Chapter 26 Discharged

The chat with Uncle Three lasted for nearly two hours, during which time we drank two pots of boiled water. By the time he wrapped up the story, we were both mentally and physically exhausted. Uncle Three even started to feel dizzy since his body still hadn’t fully recovered yet. I didn’t want to keep bothering him, so I tidied up his personal belongings and boiled some fresh water for tea.

Uncle Three’s assistant, who went out to buy a VCR, still hadn’t returned yet, making me think that finding one must be difficult. After all, they had stopped manufacturing them a long time ago, and even if he managed to find one and buy it, there was no guarantee that it would work.

I had completely forgotten about the videotapes as I was listening to Uncle Three’s story just now, but when he brought them up again, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of fear—the sheer tiredness and helplessness in Uncle Three’s voice as he told me that this matter still wasn’t over had me feeling very uneasy.

We knew almost nothing about Poker-Face, not even whether he was on the boat coincidentally or if he had purposefully joined the archaeological team for some ulterior motive. Moreover, Poker-Face was no better than Uncle Three—if he didn’t want to talk about something, he wouldn’t say a word no matter how hard you pressed him. Although Uncle Three had told me a little bit about him before, based on what we knew now, that information might not even be true. So, in the end, Uncle Three basically knew just as much about him as I did.

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, the sense of calm that I had been feeling disappeared, leaving me feeling a little depressed.

Uncle Three’s assistant finally came back while I was lost in my thoughts, but he didn’t have a VCR with him—the markets were apparently closed now, but he would resume his search tomorrow.

It had been a long time since I had a deep discussion with Uncle Three like this, and now that the burden in my heart had been lifted, I found my mood steadily improving. Later that evening, Uncle Three and I snuck out of the hospital, found a food stall, and had a few drinks. After living off of hospital food for so long, he was very excited to finally be eating something delicious. He sat there all evening with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, looking relaxed and content.

When we returned to the hospital, he immediately started the discharge process, saying that he refused to stay in the hospital any longer. He also asked me to book a hotel room for him.

I was feeling a little drunk, but I made it back to the hotel and managed to book a suite for him. Then I took a nice bath, made myself a cup of strong tea, and got ready for bed.

But I still couldn’t sleep even after my bath, so I turned on my laptop and pulled up the old photo of Uncle Three and the archeological team before they left for Xisha.

I had looked at this photo many times. It was a black-and-white photo, which made it difficult to recognize the individuals unless you were familiar with them. Plus, Uncle Three never told me who was who. In the photo, Uncle Three looked thin and reserved, a far cry from what you would a expect a grave robber to look like. Poker-Face looked like a typical student. I tried to find Xie Lianhuan, and did indeed find a person who looked kind of similar to Uncle Three, but I wasn’t sure if it was him or not. I couldn’t help but sigh—who would have thought there’d be so many secrets hidden in this ordinary photo?

After staring at it for a long time, I realized that nothing new stuck out to me, so I used the hotel’s phone to access the internet.⁽¹⁾ Once I was connected, I went to the website of the express courier company that Poker-Face had used, entered the tracking number, and searched for information about the package.

Soon the results came up. I scrolled to the column with the mailing address and saw that it wasn’t blank. In fact, there was the name of a city: Golmud. These videotapes were sent from a place called Golmud.

I paused, wondering what kind of place this was. Then I googled it and was even more surprised—it turned out to be a city in the western part of the country, located in Qinghai Province.

I immediately felt confused. Qinghai? When did Poker-Face go there? This guy sure moves fast if he’s already out west. Maybe he’s helping the grave robbers in that region? But Qinghai wasn’t a place that grave robbers were interested in—it was inhabited by ethnic minorities, and only those who sold mummies and smuggled international cultural relics went there. What would he be doing there? Helping people dig wells?

And why send me videotapes from such a place? There didn’t seem to be any connection at all.

I looked up some information about Golmud and learned about its history, which only left me feeling more confused. It was apparently a newer city that had been built by the People’s Liberation Army and was surrounded by the Gobi Desert. I honestly couldn’t figure out what Poker-Face would be doing there, or why he would send me two videotapes from that place. What the hell was recorded on them?

Shit… I started fidgeting as the urge to watch those tapes suddenly became even stronger.

I took a few sips of tea to try and pull myself out of my drunken haze before putting together all the information I heard today and sending it to some of A Ning’s people. I became quite familiar with them after this latest adventure, so I hoped that they would be able to look into it for me, and maybe provide some useful feedback. Uncle Three had told me not to tell anyone about what I had heard, but I decided to tell Qiu Dekao’s people anyways. It wasn’t like the problem was serious, and I made sure to remove all the sensitive information. I also asked if their company had any plans to return to the Heavenly Palace on the Clouds in the near future.

After doing these things, the alcohol finally started to take effect—my vision swam before my eyes and I collapsed onto the soft sheets before finally succumbing to sleep. This time, I slept very peacefully and didn’t have any dreams. I slept through the whole night, only waking up at dawn when the phone started ringing.

When I picked it up, Uncle Three’s assistant said that he had been discharged from the hospital and he was in the hotel suite next to me. They had finally bought a VCR, so I should go to my uncle’s room and watch the videos with him.

<Chapter 25><Table of Contents><Chapter 27>

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TN Notes:

(1) In case you’re not familiar, this is set back in the early 2000s in the days of dial-up internet. Dark times, man. Dark times…