Chapter Twenty-Seven: Gold

Wildman Village was an isolated place, and so was its news. Ever since the three of us carried a tiger down the mountain, no one dared underestimate us again. Besides, Old Man Miao’s word was law here, so our status naturally soared. Fatty was a whiz with machinery; he managed to repair an old, broken generator, and for the first time, the whole village was lit up. Wenbin was steeped in poetry and literature—sometimes he’d even read fortunes for the village kids, giving off the air of a learned little teacher. As for me, I might’ve seemed like a tagalong, but I had a silver tongue—whenever I saw an elder, I’d call them uncle or aunt without missing a beat. All in all, we educated youths enjoyed a good reputation and solid relationships in Wildman Village.

Armed with this goodwill, Fatty went door to door, shamelessly borrowing every piece of rope he could find. By this point, the whole village was curious—who wouldn’t want to know what lay beneath the depths of that mysterious pool? Besides, Fatty had let it slip that there was a treasure cave down there and that anything found would belong to everyone. That was all it took for the brigade secretary to fire up the loudspeaker and rally the villagers.

We’d gathered nearly every usable rope in the village, short of taking the belts off the men. Miao Lan led the women in weaving a soft ladder. The pool was so deep that everything beyond a dozen meters was pitch black. The brigade secretary made an exception and collected the only few mining lamps from the commune for us. To guard against any mishap, Fatty even borrowed a hunting rifle from Old Man Miao. By the time we’d finished preparing, it was already noon.

The weather wasn’t great—it was overcast, and not just us, but a few other village youths wanted to come along, too. Fatty managed to scare them off with a mix of bluster and threats. The pool’s edge was crowded with villagers, the pumps still chugging, occasionally bringing up water, though the flow had slowed. The pool was so deep and nearly dry now; perhaps the bottom was in sight. We were like soldiers setting out on an expedition—Fatty waved goodbye to the villagers as Wenbin and I followed him down.

We had no safety ropes, no protective gear, and to be honest, our only goal was to catch a few fish—proof of just how naïve we were back then. I carried a fish basket on my back, Wenbin had a landing net, and we climbed down for half an hour before finally reaching the bottom. Looking up, we could only see a circle of light no bigger than a bowl above our heads. For the first time, I understood what it meant to be a frog in a well.

It was nothing like I’d imagined. There was only a thin layer of silt, barely covering our shoes, and the water was just ankle-deep. The pump’s hose still lay on the bottom, occasionally bubbling. With our mining lamps, we explored the underground world, which wasn’t as bad as we’d feared—a space of just over twenty square meters, the whole area visible at a glance.

Fatty immediately demanded Wenbin’s net, sweeping it through the water as he searched the floor. After one circuit, he was thoroughly disappointed.

With such a small space, and all of us with sharp eyes, we didn’t see a single one of those big fish—seven or eight pounds each—that we’d often seen surfacing. Not even a minnow. After all that effort, had we just climbed down for nothing but a frog’s-eye view?

Fatty swung the net through the water, stirring up nothing but a thin layer of mud. Hanging his head, he muttered, “Damn it, this is too weird. Where did the fish go?”

I pointed to a few holes in the corner still trickling water. “They went into the tunnels, obviously. What else?”

Fatty crouched by the openings, gauging their size. “Where does this water come from, I wonder? Could these tunnels connect to an outside river? Maybe we pumped the water dry, and the fish just swam out through these channels.”

It seemed our days of effort had been wasted. “That could be it,” I agreed. “Otherwise, how do you explain the missing fish?”

Wenbin suddenly spoke up, “Do you think all eighteen pools might be connected?”

Fatty paused, then replied, “Who knows? If they really are, we could just pump them all dry, one by one, and the fish would have nowhere left to go.”

“I have a feeling this place was made by hand,” Wenbin said. “Look at the grooves on these stones—some are deep, some shallow. They don’t look like they were made by water. And this layout almost looks like a room.”

