Chapter One: Strange Rumors of Old Events

  When I received news of my grandfather's death, I was in Hunan.

  Several days of continuous rain made this rescue excavation even more urgent. After hastily handing over my work, I boarded the last train back to Northeast China at 2 am.

  My grandfather was a man of few words, with an extremely eccentric personality, but he showed me great care and affection. When I chose to major in archaeology in college, the only one who supported me was my grandfather. In fact, Grandfather wasn't naturally cold-blooded, he just wasn't good at expressing his emotions. The generation he lived in wasn't like today's, it was full of repression and despair.

  It was a particularly cold winter, and Grandpa's family sat together sharing a pot of rice porridge. No one spoke up, but everyone knew in their hearts that there was nothing to eat.

  Grandfather lowered his head and poured the last mouthful into his mouth. "Dad, I'm going out tomorrow, can you lend me that shotgun?" The whole family didn't say a word, the house fell into silence, the firelight reflected on everyone's face with a dazed expression.

  "After a long silence, it was Grandfather's brother who spoke up and said 'I'll go with you'. Afterwards, no one else said anything more, they rested early and left in the horse carriage at dawn."

  When the Japanese army occupied Northeast China, they collected a lot of supplies and stored them in warehouses. Everyone knew where they were, but no one dared to touch them. In today's understanding, it's like having your phone confiscated by the teacher and placed on the podium - you can see it but don't dare move it. But when people are desperate, they can do anything. In the face of hunger and cold, the guns in the hands of the Japanese devils were not that terrifying anymore.

  The later story is not as exciting as the one on TV, and there was no plot of a farmhand turning over a new leaf by singing. Grandpa was discovered before he could take action, and not only did he fail to steal any grain, but he also lost the horse cart. And grandpa's brother remained forever in that snowy land.

  When Grandpa spoke to this point, his eyes flickered with an emotion I couldn't understand. For me, it was just a story, but for Grandpa, it was an unforgettable memory. It was a knot in his heart that he couldn't let go of, and also the helplessness of that era.

  My father is a live-in son-in-law, in Northeastern dialect it's called "reversed door". So when I was young, our whole family lived in my mother's maiden home. My maternal grandfather was the village head, so having one more person to support was just like adding another set of chopsticks, and we ended up living there for ten years.

  My mother once mentioned to me that on the day I had my full moon banquet, a tattered old monk passed by our door begging for alms. My grandmother believed in Buddhism, so she invited the monk into our house and treated him with several vegetarian dishes as a guest.

  The monk, upon learning that the banquet was prepared for my birth, said: "Since I can enter your esteemed mansion today, it means that I have a predestined relationship with this young boy. As the saying goes, 'those who come together in harmony must have a deep affinity.' May I be so fortunate as to meet this young donor?" Granny naturally did not refuse and led the monk to the inner hall.

  After entering the house, he hadn't even sat down yet when he saw his grandfather puffing on a dry tobacco pipe on the kang.

  Grandfather asked Grandma about the reason and got up to welcome the monk to sit beside me. The monk looked at my grandfather, his eyes became thoughtful, and his expression was no longer as relaxed as when he first came. The monk closed his eyes and recited a sentence of "Amitabha", Grandma asked for the reason, but the monk did not answer, only turning the prayer beads, closing his eyes tightly, and muttering "sinful, sinful" in his mouth, it's really creating karma. Everyone in the house was confused and looked at each other in dismay.

  "You, a monk, come to my house for alms, and I treat you with good food and drink. But you say such unlucky words to me. My grandson has just turned one month old, what sin does he have, how can he be guilty?" The grandfather was annoyed by the monk's words. However, the monk said "Donor, please calm down, my words are not aimed at the child, but at you."

  "What? What sin have I committed now?" Grandfather's anger did not decrease.

  "Benefactor, your eyebrows are connected at the center, a sign of being upright and just for the people. However, the red mole on your eyebrow is a flaw. This feature brings harm to others but not to yourself. Yet it can easily ruin your life's uprightness. Listen to my advice, benefactor: you have no affinity with water, so from now on, the farther away you are from water, the better."

  The monk looked at me, who was still fast asleep, and said: "This child was born in the fourth month of the lunar calendar, with a five-element destiny of earth, specifically mountain-top soil, which can fill up the sea. If there's ever any misfortune that befalls you, this child will help your family escape disaster. My Buddhist name is Yuanhui; if you have any needs in the future, you can seek me out at Qingfeng Temple."

  "Don't spout such nonsense, I, Sun Wu, have spent so many years bringing benefits to our hometown. Not everyone may admire me, but at the very least, no one has ever spoken ill of me. Do I look like someone who would harm others? What a huge joke!"

  The monk shook his head helplessly. 'Whether you believe it or not, I won't tell you the specific reason, but remember what I said today: you have no affinity with water, don't get involved with water in this life, and don't harm others.'

