The Human History of Those Gods: A Continuous Stream

"Fish!"

Sun Wuliang was piled on the ground. He could sense that there was a lake not far away; fish's sensitivity to water was a racial innate. He twisted his body and opened his mouth in vain. There were fish all over the sand, some big and some small. A large, white fish that he couldn't name was pressing heavily on him. He tried to flick it away with his tail, but failed.

"Uncle-Master! Fish! So many fish!"

A face drew closer; it was a girl of about fourteen or fifteen. She had large eyes, a slightly upturned nose, long eyelashes, and a small mole on her cheek.

"fish?"

Sun Wuliang heard Liang Song's voice.

fish?

Liang Song rushed out of the house. "There are fish!" he asked excitedly.

Li Jushuang squatted on the flat ground in front of the door, while Nandou slowly licked his paws beside him, looking like he had just had a big meal.

Liang Song stood next to Li Jushuang, his shadow perfectly obscuring Li Jushuang's face. Li Jushuang strained to look up, a smile on his face. Li Jushuang had calmed down incredibly quickly; the unpleasantness of yesterday seemed to have never happened, which pleased Liang Song greatly.

Because he liked her, he found Li Jushuang particularly pleasing to the eye today. Actually, the boy was quite handsome, Liang Song thought.

"Where did all these fish come from? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... so many..."

Having fish means having something to eat, and having something to eat means not going hungry. For Liang Song and Li Jushuang, filling their stomachs was of paramount importance.

"It was delivered by Huang Chang."

"Yellow intestines? There are other people here?"

Li Jushuang suddenly mumbled, "Lynx, lynx sausage, they gave it to me."

"Why would a lynx deliver fish?"

"In the past, every year when the ice was opened, they would eat too much fish and get indigestion, so they would come to Nandou to ask for medicine. They would stand in a row under the window lattice on the south side, and when the ice was opened further into the mountains behind, they would come to deliver fish."

Liang Song scratched his head. He didn't quite understand the relationship between Huang Chang, Shan Mao, and Li Jushuang. But whatever, Liang Song's attention was quickly drawn to the fish.

"Grilled fish." He kicked a carp at his feet; the carp bounced twice and opened its mouth. Liang Song leaned closer for a closer look: "This fish is really fresh."

Crucian carp, perch, mud carp, silver carp, and many other fish. Li Jushuang divided the fish into two portions, leaving a carp separately. Liang Song asked, "What's wrong with this fish?" Li Jushuang poked the carp: "This isn't a fish, it's a person. There's someone inside."

Liang Song felt that Li Jushuang was acting strangely again. In fact, he had never thought that Li Jushuang was normal, but now Liang Song didn't think he was a lunatic anymore; he was just not quite normal.

This time, Liang Song was different from before. He quickly told himself: Why should people be normal? Eat normally, go to work normally, get sick normally, die normally. Living normally isn't that important. Li Jushuang is fine.

"A person?" He squatted down, next to Li Jushuang.

"Hmm, there's someone whose five senses were taken away and he's sealed inside a fish." Liang Song scratched his head, unsure whether he should believe it. Liang Song remembered an old professor telling him a story when he minored in literature in college.

The *Gengsi Bian* records a story of a Nanjing monk named Yuetang who traveled to Guizhou. Locals told him, "Some people here possess evil magic; they can transform into mules, horses, pigs, sheep, and other creatures to harm people. Be careful when you sleep at night." Yuetang stayed at a Zen temple. Late at night, he heard a sheep bleating outside his door. After a while, a sheep entered the room and sniffed around him. Yuetang suddenly sprang to his senses and struck the sheep in the waist with his staff. The sheep fell to the ground and transformed into a naked woman.

"People turned into fish?" He felt that his words were not at all like those of a young person in the information age.

"No, it's about sealing a person's five senses inside a fish's body."

What are the five senses?

"The five senses are seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, and touching..." Li Jushuang patiently explained to Liang Song. "If you seal the five senses inside for too long, the person will die. If we eat him, he will also die."

"What should we do then?"

Li Jushuang scratched her head, rummaged through her hair with her fingers, and pulled out a crumpled yellow talisman. She spat on it, stuck it on the carp's head with a slap, made a random hand seal, and gestured a couple of times on the carp's body.

Alright. Li Jushuang looked a little smug. Nan Dou playfully rubbed against Li Jushuang's leg, and Liang Song thought the smug Li Jushuang was quite cute.

------

thump...

Sun Wuliang slammed his head hard against the car's rearview mirror.

He was back. He looked at his hands, human hands. He felt himself trembling, every inch of his skin trembling. Sun Wuliang looked at himself in the rearview mirror, laughed twice, then pouted and cried twice.

"Brother Sun, you're awake?"

The person sitting next to me was Yang Bo, who was still eating a steamed bun, with crumbs falling onto the cushion.

"You bastard."

Sun Wuliang climbed over the driver's seat and punched Yang Bo in the face.

"What did you do to me?" Sun Wuliang grabbed Yang Bo by the neck. Yang Bo's face turned red, and he frantically slapped Sun Wuliang's hand. "I didn't do anything! I just ate two buns. I didn't eat them all by myself. You were sleeping when I came back, so I didn't wake you."

Sun Wuliang was stunned for a moment. He slowly released his grip and slumped back into the driver's seat: Was it a dream? Was it all a dream?

Yang Bo clutched his throat. "Brother Sun, did you have a nightmare?"

Sun Wuliang rubbed his face with both hands. He must have been having a nightmare. Yes, how could it be real? How could a person turn into a fish?

