Ji Yuan tried to sleep, but the more he wanted to sleep, the more he couldn’t. It had been so long. Ji Yuan, who was usually optimistic, had already been brought to despair by loneliness.
“Rumble…”
A loud roll of thunder suddenly sounded, startling Ji Yuan.
Listening to the thunder in this blind and immobile state gave Ji Yuan an unprecedented feeling, as if he were in the sky feeling the dance of the thunder.
This mysterious feeling was like lightning penetrating his heart, sweeping away his fear, anxiety, depression, and confusion, and making him calm.
“Plik, plik, plik…”1
It didn’t take long for the rain to start falling.
Ji Yuan’s eyelids trembled, and he listened to the raindrops falling around him, hitting the ground, rocks, flowers, and plants.
Time seemed to slow down at this moment.
“Pat…”
“Pat…”
“Pat…”…2
Drops of rain smashed into leaves and ground, transmitting sound.
The cracking of raindrops caused ripples in the darkness of Ji Yuan’s heart, each ripple an outline of the source of the sound. Thousands of ripples formed a picture of leaves, treetops, ground, rocks, houses, rubble, flowers, and rain. The outline of fleeing animals and everything around him slowly formed in his mind along with the sound of rain.
There was no color, but the image was three-dimensional and vivid, as if Ji Yuan himself were touching everything on the earth with every drop of rain.
As the rain fell, he could listen and form a picture of the whole world!
It was an indescribably mysterious experience. Ji Yuan forgot all the irritability, he even forgot to breathe, and quietly realized that the closer things were, the clearer they would sound, and the farther they were, the more blurred they would be.
‘So I was really still in the mountains. It seems I am lying in an old dilapidated house. Is it a ruined temple? The heavy rain came so suddenly, and I can sense many small animals running away in a hurry… It’s so beautiful! ’
Although he still couldn’t move and or open his eyes, there was a faint smile on Ji Yuan’s mouth.
The anxiety in his heart was relieved, and this unusual hearing also made Ji Yuan wonder if he had actually gained a benefit from that chess game.
After a short while, Ji Yuan’s heart was lifted: he finally heard the sound he had been waiting for.
. . .
In the mountain rain, a group of people carrying large covered baskets walked hurriedly. The style of basket somewhat resembled the bookcases of ancient scholars to traveled to study and take exams, with a large cloth cover, though these were noticeably much larger.
Ji Yuan couldn’t make out their full appearance,3 as he could only hear where the raindrops fell, so he had an image in his heart of the human body, limbs, baskets, and hoods, but the faces were hazy.
It wasn’t just the big baskets that made Ji Yuan feel a little puzzled. Some of these people were wearing raincoats, while others were not. It didn’t look like any modern rain gear at all.
“Hurry up, hurry up, everyone, follow me, the mountain temple is in front!!”
“Watch your step, the mountain road can be very slippery on rainy days!”
“Follow me, we need to go to the mountain temple to shelter from the rain and make a fire, hurry up, hurry up!”
…
Some people in the crowd kept reminding everyone to be careful, some people urged everyone to speed up, and some would stop to see if the people behind them had caught up.
After leading the group around a few big trees and an upright rock, the first man finally spotted the mountain temple close at hand.
“Everyone, keep going, the mountain temple is right here. Check if anyone was left behind!”
“Everyone is here!”
“Hurry up and enter the temple, the mountain rain is too cold!”
The group quickened their pace as they spoke and rushed into the mountain temple.
“Huh! The rain is so crazy that I almost drowned!”
The leader was a man with a short beard, soaked to the bone with water dripping off of him like everyone else.
After shaking himself off and turning around, he counted his group one by one. There were 12 people in total, no one was missing.
“Everyone, put the goods over there. Liu Quan and Li Gui, take out the charcoal, let’s make a fire!”
“Okay!”
“It’s drier on that side, let’s go over there!”
