Meng Qianzi belonged to the type of person who, once lying down, was too lazy to move again.
When Shen Gun told her to switch to the middle, her first reaction was to refuse. She even wanted to scold him: “Who’s the boss here, you or me? If you can’t hear clearly, come closer to listen. Why should I move around?”
But with a second thought, before she could even grasp what this thought was, she got up and completed the exchange with Shen Gun on the trembling branch.
When she lay back down, inexplicably, she felt a bit nervous.
Strange—when Shen Gun was beside her earlier, she didn’t feel anything, as if an old log was lying next to her. She could close her eyes or turn over as she pleased. Now that she had moved to the middle with Jiang Lian added to her right, the right half of her body suddenly felt uncomfortable.
She couldn’t treat Jiang Lian like a log. He was a person, full of vitality, still radiating heat. Yes, people radiate heat outward—isn’t that what snake eyes can “see”?
He was still breathing, inhaling and exhaling, long and rhythmic, slightly moving the rope bed. This heat, this breathing—they were disturbances that made it difficult to concentrate.
She slowly inched away from him, coughed twice, and wanted to continue the topic to distract herself, but forgot where she had left off.
Fortunately, Shen Gun reminded her: “Miss Meng, the water ghost was looking for a substitute, and then?”
Jiang Lian chuckled softly. This laughter sounded right by her ear, very close. Because it was so close, it was different from any other time, deep with an unfathomable meaning. The fine hairs on her arms seemed to suddenly stand up, like tiny magnetic filings attracted by some tension, all trembling and standing on their tips.
She edged closer to Shen Gun’s side.
Jiang Lian said, “The water ghost Miss Meng is talking about should correspond to the mountain ghost, right? It’s also a certain family with many people and many rules.”
Meng Qianzi made an affirmative sound: “The water ghosts are a group of people living adjacent to rivers. It is said their gift is going underwater. Those of the highest rank can breathe freely underwater and stay submerged for a day or half a day without any problems. They don’t need any equipment and don’t care about water pressure, as if they were born to live in water.”
Shen Gun swallowed, his eyes gleaming. Being the kind who couldn’t swim, he envied this ability the most.
“From every perspective, mountain ghosts and water ghosts should be brother sects with good relations for generations. But I can’t explain why the two families seem to have no connection since ancient times. Both follow a saying: ‘Mountain and water never meet,’ which means each goes its way, not disturbing or hindering each other. Over time, contact became less and less. By my generation, many mountain ghosts even think water ghosts don’t exist at all.”
Shen Gun interjected: “Water ghosts should be very secretive, right? I’ve traveled north and south for some years now. I’ve heard of mountain ghosts, but water ghosts… truly never.”
“Exactly. They strictly guard their family secrets, closing their doors and only associating among themselves. China has three famous rivers originating from the foot of the Kunlun Mountains. From north to south, they are the Yellow River, Yangtze River, and Lancang River. Water ghosts are divided by surnames, each occupying one river. They correspond one-to-one as the Ding family, Jiang family, and Yi family.”
Jiang Lian found this strange: “Only three surnames?”
“Yes, so they also have a nickname: ‘The Three Surnames of Water Ghosts.'”
Three surnames…
Jiang Lian slightly furrowed his brow: This seemed impractical. For instance, marriage with outsiders would be inevitable—would they keep the secret even from their spouses?
But there was no time to think carefully, as Meng Qianzi had already continued.
“For a long time, they’ve engaged in a strange profession, similar to providing safes for others, keeping valuables for people, and earning commissions.”
Shen Gun asked curiously: “That’s so laborious! How much money can they earn? Why not fish or pan for gold in the rivers?”
He thought of supermarket lockers, which only cost one yuan per use, and bicycle watchers on the streets who charged fifty cents per hour. Water ghosts really… weren’t utilizing their talents well.
Jiang Lian told him: “They’re probably… similar to Swiss bank safety deposit boxes.”
Mountains and waters, each excelling in their realm: Mountain ghosts had such grand influence, so water ghosts should be no less impressive.
Swiss banks! Shen Gun suddenly understood: That was impressive. All banks worldwide let you deposit money and give you interest. Not only do Swiss banks not only don’t pay interest, but charge hefty fees. Yet wealthy people pay willingly because of the security, privacy, no need to explain the source of money, and no worry about government seizure. Regardless of natural disasters, human calamities, or regime changes, if the account exists, the money remains.
