Volume 9 Chapter 3, Markings

I shook my head, my mind was as confused as boiling mud: “I don’t understand, what do you mean he left it last time? He came here?”

Uncle San touched the symbols. “Yes, I have seen this mark more than once in these ruins. It’s everywhere. I followed these marks and crossed the rainforest as fast as I could to reach the camp you found. But I wasn’t sure at the time that this mark was left by this young man. Now that the handwriting is the same, there’s no doubt. This young man must have been here before, and it’s been a while.”

“But, what is going on here?” I was speechless for a moment, wanting to ask a question, but I had no idea how to ask it.

I am a calligrapher, and I have an extremely sensitive understanding of handwriting, especially engraved handwriting, so I can be sure that this symbol was indeed carved by Mung Oil Bottle. However, the stone powder on it does not lie, and it was definitely not carved recently. In this case, the only explanation is that Mung Oil Bottle was here.

Was it before he lost his memory? Could it be that he was also on the expedition team with Wenjin and Huo Ling?

No, he completely lost his memory when he was in Xisha.

“I’m not sure yet, but I told you, this guy is no ordinary person. His past is unfathomable, and everything he does has a reason,” said Uncle San. ”But I guess if we just follow this mark, we’ll be able to find out where he ended up, and maybe find a way out.”

I felt my mind was unable to think, but I really knew nothing about the past of the oil bottle. If he really came here, the timing was completely feasible. At this time, I saw when Uncle San said these things, his eyes looked in the direction of the black glasses going out.

I asked him what was wrong, and he made a gesture to tell me to be quiet, and looked at the direction where Black Glasses had gone out. Then he whispered to me, “I’m really angry with you. You shouldn’t have come along this time.”

I saw him suddenly change the subject and speak so softly, as if he was avoiding the black glasses, and I froze for a moment.

Uncle San continued in a hurry: “You really don’t know how to read the omen. I’m not the same as I used to be. This time, I called the gangsters from the underworld. On the surface, they call me Uncle San, but in fact, they don’t listen to me at all. I can only be a backup, and I have to guard against them turning against me. I can’t even handle it alone, and you’re just asking for trouble by coming along.”

I immediately understood why Uncle San looked so helpless just now. Pan Zi had told me about these circumstances, but I didn’t expect things to be so serious. I immediately whispered, “I can’t help it. You told me…”

Before he could finish, Uncle San gave me a quick wink. I looked back and saw that Black Glasses had returned. He asked Black Glasses, “What’s the situation?”

“They’re coming down. I told them to send the equipment down first.” Black-glasses grinned. ”They asked what to do with the fat guy. Should we leave him up there and find someone to take care of him? It’s not realistic to take him with us… Little Master San, you don’t look too good.”

When Uncle San said that, I was a little overwhelmed. Maybe it showed on my face, but I still had the ability to respond. I immediately said, “This smell is terrible.”

Uncle San thought for a moment and said, “We can’t stay here. We mustn’t disperse. Tell them to come down first, and then we’ll find a place to think about the fat guy.”

“Okay,” he said. ”Then the third young master should come out and help. This guy is a big part.”

I nodded and said, “I’ll be right there after I finish here.” I watched as the man with the dark glasses left.

I looked at Uncle San and saw that his expression was also very strange. I thought to myself that I really didn’t expect things to get to this point, and it seems that Uncle San really isn’t easy.

To be honest, I have a good impression of Black Glasses. Although this person seems a bit crazy, it seems that I really know too little about the things in the world.

Uncle San continued in a low voice: “Don’t argue with me. I really can’t take care of you this time. You have to be careful. I’m really angry with you. If we can get out of here, I’ll definitely go to your father and tell him off.”

I saw his expression and knew he wasn’t joking, so I nodded. He said quickly, “I’ll make this short. Remember, these people are all tough characters from Changsha, and only these people dare to kidnap this lama. This black-glasses guy is a Manchu, and I don’t know his name. The underworld calls him Black Blind, and he’s part of the group. The other group is led by the guy called Mop. These people were once bandits and outlaws. You have to be especially careful with these people. Don’t treat them as my former colleagues, and don’t say anything.”

I continued to nod, and Uncle San looked outside. At this time, Black Blindie called out a few times, and Uncle San patted me on the back to let me pay attention to myself.

I then stopped talking and followed Black Blind out. At this point, I hadn’t fully reacted yet. I thought about it while helping out and only then did I realize the extent of the trouble. It was obvious that this group of people were already on their guard. It was possible that something had happened before.

I didn’t understand anything about the underworld, and I couldn’t think about it at the moment. I had to try my best to act as if I was fine, and I thought to myself that I could only wait and see what would happen.

