Chapter 3

The term "dwarf donkey" is considered an insult in many dialects, such as in Taiwan, where it refers to a small-time thug. However, in my family or in the Hunan and Guizhou regions, it is used to describe a specific creature: the mountain sprite.

There are many tales about mountain sprites, all sorts of strange and varied stories, which I won't recount in detail.

The dwarf donkey I'm referring to is a type of mountain sprite rumored to exist in the mountains of my hometown. They are no more than a few dozen centimeters tall, always wearing red straw hats, with green or purple skin, though some say it's red. They are furry and usually appear in groups of three to five, enjoying playing pranks on people. For example, they might turn a farmer's lunch in the fields into stones, defecate in the stoves of mountain dwellers who have offended them, or make some villagers eat mud in the middle of the night, causing them to feel full when they return home to sleep, all due to the dwarf donkey's bewitchment.

The red straw hats they wear are made from dragon fern grass, which is said to have originated from the dinosaur era millions of years ago.

Of course, these are just legends. When I was in high school and lived in the school dormitory, every classmate had a belly full of such stories.

It's hard to say whether they are true or false, but the classmate from the western village of Qingshanjie told the most stories.

I studied the old book all day and, during dinner, I told my parents that I planned to visit Qingshanjie. "If it's a blessing, it will be a blessing; if it's a curse, it can't be avoided." To be honest, I was still haunted by the pain I experienced on the first day of the lunar month. That pain was beyond what a human could endure, and at one point, I even thought about dying.

My mother looked at my grandmother's portrait on the shrine without speaking, sighing and shedding tears. My father said that my uncle worked at the Qingshanjie forest station. If I wanted to find the dwarf donkey, I should go to my uncle, who guards the forest house. He said it would be better to have someone to keep each other company.

That night, my father called my uncle, and I set out the next morning.

My uncle is a regular employee of the county forestry bureau, working year-round in remote forest stations for forest protection and fire prevention. Qingshanjie is a place to the west of the county, with high mountains and steep ridges, where birds and beasts find it hard to fly, and it is a rarely visited primeval forest. The county forestry bureau has a station there, and my uncle guards the forest house in the deepest part.

I set out in the morning, changed buses to the county, then to the town, and finally to the forest station. I walked along the mountain path to the forest house, and by the time I arrived, it was already 5 PM. It was still bright outside, but there was no cell phone signal in the deep forest. Fortunately, there was an old telephone line, so my uncle had been notified and was waiting for me at the slope entrance.

I gave him some gifts, wine, and cigarettes, which he happily accepted.

Their forest house was a lime-painted brick and tile house, quite different from the wooden houses I saw along the way. It was small, with only two rooms: a kitchen and a bedroom. The pot in the kitchen was already cooking meat, and the aroma wafted far. There was another person inside, a thin man in his thirties, who smiled at me, revealing a mouth of yellow, smoke-stained teeth.

My uncle introduced him as his colleague, Li Decai, and told me to call him Uncle Li. Li Decai quickly declined, saying I should call him Brother. He said he had seen me at my uncle's house before, a fine young man, and it had been eight or nine years since then. Back then, he was still a young man without a wife, and now his children were running around with runny noses.

Li Decai had a dark face, rough skin, and a scar on his left cheek. He looked fierce but was actually quite kind.

We sat down to eat, and the pot contained rabbit meat, two whole rabbits that had been hunted a few days earlier. The job of guarding the forest was very monotonous, so my uncle and his colleagues would often use air guns to hunt wildlife, secretly, without anyone managing it. The vegetables were fresh, picked from the nearby vegetable garden. I opened the wine I had bought and chatted and drank with them. My uncle already knew why I had come and, emboldened by the alcohol, scolded my grandmother: "She's just an old beggar, always dealing with bugs and superstitions. Now she's dying and is even harming you!"

I was already afraid of such things, and since she was my grandmother, I didn't respond. Instead, Li Decai joined in with a few curses. We ate meat and drank, and then talked about the dwarf donkey. I asked my uncle if he had ever seen one. He laughed and said he had lived almost fifty years and had never seen one, all just rumors and fabrications.

He had spent his life in the deep forest, protecting the forest and preventing fires, and if he believed in such things, he would have been scared to death long ago.

Li Decai looked at me hesitantly. I asked him if he had seen one, and he said no.

After dinner, I offered to clean up, but my uncle wouldn't let me. He said we should take a walk while it was still light. When we went outside, the sky was slightly dark, and the sun had set below the trees, but the sky was still bright with the golden glow of the sunset on the opposite mountain. We walked slowly on the path covered with fallen leaves, twigs, and green grass, and my uncle coughed as we walked. He was a heavy smoker but didn't dare smoke while patrolling the forest, only coughing.

