Of course, after more than five thousand years of Chinese civilization, many of the places with good feng shui have been taken. There are only so many dragon meridians, after all, and even with all the varieties—flying dragons, crouching dragons, hidden dragons, and so on—we’re stuck, at least until the landscape itself changes by way of earthquakes, floods, or landslides.
I explained all this to Kai and Gold Tooth, and we ended up chatting in the restaurant for hours. By the time we were done, we’d made arrangements to close the market stall for a few days while we headed off to Shaanxi to see what we could find.
Although this involved a trek from Beijing, it wasn’t like we were going to some remote location in the middle of the desert, so we wouldn’t require much equipment. We caught the train to the Central Plains, where we had initially decided to visit Li Chunlai at his home. At our destination, however, we heard that there had been an unusual amount of rainfall that year, and the resulting floods from the Yellow River had washed up quite a few ancient tombs. This seemed like an opportunity too good to miss, so we changed our plans and decided to go west along the river instead.
This involved a long bus ride to Gulan, our nearest crossing point. The bus broke down halfway, delaying us another four or five hours. Our driver took us a little farther after that, then said, “It’ll be dark by the time we get to Gulan, and the ferry will have stopped running. Why don’t you get off here? The river’s narrow at this bend, and you can usually get a boat to bring you across, though it isn’t an official crossing place.”
This sounded like a better plan, and we’d save a day that way. So the three of us got off the bus, a decision we regretted almost instantly when we saw how remote the place was. There wasn’t a soul in sight. With the bus gone, however, we had no choice but to walk to the river and hope for the best.
We heard the roar of rushing water some distance away, and when we actually got to the bank, our eyes widened. So much for the river narrowing! Maybe because of the flooding, the waves were high, the water full of churning yellow mud, rampaging along at high speed. If there had been a dock here, it had certainly washed away.
As we waited, dark clouds rolled overhead and it started to drizzle. We were lightly dressed, and while Kai and I weren’t doing too badly, Gold Tooth was starting to shiver. He cursed the bus driver under his breath.
The rain grew heavier as the day dragged on, and soon everything around us was gray. Rain blurring the outlines of the landscape, and the river raged away. I screamed into the emptiness. It felt good to let out all the frustration, and there was no one around to bother anyway.
Still more time passed. Gold Tooth, Kai, and I huddled together for warmth, though it didn’t do much good. I had begun to think we might freeze to death, when the blast of a horn cut through the air. We turned to see a boat rocking its way toward us. Leaping to our feet, we waved frantically, but the boatman shook his head just as vehemently.
We weren’t about to let this boat go by after all that time—who knew when the next one would come along? Kai got out our wad of money and waved it at the boatman, and that seemed to do the trick. He tacked to a spot a little ways ahead, where the water was calm enough for him to dock safely.
Kai went over and began negotiating. It turned out the boatman was on an urgent mission to deliver spare mechanical parts to a larger vessel marooned downriver. He had only been sent out in these conditions because the situation was so dire.
The crew consisted of the boatman and his young son. We agreed to pay them double their usual fee if they brought us to Gulan on the opposite shore.
The cabin was completely taken up with mechanical gear, so we had to stand on deck. At least we had gotten a ride, and could look forward to finding a hotel in Gulan where we’d thaw out under a warm shower and grab a bowl of the local specialty: piping-hot buckwheat noodles.
With the river going as fast as it was, we made good progress. Then, just as we were discussing what else we might do for dinner, there was a tremendous jolt, as if we’d hit something underwater. I almost bit my tongue off.
Rain was still pelting down, and lightning sliced through the dark clouds. The boatman rushed toward the bow to see what had happened. The water was so deep here it was unlikely to be a rock, and any floating debris would have been carried along by the river at the same speed as us, so we couldn’t have crashed into it. Before he got there, the boat swayed again, and we clutched the nearest railing, terrified of being plunged into the water. A wave splashed over us, and we all got a mouthful of yellow mud.