“My clothes need to be dried by the fire, I didn’t have time to put on a raincoat.”
A group of people moved the baskets, others stacked the firewood to make a fire, and another group simply swept the dirt off of the dry ground.
They were a group of traveling merchants. It was normal for them to climb mountains and difficult terrain, and it was common for them to encounter bad weather, so they always made sure to prepare dry firewood, charcoal and other things in their baskets to deal with this kind of situation.
The leader’s name was Zhang Shilin. His parents had originally hoped for him to be a scholar and bring glory to the Zhang family. However, he was not fated to study, and his family fell into decline. In order to provide for his family, he began working as a merchant.
As a team leader, he had a heavy responsibility to look after the safety of his entire team, but there were also some benefits. For example, although everyone was busy at the moment, Zhang Shilin could take a moment to relax and stretch,4 and no one complained. Everyone knew that Zhang Shilin was a good and qualified team leader.
The mountain temple was not very big, only a few feet in width and depth, but the walls beside the entrance were still stable. No rain leaked inside except for near the cornice at the entrance, but the main doors had long since collapsed and disappeared, letting the cold wind blow through the space every so often.
The inside of the mountain temple was even more dilapidated, with spider-webbed cracks and beast excrement scattered about. The incense burner and candlestick on the incense tabled had been overturned, and there were no remaining tributes. Even the statue of the mountain god was missing its head.
“Hey, it’s a good thing this temple is still here. If it collapses at some point, there will be one less place to stay in Niu Kui Mountain!”
Ji Yuan silently listened to the footsteps and conversations of these people.
It turned out that he was in a mountain temple in Niu Kui Mountain? Was it a slip of the tongue, or perhaps Niu Tou Shan pronounced with a heavy dialect?
It seemed that these people must be travel companions,5 seeing as they carried things like those baskets, but at least they were definitely not kidnappers.
But the sound was obviously coming from very close, and the temple wasn’t that big. He might be in some corner of the temple, otherwise they would have noticed him by now.
“Ah, Brother Shilin, there’s someone here!”
Hearing the exclamations from nearby, Ji Yuan breathed a sigh of relief in her heart. He had been found! The next step would be to call the police for help and send him to the hospital. They should be able to save his life.
Hearing the shouts, Zhang Shilin hurriedly walked around to the other side of the statue of the mountain god. Sure enough, he saw a person lying on the floor behind it, with some of his merchant company gathered around the body.
The man lying on the ground was motionless with his eyes closed, sporting an unkempt face and ragged clothes. It was unclear whether the man was dead or alive.
The young man who first spotted the beggar took a step closer, squatted down, and touched his forehead.
“Brother Shilin, this beggar is still alive, but his forehead is so hot, what should I do?”
What should I do? Are you crazy? Call the police!
If it weren’t for the fact that he couldn’t speak or move right now, Ji Yuan would have cursed. He hadn’t yet noticed the fact that these people were calling him a beggar.
Zhang Shilin frowned, then sighed.
“He is in the wilderness, this beggar may not be able to survive for much longer. Let’s give him some hot water and see if he can drink it. What a cruel world!”
“Hey…”
“Let’s go, let’s make a fire…”
The merchants shook their heads and sighed, and walked away one after another.
Wait, wait!What are you doing? Why are you going away? Call the police!
Are you leaving me here? No!6
These people’s reaction was completely different from Ji Yuan’s expectations, making him both confused and panicked…
- 哗啦啦啦 onomatopoeia: sound of rain falling, lit. “la, la, la” ↩︎
- 啪嗒 more rain noises, the rain getting harder. ↩︎
- The original is “hear their full appearance” which reads a bit awkwardly despite being accurate to how JY perceives the world, so I modified it while still trying to keep it accurate to the idea. ↩︎
- Lit: “rub his shoulders and relax” ↩︎
- Lit: “donkey friends” 😀 ↩︎
- 不是吧？不是吧! ↩︎