  Grandfather looked at the full house of villagers, in a fit of anger, disregarding Grandma's obstruction, drove the monk out. Back inside, still fuming, he kept saying that the monk was talking nonsense.

  Grandma said while pouring tea: "My old man is just that kind of stubborn temper, but he's not a bad person at heart, I hope the master will forgive him."

  The monk shook his head and said, "I wouldn't take it to heart. It was wrong of me to say such things on a joyful day." Grandma asked anxiously, "Master, what did you mean by the words you spoke inside just now?"

  The monk lowered his head and said, "What I've said today is already considered a revelation of heavenly secrets. If anything happens in the future, you and your family shouldn't blame yourselves too much. This is everyone's fate, and I can only advise but not stop it." After finishing speaking, the monk left. Grandfather didn't allow anyone to mention this matter again, saying it was nonsense and not worth paying attention to.

  Later, my grandfather named me with a single character "Yi". When I grew up, I liked to study Feng Shui and National Studies, only then did I know that the character "Yi" belongs to the earth element, mountain head soil.

  This was a small episode after I was born, my mother just mentioned it casually, and the family didn't take the monk's words to heart. Until that year, Grandpa built a reservoir at the foot of the mountain behind our house. This reservoir became Grandpa's lifelong regret and the whole village's nightmare.

  Due to the terrain, the snowmelt on the mountain flows in all directions and cannot be used for irrigation or stored. The village also lacks a large water storage pool, resulting in the villagers of Grandma Village having to eat coarse grains all year round.

  In those years, nutrition was not keeping up, and women's milk was not enough for the children to drink. There was no milk powder, and children could only eat coarse grains with adults, occasionally a few times were fine, but eating coarse grains all year round, the small intestines and stomachs of the children couldn't digest it at all, so there were always children in the village who didn't live to be a few years old. This matter had always been Grandfather's heartache. From the first day he took office, Grandfather had always been thinking about how to let the villagers eat fine grains.

  One day, Grandpa was smoking a dry cigarette and took a detour from the foot of Maoer Mountain on his way home. Suddenly, he made a decision. He wanted to build a reservoir at the foot of Maoer Mountain.

  Speaking of which, I have to mention Mao'er Mountain. Mao'er Mountain is located at the northernmost part of the village. In the 1960s, with a single order from the state, the tombs were flattened and the land was returned to the peasants. Mao'er Mountain became one of the first pilot areas for reform.

  Then, a rumbling dump truck drove into this quiet village.

  Two days later, the excavation team filled back the excavated soil and hastily left the village, never to be seen again.

  Later, it was said that when the first shovel dug down, a green smoke rose from the ground, and everyone looked intently to see that there were over a hundred green snakes entwined and coiled underground, making onlookers' scalps feel numb.

  "Somebody in the construction team said, 'Just fill it up and forget about it.' A kid who was watching pointed at the hole and said, 'Dad, what's that under the snake's belly?' Everyone shifted their gaze to the snake. Under its belly, they saw an organ that didn't belong to a snake - claws!"

  The snake had actually grown claws, which was a sensational event at the time. In folklore, snakes were called small dragons, symbols of majesty and sacred existence. The villagers did not agree with the flattening of graves, but no one dared to stop it because of the national order. Now, after the flattening of graves, a snake with claws appeared, and all sorts of mysterious legends about Maoer Mountain were spread out in an instant.

  Finally, the matter of leveling the graves was settled, and Mao'er Mountain became a legendary sacred mountain guarded by divine spirits.

  This thing happened many years ago, whether it's true or not is no longer investigated. However, according to my mother's memory, when I was a child playing on the mountain, I often unintentionally kicked beautiful ceramic shards, most of which were exposed after filling graves that year.

  So this legend of the green snake may not be true, but the mystery under Maoer Mountain is unlikely to be absent.

  The villagers strongly supported Grandpa's plan to repair the reservoir. However, when Grandma heard about it, she remembered what the monk who had been invited to pray for my health on my full moon day had said, and tried her best to stop Grandpa. Grandpa scolded Grandma for being superstitious and having a twisted mind, insisting that he would go ahead with the repair of the reservoir. The whole family took turns trying to persuade him, but still couldn't change his mind. In fact, Grandpa wasn't without worries, it's just that he couldn't let those groundless sayings affect the villagers' lives, thinking about those children who were still in diapers, Grandpa steeled himself.

  The reservoir was finally located on the north side of Maoer Mountain, and it was named Maoer Mountain Reservoir.

  Then, planning, allocation, commencement, in just a few short months, the reservoir was officially completed. On the day of completion, Grandfather became the big hero of the whole village, and all the villagers, men and women, young and old, were talking about it, because thanks to Old Sun's efforts, the village could finally eat rice. And so, Grandfather was praised for a while.

  It's like summer food, after a long time, it will slowly go bad. And this rotten smell, Grandpa started to sniff out slowly after a year...

