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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