Daomu Biji: Restart

The surrounding darkness enveloped these broken bodies almost like it was alive. I know it's ridiculous to say this, but the darkness really seemed like it was a tangible, living thing.

And it was sucking the essence out of these bodies.

I looked above my head. If there really was a sky burial platform up there, then corpses would be falling down every day. There was barely any rest for people who practiced a burial method like shituolin⁽¹⁾, but it seemed that the bodies here were pushed directly into the cave instead of being fed to the vultures.

Had this shituolin been supporting the dragon vein here the whole time?

Fatty glanced at me, "Mr. Naïve, if we pass this opportunity up, we definitely won’t have anything to eat later."

This corpse was a middle-aged woman with a large body. I squatted down and rubbed my face, "Are you serious?"

"Do we have any other choice?"

I actually hesitated for a while—the darkness here had forced me into a situation where I no longer resembled a human—before shouting to the top, "Is anyone there?"

The light hole in the sky was very high and my voice echoed, so I wondered if the person at the top could even hear it.

"We’re hungry, throw some food down!" After I shouted this, Fatty fired a shot at the sky.

There was no response from above.

I glanced at Poker-Face. At this height, we could parachute down, so maybe we could climb up now, go out for some supplies, and then come back down again? I also really wanted to bathe my whole body in sunlight.

Poker-Face took his flashlight and went around to check for a climbing route, but the more I watched him, the more heartbroken I felt.

Not only was this a free solo climbing⁽²⁾ route without any insurance measures, but when you climbed more than ten meters up, you’d start to see an inverted angle. If you weren't a professional climber, then climbing up would basically be suicide.

But Poker-Face soon discovered a safety anchor in the crevice of a rock.

“Xiao Hua,” I said.

Xiao Hua had climbed here. He was the cautious type, so he would've definitely climbed here and tried to set up an outpost.

But the question was, did he succeed?

I had seen Xiao Hua's rock-climbing skills many times before, so I knew he wouldn’t have failed unless there was some kind of special danger.

He wouldn’t even use these safety anchors, so they must have been used by his teammates after he paved the way. In other words, Xiao Hua must have set up safety anchors all the way up to the hole.

We immediately went to find our own standard rope. I glanced at Poker-Face before handing him the carabiner on the other end of my rope.

He buckled it onto his mountaineering belt so that he and I became grasshoppers on the same rope. Then, he attached Fatty’s rope to his belt as well.

He was the only one who could hold the bronze piece, so he had to stay in between Fatty and me. If not for that, he would’ve been the one leading.

Jin Wantang's body was very light now, so Fatty also buckled him with a safety rope and dragged him behind us. With that done, we started climbing using Xiao Hua's safety anchors.

The three of us could only stick very close to each other, so we often needed to add safety anchors to ensure that the three of us had enough pivot room. The three of us hardly spoke, but the only thing in my heart at this time was that one inch of light overhead.

The process was very difficult, but the narration of such a cumbersome activity would be too boring so I’ll skip over it. It took us five hours to climb only a tenth of the way, but I was already sweating all over. I looked down but couldn’t see anything besides complete darkness. When I looked up, however, I saw a dead body buckled to a safety anchor about six or seven meters away.

The body hung there, wearing a modern jacket. I didn't know how this person had died, but I was shocked by the sight and thought to myself, please, please, please don’t be an acquaintance.

That inch of sunlight was still out of reach and didn’t seem close at all. When we climbed up, I shined my flashlight on the corpse’s face.

****

TN Notes:

(1) Shituolin (尸陀林) is also known as “Cool Grove”. It’s a forest burial method that leaves the corpse exposed on like a steep bank in the woods. It can also be called shmashana or śmaśāna in Hindu.

(2) I used the rock-climbing term “free solo climbing” since they wouldn't be using any ropes or protective equipment. It’s just them climbing the rock with their hands and feet. Info on different rock-climbing terms here.