Falling Dreams Of Fang Hua

Chapter 13: The Mysterious Corpse

My damp fingers were covered in dirty yellow soil...

Within the messily excavated mud was a small wooden plaything...

It was a uncommon drum-shaped rattle[1] with four drums layered atop each other. When one rotated the drum handle, their sounds would alternate between high and low notes, producing a resonant, pleasing tone for the ears.

I didn't know why, but tears started streaming down my face. My head bowed, and I hurriedly dug the object out. In my memory, there was another object as well. As it turned out, there was a diabolo buried nearby. I picked it up between my fingers, only to find that it was already broken.

I remembered it was called a diabolo, but its other name was a dou weng[3]. Originally, one would use a length of twine held between two bamboo rods to move along its wooden axle, where rotating it at high speeds would start create a humming noise.

These were all children's toys.

When I was a beggar, I didn't even have enough food to eat, much less chances to play with these things... I cradled them in my hands and gently touched the pieces. Why did they feel so familiar?

These tactile impressions, along with the patterns in the wood, all seemed to be carved deeply in my memory as if I'd forgotten something along the way. Something very important to me.

But what was it...?

I mused for a while before lifting my head. It was then I saw Han Zichuan looking off at one point, his face completely white. It seemed like something had scared him out of his wits.

I hurriedly reburied the little toys and stood up, walking to his side. My sleeves billowed out as I prepared to push him aside. "What's up with you? Why did you yell earlier?"

He was seized with terror as he looked at me, before forcefully grabbing me with enough strength to dig into my skin. I was mystified, and my eyes involuntarily drifted to somewhere behind his shoulders...

In a panic, he used his other hand to block my eyes.

"Brother Shao, don't look."

Tch, what was it I couldn't look at...not a dead person, right? I roughly pushed him aside, and as it turned out...I guessed right. Not just dead, but a skeleton. It leaned against the tomb of yellow earth, as if nestling up to its side. The material of its clothes were very high-quality, so much that a portion of it still looked undisturbed by natural decay. I was astonished.

The two of us stood blankly for a while.

"How long do you think it's been here?" Han Zichuan asked softly.

"I don't know," I shook my head.

Maybe it'd existed since forever.

My younger self who had followed Fang Hua didn't have the skills to descend into the valley, so I never got to see this...

"Looks like someone frequently comes around to tidy up this grave," Han Zichuan spoke, glancing around with his ashen face. His eyes eventually returned to rest on the skeleton, and he was quiet for a long while before he spoke again. "It seems like this dead person really loved this grave, so why didn't the tidy-up person up bury them together?"

This would have to be a question for Fang Hua. I really wanted to know the answer too...

I muttered to myself for a while, gradually circling half a circle around the corpse. The more I looked, the more suspicious I felt. With a deep breath, I knelt down and reached over with my hand–before someone clapped my shoulder.