Chapter 162

I looked at Liu Sang, who was listening with his eyes closed. After listening for a long time, he shook his head.

Although his ears weren’t as sensitive as hearing slaves, he could still hear enough information from any kind of sound. I breathed a sigh of relief. Fujian’s nature reserves were surrounded by various cities and counties, so although the area was very large, there would still be local legends and records if there were any beasts in the mountains.

“But it’s very strange,” Liu Sang said.

“What do you mean?”

“The entire way here, did you hear any birds? The natural environment here is well protected, so why aren’t there any bird calls? Moreover, I don’t hear anything else around us besides the sound of the wind.” When he said this, I looked around. Sure enough, the whole forest was very quiet in the setting sun. Liu Sang frowned as if he were trying to recall something, “After entering this valley and getting close to the royal poinciana, there gradually haven’t been any birds singing.”

Weren’t they all fucking scared away by the explosions earlier? I said to myself.

Liu Sang patted the branch next to me and said, “You’re so fucking reliable. Didn’t you say that there would be a mark? Did you misinterpret the message? There aren’t any fucking birds calling. It’s just too fucking strange.”

I was a little embarrassed. There was more than one royal poinciana on the mountain, but I couldn’t see them anymore when I looked through my binoculars. I had assumed that the blooming flowers on this kind of tree acted like a road sign, but after the flowers wilted, this tree would blend in with the other trees, making it almost impossible to find.

I didn’t believe I was wrong. This particular royal poinciana could clearly be seen when you looked down from the mountainside, so Poker-Face must’ve also been attracted by it. I was almost positive that the so-called mark was either on this tree or near it.

I figured Uncle Two had also been there when they came last time, so Poker-Face would be somewhat cautious. Moreover, it wasn’t his style to blatantly mark trees. In the more than ten years that we had known him, when did we see Poker-Face leave a mark? I thought of the places he had marked before and then climbed down the tree and explored around the royal poinciana.

At this time, the tree canopies were covered in shadows and the whole sky turned a dark gray. Kan Jian stayed in the tree canopy, following our progress with a flashlight and keeping his slingshot at the ready in case we needed cover. Baishe also stayed in the tree to cover him. This three-way formation showed that we didn’t trust the environment. Liu Sang had followed me through the dense bushes and suddenly had a look of disdain on his face, “I thought you knew each other well, but you don’t know him at all.”

I turned my head and saw him standing by a tree, shining his flashlight at the base of the trunk where the ground was covered in moss. When I walked over, he pointed to the base and said, “See? What’s wrong here?”

The tree didn’t appear to have any roots and seemed to grow directly from the soil. But the surrounding bushes were so dense that you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t look carefully.

“You mean to say the roots here are covered in soil,” I said coldly, while thinking to myself, this isn’t a mark.

Liu Sang squatted down. “Don’t you think the trees here are shorter than the ones we saw before? The lower half of these trees are all covered in soil.”

I whistled and a folding shovel was tossed down from the tree. I caught it and looked at Liu Sang. He didn’t say anything at all, so I had to dig by myself.

After digging for less than half of a meter, the shovel head hit something. I pushed the mud aside and saw several old tiles. I dug all the way around until I had made a pit that was about three meters wide. The ground under our feet was covered in neatly laid old tiles. I dug all the way under the tree and saw that it was actually growing out of a hole in the middle of the tiles.

I wanted to get a rope and go down. The tiles were very strong, but I managed to pull up a few and saw even more tiles below. After removing more than a dozen layers, I finally came upon an empty space. I used my flashlight to look around and found that there was a cavity below.

After looking around, I suddenly realized that the ground here had been raised a level. The people here had raised the ground by about a meter. After it was covered in soil, the bushes here had filled in the area for hundreds of years.

“Go down,” Liu Sang said to me. “There’s no living thing inside.” He listened carefully and then added, “There’s something in the southeast corner.”

I looked at him and he looked at me before shaking his head, “You didn’t hire me. Go down by yourself.”

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