Chapter 56 Success

We packed our things, stumbled back to the stone chamber, and immediately saw the changes that had taken place.

On some of the alcoves in the stone wall where the ancient books had been placed, I could see that part of the relief had been pushed out, while other parts hadn’t.

The whole rock wall turned into a very strange jigsaw puzzle, where some places were pieced together and others weren’t. It still basically had the alcoves.

“Is this the correct answer?” I muttered to myself.

Xiao Hua sat down on the ground, unscrewed his canteen, and took a few sips. “It’s a waste of time. The answer seems surprisingly simple.”

“What does that mean?” I asked as I took a closer look.

He remained silent. I wanted to keep analyzing it, but I found that I had lost my strength and my brain had completely stopped functioning.

After a long silence, he rubbed his temples and said, “It’s no use thinking about it again. At this stage, it has nothing to do with us. This is probably the only result we can obtain from the Guangxi tips. Let’s go back over our process and see if there are any flaws. If not, then we should hand over the baton.”

I knew what he meant: we had the “clue”, but the place where the clue was executed was thousands of miles away. It wasn’t here, so it was useless for us to think about it anymore.

I also sat down, and the two of us slowly thought about the whole process again. In the end, we agreed unanimously that the problem wasn’t that serious.

“If this is still wrong, it can only be said that they’re unlucky.” Xiao Hua took out his camera and started taking pictures, capturing almost every detail in the whole stone room.

I kept to the side, immediately relaxing my guard. I felt as if this was easier than all the other trips I had made before. In this way, the work would soon come to an end.

“Fuck, why do these Zhangs want to make things so complicated?” Xiao Hua asked.

“It’s not complicated at all. If you think about it, you’ll find that this is the only way. If we were back in ancient times, we certainly wouldn’t have any idea what to do about it. You would have to draw all these things down and send them from Sichuan to Guangxi quickly. At that time, these two places were very deep in the mountains and there was no road. Do you know how long it would take to go back and forth?” I said. “It’s impossible to do it in a year. Besides, there were tigers, bandits, and robbers… shit, Guangxi was basically a no-man’s land. It was a place of exile for the Nanman and there was a Qiang Village, so it was impossible to enter Zhang Jialou at that time. What’s more, you shouldn’t forget that this tomb was moving.”

“So, the Zhangs themselves were also very dangerous? Maybe several of their precious descendants died on the road. Why did they have to bury all their ancestors together and then keep moving the tomb?”

“I think it was because of necessity.” I sighed.

The photos were imported into a computer, faxed to Banai using a public phone line in the nearby town, and then the man over there quickly delivered them to Granny Huo’s hands.

I didn’t know what they would feel when they saw these photos, but it was probably similar to what we felt when we first saw theirs. 

Then, there was a long wait.

We had nothing to do. I stayed hanging in mid-air in the nest, chatting with Xiao Hua and looking at the four snow-capped mountains in the distance. Those dreamlike clouds at dusk, with the fair air and humid wind were just like a fantasy.

Xiao Hua was obviously more accepting of me now. We talked about a lot of things, from the time when we were young, to after our separation, and the things we had learned to play. Sometimes we laughed a lot, while at other times we were quiet with emotion. Since our two backgrounds were so similar, even our personalities were very comparable. But my grandfather was devoted to whitewashing the business, while Xiao Hua—because of his family relationship—had to inherit his family.

“God is fair. Everyone thinks that the Xie family is an upstanding family, but no one realizes that it’s like a curse. After Xie Lianhuan died, my father died soon after, and several of my uncles died one after another. Then, my grandfather finally left and I was suddenly the only one left in the whole family. Those women who split up or remarried were left to me to deal with. It was a mess.” Xiao Hua was drinking as he leaned against the cliff. “You said you’ve been away since you were young, so you have no experience with such things. This is actually a blessing. After my grandfather died, the Xie family couldn’t even whitewash our business since there wasn’t anything left. My mother tried hard to maintain the family’s face outside, but I was only eight years old when I came out as the little boss.” He paused. “I have all the experience you don’t have, but you must believe me when I say that those experiences are very, very uncomfortable.

