Chapter 6.6 Little Brother Zhang’s Words (Extra)

The entrance to Black Glasses’ living room was a Chinese-style foyer with mahogany chairs on both sides like Juyi Hall (1) and a big plaque overhead that read: “Passing Down Clean-Handed Business to the Next Generations”.

The floor was made of Han-style bricks. It was very elegant here when he was rich, but I didn’t know where he had spent all his money over the years. We moved to the back room, where there were big old sofas made of cotton cloth. The floor was covered in thread-bare carpets, and there were cushions and Gundam (2) models everywhere. I knew as soon as I saw them that Su Wan had bought them all. He didn’t dare take them home and had put them all here.

As soon as the door was closed, the room heated up and became much warmer. I took off my coat and settled onto the sofa, feeling my anger subside a lot.

Su Wan turned on the air purifier and everyone else sat down. When Little Brother Zhang took off his robe, I saw that he was wearing an old unwashed shirt and the snake had coiled back around his waist. His hair and beard were very greasy, and I didn’t know how long it had been since he’d washed them. In the dim light, I felt as if I had returned to my dream but was also experiencing a new one.

After being in this business for so many years, I had lost my strong sense of attraction to any sort of mystery. My curiosity was still there, but it was more like a kind of inertia. Even after so many years, I still didn’t have a full understanding of the unknown parts that I had resisted, so this kind of torture would appear from time to time.

When I looked at Little Brother Zhang, I had to admit that I trusted him. The memory wasn’t mine, but it could still stir up my own real emotions.

Little Brother Zhang was very calm as he picked a beer bottle up from the ground and opened it. It seemed as if he had done this countless times before, “First of all, I’m a good person. As you know, it would be good for the Zhang family to explain half of what they do, but I can’t do that. I’ve always talked a lot since I was a kid. Once I started, I wouldn’t stop all night. I think of the Zhang family like a pressure cooker, and I’m just the steam. All the things the others don’t say is left up to me, so when I start talking, don’t interrupt me. Be sure to let me finish.”

Fatty glanced at me, and his eyes seemed to say, “Look at how long-winded this guy is. He’s even giving us a heads-up before he starts talking.”

I looked at my watch. It was still early and I didn’t want to sit in rush hour traffic outside, so I nodded.

Little Brother Zhang gave my watch a disgusted look and then took a sip of beer, “I know a lot about you, Wu Xie. I even know something you’re not familiar with. Let me ask you a question first. Have you been to Marker 87 in Inner Mongolia?”

I shook my head. I had never heard that name before.

Little Brother Zhang continued, “In the early 1970s, a man appeared in a stream in the Daxing’an Mountains in northeast China at boundary marker 87. It was summer, yet the stream was still very cold. He had lost consciousness when he was found, but he had carved 562 sets of numbers with his fingernails. Each set of numbers had 16 digits. The local people sent him to the police station for investigation. After several months, they discovered that he was a member of a geological exploration team who had been assigned to a local project in 1962 called Project 723. He had disappeared at that time because of an accident, but suddenly reappeared a few years later. After being discovered, this person remained in a vegetative state. They couldn’t figure out what had happened during the years he was missing. I later collected information about this matter. The place where he was found was very special, so I paid special attention to it.”

He glanced at me and said, “Don’t give me that look, I don’t know why that place is special. In the Zhang family’s ancestral teachings, there are three places in China that we’ve been paying special attention to. For some reason, Marker 87 is one of them. I’ve been there many times, but there’s nothing besides forests.”

“What’s the 16-digit number?” I knew he must have been investigating for a long time, but I just wanted to know the relevant information.

“It’s a time stamp.” He looked at me again. “There are 562 sets of time stamps, and they’re very accurate. Most of them are before the ‘90s.”

I remembered a movie I had seen before and asked, “Did all the major disasters and events happen at those times?”

Little Brother Zhang shook his head. “So far, nothing happened at those points in time. They’re just ordinary times. Only one thing is strange.”

<Extra 6.5> <Table of Contents><Extra 6.7>

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TN Notes:

(1) It’s from “The Water Margin”, and was where the heroes discussed military affairs and deployed forces. The name was changed to Zhongyi Hall. It’s a single-eave Xieshan-style building with smaller halls on the left and right sides. It supposedly reproduced the style and spirit of the 108 heroes.

(2) It’s a widely popular mecha anime. Think along the lines of Transformers. More info here