Book 1: Chapter 61: The Shuikao’s Owner

Book 1: Chapter 61: The Shuikao’s Owner

I had never seen a real shuikao before. When Uncle Three showed me some old things in the past, there was an old shuikao included among them. My first impression was that the shuikao looked like a huge wine bag, but I didn't unfold it or try to put it on. The best shuikao were made of fish skin. After the scales were scraped off, the fish skin was tanned into leather and then coated in tung oil. Like this, the fish skin became elastic and very thin.

Most people back in the day used fur seal (1) skins to make shuikao because there were so many fur seals living along the coast of China. This kind of skin was actually stronger and had a certain heat retention, but shuikao made of fur seal skins were difficult to preserve and very troublesome to maintain. They could crack as long as they became a little dry and they had to soak in oil for a long time before they could be used again.

This shuikao looked rubbery since the skin was completely black, but when I looked at it closely, I found that it was a special kind of big fish skin. This kind of fish definitely came from the deep sea. Those who owned this kind of shuikao usually made a living by going underwater.

This kind of shuikao was extremely precious to those who worked in the underworld, as well as those who bought from them. The ancient technique of making shuikao had been lost now, which wasnt a treasure that could be measured by money. Logically, it was absolutely impossible to easily discard it in a tomb, so there had to be a special reason for it.

The first thing I thought of was whether this shuikaos owner had died here and they had left it as a kind of memorial. But I had never heard of such a thing. To Chinese people, putting clothes somewhere high up was more like sorcery. There was a legend in southern China that said when moving a grave, the clothes that accompanied the body didnt rot, so they had to be taken out, washed, and placed on the beams of the descendant's home. This indicated that when their ancestors were buried in the grave, other things had been buried as well. This was a kind of custom that usually happened in mountainous areas.

The reason for this sounded creepy. The feng shui masters of old would tell you that this was because many old people living in the mountains were no longer human before they died. They had become possessed by mountain demons and the like, but they were too old to do evil and remained buried in the coffins.

At this time, I suddenly frowned. There was a name written on the shuikao.

Qi Yu.

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TN Notes:

(1) Fur seals are more closely related to sea lions than true seals. More info here.

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Hope you got your reading pants on dears. Mama's putting 6 Reboot chapters out tonight hahahahaha