Of Mountains and Rivers 28
Chapter 28 – There Were Only Four Words in Chu Huan’s Mind – The Withered Tree Revived.
Chu Huan’s question made the other two pause.
The Elder carefully pondered over it. Possibly because he was unable to think up anything and thought it’d be a bit shameful to show his powerlessness, he disdainfully said, “Who knows. Maybe you’re a freak.”
After he finished speaking, he walked out without another word, not even bringing the torch with him – among these three people, the only person who needed light in the darkness was probably Chu Huan.
Chu Huan: “…”
This elderly person turned out to know what ‘freak’ meant; his vocabulary wasn’t as limited as he thought.
But Chu Huan also knew what words to say to avoid embarrassment. Each time he looked at the Elder’s mountain-goat face, he’d feel psychologically balanced – in the eyes of a mountain goat, all humans were probably freaks.
Nanshan coughed awkwardly. “He’s quite old, so his temper isn’t very good.”
“I can tell. To everyone else, he’s moderately bad; to me, he’s extremely bad.” Chu Huan mulled over something for a while. After realising something didn’t add up, he asked, “Am I really that annoying?”
Nanshan: “Maybe it’s because you look good and know what to say.”
…Could it be that old thing liked people who looked scary and talked unsophisticatedly? Oh no, it seemed only Xiao Fang could become his favourite.
Actually, under this kind of context, if anyone else said that it’d sound like a glib, but when spoken by Nanshan, it unexpectedly sounded pedantic, as if it was going to be printed in an important editorial. Hearing it, Chu Huan completely forgot about the gloominess he felt from that old mountain goat and, for a moment, felt completely free from worry.
Chu Huan rubbed his nose. “…I’ve discovered you really know how to praise people. The way you say it is both subtle and pleasant.”
Nanshan: “My A-ba was also a person from your side of the river. Hearing the Elder mention him, you must be feeling that he’s similar to you, right? The Elder is probably directing his anger against him at you. Don’t take it to heart.”
The amount of information in these words was slightly larger. Chu Huan felt he should be angry for suffering in place of another but on another thought… Since it was Nanshan’s dad, then he’ll accept it.
“As for your question, I can’t be certain,” Nanshan said carefully, “but I have a guess. This incident happens to have something to do with my A-ba.”
Chu Huan took off the torch the Elder had hung on the wall. “Alright, we’ll continue outside.”
The stifling cave and the people solidified in time made Chu Huan feel extremely uncomfortable.
As Chu Huan walked, he began wondering – according to Nanshan, did this mean he was trapped in the Liyi Clan?
He still couldn’t accept that the two sides of the river were ‘two worlds’. Although Chu Huan failed in geography when he was younger, he still firmly believed the Earth was round.
However, his limited common knowledge couldn’t explain the not-dead yet not-living people in the cave.
Chu Huan was a laity with very high self-awareness; he didn’t have the habit of looking up at the stars and pondering over philosophical questions. His imagination couldn’t transcend from the acre of land before him. He was a very uninteresting man.
Hence, he couldn’t understand how those ‘solidified’ people felt.
If what the Elder said was true, that they were unaware they’d ‘slowed down’, did that mean they were also unaware they’d been solidified?
To the veterans solidified in the cave, assuming they could recover one day, would they feel as if the entire world had transformed after just a blink of an eye?
The pair silently walked out of the cave and back to the clan.
Since the fog disappeared, the sky above the Liyi Clan was once again clear and filled with the sun’s warmth. The drifting clouds left as suddenly as they came. If one stood still on a distant mountain’s summit, they’d see a cheerful Shangri-la.
But the Shangri-la was filled with restlessness. Let’s not mention the patrolling young men with their serious expression, even the horses who’d gallop all over the mountains could feel the incoming mountain rain; they spontaneously followed the head horse and were gathered near the village. Sometimes, they’d look around with alertness.
Even from a distance, Chu Huan could see the big white horse who’d almost followed him to death in the river, so he blew a long whistle. The big white horse understood human nature and remembered him after suffering together; hearing the whistle, it actually ran over towards him.
Although its leg was still a bit crippled – the wound clawed by the ‘mad dog’ still hadn’t healed yet – a virtuous colt would always be a virtuous colt; it still looked as vigorous as ever.
The big white horse lowered its head and rubbed against Chu Huan’s hand, reservedly acting spoiled.
Sister Spring, who was working in her yard, heard movement and saw the two. Her hands wiped against her clothes cautiously as she bashfully greeted Chu Huan before picking up the axe again and continuing to work. At first, Chu Huan thought she was chopping wood; only after coming closer did he realise there was a row of ‘mad dogs’ lying on the ground, all of them dead, and the bashful Sister Spring was cutting off their heads one by one with the axe.
The ‘mad dogs’ were invulnerable – only a small area on their neck could be cut through. Spring used experienced agility; she’d step on their corpses with her feet before chopping down the axe’s blade towards their weak spots. Each cut was accurate without the need to aim and never once did the blade go astray.
