Three Letters of Water Ghosts… Three Surnames of Water Ghosts, three family names?
Zong Hang couldn’t help asking: “Are you… a water ghost?”
She didn’t seem like one though. While her appearance was somewhat ghostly, weren’t ghosts supposed to be incorporeal, footless, and floating around according to legend?
To be safe, Zong Hang glanced at Yi Xiao’s feet.
Confirmed – she had them and was wearing the cheap slippers provided by the hotel.
Yi Xiao ignored him and continued: “Since ancient times, people lived off mountains if they dwelt by mountains, and off water if they lived by water. Countless people lived along these three great rivers, with all sorts of surnames, including ordinary people named Ding, Jiang, and Yi. But I’m talking about the extraordinary ones among these three surnames.”
“Naturally, they divided themselves by rivers – the Dings lived along the Yellow River, the Jiangs never strayed from the Yangtze River basin, and the same went for the Yis, who followed the Lancang-Mekong River downstream. Wherever there was water, they were there.”
Zong Hang’s heart suddenly jumped.
He suddenly remembered something.
Ding Xi’s surname was Ding, and Yi Sa’s surname was Yi.
After rescuing him from the lake, Yi Sa mentioned “sitting water” when talking to Ding Xi.
At the crocodile pool, Yi Xiao had said his “sitting water” was no longer a problem, and what remained was “breaking crocodiles.”
Also, in the floating village, Ding Xi had shot at him, and later he understood: he had no grudge against Ding Xi – Yi Xiao must have been the target.
All those inexplicable encounters of these past days, the chaotic people and events, suddenly seemed connected by a thread.
Zong Hang swallowed, his heart beating rather hard: “The three surnames, do they not get along? Like…”
He wasn’t sure if this comparison was appropriate: “Like the Three Kingdoms?”
Yi Xiao was silent for a moment: “Not exactly.”
She didn’t continue, and Zong Hang knew better than to press. “This is abroad, are there Yi family members here too?”
“Yes, when the Lancang River crosses the border, the Yi family follows the water.”
“Then since you’re also surnamed Yi… do you know them?”
A trace of mockery flashed through Yi Xiao’s eyes: “After hundreds and thousands of years, do you know how many people these three surnames have? Who could know them all? Besides, those patrolling the river here are just some local small fry, not worth my attention.”
Zong Hang felt a bit annoyed – how precious were her standards?
But Yi Xiao paused here, and after a while asked him: “Do you know what they do?”
Zong Hang stayed silent. He didn’t understand Yi Xiao’s problem – why couldn’t she just tell the story? She always had to occasionally ask him questions, create some interaction, encourage him with “It’s okay, tell me what you think,” and then call him an idiot after he answered.
But when he didn’t respond, she wouldn’t continue.
Zong Hang had to offer his opinion: “Fishing…”
No, “water ghost” sounded creepy.
“Retrieving corpses…”
Thinking of novels and movies he’d seen: “I’ve heard some people especially dive for sunken ships to make money…”
He thought these three guesses were quite reasonable – whatever the profession, to be sustainable and long-lasting, it had to feed people.
Wasn’t it said that all the world’s bustle was for profit? Without profit, why bother with all the trouble?
Yi Xiao sneered: “People like you have such limited imagination.”
Sure enough, he was looked down upon again.
“Do you know about Swiss bank safety deposit boxes?”
Yes, he did. Those wealthy people, when considering where to place their assets, all thought that was the safest place. It was said to be the world’s most secure bank, and also a haven for criminals. In every police movie, once they said “the money was transferred to a Swiss bank account,” it seemed there was no hope of recovery.
Zong Hang remembered Zong Bishing once mentioned “opening an account” during a dinner table chat, but Tong Hong had said: “With your little money, don’t go embarrass the Chinese.”
Yi Xiao said: “To hide valuable things, you have several choices: sky, ground, underground, and underwater.”
“The sky – forget about it, that’s for immortals.”
“On the ground, you can build houses, walls, put things in boxes, whatever you can think of, but it’s hard to guard. There’s killing and robbing, wealth comes and goes.”
“Comparatively, underground is better. Bury something in the ground, if you don’t tell, generally no one knows. Add some mechanisms and traps, and the barrier is even higher. But it’s not without risk – just as there are tomb builders, there are tomb raiders. In some imperial tombs, no matter how fortified, people can still dig in. Then there are earthquakes, urban development, all potential hidden dangers.”
Zong Hang couldn’t help asking: “So the best is… underwater?”
