Book 3: Chapter 25: Chasing Horses

Book 3: Chapter 25: Chasing Horses

While I was frozen in shock, Poker-Face urged our horse on without an ounce of hesitation. I thought that he was going to rush out of the woods again, but as it turned out, he started chasing those wild horses instead.

Chasing a herd of stampeding horses in the woods was extremely exciting. We almost crashed into all kinds of branches and tree trunks in our mad dash, but our horse quickly avoided them all.

Even though the cold firework could only illuminate a limited area around us, it was still indispensable. I handed it to Poker-Face, turned on my flashlight, and pointed it in front of us.

We could see the wild horses in the distance, but they were very fast and our horse was carrying two people. It wouldnt take long before we wouldnt even be able to see those horses hindquarters. In the end, Poker-Face had no choice but to give up the chase.

As the sound of stampeding hooves quickly disappeared, extreme quiet was restored all around. I wanted to look out of the corner of my eye to see if there was anything around us, but Poker-Face didn't even give me the chance. He pulled on the reins, turned the horse around, and rushed out of the woods.

As we quickly made it out, the flare fell to the grassland, completely extinguished. There was the lingering smell of something burning hanging in the air. Poker-Face rode more than a hundred meters away from the forest before turning the horse around. My cold firework illuminated the area around us, but neither the trees nor our tents could be seen.

"Fatty!" I shouted.

We heard someone clapping in the distance, so Poker-Face urged the horse over there. Soon, we saw Fatty crouching in the grass.

After Poker-Face and I dismounted, I immediately asked him what was going on. He motioned for me not to ask and then said, "Put your clothes on backwards."

I knew this saying. The Lamaism and Shamanism legends said that if you encountered malicious spirits on the grasslands, you should wear your clothes backwards so that they couldnt figure out where your front was. But in the Lamaism legends, this practice taught lamas how to catch ghosts.

It wasnt surprising that Poker-Face knew this, but did that mean that he wanted to catch ghosts? I was feeling a little uneasy, but I still complied anyways. The three of us quickly took off our clothes, put them on backwards, and stood up awkwardly.

"Lets go," Poker-Face said.

As it turned out, he wanted us to make a run for it. I immediately breathed a sigh of relief and helped Fatty up. Fattys face was pale, and he waved his hand but couldn't speak. He seemed to be out of breath after all that running. Poker-Face fired another flare and we rushed back to the tents. We found that everything had been trampled and the bonfire was very dim. With the help of the flares light, we started to clean everything up.

"If its not convenient to elaborate, just give me a simple hint," I said to Poker-Face as I cleaned up.

He glanced around before pointing in a certain direction, "If you can see things, look at that spot."

I peeked out of the corner of my eye and immediately saw the shadow of a man standing there. He was facing us coldly, but he appeared to be very far away from us.

"What are they?"

After taking a few steps, I used my peripheral vision to look back at the darkness behind me. When we were in the Seven Star Lu Palace so many years ago, Pan Zi had told me not to look back (2). I couldnt resist the temptation back then and I still couldnt resist it now. When I peeked out of the corner of my eye, I saw the same thing from before. It was even repeating the same action. What was so special about this humanoid figure that I could only see it out of the corner of my eye? I didnt see any traces of people over there, and even the darkness in that area seemed to have returned to normal.

I suddenly had a strange idea about what had happened just now. Did those "people" want us to leave the road that the horses ran on? Were they warning us?

Truthfully, we wouldve already been black and blue if we encountered such a situation in a tomb in the past. And although we had been scared to death just now, we werent injured at all.

I didn't think about it any further, because acts of kindness at this time were very dangerous.

We continued to walk on in a daze, not stopping until dawn broke.

As the haze on the grassland revealed by the morning light started to dissipate, we finally dismounted. The horses were so tired that they were swaying, and even Ping Lian fell to the ground and started snoring. When we looked around, we couldnt see the forest from yesterday, nor those wild horses. Everything was as beautiful as when we had first arrived in the grassland.

Its all lies, I said to myself. This place is crazy at night and causes all sorts of trouble. Last nights situation was just a ghost hitting a wall(3).

I sat down on the grassland, feeling sleepy. God, I had never felt so sleepy before. Last night, there was even a period of time where I felt as if I was too old to endure it. Now I was starting to feel like something was wrongthis grassland was sucking my energy away.

It was only a few hours later when we talked to Shen Qianjue on the satellite phone again that we finally learned what had happened last night.

Indeed, it was a change I could never imagine.

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TN Notes:

(1) A Chinese mythological figure and one of the Eight Immortals in the Taoist pantheon (he was actually a real historical figure). He was said to be very eccentric. In art pieces, hes typically shown riding his white mule, usually seated facing backwards. Info here.

(2) I have no recollection of this. Pretty sure Poker-Face was the one who told him not to look back in that cave when they were on the boat in the beginning. You all have better memories than me, though.

(3) Ghost hitting a wall is a Chinese folk phrase that describes a situation where you get lost and end up going in circles. The idea is that when traveling in remote areas, a person is obstructed by walls that ghosts have placed in front of them, thus forcing that person to wander in endless circles. People also use this term to describe problems with no real solution (I feel like Wu Xie was using it in this sense just based on the context).

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It's a miracle! I actually got 2 chapters out and didn't leave you on a cliffhanger this time! ()