Volume 4Chapter 2: The First Shot of 2007

My relationship with Uncle Hai was not good enough to talk about everything. Usually, it was just some business communication. After we became familiar with each other, I called him “Uncle” to give him face, and he suddenly wanted to get close to me. I felt a little strange. But the little girl didn’t show it to me. I casually agreed and asked her, “What do you mean? What news did he find out?”

Qin Haiting smiled wickedly, ‘My uncle said he would tell you when the time comes. I don’t know what’s going on either, so don’t ask.’

I cursed in my heart, this old crook, I guess he wants to rip me off again.

On the third day, Lao Hai really arrived. I picked him up from the train station and took him to the hotel on the elevated highway. On the bus, I asked him what news he had heard. If he was lying to me, I wouldn’t let him off.

Lao Hai was shivering with cold and said, “A strong dragon can’t overpower a local snake. We’re in your territory now, so how dare I lie to you? But let’s not talk here. I’m freezing to death.”

I took him to the hotel, put down his things, and found a private room in the dining hall. I heated a pot of wine and after a few drinks, I finally caught my breath.

I saw that the alcohol had gone to his neck, so I knew it was about time. I asked him, “Okay, you’ve drunk and eaten, so now you can tell me what you found out.”

He blinked his eyes, smiled, and took out a stack of papers from his bag and slapped it on the table. “Look at this.”

I picked it up and looked at it. It was a yellowed old newspaper. The date was 1974. He circled a news article with a large black and white photo. Although it wasn’t very clear, I recognized it. The photo was of a snake-eyed copper fish, with many small artifacts around it, like Buddhist beads.

But the fish in the photo was different from the one in my hand and the one in my uncle’s hand. The three fish reliefs on the forehead of the tomb statues in the underwater tombs should be the top ones. In this way, it can be said that all three fish have appeared in the world. I asked Lao Hai, “How did you find this newspaper? Is there any hidden meaning behind it?”

Lao Hai said, “I’ve been helping a rich boss sort through old newspapers. You know, rich people collect all kinds of things. Look, this is the Guangxi Evening News from 1974. He asked me to find it for him from January to December. I spent two months looking for it, and I’m about to deliver it these days. I was checking it, and I happened to see this news. Isn’t that a coincidence? This newspaper was only published for one year in 1974, and it closed in 1975. It’s hard to find. You’re lucky. If I’d been quicker, I’d have missed it.

I looked down at the newspaper. Under the photo was a news article of about 300 words. It said that the fish was found in the foundation of a Buddhist temple in Guangxi. The tower had collapsed naturally due to its age, and when the ruins were cleared, a crypt was unearthed. Inside were some decayed sutras and treasure chests, and one of the treasure chests contained the fish. Experts speculated that it was a relic of a monk from the late Northern Song Dynasty.

Northern Song Dynasty? I lit a cigarette and leaned back in my chair, wondering to myself. This bronze fish with snake eyes was the first to be found in the tombs of the princes of the late Warring States period; the second was found in the underwater tombs of the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties; and the third was found in the underground palace of a Buddhist pagoda of the Northern Song Dynasty. What the hell is going on? The time periods don’t match at all.

I flipped through the rest of the newspaper, but this was the only news article about the fish. There was nothing new in the content, so it was like nothing was said. I still knew nothing about this fish, and I was depressed.

Lao Hai looked at my expression and said, “Don’t be discouraged. I haven’t finished yet. The story behind this is even more exciting.”

I frowned, “What do you mean? Can this newspaper still derive anything?”

Lao Hai nodded and said, “That’s right. If I had just found a newspaper, I wouldn’t have needed to come to Hangzhou to find you, right? This matter has to be told from the beginning. By the way, you are also in the business, do you know a person called Chen Pi A Si?

I was shocked to hear this. Chen Pi A Si was a famous grave robber in Changsha in the old days, and he was a character of the same generation as my grandfather. I heard that he is now over 90 years old, and he went blind during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

However, this person is different from my grandfather. He lived a life on the edge of the knife, not just tomb robbing, murder and arson, but anything that could get him money, he would do it. So before liberation, people called him Shaving Four, meaning that he killed people like shaving, without hesitation.