Yi Xiao nodded: “Underwater has its risks too, like earthquakes, course changes, and drying up. But over these thousands of years, through countless earthquakes, have you ever heard of the Yangtze or Yellow River disappearing? The Yellow River often changes course, but these changes are mostly just the river’s tail swinging – the main flow has never completely changed.”
A profound smile appeared on her face: “Moreover, water has one advantage.”
“That is, people can move about on land because there’s air, and underground is barely manageable – even if you encounter poison gas, find a way to clear it, you can still breathe. But in water alone, they cannot survive.”
This was true. Zong Hang thought of his swimming instructor: though he could swim very fast, he could only hold his breath underwater for a few minutes at most. Even with an oxygen tank, he could last at most an hour or two, and couldn’t go too deep because of water pressure. Going deeper became terrifying, they said it was pitch black, with flashlight beams barely reaching anywhere.
When reading “The Grave Robbers’ Chronicles,” he thought the most difficult part was the underwater tomb. They were lucky that although the tomb was built underwater, the inside was dry and people could breathe. Otherwise, that little oxygen couldn’t have sustained such a long story.
Yi Xiao said: “Anywhere without people has no troubles, and underwater is unpopulated, so it’s peaceful and safer. It’s not that no one has thought about meddling underwater, but it’s not only extremely expensive but also inefficient.”
“In business, having what others don’t is the way to dominance.”
Zong Hang was dumbfounded: “So, you do underwater… this kind of work?”
“We do fish sometimes, and when we see pitiful cases, we’ll retrieve corpses, even help choose water burial chambers. But these aren’t our main business.”
“Our main business is helping people hide things underwater, or you could call it custody. Each deal is extremely valuable – after all, it wouldn’t be worth the trouble for just a box or two of gold and silver. Storage periods range from decades to centuries, according to the client’s wishes.”
Zong Hang was stunned: “Then… how do you make money? Do you lend it out? Pay… interest to them like banks do?”
Yi Xiao laughed loudly again, this time very smugly.
She said: “Use your brain. Think back several hundred years – how many chaotic times has China gone through? How many wealthy families were robbed and destroyed overnight, not even a copper coin left? We help them avoid human disaster and survive the chaos, and we should pay them interest?”
“We only collect money, we don’t pay! No matter how much gold or silver mountain you have, want us to manage it? Give us thirty percent.”
“Don’t come by the deadline, wait until after midnight, and thirty percent becomes fifty percent. But we’re not absolute – we give you a ten-year extension. Don’t come in ten years, it’s all mine.”
Zong Hang stammered: “But in chaotic times… many people, even if they saved money, later with all the fighting, natural and human disasters, they all died. What if everyone died – then it all becomes yours?”
Yi Xiao didn’t speak.
But her eyes gave him the answer.
What else? Just like dormant bank accounts, doesn’t it all go to the bank?
Hundreds of years ago, people probably wouldn’t store paper money underwater – it would all be gold, silver, antiques, and other hard currency. Their value has skyrocketed now – no wonder she could casually produce a persimmon-sized gold nugget.
Thirty percent becoming fifty percent, then becoming everything – compared to this, fishing, retrieving corpses, and salvaging sunken ships were hardly worth mentioning. Indeed, his imagination had been too limited.
Zong Hang suddenly thought of something: “You mentioned the three surnames of water ghosts, and living along the great rivers – there must be quite a few of you. Do you ever default on agreements?”
What if only a widow and orphan remained, coming with proof of contract, and you drowned them to keep all the property…
Yi Xiao gave him a cold glance: “Your father is a businessman after all – didn’t he teach you anything?”
“In business, you might make a few years’ profits through cheating, swindling, and passing off fake goods as genuine, but if you want to last long, without real ability and without ‘credibility’, how could you survive for hundreds or thousands of years?”
“Besides, would the three water ghost surnames bother with such petty gains? Do you have any concept of what kind of business we handle? Have you heard of Zhang Xianzhong’s Sunken Silver at Jiangkou?”
This he had indeed heard of.
Finally, something he knew about – Zong Hang perked up.
During the late Ming Dynasty, Zhang Xianzhong, one of the rebel leaders, established the Daxi regime in Chengdu. He was said to have accumulated countless treasures through pillaging and killing. He had originally planned to follow Liu Bei’s example of ruling Sichuan, but when the Qing army advanced south, he saw the situation was dire and arranged to move his wealth, probably planning to change his identity and abandon warfare to live the rest of his life as a low-profile wealthy man.
This transferred wealth reportedly filled thousands of ships and was sunk near Jiangkou, but Zhang Xianzhong never made his escape – he was surrounded by Qing forces and died from arrow wounds.
A children’s rhyme was passed down, supposedly revealing the treasure’s location: “Stone ox faces stone drum, gold and silver fifty million true, whoever solves this riddle through, could buy all of Chengdu.”
