Chapter 25 Don’t Know Where the Code Came From

Was there a kindred spirit who had been confused by the painting and just so happened to stay here before? Frustrated and depressed, did he doodle on the door with his own poop to relieve the loneliness and emptiness?

What did 104 mean? Was it a room number? Was this a hint that someone wanted me to pay attention to room 104?

This room was four or five rooms away from mine, and I immediately realized that this was indeed a hint.

Things were getting more and more interesting, but what the hell was going on around me?

I stood up, took a piss, and flushed everything down the toilet, deciding not to think about it. After leaving the toilet, I strolled all the way to 104’s door and soon saw that it was open. A man was standing there shirtless, using a cloth and washbasin to clean himself up while singing:

“Sister, go forward boldly. Oh, your brother is waiting in the room. Be kind and loving, don’t let anyone see.”

I looked at the man’s stomach and saw that there were many scars on it, almost like a checkerboard. The man’s beard and hair were very long, and he looked very untidy and fat.

Fatty?

I was shocked, but my inertia made me walk past the door of room 104 and continue all the way down the stairs. As I walked, I kept thinking, that man is most definitely Fatty.

But damn, how could Fatty get here so fast? In this weather, it should have been impossible for him to get from one wilderness to another so quickly.

Moreover, this was Motuo. Entering this place was more troublesome than trying to leave Shiwan Dashan.

But it was obvious that Fatty didn’t want me to recognize him and he didn’t come to look for me either. He just left a mark in the toilet, left his room door open for me to see, and sang a song to give me a hint.

When I came downstairs, I didn’t know what to do, so I just found a random place and started smoking. At this time, I suddenly saw Fatty dripping dirty water directly from upstairs and shouting down, “Boss Lady, there’s no hot water. Bring up two more pots.”

The Menba Boss Lady (1) shouted at him, grabbed two pots of water, and went upstairs as Fatty added, “Hurry up, I have diarrhea again. I’ve come to your damn place and have diarrhea at seven every morning. Is your food dirty?”

I lit a cigarette and couldn’t help but laugh. If he had diarrhea at seven every morning, then fine, I’d follow after him and have diarrhea at 7:15 in the morning.

When the next day arrived, I went to the toilet on time. Other than a fresh stench, I saw a disgusting thing holding a piece of toilet paper to the back of the door. This piece of toilet paper had a lot of words written on it.

I carefully tore it off while thinking to myself, it really is diarrhea. Fatty is really putting on a show.

A lot of information had been written on the paper, and I understood everything as soon as I read it.

It turned out that Fatty had discovered that Agui’s phone had been tapped three weeks ago, but he couldn’t find anyone in the village who was watching him. He realized that the target of the phone tapping wasn’t him, but me who called him every week.

So, he came up with a plan and asked Agui to connect his cell phone to the landline. Every time I made a phone call, Agui wouldn’t answer the phone right away, but would first let it connect to the cell phone and then pick it up, allowing his landline to become hands-free. This made me think that Fatty was still in Guangxi, but in fact, he had already left and was secretly going to Hangzhou to find me.

As a result, when he arrived in Hangzhou, he found that I was in Nepal and so he decided to wait for me to come back. It wasn’t until I arrived in Motuo and was ready to stay for a period of time that he left Hangzhou.

When he received the last phone call, he was almost in nearby Linzhi and immediately came to Motuo. After he came, he never met up with me, but waited for me at the mountain pass and then followed me all the way here. He said that if I left a place for more than three minutes, there were people following me.

They were all local people—obviously not very experienced because they could only follow me through their familiarity with the place.

They didn’t notice that Fatty had been watching me nearby. They were just like the mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind it. (2)

But it was because of this that Fatty had been unable to contact me. He said that since this place was too small, he would surely end up like me as soon as he appeared, so he would investigate by himself to see if he could find anything. He hadn’t found a better way to contact me secretly for the time being, so he told me to pay more attention to all of the nearby toilets.

I flushed the toilet paper away, feeling much more at ease.

No matter how strong I was, it was always good to be protected and taken care of.

In hindsight, I think I committed another mistake at this point in time, but it was very controversial. According to my previous way of doing things, I shouldn’t think of anything at this time and should just leave here with Fatty first. But Fatty and I both wanted to find out who was scheming against us and for what purpose.

I pulled up my pants and pushed the toilet door open, feeling that everything could be discussed in the long term. The game here had just begun.

But as soon as I pushed the door open, I saw two lamas standing there.

I froze for a moment before asking, “Standing in line?”

One of the lamas shook his head, “Master Wu, the head lama asked for you to go up the mountain immediately.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“What happened fifty years ago has happened again. Another person emerged from the snowy mountain.”

I didn’t remember if I told the lamas of my whereabouts, but they had a lot of power here so they probably asked the nearby families. But I didn’t have time to worry about that right now.

After following them all the way up the mountain and arriving back at the lama temple, I found that everything was out of sorts and everyone was acting suspiciously. I didn’t know what they were doing, but they were all busy and this place now looked like a battlefield hospital.

The lamas led me all the way to the head lama’s bedroom, where I found a man sitting inside.

The man had his back facing me and was dressed in a Tibetan robe. He was also quietly drinking butter tea. I thought the atmosphere was somewhat strange, because as soon as I entered the room, several lamas on the side looked at me with strange eyes.

I shouldn’t say that their eyes were strange, but more like they thought I was strange.

This kind of atmosphere made me feel very uncomfortable as I went up to the man and sat down, casually looking at him from the side.

At that moment, I almost leaped up from my seat and jumped to one side.

My head was buzzing and I almost fainted from fright.

The person sitting opposite the lama was none other than myself.

