SES Chapter 131 Part 1

Chapter 131

By this point, the charlatan had already lingered in Hangu Pass for quite a few days.

He’d never been here before — not surprising, since this place didn’t really fit his usual “aesthetic.” In his mind, only spots that were haunted, ghostly, or downright terrifying were worth visiting or researching.

Now that he’d made it to Hangu Pass, where should he even start?

Like every other tourist, he bought a ticket to the Linggu–Hangu Pass Cultural Tourism Zone — fifty yuan! He winced as if he’d just watched a whole bucket of golden, crispy KFC wings flutter out of reach.

He wandered through the area, looking at towers, reading plaques, and jostling through crowds, getting mistaken for a beggar more than once and being eyed suspiciously by staff who demanded to see his ticket.

Nothing. No discoveries, no revelations.

When he finally left, he stopped again by the entrance to reread the introduction posted there — things like “Taichu Temple rebuilt in 1987” and “Hangu Pass Gate Tower reconstructed in 1992.” So it was all modern replicas. Where on earth could one find traces of the old master Laozi from more than two thousand years ago?

The charlatan was deeply frustrated.

As he sat there brooding, resting his chin on his hand, two out-of-town tourists walked by. They sounded equally disappointed.

“All these tourist spots look the same now. So boring.”
“I’m telling you — if you want to see something real, you’ve got to stay away from the big-name places. You have to go deep into the countryside — the remote areas, that’s where the essence is.”

Their words struck him like a jolt of electricity. Remote, obscure, off the beaten path — that was his lifelong motto! How had he forgotten something so basic?

He was instantly invigorated. From bus to van, from pickup to tractor, he followed what he imagined might be the path Laozi once took when leaving Hangu Pass. He wasn’t the least bit afraid of robbers — with his scruffy looks, any bandit who saw him would probably give him two yuan out of pity.

He passed many small villages claiming ties to Laozi, with signs like “Laozi Culture Tourism Hamlet.” Each one he visited full of hope, each one a letdown. In frustration, he finally posted to his group chat:

“Hangu Pass sucks.”

And truly, what a shame — this was supposed to be the “first great fortress of all time,” the very place where “one glance of Qi could reveal Laozi, leaving all ages in awe.”

That evening, at dusk, he climbed down from yet another tractor and found himself at a tiny mountain village — maybe ten or twelve households scattered across the slopes. At the entrance, someone had whitewashed a slogan across a red brick wall:

“The Place Where Laozi Once Stopped — Cultural Tourism Village.”

He figured it was just something the county’s publicity department had painted. The locals probably didn’t even know who Laozi was.

Climbing up to the top of the hill, he looked around.

They must be far from the official Hangu Pass site by now. He didn’t even bother to check what province this technically belonged to — he just felt something was intriguing about the geography.

To be precise, the whole region around Hangu Pass was fascinating.

Mount Qinling rose to the south; to the north stretched the yellow loess hills. From afar, one could even glimpse the Yellow River. Geographically, this area sat right where the Great Khingan–Taihang mountain range met the Qilian–Qinling range. Nowadays, it was no longer China’s political or economic heartland, but in ancient times — in the earliest days of Huaxia — this was the cradle of civilization, the battleground of the Flame Emperor, the Yellow Emperor, and the Jiuli tribes.

The fertile middle reaches of the Yangtze River, so prosperous now, had back then been nothing but the land of the distant Miao tribes — barely worth the emperors’ attention.

Even the dirt beneath his feet seemed ancient. He scooped up a handful — it felt as though it was kneaded from a thousand stories. Pity no museum cared enough to come dig it up.

Dusting off his hands, he started down the hill.

Halfway, he came across some kids playing marbles — some around ten, some still toddling in split pants, lying belly-down in the dirt as they squinted and aimed. Their clothes were caked in yellow mud. When they saw him, they all looked up, wide-eyed. Clearly, strangers were a rare sight here.

“Hey, kids,” he asked, “you got any tourist spots around here?”

After all, with a name like ‘Cultural Tourism Village,’ there ought to be something to see. In the last village, a man had shown him a big square boulder, claiming Laozi had leaned against it while resting on his way out of Hangu Pass — and that the stone had stayed warm in winter and cool in summer ever since. Then the guy charged him five yuan for touching it.

He realized maybe “tourist spot” was too fancy a word — these kids might not even know what it meant. Should he rephrase?

Before he could, the oldest boy — maybe ten or eleven — said, “Sure! We’ve got the Bagua Star-Watching Platform!”

The charlatan froze.

Not “Laozi’s Resting Place,” not “Laozi’s Cow-Drinking Spot,” not “Laozi’s Wrestling Ground” — but “Bagua Star-Watching Platform”? What a cultured, lofty name!

Barely containing his excitement, he said, “Can you take me to see it?”

The kids lit up, crowding around him, tugging and pulling as they led the way.

And then, when he finally saw it, he felt as if someone had slapped him in the face with a broom, leaving a puff of dust trickling down afterward.

It was just… a rock.

Half-buried in dirt, about the size of a washbasin, tilted slightly. Moss-covered. The slanted side had a shallow hollow where murky rainwater had pooled, mosquito larvae wriggling happily inside.

This was the Bagua Star-Watching Platform?

You couldn’t even stand on it properly, let alone set up a telescope. And yet they dared to give it such a grandiose name?

Feeling dejected, he said goodbye to the kids. The oldest — the one called Shuanzi — called after him, “Hey, you don’t have a ride? The tractor stops running after sunset!”

Sure enough, the kid’s words turned out prophetic.

He waited at the main road until the moon was high. The only “vehicle” that passed was a donkey — and a free-range one at that, which snorted derisively at him as it went by.

So back up the hill he went.

By luck, the first door he knocked on was Shuanzi’s house. The boy’s parents were migrant workers in the city; only he and his grandfather, old Shuan, lived there. They were simple country folk — for ten yuan they offered him a bed and even meals included.