Chapter 160

Here, I’d like to explain a little bit about the relationship between my knocking code and the Zhang family’s marks.

In fact, the Zhang family’s code was a very simple language, just like annotations. They would use simple symbols to annotate ancient tombs: there are secret doors here, there are mechanisms here, the mechanisms have been cracked, the Zhang family has been here and completed the work. These annotations were simplified into marks using a very strange ancient text and carved in all the inconspicuous places in ancient tombs.

Many annotations were disguised as cracks and stains. This was a basic skill of the Zhang family, so Poker-Face would obviously know more than we would after entering some areas.

We tried to deduce all of the Zhang family’s codes, but ultimately failed. However, we did manage to use all sorts of methods to turn the codes we did know into sounds so as to facilitate communication.

With this inspiration, I complied a whole set of knocking words that could be used to communicate almost any piece of information. Other inspiration came from bat whistles and all kinds of confusing codes, but they were all mixed together and couldn’t be deciphered. The whole thing relied on rote memorization, so it was basically impossible to learn.

But there was one meaning in my knocking code that wasn’t there: “farewell”.

My idea was very simple. If you really thought that the time had come, then there was no need to be so honest. So, “farewell” = silence. When there was a long silence in a sentence, it defaulted to “farewell”.

For Poker-Face, life was always full of goodbyes. Just like how people were used to not saying fat in front of fat people or lame in front of lame people, I didn’t want to say goodbye to Poker-Face. Whether he felt indifference or grief, it still made me very sad to know whatever he felt. But for many things, it was hard to go through the motions. At this time, I suddenly felt lucky that I would die someday. Those who got to experience life and death were the ones who felt satisfied in the end.

But let’s get back to Fatty’s message.

When the Zhang family entered some areas they weren’t certain about, they would engrave a mark on the entrance. If they came out safely, they would erase the mark. We had studied this mark before. It was said that the blind tomb had been engraved with these marks and none of them had been chiseled away. Fatty must have seen this mark somewhere in the calling spring.

There were no other Zhang family members here and we were his only family. It wasn’t like this mark would be used as some kind of plot against us. It was for us to see, and showed that he wasn’t sure about the situation inside.

But this mark wasn’t serious enough to warrant saying goodbye. Fatty knew what my intentions were, so if he used “farewell”, then it had to be very serious.

Liu Sang was still tapping on my hand, so I could sense the second message as the rhythm changed.

“There are bloody marks the whole way. There’s another entrance. Don’t come down. I’ll find a way out.”

I looked at Liu Sang’s cigarette, wanting to smoke it myself.

Bloody marks… Poker-Face hadn’t done anything with his own blood for a long time. In all of our previous adventures, he would only use his blood to get out of a situation if there was a huge crisis. His blood was very special and the wounds were hard to heal.

I didn’t know how Fatty knew there was another entrance, but he came to the same conclusion as Xiao Hua. Whether he hooked up with Xiao Hua or he saw the same clue, I still felt a little relieved. Fatty seemed to be alive and well, but there was no other knocking response from the valley. Poker-Face was outside of the range of my knocking.

A third message came through: “One of Little Brother’s signs is in the mountain marking the second entrance. I’ll meet you there. Pay attention to the royal poinciana trees (1).”

I looked around and asked Liu Sang, “Do you recognize trees and know what royal poinciana looks like?”

“Royal poinciana is a foreign tree. How could it be growing in a wild place like this?” Liu Sang asked me.

“I asked if you could recognize it, not if you knew what it was,” I said.

<Chapter 159><Table of Contents><Chapter 161>

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TN Notes:

(1) Tree native to Madagascar. It is noted for its fern-like leaves and flamboyant display of orange-red flowers over summer. Info here. If you translate straight from Chinese, it could be called “phoenix tree” but I wasn’t getting results for it in English so you get royal poinciana lol