This legend attracted countless treasure hunters throughout history.
Officially, the Qianlong and Xianfeng emperors both sent court officials to organize river workers to salvage Jiangkou but achieved nothing. During the Republic era, the Sichuan army also conducted a grand salvage operation, with no results.
Privately, before liberation, someone named Ma Kunshan somehow obtained a map of the sunken treasure. Overjoyed, he established the “Jinjiang Gold Mining Company,” hired many workers, and even purchased advanced equipment like metal detectors. After spending much time and effort, they only retrieved three baskets of small copper coins, nearly making him cough blood in anger.
After liberation, inspired by the rhyme and legend, many people secretly tried their luck underwater with beautiful dreams, but all came up empty-handed. Some began to doubt if it was just a legend.
In 2016, with approval from the National Cultural Heritage Administration, underwater archaeology officially began at the suspected site. In 2017, over 10,000 cultural relics were recovered, with invaluable worth. It seemed that in 2018, they would even build a Jiangkou Sunken Silver Museum open to the public…
Only when the news broke did countless people begin to marvel: this legend was true!
Zong Hang got excited: “Was Zhang Xianzhong’s case your doing?”
He couldn’t help wanting to praise them: it was amazing – from the late Ming Dynasty until now, several hundred years, even emperors couldn’t dig it up, showing how well it was hidden…
But Yi Xiao responded stiffly: “We refused it.”
“If we had done it, would there be so many leaked details? Would people even know the location? Would it be salvaged?”
“Zhang Xianzhong massacred Sichuan, a major river region. Many Jiang and Yi surname people died by his hand. With such heavy bloodshed, we wouldn’t take his business. Besides, time was tight, and silver isn’t worth much – it’s heavy, too troublesome to handle, so we didn’t accept.”
“In his desperation, he used various means to get some peripheral information, copied poorly, built dikes to block rivers, did some ‘gold locking,’ carved wood to hide silver, sank it at Jiangkou…”
“The result, you now know.”
He did know, but there was still one most important question.
Zong Hang felt nervous: “Being able to live underwater like me, that’s called ‘sitting water’? Can all three water ghost surnames do this? Is that how you complete such big projects, hiding things underwater?”
He didn’t know what he was now, but if there were many people like him, he would find it easier to accept.
Some kinds of “uniqueness” were hard to bear – even shared suffering was worth celebrating.
Yi Xiao smiled.
The paper was useless now. She tore it into strips, lifted the toilet lid, threw them in, and flushed.
She said: “There you’re wrong – very few can do what you do. While everyone in the three water ghost surnames must learn ‘sitting water,’ whether they can sit for a minute, an hour or a day is up to fate.”
“It’s said our ancient ancestors could stay underwater for days and nights, even fought giant crocodiles… They could do what others couldn’t.”
She spoke meaningfully: “You might think it’s an exaggeration, a made-up legend, but we three surnames believe it absolutely because we’ve seen it with our own eyes. In each generation of the three surnames, one true water ghost will emerge.”
“We use ‘seven trials eight tests’ to select – seven trials for women, eight tests for men. There are many selection stages, but, from the first ‘sitting water’ test, the result is already clear, no suspense.”
“We call the chosen one a water ghost. To put it crudely, you could think of it as ‘atavism,’ because they’re different from others – they’ve inherited the ancestors’ abilities.”
At this point, she glanced at Zong Hang: “Don’t overthink it – you’re not one of those.”
Zong Hang forcibly swallowed what he was about to say.
“The three water ghost surnames have always operated in secrecy. In ancient times, our business was only known among noble families, with few civilian records. After liberation, even fewer knew about us. Besides, in today’s society, no one would use this method to hide things anymore.”
“In our professional language, we call the hiding places ‘golden pools,’ because while it’s all water, these spots are valuable, glittering with treasure. The ‘golden pools’ of all three surnames combined make up a golden pool manual, which water ghosts must memorize completely.”
“These past hundred years or so, our job has been ‘opening golden pools.’ Whichever great river holds the golden pool, that family’s water ghost leads, though opening pools are dangerous, so water ghosts from all three surnames must attend to help.”
“If successful, the leading family takes the majority share, and helpers all get a portion – that’s the rule. If unsuccessful, it’s called ‘pot flipping,’ but interestingly…”
Her smile suddenly took on an eerie quality: “The last few times have all been pot flipping.”
Zong Hang was curious: “What happens to you when the pot flips?”
Yi Xiao stared at him, her words making his hair stand on end.
“I became like this, you became like this, all because of their pot flipping.”