I’d been getting drowsy, but this woke me up. I looked up front to see the boatman crouched against the side. He looked panicked. Who was steering? I rushed over and tried to pull him to his feet, calling out, “What’s wrong? What did you see?”
“Old Man River,” he whimpered, pointing at the water. “He’s come for us. He’s going to take the boat.”
The boat was shaking more violently than ever, and Kai and I struggled to the bow to see for ourselves what the boatman was talking about.
Suddenly, water sluiced across the boat again, spinning it horizontally across the river and flinging Kai to the deck. Lucky for us, this was a modern motorboat—if we’d been on an old-fashioned wooden one, it would have fallen apart by now.
Grabbing hold of Gold Tooth, I yelled to ask Kai what the boatman could have seen in the water.
“No idea!” he yelled back. “Something big and dark, maybe the size of a truck.”
“Get your shovel!” I shouted. “Whatever this thing is, we have to stop it. If it keeps ramming us, we’ll capsize for sure!”
Kai wound a rope around his waist and then around mine so we wouldn’t fall overboard. When the boat stabilized, we hurried to the side that seemed to be under attack and peered over the edge. It was pretty dark by then, and the rain was still pouring down, so we only caught glimpses of the murky water when lightning brightened the sky. There was definitely something there, but only a little mound protruded above the surface. Was it some sort of aquatic creature? The next time it charged, I took aim and swiped at it with my shovel, but the handle wasn’t anywhere near long enough.
The impact sent me over the railing, my shovel flying into the river. Luckily, Kai grabbed hold of the rope and pulled me back, or I’d have plunged into the water.
Stumbling to my feet, I bumped into the boatman, who was still crouched in a ball of fear. I shook him by the shoulders. “Turn the boat around!” I shouted. “If we don’t get out of here, we’ll all get killed—you and your son too.”
The boatman was superstitious and had got it into his head that if Old Man River was attacking us, then we had no choice but to wait quietly for death. But mentioning his son propelled him into action—he would have accepted his own doom, but his son was worth fighting for. Shakily, he rose to his feet, then yelled, “It’s coming back!”
I looked to where he was pointing. The boat’s lights happened to illuminate the creature now, and I saw it clearly for the first time. It was dark green, plunging in and out of the water, at least as big as a truck, rampaging around the boat in a bid to sink us.
With no time to look more closely. I shoved the boatman into the cabin, and as he made for the wheel, I noticed a pile of long metal pipes. Calling Kai over, I handed him an armful and took some myself. Hurrying back out, we flung them like javelins at the creature. I had no idea how many direct hits we scored, but after a dozen or so poles had disappeared into the water, the creature seemed to take the hint and glided away.
The rain started to let up. Gold Tooth had tied himself to a post, though he’d been flung about as the boat moved. He still clutched his travel bag for dear life, which was fortunate, as it contained all our cash. I told him to hang in there, that we’d soon be at a hotel with nice warm showers and a hot meal.
The boatman’s son was lying in a corner, ble
eding from the head. Fortunately, we were almost at Gulan and could send him to the hospital as soon as we docked. Already pinpricks of light from the town were appearing in the distance.
Just when we thought the disturbance was over, something else hit the boat, with several times more force than before. Unprepared, we once again ended up on the deck. Kai grabbed a rope, while Gold Tooth and I caught hold of his belt and legs. “Don’t rip my pants!” Kai cried as the boat careened wildly to one side.
I wanted to go back to the cabin for more metal pipes, but we were shaking so violently it was all I could do to keep from being flung overboard. I’d be lucky if I made it through without getting my head smashed in.
As we rose and fell, water flooded the deck, and we got another drenching. Frantic to get his son to the hospital, the boatman was pressing his vessel full steam ahead, never mind if Old Man River or the Dragon King had other plans.
The Yellow River is full of turns. After passing the Dragon Gate, it zigzags all the way to Gulan, where the waterway straightens a little. As we came around the final bend, whatever was pursuing us suddenly gave up, and we shot away from it.