“When the Xie family fell, it was like everyone abandoned ship and countless people came to cause trouble. Fortunately, my grandfather was very cautious in doing things and had already prepared for it before he died. He arranged for me to go to Er Ye to study drama, which was a sign that the elders accepted the younger generation. The Xie family—and our connections in the industry— allowed me to survive from the age of eight up until I was twenty-six years old. It was all thanks to my grandfather’s planning before he died, and Er Ye’s protection.” He said. “You might not know, but I want to remind you that if you leave this circle, don’t bother trying to enter it again. The people here are not good.”

“Are you a good person or one of the bad ones?” I asked.

“What do you think?” He looked at me and sighed. “Do you think a good man, upon hearing that his childhood playmate’s life and death was uncertain, would still ignore it and finish his own business first?”

“I thought it was one of your rules. Plus, we’re not all that familiar with each other.”

He smiled wryly. “Yes, it’s a rule my grandfather set. He was too clever and could calculate everything, so I didn’t dare think he was wrong. Do you know how many times I did such things before? I often wondered if I didn’t listen to my grandfather and went back immediately, would those people still be alive?” He also smiled. “You can’t have friends once you think like that, because you know you can’t go back and save them. If you became friends with someone and this happened, then you’d be sad. So to prevent that and be able to abandon others with ease, I decided I couldn’t be friends with anyone. It sounds a bit melodramatic, doesn’t it?”

I didn’t know how to answer him, so I just chuckled a few times.

“But these were my thoughts when I was a child.” He said. “Now that I’m older, I’ve figured a few things out.” He sighed and raised the wine bottle and motioned to me, “So, Little Master Three. With me here, you have to take care of yourself.”

I returned the gesture, feeling less bitter in my heart. It was true that I had often felt that way and occasionally sighed with emotion, but there weren’t many things that could be changed.

In this way, we chatted and bantered back and forth, and after five days, we finally got feedback from Guangxi.

We received more photos than we had initially sent, and I immediately saw how they worked.

Poker-face had copied us and scraped off the entire relief surface on their stone wall. Originally, the relief sculpture on the outer layer of the rock wall was carved on a layer that looked like stone. Someone wrote on the back of the photo that it was a mixture of egg whites and horse manure that had been pasted on a flat boulder and then embossed with the designs.

This explained why the relief sculpture looked as if it had been made so hastily. The material couldn’t be carved on too much.

After the relief was removed, only a few places were actually carved out of the huge rock. Those parts couldn’t be scraped off, and once we compared them, we found that they were the same as the alcoves in the wall here.

Moreover, the carved fragments on the boulder looked like buttons that could be pressed. They pressed the corresponding fragments one by one according to the photos we had sent, and then I saw a photo of Fatty standing in front of the separated boulder with bare arms and a thumbs up. The boulder had split down the middle and a gap had opened that was wide enough for people to pass through. The back of the photo read: Well done.

Xiao Hua and I high-fived, but we immediately found that behind this group of photos were more photos of a stone wall.

The message on the back was even more concise: 400 meters behind the first stone wall, there’s a second stone wall. Please keep up your efforts.

There were a lot of relief patterns on these photos.

Xiao Hua and I smiled bitterly, but this time we didn’t have any doubts. No matter what was in the picture, we didn’t have to unravel it. We just had to go down the corridor of the second mechanism and do it again.

If it was a novel, maybe something would’ve happened in the meantime, but this time was really much easier than I thought. We prepared better this round and got the arrangement of the second set of reliefs on the second day. During the three days it took them to open the third stone wall, nothing else happened.

After they unlocked it, we got their feedback. According to the number of chains on this mechanism, I knew this was the last hurdle. Once they entered, they should finally see the Zhang Jialou. We packed everything up in the stone room and took one last look at the reliefs. I couldn’t believe it was really over.

I had never been so relaxed, nor had I ever felt so fulfilled. From childhood to adulthood, everyone thought that I was a person who wouldn’t do great things. This time, however, I proved that I had done it. The sense of achievement really felt great. I finally understood why some people were so persistent in their pursuit of success.

