Daomu Biji Volume 8 Chapter 26

Fatty then got up and headed back, muttering something as he walked, appearing like he had an unpleasant talk with me so I had to make a helpless expression in cooperation. On my way back, I saw everyone chatting, and when I sat down, Xiuxiu softly asked me what Fatty and I were talking about. I told her I'd talk to her later, and that now wasn't a good time, so I sent her away.

After sitting down, I felt confident and relaxed a lot. I still felt a little strange thinking about some of Fatty's problems just now, but I didn't think he was lying.

It's not that he wasn't good at deceiving people, but I was very sensitive to lies since Uncle Three often lied to me. I could actually feel it in my gut when he was lying, but every time I would chalk it up to paranoia. But this time, I had a sixth sense that Fatty wasn't lying.

I thought of his previous performance and decided not to think about it so much. Fatty was right, if he wanted to hurt me, he would have already done it.

Only, the look Leather Bag gave me was a little strange and he asked me, “Where have you been?”

“Looking at the situation ahead.” I said.

“You look so mysterious, Master Three. Don't hide anything from us.” He complained. As soon as I saw the situation, I immediately winked at Xiuxiu to get her to change the subject and asked her, “What are you talking about?”

Knowing my intention, Xiuxiu immediately said, “We were talking about The Mystic Nine. I heard that when the army was in Changsha, there were soldiers everywhere, as well as refugees from all over the country.

“In those times, many high officials in the capital were able to sing a few lines of Beijing opera, so the army entered Beijing after the founding of the People's Republic, but they didn't sing the flower drum during the entire journey. The old affair was mentioned in gossip, but fortunately Er Ye's family had declined since then; otherwise, in this era, they wouldn't know what to dress up as. Now people's hearts are alienated and there are fewer defenses against outsiders. In contrast, our own people have become a major worry.”

Leather Bag seemed to like Xiuxiu a little, and as soon as she spoke, his attention turned to her. She was talking about her two brothers, and according to her, the two men were Beijing celebrities, but not particularly outstanding ones. The two had long been dissatisfied with Granny Huo's appreciation of Xiao Hua, and the feud between them may have been accumulating since childhood. I couldn't get a word in, so I wanted her to keep talking.

Fatty sat down and threw a few bundles of branches into the fire, saying: “I'm not interested in this episode of 'The Story of a Noble Family' and 'Fate in Tears and Laughter' (TN Note: 2 Chinese Dramas). Do you have any love affairs in The Mystic Nine that we don't know about? Tell me about them. It's said that Er Ye was quite a player after he was widowed, and hung around prostitutes. One of them was as white as snow, and had a blue and white pattern you would normally see on porcelain on her hand. She was called “Little Qing Hua” (TN Note: Little Blue and White (porcelain)). Is that true?”

“Little Qing Hua is still around, do you want to go and have a look? She's at the nursing home." Xiuxiu said, “The blue and white porcelain pattern painted on her is the same as the ones on porcelain dolls. It's the kind that has cracked.”

I took a sip of tea and said, “Our ancestors are old, so you should accumulate some moral values. Most of the women in the old society had poor backgrounds, and this Little Qing Hua may not have had any other choice.”

Leather Bag disagreed, but wasn't willing to accept the change in topic and said to Fatty, “If you want to listen to something juicy, how can people like us talk? Why don't you say something?”

“Nonsense, I promised Yunyun and now I want to be a decent person. You have such bad taste and deserve to be rejected.”

Fatty turned around, put his hat over his face, and said, “It's getting late. This fat man is short of sleep so I'll rest first. You all continue your 'Qiang Qiang San Ren Xing' talk show.”

I looked at the moon and thought that the terrain here was too special. The cross-beams overhead blocked most of the moonlight, leaving only a dim white light, and if it weren't for the decay of a section of wood above my head that had fallen into the deep ditch, I'm afraid there wouldn't be a trace of it at all.

This secret ditch wasn't created by the builders of Zhang Jialou at that time, but by the remains of ancient Yao people in the ancient country of Lingnan. Obviously, there had been many mysterious activities in this remote mountain for a long time, but I just didn't know what the purpose of building this secret trench in the mountain was, and whether there was any inevitable connection with building Zhang Jialou here.

A few people wanted to nap for a while and they all lay down separately. I was about to close my eyes when I saw Fatty sit up again and go pee at the pool. I said in my heart that some things don't change, and I also pulled my hat down over my face. I soon fell asleep and planned to wake up in an hour.

I've formed a very accurate biological clock here, and as long as I remind myself that it's only a short rest before going to bed, I'll definitely wake up on time. And sure enough, I woke up after a short while. My face was covered with a hat that smelled like shampoo, and I was very glad that I could smell the familiar scent of the city in this wilderness.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking of those days when I went to the Lu Palace and the Palace of Heaven. At that time, I was a demoralizing member of the team and would never wake up until I was kicked by Pan Zi. But now I'm Master Three and don't have the right to stay in bed since everyone else is looking to me. I quickly grabbed my hat and wanted to turn over, but when I grabbed it, I found that it was wet and greasy.

Startled, I immediately slapped the thing away and sat up, only to find that something was wrong—water drops fell down the whole area illuminated by the bonfire near the edge of the secret ditch. I thought it was raining, but looking up, I found that the water didn't drip from above, but splashed down from the stone. I was sitting beside a stone at the edge of the ditch, and the vines around me had been cut down. The water dripped down the top of the ditch wall and splashed on the stone. A number of people all around had been awakened, and a few of them covered their heads and ran out of the splash zone, saying something like “what's going on.” Fatty immediately made a movement to silence them all.