Prompted by his observation, I looked closer and realized he was right. On the east side were two neatly cut stones that resembled stools, and in the middle, a long slab that looked like a bed. But aside from these, there was nothing else. If this really was a manmade chamber, there should have been some clues left behind—some markings, maybe. But we searched every inch and found nothing.

We came back empty-handed. The onlookers, seeing Fatty covered in mud, joked, “General Shi, you planting rice down there in the fish pond?”

But who could out-talk Fatty? “Planting rice? Not at all! I’m telling you, there really is treasure down there—but this treasure has legs. It ran off, slipped into the next pool.”

Someone asked curiously, “What kind of treasure?”

Fatty, putting on a show, pulled the man aside, whispered a few words, glanced around conspiratorially, then clapped him on the shoulder and said loudly, “Brother, you have to keep this secret—too many people knowing would be a problem.”

The three of us swaggered off, leaving that man surrounded by villagers eager for news.

That fellow was a real storyteller. Even though Fatty hadn’t told him a thing, by the end of the afternoon, the whole village was abuzz with talk of a dragon beneath the pool, one with golden horns and a treasure bowl on its back. He claimed Fatty had tossed a penny into the bowl, and when he retrieved it, it was worth two. Unfortunately, the dragon had slipped away. He recounted it with so much detail that even I went to Fatty for confirmation. Fatty just shrugged, “I didn’t tell him a thing—just moved my lips so I wouldn’t get mobbed. You have to understand, the village diesel isn’t free. If we can’t come up with something to report to the secretary, we might not get credit for half a year’s work.”

I rolled my eyes. “All these harebrained schemes of yours. We’re counting on those work points to make a living.”

Fatty looked innocently at Yuan Xiaobai. “Xiaobai, be fair. We did this for you. I was just hoping to get some soup when you ate the fish…”

Yuan Xiaobai burst out laughing, “So how are you going to explain yourself now that the story’s out? Can you really double a penny with a magic trick?”

Fatty spread his hands. “A true proletarian revolutionary—my pockets are as clean as my conscience!”

Seeing their low spirits, I suggested, “Why don’t we try pumping another pool?”

Fatty shot me a look. “You think diesel grows on trees? The secretary’s already wincing every time we use it. Unlike other places, fuel here is an annual agricultural subsidy—nobody’s wanted to waste it, and now we’ve burned through most of it. If you think you can talk him into it, be my guest. I wouldn’t mind trying another pool.”

Wenbin stood up and said to Fatty, “I’ll go ask. You handle the pumping.”

“Master Wen?” Fatty shook his head. “I know you’re no ordinary man—even fox spirits bow to you—but our village secretary only recognizes money, not people. You’d better not try.”

Fatty wasn’t wrong. In our group, Wenbin already felt like a natural leader—it was something we all accepted. But to the villagers, he was just a quiet, outsider intellectual. He wasn’t as good at talking to them as I was, let alone Xiaobai or Fatty.

“Don’t worry,” Wenbin assured us. “I’ll get his approval. But let me be clear: whatever we find, we share. No one keeps anything for themselves.”

Fatty grinned, “It’s only a few fish. I’ll settle for a tail—Xiaobai can have the head and the meat. You two can drink the soup…”

Wenbin quietly checked outside, closed the doors and windows, then said, “Come here, I want to show you something. Xiaobai, light the kerosene lamp.”

Seeing how mysterious he was, we gathered around the table. Wenbin pulled something from his pocket and dropped it with a smack. We were all stunned.

It was a round, yellow metal coin, a little bigger than an old silver dollar. Under the lamp’s glow, its surface shimmered with golden light.

“Where did this come from?” Fatty whispered.

“From under the pool. Just this one. I didn’t say anything earlier because I was afraid you’d make a fuss.”

“Is it gold?” I asked.

Yuan Xiaobai picked it up, glanced at us, then bit down gently. When she took it out, there was a faint tooth mark. Trying to keep calm, she said, “It’s gold!”