The fat man came down with the “mop” tied to him. The two of them were hard to control. After they were pulled in, the smell of urine on both of them was so strong that it was almost nauseating. Then, the people above came down one by one.

Mop was still very polite, scolding me in Changsha dialect, nodding and smiling at me, calling me “little master” and “little master” all the time. But I felt that the atmosphere was completely different from before. Looking at these people, I felt that their expressions were a bit fake. I didn’t know if it was a psychological effect or if they really meant it.

I pretended not to hear anything, and this got on my mind. I had no desire to think about what was going on with the “muffler”.

After four or five hours, everyone went down to the lower level of the shaft, organized their equipment, and found two people to carry the fat man. We began to follow the signs of the oil bottle and headed deeper into the shaft.

Uncle San gave me a short-barreled double-barreled tiger-head hunting rifle. It was the same model as the one I used to shoot skeet with, only a little lighter, with two shots at a time and lead shot. This was probably the most high-end weapon Uncle San could get his hands on. We used this kind of thing at the Qixing Luwang Palace. I bought it on the black market at the time, and it seemed to cost more than 5,000.

This kind of weapon can only be used to deter large animals, but it should be quite convenient to use against the kind of chicken-crowned snakes, sweeping a large area at once. I thought to myself, why didn’t Pan Zi bring one? Using his kind of short rifle is really outdated.

I thought about Pan Zi and was very worried. I didn’t know how he was doing. He should be safer in that temple than here, but if he has another fever, I’m afraid it will be really bad. If he were here, Uncle San wouldn’t have to worry so much.

I reminded Uncle San of the reliefs I had seen before. The function of these tunnels, apart from storing water, is to keep the crested vipers. I had not seen many crested vipers on my way through the rainforest, but I had seen them a few times. It was obvious that these snakes’ territory was in these tunnels, so we had to be extra careful.

Uncle San said that these snakes are unpredictable, and it is useless to be extra careful.

The tunnels are high and low, and the environment here makes me feel quite similar to the Lu Palace. Could it be that the Xizhou embedded tunnels were not the tunnels we thought they were, but rather drainage wells?

It is impossible to speculate, because Shandong has sufficient rainfall and does not need such a complicated underground water storage system. Otherwise, in the event of heavy rains for many months, the stored water may overflow. It should just be a simple similarity.

After walking less than 500 steps, the tunnel branched off. San Shu used a miner’s lamp to shine down the tunnel. One tunnel went up, and the other went down. The tunnel going up should be the upper tunnel, and the water came down from above and then merged with this tunnel and flowed down. We searched the area and immediately saw the sign of the oil bottle on the lower tunnel.

Uncle San couldn’t hide his excitement, but I could tell that his excitement was a bit fake, and I had to pretend to be very nervous. He didn’t hesitate, and waved his hand to continue moving forward.

This kind of shaft travel is extremely boring. It is surrounded by stone bricks, without any reliefs or cultural things. There are only simple stones, the light of the miner’s lamp flickering on the walls of the shaft, and there is no change for a long time.

The first section took three hours to walk, and there were one after another forks in the road. I saw many signs left by the oil bottle, and the process was very boring, so I won’t go into detail. There were many reservoirs along the way, and the only thing that made me feel a little interesting was that I found that as we lowered our altitude, these reservoirs were one larger than the other, and there was no sound around, as if there were no snakes at all.

This was somewhat unexpected, and we could say that we were somewhat relieved, but I always felt that something was not quite right. There seemed to be something hidden in this silence.

Long story short, nothing happened until the evening, and our nerves finally began to relax. We could only rest in a row in the well that day, and lit several fires. When it was time to eat, the fat man woke up for the first time.

Uncle San gave him a shot to strengthen him, and then gave him something to eat. I asked him what had happened, but he still didn’t have the strength to speak, and only said a few words before falling asleep again.

But my heart was already at ease. The snake venom was not a serious injury. If he could wake up, it meant that he was not in any danger. Sure enough, the next morning, when he woke up, his face had already recovered. Although he could not walk, he was able to stand up with the help of others. Looking around, he asked me in a weak voice what was going on.

I said, “This time you have to thank me. It was rare that I didn’t give up and abandon you. I almost died and only saved you. How are you going to thank me for this new life?

The fat guy was able to endure the ordeal, so he asked for a cigarette and said with a dejected look, “Damn it, I’ve saved you so many times, and you’re only going to save me once and still pull this stunt. I’m telling you, this time it’s not even a wash.” Then he asked me where I was.

I told him what happened later, but he didn’t say anything. I asked him what happened to the guy with the gas can.