We all looked at him and didn't know what he had found. As I watched him smell his water-splashed body, I followed his example and smelled my hat. The smell of urine immediately made me gag.

It's pee. Someone peed on top of our heads.

“Your mother!” Leather Bag scolded softly, so disgusted that he spit, and it was obvious that the urine choked his mouth.

Fatty continued to tell us to keep silent, and everyone was so disgusted that they were at a loss at what to do. Only Fatty went forward and began to climb the stone beside the ditch. I didn't know what he wanted to do, but I gritted my teeth and followed, grabbing the vine and climbing to the bottom of the cross-beam. I heard someone talking in English and immediately understood that it was Qiu Dekao's team.

There was still some urine dripping down Fatty's face but he didn't care. He didn't understand what was said above so he made a gesture for me to listen.

I held back my strong nausea and listened. There must have been a lot of people above, and obviously they were on the high ground, completely oblivious to the ditch covered with a layer of cross-beams and the secret passage below.

But Qiu Dekao's people shouldn't be here at this time.

I couldn't hear the foreigners' specific conversation clearly and could only shake my head at Fatty. He asked me to turn on the recorder on my phone, but at this moment, I heard a Chinese voice say, “Let's hurry up and go. There's no time to rest. Who saw where the new guide went?” Then someone translated it into English.

When I heard the voice, I was stupefied—it was one I was very familiar with, and just when I wanted to hear more, the people above moved out.

Fatty and I dropped down, and he spit a few times, waiting for the voice to go away before saying, “Damn, foreigners make me so fucking angry.  The smell of urine is too strong. Xiuxiu, listen to what they said.”

I thought that the Chinese voice was also recorded, and immediately leaned over, but Xiuxiu completely ignored us and untied her clothes and went to the pool to wash.

“Oh, girl, don't wash it there. I've peed in that pool. Won't it be the same after washing?” Fatty said.

Xiuxiu and Leather Bag, who was already washing on the side, paused, and then Leather Bag jumped up immediately: “Which one have you not peed in?”

“I peed in all of them. I was bored last night, and peed a few times in every pool.” Fatty said, “Don't wash first, let's listen to the recording.”

“I won't!” Xiuxiu said, “I'd rather die than stand the smell.”

I also found the smell very uncomfortable, and Fatty had no choice but to point to a pool in the distance: “That one's clean.”

We rushed over immediately and washed our hair and clothes over and over again until the smell of urine was too weak to detect.

“You're not afraid of the dead, but of urine? I'll tell you, according to scientific research, the rotting matter of a corpse is definitely dirtier than urine. It's okay to drink urine." Fatty said.

Xiuxiu took a hat full of water from the pool: “Then drink!”

“It's okay to drink it, but it doesn't mean it's delicious.” Fatty said, “Finish up quickly, we can't be overtaken by them.”

After listening to the recording, Xiuxiu said: “Don't worry, they'll never catch up with us on the mountain road. This group of people must have set out before we arrived in Banai. They've been walking in the mountains for several days and we simply caught up with them.”

“What did they say about the new guide?” Fatty said, “How can there be a guide here?”

I shook my head and kept thinking about the sentence I just heard. Who is the speaker? Why did it sound so familiar?

Fatty looked at me thinking hard and asked what was wrong. When I told him, he didn't remember it. Obviously, he didn't notice the problem. Xiuxiu said: “Anyway, Qiu Dekao sent another team before we came but I heard him say something different to Master Three. Obviously he was hiding something from us.”

With Qiu Dekao's character, he was definitely not randomly sending teams to explore. He must have gotten new information, and the new guide may be the key.

“But what should we do? Ignore them and continue?” Fatty thought about it and looked at me.

I was too worried about that voice, and had a very bad premonition so I said, “We have to climb up and look.”

Fatty and I split the most corroded beam with a machete and climbed out. The moonlight was bright outside, and there were no big trees here. I climbed slowly along the slope and heard people's voices coming along the wind. The team had moved forward overnight and had already walked a certain distance, but Xiuxiu was right, it was especially difficult to walk on the slope. We could still see the fire in front, meaning they didn't go very far.

Fatty and I started to follow after them but after a few steps, he grabbed me and shoved my head into the grass. I looked at the place he pointed to and saw a spark high up ahead—someone was there.

“Sentry! We can't follow any more." Fatty said and handed me a scope.

“Where did you get this?”

“From a gun.” Fatty said.

I picked it up, looked at the team in front of me, and saw a group of foreigners climbing the hill, using torches instead of flashlights. On the mountain where there's no road, it's too easy to get lost using flashlights.

There were about 15 people on this team. Foreigners all look the same to me so I couldn't recognize whether they were from the lake shore. I moved the scope to find the guide.

Soon I found a Chinese with his back to me, chatting with another foreigner. As soon as I saw his back, I felt a thrill and a very strange feeling came over me.

The man suddenly turned his head and looked back and I caught a glimpse of his face.

At that moment, I was stunned, and then I was so agitated it was like my whole body had been injected with chicken blood, my pores swollen with it. Because in that instant, I suddenly didn't know if I had seen right.

That was my face.

I saw myself. I saw a Wu Xie.

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Chapter end