For a moment, Chu Huan wasn’t sure how to evaluate this situation. His heart reached out to Xiao Fang; he couldn’t help but feel sincere admiration for him. He gave Spring a big thumbs up.
Spring raised her hand to wipe off the sweat on her forehead; her entire face was flushed red. Feeling as if she couldn’t speak well, she embarrassedly explained to Chu Huan, “Not accurate… Will- Will (1) roll.”
From the fragmented words, Chu Huan distractedly put together the meaning Spring wanted to express. “If you don’t accurately aim for the neck, will the axe’s blade curve?”
Spring was modest and studious; hearing this, a flash of insight flitted past her expression and she immediately repeated it a few times.
Among the dismembered corpses of the small monsters, acting as though nobody else was present, she began orally correcting her Mandarin, causing an unbidden sense of cruelty to arise from her body.
“The Mutayi's brain and blood can be used as medicine,” Nanshan explained from the side, “so we need to cut and deal with them.”
Chu Huan remembered the unidentifiable bowl of swill the Elder gave him to drink and suddenly paled. “To treat what?”
“Refining their brains into ointment or powder can quickly stop bleeding. You’ve seen it before – it’s the medicine I applied on your wounds before.”
…Fortunately, it’s for external applications.
“What about their blood?”
“Their blood is… Blood…” Nanshan’s expression suddenly turned a bit strange. He uneasily mumbled for a while, the back of his ears a light red. Finally, he explained with an unspoken meaning, “En, their blood has other uses.”
Chu Huan actually immediately understood after seeing his eyes flit away, but he rarely saw such a constrained expression on the Patriarch’s face and felt his heart itch. Wanting to provoke him a little, he innocently asked, “What other uses?”
Nanshan: “…”
The two stared at each other for a moment, Nanshan’s face turning red from the shameless, old hooligan’s gaze. His Mandarin was already poor; when anxious, he’d even forget the words he prepared. His tongue and teeth loathed to separate and stumbled over each other as they disputed. After a good while, he choked out a stammering, “Why are you asking so much? You don’t understand! I- Where was I up to?”
On the inside, Chu Huan smiled brightly as he hugged the words ‘don’t understand’ but on the outside, he honestly replied, “You said my issue had something to do with your A-ba.”
Nanshan found a way out of this embarrassing situation and escaped. “Later, my clan found a way to let outsiders stay.”
The two sat under the big white stone Chu Huan used for his lessons. Chu Huan listened with rapt attention, not interrupting much.
“After that time, every year, when the river’s passage opens and the two shores have connected, we would send people to look around. We gradually began interacting with your people, however, it was said there wasn’t much interaction then; one, because of the language barrier, and two, during the earlier years, there weren’t many people on your side of the river yet. We had to travel very far before we could run into any mountain people here and there, but we can’t do that.
If the Shaking Period occurs and our people are still out there, I’m afraid they’ll go through the same thing as our guests. Moreover, there’s a boundary in the county I picked you up from before. I’ve tried many methods, but I couldn’t get past it. For my clan, it’s like there’s a transparent wall there – so last time, when you asked me to fly a plane to your home… I’m afraid I can’t.”
From just a word or two, Chu Huan could pick up on his lack of spirit. “It’s okay. One day, I’ll ask a friend to deliver some photos. Seeing it is the same as having gone there. What happened after?”
“Then, my A-ba arrived. He alone came to this side of the river with a severe injury. When my A-ma saw him, she asked someone to bring him in.”
Chu Huan stared, immediately realising the main point.
This was the wilderness and was close to the boundary. During the earlier years, there was almost nobody around. Anyone who came close definitely didn’t have a simple identity.
“He recovered in the clan. A-ma had always liked him, but winter was arriving soon and the Shaking Period was approaching – she had to send him away, so she told him the truth. Hearing this, he was very interested. Although he left, he didn’t travel far; he began staying at the other side of the river’s shore. He caught a lot of hares from that side of the river and assigned them numbers. He asked the clans-people to feed them different things. As a result, that year, when the Shaking Period came, all the hares from that side of the river were ‘solidified’ with no exception. Except for one. It secretly ate the Gatekeeper’s bone ashes.”
Chu Huan thought he heard wrong. “Wait, what did you just say? What Keeper, what thing?”
Accustomed to this, Nanshan replied, “Gatekeepers – one of them rode a snake and blocked your way in the middle of the river that day. You’ve eaten their ashes too.”
Chu Huan’s mind exploded and suddenly felt unwell. “When did I eat it?”
Nanshan: “Remember the first time I drank with you? It was in there.”
Chu Huan: “…”
Compared to bone ash alcohol, the Five Poison Wine was just some weak and delicate freshwater.
Seeing how lightning seemed to have struck his face, Nanshan remembered their cultural differences, so he patiently explained, “I know that on your side when someone dies they’ll be cremated or buried in the ground, but it’s different here. Gatekeepers are born from the door and will die before they turn old. Their corpses are very valuable, so, after death, everyone would split them into various medicines. This is nothing surprising. When people die, don’t they all return to the Heavens and earth?”
