Fatty was carrying the lama as I led the way through the dark corridors. I didn’t know how many courtyards we had walked through before we reached the one where Little Brother’s statue was. Strangely enough, the whole temple was very quiet along the way, with no voices at all.
Did the previous crises make everyone sleep soundly?
Fatty got a fright when he saw the statue and almost kicked it over, but I grabbed him, found a random room in the courtyard, kicked the door open, and went in.
The inside was full of wooden boxes, but because it was too dark, I didn’t know what the situation inside was like. We put the lama on the ground, use our cell phones to illuminate him, patted him down, and found nothing on him.
“Poor wretch,” Fatty scolded.
“You can’t do anything if you act like you’re searching for grave goods,” I lectured him. “You’ve been rich more than once so why do you act like a petty thief every time?”
“This is called modesty, do you understand? And your hands are so black that he might be dead. This is no different from searching for grave goods.”
My heart thumped and I thought to myself, no. I don’t want to bear the debt of a human life.
Fatty continued, “This man’s face looks like a Han Chinese, not a Tibetan. Were your Uncle Three’s enemies following you?”
“Are your enemies courageous enough to follow you all the way to the foot of the Himalayas?” I retorted. I couldn’t see the difference between races and was a little blind except for when it came to some special Kangba people.
Fatty tied the lama up with a rope, felt his pulse, and said, “It looks like this guy still needs some time to wake up. I’ll go and see how the Zhang family and the Germans are doing first. You have to watch him carefully.”
He started to leave but I quickly caught him. When he asked me what I was doing, I said, “I used to take the role of guarding prisoners, but something happened every time. I quit. This time you look after him and I’ll go take a look at their situation. Plus, I know this temple much better than you do. If you go out, you may still be hanging around here in the morning.”
Fatty thought about it before saying, “Then be careful and don’t be stupid.”
Don’t worry. I’m not who I used to be, I muttered in my heart as I nodded and went out the door.
After sneaking around, I breathed a sigh of relief. I suddenly felt that I was awesome since I could get Fatty to guard our camp now.
In a daze, the countless days of guarding camp floated to the forefront of my mind. I was filled with emotion when I thought of those helpless and useless feelings I used to worry about.
Wu Xie, ah Wu Xie, you’re finally no longer an engineer and can also be considered a fighting force now.
I ran out of the deserted area of the temple and came to the place where the lamas were more active. I began to act more cautiously and approached bit by bit, moving along the shadowy parts of various buildings, suddenly feeling like a ninja.
I was a little curious to know what the lamas were like now under such a chaotic situation. Was it true that all of them were sleeping?
Could it be that they had martial arts weapons and were protecting the head lama’s bedroom? But after thinking about it, I figured the most normal course of action for the head lama in this situation would be to call the police. But by the time the police arrived here, I estimated that there would be so many murdered bodies piled up, it would take them three trips.
When I went back to the place where the Zhang family had gathered to interrogate me, I was shocked at the sight. The place where the lights were brightly lit before was now completely dark. There was no light at all and only a few mottled shadows could be seen under the pale moonlight.
Fuck. I felt chills in my heart, wondering how these people could get away so cleanly. If they all went back to sleep, this group of people was too lenient.
Or maybe they were really ghosts just now, performing a ghostly drama? But if they were, then these ghosts were boring enough. Why were they bothering me at the foot of the Himalayas?
After hesitating outside the courtyard for a while, I felt that I still had to go in and take a look; otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to face Fatty. If I went back like this, Fatty asked me how things were, and I told him, “Oh, it’s ok. They’re all gone now so let’s go too”, Fatty would vomit blood.
I carefully went into the courtyard—crawled in, really—but fortunately, the snow had been swept aside. I went up to the door and saw that it was open and the charcoal stove inside was completely extinguished.
It’s really strange, I said to myself. I can’t see anything inside. But when I reached the spot where the moonlight could shine in, my heart started to beat faster.
I didn’t have any fear beforehand. To be honest, after going through everything that had happened in the past, my fear of darkness had eased a lot. I had even kind of depended on it in many cases because the protection darkness afforded you was far more effective than being scared of it.
But as soon as I arrived in this room, I began to feel nervous. I knew it wasn’t about the darkness itself, but the fear of an ambush in the darkness.
I didn’t dare move forward because I couldn’t see clearly into the room at all. I touched the charcoal stove with my hand and found that it was still warm. I then grabbed a handful of charcoal from inside and found that it had been doused with butter tea.
I tried to listen for any voices in the room and slowly realized that no one was there.
What exactly happened? Did the Zhang family suddenly attack after we left and subdue the Germans?
With the Zhang family’s skills, the chances of turning the tables were very high, but they didn’t need to leave either. Moreover, we didn’t hear any gunfire just now. According to common sense, the Zhang family would extinguish all the lights and then launch an attack—I believed they would have this kind of tacit understanding—but there was no need to extinguish the charcoal stove.
Charcoal stoves weren’t so easy to extinguish, so it must have taken a whole pot of butter tea before it was put out.
If this wasn’t the case, were the Germans the challengers?
If the Germans wanted to kill the Zhang family, they actually had a very good chance. They could gather in the dark, and even if they couldn’t kill all of them, they could at least kill a large number of them. Then the people lying in wait outside could kill the rest by continuously firing their weapons. If this was the case, then this room may reveal a different scene. Maybe all the Zhang family members had been shot dead inside.
It was really impossible to see anything, but if Zhang Haixing also died in there, I found it a little hard to accept.
If there was a bloody scent in the air, I couldn’t smell it at all. I didn’t know whether it was because of my nervousness or something else, but it felt like my nose was a little numb and seemed to be frozen.
I patted my body and found a lighter. I don’t know how long I hesitated—I was a little nervous and lost the concept of time—before finally igniting it.
Because it was so dark, the light that suddenly popped up gave a rough picture of half the room. I felt a tingle and immediately found that the scene I had been afraid of didn’t appear.
There was no one in the room, not a single one, only the stools and chairs from before.
I took a closer look and found that it was true, so I went over to light the oil lamps one by one until the room lit up again.
No one.
No bullet marks.
No blood.
Did they really leave? I wondered. Shit, they’re really not loyal.
At this time, a particularly familiar feeling came over me and I thought to myself, is this a collective disappearance? Sure enough, Little Brother, your bad habits aren’t your fault but your family’s genetic disease. The question now is: can you not disappear so cleanly next time? It’s too freaky.
Thinking about this, I ran out of the room and suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen anyone along the way just now. It was like the whole temple was dead.
<Chapter 33><Table of Contents><Chapter 35>
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Updated 12/18/2021
MereBear's Translation 