But in the past century, China had suffered numerous catastrophes. Even remote places like Tibet’s plateau had been invaded by the British, and precious artifacts from the distant Mogao Caves had been dug up and transported away by the cartload. Where were the water ghosts’ safes located to be so secure?
Shen Gun had a thought: “These safes… they aren’t built underwater, are they?”
He guessed correctly. Meng Qianzi said, “Yes, they’re underwater.”
According to legend, each of the three families had a founding master, equivalent to the mountain ghosts’ ancestral grandmother. These three masters had, in ancient times, delved deep into the rivers to discover many secretive places suitable for underwater storage. Such places were called “Golden Tang Caves,” implying their purpose of hiding treasures like storing gold broth, and suggesting these places were as solid as a metal vat.
All the Golden Tang Caves of the three families combined formed a “Golden Tang Register.” Placing treasures underwater was called “locking the Golden Tang,” and retrieving valuables for clients when the time came was called “opening the Golden Tang.”
Shen Gun sighed: “This is what they call ‘the innocent man is guilty because he possesses jade.’ There must be many people who would stop at nothing to get that Golden Tang Register.”
Jiang Lian had the same thought: In ancient times, equipment and technology were insufficient, so even those who coveted it were powerless. Now it’s different—all kinds of diving equipment, oxygen tanks, and so on, extending human life and capability to dangerous limits.
Meng Qianzi gave a soft snort: “You’re wrong about that. Getting the Golden Tang Register, knowing where certain wealth is located, is useless. Let me give a simple example: if you learn someone’s address is 10 North Beijing Road, can you find them by going to that address?”
“What if they enter and exit through the door of No. 10 every day but don’t live there? They indeed enter through that door, but after going in, they still have to walk through tunnels, climb walls, cross three streets, and turn through seven alleys before reaching their true dwelling.”
Jiang Lian had a thought: “So you mean the Golden Tang Register indicates a specific entry point on the water’s surface, but if you dive from that point, you won’t find anything, because after entering the water, you still need to navigate a complex route underwater, crossing ravines and gullies?”
Meng Qianzi nodded. She quite enjoyed this feeling of telling stories while lying down: saying a bit, pausing, hearing their questions and opinions, with natural ebb and flow—quite relaxing.
Shen Gun grumbled: “They really go to extreme lengths to hide treasures, being incredibly cautious, not even willing to record the route in written form, just giving a fake address—so is the route memorized?”
Like certain ethnic minorities without written language or books, but with orally transmitted folk songs.
Jiang Lian felt this didn’t make sense either: “Memorizing isn’t secure either. If someone is captured and tortured, the secret can’t be kept.”
Meng Qianzi continued unhurriedly: “That’s precisely the issue. No one knows the underwater route, not even the current head of the water ghosts. The three founding masters left three ancestral tablets, simply called ‘ancestor tablets.’ When water ghosts dive to open the Golden Tang, they must embrace these tablets underwater.”
Embracing tablets? Jiang Lian found this bizarre.
Shen Gun had already exclaimed before him: “Isn’t this… disrespectful to ancestors? Ancestral tablets are meant to be enshrined with incense. Carrying them around like this—isn’t that taboo?”
Meng Qianzi said, “I haven’t finished. Be patient. This is called ‘inviting the founding master to possess them.'”
“After entering the water, they place the ancestral tablet against their forehead, and supposedly they become ‘possessed,’ effortlessly finding the location of the Golden Tang Cave, either to open or retrieve, completing all operations, and finally exiting the water. But afterward, this underwater memory is completely blank to them—they remember nothing.”
“They’ve tried various methods, such as tracking or using underwater cameras for filming, but nothing works. Ordinary people don’t have the water ghosts’ ability to stay underwater for long. If you insist on bringing ten or eight oxygen tanks to follow, the Golden Tang definitely can’t be opened. As for electronic devices—phones, cameras, or recorders—no matter how good the waterproofing is, they all fail.”
After she finished speaking, no one spoke for quite a while, probably all trying to digest and understand.
After a pause, Jiang Lian blurted out: “Possession… does that mean the founding masters’ ghosts are inside those ancestral tablets?”
Meng Qianzi smiled. When she first heard this tale, she had the same reaction, even more direct than Jiang Lian’s.
She had directly asked Meng Jinsong: “There are ghosts in those tablets, right?”
