Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Granny’s Mysterious MIA Search (奶奶的妙法)


My friend, Chong went missing after his Bukit Hijau herb hunting trip last week. He went into the forest with a group of 5 people and a guide.

The guide only found Chong dropped off the trail when he was taking the headcount half way to the peak of the hill.

At first people thought Chong was releasing himself at the back of a bush but after waiting for some time; Chong was still not in sight. So the group decided to descend down to foothill just in case Chong was already down there. To their disappointment, Chong was not seen at the foot of Bukit Hijau. Before the guide decided to contact the authority for a search and rescue mission, one of the group member saw that there was a small shrine opposite the car park.

The group lead, Lee thought it is no harm just to go into the shrine to ask for a divination as to Chong’s whereabouts. No one wanted to follow Lee, so he went alone.

As soon as Lee set his feet into the shrine, a granny was in the shrine sweeping the floor. The granny saw Lee and asked him of his intention.

After Lee told the granny of the missing of his team member, Chong; the granny asked Lee to handle her Chong’s clothing and she would pray to the Datuk spirit of the shrine to help. Luckily, Chong has left his jacket in Lee’s car and Lee hurriedly fetch the jacket and passed to the granny. As soon as the granny got hold of Chong’s jacket, she started to kneel down in front of her altar and start chanting for quite a lengthy of time. She at times nodded her head and at times she shook her head; but the granny’s eyes remained shut during her prayer. Finally, granny opened her eyes and asked Lee to give her two coins. Lee complied to her request and the granny said: “Follow me!”

Out of curiosity, Lee asked his team members to wait at their cars just in case Chong returned; and he himself followed the granny to hike up the Bukit Hijau trail.

Though the granny looked aged, she could hike pretty fast while Lee could only follow at her back. Interestingly, whenever the granny reached a trail junction, she would put down Chong’s jacket on one of the trails and flipped the coins. She only picked the trail that was ‘chosen’ by the coins, i.e. the coins must show a head and a tail. So the granny repeated the process every time they came to a junction until they came to a place blocked by a tree broken half.

According to the granny, the place with tree broken into half is the dwelling place of the mountain god. Again, the granny started to kneel down in front of the broken tree and prayed earnestly just the way she did in the shrine.

Finally, the granny opened her eyes and told Lee that the mountain god has kept Lee behind the fallen tree as a punishment. Though a little disbelieved, Lee went to the back of the fallen tree and there he heard the moaning voice of Chong came from below a slope.

Looked like Chong has accidentally slipped and fall during the hike. Since the incident happened so fast and the jungle trail was slippery, there wasn’t time for Chong to shout for help. Whatever case that might be, everyone was glad that Chong was finally ‘lost and found’ though in quite a mysterious way just as how he got lost.

Until today Chong still doesn’t know how he has offended the mountain god. Since the granny didn’t say; and he didn’t ask either.

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