Book 1: Chapter 163


    I had to go down. The space below was neither tall nor short, so I could stand up as long as my head was bowed. The space was less than a hundred square meters and the trunks of those trees were all below, supporting a beam in the middle. The forest was damp and the dark underground area was full of various kinds of bugs that were disturbed when Inded. I swept my shlight around. At first nce, there was a strange shrine-like thing piled up with tiles in the southeast corner. When I looked at it a second time, I saw that there was something on the back of the tiles and the roof was covered in all kinds of crawling insects.


    Other than that, there was nothing in the rest of the space.


    <em>Liu Sang really is urate</em>, I said to myself. <em>He only had to listen to get a clear idea of the situation down here</em>. I carefully moved to the southeast corner and asked him toe down and help.


    Liu Sang jumped down, saw the bugs, and reared his head back in disgust. After carefully observing the whole way, I saw an area on the roof tiles that seemed a little strange. In other ces, there were many tiny bug fists (1) or dirt clumps on the back of the tiles that looked like they would fall to the ground after a little pat. But in the strange area, I saw a circle of bug fists that were already on the ground. If I had guessed correctly, someone had cut them down before and then covered the hole with tiles again.


    I came to the southeast corner and found that this thing really was a shrine that had been temporarily built with broken tiles. The inside of the shrine was full of bug fists, as well as many strange things that looked like spider webs. When I shined my shlight on them, I found that they went very deep inside. I figured there were offerings here before, so countless bugs had gathered here and made it so dirty. I shook my head and asked Liu Sang toe over while I reached my hand in and felt around.


    Liu Sang stood far away and sneered, "The mark wont be in there. My idol isnt that stupid." He then turned around and went to look elsewhere.


    I cursed in my heart, flicked my lighter on, and burned the bugs off before slowly putting my hand into the shrine. Liu Sang spoke up from behind me, "Considering how the tiles have grown into the trees, this ce has a long history. It may be a ce where snake catchers temporarily store snakes."


    "It hasnt been that long since this ce was established as a nature reserve. Before that, snakes were caught casually. Theres no need to make it soplicated. My attention was fixed on the shrine, so I immediately saw something unexpected. It was an old machine that looked like a radio but was much bigger. In fact, it was three times bigger than those tape recorders I remembered from the 1980s.


    This machine was very old and covered in bug fists. I carefully pulled it out and found that it was an old transceiver.


    My hands were sweaty and covered in fists and bugs so I wiped them off on my clothes and looked around. I knew what this ce is. It was an old spy station.


    At that time, after the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan (2), many of the troops who were left behind turned to underground activities. I remembered that ording to the historical records, six teams entered the mountains of Fujian, and countless spy stations were hidden there. This was one of those stations.


    At that time, this ce was deep in the mountains, so there was no need to hide the transceiver. The spies must have lived here for so many years by eating snakes, but I didn''t know whether they had withdrawn or died somewhere outside.


    This kind of hand-cranked transceiver could generate electricity by itself, but the handle was all rotted now. I broke off the transceivers rotten iron box and saw that the copper wires inside were all green and rusty.


    Indeed, the mark wasnt inside. I carefully looked at the shrine one more time and then went back to Liu Sang, who had dug up the ground again. I saw that there were more tiles hidden under the mud at our feet. He lifted the tiles, but this time, he didn''t wait for me and jumped down first. When I followed after him, I saw that there was a warehouse below that was full of rotten wooden boxes. I used my shlight to take a look at the wooden boxes and found that other than some rotten military equipment, they were filled with silver dors wrapped in oiled paper.


    I waspletely stunned. This was either the armys military expenditure before they retreated into the mountains, or it was spy expenses that had been airdropped into the mountains before or after liberation. This was a huge sum of money. When the Silver Dor War in Shanghai (3) was finished, the use of non-government sanctioned silver dors continued for many years. I didnt know how long it took before the renminbi finally came to this kind of valley.


    When we bypassed the boxes, we saw that ayer of wooden boards on the edge of this space had been raised. There were more than a dozen rotten straw mats on them, upon which were a lot of bones. All of the flesh had been eaten by bugs and what was left of the corpses was covered in thick fists. Liu Sang squatted down, scratched a skull with his shlight, and then motioned for me to look at it. There were a lot of holes in the skull that appeared to have been artificially made.


    ****


    TN Notes:


    (1) Fists are abnormal connections between organs. They could also be called ulcerations. An ulcer is a sore on the skin or a mucous membrane. (I don''t really agree with the author''s word choice here but whatev)


    (2) The Kuomintang (aka the Nationalist Party of China or the Chinese Nationalist Party) is a major political party in the Republic of China throughout its historical periods in both the Chinese maind as well as Taiwan. The Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan in December 1949, fleeing the Communist Peoples Liberation Army. Info here.


    (3) Not getting English results, so heres a long note. The Silver Dor War was a financial turmoil that urred in the early days when Shanghai was taken over by the Chinese Communist Party (around May 1949). As some businessmen withrge assets hoped to use silver dor transactions to prevent the renminbi (official currency of China, aka RMB) from entering the Shanghai market and maintain the economy before the takeover, the incident evolved into a confrontation between the Chinese Communist regime and the local national bourgeoisie in Shanghai. In the end, the Chinese Communist regime won and controlled Shanghai''s financial market through tough administrative measures. Link to the Chinese wiki is here.