I was simultaneously awed by another wonder: hidden among the towering mountains and vast forests of Shennongjia are tens of thousands of caves, each luring people with endless mysteries. It is precisely these mysterious underground caves that, after the first clap of spring thunder each year, begin to unleash a surging torrent of fish. During the fish-emerging season, the river surfaces and streams near the caves shimmer like silver currents, and crowds of people gather above and below the river to watch and catch fish, their voices resounding in the air. Where do these fish come from? Where do they usually reside? To this day, it remains a mystery. The most famous among them is the Guan Feng Fish Cave, which the local mountain folk had previously introduced to me.

The Guan Feng Fish Cave is hidden among the green trees and shrubs of Shennongjia, making it hard to find. According to legend, in ancient times, Emperor Yan Shennong, in order to relieve his people’s suffering, built scaffolds to gather herbs in Shennongjia, tying ropes as ladders and tasting all kinds of plants. He once slew a wicked dragon, transformed from a poisonous demon, in the nearby Heilong Cave. Shennong ground the dragon’s bones and flesh into fish roe, which he placed in the underground river to nurture over the winter. By the time of spring famine, thousands upon thousands of fish eggs had grown into countless small fish, which swam out of the cave to save the people from hunger. As for the fish lice, they were said to be fragments of the poisonous dragon’s heart and liver, which Shennong let loose to fight poison with poison and cure the people’s illnesses.

As for why the fish are scaleless and armorless, and why they are all about the same size, the locals explain: Long ago, frequent fights and injuries broke out here over fishing. To stop this, the authorities ordered stonemasons to make a millstone larger than a square zhang to block the cave entrance, leaving only a small round hole in the center, like the eye of a millstone, to let water flow out from the cave. This is the origin of the name Guan Feng Fish Cave. Since then, every year when the fish squeeze through the millstone hole, their scales and armor are scraped off, leaving them bloody. Over time, the fish gradually became uniform in size, matching the size of the millstone hole...

When we arrived, the fish-emerging season had already passed, so we couldn’t witness the spectacular scene of thousands of fish surging out. We could only stand by the Guan Feng Fish Cave in disappointment, listening to the locals tell us about its wonders and, incidentally, trying to sell us some fish lice from the cave. Of course, not wanting to disappoint their kindness, we bought some fish lice—after all, they had explained things to us for quite a while, and it would have been awkward not to offer any compensation.

Led by our guides, we kept traversing the caves, wishing we could explore them all, though everyone knew that was impossible. So we had to pick the most famous and most hidden caves to explore. Disappointingly, after all our efforts, nothing truly exciting happened: we didn’t find any wild man’s lair, nor any rare animal campsites, not even snakes, monkeys, or tigers—only human footprints.

With no other options, we began heading toward Shennong Peak, the main summit of Shennongjia. It was a pity that the folding steel crossbows we brought along were of no use at all during our adventure. For self-defense? We didn’t encounter a single beast of prey on the way; the occasional carnivore we saw would flee at the sight of us. Perhaps, the most fearsome animal in this world is man. If not for the mountain folk kindly allowing us to collect some plant specimens, I think this expedition would have been exceedingly dull.

The two guides, carrying our food and the specimens we collected, walked ahead of us. Both of them had the surname Chen. At first, we called the slightly older guide Big Brooks, and the younger one Little Brooks. But as soon as we did, the older guide insisted he didn’t dare accept the title, while the younger one looked quite unhappy. After asking, we learned that the two guides were actually related, and the younger one was of a senior generation—an uncle-granduncle to the other. No wonder the titles made them uncomfortable. Once we understood, we adjusted our naming: the older one became Old Brooks, and the younger one Big Brooks. As a result, everyone was happy.

Shennong Peak stands at 3,105 meters above sea level, and here the temperature drops noticeably. A gust of wind brings a bone-chilling cold, and sparse snowflakes begin to fall from the sky. We arrived at Fengjing Pass below Shennong Peak, where thick fog swirled and rolled beneath the sheer cliffs, and the thousands of peaks and ravines below appeared shockingly wild and menacing. Big Brooks was clearly an educated man. He told us that we were lucky to see the fog, as it comes and goes in an instant in these cliffside gorges and is not usually visible.

Standing at the edge of the cliff, I suddenly felt a fear of falling into the sea of mist. The fog surged up from the valley floor, crashing against the cliffs like waves, as if you could hear the roar of a tsunami, as if the “wild man” was tearing through the thick mist with a “heh heh” and drifting toward us.

Big Brooks said that in this area, “wild men” have been spotted many times—their footprints, hair, and droppings are often found, and golden monkeys are frequently seen moving in groups. This is probably because the arrow bamboo on Shennong Peak is food for both the “wild man” and the golden monkeys! In the late 1970s, members of a wild man expedition twice discovered strange “nests” in the arrow bamboo forest. Each “nest” was woven from 18 stalks of arrow bamboo, with about 50 centimeters between each stalk, and outside the nest were two piles of barely distinguishable droppings containing arrow bamboo and small animal limb remains. According to analysis, these could not have been made by humans, nor by clumsy bears, nor are monkeys clever enough to do such a thing. So, whose handiwork was it?