Chapter 12 Wu Xie’s Story (Part 4)

When he was back at home, Wu Xie recalled the whole thing and kept feeling that it was very odd.

He remembered the information he had searched for in order to go to Badan Jilin at that time, and was only able to find a photo of Gutong Jing published in a certain issue of a French photography magazine in 1998. There was a low-lying desert randomly dotted with rocky mountains, and there was no sign of anything terrifying. However, in the attachment to the photo, the mention of Gutong Jing gave people a particularly strange feeling. There was a word in French to describe the feeling, but it was difficult to find the corresponding word when translated into Chinese. It probably meant that in that place, your mind would feel something that you didn’t normally feel. What made people’s hair stand on end was the fact that the person who took this photo committed suicide three years later. Of course, a photographer’s suicide was as common in the industry as a poet’s suicide, and there was no reason to associate it with the rumors of Gutong Jing.

Wu Xie’s thirty years of experience told him that this kind of thing was usually a prank, so he decided it was fake. But he didn’t see Lan Ting’s expression as that of someone teasing, so the most logical explanation was that her mental state was abnormal.

This wasn’t the first time he had encountered such a thing. Wu Xie’s friend was such an example. He wrote novels about the “Cultural Revolution” and later suffered from depression. Writing novels could easily make people obsessive.

Wu Xie wanted to call the publisher and tell him about it, since he had a vested interest in it after all. But when he thought about it, he promised Lan Ting not to tell anyone else what they had discussed, so he put the phone down. But after thinking about it some more, he was still worried.

With something like this, he had to get the people around her to pay attention. Someone who had a good relationship with her, cared about her, and knew the secret so Lan Ting wouldn’t be embarrassed. But he wasn’t familiar with Lan Ting, so who could he even look for?

Wu Xie thought of Daodao.

As the heroine of Lan Ting’s strange story, she was not only Lan Ting’s good friend, but also her colleague on that desert trip, which was very suitable.

Wu Xie recognized her in the photo because she was also a famous illustrator, so it wasn’t difficult to find her. So Wu Xie went to find his friend’s phone number.

But when he asked his friend about the name, his friend was silent.

“Why are you looking for her?” His friend asked him hesitantly, “I deleted her number a week ago.”

When Wu Xie briefly explained the whole story, his friend sighed, “Lao Guan, do you really not know, or are you messing around? It’s best not to joke about such things.”

“What’s the matter?” Wu Xie suddenly realized that something was wrong.

“She committed suicide just a week ago.”

“Suicide?”

“Suicide. A week ago in her apartment. I thought you watched the news.”

Wu Xie remained silent. Based on his friend’s tone of voice, he wasn’t joking at all, and Wu Xie realized that it must really be true.

“There are many different people in the world, and their reactions to things are very different. I don’t know if others can accept such things, but I’m absolutely unable to accept it. Since this incident really happened, I can’t treat it like it doesn’t exist.” Wu Xie looked at Li Cu and said, “So, I searched the internet for any news articles. She really committed suicide in her apartment, and the news was overwhelming. In the news photos, the walls of the room where she committed suicide were covered with photos, which made me very concerned. I also searched for news from Gutong Jing, but there was no similar information. There was only one incident in which the camera couldn’t take pictures of people, but that was because it was broken.”

“What happened to Lan Ting?” Li Cu was listening attentively.

Wu Xie sighed, “Originally, I wanted to talk to her again, but she booked a plane ticket that night and left early the next morning. Later, I heard that she went to Inner Mongolia for two weeks and committed suicide when she came back.”

Li Cu swallowed: “That’s too weird, isn’t it? After she went, could she also not be photographed and then committed suicide just like Daodao?” He looked at Wu Xie and found that he had a dignified face, and didn’t seem to be pretending. Did he feel guilty about Lan Ting’s suicide?

“If it was just for this reason, someone like Lan Ting who would enter the desert so resolutely to find the truth wouldn’t commit suicide so easily. I guess she encountered something more terrifying. I originally wanted to take my camera to confirm it, but I didn’t see her body at the funeral, so I don’t know whether she was like Daodao or not. But before she died, she stated in her will that I was to be given a lot of photos, which were taken from Gutong Jing. There was a strange thing in those photos.”

Wu Xie took out a photo and handed it to Li Cu.

Li Cu looked down and quickly forgot the pain on his back as he saw a picture of a huge stone in the desert.

“It’s a stone.” He remembered that in Wu Xie’s story, Lan Ting mentioned that Daodao had climbed a stone in Gutong Jing.

“You and I are thinking the same thing—this should be the stone Lan Ting mentioned. She must have gone back to look for it.” Wu Xie sighed, “I should have gone with her. If I had, I would never have let her climb to this stone.”

“Why, do you know what kind of stone this is?”

“It’s not a stone.” Wu Xie said, “It’s the ruins of a large ancient tomb floor. Moreover, it shouldn’t be an ordinary tomb, but a rare one. Maybe even the only one of its kind in the world.”

Wu Xie hesitated, apparently unwilling to explain everything clearly. Li Cu didn’t dare ask, “what kind of tomb is it?” He watched as Wu Xie suddenly started cleaning the table and then asked him, “Do you want to know more?”

Li Cu nodded and Wu Xie said: “I’m very curious about this tomb, so I studied some historical data over there and found some strange coincidences. Come and take a look.”

<Chapter 11> <Table of Contents><Chapter 13>