Volume 4Chapter 9: Nine Dragons Carry the Corpse

The plan that Baldy gave us was to take the tourist route, from Changsha to Shanhaiguan, then transfer to Dunhua, all by train, the whole journey taking about two days and covering nearly 3,000 kilometers. During this time, we had nothing to do, so we could only pass the time with a cell phone and a few magazines.

I took the fish-eyed check to the fat guy, and he was still very happy to see me. Seeing that he was in a good mood, I secretly asked him how he ended up here.

Fatso told me that there are some things that you have to do together on this road. For example, there are some big tombs in the mountains that you can’t handle alone. First, you can’t carry all the necessary equipment on your back alone, and second, you can’t carry all the good stuff alone. The environment in these ancient tombs is extremely dangerous. If you’re lucky enough to survive a round trip, that’s not bad. But if you have to take two or three more adventures to get in, I’m afraid no one would want to. So, whenever there is such a situation, someone will come forward to take the lead. In ancient times, this was called “catching a bucket,” and in the Republic of China, it was called “jialama.”

This is like a modern-day contractor. He has a project in hand and finds a plumber to do it. The archaeological team in the early days of liberation also used similar tricks to find capable people.

This time, the “jialama” was bald. Baldy had a lot of connections and knew a friend of Fatso’s from Beijing. Fatso’s many connections were all through his friend from Beijing, and so Fatso got on the train. As for the specific situation, the average person would not reveal the details until they reached their destination, otherwise it might cause internal conflict if others knew in advance. So when I asked Fat about my uncle, he shook his head and said, “Damn it, you’re asking me? If I knew that your uncle had anything to do with this, I wouldn’t have come even if you paid me a lot of money.”

I sighed and thought to myself that the person who knew the most about the situation was either Pan Zi or Chen Pi A Si.

Muyoubing was as boring as ever, and he didn’t say hello to me. He just kept dozing off. I tried to chat with him, but I realized that he wasn’t listening at all. Fat man told me not to waste my energy, saying that he had been sleeping since he got on the bus.

After the bus started moving, Fat Man, Pan Zi and I played mahjong to kill time. While playing, I thought about Chen Pi A Si. The old man had not spoken a word since getting on the bus. Pan Zi tried to get close to him, but he only grunted. As soon as the bus started moving, he went out on his own and has not returned yet. Fat Man asked me in a low voice, “Who is this skinny old man? He’s so arrogant.”

Pan Zi whispered to the fat man about Chen Pi A Si. When the fat man heard that he was over ninety years old, his face turned green and he said, “Don’t tell me that this old guy has to go up the mountain with us. If that’s the case, I’ll destroy him in a humane way in an uninhabited place. Don’t stop me. Anyway, he’s going to die anyway.”

Pan Zi quickly pressed his mouth and whispered, “You should say less. The old guy is very smart. If he hears you, he’ll harm you before you get there.”

I recalled Chen Pi A Si. In the teahouse, he gave me the impression of a profound master of Chinese studies. Surrounded by a group of people, with the power and accomplishments of such a person, coupled with his great age, how could he come alone to “pick up a lama”? Isn’t he afraid of harming us?

When Pan Zi mentioned it, Pan Zi laughed and said, “You don’t understand. We are all lamas picked up by the Third Master, whether they are young monks or abbots, they are all picked up by the Third Master. If he wants to get a share of the pie, he has to follow the rules. No matter how powerful he is, there is nothing he can do. He thought for a moment and then said, “But we have to be careful of this old man. On the surface, he is alone, but people like him will definitely have people around them.”

The fat man scolded, “I don’t understand. What did your Third Master do to bring this person out? Isn’t this deliberately causing trouble? If this person is really so evil, I think we should strike first, either tie him up or kill him.”

Pan Zi looked at the door and said, “I’m warning you not to mess around. Third Master must have a reason for mentioning this person. Let’s just buy him face. Anyway, he’s so old now. It doesn’t matter how powerful he was when he was young. If it really comes to that—oh, dear!”

Before he could finish his sentence, the hand of the bottle suddenly dangled down from the upper bunk and grabbed Pan Zi’s shoulder. The force was so great that it almost made him cry out.

Pan Zi’s teeth were clenched, and he didn’t say the rest of the sentence. We were all stunned. Pan Zi didn’t like the Muddy Oil Bottle, and just as he was about to speak, the door creaked open and Chen Pi A Si walked in.

We looked at each other, then quickly looked down and continued playing cards, as if we had been caught cheating on an exam when we were in school.

The old man looked at us, didn’t say anything, and went back to his bed.

We didn’t dare discuss things while he was here, so we just focused on playing cards. In this way, time passed slowly, and the next night, almost at midnight, our bus stopped at Shanhaiguan.

