the market.” 　

Poker-Face looked at A Ning and shook his head.

“Then how do you explain this?” Pan Zi laughed. “It doesn’t make any sense. Are you telling me that this girl standing in front of us is a ghost and she died here more than ten years ago?”

Pan Zi looked at A Ning and chuckled, but after a few seconds, he abruptly stopped. Then, his expression changed and he stood up and reached for his knife.

Finding his reaction odd, I turned to A Ning, wondering what was going on. But as soon as I did, I almost fainted from fright.

I didn’t know what happened, but A Ning’s rain-soaked face was distorted as if it was melting, her eyes had a strange gleam to them, and the corners of her mouth were stretched up at an impossible angle, revealing a mouth full of small fangs.

My mind started buzzing as I shouted to myself, “Fuck!” Moving as quickly as possible, I reached for the knife at my belt and took a step back, trying to get as far away from her as possible.

But in my panic, I forgot that I was in a tree—as soon as I stepped back, my foot met nothing but air and I started to fall.

I shrank in on myself, thinking that it was really over this time—even if I didn’t fall to my death, I would still be seriously injured. I scrambled to grab the branches around me with my hands but came up empty. Then, someone grabbed my belt and I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. The force almost broke my belt, but at least I didn’t fall.

As the person started pulling me up, I stopped squirming and turned to see who my savior was. But as soon as I did, I almost pissed my pants—it was A Ning. She was holding onto my belt as saliva dripped from her big open mouth and straight onto my face.

You’ve got to be kidding me. At this time, I realized that if she pulled me all the way up, I might die, but if I fell, I might still have a chance of surviving. Feeling desperate, I immediately moved to undo my belt, but it was so tight against my stomach that I couldn’t unfasten it no matter how hard I tried. I felt like my heart was about to stop as I tugged and tugged, but then I suddenly heard someone say, “Wake up! Wake up! What the hell are you dreaming about?”

<Chapter 65><Table of Contents><Chapter 67>

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TN Notes:

(1) Wen was a unit of currency used in China in imperial times. It was used to denominate both coins and paper money. It was the chief denomination until the introduction of the yuan in the late 19th century.

(2) Due to a shortage of copper at the end of the Qing dynasty, the mint of Guangzhou, Guangdong began striking round copper coins without square holes in June 1900. They were called Tongyuan (銅元) or Tongban (銅板) and they were struck in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 30 wen. Two series of Tongyuan were simultaneously in circulation: one carried the inscription Guangxu Yuanbao (Guangxu was the reign name of penultimate Qing emperor Guangxu [1875-1908] and yuanbao is just a name for ancient currency made out of gold or silver); the other carried the inscription “Great Qing Copper Coin”. The Guangxu Yuanbao were often provincially issued and at first were of different weights while the Great Qing Copper Coin was introduced by the imperial government in the hope of creating a unified national currency system. More info here.

(3) The coins were designed such that the inscription “Guangxu Yuanbao” was written in large Traditional Chinese characters and occupied the center part of the obverse side of the coin. In the very center of the coin, between the “Guangxu Yuanbao” characters, were one or two small Chinese characters indicating the provincial mint where the coin was manufactured. Near the top of the rim of the coin on the obverse side was text written in Manchu (the language of the ruling class of the Qing dynasty) that essentially said “minted during the Guangxu (or Xuantong) years”, to indicate the era of mintage (during the reign of Guangxu Emperor or Xuantong Emperor). Near the right and left sides of the outer rim were two Chinese characters representing the “Ministry of the Interior and Finance”, which was later replaced by the “Ministry of Revenue and Expenditure”. At the bottom, would be an inscription written from right to left indicating the coin’s nominal value. More info here. Here’s a pic of what one might look like:

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Ah, so it was a dream after all. I was kind of wondering considering Wu Xie always has trippy dreams lol. As you can all tell, we’re getting close to the end of this book so it’s poll time. Keep going and wrap up the early works, jump to Notes in Rain Village 4, or go back to finish up the Ghost Banquet chapters? I’ll keep the poll open til November 20th so just let me know what you think.