Chapter 109

Shirley Yang asked: "What is a ghost signal? I've never heard of it before."

I said to Shirley Yang: "You don't know, but there has always been such a legend in the troops. Some units stationed in remote mountainous areas often receive inexplicable signals on the radio. These signals are intermittent, some are distress calls, some are warnings, and the content is all kinds of strange. When the troops receive such radio waves, they think there are victims calling for help, and most of them will send people to search the source of the signal. However, those who go never come back, as if they vanished into thin air, and those ghostly signals also disappear immediately. So this is what is called the soul-hooking signal in legend."

Shirley Yang, preparing to climb the tree, had already put on her climbing helmet and said to me: "How can such baseless rumors be reliable? This sound is coming from the tree opposite us. We have already entered the area of the Xian King's Tomb, so every unusual situation might be related to the Xian King's Tomb. We must get to the bottom of this. Besides, if there is someone trapped calling for help, we cannot just stand by and do nothing."

Shirley Yang finished speaking and used her climbing pick to hook onto the thick vine on the tree trunk, climbing up quickly. In just a few moves she reached halfway up. The two intertwined old trees, like a husband and wife, are about twenty meters tall, with a canopy over ten meters in diameter blocking the moonlight. Moreover, the branches, leaves, and flower buds on the tree are too dense, so from below, using the "Wolf Eye" flashlight, one can at most see the height within ten meters of the trunk.

Our searchlight has already been destroyed, and now the strongest remaining lighting equipment is the illumination flare fired from the signal gun. Since we have not yet entered the "Insect Valley" and there will be no extra supplies along the way, we cannot use it freely here. Seeing Shirley Yang climbing higher and higher on the tree, I was very worried about her safety. I quickly woke up Pangzi from the sleeping bag, had him wait below the tree to assist, and then I also put on my climbing helmet, opened the tactical light on top, grabbed the vine, and followed her up the tree.

Pangzi had just been woken up by me, still not clear about the situation, holding the "Sword Might" and constantly asking me below the tree what was going on. I had just climbed to one-third of the height when I saw Pangzi below the tree waving his gun around like a headless fly. I used my climbing pick to hook onto a crack in the tree, stopped, lowered my head, and said to Pangzi: "Don't point the gun upward, be careful of accidental discharge that might hit me. There seems to be something in this tree. We'll climb up to see what's going on. You stay below on guard, don't be careless."

At this moment, Shirley Yang, who had already climbed to the upper part of the old banyan tree, suddenly shouted: "There is half a piece of aircraft wreckage stuck in the treetop, looks like it's from an American Air Force plane."

Hearing her words, I quickly used hands and feet, following the light from Shirley Yang's climbing helmet, and climbed up. I passed through layers of thick various plants and grasses, and saw Shirley Yang in the middle part of the canopy using her hand to touch a dark object. I was far away and couldn't tell clearly whether it was a plant or some aircraft wreckage.

When I climbed to Shirley Yang's side, I could see clearly: under the quiet, frost-like moonlight, a section of a huge aircraft fuselage was upside-down and wedged between the two trees. The wings and tail wings were nowhere to be seen, the fuselage was severely damaged, with several large holes on the body. The holes were blocked by scattered items, making it impossible to see what was inside. The cabin door had already detached from the fuselage and had almost grown into one with the tree trunk. The landing gear was caught in a crack in the tree. If one didn't climb to the treetop to observe up close, one would never imagine there was a section of aircraft wreckage here.

I turned my head to look at the other end, the towering and vast Yinglong Mountain, and thought: this plane most likely hit the mountain, broke into several sections, and this section of fuselage just happened to fall onto the treetop. With such impact force, the nearby trees could only withstand it if they were these two rare giant husband-and-wife trees.

Shirley Yang pointed to where she had scraped open a large area of green plant mud covering the fuselage with a paratrooper knife, letting me look. There, a string of 5x-r1xxx-xx2 (x being blurred and unrecognizable) was revealed, with several letters already hard to recognize. I don't know much about the American Air Force's regulations, so I asked Shirley Yang: "Is this an American Air Force bomber? Or the Flying Tigers that aided China during the Anti-Japanese War?"

Shirley Yang said: "I haven't yet found the Flying Tigers' mark on the fuselage. It should be the wreckage of a C-type transport plane of the American Air Force. It might have taken off from the Calcutta base in India during World War II to transport supplies to the Chinese Expeditionary Army fighting in Burma and China. If it were the Flying Tigers supporting the Chinese theater, there should still be a blue sky and white sun mark on the fuselage."

I nodded and said: "This place is not far from Burma. Looking at the news, I saw that the Salween Grand Canyon area not far from here has already discovered dozens of wrecks of American transport planes in the Gaoligong Mountains. From 1942 to 1945, during these three years, the American military crashed no less than six or seven hundred aircraft in China's southwest border during the mid- and later stages of the Hump route. I never expected one to have crashed here as well."

Pangzi, waiting anxiously below the tree, shouted loudly: "Old Hu, what are you two doing up there, playing some sneaky tricks? And you still let me stand guard below? What on earth is up there in the tree?"