He scratched his head. A blade of grass slipped from his fingers, brushed against the gearshift, and fell into the gap between the seats.

"What time is it?" he asked Yangbo weakly.

Before Yang Bo could reply, Sun Wuliang fumbled for his phone. It was 5:30, and dawn was breaking.

Right, didn't I just put my phone on that greasy noodle stall? Why is it back on me now? Was it a dream? It really was a dream.

On the phone screen was a message from He: "Found Liang Song's backpack. Call me back when you wake up."

The situation is not good.

------

Liang Song had a stone in his mouth.

To be precise, it is a piece of rock salt.

Rock salt has a very long history. The earliest record of its use can be traced back to Anatolia. During the Neolithic period, most of Anatolia was already using rock salt. In China, as early as the late Warring States period around 250 BC, salt production through well drilling flourished in the Shuangliu area of ​​Chengdu, Sichuan, with wells reaching depths of over 1,000 meters. The earliest inhabitants of the Ba Kingdom also relied on selling rock salt for a living.

Liang Song read this from some geological museum: China's rock salt distribution area is very wide, mainly distributed in the central and western regions. There are rich natural brine deposits in Zigong, Sichuan, and central and western Yunnan, from which rock salt can be extracted.

At this moment, he had a piece of rock salt in his mouth, which was both salty and astringent. He rolled his tongue around and looked at Li Jushuang next to him. Li Jushuang also had a piece of rock salt in her mouth, and her cheeks were bulging out, like a chipmunk.

Liang Song used to be someone who couldn't stand loneliness. He loved a life of extravagance and ostentation. He wanted to drive the latest models, wear the most flamboyant clothes, drink the most expensive wines, and date the most beautiful women. He loved crowds, bustling shopping streets, and being surrounded by people. Even when he slept, he had to keep the TV on. The slightest silence made him feel weightless; life felt like a crack had appeared, and one wrong step would send him plummeting.

But now, all around was quiet, save for the occasional chirping of birds and the sound of Li Jushuang sipping on the stone, yet he felt a deep peace. If Sun Wuliang and the others saw him like this, they would find him a complete stranger. He lay on a blue stone halfway up the mountain, lost in thought. The sky was bright and the sun was blazing; it had just rained, and the sun had come out again in a dozen minutes.

"Li Jushuang..."

"Um."

"Are you really seventeen?"

"Um."

"A monk cannot lie. I think you are at most 15 years old, no older than that."

"I'm not a monk." Li Jushuang's voice was muffled and had a childlike quality, which made Liang Song feel happy. He didn't hear what Li Jushuang was saying; he probably just wanted to hear him speak.

"Aren't you a Taoist priest? Whether you're a Taoist priest or a Buddhist monk, you're both people who leave home to cultivate, you're all people who have left home." Sun Wuliang was a fan of cultivating immortality, and by following Sun Wuliang, he knew a little bit about it.

"I am not a Taoist priest." Li Jushuang swallowed a mouthful of rock salt.

"Who are you."

"I'm not..."

"Alright, you're not a Taoist priest. Then, Li Jushuang, what shall we eat tonight?"

"Hmm. Hazelnut and fish congee..."

"You should add rice to the hazelnut and fish porridge, right?"

"No."

"Can it be called porridge without rice?"

"able."

"Li Jushuang, do you really have a martial uncle?"

"Um."

"Dead?" Liang Song had pondered this; this martial uncle might be dead.

"Um."

"Your master is dead too, why don't you summon back his soul or spirit...?"

"no the same."

Li Jushuang's voice sounded a little impatient. Liang Song turned over to look at Li Jushuang, who seemed to be falling asleep.

"Li Jushuang, aren't you afraid living alone in the mountains?"

"Um."

"I don't think I can do it. Even if you let me live in these mountains for a few years, I probably wouldn't be afraid because I might go crazy." Liang Song looked at the vast mountains and forests around him, feeling a little lost.

"You live here all by yourself, aren't there any wild animals?"

"They can't come here."

"Where's the snake?"

"They can't come either."

"Don't you want to go out and see the world?"

"Go out? Go where?"

"Outside the mountain."

What's outside the mountain?

"People, many people, all kinds of people. There are airplanes, trains, schools, factories, and shops."

"oh."

Li Jushuang was very perfunctory, and then stopped talking altogether. Liang Song turned his head to look at him; his eyelashes were trembling, and he was clearly pretending to sleep.

"Li Jushuang, go back to your room and go to sleep."

Li Jushuang remained silent.

"Sigh, but then I think living in the mountains is quite nice. I can sleep whenever I want, and sleep whenever I'm full. This kind of life is pretty good." Liang Song nudged Li Jushuang, who was pretending to be asleep, and pulled up his sleeves.

Li Jushuang snorted, "How can it be just eating and sleeping? Sleeping means eating. We have to grow grains, vegetables, and herbs, as well as fertilize, cook, refine oil, clean, repair houses, practice martial arts, hold religious ceremonies, present petitions, burn incense, sew, and wash clothes..."

"Aren't all those who perform rituals and submit petitions Taoist priests?"

"Not all of them."

Why grow medicinal herbs?

"Exchange money."

Where can I exchange it?

"Go down the mountain, walk for a day, and get to Qibei Town."

"What is Qibei Town?" Liang Song asked, then vaguely felt that he had seen the name somewhere before.

"Qibei Town is Qibei Town." Li Jushuang turned over, turning her back to Liang Song.

You can't overthink a conversation between two people; if you do, you'll think they're both idiots.