No, wait. I was confused and a little incoherent. It wasn’t me, but I saw a face that looked exactly like mine.

“It’s you?” I was too surprised to keep my mouth shut.

The other party looked at me with indifferent eyes, but nodded and said, “I knew you wouldn’t die so easily.”

“Who the hell are you?!” I cursed. “What kind of monster are you, and why are you pretending to be me?” I wanted to strangle him, but he immediately stood up and stepped back, causing my attack to fail. Then he motioned with his hand, “We don’t have any conflicts of interest now; you don’t have to be so extreme with me.”

“No?” I continue to yell. “Fuck you, you son of a bitch. If you were me, would you not be so extreme? I not only want to be extreme today, but I also want to kill you!”

“Haha, in fact, I am you and you are me.” He took another sip of butter tea. “This isn’t what I want either. We’re both victims.”

The fire in my heart was getting more and more intense. I felt that this whole thing was simply unreasonable and wanted to shut him down again, but then the head lama spoke up.

“Gentlemen, you don’t need to quarrel in this way. Let’s solve the immediate problem first.”

I looked at the me standing opposite, then at the head lama’s indifferent appearance, and suddenly felt as if I had witnessed this scene somewhere before. Was it in “Journey to the West”?

Was the head lama the tathagata Buddha (3), I was Sun Wukong (4), and this other guy was the Six Eared Macaque? (5)

I sat down warily. This guy had tried to kill me before; I would never go back to such a defenseless state. So, I stayed far away from him and maintained a defensive stance, ready to attack at any time.

I turned to the head lama and this guy and asked, “What’s going on?”

The head lama said, “This gentleman suddenly appeared at the gate of the temple at noon today. Just like what happened fifty years ago, he told my disciple that he came from the snowy mountains. Because he looks exactly like you, I thought you were joking with my disciple, but after I got in touch with him, I realized that you were really two different people. So, I quickly called you back. I want to know what’s going on.”

The fake Wu Xie said, “I spoke with them a bit and discovered that you might also be here, but they wouldn’t let me leave. After thinking about it, there are many things that I would like to make clear now that I’ve seen you.”

“You came from the snowy mountain?”

He nodded, and I said, “Since you want to make it clear, then you can tell me who you are. What’s your aim?”

He picked up the butter tea, refilled his cup in an impolite manner, and said to me, “I told you, it’s not good for you to know.”

“I want to die, just tell me,” I said.

“It’s a pity that I’ve just started to love my life and don’t want to die with you. I can only tell you that when it comes to my affairs and those things you’ve experienced, it’s best not to think of them together,” he said. “Time has passed and you’re all free. You don’t have to look into it anymore. Don’t destroy the results. If you continue to struggle, you may unknowingly get caught up in another big mystery.”

“I don’t care, a dead pig doesn’t fear boiling water. Moreover, I’m not entangled in anything; it’s just a coincidence that I’m here.”

“You didn’t intentionally come here?” He looked somewhat surprised.

When I nodded, he put the teacup down and asked, “Then how did you get here?”

What should I say? I wondered. Should I tell him that I was set up? Do I have to tell the truth? Instead, I just shook my head and retorted, “What do you care?”

“You don’t understand the environment you’re in.” He suddenly stood up, “If you haven’t checked it yourself, then we’ll both be in big trouble.”

After he got up, he quickly looked around the room and asked the head lama, “Master, is there any other way out of this room?”

The head lama shook his head. I was just about to ask him why when the door was suddenly opened and several people came in.

It was those Hong Kong people.

With the big lama and them, more than a dozen people were gathered in the small room.

The Hong Kong group was led by Zhang Longban—a slightly older middle-aged man—and the Zhang girl. I couldn’t remember the others.

“Sure enough, boy, you’ve fallen into a trap. Always with the same moral character, can’t your brain mature at all?” Fake Wu Xie sighed.

“What’s with this unexpected visit?” The head lama asked.

Zhang Longban didn’t answer him, but looked at the two of us and said, “You two don’t need to think carefully. With your skills, it’s impossible to leave this room. It really hasn’t been easy, but the two of you have finally come together in one place. It seems some of our doubts can finally be resolved.”

“And you are?” The guy who looked like me asked. “What’s with this mystery? Why did you set up this scheme to trap us?”

“I, like you, will not disclose any information until I’m sure you’re reliable.”

“You know me quite well,” Fake Wu Xie said. “But you’re too confident in yourself.” With that, he suddenly approached me, hooked his arm around my neck, and dragged me back while saying “Get out of the way. Otherwise, you won’t achieve your goal.”

Zhang Longban looked at us like we were two idiots before he rushed through the gap separating us, the Zhang girl quickly following behind him. She raised her hand and lifted something, which I noticed was the slingshot I had made before. Almost instantly, I heard the sound of something splitting the air and the fake Wu Xie, who was standing behind me with his arm around my neck, shook all over and then dropped to the ground, taking me with him.

I quickly pushed his arm away, and when I got up, I saw that he was curled up on the ground, his face distorted in pain.

I turned my head and saw the girl pointing the slingshot at me. I immediately said, “Stop! I’m good—”

Before I finished speaking, I saw her slingshot move, and I fell to the ground with a shout.

<Chapter 24> <Table of Contents><Chapter 26>

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TN Notes:

(1) Menba is an ethnic group

(2) Idiom meaning to pursue a narrow gain while neglecting a greater danger

(3) Buddha’s name for himself, having many layers of meaning

(4) The Monkey King, main character with supernatural powers in the novel

(5) Too much effort to explain lol. A good exposé is here but basically the Macaque steals the Monkey King’s identity and people can’t tell them apart.

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Updated 12/12/2021

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