Chapter 200: Discharged

The conversation with Third Uncle lasted nearly two hours, draining two kettles of boiled water. After we finished, both of us felt utterly exhausted, mentally and physically. Third Uncle's body hadn't fully recovered, and he felt dizzy after speaking. I didn't want to disturb him further, so I tidied his personal things, changed the hot water and tea leaves, and left on my own.

The assistant Third Uncle had sent to buy a VCR still hadn't returned. I figured getting one would be tough—it's been out of production too long, and even if we could find one, it might not play properly.

While listening just now, I'd forgotten about the videotape, but now it came back to me, stirring up a sense of dread. Earlier, when Third Uncle sighed and said this whole affair would keep dragging on, his tone was weary and helpless, and that made me deeply uneasy.

As for Poker-face, we knew almost nothing. We didn't even know whether he happened to be on the boat by chance or had joined the archaeological team deliberately. And unlike Third Uncle, Poker-face is the type who won't react no matter how much you pressure him about things he doesn't want to talk about. Although Third Uncle had told me a few things about him, from this perspective, what he said was far from the truth of the matter. He actually didn't know much more than I did.

The moment I thought of that, the brief relief I'd felt turned into stifling pressure again.

After I finished handling things, Third Uncle's assistant finally came back. He hadn't managed to buy the VCR—the shops were all closed. We'd have to figure something out tomorrow.

It had been a long time since I'd talked to Third Uncle, and having cleared the air between us, I felt much better. That evening, I snuck out with Third Uncle and the others, found a food stall, and had a good drinking session. After eating hospital food for so long, finally tasting something with flavor made Third Uncle happy. A cigarette in one hand, a drink in the other, he finally felt comfortable for once.

On the way back, he went to check out of the hospital, saying he refused to stay there any longer, and asked me to book a hotel room for him.

I was a bit tipsy. Back at the hotel, I booked a suite for Third Uncle, took a nice bath, brewed myself a strong cup of tea, and got ready to sleep.

But after washing up, I couldn't fall asleep. So I turned on my computer and pulled up the old photo of Third Uncle taken before he left for Xisha.

I'd looked at this photo many times. It was black and white, and besides recognizing a few familiar faces, the others were hard to distinguish. Third Uncle had never told me who was who. In the photo, Third Uncle looked lean and reserved—nothing like a tomb raider—while Poker-face looked like an ordinary student. I tried to find Xie Lianhuan and noticed someone who looked a bit like Third Uncle; I couldn't be sure it was him. I couldn't help but sigh—who would have thought that so many secrets lay hidden beneath this ordinary photo?

After staring at it for a long time, I realized there was nothing to be gleaned from the photo itself. So I used the hotel phone to dial up and visit the website of the courier company Poker-face had used to send the package. I entered the tracking number to check the delivery information. The result came quickly. I scrolled down to the "origin" field—it wasn't blank. It read a three-character city name: Ge'ermu (Golmud). The videotape had been sent from a place called Golmud.

I was stunned. Where the hell was that? I Googled it right away and was even more surprised. It turned out to be a western city in Qinghai Province.

Qinghai? When did Poker-face go there? Puzzled, I thought: that guy moves fast—he's already gone all the way to the far west. Was he going to support the cause of tomb raiding out there? But Qinghai isn't part of the traditional grave-robbing territory. It's a minority region; only people dealing in dried corpses and international antiquities smugglers go there. What could he be doing—helping people dig wells? And he sent me a videotape—that seemed completely out of left field.

I looked up some information about Golmud and its history, and I grew even more astonished. I found out that Golmud is a new city, built by the People's Liberation Army while they were constructing a road, surrounded entirely by Gobi desert. I really couldn't imagine what Poker-face would be doing there, and he'd sent a videotape from there. What could the content be?

Damn it, I started to get agitated. My curiosity about the videotape became even more intense.

After drinking a few gulps of strong tea to sober up a bit, I summarized everything I'd heard today and sent it to a few people on A Ning's side. I was on good terms with them, and I hoped they could take a look and maybe give me some useful feedback. Although Third Uncle told me not to tell anyone, I figured telling Jude Kao's people wouldn't be a big problem. I'd already deleted the more sensitive but less important parts. I also asked them whether the company had any recent plans to go back to Cloud Summit Palace.

After doing all that, the alcohol started to take effect. I soon slumped over, my vision blurry, and fell asleep. That night I slept especially peacefully, without any dreams, all the way until dawn when I was woken by a phone call.

I answered. It was Third Uncle's assistant. He said they had checked out of the hospital, that Third Uncle was already in the suite next to mine, and that they had bought a VCR. He wanted me to come over and watch it together.

(Third Uncle Exclusive Interview Revealed! The never-before-exposed secrets of *The Grave Robbers' Chronicles*! Plus the Main Character Lottery—all on the Qidian public WeChat account: qdread. Third Uncle calls on you to follow!)