I casually broke off a branch and threw it down from above at Pangzi below: "What are you yelling about? We found an American transport plane up in the tree. I'll come down after I figure it out."

At this moment, I suddenly remembered the knocking signal for help I had just heard from inside the tree. Looking at this transport plane wreckage smashed like this, how could anyone possibly have survived? What exactly was that signal? Could it be the restless spirit of the flight crew, unable to find peace, still calling for help?

At this moment, the clouds in the sky suddenly covered the moon, and the forest immediately darkened. I slowed my breathing, held my breath, and made a hand signal to Shirley Yang. Together we put our ears against the fuselage to listen whether that strange Morse code distress signal was still inside.

As soon as I put my ear against the fuselage, I heard inside three urgent "dang dang dang" knocking sounds. The sound came so suddenly that I was startled. If it weren't for my left hand firmly gripping the climbing pick, I would have almost rolled and fallen from the treetop.

From beginning to end, we dared not make too much noise. Except for my two shouts to Pangzi below, we spoke in low voices. Since we started climbing, we hadn't heard that "ghost signal" again. But now that sound suddenly came from inside the fuselage. Because we were too close, the sound was unusually clear—how could it not make one's heart jump?

Shirley Yang and I exchanged a glance. Seeing her also full of doubtful expression, she said: "Really seeing ghosts. Could there really be something inside? I just saw a piece of broken iron plate on top of the fuselage. Let's pry it open and see what's inside."

Shirley Yang wasn't afraid, and naturally I couldn't show fear either. So I nodded in agreement: "Good. If there are still remains of American airmen inside, we will try to bury them temporarily, take their identification tags back, and then notify the American consulate to let them come retrieve the remains. Americans don't care about the saying 'loyal bones buried everywhere in green mountains'; they will surely want to wrap them in the national flag and send them back home."

Shirley Yang said: "I was thinking the same thing. Let's get to work. If there is something inside the fuselage, we will deal with it using the black donkey hoof of the corpse-exorcising scholars."

I calmly smiled and said: "What thing, what thing—we don't need to fear it. This is a military transport plane; maybe there are military supplies inside, best if there is explosives or something like that. Perhaps it will come in handy for dealing with the Xian King's cauldron."

I found a spot where I could land, a tree fork that could bear some weight, stepped on it to support my body, and also installed a rock bolt using tension to fix it in a tree crack. Then I tied myself to the rock bolt with a rope, and used the climbing pick to pry open the deformed, rotten iron plate on top of the fuselage.

Shirley Yang beside me used the paratrooper knife to cut the plant vines entangled on the iron plate, helping me open it. Since it had been over 40 years, the aircraft damage was quite severe, and it had been squeezed by the continuously growing old banyan tree. When I pried it, the iron plate only came off half; the other half was stuck fast. On the tree, I couldn't exert full force, so I couldn't pry it further.

I lay in the hole of the fuselage, wanting to see what was continuously sending the signal. Shirley Yang stood beside me holding the **** pistol and black donkey hoof to cover me. The tactical light on the climbing helmet, in the night jungle, is far more useful than in a pitch-black cave where you can't see your fingers. Its effective illumination range of twenty-three meters is enough to clearly see the situation inside the fuselage.

When I looked inside, I also took a breath, my heart suspended to my throat. Slowly I extended my head forward. Here in the forest, it was unusually quiet. Inside the fuselage came the "peng peng peng" knocking sound, one after another. Each time it sounded, my heart rose a little higher.

The beam of the headlamp shot into the pitch-black interior of the fuselage. First, I saw a pilot's helmet, as if the pilot's remains had just happened to be hanging under the iron plate I pried open. However, he was lowering his head, possibly because his cervical spine broke when the plane crashed, his head hanging in front of his chest. The fuselage deformation was severe, and that gap was narrow. I couldn't clearly see the preservation state of the body under the helmet at once, but I could affirm that, judging by the angle of the head and body, it was absolutely impossible for a living person to assume such a posture.

Just as I was about to reach out to lift that helmet, who would have thought that the originally drooping pilot's helmet suddenly moved lightly twice, as if trying to lift its head with effort. Each time it moved, a "dang" sound came, the sound of hitting the iron sheet.

At this moment I had already broken out in a cold sweat, and I secretly cried out, "Alas!" This time I have definitely encountered a zombie. Since I started practicing the inverted fighting technique, I have never encountered a real zongzi, only once encountered a corpse killed by evil talismans. That thing resembles a zombie but is actually completely different. Since childhood, listening to my grandfather tell ancient tales, I have heard a lot about zombies. What I feared most as a child was the story of zombies knocking on coffin lids inside coffins. Today I truly encountered it, but I don't know whether the black donkey hoof, which corpse-exorcising scholars have always used to restrain zombies, is effective.

I gritted my teeth and used the climbing pick to pry off that broken pilot's helmet. With my other hand I raised the black donkey hoof and shoved it forward, but suddenly a piece of strong golden light shot out from under the helmet.