Chapter 25 Back to the Beginning

By the time Uncle Three finished speaking, he had finally told me everything he knew.

We both breathed a sigh of relief—Uncle Three probably because he was able to take the load off his mind, while I felt as if I had just finished watching a movie.

We both fell into a peaceful silence. Uncle Three went off to the bathroom, while I closed my eyes and thought about everything I had heard just now. After a few minutes of reviewing everything from beginning to end, I was able to get a clear picture of the matter.

Although not a hundred percent clear, I had a pretty good understanding of how Qiu Dekao and Uncle Three’s relationship developed. There were, however, two or three things that I still didn’t understand.

For Uncle Three, his experience in the undersea tomb was not only the beginning of a nightmare, but also an opportunity for him to gradually mature from a small-time bandit. He devoted his whole life—not to mention a lot of time and money—to finding the archaeological team that disappeared from the ancient tomb. Moreover, in order to delay A Ning’s progress during the race to the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds, he resolutely gave up his entire business. Except for a few particularly loyal employees, everyone else in Changsha had fled. Uncle Three might have been considered one of the most successful descendants of the Mystic Nine, but now everything was gone.

He was currently in a half-dead state, and should have retired long ago given his age, but the unluckiest one here was me—I had suffered both mentally and physically, only to find out that this matter basically had nothing to do with me. Now that I thought about it, Uncle Three may have been performing an act of kindness when he lied to me. If I had known the water was so deep, I wouldn’t have stepped in.

The most important information Uncle Three gave me was that other than him and Xie Lianhuan, there seemed to be a third person on the boat at that time who knew about the existence of the undersea tomb. This person had some connection to Huo Ling, and obviously wanted to kill both Uncle Three and Xie Lianhuan.

And this person was among the ten members of the archeological team, because when they finally entered the undersea tomb, the boat was no longer on the surface, and they were the only ones who went down.

At that time, there were ten of them in total. Excluding Uncle Three, Chen Wen-Jin, Poker-Face, Huo Ling, Xie Lianhuan (dead), and the person who accompanied Xie Lianhuan’s corpse back to shore, there were only four people left, including Li Sidi. If what Poker-Face said was true, then the mystery person must be one of the four. But there was a woman among those four, so that narrowed the list down to three.

If Xie Lianhuan’s corpse hadn’t turned into a zombie and returned to the tomb, then this mystery person must have been among those three. Of course, there was still a question here: who exactly did Poker-Face see right before he passed out? It was a difficult question to answer. If we tried to explain it away by saying that Poker-Face had made a mistake, then it made sense, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. I’d have to think about it more when I went back home.

As for Qiu Dekao, he refused to explain what kind of archaeological research he was conducting in Xisha at that time. This made it obvious that the matter was very important and involved the core secrets to the mystery. The only reason why he was willing to talk about the things that happened before that was because they weren’t important—at that time, he was only interested in deciphering the silk book of the Warring States Period, which was purely an academic endeavor.

But then his goal changed. This brought up a question that Uncle Three probably never considered before: what was Qiu Dekao’s new goal? The whole thing was shrouded in a cloud of mystery—taking photographs of the corpse and the murals in the undersea tomb, and entering the Seven Star Lu Palace and the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds definitely weren’t done for academic research. What exactly did he want to do?

Qiu Dekao was already an old man in his nineties, but he was still involved in this business, which was a bit strange considering he obviously wasn’t doing it for fame or money.

When Uncle Three came back from the bathroom, I told him my thoughts. He nodded and said, “I actually thought about that as well, but the matter is so complicated that I can’t figure it out. I don’t understand what Qiu Dekao was after when he started the Xisha project, but if you think about it carefully, you can still find a clue. The Seven Star Lu Palace, undersea tomb, and Heavenly Palace on the Clouds are all places where Wang Zanghai had been. At first glance, it’s obvious that Qiu Dekao’s people were following in Wang Zanghai’s footsteps. I think they were looking for something, something that Wang Zanghai may have left in these ancient tombs.”

“Something left in these ancient tombs?” I pondered over it for a while before saying, “Could it be the snake-eyebrow copper fish?”

Back then, in order to pass on Eastern Xia’s secret, Wang Zanghai hid the snake-eyebrow copper fish in treasure wells in large feng shui arrays, hoping that they would be discovered by grave robbers in the future.

Uncle Three shook his head and said that he wasn’t sure, but he had a feeling that it was something else. Qiu Dekao’s people repeatedly entered the undersea tomb, as if they were searching for clues on where Wang Zanghai had been. Then they went to these places to look for something.

“Truthfully, I don’t care what he wants,” Uncle Three said. “I just want to know what happened to Chen Wen-Jin and the others when they disappeared from the undersea tomb. Where did they go? I kept an eye on Qiu Dekao because this Xisha incident seemed to be related to his goal. Unfortunately, the more I investigated, the more complicated it became.” Uncle Three sighed, “In the end, I no longer knew what I was looking for. I could only try to be faster than them, try to find what they were looking for first so that I could threaten that old devil into giving me answers. Unfortunately, your uncle is old now and many things are too tough for me to handle.”

I gave him a comforting pat and said, “They followed the trail of large feng shui arrays until they reached the last one, the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds. It was obvious that A Ning’s goal was the Nine Dragons Carrying the Lord’s coffin, but the situation was so chaotic at that time that they didn’t succeed. I think they might go in again, but in any case, the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds should be the last stop. If they go back in there, it doesn’t matter if they find what they’re looking for or not—this matter should come to an end. Don’t be so stubborn, Uncle Three. You tried your best. Stop worrying about it.”

Uncle Three smiled wryly, “The end? I thought so too, at first, but now it seems like it’s too soon to say.” He picked up the videotapes Poker-Face had sent and tapped them with his finger, “It’s definitely not over yet. Let’s see what’s on these things.”

<Chapter 24><Table of Contents><Chapter 26>

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Adios, Uncle Three’s long ass story. You won’t be missed. So glad we’re back to the present. I can’t remember if they ever say it but I’ve been thinking that mystery person is Qi Yu