The lights of the town were brighter now, right up ahead. We moored by the dock and finally found ourselves on solid ground again. Kai paid the boatman the agreed price, with a little extra for what we’d been through, and the dock workers helped get the boatman’s son to a hospital as quickly as possible.
CHAPTER THREE
Gulan’s history can be traced back to the Shang period, while its city walls are from the Ming dynasty. Despite its long history, the town doesn’t have much of a reputation, and few people ever visit. The three of us looked like drowned rats as we wandered around until we found an inn. We got lucky—they had only an hour of hot water each day, and there was still thirty minutes of it left.
After we each took a good shower, we felt restored. We went down to the inn’s dining hall and ordered bowls of spicy noodles that warmed us from the inside. Halfway through our meal, the cook came over to ask if we’d come from Beijing.
I could tell right away that he didn’t have a southwestern accent. He told us that his surname was Liu, and he was originally from Beijing, though he’d been in Gulan for some decades now.
Mr. Liu said he’d seen us come in and wanted to know how we’d ended up in such a state. I told him about our encounter with the giant underwater creature, and he replied, “I’ve seen it too. The water level is high this year, and when that happens, these creatures appear. I can show you a spot to get a closer look, if you like.”
“What on earth was it? Some sort of turtle spirit?” Gold Tooth asked.
Mr. Liu shook his head. “It’s a type of big fish, that’s all. Folk around here call them iron-headed dragons. Sailors say they only show up when the water’s high. That’s why they call them Old Man River—they think they’re transformed from the river itself.”
“That’s quite a story,” Kai said skeptically. “How big is this fish, anyway?”
“Big! Let me tell you, the time I saw one of these, there was a flash flood, but then the water retreated just as fast. The iron-headed dragon was marooned in the shallows. Lots of superstitious people around here said it was the Dragon King and we had to return him to his home, but before we could move it, the fish died. People were burning incense and praying on the riverbank, hordes of them. I saw the body when I came along to join the villagers.”
“Could you describe the fish?” I asked.
“Huge. Seven layers of green scales. Its head was black, and harder than iron.”
“Sounds like a small whale,” Kai said. “How could something like that exist in a river? Really bizarre.”
“What happened next? Was the iron-headed dragon buried, or did it get eaten?” I asked.
Mr. Liu chuckled. “Not eaten. It was so ancient its flesh was practically fossilized. It was just left on the side of the bank in boiling-hot weather and began to rot in less than a day. You could smell the stench miles away. It was awful. So eventually we decided to hack the flesh off and burn it, then tossed the bones in the mud.”
“That’s a shame,” Gold Tooth said with a sigh. “If you could have gotten it to a museum, plenty of people would have wanted a look at it.”
“True! But no one dared—we were too afraid the Dragon King would swamp us with a flood, or worse.”
“Mr. Liu,” I said, “would the bones still be scattered on the riverbank after so many years?”
“You can still see them, but not on the riverbank. After we burned the flesh and organs, we were discussing what to do with the bones when a visitor arrived from a distant province. He looked like a merchant of some kind, a spiritual man. He handed us a bunch of money and said we should build a Fish Bone Temple at Dragon Ridge, not far from here.”
“Fish Bone Temple?” said Gold Tooth. “There’s one in Tianjin—fish bones as rafters, the fish head as the door. It’s used to worship the Dragon King.”
“In Tianjin?” I repeated. I hadn’t heard about it.
“That’s right,” Mr. Liu said. “The merchant often traveled over water, and he thought he could keep himself safe at sea by paying for this temple. It wasn’t large, didn’t even have a courtyard, just the same as any old Dragon King temple. So we used the bones for the structure, and its skull became the door. An altar with a statue of the Dragon King, and we were done. Whenever someone got sick or there was a drought, people would go there to pray. The funny thing is, if you prayed for rain, you’d end up wishing you hadn’t—it would just get drier instead. So after a while, people stopped bothering. As for the merchant who paid for the whole thing, he never showed up again.”