Lao Hai mentioned this person, which I was a little surprised, because he is not a character of our generation, and I have never had contact with him. Could this fish be related to him? Even if the story behind this fish has nothing to do with me, it is definitely worth listening to.

Lao Hai saw that I was not talking and thought I didn’t know. He said, “It’s not surprising that you don’t know about Chen Siye. After all, he is not the same generation as us. But I have to tell you that the bronze fish in this newspaper was brought out by him from the underground palace of the pagoda. The story is really not as simple as it says in the newspaper.” Then he briefly told me about the incident that year.

It turned out that in 1974, Chen Pi A-si was nearly 60 years old, and his eyes were not yet blind. At that time, it was the period of the Ten Years of Chaos. Because he had served as a platoon leader in the Kuomintang army during the early days of liberation, and then became a bandit for several years, he had no legal identity. At that time, if he was caught, he would be killed. He could only operate in the ethnic minority areas of Guangxi, and he did not dare to step into the county seat.

In the early years, many ancient sites had been destroyed during the “Four Olds” campaign. Chen Pi A-si had traveled to many places in Guangxi, but because Guangxi was not considered part of the Central Plains in ancient times, there were not many ancient tombs. But unfortunately, that year, he happened to be passing through Jiaqiao Ridge, where he chatted with a few local Miao people. The few people had drunk a lot and talked about a collapsed tower in a temple on Maoshan. They said that the noise was very loud, and even the ground had sunk, creating a large pit. On the night of the collapse, many people heard a very strange scream.

Chen Pi A-si thought it was strange. He had been to Maowu Mountain many times, and the temples there were all very sturdy. How could they collapse so easily? After asking more carefully, he realized that the tower was not on Maowu Mountain, but in the center of a mountain range called “Wo Fo Ling” on the side. This place is very strange. It is surrounded by villages, but in the middle is a basin of about ten square kilometers. The altitude is very low, the vegetation is dense, the trees cover the sky, the villages are on the cliffs, and the woods are below the cliffs. The drop is more than 100 meters, and it is two completely different worlds. There is no road from the village to go down, and the only way to get to the basin is by rope.

The locals say that there must be other entrances and exits to this basin, but the vegetation underground is so dense that it is difficult to walk. In the past, the Miao people who went down to hunt and collect medicine often disappeared in it, so no one is willing to go down there unless it is necessary.

The ancient tower was built in such a place. It is almost in the center of the basin. Usually, when people look down from the cliff, they can only see a very small tower spire peeking out of the dense tree canopy, and it is covered with plants, so they can’t see anything below. The Miao people said that they knew there was a tower here more than ten generations ago, but no one had ever thought of going down to see it. Recently, one day, there was a sudden loud noise, and when they looked out, the tower spire was gone, and they realized that the tower had collapsed. The locals have many legends about this mysterious ancient tower. According to some old people, the tower was built by a high monk in ancient times to keep evil spirits away. Now that the tower has collapsed, the evil spirits will come out to do evil.

Chen Pi A-si thought it was very interesting. He vaguely felt that the location of the tower and the sound heard by the Miao people in the middle of the night were a bit off. But people like them probably have a strange intuition that can instinctively find information from other people’s descriptions and legends. This is something that is hard to find in our generation.

Chen Pi A Si thought for a moment and decided to go and take a look.

Guangxi has the most mountains in China. Maoshan is an important source of water, straddling the three counties of Xing’an, Ziyuan and Longsheng. It is the source of the Lijiang, Zijiang and Xunjiang rivers, and connects the Yangtze and Pearl rivers. The area has large tracts of virgin jungle, including Laoshanjie, the first mountain the Red Army crossed during the Long March. During World War II, several bombers of the Flying Tigers, a Chinese-American volunteer air force, mysteriously disappeared here, so this place has always been a bit mysterious.

