Volume 9 Chapter 5: The Truth

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I patted my head and said, “So you’ve been following us all along! That message, what Dingzhu Zhuoma said to us—could it be that…”

“Yes, I told her to tell you that. I had no other choice in a hurry. Those things are a long story.” Wenjin said, climbed into the gap, put her hands together in a gesture, and put it to her mouth as a mouthpiece, making a series of ‘gurgling’ sounds.

I was wondering what she was doing, was she greeting the snakes? I heard a series of gurgling sounds echoing from the depths of the crevice. After a while, someone squeezed out from inside. When I looked, I discovered that it was actually Mung Yubing.

He squeezed next to us, looked at Wenjin and then at me. I just stared at the two of them, “What’s going on?” Suddenly I felt something was wrong, “Damn, is this a trap? Are you two not working together?”

These two are also immortal, and belong to the same archaeological team. They are also deeply involved in this matter. I suddenly thought of what a friend of mine said. Mian Youping must not be alone. Could it be that he was right?

Muyoubing shook his head and said nothing. I looked at Wenjin, who said, “It’s not as disgusting as you say. He and I are innocent.”

I frowned and sincerely wanted to bow to them and say, “Big brother and sister, please let me go. What is going on?”

Wen Jin said to me, “There’s nothing complicated about this. In fact, when Zhuoma was looking for you in the village, he recognized me, but he didn’t expose me. When I found you at the mouth of the canyon, he chased after me, and we met at that time. This next thing is indeed a conspiracy, but it is also for prudence.”

I looked at the bottle, and he nodded.

I was furious. “That’s too much. Why didn’t you say anything?”

He looked at me and said, “I already hinted at it. I thought you already knew.”

“Bullshit! I didn’t look like I knew anything!” I almost jumped up and realized at once why Mian Youping had been so restless. Oh, he had been worried about Wenjin’s safety.

Muyoubing on the side immediately made a “soft” gesture to me, and I realized it. I immediately lowered my voice: “You are too unfriendly!”

“No, he did the right thing. Otherwise, I would have fallen into the hands of your female team leader, who is no pushover either.” Wen Jin said. ”Moreover, at that time, I didn’t know which one of you had a problem. I needed to find someone to help me check.”

That’s probably why Mianyoubing came back to check if we were wearing masks. Shit, everything has a reason.

“Where are the tapes?” I asked. ”What is the whole story?”

As soon as I finished speaking, there was another scream and a few gunshots.

Muyongbing said with a sigh, “If they shoot like this, they will attract all the snakes.”

Wen Jin listened outside, turned around and patted my head, as if she were a big sister, and said to me, “This is a plan, and it’s a long story, longer than you can imagine. I will tell you about these things, but now is not the time. Let’s get out of here.” Then she pointed in a direction.

I sighed, but I knew she was right, so I nodded. The group stood up and quickly retreated into the depths of the mud path.

As we walked, I asked her, “What are you going to do? Aren’t you going to meet up with my uncle?”

“We don’t have time,” Wenjin said. ”Don’t you feel that the sound of water around us is getting less and less?”

I hadn’t noticed that. Who has the energy to notice such things in such a place? Wen Jin said, “The underground waterways here are extremely complicated, but when there is water, it is not actually a maze. You at least know whether you are going up or down. As long as you go against any current of water, you will definitely find an inlet on the surface. And if you go with the current, you will definitely find the end of this underground waterway—the largest underground lake. But once the water disappears, you will never be able to get out. Now that the rain has stopped, the water level in the swamp will gradually decrease. In another day or two, the water will completely dry up, and we will be trapped here. This is why I asked Dingzhu Zhuoma to tell you that if you don’t arrive in time, you will have to wait another ten years. But you are lucky this time. This year’s rainfall was particularly heavy, flooding the entire swamp. Otherwise, it would already be too late. As for your third uncle, Wu Sansheng, and our destination are the same. As long as he doesn’t have an accident, we will definitely meet up.

I nodded immediately, thinking it made sense. “Are we going up or down?”

Wenjin pointed down: “The biggest secret is almost within reach. Are you going to give up?”

So close? I thought to myself, I don’t believe it. Wenjin looked at the watch and said, “It’s almost dawn now. Most of the snakes will be active on the ground at night, and they will all come down after dawn. It will be more troublesome for us to walk then. Before dawn, we have to find a place to hide. At that time, you can ask me anything you want, and I will tell you. For now, just concentrate on walking.”

Wen Jin said this with almost no harsh words, but her eyes and her tone of analyzing problems made me feel naturally obedient, as if she was born with a natural leader’s temperament. No wonder she was the leader of Xisha back then, even Uncle San had to be wary of her.

I stopped bothering her, and the three of us immediately quickened our pace and followed the tunnel all the way down. We soon reached another tunnel.

It was already very deep here, and the tunnel was obviously not as complicated as the one above. There were very few forks in the road, and with the mud on our bodies, we walked very smoothly. By six or seven in the morning, we had already walked quite a long distance. There was no mud in the tunnel here, only natural caves. It was hard to see signs of artificial excavation, and it was clear that almost no one would come here.