Xiao Hua was also very happy. The big stone in his heart had been put down and now all he had to do was wait for news from their side.

We were sure we didn’t need to stay here anymore, so we went to the bottom of the cliff. If there was good news, we’d go back to the village or simply go to Guangxi and wait to celebrate in Banai.

I thought about what the old woman had promised me, but I didn’t rush to cash in on it. On one hand, I was injured all over and didn’t have the strength to think about these things. On the other hand, I didn’t want to appear too utilitarian. But I still wanted Xiao Hua to bring it up and tell me.

But that was obviously impossible. On our second day of rest, Xiao Hua didn’t have anything to say at all. I finally couldn’t help but ask him first.

He was leaned up against the cave wall, playing with his cell phone. When I suddenly asked him, he showed a rather apologetic expression, “I’m sorry, I forgot. I don’t really care much about it myself.”

“I can tell,” I said. “Seeing as I saved your life, please give me a good word.”

“If I must.” Xiao Hua put his phone back in his pocket. “But why do you want to know the truth of this matter so badly? In my opinion, it’s better not to know.”

I didn’t want to explain too much, so I ended up scolding him. “Just tell me what’s going. I’ll tell you what happened to me when I’ve heard it all.”

“All right.” Xiao Hua said with a smile. “Xiuxiu should have told you about the seemingly earth-shattering thing our grandfathers did here?”

I nodded, and Xiao Hua continued, “Then that saves me a lot of trouble. Let me think about where to start.” He scratched his head. “In fact, the whole thing should have been started by Zhang Da Fo Ye. You also know about that?”

Zhang Da Fo Ye was the head of the Mystic Nine. I had heard some anecdotes about him before, but I didn’t know if Xiao Hua wanted to tell me about them, so I just shook my head.

Xiao Hua said, “Then I’ll probably tell you, that you—” he paused, “don’t be surprised by what you hear. It’s basically true.”

The Zhang family and Zhang Da Fo Ye were from the north and migrated to the south at some point. But the origin and background of this family in the north were very mysterious. First, it came from a large mountain clan in the Jilin area, but people in the north didn’t know anything about them.

Even Zhang Da Fo Ye himself was confused about his origin. He said that when he was in the north, his family’s ancestral teachings were very low-key. He only knew that their family background wasn’t honorable and that this branch of theirs seemed to have been driven out hundreds of years ago by another large family surnamed Zhang.

Zhang Da Fo Ye had told this story himself at the wine table. It sounded very hackneyed now, as if he also thought it was a legend.

Maybe hundreds of years ago, in the area of Jilin, there was a very mysterious family of grave robbers living in seclusion in the mountains. They were indifferent to the rest of the world and carried out a strict policy of intermarriage. Except for the chosen stewards, everyone else lived in a gathering place in the remote mountains and didn’t associate with outsiders at all.

Later, one of them fell in love with the daughter of a hunter and impregnated her. The family was so angry that they were about to kill the fetus in the woman’s womb, but she refused and finally chose to leave the family. The man was tortured, deprived of the family’s unique characteristics, and then expelled.

The man and the hunter’s daughter left that place and came to the city of Jilin. Fortunately, he was clever and patient, and they relied on his grave-robbing skills to gradually raise a family.

Since they were afraid of their family’s surveillance, they lived a very low-key life all their lives. This later became their family’s ancestral teachings. After several generations, the family had gradually become a very large hidden force in Kanto.

It was said that the second generation of that descendant once went back to the place where their parents were driven out. They wanted to find their grandparents but found that their ancestral home was in ruins and they didn’t know where they had gone. But in those ruins, they found the secret of why their ancestors were isolated from the world.

It was said that they had found a huge cellar, which had been built by this family. It contained numerous iron coffins that held all the family’s ancestors.

It was frightening under the cellar, but the coffins on the lowest floor—i.e., the oldest ones—had been removed. It was obvious that the family had left in a hurry, and didn’t have a lot of time to escape. Without exception, these remaining coffins all appeared to be in a strange state.