He said that they chased after him and then they all scattered. He couldn’t catch up with the young man at all. Later, he heard the sound of a snake. He thought the same as I did, that Uncle San’s people were still alive, but they weren’t as reckless as I was. They snuck up on him, but when they lifted up a bush, they were bitten by a snake.

This is not far from what I thought. He said that the young man was probably bitten by a snake. God bless him for being smarter than the two of us.

Uncle San was very happy to see the fat man and handed him a cigarette. I think it was probably because the fat man was finally one of us. But the fat man was very depressed when he saw Uncle San and said, “Uncle San, look at the way you’re holding the cigarette. You have to pay me more money when you go back, or I won’t do it.”

After he finished, the other people also agreed with him, and they all laughed and joked. It seemed that there was nothing wrong with the atmosphere, and no one seemed to notice the bitterness in Uncle San’s smile.

The fat man recovered quickly. I told him to drink more water. At first, his urine was black, but slowly, it began to clear up. His constitution was really good, and his complexion was becoming more and more rosy. By the time we were about to set off, he could basically stand up and move around on his own.

I helped him to continue on, still going deeper and deeper, one cistern after another, just as we had done the day before. We discovered that the water storage system was actually a mesh-like structure, with the structure becoming simpler the lower down we went, but the shafts and cisterns were getting bigger and bigger.

Finally, we stopped at the sixth cistern. This cistern was so large that it was unrecognizable. In the middle of the cistern, there was a stone pillar that was as big as three people standing together to prevent it from collapsing. The entire cistern was dry, and by visual estimation, it was as big as half a football field.

The fat man no longer needed my help, but his strength had not fully returned. He sat down and panted, sweating profusely.

We stopped not because we needed to rest, but because the journey through the well shaft was like a stroll on a sunny beach, not at all tiring. And when we reached the reservoir, we found that it was covered with dry tree roots, which had almost completely covered the entire reservoir. The outlets of the branch wells were all covered with tree roots, and they were covered with strange-looking fungi. We couldn’t find a way to continue.

I was wondering why these tree roots would grow here, since we were already deep underground. Are there any trees in the world with such long roots?

The “mop” looked at the road and said, “These are not tree roots, they are all mycelium. This reservoir seems to be a good place to grow mushrooms. As he said, he told his men to cut off the mycelium and look for the signs left by the oil bottle.

I looked closer and found that these mycelium were very similar to tree roots, but they were very soft and covered with black hair, clinging to the walls of the well.

As we searched, someone let out a scream and fell to the ground. We immediately aimed our guns at him, and when we looked again, we saw that he had cut off a piece of the fungus, and a stone face appeared on the well wall behind the fungus.

I knew what it was at a glance and immediately retaliated with a laugh to get back at them for laughing at me for being scared by a fake person. They looked at me in bewilderment, so I picked up some gravel on the ground and threw it at them. The moths that had formed the face were scared away.

The man let out a sigh of relief, and everyone laughed.

The moths may have accidentally flown into the well, and there may also be snake skins here to attract them. I told them to be careful, as there might be snakes nearby. I went to the place where the moths had gathered to form a face and looked for it. Sure enough, I saw a large white sack-like object in the dense roots of the tree. But what surprised me was that there were not many of these white snake skins, and it seemed to be a whole.

I picked it up with a shotgun and found that it was a large snake, as thick as a bucket, and I could see that the snake had double layers of scales.

When my uncle came over to touch it, his hand was covered in mucus, and his face turned white. He cried out, “Damn it! Get the guns ready! This stuff is fresh! The skin has just shed!” He urged the people looking for the wellhead to hurry up, saying that they couldn’t stay in this place for long.

I immediately went over to help, using a knife to cut the mycelium, then pulling it off, and then shining a miner’s lamp into the well opening. According to our experience, the oil bottle would have carved a mark near that place.

After a long time of searching, we couldn’t find it. Everyone was a bit impatient. We had almost searched all the lower parts of the shaft, except for some on the top of the water tank. I thought to myself, “This time it’s not on the top. There is no slope, it’s almost vertical. We have to climb up the gap in the shaft wall.

The skinny little guy here had the best dexterity, and it was his duty to climb up. We helped him with a flashlight. He grabbed the gap in the boulder with one hand while using a machete to cut off the mycelium, then grabbed the gap like a rock climber and swung his body to hang over.

I thought to myself, I can’t do it like him. Wait a minute, I found it, but how do I get in?

He explored a few shafts and said, “It’s here.” We all breathed a sigh of relief. Uncle San told him to tie the rope immediately, and we began to climb up one after another. After only three or four people had climbed up, the little man called out again, “Uncle San, no, there are more here. There are more than one mark.”