Pursuing Immortality

Xiaojin jumped right into the hole without the slightest hesitation.

The tunnel probably had a vent of some sort, for there was no stale air below; however, there was no source of light, and it was awfully dark. Since Xiaojin could see in the dark, it did not concern her at all. She marched out along the secret tunnel.

It was not wide—just about enough to let a slim person pass. The interior wall was laid with stone bricks on all sides, and the ceiling arched upwards.

To be honest, had this been a relic left behind by Ye Fashan, An Qisheng, or Heshang Gong, she would have definitely acted more cautiously. But since the owner was a mere moneybag of some remote corner of the country, why bother?

Hence, Xiaojin marched out in large strides, advancing resolutely as if she owned the place. There were no traps or defensive mechanisms in the tunnel, and every brick stayed where it should be. About two hours later, she stopped at a stone gate.

The thick and solid door was made out of one big chunk of bluestone. The knocker was also a black tiger head.

“Legend had it that Li Runzhi drafted nearly ten thousand laborers to build his manor. I think I’m beneath the Black Tiger Cliff now.”

She estimated the distance: starting from the stable, the tunnel stretched all the way here, and should take her right into the mountain. She gave the stone gate another look, then pressed her palm against it, and gave it a little push.

Thud!

There was a muffled sound, and dust filled the air. The door then gave way and opened narrowly with a creak.

Xiaojin walked in and saw a square secret chamber containing nothing but dozens of chests, all made from top-grade camphor wood and rimmed with bronze.

She went up to the chests and opened one at random. It was a chestful of bullets.

Holy sh*t!

She blinked, and quickly opened all of the chests, then buried her head in her hands. Damn it! She should have known not to expect too much from a rural entrepreneur!

Well, we had to consider the historical background. Back when Li Runzhi was building his empire, it was right before the modern state was established. The country was carved up by warlords, and the flames of war raged across the land. So, what would he consider the most valuable?

Gold, silver, ammunition, medicinal materials, and crude opium!

Hence, of the dozens of chests, ten were filled with gold bullion, five had various jewelry, twenty contained opium paste that was long past its shelf life and smelt like old urine… The rest of the chests were all dedicated to Mauser pistols, Hanyang 88 rifles, Type Zhongzheng rifles, and a few FN Browning M1910.

“Aaaaaaaaah!” Xiaojin bristled like a pissed off cat, and walked around tugging at her own hair. This was so humiliating! The others found the Seal of Patriarch Sa, Red Sun Sword Manual, and a spiritual ginseng when they went treasure-hunting, so why did she find this crap when it was her turn?

She paced around in frustration for quite a while before calming down. She then picked up a golden bar, and tossed it up and down just for fun.

“Collect antiques in times of prosperity and gold in times of turbulence. So, is it prosperous or troubled times now? We used to have gold standard, but I guess it’ll be spiritual stone standard in a few years. Tsk! This is useless!”

She almost couldn’t be bothered to take anything, but after giving it a little thought, she grabbed her storage bag and took twenty golden bars—maybe they could be used for refining instruments, who knew?

Once that was settled, Xiaojin was going to leave the chamber, but halted abruptly.

‘Hm?’

Turning back and walking to a chest, she stuck her hand in, then grabbed a corner and lifted it up.

Splash!

The jewelry scattered all over the ground, and in her hand was an old book with a yellowing cover. It was printed in the standard form of the Republic of China era (i.e. 1912-1949) with the text going from the right to the left in a vertical typesetting. The title on the front page read: On Dragons.

“…”

Xiaojin squinted; it was hard to tell what was going on in her head. She only put the book away and left the room.

Thud!

The stone gate was closed again, as if it had never been opened.

With the harsh environment of Ailao Mountain now, the Li Family’s manor, the tunnel, and the secret chamber would probably be lost forever in the new world.

***

It was well after dark already. The campsite was brightly lit, and the team huddled together anxiously.

On this mountain filled with mutated creatures, the night was much more dangerous then the day. Even with the circle the patriarch drew them, without her actual presence, they couldn’t help but tremble with fear.

Rustle!

All of a sudden, a shuffling sound came from outside, and the floating Thundercloud Grit began to move slowly. The crowd tensed up, expecting to find some beast sneaking upon them. As it turned out, a young lady flew into sight.

“She’s back! She’s back!”

The team was elated, and even the air felt warmer. Tao Yu went up to her eagerly, and asked, “Is everything all right?”

“Yup. Just go back to whatever you were doing.” Xiaojin waved him off.

“Um, well…” One of the fellows was bold enough to stick around, and asked hesitantly, “Did you find the treasure of the Li Family?”

“Of course I did. I even took a tour around the place.”

‘Wow!’

Everyone froze at the spot at those words, and pricked up their ears for some more. Folks of Diannan all knew about the legend of that treasure, but they’d never expected someone to have actually found it.

Tao Yu was surprised by the new as well, and asked tentatively, “Then, what did you find inside?”

“What else? Gold, a roomful of it.”

Good God! The campsite erupted at those words.

“Haha, I knew it! The treasure is real! The Li Family has lived in Xinping for generations; just imagine the amount of money they’d have plundered!”

“My grandpa said there must have been at least three hundred chests of gold! Hey, what’s the price of gold now?”

“Sh*t! That’ll worth over 100 million!”

“Hey, fairy, have you brought all of it out?”

“Why should I take it?” asked Xiaojin.

“It’s gold! Like, real gold!”

“Exactly! You might think it worth sh*t, but we need it! How about this? Be an angel and take us there?”

The team of workers were carried away by the thought of the treasure. Everyone was yelling in excitement, and forgot all about behaving appropriately.

“Well, about the gold…” Xiaojin glanced at the crowd with a half smile on her face. “If you want it, go find it yourselves. Stop nagging me! Go back to your work!”