Shanhaiguan is the first pass in the world, but it is a man-made tourist attraction, most of which was rebuilt in 1986. The next bus we needed to transfer to would not arrive for another two hours. The fat guy said he wanted to go take a look, but I said it was early in the morning, there was no moon, and there was no point in looking. So a few of us followed a large group of people from all over the country who were also transferring to the bus station waiting room.

It was the eve of the Spring Festival travel rush, and there were already a lot of people. The station smelled bad, and there were all kinds of people sleeping there, some even sleeping on the ground with their bedding rolled up. We carefully followed the flow of people in, afraid of stepping on others.

There were a lot of people, and they were walking in a very disorderly manner. In a short while, the few of us were separated. Mufeng and Chenpi A-si were separated from us far away, and Fatso was stepped on by a few people and was cursing there. I wanted to call out to them to keep together, so I raised my hand to show them where I was. Pan Zi grabbed my hand and pulled me down to a crouching position.

I was puzzled, so I listened to him say, “There’s a police officer!

I quickly followed the momentum and sat down on the ground next to me, surrounded by people on all sides. I glanced at the doorway and saw a few police officers in uniform and a few auxiliary police officers checking ID cards.

I looked down at Pan Zi and whispered in Hangzhou dialect, “Is everything okay? It happens often in Hangzhou. They’re just checking ID cards. We’re not carrying any equipment, and we’re not wanted, so what’s there to be afraid of?”

Pan Zi pointed with his chin at a few men in the crowd who were not very conspicuous, and said, “The ones at the door are the gatekeepers, and the plainclothes ones are in the crowd, looking for someone. Keep your head down, so they don’t recognize you.”

I looked up and saw that there was a familiar face between those men, and that person was looking straight at us. I wanted to take a closer look, but that person had already jumped up and pointed at me, yelling, “Over there!”

I saw that the person was still wearing handcuffs, and my heart sank. I took a closer look at the person, and holy shit, wasn’t that Chu Guangtou? How could he have been arrested in two days without us seeing him?

“Damn it!” Pan Zi cursed, pulled me up and jumped up and ran. A group of plainclothes officers behind us rushed over and yelled, “Stop!”

We rolled and crawled over several rows of seats, pushing the crowd away. Pan Zi passed by, and everyone kept moving out of the way, but when I passed by, everyone gathered around. I yelled in my heart, what is this? Do I look so easy to bully?

I saw people in front of me blocking my way, and the police behind me had also arrived. Suddenly, a fluorescent light above the waiting room ceiling shattered, and everyone was startled. Then, another one shattered. I took the opportunity to duck between two people and squeeze through the crowd, trying to get to the door.

Suddenly, someone grabbed me and pulled me aside. I looked up and saw Pan Zi. He shook his head, meaning that we should go out through the railway tracks.

The fluorescent lights above our heads were breaking one after another, the waiting room was getting darker and darker, and broken glass was falling down. Suddenly, there was a lot of noise, the crying of children, and screams of terror. Many people were pushing towards the entrance, and we followed the flow of people and squeezed out again.

I saw the fat guy waving at us from afar, and I leaned towards him. Just as I was about to ask about the oil bottle, that guy suddenly appeared like a ghost. The fat guy asked Pan Zi, “Your chopsticks were broken by Lei Zi. What should we do now?”

Pan Zi cursed, “That son of a bitch, he exposed us so easily. Now people are really unreliable. If I get the chance, I’ll beat him to death!”

The fat guy said, “What are you getting excited about? You have to say what to do.”

Pan Zi scratched his head. He didn’t know what to do either, so he came to see me again. I was about to scold him when the bottle tapped us on the shoulder and said, “Follow the old man.”

We looked in the direction he was pointing and saw that Chen Pi A Si was watching us from a distance, accompanied by a few middle-aged men who had appeared out of nowhere.

The bottle walked straight towards him, and we had no choice but to follow him, even though we were scared. When Chen Pi A Si saw us coming, he gestured to the men next to him. The men immediately dispersed into the crowd, and he turned and walked into the crowd himself.

Under the cover of the crowd, we finally escaped from the Shanhaiguan Railway Station and came to a park in the dark. We stopped and looked at each other. Everyone looked bad. This was a bad start. We thought that according to Baldy’s plan, we could reach our destination without using our brains. Unexpectedly, Baldy was arrested within two days, and he even personally came with Lei Zi to arrest us. With this loyalty and thirty years of old relationships, it seems that Uncle San’s vision is not very good.

We squatted in the grass for a while, and Chen Pi A Si looked at us and suddenly sneered, using a hoarse throat to say, “With the goods you have, you still want to dig the Nine Dragons Coffin of the Emperor of Dongxia. Is Wu Sanxian old and confused?”