  One night at midnight, Ye Hua's mother came knocking on my door. She hadn't seen Ye Hua since dinner time. I thought he had gone to play at the neighbor's house, but as the night wore on and he didn't return home, she went out to look for him. After searching for several hours without finding any trace of him, they started to get anxious. Grandfather put on his coat and brought a few young men from the village to go out and search for him.

  Autumn in Northeast China is as cold as early winter. After circling around the village, a group of people shivered and climbed up the mountain.

  The village is not big, as my father said, you can walk around the whole village with a cigarette. So there aren't many places to look for him. Everyone was shining their flashlights on the mountain and loudly shouting Ye Hua's name.

  Four or five hours had passed, and there was still no progress. The sky gradually turned white. The hazy dawn enveloped the mountains and forests, and everyone felt extremely tired. At this time, someone shone a flashlight at the center of the reservoir at the foot of the mountain and stammered, "Village, village chief, is that... is there someone?"

  The deceased was indeed Ye Hua, who had been found in the water after more than ten hours. He wasn't unrecognizable, but his skin had turned pale from soaking. Ye Hua's mother wailed uncontrollably in front of the body, and everyone in the village felt a pang of sorrow. Ye Hua was only seventeen when he died, and he had been an excellent student, widely regarded as a promising college candidate - now all gone, leaving people struggling to come to terms with it.

  Now that I think about it, Ye Hua's death is very suspicious. Why did he go to the remote reservoir alone in the middle of the night? If Ye Hua had fallen into the water by accident, according to his mother, he couldn't swim, and there was no wind that evening, so how could his body be found in the center of the reservoir? These points made Grandfather think hard but still couldn't figure it out.

  In the end, this matter could only be treated as an ordinary slip and fall incident. Before all the villagers had recovered from this incident, another incident occurred, making it impossible for Grandfather to treat it as a coincidence.

  There was a quarry behind the village, where Li Yang and Zhang Wuzhong worked. Although the work was not easy, they earned a good daily wage. One day after finishing their shift, Li Yang and Zhang Wuzhong rode their bicycles home. As they passed by the reservoir, Li Yang suddenly stopped his bike and stared intently at the water. Zhang Wuzhong shouted several times, but Li Yang didn't respond. Zhang Wuzhong got annoyed and said "If you're not going, I'll go" and started to ride away. Just as he pedaled a few steps, Li Yang behind him suddenly burst out laughing loudly, his laughter echoing over the reservoir, making the surrounding darkness even more eerie. Zhang Wuzhong cursed "You turtle grandson, are you trying to scare me?" As soon as he finished speaking, he saw Li Yang ride his bike towards the reservoir. Zhang Wuzhong watched in shock as Li Yang struggled in the water, quickly rode back to the village on his bicycle, and called for people to come and rescue him.

  After Grandfather brought people over, Li Yang had already stopped breathing. What was strange was that his death pose was exactly the same as Ye Hua's. Head down, floating in the middle of the reservoir.

  Rumors spread quickly in the village, and what the monk said on my full moon day was also passed around. Grandfather became the target of public criticism, even being considered an unlucky person. Some people said that Grandfather was a water ghost's minion, and that he built the reservoir to offer sacrifices to the water ghost. The position of village head was taken away, and if it weren't for those who had worked with Grandfather before pleading on our behalf, our whole family might not have been able to stay in the village. Grandma fell seriously ill at this time and soon passed away. The blows from these events left everyone in the family reeling, as if we were cursed. Grandfather felt wronged, thinking that he had worked hard for the villagers his whole life, only to end up like this. He thought it was all his own fault, saying "Heavenly punishment can be forgiven, but self-inflicted punishment cannot be survived." This time, the guilt is too great.

  The surface is calm and peaceful, but in reality, the undercurrents are surging. When you think things can't get any worse, the next second will make you realize how ridiculous your previous self was. It's like a ball of yarn, once you start unraveling it from the beginning, you have to keep going, otherwise the rest remains a tangled mess.

  After the two accidents, things did not stop there, but spread at a more terrifying speed. There is a saying in the folk that as long as someone drowns in the water, the water will become greedy and then seek to eat more people, and its appetite will get bigger and bigger. The villagers were nervous all day, let alone appearing near the reservoir, they didn't even dare to go out of their doors.

  Even so, there will still be people who disappear one after another without any reason and are later found drowned in the reservoir.

  Grandfather began to believe what the monk said and regretted his past actions.

  In my memory, one day my grandfather left home in a hurry and didn't come back until three months later. After returning home, he told my parents to pack their bags and take me away without saying another word. He said we should leave this place as far behind us as possible and not set foot in the village again before his death. Although I didn't know why, seeing grandfather's tense expression, I didn't ask any more questions. My parents took me with them and bid farewell to my grandfather before leaving the village that night.

  This trip is exactly twenty years.