The rope bed shook, making the branches creak wildly. This was Shen Gun excitedly sitting up. Meng Qianzi and Jiang Lian didn’t know Shen Gun well yet, but given time, they would learn that this was the prelude to this “expert” expounding his theories.
Shen Gun said, “Speaking of ghosts, I must explain to everyone what exactly ghosts are.”
Meng Qianzi had never seen someone go off-topic right from the start: “We’re not talking about ghosts.”
“No, no, no, Miss Meng, listen patiently, and you’ll see I’m not off-topic.”
He cleared his throat: “Regarding ghosts, I formed my theory long ago. Of course, it’s not entirely my own—partly borrowed from Newton’s law of conservation of energy.”
Newton was quite a big name, but how did he connect to “ghosts”? Meng Qianzi thought it might be worth listening.
“Ghosts, in my view, are a kind of brain wave, a form of energy. So-called ‘possession’ is merely when this person’s brain waves happen to match the frequency of the possessed person’s brain waves. Ancient China had the yin-yang double fish Taiji diagram, emphasizing ‘all things carry yin and embrace yang, filled with qi to achieve harmony.’ What does this mean? It means all things need yin-yang balance, reaching a state of positive and negative equilibrium.”
Meng Qianzi understood half of what she heard, but Shen Gun had quoted classical texts, which gave her a slight sense of respect.
“Let’s talk about humans. What makes a human? Material and spirit must coexist; body and soul must be together. The body is positive, the soul is negative—neither can be missing. Having only a body without a soul is called a walking corpse. Having only a soul without a body is called… well, whatever it’s called, neither can be considered truly human. In other words, one positive and one negative—either both exist or both don’t. This way, worldly energy can be conserved. This is the flexible application of Newton’s law of conservation of energy.”
Jiang Lian wanted to say something, but held back: If Newton knew how Shen Gun was applying his law of conservation of energy, he would either be pleased or devastated.
“Back to our topic: Does the soul immediately reduce to zero after death? I think not, because the human body doesn’t immediately die completely—there’s still residual bioelectricity. According to the law of conservation of energy, the soul hasn’t completely vanished either; a tiny bit remains because they must maintain conservation with each other. You should know that in ancient times, cremation wasn’t practiced. After someone died, the body was left there, gradually dying completely, and the soul dispersed bit by bit. When was it completely gone? In ancient times, there was a specific term: the seventh day after death. Only after the seventh day did people finally accept that the person was truly gone.”
“So after seven days, everything returns to nothingness. Death is a process, not a moment. Just as human birth undergoes lengthy gestation, human death, I believe, from beginning to complete death, should also be a process.”
Jiang Lian’s skin prickled with subtle tremors. To be fair, he didn’t completely agree with Shen Gun’s theory, but one or two sentences did make him think deeply.
Meng Qianzi remained silent. She thought of Liu Sheng—that throat-slitting cut, from another perspective, might truly be just the “beginning of death.”
Shen Gun continued: “The above is the general pattern. But in this world, anomalies occur. For instance, those who die unjustly or violently—such people’s mental activity before death is especially intense. Even though the body is gone, the soul can last three to five more years, causing a temporary energy imbalance. It’s only temporary, not affecting the overall result. Eventually, this carrier-less, residual brain wave and energy is slowly weakening, becoming weaker and weaker until disappearing.”
Meng Qianzi unconsciously made an affirmative sound.
After speaking for so long, finally receiving a positive response, Shen Gun was greatly encouraged: “So, back to our original topic. Little Lian Lian said the founding masters’ ghosts are in the ancestral tablets… Miss Meng, how many years ago did the water ghosts’ founding masters live?”
Meng Qianzi wasn’t entirely sure: “Should be similar to the mountain ghosts… at least over two thousand years ago.”
Shen Gun slapped his thigh: “Over two thousand years! How did the founding masters’ ghosts solve the energy conservation problem? Unless…”
He threw out his conclusion with conviction: “Their ancestral tablets are problematic!”
“Let me tell you, those are not ordinary ancestral tablets. Very likely, they’re carriers, complex like human brains, capable of holding or even long-term storage of human consciousness. Or maybe they’re embryonic bodies. Anyway, they’re some kind of incredible, miraculous substance.”
