Daomu Biji: Restart

I carefully thought over everything while on the train. Yang Daguang's ancestors must have been in the South Sea King’s tomb and stole the murals, sarcophagus, and bronze scales from it. They then came to Funiu Mountain, where they built this secret tomb and hid the stolen objects inside.

This was a group of patient and experienced grave robbers, who were known as "Luoyang Weizi" (1) in the industry. It was a kind of honorary title. After they found a tomb, they often surrounded the land and dug slowly for generations, leaving nothing behind. This meant that they would definitely take more than a few things when they entered the South Sea King’s tomb. But now there was only a sarcophagus full of barnacles in this hidden tomb, which meant that the valuables had already been squandered through the generations.

By the time Yang Daguang went to school, his father was shot and there were very few valuables left. Yang Daguang, who often returned to his hometown to take the treasures from the tomb to sell, slowly discovered that his livelihood was becoming precarious. When he wanted to sell the murals, he somehow noticed the people in the murals listening to thunder and became interested in thunder. After going to Nanjing, he slowly studied thunder and discovered a shocking pattern.

I didn’t know when he and Uncle Three had met, but he must’ve told Uncle Three about listening to thunder. Uncle Three went into the mountains with him to record thunder for a while, but he never bothered telling me about this experience.

Time flew by. I didn’t know what had happened between them, but Yang Daguang died in that secret room in the weather station. Uncle Three later entrusted Jin Wantang to buy the weather station and indirectly told me Yang Daguang’s story.

If, as I inferred, he conveyed this man's story to me, then for what purpose? To prove he wasn’t dead? To collect Yang Daguang’s body? These kinds of things could clearly be expressed in words, so there was no need to send such an ambiguous text. I was a little confused and had no idea what he wanted from me. Was I supposed to find the South Sea King’s tomb or explore the secrets of listening to thunder? It felt like even he didn’t know what he needed me to do.

But according to Fatty, the two tasks were basically the same. There had to be secrets to listening to thunder in the South Sea King’s tomb. After Yang Daguang became interested in this matter, he must’ve returned to the tomb and finally got the answer to the question: what's in the thunder? Once he discovered what it was, he devoted himself to recording thunder, which showed that he fully understood its value.

Fatty told me that he felt that Yang Daguang was either looking for a special kind of thunder in order to learn some secrets, or he was greedily collecting the information in the thunder to do something bigger.

But a journey of a thousand miles began with a single step. We first had to follow Yang Daguang's footsteps and return to the South Sea King’s tomb to find out what was in the thunder.

The scale of the South Sea King’s tomb was unknown. Not only was there no historical data, but the Yang family must’ve also deliberately hidden it. It would be very difficult to find, but we had locked on two directions: one was the seaside, where the sea water would submerge it all year round and allow people to pass by it without ever knowing; the other was where the Yang family had settled for generations. After looking at a map of Fujian, I suddenly realized that the place where the South Sea King’s tomb was located was probably in a geographical state that we had never experienced before.

The king's tomb might be under a beach by the sea.

After thousands of years of coastline evolution, the mountains and woodlands of that year might now all be covered by tidal flats. And since the tide rose and fell, the water probably infiltrated deep under the tidal flats and into the ancient tomb. The area below would be a mixed environment of silt and sand. It was no longer a question of whether we could find it or not. Even if we could find it, how could we get down there? And if we did go down, what then? Was Uncle Three down there?

The data on that South Sea country seemed to indicate that it was in present-day Wuping, which happened to be our territory (2).

Once our plane from Xiamen landed at Gaoqi Airport, we disembarked and hauled our aching bodies into my Jinbei. I suddenly didn't want to go anywhere anymore. Fatty started talking as he drove us to Longyan, "Mr. Naïve, we’ve encountered so many strange things in the mountains during this time and they’re all within the territory of this South Sea country. What is this country? Can you tell me about it?"

The South Sea country was a complete mystery, but there was no denying the fact that we had found some strange things in various places in the mountains during our stay in Fujian. I remembered the huge underground salt mine and the Stagnant Water Dragon King temple that was inside. If those were the remains of the South Sea country, then this country must’ve had an unknown side to it.

At that time, the Baiyue people interacted with those in the Central Plains. It was called an uncivilized place, but it was actually connected to seventy-six overseas countries. The history of this area could be brutally summarized in just a few simple words, so it was impossible to verify what had happened in these mountains over the past thousand years.

I suddenly remembered that Poker-Face often ventured into the mountains and camped out there for a long time. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but did he already find a clue a long time ago?

I kept feeling like Uncle Three was trying to tell me something, and suddenly had an idea. Did he want to tell me what Poker-Face was doing behind my back?

I narrowed my eyes and looked at Poker-Face, who had fallen asleep in the backseat. "What the hell does Little Brother normally do?” I asked Fatty. “Do you know?"

"Has he ever told us what’s going on in his life?” Fatty answered me. “Do you really think that highly of me to ask?"

I looked at Poker-Face suspiciously. The more I thought about it, the more wrong it seemed. Uncle Three had given me a clue pointing to a strange ancient tomb, which just so happened to be related to the place where we lived and all the inexplicable things we had experienced before. And Poker-Face seemed to have discovered it a long time ago.

It was no mere coincidence.

I was just about to start thinking about it more carefully when a jeep in the other lane overtook us. Then, a hand suddenly stretched out of the window and motioned for us to pull over.

****

TN Notes:

(1) Luoyang is prefecture-level city in Henan. Weizi can mean to encircle or surround.

(2) Wuping is a county level city in Longyan, Fujian. There’s also a Wuping Era (570–576) that Gao Wei, emperor of Northern Qi, named.