Chapter 55 Difficult Decisions

We carried all the people that were still alive out of the room. After coming out, we found ourselves in a long corridor with the same structure as the one below. There were also a lot of rooms, but we were too lazy to see what was inside of them. We lined everyone up in the corridor and then began our rescue efforts one by one.

The toxicity of this strong alkali fog acted on the human respiratory tract, forming ulcerations that caused breathing difficulties. Maybe it was because of our actions, but several of the weakest people we had moved out ended up dying before we could set them down on the ground.

It was a terrible feeling, as if we had murdered them ourselves. After doing everything we could, it was finally Poker-Face’s turn.

Based on the condition in which we had found him in, it was clear that he had wrapped himself tightly with all of his belongings. The tattoo on his body could be seen, indicating that his temperature was quite high at this time.

“Is it possible Little Brother adjusted his breathing to the weakest state?” Fatty wondered.

“Is this the legendary turtle breathing method?” I asked.

“When you say such words, can you stop using the tone of a Hong Kong-Taiwanese martial arts movie?” Fatty asked. “Fucking turtle breath. You still have to breathe. He first made his body very weak and went into a deep coma so as to slow his heartbeat. This in turn slowed his blood circulation. And wrapping yourself tightly with your clothes to minimize the contact area between your skin and the air can reduce the degree of poisoning. This must be why, out of all the people here, only he had the lowest degree of poisoning.”

“How did he weaken himself?” I asked. “By telling himself, ‘I’m weak, I’m weak’? Don’t you think you’d want to beat yourself up for saying that? Can you really put yourself in this kind of state by doing such a thing?”

“You don’t understand.” Fatty pointed to Little Brother’s hand and turned it over to show me. I saw that Poker-Face had wounds on both wrists. “If you want to be weak, you just need to bleed. Little Brother is certainly more proficient on how to bleed than we are.”

The red marks on the ground seemed to contain Little Brother’s blood in addition to the other people’s excrement.

“What should we do now?” I looked at these people and suddenly felt a little scared—if the mechanism tripped again, we’d probably become like this. “There’s only the two of us and there are so many people here. We can’t take them out.”

Fatty scratched his head and said, “Don’t be angry, but I think it’s fine to just take Little Brother out. If we continue to stay here, there won’t be a chance for anyone and we’ll run into some bad luck.”

“Didn’t you say just a while ago that you wanted to share your grace?” I asked.

“Saving people is saving people. When you find that you can’t do it, don’t force it. I’m a very utilitarian person. Plus, with my body, it’s impossible to carry another person out. I’m not familiar with them, either. They’re all better than me in this field so they should be aware of it. You carry Little Brother on your back and I’ll take the lead. That’s the truth of the matter, so we’ll leave as soon as possible.”

I thought it over for a moment, looked at the few unconscious people on the ground, and said to myself, if I were lying here, would I want others to have such a conversation when I was in a coma?

“Then we’ll go out and come back? To bring these people and Granny Huo’s bodies out?”

“Damn it, what’s with your fucking addiction to returning here?” Fatty asked. “This place is really fucking weird! I’ve never been afraid of grave robbing, but this ancient building made me feel uncomfortable as soon as I came in. Mr. Naïve, I told you. These people will have died by the time you make it back. You’ll have come for nothing, so don’t worry about these things at this juncture.”

I knew Fatty was lying. His thinking was actually very simple—the first principle was to try his best to save you first, but if that was impossible, then he wouldn’t fight it nor bear any moral constraints. Fatty was a man who lived quite straightforwardly, and most of the time, I really admired his foolish way of living.

We didn’t discuss the issue again. I walked back and looked at Granny Huo’s body, wondering how I would break the news to Xiao Hua when I got back.

Of course, Granny Huo had really lived quite well—the several men involved in her wonderful life were all great heroes that ordinary women normally couldn’t see. It was just…she was dead now. How would Xiao Hua explain it when he returned? The Huo family was now in a state of chaos and people needed to be seen, whether they were alive or dead. Although Granny Huo’s body was withered, it was still quite difficult to bring it out.

I probably wouldn’t be able to take all of her out, but which part could I take to prove to others that she was actually dead?

The answer was very obvious but I really couldn’t think of how I could cut off her head.

I wondered what expression the Huo family would make if they saw her head like that. This whole “demanding to see the corpse at death”… if they really saw it, wouldn’t they just flip out immediately?

But a family of grave robbers had a different view of many things compared to ordinary families, and Xiao Hua definitely needed it. Even if it wasn’t displayed to all the family members, it should be displayed in front of some of the elders who could make decisions and tell them what had happened.

But no matter how I thought about it, I felt that this behavior was really too much for me to bear. I kowtowed several times in front of her body, then said to her, “Granny, you know what I want to do? You also love Xiao Hua very much. I really have to. If you don’t mind, don’t move.”

When I looked at the body after speaking and found that it hadn’t moved, I said, “Thank you, Granny. I’ll tell you secretly that you were my grandpa’s favorite. If you liked him too, you can tell me in a dream and I’ll bury you beside him so that my grandmother won’t know.”

“You’re a coward, selling grandmas for survival,” Fatty scolded from the side. “Your grandfather may already have three wives and four concubines down there. If you put the old woman down as well, it’ll be bloody.”

“I don’t care that much about it,” I said. “How can one not get knifed when he floats in this circle?”

After that, I couldn’t help feeling that I was an extreme fucking asshole. I pulled a knife out and held it against Granny Huo’s neck while closing my eyes and clenching my teeth. Then, I turned to Fatty and said, “Fatty, I have a job. You have to help me do it. I’ll give you six hundred thousand yuan!”

Fatty, who had been sorting through all of his things on the side, turned to me and asked, “Why are you being so polite? Just say it. Depending on the work, I’ll give you a discount if it’s simple.”

“Please help me cut off Granny Huo’s head,” I said.

Fatty looked at me and froze, “You’re crazy! Won’t Xiuxiu kill you?”

Once I told Fatty my thoughts, he mulled it over for a moment before saying, “I really haven’t done this before. Although I’m a tomb robber, I’ve never desecrated a corpse, let alone one I’m familiar with. I really can’t do it.”

I sighed and asked him, “What then? Think of something for me.”

Fatty thought for a moment and said, “I’ll do it for eight hundred thousand. Eight hundred thousand yuan.”

<Chapter 54> <Table of Contents><Chapter 56>

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Updated 4/24/2021