They burned down the cellar to cover up the secret, but it still became a family legend.

A few decades ago, during China’s most turbulent era, Zhang Da Fo Ye—as the largest local power in Changsha—participated in the revolution when the new and old regimes alternated. As someone in this business, he was highly skilled in martial arts, possessed special skills, and had great appeal. All of this enabled him to establish himself in the center of power. Zhang Da Fo Ye’s alias at that time isn’t known, but in short, his position was very high (at least in the primary power group).

In such a high position, it was only natural that he would come into contact with some key figures. 

A certain leader just so happened to learn the secret from him. At that time, he may have said it as a joke in a small gathering, but the leader listened to it and was very curious.

After the revolution was over, everyone grew older year by year. Zhang Da Fo Ye retired to the countryside, thinking that he would finish his life in this way. But one year, he suddenly received a secret invitation and ended up seeing the leader again.

The leader at that time was already in his twilight years and Zhang Da Fo Ye could obviously tell from their conversation that this person feared aging and death. The leader asked him to look for his ancestors’ secret.

As a result, Zhang Da Fo Ye had to search through his family’s records. He even used his connections to search through numerous county annals and finally found some clues. No one knows the specific process he used, but he found clues on this side of Sichuan’s Siguniang Mountain, which led to the “largest grave robbery in history.”

The leader’s health deteriorated very rapidly at that time, so they had to carry out the very risky exploration even though the time wasn’t ripe. As a result, the largest grave-robbing operation in history eventually turned into the Mystic Nine’s greatest disaster. At that time, their backbone was almost destroyed and the best members died.

The project was under the direct command of the leader, so another deputy had been put in charge. But that year, both the deputy and leader died one right after another, and the whole project ended automatically. Few people knew about it.

I remembered the photo I saw from Uncle Two that year. The man in the photo had such a high status that I couldn’t believe it, but now it really seemed to be true.

“Fortunately, the project was so confidential that no one knew such a thing had happened after those two people died. In the ensuing turmoil, the Mystic Nine fell out of power and many old people died one right after another. It could be said that the golden age of the old Changsha tomb robbers had come to an end. Since then, the situation had been calm and everyone thought the matter was over. Granny Huo, Xie Jiuye, and all the others consciously began to sweep it under the rug to try and get rid of the shadow. At the same time, in order to boost business and divide into regions, the large families began to marry and cooperate with the government.” Xiao Hua said. “But they didn’t expect that this matter would continue. As soon as they entered the government’s door, their children were already watched and nurtured. As you know, this initial military group’s power was very deep, and while using them, the second and third groups had already taken shape.

“It seems that they had actually completed a thorough investigation and selection in the mid-1970s when Huo Ling and your Uncle Three’s generation were under twenty years old. I believe your father, your Uncle Two, and your Uncle Three all know about this. It was terrible at that time and young people were very fanatical. While the old power was declining, the new one had actually started to operate.”

Xiao Hua called the leader of that year “Force A,” and said that they didn’t give up the secret exploration. After the leader died, Force A’s successor accepted the Mystic Nine’s disappearance on the surface, but in fact, Huo Ling and the others who worked in the archaeological team had already started on the next project. Moreover, their target during that time had shifted from Sichuan to Zhang Jialou, and the relationship between Yangshi Lei and Zhang Jialou was also discovered.

Force A believed that when Zhang Da Fo Ye’s ancestors left Jilin, they probably took their coffins to Guangxi, built an ancient building in the mountains, and hid the “secret” in this Zhang Jialou. As a result, Force A used the emerging forces of Huo Ling and Chen Wen-Jin to form an archaeological team and sent them to Guangxi to explore.

“These are the things we speculated before we met you.” Xiao Hua said. “Before, we always thought that the archaeological project had dealt a huge blow to Huo Ling, making her seem possessed. Maybe she went to Xisha to unravel the knot in her heart, and then something big happened. Granny Huo couldn’t figure it out. At first, she thought that her daughter had died at the bottom of the sea. Around the end of the eighties, she actually gave up and accepted it. She was tired of things here and wanted to leave China and immigrate to Canada. But at this time, someone suddenly sent her some videos.”

