Chapter 15 Fatty in the Gap

Xiao Hua immediately whistled and yelled, “Get a shovel!” With a loud crash, several young men tore open their backpacks and rushed up, their movements quick. Pan Zi had obviously trained them very well.

They would know what was going on as soon as they got near. I was wearing a mask and my identity was hidden, so I couldn’t do anything but watch from the side. Under Xiao Hua’s command, they immediately pried open the gap with a shovel and brick hammer.

I soon found that although the color of the stone around the gap looked exactly the same as that of the rock, it was much softer. After a few moments, the stone around the gap was all cracked and the men started moving the gravel aside with their hands. The gap soon changed back to the width it was when I had first climbed out of it, but then it became extremely difficult to enlarge it any further.

I was surprised to see that the sight before me looked like a kind of concealment. It was like the gap was a circle of rock growing from a wound. In fact, it wasn’t stone at all but looked exactly like it. It had almost the exact same texture but was softer.

I didn’t have time to think about it further as Fatty was dragged out. An extremely unpleasant smell suddenly reached my nose. He didn’t move as he was pulled out, and he seemed to be completely unconscious.

Fatty was at least one fold thinner than the last time I saw him and even looked lighter around the waist. He was covered in dark green mud and his eyes were as wide as death. I went up to feel his pulse and was relieved to find that it was still strong.

Several people rushed to carry him to a place with good airflow by the lake, but Fatty was so heavy that those lacking strength dropped him. I felt even more anxious as he fell to the ground a few times.

It was only when we dragged him to the lake and turned on the lantern that I fully saw the sorry figure he cut. Fatty wasn’t good-looking on a normal day and was already very untidy at his most presentable, but now he seemed like a zombie that had just been dug out of a coffin. His clothes were in tatters and he was covered in green mud. When Xiao Hua rushed to get some lake water to clean him, we found that his exposed skin was full of rotten, egg-sized boils.

“Fuck, this is one sick pig,” One of the guys whispered.

“Is he dead? Why isn’t he moving?” Someone patted Fatty on the face and I grabbed him. Xiao Hua called for a doctor to come and examine him.

I saw Mute Sister come over. She gave me a look as she tied her hair up and bent over to examine Fatty. I didn’t worry about avoiding suspicion at this time and forced myself to watch from the side. My face muscles were tense under the mask, but luckily, they couldn’t see it.

When Mute Sister cut Fatty’s clothes, we all saw an amazing scene. Fatty’s belly was full of countless bloody marks that had been carved deeply.

Although it didn’t seem to be in any kind of order, I could still tell at a glance that these marks had some very obvious patterns to them. Mute Sister carefully wiped Fatty’s bloodstains with a wet towel, looking for more fatal wounds. I watched the blood get wiped away and found that the wounds were extremely detailed, forming a totem-like pattern on his belly.

“Is this a word?” Someone asked. “There are a few words written on his stomach.” Mute Sister continued to check Fatty’s stomach and found that even more wounds were covered by his clothes. Since the clothes were no longer usable, she cut them all the way off, revealing more scratches on his lower abdomen. The outline of the whole thing really did look like words.

These wounds must’ve been made by a sharp object using moderate force upon the skin.

I picked up Fatty’s hand. Sure enough, he had bitten his thumbnail until it had formed a sharp point.

It looked like Fatty had made these scratches himself. Although he was very muddy, scratching so many marks onto his belly with his nail wasn’t something an ordinary person could do. What was he trying to say?

Some of the earliest scratches were scabbed over, while the most recent ones were still stained with blood. The strokes had obviously taken a long time, and it was easy to see that the first stroke on his belly was at least seven or eight days old.

I thought it over and said to Xiao Hua, “We should stand up and see what’s written. Let’s move his clothes out of the way.”

As we spoke, we all stepped back and looked at Fatty from several directions to see the scratches. I tilted my head but still couldn’t make sense of it.

“Search through his clothes and see what’s there,” I told the people around me, hoping there would be some hints.

A few of them started scrambling to flatten out the cut-off clothes, but Mute Sister said, “If you want to look through them, go further away. Don’t get in the way here.”

