Fatty immediately became angry when he saw Liu Sang secretly taking pictures. He pointed at him and scolded, "Hand it over, hand it over!"

Liu Sang hid his phone in his arms and said coldly, "The person being photographed didn't object, so it's none of your business."

Fatty tried to reach for it, but Uncle Two looked at him and scolded, "Get out if you’re going to make trouble again!"

Fatty shrank back and whispered in my ear, "This guy must be your Uncle Two’s bastard son." Uncle Two glanced at Fatty in the rearview mirror and Fatty quickly turned his head away.

Liu Sang secretly glanced at Poker-Face again, but Poker-Face was looking out the window. Fatty grabbed Poker-Face's hood and put it on him, covering his face.

When Liu Sang narrowed his eyes and glared at Fatty, Fatty took off his shoes, propped his feet up on the back of Liu Sang's seat, and made a ‘fuck you’ gesture. Liu Sang sneered and turned back around.

The atmosphere in the car was very awkward and no one spoke the entire way. That idiot kept taking pictures, which I could put up with at first, but I slowly became irritated. Any time he took a picture, I kicked the back of his seat. Later, he became more well-behaved when we made him drive.

We drove for nearly seven hours to Pingtan County. This was our first stop, mainly because there was a local folk legend here that was very interesting. Uncle Two thought it might be related to the South Sea country we were looking for.

The legend was about a "mute emperor". It was said that Pingtan was called Haitan Island a long time ago. It was made up of 126 small islands and had a very developed fishing industry. They had a mute on the island, whom they called Mute Emperor. He usually liked to make paper men and horses to serve as his army.

The real emperor killed all of the Mute Emperor’s relatives at that time, so he hated the emperor with a passion. But there was nothing he could do about it.

Mute Emperor went out to sea to fish one day and almost died. While drifting there in the water, a strange man suddenly floated up from the sea and said that he was a celestial being from Penglai (1). Seeing that the Mute Emperor was in such a pitiable state, he gave him three pieces of paper and told him that he could cut out a house on the first piece, a granary on the second, and some clothes on the third. If he did that, he could speak, take shelter from the wind and the rain, and eat his fill. But he couldn’t be seen performing these spells or they wouldn’t work.

The Mute Emperor looked at the three pieces of paper and clenched his teeth as he thought of his dead relatives. In the end, he cut out a mountain on the first piece of paper to protect the village from the wind and the sea waves. On the second piece of paper, he cut a big bow and magic arrow. He also created many paper soldiers and horses that were ready to deal with the emperor, but his hands were unsteady and he couldn't cut the eyes for them. Instead, he used sesame seeds from his sister-in-law's pot to make the eyes. On the third piece of paper, he cut a mortar, basket, and mallet for his sister-in-law to use while she worked.Before dawn the next day, the Mute Emperor drew the bow back and shot the magic arrow at the emperor's golden phoenix hall. The emperor hadn’t arrived at court yet, so the arrow landed right on his throne. The emperor was shocked to see the arrow when he arrived at court and sent the prime minister to investigate. When it was soon discovered that Mute Emperor was the one who shot it, the emperor sent an army to encircle and suppress him. The Mute Emperor sent out his huge paper army, but the soldiers and horses were blind because his sister-in-law's sesame seeds were fried. In the end, they were defeated by the emperor’s army.

The Mute Emperor had no choice. He asked his sister-in-law to close her eyes while he threw the mortar, basket, and mallet into the sea and shouted, "The mortar becomes a boat, the basket becomes a sail, and the mallet becomes pulp." The mortar, basket, and mallet turned into a boat. He pulled his sister-in-law into the boat and told her not to open her eyes as they escaped to the sea. But the sea was too rough and his sister-in-law was so frightened by the wind and the waves that she accidentally opened her eyes. The spell broke and the mortar, basket, and mallet changed back into paper. The Mute Emperor and sister-in-law disappeared beneath the big waves.

We stood on the beach, watching the sun set. The tidal flats were covered in orange and gold ripples and the sea surface looked like gold foil. There were countless fishing apparatus in the distance that looked like two sticks in the shape of a seven. They were used by fishermen to fish at high tide.

We ate instant noodles and listened to Jin Wantang tell several different versions of this legend vividly. Fatty listened and then asked awkwardly, "Wait. Why is it him and his sister-in-law? Where’s his brother?"

"His brother must’ve been killed by the emperor,” I said. “Can’t you put your brain to use?" Uncle Two didn’t like these kinds of jokes, so I gave Fatty a meaningful look.

Fatty didn’t seem to get it and continued, "You’re sure his brother didn’t sell baked sesame seed cakes? If you ask around carefully, are you sure you won’t discover that this Mute Emperor is surnamed Ximen?" (2)

I ignored him and turned to Uncle Two, "You mean to say this Mute Emperor is the South Sea King?"

"Don’t you think it’s a bit similar to that South Sea King who was once overthrown after a rebellion, demoted to a commoner, and then disappeared into the sea? The ​tidal flats here span a large area. If there’s anything below, we’ll have to depend on Liu Sang’s hearing.” Uncle Two finished speaking and looked at Liu Sang, who glanced up at the sky.

There wasn’t a cloud in sight.

If we did end up hearing a clap of thunder, then it must be the work of ghosts. "I'll buy some firecrackers and set them off,” Fatty said to him. “Do you want to listen to them instead?"

Liu Sang looked at his watch and said to Fatty, "Time is money. If you want to save Uncle Two some money, you’ll cause less trouble. Fireworks aren’t enough, you’ll have to use detonators. I heard Fat Master is pretty adept at playing with explosives. Do you know how to make mud explode?"

Fatty looked at Liu Sang and sneered, "This kid, looking down on people. Not only can I make mud explode, but I can earn a Grammy with the way I make shit explode."Liu Sang walked to the car, popped the trunk, opened a box of detonators, and threw them to me and Fatty. He also wanted to throw them to Poker-Face, but once he thought about it, he didn't dare to. Fatty threw his detonators to Poker-Face and then caught the ones a blushing Liu Sang threw to him instead. The four of us stood there and looked at each other for a moment. Then, Liu Sang started to take off his clothes and the three of us immediately copied him.

"I’ll stand in the middle and listen while you detonate at the three corners. If there’s something below, I’ll be able to find it in forty minutes." As Liu Sang put on special headphones, I noticed that he was very thin under his clothes and he had an incomplete Qilin tattooed on his body. It looked like an imitation of Poker-Face’s, but it wasn’t as elegant and didn’t look finished yet.

Liu Sang’s face was flushed. Fatty was just about to speak up, but Liu Sang quickly interrupted him, "Shut up and go!” He then turned and headed towards the beach.

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TN Notes:

(1) Penglai is one of three fabled islands in the Eastern sea. It’s the abode of immortals (kind of like fairyland)

(2) Fatty is basically hinting that the Mute Emperor and sister-in-law were having an affair. I believe he’s calling Mute Emperor Ximen Qing from the novel “Plum in the Golden Vase”. Ximen Qing is portrayed as a lascivious and immoral man who starts a secret affair with a woman and helps her poison her husband, who makes a living by selling pancakes.

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