The forest house was on a small hill. We walked a few hundred meters, and my uncle told me some interesting stories about guarding the forest. The job was very monotonous, with daily walks and careful vigilance, tiring and exhausting. However, he told me a story about a nearby village that caught my interest:

He said the nearest village was called Segai, located deep in the mountains. The fields were terraced, and the forest was a state-owned forest, so the village was very poor. Some people went out to work and never returned. There was an old bachelor in the village who stayed to take care of his elderly mother, working hard in the fields. At 38, no woman would marry him. One day, he suddenly went to a gold shop in the county to sell a large piece of gold, worth hundreds of thousands of yuan. The gold price was 240 yuan per gram last year, and his piece weighed more than three kilograms. The gold shop owner, Huang Laoya, offered him 200 yuan per gram, and he sold it for nearly 300,000 yuan.

I said he was lucky, and wondered where the man had found the gold.

My uncle said everyone thought he was lucky, and he planned to start a small business in town. However, good fortune often brings misfortune. Later, Huang Laoya brought a group of people to find him, saying the gold had turned into cow dung in the safe that night. He demanded the money back. How could gold turn into cow dung? It was clearly a bullying of the old bachelor. The negotiations failed, and Huang Laoya beat the old bachelor. He was later sued, and the court ruled that the old bachelor was guilty of fraud and was only released this year.

I asked how the court could make such a ruling. The gold must have been genuine when it was inspected, or Huang Laoya wouldn't have paid. My uncle smiled and said Huang Laoya had an uncle in a high position, pointing to the sky and shaking his head without saying more. I watched the light in the forest gradually fade and said, "It's too dark, let's go back."

So we walked back, stumbling in the dark.

******

I stayed in the forest house for two days, patrolling the forest during the day and reading books at night. The forest was damp, with many mosquitoes and snakes, making the conditions quite harsh. However, I didn't mind, as I had endured worse when I worked in the south, sleeping in bridge holes, parks, and abandoned buildings. Here, I had a bed and a mosquito net, which was already an improvement. Without a TV, life in the mountains was quite boring, and reading was the only entertainment.

Living in the mountains with only two companions, the silence was profound when we didn't speak, and the only sounds were the insects in the forest. My mind became calm, and I could easily get lost in my reading.

The more I read, the more I realized that "The Twelve Methods of Suppressing the Mountains" was not just a book of witchcraft and shamanism but a mix of Daoist techniques, primitive witchcraft, Buddhism, and voodoo, among other mysterious practices. It even included anecdotes and stories. The author was called Shan Gelao, and the person who added extensive notes and supplements was likely called Luo Shiba.

Gradually, I became engrossed in the book.

As I read, I entered a new world, feeling as if my usual life had been completely overturned. There were many things that seemed obviously false, but some seemed to have some truth. The sections on raising insects, voodoo, and creating zombies were particularly nauseating.

There were also records about mountain sprites. They were described as small beings that could freely move between the spirit world and the real world. They were cunning but not cruel, enjoyed playing pranks, held grudges, and liked to eat pine nuts and sweet potato vines. They only appeared in remote, deep forests and occasionally visited mountain dwellings to play tricks on humans.

I didn't see the legendary dwarf donkey during my two days there. On the third day, I returned to the county with my uncle, who had to hand over his duties. I bought several pounds of pine nuts, a basket of sweet potato vines, incense, candles, eggs, red thread, new glutinous rice, a hunting knife, ropes, and nets. I also selected a few yellow talismans from my grandmother's belongings. After preparing everything, I returned to the forest house on the fourth day.

That night, the moon was particularly bright. I scattered pine nuts and sweet potato vines on a slope near the forest house and quietly waited.

My uncle was worried about me and, despite being able to rest in the county for ten days, decided to stay and keep me company. The mosquitoes in the mountains were numerous and aggressive, but we didn't dare move. My uncle applied a layer of black plant residue to me, saying it would repel insects. I waited quietly, feeling familiar with everything in the open area. I had worked in many factories before, and at a circuit board factory, I had to inspect boards for defects, which gave me a bit of nearsightedness. However, in the darkness, despite the bright moonlight, I could see the details of things ten meters away clearly.

My body had also changed, becoming stronger and more energetic, with a clear and focused mind.

I gradually believed what my grandmother said on her deathbed: she had left me a legacy, but to inherit it, I needed to pass a test. If I succeeded, everything would be fine; if I failed, I would face death.

The night was deep, the moon was waning, and the only sounds were the insects chirping. My uncle, being older, couldn't stay awake for more than an hour and was sent back to sleep. The mountain air was damp and the night was cold, but I listened to the insects and felt very calm, as if I had a premonition, waiting quietly. From 9 PM, I waited for seven hours until just after 4 AM when a shadow appeared on the slope where I had scattered the pine nuts.

The appearance of the shadow made my nerves tense.

However, when I looked closely, I saw it was a fat mountain rat, similar to a cat. The rat was digging in the soil, cracking pine nuts, and chewing sweet potato vines.

I didn't move, taking out the new glutinous rice mixed with egg whites from the bag. My stomach started to hurt, not severely, but like diarrhea, and I couldn't help but pass silent, foul-smelling gas, which made me uncomfortable and drove away many of the mosquitoes around me.

After a while, several more shadows emerged from the bushes.

I couldn't see their colors, but in the dim moonlight, I saw that they were about thirty centimeters tall, walking upright, with messy lines on their heads, which were the outlines of their straw hats.