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Hulan had been changed by what had happened in the cave David had heard it in her voice when he was crawling through He’d seen it in her eyes when he reached her She was a different woed too For the first tiotten totally out of his head and had operated on a purely physical level His body had paid a price for that, though When he saw Bashan’s only doctor, he received thirty stitches and was diagnosed with five broken ribs and a concussion Hulan joked that the concussion may have been what had caused him to act so out of character
David also spent a lot of ti’s wife and baby After he had gone into the tunnel, the chopper pilot saw thedash into the stor, it turned out, the same path her husband had taken a feeeks earlier That was the official version, but David knew soesture when she’d held her baby up to hi the location of the hidden chah thehad plenty of enerous in her final payments to Brian—she was still an uneducated peasant with a half-Caucasian child She had no way to know the world of options that awaited her outside the Three Gorges Perhaps her suicide was inevitable, but David felt his actions had accelerated the process He’d carry those deaths with him forever Hulan knew exactly how he felt
By looking for greed and the inability of people to tell the truth, Hulan had found that even those who’d been altruistic and honest had helped create the cascade of events that had resulted in so edies Catherine, who had set so much in motion the previous summer with her prank about the Nine Tripods, now proved to be very forthcoet away from Lily and her obsession, he’d found his beach on the river’s edge, where hewife Their roestures—a little money from him, a container of noodles fro otten Lily to hire Huadong to help the couple escape their brutal poverty; in fact, it had been a very convenient way to get the husband out of the picture When Brian returned this year, he’d been surprised to find the peasant girl hugely pregnant Teeks later, the baby was born Huadong had taken one look at the infant and thrown himself over the cliff When his body was found in the whirlpool, the other archaeologists mistakenly blamed Lily Why had Brian confided all of this to Catherine? He was smart in so many ways, she said, but he didn’t have much experience with the ave it
From the journal, what Hulan learned in the cave from Michael Quon, and further intervieith Catherine, other aspects of Brian’s last year unraveled Last sureatest secret—her husband’s clan had stood guard over this property and its hidden caverns for thousands of years Brian had begun taking things fro them to Lily, which set inhis increasingly threatening deht to the death to protect so or someone Since he’d already looted the chaators chose to believe Brian had died for love
David left Bashan for a day to acco, where stolen artifacts fro Site 518, were found He also paid a visit to Angus Fitzwillianored Bill Tang’s bid in favor of one by an older and rove’s customer This was not a prosecutable crime, but shortly thereafter Fitzwillialand
David knew that Hulan saw everything in a geopolitical light—the struggle over ie between countries, the battles within those countries for the hearts and minds of their citizens But to him so much came down to familial actions—Catherine’s desire to impress her father, Brian’s desire to protect his child and its mother—that had resulted in the nificant on the surface—but with e Brian had sent to his sister on his website
In the photograph, Brian stood on a barren hillside with his ar the whole panoraoldenup in the crannies around some rocks Those mushrooms were known to surface after a rain above an Arrew under the soil Three years ago, Angela had been on a team that had discovered a twenty-five-hundred-year-old honey on that was three an
d a half anism ever found on the planet What was non as the Bashan Fungus was at least twice the size and perhaps twice as old
It had grown frole spore too small to see without afila trees, and leaving behind a sticky substance The fungus had spread across the surface of the earth, wiping out vegetation froe to the tops of the hills above Site 518, from the outskirts of Bashan to another half mile past the Wu house Rhizomorphs stretched down as far as ten feet and had per them their peculiar odor Michael Quon had said the caves were alive; he just hadn’t kno alive they were
In addition to the paleobotanists who’d arrived to study the fungus, archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biocultural anthropologists, and linguists descended on Bashan David and Hulan watched their activities with interest So to prove that the Wus were longtime descendants of the wild ones that Yu the Great had met in his travels Since no coffin or mummified remains had been found, others researched the purpose of the chaifts of culture—music and art specifically—to the wild ones? Had the Wu clan been left to guard the treasures—the white jade chimes, the bi disks, the pottery, the weapons of war, and the ruyi? Or had the Wus been left to guard the fungus? Some believed that Yu left the ruyi with the Ba as a syave a sy the land of floods Others thought that, instead of bringing culture and civilization, Yu’s gift had actually sown the seeds of the Ba’s destruction by birthing the invasive Bashan Fungus Others wondered if the fungus could actually be shi tu, the “swellingearth” that Yu and his father had used to control the flood Meanwhile, old Dr Strong was doing his best to help a tearaphy inforht be the birthplace of characters like dragon, cliff, cave, and river, predating those found on oracle bones by hundreds, if not thousands, of years The land itself ht after proof of five thousand years of continuous Chinese culture
Debates raged about Brian’s discoveries Could one graduate student find both the Rosetta stone of Chinese language and China’s Holy Grail? Some felt that he’d just lucked into the ruyi, which, since it was lost again, was suspect anyway Some felt that his theories about the connection between his so-called geographic dragon bones and the thoughts and culture of the people elled in the gorges had linificant and were thoroughly analyzing and critiquing his journal All agreed that Brian’s prey and that further study was required
Everyone would have to work quickly though Although this had been ain 2003, and by 2009 all of this area would be below the Lake Within the Gorges This knowledge iineers to exaht have on the da the caverns—no one knew just how deep they went—trigger earthquakes? Might Ba Mountain collapse, causing a massive tidal wave? The scientists put a positive spin on these possibilities, but David was glad he wouldn’t be living downstream In the meantime, every day the river sawthe waters between Chongqing and Wuhan for a last-chance view of the Three Gorges
On Hulan’s last day in Bashan, she uesthouse’s dining rooh the balistened Zai, who’d arrived once the weather cleared, congratulated her on her success He praised her for upholding virtue and co out corruption He reminded her that the excesses of the past could not be repeated or else, like previous dynasties, this one too would collapse
“Re are not so different from those of any ruler,” Zai said “Reh corruption”
But by now she’d learned soreat monuments did transcend time Mao had understood this very well, but so had Confucius, who’d codi, who’d built the Great Wall What Zai and the otten was that corruption co a daans were used—wouldn’t divert the masses from the truth forever