“And the temple’s still there?” I asked.
“Yes, but it’s been neglected for some time. The Dragon King statue crumbled away after a couple of years. People said the merchant must have had an impure heart, or else he’d committed some awful sin, so the Dragon King wouldn’t accept his offering. Besides, the temple’s right in the heart of Dragon Ridge, and it’s such a troublesome trek that no one wants to go all the way out there. You should go have a look.”
“What’s there to look at?” Kai asked with a smirk. “The three of us almost became fish food. I think I’d rather stay away.”
Gold Tooth caught my eye, and after a quick discussion, we agreed to spend a day or two resting, then go see this Fish Bone Temple at Dragon Ridge. A giant fish skeleton had to be worth something. At worst we could get some museum to buy it, which would cover the expenses of our trip.
Seeing how Mr. Liu was the talkative sort, I suggested that he sit with us for a bit. It was a chance to ask if he happened to know of any old tombs around these parts. He told us that old graves kept being uncovered by the floods, mostly from the Song dynasty. There wasn’t much worth taking, though, just moldering bones and broken jars.
The most precious object found was during a drought year when the Yellow River was so low you could almost see the riverbed. While clearing silt from the banks, some townspeople came upon three monkeys made of metal, each weighing hundreds of pounds. They scrubbed them clean and found them to be gold-plated and covered with exquisite patterns. To this day, no one had any idea what purpose they served. Some people said they were Tang dynasty demon catchers, others that they were sacrifices to the river. They had been carted off to a museum.
“And what of the tombs themselves?” I pressed him.
“Oh, you’re into old things like that,” Mr. Liu said thoughtfully. “It’s a shame you weren’t here a few years ago; there were plenty then. Almost all gone now. Not just regular collectors—the government turned up too, more than ten times.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Speaking of which, an old man once told me that Dragon Ridge has a Tang dynasty tomb, a pretty big one. In the last year or two, plenty of grave robbers have shown up, but no one’s been able to find
it. Too many hills around Dragon Ridge, and the tomb’s hidden too deep. Hard to say if it even exists. Just rumor, maybe. Anyway, no one’s ever set eyes on it.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Some of the things Mr. Liu told us struck me as strange. Why was the Fish Bone Temple, a temple dedicated to the Dragon King, in the hills? Surely it ought to be by the riverbank, where the Dragon King lived.
And he’d said the temple wasn’t large—which was odder still. Was it worth going to so much trouble to build something small? Could there really be a spot on Dragon Ridge with such good feng shui?
When he mentioned the big Tang dynasty tomb, I was even more intrigued. Then something clicked in my brain, and I laughed silently. What if the real objective of all this was the tomb? In other words, was this “merchant” actually a reverse dipper who had built the temple as the perfect cover for secretly tunneling into an underground burial place?
That didn’t make sense, though. Dragon Ridge was deserted—you could go there and probably not run into a single person. But if this tomb was buried so far down that you couldn’t get to it in a single day, then the villagers would have grown suspicious to see the merchant hanging around the hills. Hence the ruse with the temple. It all fit.
I had to see this for myself. It was the only way to be sure if this reverse dipper, this predecessor of mine, had found this rumored Tang dynasty tomb. I asked Mr. Liu for detailed directions.
“Fish Bone Temple’s on the side of Dragon Ridge,” he said. “It’s fine to have a look at it, but definitely don’t walk any farther into the hills. It’s dangerous there. Lots of sinkholes covered in a thin layer of earth. Take one step and you’ll plunge in so deep you’ll never get out. That’s because it’s full of limestone caves, a whole warren of them. People talk about getting lost in the Dragon Ridge tombs—and just like the sinkholes, if you get stuck in one of those caves, it’ll be your grave. And they say to beware of ghosts too. Just take my word for it and stay away.”
The Dragon Ridge Tombs Page 3