Chapter 97: Waterside Village

“They’ll definitely come after us. They paid such a terrible price and lost so many of their men. If they don’t get the thing back, wouldn’t that be a ruinous loss? Besides, they must recover it. Otherwise, they’ll be in very, very serious trouble,” Black Sunglasses said to me while carefully dressing his wound.

I did not ask what kind of trouble he meant. I doubted I would get an answer even if I did. He would not tell me. But for those hereditary tomb-raiding clans to fear serious trouble, it had to be something truly grave.

So Black Sunglasses and I began to gather our gear. Though our bodies had not yet fully recovered, we were at least able to walk normally again. We slung on our backpacks, ate as we went, and started making our way through the deep mountain forest in a single chosen direction. Fortunately, we had a compass. Once we fixed our bearing, we simply kept moving in a straight line.

At the same time, we stayed alert to our surroundings. Black Sunglasses was right: Old Ghost and the others would not let things end so easily. They would certainly come after us. Still, in a place like this, with mountains closing in on all sides, finding the two of us would not be easy.

If we kept going in this direction, the map showed that we should pass through a village. There was a small town nearby, and around that town were two county seats. The nearest village was about a dozen kilometers away. On foot, especially in the mountains, it would take a great deal of time. But this was the closest route out of the mountains; the other directions were all much farther.

Black Sunglasses and I roughly calculated the distance along those dozen or so kilometers of mountain road. Given our current condition, and allowing for rest at night, it would take at least two days to reach the nearest village. We could make our plans then.

Old Ghost’s side had suffered heavy losses. Even if the men who had not gone down into the underground cliff were added in, there still would not be enough people. In the depths of these great mountains, searching for us would be even harder.

We rested as we traveled. When night fell, Black Sunglasses and I agreed to take turns keeping watch and sleeping: him for the first half of the night, me for the second. That night was extraordinarily still, broken only by the sounds of wild beasts in the mountains. Lying on the makeshift straw mat we had put together, I tossed and turned and could not sleep.

I spread out my hand and looked at the few red moles there. Sure enough, there were more of them now. There were five red moles. According to what the elders of the Tomb-Guarding Clan had said, five red moles were the curse in its final form. The next time, it would be the moment my life came to an end.

I opened my hand, clenched it, opened it again, clenched it again, feeling that thread of fate within my palm. After thinking for a while, perhaps my father had felt exactly this way then. There was not the slightest physical discomfort. Especially in the final stage of the curse, one could not feel the itch or the pain at all; one seemed no different from an ordinary person. My father had been the same. Then, all at once, he had lain down and never risen again.

Perhaps that would be my fate as well. I did not know when I would leave this world. But before I did, I had to hurry and finish what I wanted to do, what I needed to do, what had to be done.

I did not know how much time I had left. According to the elders of the Tomb-Guarding Clan, I probably had another three to five months. It seemed I truly had to make haste. This time, once I returned, I would contact Li Ling, take back those two pills, and then go to the Tomb-Guarding Clan with everything I had obtained, hand it all over to the elders, study it together with them, discuss countermeasures together, and tell them everything I knew.

Seeing that I had not gone to sleep, Black Sunglasses thought I was not tired and told me to keep the first watch. After thinking it over, I decided that was fine. I could not sleep anyway, so I got up and poked at the fire. Then I fell into aimless thoughts again, sorting through everything I had experienced over these past few months. Time passed quickly. By the second half of the night, drowsiness finally came over me. After switching off with Black Sunglasses, I slept until daybreak.

The next day, we were still walking along the mountain roads. There was not much food left in the backpack. Earlier, because we had needed to climb, we had thrown away some of the things inside to reduce the weight, so now the food and water were running low. Still, if we used them sparingly, it would be enough to last until we found someone living here.

By the time dusk was nearing, several houses could already be seen in the distance. Black Sunglasses took a look through the binoculars and told me it was a village, probably the one marked on the map. It was called Parting-Water Village, and nearby there was a small river called the Parting-Water River. After walking a little farther, sure enough, we came upon the river.

I was impatient to go into the village and find someone who could give us something hot to eat, but Black Sunglasses stopped me and told me to be careful. Although Old Ghost and the others would not catch up so quickly, and would not be able to find this village and lie in wait for us so fast, caution could never hurt.

Our pace slowed. By then, the sky was already dim and dusky. Black Sunglasses scanned our surroundings warily. After a while, seeing no sign of anything unusual, he finally relaxed a little.

The village was not large. One glance was enough to see it end to end. The two of us went to the door of a house with a light on inside and knocked. A dog began barking from within, and soon after, the inner door opened. An elderly man came out.

“Who are you looking for?” he asked in a thick local dialect.

I could not make it out clearly at first, so I said, “Sir, we’re tourists and got lost. Would it be convenient for you to help us out a little? Could you give us something to eat and let us stay one night? We’ll pay you.”

The old man stared blankly. I supposed he had never heard of anyone coming here for tourism. After all, traveling to a place like this for pleasure was truly something hard to imagine. Then, in rather halting Mandarin, he continued, “I thought you were some family’s relatives. So you’re outsiders. But I really don’t have any spare room at home. You’ll have to ask elsewhere.”

As he spoke, the old man warmly put on his coat and took us to find the village’s old secretary. Black Sunglasses and I made up a story, saying we were a university teacher and a student who had come here to do field research and had gotten lost. When it came to lying, Black Sunglasses was a professional. He spun the tale so smoothly that the old secretary was completely taken in. Even I almost started believing I really was one of them.

In the story, Black Sunglasses said his surname was Zhang and his name was Wuming, which he probably just made up on the spot, meaning “Nameless.” Once the old secretary saw that we were teachers and students from a big city, he assumed we were educated people and treated us with great respect. He arranged for us to stay in a courtyard. The house belonged to his son, but his son worked in the city and rarely came back, so he let us stay there for the time being. He even had his wife personally stir-fry several dishes for us and fire up the heated brick bed. By the end of it all, I was almost too embarrassed to accept such hospitality.