Book 1: Chapter 49


    The other two immediately saw the change in my expression and Fatty asked, "What is it? What do you see?


    "Theres a shadow under the water." I looked carefully, but I didn''t dare approach it. Fatty followed my line of sight and squinted at it for a long time, "Wheres the shadow?"


    I pointed to where it was underwater, "Can''t you see it?"


    Fatty moved towards it, but I quickly grabbed him for fear that he would touch it. Its shape looked distortedalmost like a floating corpsebut I knew it wasnt going to be good whatever it was.


    "Look carefully," Poker-Face told me.


    I did as he said and found that there was more than one such shadow floating in the water. There was another shadow in front of the first one I had seen and it looked like a lump suspended in the water. All of them werepletely ck.


    If they were floating corpses that had rotted to the point of ckening, then not only would they have looked like giants by now, but they would''ve had Fatty''s physique no matter how fucking thin they were. But these ck things didn''t show any signs of rotting or bloating.


    "It''s ck. ck all over. More than one. Theres a line of them in the water."


    "ck? Like Kobe (1)? Fatty asked me. "Were there any cks in the Han Dynasty? Could it be a Kunlun ve (2)?"


    "This is a serious situation. Quit talking nonsense!" I said angrily.


    "Wheres it facing?" Poker-Face asked me.


    I pointed in a direction, which turned out to be a water outlet. Poker-Face said, "Don''t touch it. Well follow you. Go in the direction theyre facing." Then he said to Fatty, "Look at him, dont look at anything else."


    I nodded and then led the two of them forward. As I carefully bypassed the ck thing, I asked Poker-Face, What is it?


    He didn''t answer, but his intense gaze remained fixed on me and even Fatty had all of his attention on me. I was too embarrassed to ask any more questions, so I focused on steering us to the water outlet. We soon entered the outlets channel, which was as low as the waterway in the Seven Star Lu Pce. We even had to bow our heads in some ces, indicating that the water level here wasnt very high at ordinary times.


    It was probably high tide outside right now.


    I had to put out the candle every time we went underwater and then it took a long time to light it again. Each time, I was terrified that the candle would never be lit again.


    Those ck shadows were ced at random points in the water along the way. By this time, my hands and feet were numb, and I was so afraid that I couldnt even express my emotions directly. Every time I wanted to stop and take a closer look at the shadows, Poker-Face wouldnt allow it.


    We continued moving forward as fast as the water would allow, but we didn''t know how long we had been walking. Suddenly, the underwater terrain became higher and the water level dropped from my neck to my chest. That was when I saw it. There was a ck shadow in front of me with its head sticking out of the lowered water level.


    When I paused, Poker-Face looked at my expression and immediately said, "Tell me."


    "That thing is out of the water."


    "What is it?" Fatty couldn''t stand the fact that he still couldnt see it.


    The three of us moved forward until I could get a closer look at it. The ck head looked very strange and we could see that the skin was so thin that our green light could pass right through it.


    "That''s a leather paper doll (3)," Poker-Face said.


    I suddenly remembered the legend of the Mute Emperor and how it had said he liked to use paper soldiers and horses for his army. But the army had been blind because their eyes were made of fried sesame seeds.


    ****


    TN Notes:


    (1) Kobe Bryant. He was a famous American basketball yer. He diedst year.


    (2) ck ves from Southeast Asia in the Tang Dynasty. The majority of Kunlun ves were dark-colored people captured in Southeast Asia, and some of them were Africans bought from Arab merchants who captured them in Africa. More info here. Note, the Han Dynasty was like 3 dynasties before the Tang Dynasty. The Han Dynasty was from 206 BC to 220 AD, while the Tang Dynasty was from 618 to 907 AD.


    (3) Leather paper refers to paper made from bast fibers such as mulberry bark and mountain sap. Think of it as a mix of paper and fabric with a leather-like texture.