Daomu Biji: Restart

When Uncle Three squatted in front of that thing, I copied him. I found that it was a strange mound, which was made up of countless skin fragments. Uncle Three touched these fragments and looked up. I also glanced up and found that there was a huge cocoon hanging at the top of the cave.

There were layers of skin-like things on the outside of this cocoon, but I couldn’t tell what was inside.josei

"What is that?" Uncle Three asked Chen Wen-Jin.

"That’s the first person to enter this meteorite. This person spent two thousand years in it, but he didn't wake up. Our preliminary guess is that he’s slept in the meteorite for four thousand years. This cast-off skin has been piling up over the Queen of the West's chest.” Chen Wen-Jin looked at Uncle Three, who pulled out a dagger as if he wanted to cut open the cocoon. She stopped him, "Do you know what that person will look like after four thousand years?"

In the Seven Star Lu Palace, there had also been a thick layer of cast-off skin in King Lushang’s coffin (1). It seemed that the corpse shed its skin constantly as it slept. After two thousand years, the corpse-eater king was dead, but the immortal man slept for another twenty centuries.

No one knew what was inside the cocoon now, but no one dared to open it either.

"The year that this cocoon was created is the same year that the bronze door was created." Chen Wen-Jin took Uncle Three to looked at the cave walls around the Queen of the West’s corpse. There were a lot of pictures painted there that looked just like bronze doors. "I think the person in this cocoon is part of a group of people who made the giant bronze door. That person is the only one who really knows what happened back then."

"That man named Zhang Qiling… when he came here, did he communicate with the person in this cocoon?" Uncle Three asked.

"He did,” Chen Wen-Jin said. “He communicated using that special language, but then he lost his memory."

"It’s said that the Zhang family have been looking for long-lived people everywhere. And they’ve even been looking for jade armors that are more than two thousand years old. What do they want to know?" Uncle Three asked.

"They want to know who is in their heads, making them do those things."

"Do you believe what he said?"

"Those in the Zhang family are said to be born as poets with God-given talent. But one day, during their childhood, an idea suddenly appears in their mind. This idea has nothing to do with their lives, but they have a strong desire to complete it. These things are spread all over history like fragments, changing the course of history in very fine detail."

This kind of description seemed to say that with regards to history, the Zhang family members were a kind of intervention mechanism of the gods.

"One might even say it’s a curse. No matter how sad your life is, it's always your own life. It’s better than suddenly taking on another person's life and doing things that have nothing to do with yourself. They find themselves becoming marionettes, but there’s nothing they can do. Everyone in the Zhang family is waiting for this moment when they become another person and do something that has nothing to do with themselves. For Zhang Qiling, his life is too long, and such ‘heavenly gifts’ keep happening. Every time it happens, he loses his memory. He’s lost his memory countless times, his life divided into countless years with no beginning or end. He doesn't know who he’s loved or who has loved him. All of his experiences are meaningless."

I am a person with no past or future. In the course of my long life, no one will notice if I disappear.(2)

I touched my chest, the pain enough to leave me a little out of breath.

****

TN Notes:

(1) Remember, “King Lushang” is the “Ruler of Dead Soldiers” in Vol 1 “Cavern of Blood Zombies”. He was just referred to as King Shang in Vol 10 “Sand Sea”.

(2) Those iconic words from Chapter 21 of Vol 5 “Deadly Desert Winds”.