Daomu Biji: The Mystic Nine

The group of people squatted on the ground. All of the wind lanterns were lit and the flashlights were turned on.

The monster that Zhang Qishan had killed was lying on the ground. It was around two meters long. Although it had short hands and feet, its body was very long and it was hairless. Its skin looked pale and wet.

Its head had been ripped off, probably the result of its neck being snapped before its head was forcibly torn off. When they put the head back, they could see a bloated human face that looked just like a bloated cadaver (1). It had no hair, and its eyes were extremely small.

“Is this a Chinese giant salamander (2)?” Qi Tiezui suddenly had a revelation. Its crying just now and the way it looked made him think that this was a two-meter-long Chinese giant salamander.

Zhang Qishan pried open its lower jaw, revealing a dense row of rotten teeth in its mouth. They weren’t the teeth of a fish, but the teeth of a human being. Human teeth were very easy to identify, after all.

This was a human being, Zhang Qishan said to himself. “This was a person with deformities.”

“It’s human?”

“It was.” Zhang Qishan pressed the corpse’s muscles. “It would take more than a dozen years for the muscles to develop like this, so this thing was at least more than a dozen years old. It was a human with deformities. It probably lived in the water for a long time.”

“I really didn’t expect the mountain god to look like this,” Qi Tiezui exclaimed. “Just as I’ve said, no surprises or dangers. Fo Ye, I’m still quite competent. In the future, you can consider asking me to make calculations any time you’re going to do something. This time, we’ve gained victory as soon as the battle started. We haven’t even reached the destination yet, and this thing came to us. In the future, we’ll definitely be able to gain amazing feats in war.”

“Nothing is ever done so easily in this world,” Zhang Qishan said. “The legend of the mountain god has existed for a few hundred years. Moreover, the mountain god is able to reach such an impenetrable agreement with humans, which means that she’s quite intelligent. The mountain god has been living in the depths of the mountains, which shows that she has kept to her promise. This thing we’ve just encountered was playing with human corpses as if they were toys and even connected them to snakes. Its level of intelligence shows that it was still just a kid. Furthermore, it appeared at the edge of a densely populated area, which isn’t in accordance with the agreement. This isn’t the mountain god.”

“If this isn’t the mountain god, then is it a foreign monster?”

Zhang Qishan didn’t answer, but had his people gather the horses and get ready to set off.

Qi Tiezui knew that Zhang Qishan had come to a conclusion, so he kept asking him. After being questioned a few more times, Zhang Qishan finally said, “I’m wondering if this was the mountain god’s child. There wouldn’t be two ferocious things in a mountain. If there had been such a monster invading here, the mountain god definitely would’ve hunted it and marked her territory. But the mountain god was willing to let this monster play around here. This is more like an act of a mother indulging her child.”

“Woah, Fo Ye. Then the mountain god will definitely feel a lot of enmity towards us,” Qi Tiezui said. “Let’s bury it quickly. We’ve killed her son, so the mountain god will probably go into a murderous rage.”

Zhang Qishan picked up the head and threw it at the soldier behind him. “Find a pole and hang it up.”

“That’s not very nice, Fo Ye. People should be more merciful so that things won’t be too difficult in the future,” Qi Tiezui said.

“The reason we entered the mountain is to kill them all,” Zhang Qishan said. “What’s the point in us being merciful? How many parents and children in the eighty-two villages have been separated because of these monsters? Plus, we need their help to fight the Japanese.”

Just as Zhang Qishan finished his sentence, the soldier who had gone to get the horses ran back and shouted, “Fo Ye, this is bad. The horses!”

Zhang Qishan immediately ran after him. They rushed back to where they had hidden the horses and were met with the pungent scent of blood.

All of the horses were gone. There was blood everywhere on the ground and in the bushes and even more was dripping from above. Zhang Qishan looked up and saw that all of the horses were hanging in the trees. Their heads had been torn off, but there weren’t any traces of them. The bodies of the horses were bleeding heavily, the blood dripping onto the bushes like rain.

“Did that Chinese giant salamander do this?”

“No,” Zhang Qishan said. He looked around and suddenly shouted, “Xiaoyu!”

There was no answer.

“Has anyone seen Xiaoyu?”

All of the soldiers shook their heads. That was when Qi Tiezui remembered that Zhang Xiaoyu had run away with the child just now.

“Not good,” Zhang Qishan said. “This thing’s mother is nearby.” Right. Mothers will never stray far away from their children. I was too careless.

After Zhang Qishan finished speaking, they heard the sound of a baby laughing coming from the bushes in the middle of the bloody horses. All of the flashlights immediately turned to illuminate that area, but no one could see anything except for a bunch of flying insects.

Zhang Qishan walked over and found a baby covered in blood lying on the ground by the bushes. He picked it up.

It was the baby Zhang Xiaoyu had been holding in his arms. There was a severed hand under the baby’s body that was holding onto the baby tightly.

The hand belonged to Xiaoyu. It had been torn off while Xiaoyu was alive.

Zhang Qishan moved his neck, his eyes becoming extremely solemn. The tattoo by his collar flashed.

At this time, he discovered that the child was still staring in one direction with an unwavering gaze. It was a pitch black spot slightly to his left that turned out to be a big tree. Since it was very dark and there was little light, only the shadow of the tree could be seen.

The baby looked at the tree and giggled. Zhang Qishan stared at the tree and suddenly realized that it wasn’t a tree at all.

****

TN Notes:

(1) “Bloated cadaver (巨人观)” is a term in Chinese that describes the second stage of human decay, which is bloating.

(2) One of the largest salamanders (and amphibians) in the world. It’s fully aquatic. Here’s a pic to gross you out hehehe: