Chapter 23 Ten Minutes

Uncle Three panicked, but he knew that he had to stay calm at this time. He quickly untied his oxygen tank from his body, kicked it away, and then connected to Xie Lianhuan’s tank before continuing to look for the entrance.

In fact, the situation was already very bad—when Uncle Three swept his flashlight around the area, he found that the surroundings were covered in such deep darkness that he couldn’t even figure out which direction he came from.

He secretly cursed to himself—it seemed that despite all his careful calculations, he had been too naïve. His heart started to beat faster than it did when he thought he was going to be trapped in that ancient tomb. This was the moment he realized that he might really die down here.

But after that first wave of extreme fear hit him, Uncle Three forced himself to calm down. He still had ten minutes’ worth of oxygen, so hopefully he could find the entrance within that time. If he couldn’t, then so be it, but he would at least make an effort before dying an early death.

Relying on his intuition, he started searching for the entrance again. Soon, Xie Lianhuan’s oxygen tank also became empty, so he untied the first air bag and began to breathe from it. But the surroundings were still oppressively dark, which gave rise to a feeling of helplessness that only became worse as he frantically searched for the entrance without any luck. As Uncle Three was starting to fall into despair, Xie Lianhuan’s flashlight suddenly flickered and went out, plunging him into absolute darkness. Sure enough, misfortune never comes alone.

When Uncle Three saw this, his first thought was that God seemed to want him dead, which meant that there was nothing he could do. But at this time, he suddenly saw a green glow appear in the darkness in front of him.

Oh, those ancient corpses from before! Uncle Three grabbed his flashlight from his belt and turned it on, pointing it towards the green glow. Sure enough, he saw the group of ancient corpses floating very close to him, only about five or six meters away.

A glimmer of hope emerged in his heart as he realized that he was right. The trajectory of this group of corpses passed by the reef entrance, so if he followed them, he should be able to find it.

He immediately swam over until he was among the corpses, and then started to follow them.

As soon as he got close to them, he found that they seemed to be floating along a current, so he let himself get swept along with it. As he drifted along, he used his flashlight to illuminate the dark water above him, hoping to find the reef entrance.

But the corpses floated very slowly. His anxiety started to increase as he realized that he had almost used up all the air in the first air bag but still couldn’t find the entrance.

Uncle Three told me that he was on the verge of going mad at that time, but he had no other choice but to keep following and pray for a miracle. The situation was so bad that he didn’t even have time to be afraid of his lack of oxygen. He just hoped that he could see the entrance appear in front of him.

But when he finally saw the entrance above his head, the second air bag was almost empty, and the remaining air in both bags was only enough to last for two minutes at most. If he entered now, that was tantamount to suicide, but if kept following along the current, there was still hope of returning to the tomb chamber.

Uncle Three looked at the entrance, then at the darkness below before coming to a decision—he had to try no matter what. If he went back to the tomb chamber, it was just postponing his death a little bit. Two minutes to get through the reef cave was impossible, but he still had to try anyway. He didn’t want to sit there and wait for death.

He took a deep breath of air and swam up, but the water outside of the current was moving much slower than the water within, so he ended up spinning end over end until he crashed into one of the nearby corpses.

The current was so powerful that Uncle Three couldn’t right himself, so he quickly grabbed onto the corpse and used all of his strength to try and stabilize his body.

As his arms squeezed the corpse’s body, he suddenly saw an air bubble emerge from its mouth. Huh? He floated there stunned for a moment before carefully pressing down on the corpse’s body. As it turned out, it wasn’t a real person, but an effigy made out of bamboo, with a coating of mud and rock glue on the outside of it. It was obviously hollow, which meant that there was air inside!

No way, Uncle Three thought to himself as he immediately pulled out his knife and stabbed it into the effigy—air bubbles immediately started gushing out from the breach.

Uncle Three pounced on the opening like a vampire out for blood, sucking in the air that was trying to escape. After only one breath, he knew right away that he finally had a chance—the air inside, while extremely unpleasant, wasn’t poisonous, which meant that he finally had a way to breathe.

With this thought in mind, he pulled two more “corpses” out of the current and dragged them along behind him as he swam towards the reef entrance.

What happened was so incredible that no one would believe it, but Uncle Three really managed to save his life like that.

When he returned to the boat, it was already dawn and the sun was about to rise. He climbed onto the deck and put his equipment away, noticing a third set of wet equipment sitting in the corner. This was confirmation that the person who tried to kill him was part of the archaeological team.

But when he returned to the cabin, he found that everyone was sound asleep. He looked them over one by one, but couldn’t find anything suspicious.

At any other time, he would have tied them up and interrogated them one by one, but he couldn’t because of Chen Wen-Jin. With no other choice, he told himself to endure it and pretended to go to sleep. Two hours later, when the sun was higher in the sky, he “discovered” that Xie Lianhuan was missing, and so began the search. He was planning to lead the others to the reef cave, but unexpectedly, Xie Lianhuan’s drowned body was found nearby.

“I don’t know how he got out,” Uncle Three said to me. “Based on the situation at that time, it’s possible that after he woke up and found that the oxygen tanks were gone and he was all alone, he rushed out in a panic and ended up drowning. I honestly didn’t expect him to be so stupid, but now that I think about it, I basically killed him.”

After hearing this, I sighed deeply and said to Uncle Three, “When you came up, you should have gone down to rescue him right away. Then this wouldn’t have happened. I can’t believe you just went to sleep.”

Uncle Three nodded and sighed, “At that time, I felt that it was too dangerous to go down and save him right away. I didn’t know who on the boat wanted to take my life, and I was afraid that I would fall into their trap if I went in again. Besides, after everyone woke up, they would immediately realize that Xie Lianhuan was missing and start looking for him. I even left an inflatable boat at the reef, so when I lured everyone there, I could take advantage of the chaos to enter the cave. After all, it would only take half an hour at most to go there and come back. Otherwise, I’d have to wait for nightfall before going out to sea alone with two sets of equipment. Not only would that raise people’s suspicions, but it would make it difficult to explain how I rescued Xie Lianhuan.” Uncle Three shook his head, “Now you know why I didn’t want to talk about it. It’s my biggest regret in life.”

As he spoke, I suddenly remembered the bloody message we came across in the undersea tomb. Now I understood why Xie Lianhuan thought Uncle Three had tried to kill him. He had been hit on the back of the fucking head, and while he certainly didn’t see who did it, there was no reason for him to think that a third person had followed them into the tomb. So, when he woke up, his first thought would have been that Uncle Three was the culprit. Then when he saw that all of their diving equipment was gone, he must have thought that Uncle Three was trying to kill him.

This was the worst kind of injustice known to man. I suddenly recalled all those unresolved misunderstandings in Jin Yong’s novels.⁽¹⁾ I always thought they were just literary exaggerations, but I never expected such a thing to happen in real life.

But in any case, there was no way of knowing where Xie Lianhuan got the snake-eyebrow copper fish, or how his body appeared on the reef. He must have desperately searched until he found a way out, but even after he found it, he was unable to get past all that seawater. In the end, Xie Lianhuan couldn’t escape his fate.

Although Xie Lianhuan misunderstood what really happened at that time, I figured it was better not to tell Uncle Three about the message we found, lest he feel upset.

“I already told you what happened after that when we were in Jinan,” Uncle Three continued. “Of course, I didn’t want you to know that I had anything to do with Xie Lianhuan’s death at that time, so I didn’t talk about what really happened when I took Chen Wen-Jin and the others back to the undersea tomb. In fact, after we went in, I was just pretending to sleep, because I was afraid that they would reach that tomb chamber. I didn’t know what Xie Lianhuan might have left there, so I wanted to check it out before the others saw it. Plus, I knew that when I went down there, the person who attacked me would definitely give himself away. I wanted to use this chance to find him and avenge Xie Lianhuan.”

I suddenly recalled what Poker-Face had told me about what happened at that time. If I remembered correctly, it seemed that he was the one who proposed exploring the ancient tomb. “Did you find out who it was?” I quickly asked Uncle Three. “Was it Zhang Qiling?”

His skills and background were very mysterious, so everything could easily be explained if he was the culprit.

Uncle Three frowned, “When they left the chamber, I secretly followed them. This guy really did seem suspicious, but there were others who were even more suspicious. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t figure out who it was even after watching them for a while—they all seemed suspicious. But personally, I think that with Little Brother’s skills and my complete lack of knowledge in martial arts, he would have simply killed me at that time. I don’t think it was him.”

I nodded, coming to the same conclusion. Poker-Face usually looked weak, fragile, and sleepy, but he could snap a person’s neck if he decided to be ruthless. It was definitely the fastest way to kill someone. Moreover, Uncle Three wasn’t the type of opponent who could stand up to him.

“What happened next?” I asked.

“Well… after Little Brother led everyone out of the chamber, I secretly followed behind them. They eventually entered the chamber with the pool of water, but I didn’t know that there was a passage at the bottom of the pool so I just stayed hidden in the dark passage outside. I figured they would come out after looking around for a bit, but after a while, I started to become anxious when they still didn’t come out. Fearing that they were in danger, I decided to follow them in. Little Brother probably told you what happened during that time. All I did was follow behind them, so whatever he told you should be more detailed.”

I suddenly remembered a strange part of Poker-Face’s story and asked, “Is what he said about you pretending to be a woman looking in the mirror to guide them through the hidden doors true?”

Uncle Three made a confused noise, “Pretended to be a woman?”

I repeated what Poker-Face said at that time, and Uncle Three’s eyes widened, “Such a thing happened?”

I grinned while thinking to myself, don’t act like you don’t know. But Uncle Three really seemed surprised—he sucked in a sharp breath, stood up, and started pacing back and forth, “Did he really say that?”

“In that situation, I definitely didn’t hear wrong.”

Uncle Three narrowed his eyes in thought, and then asked me to repeat Poker-Face’s story in detail. I did as he asked, trying my best to recall everything that Poker-Face had told me at that time.

After listening, Uncle Three rubbed his chin and shook his head, “No, no! He lied!”

“Lied?”

“I stayed on the stone steps. The fog was so thick that I couldn’t see what was going on down below, but I’m willing to swear on Chen Wen-Jin’s name that I never went down there, and I definitely didn’t know that there was a mechanism there. You can’t just take Little Brother’s word for it.”

I frowned, “Based on his circumstances at the time, I don’t think he had any reason to lie to us. He didn’t even need to bring it up. It’s not like we were involved.”

Uncle Three rubbed his head, thought for a moment, and then said, “You’re right. But if we assume that he’s telling the truth, then there’s still a problem. He said that ‘I’ was crouched there, and all he saw was ‘my’ back. All of their conclusions were based entirely on the assumption that that was ‘my’ back. During that whole situation, the only one who saw ‘my’ face was Huo Ling. The others just assumed that it was me because that person was wearing a diving suit…”

I gasped as I started recalling the exact words Poker-Face had used when he told us the story—sure enough, Uncle Three was right. “So, this person who led them through the hidden door wasn’t you, but someone else who had a similar-looking back, and even appearance?”

Uncle Three nodded, his face becoming very serious, “If Little Brother is telling the truth, then that’s definitely the case. Besides, didn’t you notice? He didn’t see my face, even though he had the perfect chance to. So why didn’t he see it?”

I recalled what Poker-Face said and suddenly came to a realization, “Huo Ling! He was blocked by Huo Ling!”

Uncle Three nodded, “Yes, that’s an important detail I never knew about. I honestly didn’t expect such a thing to happen in just a few short minutes…”

I felt a headache coming on. Sure enough, the situation at that time was so chaotic and the visibility was so low that Poker-Face could have been mistaken. Moreover, after thinking about it, Huo Ling was the one who said that the person was Uncle Three, and she was the only one who saw that person’s face. If she and that person were working together, it was a pretty ingenious deception. This also meant that Poker-Face and the others may have been wrong about Uncle Three.

I recalled what Poker-Face had said at that time: “If this person really is your Uncle Three.” Did he also suspect that this person wasn’t my uncle?

But after thinking about, I realized that this couldn’t be right—Poker-Face saw Uncle Three not only this time, but also before he passed out in that tomb passage. There was no way he could have been fooled by someone with a similar-looking back. How could this be explained?

When I raised the question, Uncle Three sighed, “I don’t know. Maybe Little Brother mistook that person for me when he was on the verge of passing out. Just think about it—he thought he was chasing me the whole time, so when he was in that dazed state, maybe he started hallucinating.”

I shook my head and said to him, “That’s too far-fetched. It’s unlikely that someone like him would make such a mistake.”

“Then he must be lying,” Uncle Three said in a serious tone, “because I’m telling the truth.”

I sighed to myself—the thing I was most afraid of had finally happened. The whole time I had been listening to the part of Uncle’s Three’s story that overlapped with Poker-Face’s, I was very nervous. I was afraid that they wouldn’t match up, which would mean that one of them was lying.

But after listening to Uncle Three’s side of the story, I was relieved to find that both stories were generally consistent. Even if they weren’t a hundred percent true, it was at least close enough. But just when the story should have come to an end, another card was thrown on the table, one that was not only annoying but also very important. If Uncle Three wasn’t involved, then that meant that there was someone else who lured the others there, and Uncle Three was completely innocent. But if Uncle Three was involved, then the situation was the complete opposite and he was a sinister villain. It was such an important distinction because it meant that there were two completely different endings to the story.