We could hear splashing water in the rocks, and it was clear that all the water in the tunnels had gathered around here. The end of the water storage system in Xiwangmu City should be very close.

The morning light on the ground should have already faded, and although there was no sign of snakes nearby, we all knew that there were an incredible number of them, and once they returned to their nests, they could appear anywhere. According to Wenjin’s experience, it was best to hide at this time.

How to hide is experience. She told Mian Youping to take off his clothes, smear mud with water from the kettle, pile up the ends of the tunnel with broken stones, and then tear his clothes into pieces and stuff them into the gaps.

“In this way, the passage here looks closed to the snakes,” Wen Jin said. ”I’ve been living like this for the past few days.”

I drank a few sips of water and felt that such a weak barrier would not be useful. If I ran into a giant snake, wouldn’t I just fart it to death?

At this time, a small campfire was lit, which only slightly warmed the body. The dampness here was suffocating, and it was so cold that there was no way to rest without a fire.

After a while, I gradually relaxed, but I was still a little nervous. Wen Jin handed me something to eat, and from my expression, she knew that I couldn’t help but want to ask questions, so she let me ask whatever I wanted.

I had been thinking about it for a long time, and I immediately perked up and wanted to ask her questions, but I suddenly realized that my mind was in a mess. There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t ask them.

“It’s okay, you can ask one by one. I’ve already expected this situation,” Wen Jin smiled at me.

I sorted out the questions in my head and thought about which one was the most important. After a moment, I realized that no matter where I started asking, no matter what I asked, it could lead to confusion. There were too many mysteries in my heart, big and small, countless and countless. I had to have a systematic way of asking questions, so I said, “Let’s ask questions according to the time, how about it?”

She nodded: “No problem.”

I asked her, “The first question I want to know is probably a bit greedy. Can you tell me what happened in Xisha?”

Wenjin looked at me and said, “That’s a big question. A lot has happened in Xisha. Which one are you referring to?”

I said to Wen Jin, “What happened after you disappeared in the tomb?”

Wen Jin paused, as if she hadn’t expected me to ask this question at the beginning. After thinking for a while, she sighed and said, “You actually want to know about this… It seems that you already know a lot. It’s hard to explain this matter. How did your third uncle tell you about it?”

I told her what my uncle had told me in the hospital, and then said to her, “He said that he didn’t enter the mechanism with you, so he doesn’t know what happened after that. After you disappeared in the tomb, he kept looking for you, but after so many years, he found nothing. He also said that he must find you.”

Wen Jin smiled strangely after listening to this, paused for a moment, and then said, “I originally wanted to tell you this last, because there is a very important premise that you must understand, but if I just say it out loud, you won’t believe it. I don’t know if you are ready to know the truth now.”

I said, “If you die early, you will be reborn. You can tell me that my third uncle is actually a woman, that I was born to him, and I can believe it. Just tell me. In the past two years, I have come to believe in everything.”

Wen Jin still seemed a bit concerned. After thinking for a while, he asked, “Do you have any judgment on this matter?”

I shook my head: “I don’t have any judgment.”

Wen Jin looked at the oil bottle, as if she was communicating with him, but the latter didn’t respond. She calmed down, fixed her hair, and seemed to have made a decision. She took out a notebook from her backpack.

It was a new notebook, modern in style, and she must have bought it recently. She opened the notebook and took out a yellowed old photo. I looked at it and saw that it was the same photo that I had seen so many times before. It was a group photo of my uncle and his family before they went out to sea. I could recite the positions of everyone in the photo, so I just glanced at it and handed it back, saying, “I’ve already seen this photo.”

Wen Jin said, “In fact, all the secrets are in this photo. But it’s hard for ordinary people to discover the secret. Everything in Xisha originates from this photo. The secret is actually not complicated, but if I tell you directly, you will definitely not be able to accept it. Let me tell you first what is hidden in this photo.”

At this moment, a concept suddenly flashed through my mind. Could it be that when I was drinking with those friends, what they said about the eleventh person was true, and there was a mysterious person hidden in this photo in addition to the ten people? Was Wen Jin trying to tell me this?

Judging from her expression, it didn’t seem that simple, so I didn’t know what she was trying to tell me.

Wen Jin gave me the photo back and asked me to point out the names and positions of the people in the photo.

I looked at it and said, “I only know a few people who are more related to this matter. I can tell you the names of the others, but I don’t know which one is which.”

Wen Jin said, “It’s okay, you can just read it.”

I first saw the most attractive person in the photo, and said, “This is the little brother.” Wen Jin nodded, then pointed to a girl on the side and said, “This is you.” Wen Jin nodded again, “And this is Uncle San.” I pointed to Uncle San and said, “This is you.” I looked at Wen Jin and waited for her to nod before continuing, but this time she didn’t move at all, but looked straight at me.

I froze for a moment. What did she mean? Wenjin took the photo and said, “Why do you think this person is your uncle?”