Chapter 35 Invitation from Hell

I stood there in a daze, just staring at the address and the key. Fatty was right—evidently the person who sent the videos really wanted me to find these things. The key must be for a door at the address written on the post-it note, but it seemed like the person may not be home when I arrived. Did they want me to go in and look around by myself?

At this time, I suddenly had a strange idea—could this be Little Brother’s house? He knew that he might not come back, so he asked someone to send me the key to his house as some kind of inheritance?

If so, then maybe we could go to his house and learn about his past. But thinking about it again, I realized that it was unlikely…

Besides, there might be something hidden in the two tapes A Ning received.

When I went to bed that night, I tossed and turned for a long time before eventually giving up and leaning against the headboard, chain-smoking my way through a pack of cigarettes. I usually only smoked when I was feeling depressed, but no matter how many I smoked that night, I still felt miserable.

Looking back, only a few months had passed since I first received the videotapes and the discovery I made today, but every additional discovery only made things more confusing and complicated.

In fact, although I finally discovered the secret of the videotapes, what really bothered me was the content on them. Regardless of whether the other party wanted to use the content as a cover or just grabbed the first two at hand, the recordings would definitely grab the attention of anyone who watched them. And these recordings weren’t something that could be faked. It was possible that the person who sent them didn’t know anything about the recordings, but then where did they get the tapes?

I was certain that there were more of these tapes out there—considering how many hours could fit on one tape, it would take about eight tapes to record a full day. The person had sent me one blank tape and one with content on it, which showed that they had plenty of choices when deciding on which videotapes to send. This in turn meant that there may be other videotapes at the address written on the post-it note.

The “Huo Ling” and “I” in the videos appeared to be monitoring their own actions, but it didn’t look like they were doing it for fun—if anything, it looked like they were being forced to do it.

Of course, my biggest concern was the two tapes A Ning received. I had always regarded myself as an outsider to this whole thing, just an extra tagging along with Uncle Three. The first time I got involved was of my own free will, the second time I was forced by the situation, and the third time I agreed to follow the proposed plan, though I didn’t really know why. If I had said “no” at any time, I wouldn’t have been part of this whole thing. That was why, when things suddenly developed to the point where I did seem to be involved, I felt so confused.

But after talking with Fatty, I suddenly realized that my way of solving problems was too complicated. Maybe it was because I was in the habit of complicating things for myself that I ended up making what was originally a very simple problem more difficult than it was. If that were true, then maybe the solution to this mystery was just as simple as the videotapes.

I thought about it for a long time before suddenly recalling what Li Chenzhou⁽¹⁾ had told me that day he and my other college classmates came to visit me in Jilin—this matter may actually be directly related to me. He also told me to think about the fact that Uncle Three deliberately lied to me. If Uncle Three didn’t want me to get involved in this matter, then why did he tell me to follow him up the snowy mountain? Now that I thought about it, Li Chenzhou’s words actually made a lot of sense.

I thought back on my past, but there really was nothing in my memory that might connect me to this matter. When I was a child, my father was the most ordinary person, who believed that taking care of the family was his own responsibility; my grandfather was the one with all the power, and the real backbone of the family; Uncle Two was stingy with his words and very serious; and Uncle Three was stubborn and unrepentant, a man who considered the world his oyster. All of them basically made up my childhood memories. Even though they all had different personalities, they were very kind to me. Even the perpetually serious Uncle Two would laugh with me.

My childhood might not have been particularly happy, but it was no different from anyone else my age. As far as I could recall, there was nothing special about it.

The few years I spent at college were extremely dull, but the memories were much clearer. I knew for certain that I had never crawled around in a dark room while wearing funeral garb.

I ended up staying up all night, staring at the ceiling in my room until dawn as thoughts raced wildly through my mind. But the more I thought about it, the more depressed I became. The whole thing was like an inescapable net, covering me until I became entangled in its ropes. No matter where I went, I could see countless holes in the net, with freedom right there on the other side. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get past the ropes to reach it.

This whole situation came about because of my character—my indecisiveness and unwillingness to give up only made things more and more complicated. Maybe I should be more assertive when thinking about problems instead of waiting around for others to hand me clues? After all, there was no telling whether the clues provided by others were legit or not. Plus, they weren’t always given in a timely manner and could lead to additional problems.

I suddenly frowned at the thought, remembering the advice my friend had given me before I left, “The reason why things have become so complicated is because you’re always trying to get answers from your Uncle Three. Since he’s already lied to you before, it means he doesn’t want you to know something. But lies beget lies, so it’s become impossible to tell you the truth now. If you ask him again, you’ll just get more confusing information, which will only make you feel that nothing in this world can be trusted. If you want to know the truth, you might as well look for the answers yourself. For example, if you want to know whether there really were ten or eleven people on that expedition, it’s better to check the records from that time instead of constantly wondering whether your uncle was lying to you or not.”

Now that I thought about it, he was right.

Fine, damn it! I said to myself. Since this thing has something to do with me, then I really won’t trust anyone. This time, I won’t tell anyone anything. I’ll go to Golmud alone and find out what the hell is going on.

<Chapter 34><Table of Contents><Chapter 36>

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TN Notes:

(1) First time this guy is being named, but he’s the college buddy from chapters 28 and 29.