Xiuxiu had already mentioned this before, but I didn’t want to expose her, so I kept silent and listened again. “There was an image of Huo Ling on the video. She seemed to be held captive somewhere. Granny Huo always thought that someone was blackmailing her, threatening her daughter in order to keep her in the country. As a result, she continued to look for the ancient Zhang Jialou. You know, that kind of thing is a very, very sad thing for a mother.”

“So, the old woman said she wanted to know why her daughter disappeared, but was actually being threatened into continuing to look for the ancient building? That’s why she paid a high price to buy the Yangshi Lei drawings?”

“Yes!” Xiao Hua said. “But your presence disturbed everything because you brought us some big news.”

Assuming that Force A had sent the videotape, then they might not have even known that the archaeological team they controlled had actually been replaced.

“What you discovered in that Guangxi lake tells us that there’s a force hidden even further in the background of this whole thing. So far, you may be the only one to have found out about Force B.”

This Force B was very mysterious, but it had made extraordinary moves. When it appeared, it used a very malicious trick to kill everyone in the archaeological team. Then, it replaced them with its own people. The whole process took place in a remote mountainous area at a very fast speed.

Obviously, Force B was well informed of Force A’s situation and made preparations early. As a result, those who replaced them didn’t immediately find out anything about the people around them and Force A also didn’t know that their team had been replaced by Force B.

Xiao Hua said, “After hearing the news, Granny Huo’s burden disappeared. You know her character. Vengeance will be swift and merciless. Now it’s time for her to fight back against these two forces who killed her daughter and tricked her for so many years. She’s going to find the Zhang Jialou first, get the contents, and then force the people behind the scenes to show themselves.”

“This is very dangerous.”

“Yes. That’s why the rest of her family left the country when we came here. The old woman’s playing for real this time.” Xiao Hua said. “I’m sorry, but now you know why she chose you as her helpers instead of her family.”

I wasn’t particularly afraid when he said this, since these things were all illusory, after all. “Then, who do you think this Force B is?” I asked.

“Force B definitely opposes and cooperates with Force A secretly; otherwise, it wouldn’t need to be so secretive. I heard you say that Xisha must have been the ultimate power struggle between these two forces, which was why it was so complicated. Maybe your Uncle Three was kept in the dark to some extent.” Xiao Hua said. “You’ll only understand what happened there if all the parties confess, but they’re almost all gone now.”

I lay down on the ground, silently agreeing with him. Fuck, I didn’t know what was going on. Uncle Three and Xie Lianhuan represented the opposing forces of Qiu Dekao and the Mystic Nine respectively. Were the others Force B in Force A’s skin? At that time, which side did Poker-face represent?

Xiao Hua stood up and said, “In short, the best is yet to come.” He looked at the alcoves on the wall and shined his flashlight on them, bored. “When they start bringing the things out, it’ll really be fun.”

I nodded and was about to curse some more, when I suddenly saw Xiao Hua pause, as if he had found something in the alcove. He frowned and lowered his head to look at it carefully.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

He frowned, bit his lower lip, reached into the alcove, and then fiddled with it. I heard a series of noises come from the cave wall, and then another relief sculpture appeared from inside.

Xiao Hua lifted up a piece of gravel and showed it to me, “Shit, was this piece stuck?”

As I walked up, my heart was already pounding and I thought, damn, what’s going on?

“We opened and closed it too many times. A stone fell and got stuck in the seam, preventing this relief from coming out.” Xiao Hua said.

Shit. I immediately took a deep breath and stepped back. There had originally been four buttons in total, but when I looked at the cave wall now, there were five. Shit. In other words, the team in Guangxi was originally supposed to press five buttons, but they had only pressed four. But based on Poker-face’s photo, the rock wall had still opened. The password was wrong, but the rock wall still opened. What happened when they entered?

<Chapter 55> <Table of Contents><Chapter 57>

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Updated 11/25/2020