Chu Huan vexedly glanced at him, not at all feeling comforted by this naturalistic explanation.
Although being eaten by microorganisms after a ground burial or getting carried away by a vulture after a sky burial is all part of returning to the food chain and returning to the Heavens and earth, it didn’t mean he was willing to play the ‘microorganism’ or ‘vulture’ role!
As for the wide gap between their (2) three views, Nanshan no longer continued explaining. He continued, “But later we found out only rabbits could do this. If this was done by a larger animal, say, deers or wild boar it won’t work. He stayed at the other side of the river’s shore for many years and went through countless repetitive trials before he finally fumbled out a method for people on that side of the river to integrate with people from our side of the river. We call it the ‘ritual’.
Chu Huan: “What does the ritual refer to?”
Nanshan: “Changing blood.”
The first thoughts that emerged from Chu Huan’s mind were ‘possibility of hemolysis from blood transfusions between different blood types’, ‘poorly disinfected medical equipment leads to spreading of blood diseases’, and other popular science common knowledge. Then, he realised Nanshan’s ‘changing blood’ was probably different from his understanding.
Chu Huan asked, “Whose blood?”
Nanshan: “The Gatekeeper’s.”
Although he still held doubts behind the concept of ‘Gatekeepers’, Chu Huan now found himself greatly admiring them; this race was simply filled with great, old mountain ginsengs – their entire body was a treasure.
Chu Huan: “But what does this have to do with me?”
Nanshan: “The Gatekeepers’ blood is the only antidote for the Mutayi’s wind poison. You drank it.”
So that time, at the river, the thing Nanshan poured into his throat was…
Within less than a year, he’d actually eaten bone ash and drank human blood. Chu Huan was now beginning to doubt whether the ingredients used in the food he ate in the Liyi Clan were normal; there couldn’t possibly be things like ‘steamed brains’, ‘roasted human liver’, ‘quick stir-fried pectorals’, or something like that, right?
He cautiously and conscientiously carried out official duties and observed the law for many years, yet he somehow became Hannibal. Could one’s fate be any more uninhibitedly fluctuant?
Chu Huan’s throat moved with difficulty, the acid regurgitating in his stomach enough to topple mountains and overturn seas.
“But there’s a vast difference between the amount of blood needed as an antidote and the amount needed for the ritual. The way you look now is also completely different from the way you should look after the ritual. I’m guessing it’s likely to do with the blood and ‘wind poison’ counteracting each other. As for the effect and how long the effect can last for, I cannot tell.”
This time, Chu Huan heard the implications behind his words.
“You’re persuading me to accept the ritual.”
Nanshan: “Watch.”
He took the tiny bottle from his belt and aimed it at a patch of grass on the verge of death; he carefully and miserly poured a few drops onto the grass.
Then, under Chu Huan’s alarmed gaze, from the roots with a speed visible to the naked eye, the dried grass began turning green and tender. A shrivelled branch gradually unfolded and, from the top, bloomed a small, wild lilac flower. The once-dead surroundings revealed vitality that surged like a crane in a flock of chickens.
It was… The kind of vitality that attracted Chu Huan to the Liyi Clan since the very beginning; the kind he yearned for day and night yet could never obtain.
There were only four words in Chu Huan’s mind – (3) the withered tree revived.
“This is the ritual,” Nanshan said.
Chu Huan looked away from the weeds with difficulty. He found his voice had actually tightened. “What is the ritual?”
“Outsiders who accept the ritual are different from us; they don’t need to suffer from restrictions. They can stay in the clan and, anytime the passage is connected, return to that side of the river. However, a lot of blood is necessary for this ritual and it’s also the only antidote for the wind poison. You should be able to understand how valuable it is to us. Mountain Keepers and Gatekeepers have had a blood contract since ancient times – we can use each other’s corpses, but we can never harm anyone alive.” Nanshan continued, “Anyone who accepts the rituals must swear two oaths.
One, accept the blood contract between the Mountain Keepers and Gatekeepers; you must never hurt any Gatekeeper due to greed or any other reasons.
Two, you must stay in the clan forever, never to take a single step away from us.”
Nanshan stared into Chu Huan’s eye. “Are you willing?”
(1) Roll – Sister Spring said ‘卷’ (‘juan’) which, on its own, means ‘roll’. However, what she meant was ‘卷刃’ (‘juan dao’) which translates to ‘curved blade’. This is why Chu Huan asked, “will the axe’s blade curve?”
(2) Three views – I’m not sure if I’ve explained this before, but a general interpretation of one’s three views refers to one’s ‘worldviews’. The specific three views include one’s perspective of the world, their life, and their values.
(3) The withered tree revived – this is actually an idiom which translates to ‘spring came upon a withered tree’, but I was trying to fit it into four words, hence ‘the withered tree revived’. This idiom is used to describe how a difficult situation suddenly improved, but Chu Huan was probably using it in a literal sense.