Buzz!

Everyone covered their ears at the last few words. A throbbing pain ran through their eardrums, followed by dizziness and convulsion, which took them a long while to recover. A hush then fell over the campsite as fear overtook them for what they had done.

Night, the living quarter.

The drilling went on so that the precise distribution of the deposit could be identified. The sound of the running machine made the campsite quiver slightly. All the workers had been doing this for a long time, and had gotten used to it. The men off their shift were sound asleep, not affected by the noise at all.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

“Come in!”

Tao Yu entered. Xiaojin was sitting by her desk, lying open on which was an old book. She asked, “What is it?”

“Um, I’m here to apologize.” Tao Yu was very humble, and held his head so low that his forehead seemed to be reaching for the floor. “They didn’t mean it. They were just common workers, and got… got carried away at the news of the treasure.”

“Just that? You can leave, then. I wasn’t angry.”

“Then you, you…”

“I told you I’m fine. Now leave!”

“All right. Good night.” Tao Yu obeyed the order in resignation.

Xiaojin pursed her lips and resumed reading. The book was written vertically and in traditional Chinese characters, making it a rather difficult read. She had just finished the first two pages, which was a preface at the beginning.

The author was called Yuan Songzi, a travelling Taoist priest in late Qing Dynasty, and had lived to a very old age. He used to live in Xinping for a while, during which time he was an honorable guest of Li Runzhi.

Yuan was not an expert of any kind, but he loved studying ancient texts; travelling around the country, he was drawn to all kinds of unusual things. This “On Dragons” was a rambling type of book that tried to determine whether or not the creature dragon ever existed through textual research.

Well, presumably no one nowadays had seen a dragon with their own eyes.

The early theory about its origin was that after Yellow Emperor defeated Yan Emperor and Chiyou, he went on an inspection around the country, and called for a meeting in Fushan. A proportion was then taken from the totem of each tribe, then put together, becoming the image of a dragon.

However, as more information on dragons was discovered in the relics of the prehistoric culture, this theory was mostly abandoned.

After that, there was a discussion from the biological angle, which suggested that dragons did have a prototype, only that the ancient people had exaggerated it.

The most influential theory was about snakes. For instance, Wen Yiduo had made textual research to prove that the dragon totem originated from the snake totem. Some others believed the original form to be a crocodile, a lizard, a horse, or even lightning.

The reason lay in the variant Chinese character “dragon”, which was written as a “stand” on the top, and a character that could either be “turtle” or “lightning” on the bottom.

The angle this “On Dragons” took was rather unique, for it tried to explain it through ancient texts and Taoist theories. It was composed rather loosely, but Xiaojin enjoyed it a lot.

Yuan Songzi mentioned the Dragon characters first. Legend had it that during the time of Fuxi ¹ , a dragon rose out of a river, carrying a map. Fuxi then created characters based on the dragon to record events, and named the character Dragon characters.

Later, during the time of Emperor Shun, there were records of raising dragons. “During the time of Shun, people came to pay homepage with a dragon as a present, hoping they could eat it.”

After that, records on dragons were found in all dynasties. The one from the Tang Dynasty was much more detailed. “A civilian called Hu Ju from Tongcheng County of Shu Zhou reported that a blue dragon had fought to death in his courtyard. It was around fifty meters in length, had fish-like scales and fins, with 6-meter-long barbels, and a pair of horns each as long as six meters.”

The record of the Qing Dynasty was detailed enough to give the precise date. “June of the fifty-sixth year (of the reign of an emperor), a red dragon was spotted in Longwang ² Valley of Lü Zhou. It was thicker in the front part, and thinned down towards the tail. The dragon was as long as ten or twenty meters. Grass and woods were burnt as it travelled by.”

The latest sighting happened in the Republic of China era, which was the well-known incident of the “fallen dragon of Mogou Camp”.

Some of the stories were almost mythical, while others were found in actual historical records. Yuan Songzi expressed his view in the most unrestrained manner.

According to him, in the pre-Qin period, when the world of mortal men predominated, the perfected, the supreme, the deity, and the likes often roamed the seas and travelled across the universe on the back of dragons. Back then, dragon was one of the three types of palanquins alongside tiger palanquin and deer palanquin—all were vehicles of great masters.

When the world of men waned, and the world of immortals prospered, the function of dragons changed with it—especially among the common people, who began to deify dragons. It gradually gave rise to the faith in five dragons, that was, the dragons of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

After that, a dragon was used by emperors to raise their own status, who claimed themselves embodiment of dragons, and called themselves “true dragon and the son of heaven”.

As a matter of fact, in the Chinese belief system, dragons were addressed as “dragon gods”, and not “dragon kings”. The latter replaced the former after Buddhism was introduced into the country and combined with local beliefs.

Yuan Songzi believed that from the ancient time downwards, as the cultivators deteriorated in their capability, the grade and virtue of dragons fell with it, for back then, no one treated them as gods; they were mere rides and food…

At last, he categorized the dragons into a dozen types, including Hui Dragon, Qiu Dragon, Horn Dragon, Chi Dragon, Flood Dragon, etc., which looked rather convincing.

All in all, after his not-exactly-watertight demonstration, Yuan Songzi came to a conclusion: dragons came from the essence of heaven and earth, and were born at the calling of Nature; hence, they had to exist.

“…”

When Xiaojin finally put the book down, the sun was rising, and it was early morning again.

Leaning back, she threw her long legs over the desk, and shifted her balance to the back legs of the chair. As the chair swayed on two legs, she closed her eyes and went over the book in her head. Had she found this book five years ago, she would have thought it nothing but a load of bullsh*t.

However, now that she was able to explain it with the theories of spiritual essence… why, it seemed to make sense.