Chapter Ninety-Four: The Painting

Lighting the oil lamp was the same as making one last desperate gamble: either that little ferret had not repaid kindness with malice and meant to kill me after all, or the lamp would burn through the last of the oxygen, and if no one came to save Li Qing and me, the two of us would suffocate together in this cave.

I had meant to steel myself and wait for the outcome, but my vision grew increasingly dim. Listening to the mysterious woman chanting her sutras, I once again felt that dreadful sensation of my soul peeling away from my body, as if something in that song were summoning it, forcing it to leave me by sheer violence.

I closed my eyes. In all my life, this was the first time I had ever felt death so near.

In a daze, I felt something strike my face. Then the whole ground seemed to tremble, as if an earthquake had hit, but I had no strength to open my eyes and look. I could only instinctively curl my body so the falling stones would not smash my handsome face.

I do not know how long I slept. I was jolted awake by pain in my arm. When I came to, everything around me was pitch-black. In the darkness, I felt something small tugging at my sleeve. By then I was utterly drained, but my hand drifted to the flashlight that had fallen to the ground. I switched it on and saw the little ferret anxiously gripping my sleeve in its teeth and shaking it over and over, as if trying to wake me.

I looked around and saw a huge boulder blocking the space in front of me, with other stones scattered all around. One of them had crushed my leg, and it was nearly numb by now, but when I took a deep breath, I found that breathing had become easy again. That suffocating pressure was gone. That meant there was oxygen in this cave now, and it was even possible that a passage to the outside had been opened.

“Li Qing!” I shouted.

“I’m here! My leg’s pinned between two rocks. I’m trying to figure something out,” came Li Qing’s voice.

In my half-sleep, I had no idea what had happened, but it truly seemed like an earthquake. There was a rustling noise from Li Qing’s side. After a while, I heard him bellow in fury, followed by the sound of stones rolling away. Once he stood up, he dusted himself off and came over to me. He moved the rock that had crushed my leg, then dragged me out from the narrow gap between the boulders. Once I was finally free and saw the place where I had just been trapped, cold sweat nearly broke out all over me. If not for that huge stone bracing itself directly in front of me, I would have been smashed to death by the falling rocks. Now I only had one injured leg, which was, in truth, luck within misfortune.

At that moment, the little thing leaped onto my shoulder, tugged at my collar, and motioned for me to look left. In fact, Li Qing was already looking. The giant boulder above us still had not shifted, but the stones around the cave had collapsed away, as if from a cave-in, revealing blue bricks and large tiles beneath. Where the little fellow wanted me to look seemed to be a stone door. On either side of the door stood what looked like two people.

“What is this thing? A tomb? Are those people or statues?” I asked Li Qing.

He nodded. “Seems like it. Who knows? Want to take a look?”

“Of course. We’ve already died once. What’s left to be cautious about? Come on, let’s go see.”

I was about to move when Li Qing stopped me behind him. “You’re a walking pit of trouble already, and now your leg’s gone lame too. I’ll go first.”

It had to be said that this time, on the mountain with me, Li Qing had indeed been thoroughly devoted to the task of protecting me. On several dangerous occasions, he had put himself in front of me.

I stood where I was and watched him head over there. Then I suddenly noticed that the little fellow perched on my shoulder was trembling all over. When I looked at it, I found it was indeed staring toward that stone door, its face tense with fear.

“Little one, you know what’s inside, don’t you?” I asked.

It nodded, then shook its head, chittering wildly and gesturing again. I patted its little head and said, “Don’t be afraid. It’s fine. And don’t waste your effort either; I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

By then Li Qing had already reached the two human-shaped things. He circled them once, then waved to me. “Come over. They’re stone men. Lava beasts.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. I could understand stone men, but what was a lava beast supposed to be?

Still, I limped over. The little fellow seemed to be very frightened of this place. It jumped down from my shoulder and hid in my arms, using its front paws to pull my collar up over its eyes. It looked utterly ridiculous. Once I reached the other side, I shone the flashlight on them and saw that they were indeed two stone carvings, not some fierce yaksha, but more like the terracotta guardians of an imperial tomb. They stood on either side of the door like gatekeepers.

Li Qing reached out and wiped the dust from the door. To our surprise, there were carvings on it as well. On the left door panel was an elaborately dressed ferret, attended by a crowd of servants. It sat on a ritual platform, and beneath the platform many people knelt. Because the carving was so lifelike, I could even make out that the worshippers below came from all walks of life: peddlers, farmers, hired laborers, and well-dressed gentlemen alike. Each and every one of them wore a look of reverence, as though listening to the ferret in robes expound the scriptures.

The right door, compared with the first, was much more complex. It was more like several scenes linked together. Taken as a whole, it meant that the robed ferret from the left panel had died. Beneath it, a great many people and ferrets knelt weeping. After that, a funeral was held under the direction of several ferrets dressed in human clothing. Dozens of sturdy men pulled and carried a stone coffin, seemingly giving the preaching ferret its final rites. In the next scene, the stone coffin and the mourners had reached the riverbank. The river there roared in tumultuous waves, and above it stood twelve towering peaks, with twelve arched caverns among them. Then many people used ropes to hoist the coffin onto a great ship. The sails were set full, and the ship was heading straight for those twelve ghost caves. Yet the final small image puzzled me greatly, because in it everything had returned to the exact same scene as on the left door: once again, the robed ferret was standing there preaching to the crowd.

“Did they carve this wrong or what?” Li Qing asked me, looking bewildered.

I shook my head, my eyes fixed on the two doors as I kept studying the information carved into them. I pointed at the final small image on the right panel and said to Li Qing, “It looks the same, but it isn’t. It’s still the same ferret preaching, but the listeners below have changed. Some have, and some haven’t.”

“What the hell? Didn’t it die and get buried? How is it back out there preaching again?” Li Qing asked, baffled.

At last I had found someone even dumber than myself. I said to Li Qing, “It’s actually easy to understand. If I’m not mistaken, this place is a temple to the Great Yellow Immortal, or at least it has something to do with it. What these carvings are saying is that this old ferret spirit had attained the Dao. Put the two doors together, and the meaning is that there was a Great Yellow Immortal here, with many followers and disciples far and wide. The locals all believed in it deeply. But then this Great Yellow Immortal died, and everyone was devastated. Ferrets and humans alike saw it off. Afterward, under the presiding of the elder ferrets, the Great Yellow Immortal was placed in a stone coffin and carried into the twelve ghost caves to be buried. Look at that final image. At first glance it’s confusing, but actually it’s the key to the whole story. After being buried in the twelve ghost caves, the Great Yellow Immortal came back to life and kept preaching to everyone. That’s what it means!”

For some reason, I suddenly felt a surge of excitement. Although this carving was about a ferret spirit, it had unquestionably resolved the long-standing confusion that had weighed on me for so long.

From this carving, it was not hard to see.

The ferrets believed that burying the dead Great Yellow Immortal in a stone coffin inside the twelve ghost caves would allow it to rise again.

That may not have been true. Many religions weave tales of resurrection and rebirth.

But I still felt that, dimly and uncertainly, I had grasped something.