Of the two, I still believed Poker-Face more, because he told us what happened even though he had no obligation to, and there was no reason for him to lie to us. On the other hand, Uncle Three’s story this time was different from the one he told me before—it was very clear and didn’t have any flaws. It would have been difficult to make up a lie to this extent, so I felt that it was unlikely that he lied to me this time. Moreover, there were so many small contradictions in his story that if he wanted to lie to me, he could have easily done so without me ever finding out. There was no need to contradict Poker-Face’s story at all. He could have simply said that he followed the others into the passage and fainted, and when he woke up, they were all gone. I wouldn’t have found any flaws at all.

This seemed to be the perfect example of the Rashomon effect,⁽²⁾ a type of mystery that could never be solved. It looked like both Uncle Three and Poker-Face were telling the truth.

As I was thinking this, a strange idea suddenly popped into my head—the priority here should be the prima facie evidence. Since I thought that Uncle Three didn’t lie to me and Poker-Face didn’t lie to me, did that mean that there was a situation where both of them were telling the truth?

This was somewhat similar to Fatty’s way of thinking, where everything was simple and clear. If you had three scenarios and determined that the first two were true, then the seemingly impossible third scenario might also be true.

When I told Uncle Three my idea, he thought about it for a moment before shaking his head, “How is that possible? If these two stories are true, then there must have been two of me in the tomb at that time. “

“Two Uncle Threes?” I thought about it, but it really did seem absolutely impossible. Uncle Three didn’t have a twin brother or a body double, so this assumption didn’t make any sense. But if we followed Fatty’s way of thinking, there was no need to take logic into account—you simply used the enumeration method to list all possibilities.

I took out a piece of paper and started writing down the possibilities. But after thinking about it, I found that, assuming neither of them had lied, there was only one result—Uncle Three was still on the stairs at the bottom of the pool, while Poker-Face saw someone who looked like Uncle Three.

So, the question wasn’t really how there were two Uncle Threes, but rather where did this similar-looking person come from? Using enumeration, there were a few possibilities: one was that this person was a stranger from the sea; another was that this person had been hiding in the ancient tomb the whole time. Neither of these sounded plausible, so that left us with the third possibility—this person was one of the ten people present at that time.

There was some basis for this. After all, in Poker-Face’s story, the situation was very strange both times they saw Uncle Three. It was entirely possible that someone who went into the tomb with them decided to act.

But I never heard Uncle Three mention that anyone in the archeological team looked similar to him. And now that we were talking about it, he should have remembered if such a person existed. I saw the group photo before, and even though it was kind of fuzzy, it wasn’t hard to recognize people.

So, could it be Yi Rong?⁽³⁾ I remembered how Little Brother had changed his appearance during our trip to Xisha, but after thinking about it, I knew that it was impossible—preparing a disguise took three to four days, not to mention the five or six hours needed to apply makeup. In that situation, the mystery person simply wouldn’t have had the time to do it.

Reaching yet another dead end, I sighed heavily, feeling depressed.

Uncle Three saw the change in my expression and asked me what I was thinking about. When I explained, he laughed and asked me why I was trying to copy the thought process of someone with such a convoluted mind.

But after laughing for a while, his expression suddenly changed, as if he had thought of something. Then he took a deep breath and said, “Oh shit…is that actually the answer?”

“What is?” I hurriedly asked him.

Uncle Three’s face turned pale as he said, “Don’t tell Fatty I said this, but he’s got some real skills. After listening to your analysis, I think I understand what’s really going on. But…if it’s true, then this whole thing is very abnormal. One might even say it’s unbelievable.”

I told him to quit beating around the bush and get to the point. “You said that there was another person in the tomb who looked similar to me,” Uncle Three said. “It makes sense, but I don’t think this person had to closely resemble me. If you remember, Little Brother was drugged, so he must have been delirious in those few seconds before he passed out. As long as this person looked somewhat similar to me, it would be easy for him to be mistaken.”

I nodded, “That’s true, but who in the archeological team looked like you? If there was such a person, you would have noticed long ago. After all, it’s pretty rare for two people in this world to look alike.”

Uncle Three’s expression was very strange. Then he took a deep breath and shook his head before saying, “You’re wrong. In fact, there are many cases in the world where it’s not surprising for two people to look alike. Among those in the archaeological team at that time, there was one person who looked seventy percent like me, but no one found it strange.”

I snorted, finding that hard to believe. “Who was it?” I asked.

Uncle Three stared at me intently and replied, “Xie Lianhuan, of course.”

<Chapter 22><Table of Contents><Chapter 24>

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TN Notes:

(1) Jin Yong, pen name of Louis Cha (1924-2018), was one of the most popular wuxia novelists. He was author of the 1957-1961 Condor Trilogy.

(2) The Rashomon effect refers to an instance when the same event is described in significantly different (often contradictory) ways by different people who were involved.

(3) Refers to changing one’s appearance. The most commonly used method is to wear a mask.