Meng Qianzi hesitated: “This… I’m not entirely sure, but according to them, the material of the ancestral tablets is indeed very special. As far as is known, fire, knives, water immersion, etc., cannot damage them.”
Shen Gun became more excited: Indeed! His reasoning was meticulous and detailed—his theoretical level had advanced!
He wanted to take advantage of the momentum to expound further, but felt he had already said what needed to be said. So he lay back down on the rope bed: “Miss Meng, please continue.”
Damn, after interrupting her for so long and saying so much, he still asks her to continue. How could she remember where she left off?
Jiang Lian softly reminded her: “You were saying the water ghosts had to embrace the ancestral tablets underwater but had no memory of what happened afterward.”
Meng Qianzi picked up the thread, organized her thoughts, and continued.
“Although some water ghosts found it strange, it was a method passed down from ancestors that earned them huge payments, so they continued this operation generation after generation.”
“However, starting perhaps a hundred or so years ago, problems arose. They couldn’t open the Golden Tang anymore. In their terms, this is called ‘flipping the pot.’ Flipping the pot is no joke—they help people store valuables and charge enormous fees. If they can’t deliver the goods, the compensation is astronomical.”
“Luckily, the founding masters left words, seemingly having foreseen this occurrence. They said to go to the foot of the Kunlun Mountains, to the source of the three rivers, to find an underground cave that often changes position, called the Drifting Cave. Once the cave was found, everything could be resolved.”
“In the mid-1990s, water ghosts gathered people from the three families, dividing into several teams to explore the Drifting Cave. They conducted a carpet search around the three rivers’ sources. One team, probably over a hundred people, actually found the cave.”
Though she narrated calmly, Jiang Lian still detected some ominous undertone in her voice: “Something went wrong?”
Meng Qianzi sighed: “Yes, that whole team was almost annihilated. More than half died on the spot—reportedly with scorched skin, twisted limbs, even bones growing frantically and piercing through skin and flesh. The small remaining portion, over the next decade or so, all died one after another. None had a good end.”
Shen Gun’s heart chilled: “Was it… Radiation exposure? Or some deadly poison?”
Meng Qianzi couldn’t answer.
“After that, the water ghosts were weakened and quieted down for several years. But you know, such matters can’t be laid to rest without understanding. A year ago, they again headed to the three rivers’ source for a second exploration of the Drifting Cave. Once again, casualties were heavy, and they lost their leader, Ding Panling. However, there was some progress. They discovered strange objects in the cave, said to be made of the same material as the ancestral tablets.”
“Having suffered consecutive devastating blows, the water ghosts dared not act rashly. They only dispatched people to track the whereabouts of the Drifting Cave, claiming publicly that they were conducting geological surveys. A few months ago, a year after the second exploration, a small team stationed at the three rivers’ source perished completely.”
Damn, Shen Gun almost jumped up. He truly felt anxious for these water ghosts: “What’s going on? Why did they die again?”
Meng Qianzi didn’t directly answer: “But an extra person appeared at the camp.”
Shen Gun and Jiang Lian almost simultaneously asked: “Who?”
“The former water ghost leader who had been missing for a year—Ding Panling.”
Goosebumps rose all over Shen Gun’s body: “He came back? Where had he been all year? Living in that… Drifting Cave?”
Meng Qianzi again didn’t directly answer: “Ding Panling was discovered by a local Tibetan who was friends with the people at the camp. That day, he went to deliver mutton to them. According to him, the previously bustling camp was empty of people but had this Ding Panling.”
“Ding Panling told him the camp members had temporarily gone out for a survey, and he was a newcomer staying behind. The Tibetan believed him, left the mutton, and rode away on his motorcycle.”
“After riding for a while, he remembered something he’d forgotten to ask and turned back. This time, there wasn’t a single person in the camp.”
Shen Gun shuddered: “Then, what about Ding Panling? Did he run away?”
“He was dead.”
According to the water ghosts, later, there were signs of intense struggle at the scene, but Ding Panling had committed suicide. All the footprints, scratch marks, and bloodstains came from him. It appeared he had desperately tried to kill himself while desperately resisting.
In the end, he still died—a sharp knife pierced through his throat. Next to a large pool of fresh blood were three and a half characters written with his blood-dipped finger.
Those three characters were: “Find Mountain Ghost.”
The half character was: “Bang.”
“Bang” is the top part of the character “help,” so there was a high possibility it was an incomplete “help” character, as in “help me.”