C5 Part23

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I dug through my own equipment. I hadn’t used these weapons in a long time and never thought about pulling them out again after I had put them away. In those days, I had blinded my heart and done a lot of things I couldn’t accept. These things were related to that time, but here I was pulling them out again.

But there weren’t as many entanglements now and there weren’t that many people in this world who owed each other. I had seen so many ancient corpses in tombs, but who cared about their lives? In the end, all their grievances and emotions would be lost after a hundred years. Even Wang Zanghai’s millennium-long plan was still too difficult to achieve.

The three of us put on sets of clothes that we used to wear for grave robbing and walked to the stone wall. As we pushed through the wind, the salt particles danced in the air, making it feel like we were walking on the Sudi through the heavy snow.

“In recent years,” Fatty said, “I always wanted the three of us to have a chance to walk around Hangzhou when it snowed. But I didn’t expect it to come true here. Mr. Naive, look at the scenery. Is it better than West Lake?”

I use the miner’s lamp to illuminate the lake, which was absolutely dark all year round. We were suddenly attacked by something in the water just now, which was probably because a light source had suddenly appeared. If this was a species of fish attracted to light, then it would be easy. We could lure it in with three miner’s lamps and tire it out.

We kept going forward and found that the wind became stronger the farther we got away from shore. I wrapped my scarf tightly around my face. There was nothing of note here, other than the fact that the salt that was caked on the surface of the stone wall was very strong. The stone path on top of the wall was about three people wide, but we went in single file in case something suddenly came out of the water. But the water’s surface was more than four meters away from the wall, so it would have to jump pretty high.

When I thought of the fish that looked like a snake, the white dam, the salt snowflakes, and snakes in the water, I felt as if it was another form of “The Tale of Madam White Snake”. If I were writing a novel, I would say that this dam-like stone wall was a giant snake that had been frozen by salt and all its descendants lived in the water. But Fatty was more insightful.

“Huh, do you think we look like Tang Sanzang crossing the Flowing Sands River? A pious old man, a monkey banished from heaven, and the other is—”(1) He pointed to himself and suddenly felt it wasn’t very fitting. “No, this isn’t like ‘Journey to the West’. It’s not a good metaphor to describe me.”

“I think it’s a good metaphor for you.” I said happily. “You love food and girls, so it’s very fitting for you. I’m not upset being Sha Wujing.”

Fatty spit in contempt, “Sha Wujing in the Flowing Sands River. You can be regarded as Bai Longma (2) at most.”

Poker-Face suddenly stopped. I thought he had a problem with being called a monkey, but he held the miner’s lamp up to illuminate the path up ahead. A building had suddenly appeared on the stone wall in front of us.

The building had been constructed on the stone wall, with both sides extending down into the lake. It was supported by stone pillars and covered in salt clusters. The whole building was a three-story pavilion that was completely covered in white. Some of the pillars had collapsed, and the shape of the whole building was somewhat deformed.

I looked at this ancient building from a distance and felt that it was a bit strange. After thinking it over, I found that this pavilion wasn’t built to normal proportions. It was very small—only about as tall as two or three people—and must have been a model or shrine like one of those roadside temples.

We looked at each other. Just as Fatty had said, the answer to this stone wall’s purpose ended up being on top of it.

I was a little paranoid as we walked over to it. Maybe the good days I had experienced over the past six months had made me a little afraid of dying. I couldn’t help thinking that if the ancients could make landmines, then our tomb-robbing success rate would have dropped a lot. Of course, most people wouldn’t plant bombs in their graves.

When I walked up to the edge of the ancient pavilion’s attic, I could see a door there that had practically been sealed shut by the salt. Fatty kicked it open, bent down, and walked in. There were two statues on the platform extending out onto both sides of the lake.

The statues had warped so much that they looked like creamy glutinous rice, and it was impossible to tell whether they were Buddha statues or Sanqing (3) statues. Fatty walked to the statue facing the outer lake and knocked on the salt layer with his rock pick a few times, revealing the stone inside.

We went over to help, chipping away at the salt until we revealed a stone statue that we had never seen before. The body was that of a human, but the head was a giant fish head.

The carving was rough and didn’t look like it had been done by a skilled craftsman.

We stood by the statue without saying anything for a long time. Fatty eventually murmured, “Brothers, this is the god of fish head tofu soup.”

We looked out at the whole lake. Fatty went up to the edge and swept his miner’s lamp over the water’s surface three times, “Is this lake a giant pot of fish head tofu soup?”

“Stop talking crap,” I said, while thinking to myself, if this is a pot of soup, then it’s salty enough to kill.

Poker-Face continued chipping away at the salt layer on the stone statue and I heard him say, “This is a kind of dragon king.”

“Dragon king?” Fatty asked. “Then if it’s not the god of fish head tofu soup, it must be the god of Buddha jumping over the wall (4).”

I told him to stop messing around and asked Poker-Face what kind of dragon king this was and why the statue was here. Poker-Face looked at the water and suddenly turned to look at the stone statues on the other side. We stepped forward to help him clean it off and found that it was also a stone statue with a fish head, but this one was female.

Poker-Face looked at both of them and then squatted down to look at their bases. We found that the bottoms of the two stone statues were connected to both the ground and each other. It wasn’t two stone statues, but a stone statue connected at the tail.

“This is,” Poker-Face said, “stagnant water—”

He didn’t go on, which made me think that he wasn’t sure. Fatty touched his chin and looked up. “Guys, look at what’s over here.” With that said, he pointed above his head.

<Extra 5.22> <Table of Contents><Extra 5.24>

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TN Notes:

(1) If you don’t remember Tang Sanzang is a main character in “Journey to the West” who was based on Xuanzang (or Tang Seng), a Tang dynasty Buddhist monk and translator (lived from 602-664) who traveled to India from 629-645. Tang Sanzang has 3 three powerful supernatural beings as his disciples – Sun Wukong (Monkey King), Zhu Bajie (part human/part pig) and Sha Wujing (pious old dude who used to be a general in heaven that pissed someone off and got reincarnated as a man-eating sand demon). Tang Sanzang and the other 2 actually met and recruited Sha Wujing at the Flowing Sands River

(2) Translates as “White Dragon Horse”. Also 1 of the main characters in “Journey to the West”. Wiki info here. From what I can tell, he always tries to help out but fails at it, so he always has to go and get someone stronger to save the day. He also serves as Tang Sanzang’s steed for the rest of the journey. Fatty’s not pulling punches lol

(3) Sanqing translates as “Three Pure Ones”. They’re the 3 highest Gods in the Taoist pantheon. More info here

(4) “Buddha jumps over the wall” is a name for a Chinese dish that uses many non-vegetarian ingredients. It’s also known as Buddha’s Temptation. It’s a variety of shark fin soup in Fujian cuisine. Wiki info here

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