It was only then that I realized we still didn’t know what Fatty’s condition was. I immediately waved them off and had Xiao Hua lead them away.

Worried about Fatty, I lowered my voice and asked Mute Sister, “Is he in danger?”

She pressed her hand against Fatty’s neck and didn’t answer me. I thought she was counting his pulse and dared not ask again. She eventually dropped her hand and asked me, “Are you finally willing to talk to me?”

Shit! I felt my heart lurch as I thought to myself, how should I answer this? I was worried about Fatty and didn’t want to turn tail and run.

A thought flashed through my mind and I wondered how, with Uncle Three’s character, he would answer such words. I knew what he looked like when he was eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling, but I didn’t know what feelings he had for this girl or what he looked like with women in private.

I didn’t say anything for a long time and just stood there and watched as she opened Fatty’s eyelids. She didn’t look at me, but continued, “I don’t care what you did this time. Only those idiots would believe what you said. I believe you had your reasons for doing things, but when you came back, why didn’t you come to me first?”

“Wang Ba Qiu and Lao Liu…” I said a little evasively.

“It’s not been a day or two since they wanted to oppose you,” Mute Sister said. “Can’t I help you? You really don’t believe anyone but your crazy Pan Zi, do you?”

“I didn’t want you to be involved this time.” My legs were shaking a little. I didn’t expect to have to lie to a woman under so much pressure. I immediately lit a cigarette, but before I could take a puff of it, she turned around, grabbed it, and stubbed it out on a stone. “Since you just had surgery on your throat, don’t smoke so much.”

I gave a dry laugh. This wasn’t a mistress, but a clear example of an empress. It was quite good, though. If Uncle Three was still alive, he would definitely need someone like this to take care of him. But it seemed pointless since Uncle Three’s fate was still uncertain.

“You haven’t explained it to me.” She started checking Fatty’s bones.

“Things are a little complicated…” I was wracking my brain to come up with a plausible explanation. If I told her the truth that I was her nephew, would she promise to stand by me? It was hard to say. Moreover, I bet she’d have difficulty believing me anyways. After all, the things that Uncle Three and I had experienced in recent years weren’t what ordinary people would believe. If she thought this was a conspiracy, we would be in even more trouble. 

“I think you…” I don’t know where she pressed, but before she finished speaking, Fatty suddenly grabbed her hand. She was so startled that she cried out.

Fatty was obviously too strong, so she couldn’t break his hold. Then, he started talking nonsense while practically convulsing.

His pronunciation was extremely vague so I went up, grabbed his hand, pulled it away from Mute Sister’s wrist, and bent over to listen to him. It took a long time to figure out what he was saying, but when I did, a hot, dry heat made the hair all over my body stand on end.

When the people around us heard the noise, they thought that something had happened and all gathered around.

“What did he say?” Xiao Hua asked as he came up with the medicine bag.

“He said they’re still alive, but the situation is very dangerous,” I told him. “Let’s go down and save them immediately.”

In fact, Fatty had said these eight words, “They’re alive. Save them by following the map!”

Even though he kept talking, it was hard to hear it clearly. Only someone who was very familiar with his speech could understand it. Fortunately, I was that kind of person.

For a moment, I suddenly felt like collapsing.

Fuck, Fatty thinks of himself as a messenger. He came out to give us the news.

I couldn’t tell whether I was relieved, anxious, ecstatic, or something else. Before, I was constantly worried about their situation below the mountain and tried my best not to think about it because I really didn’t know what would happen. Now that I had settled down, I didn’t know what emotion to express.

Fatty kept talking, descending into a state of madness. I had to lean down and whisper in his ear, “I’m Mr. Naïve, I heard you.”

After repeating it several times, he grabbed my wrist and slowly relaxed. He eventually collapsed and fell into what appeared to be a coma.

“What map?” Xiao Hua looked at Fatty’s stomach. “Is that the picture on his stomach?”

I nodded. Now I knew what it was, “Get someone to trace all these patterns.”

<Chapter 14> <Table of Contents><Chapter 16>

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Updated 1/11/2021