After many twists and turns, Chen Pi A Si arrived at a village on “Wo Fo Ling” (the “Reclining Buddha Ridge”). Standing on the mound, he looked down into the basin in the middle of the mountain range. Holy shit, the pagoda was much bigger than he had imagined. When it fell, it knocked down several trees, so there was a gap in the green canopy of the forest. From the top of the “Reclining Buddha Ridge,” you can’t see what’s in the gap, but Chen Pi A-si almost immediately discovered that all the trees around the area where the tower had collapsed were very messy because the ground had sunk.

From what I heard, I already knew that it was a “mirror palace.” The “mirror palace” is a dialect from the Changsha area before liberation, which means that there is an underground part of the same size as the above-ground building, which looks like a reflection of the above-ground building on the surface of the lake, with the upper and lower ends symmetrical.

This is also called “yin and yang shuttle” in the northern school, which means that the whole building is like a shuttle inserted in the ground, with one side being the underworld and the other side being the world of the living. However, such ancient tombs or buildings are rare, and most of the ground remains have been destroyed, so this theory has not been mentioned for almost ten years before liberation.

Chen Pi A-si could tell from the arrangement of the trees that there was a “mirror palace” buried underneath. I couldn’t help but sigh, calm my mind, and listen to Lao Hai continue.

After Chen Pi A Si made up his mind, he had already had greedy thoughts. In the underground palace of the pagoda, there would only be three things: either relics, or the golden body of a high monk, or a large number of Buddhist scriptures.

However, as a foreigner, he was not very convenient to move around here. First, he had a special identity and a bad background. Second, the Miao and Han were constantly in conflict at that time, and the villages here were all Miao villages. If he went in rashly, he might arouse suspicion.

After much consideration, he came up with a plan. He paid a high price to find a local Miao guide. He told the guide that he was an old intellectual from the outside who had come to support the border. When he came, one of his students fell off a cliff. The Miao people are simple and unsophisticated, so they would never suspect that there was a trick. As soon as they heard that someone had fallen off the cliff, they immediately informed the entire village. The young Miao man tied a rope to a basket and lowered Chen Pi A Si and a few young men who were helping him to the bottom of the cliff.

According to Chen Pi A Si’s own recollection afterwards, the drop of more than 100 meters was a hellish experience. The cliff was very steep, and the man’s weight was completely supported by a vine rope. When he passed through the dense tree canopy and reached the bottom of the jungle, he was already half dead.

There was almost no sunlight in the forest interior, the light was extremely dim, and the air was filled with the smell of marsh gas. There are many different types of trees here, but all of them are covered in moss, and the mud is so soft that it is almost impossible to stand on.

After Chen Pi A Si came down, he pretended to be exhausted (but he was really scared) and sat there panting. The Hmong chief saw that he was not young and looked like an old man, so he told him to wait for them to return and then he lit a torch and called out to the others to search in the direction he pointed.

As soon as they left, Chen Pi Ashi immediately took out his compass and, following the directions he had previously written down, headed deep into the jungle. He estimated that it would take the Miao people a whole night to travel back and forth in such a large area, and that with his skills, he should be able to find the entrance to the “Mirror Palace” and come and go. Unfortunately, he did not bring enough equipment this time, and whether he could enter the palace would depend on his own luck.

After four hours of aimless wandering in the jungle, Chen Pi Asu finally arrived at the area he had planned on “Wofengling,” that is, the temple ruins around the tower, relying on his compass and the courage he had gained from traveling all over the country.

As he continued to walk deeper into the area, Chen Pi Asu saw more and more broken eaves and walls. It was clear that the ancient buildings here had been completely destroyed, leaving only some foundations and broken walls, which were almost mixed with the vegetation and could not be clearly seen. However, judging from the scale, the temple was extremely large, and although the tower had collapsed within this large area, it was difficult to see exactly where it was.

Chen Pi A-si was not young, and after walking around for a while, he felt a bit short of breath. He was about to sit down to rest when suddenly he saw a flash of light in front of him. The grass covering the entire wall on the side suddenly contracted, as if something was wrapped inside. Chen Pi A Si was startled. He rolled over and fell out, and at the same time, he took out an iron bullet in his hand. When he looked back, he saw a corpse of a Miao person wrapped in the vines and grass of the wall. It was almost shriveled, but for some reason, the belly of the corpse was slightly pulsating, as if there was something inside.