Chapter 264: Second Night: It

I felt a bit sorry, but I immediately understood that Poker-face was right—I wasn't a person with strong willpower. In such a state of exhaustion and without full recovery, I couldn't keep watch well, and a single mistake would put everyone in danger. Letting Poker-face take the whole night watch was actually forced by the situation.

Fatty didn't object either, only said, "I think one person isn't enough. Xiao Ge, you can't watch such a big area alone. I'll keep you company for half the night tonight. If we get through tonight, tomorrow we'll find another place and get some real rest."

Poker-face thought for a moment but didn't show any reaction. Fatty said, "Then it's settled."

I wondered whether I should skip sleep too, but on second thought, Poker-face would definitely need to rest tomorrow, and after I rested I could take his shift tomorrow. That thought made me feel a bit better.

Fatty stretched and said, "Basically, that's it for now. Let's stop dwelling on it and think about what to do tomorrow. Xiao Ge, you said earlier you had a way to find the entrance—what's that all about?"

Poker-face glanced at him and said, "That method is very hard to succeed. Let's not mention it."

Fatty immediately said, "Don't, please don't. Let's hear it first. I don't want to just go back like this."

Poker-face was silent for a moment, then looked at us: "We go find Wenjin."

Both Fatty and I were stunned. Then I smiled bitterly, shaking my head as I laughed. Indeed, that method was very hard to succeed. It had already been extremely difficult for us to reach this camp, and besides, this place was a big target with signal flares to guide us. Wenjin was just one person, and she could run. Searching for one person in such a vast forest was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Fatty had been full of hope at first, but now he also backed off, saying, "You might as well say we should go capture his Third Uncle. The difficulty is almost the same. Besides, maybe Wenjin doesn't even know about the entrance. The notebook Xiao Wu found said she didn't enter here and went back, right?"

Poker-face threw a few sticks of firewood into the campfire and said, "No, she definitely knows."

"Why?"

"My feeling," Poker-face said calmly.

Fatty looked at me and shrugged, then had no choice. He sighed, "Feeling... My feeling is that this trip was a total waste." After saying that, he took a sip of water and shook his head gloomily.

No one spoke. I leaned back and thought it over, but I felt that Poker-face's statement was actually quite well-founded.

According to the sequence of events, the source of everything was those video tapes. Both Jude Kao and I had received tapes, and through different means, we learned about Wenjin's expedition from years ago, which led to this adventure. So the purpose of Wenjin sending those tapes should have been to lure us to this godforsaken place.

My Third Uncle's goal in this trip was to follow Jude Kao's team and figure out what they were chasing, and to find out the real purpose of their activities in China all these years. But Jude Kao's team had fallen apart before even entering Devil's City, so the tracking lost its meaning. With my Third Uncle's personality, after joining up with Black Blind, he would have tortured the remaining members of Jude Kao's team to extract information about the real purpose of Jude Kao's trip.

So the information Third Uncle might have obtained was probably limited. In that case, Wenjin, who sent the tapes, must be the one who knows the most. There's no reason that Third Uncle could know something and Wenjin wouldn't.

Thinking about those tapes made me a bit uncomfortable. What was the deal with that face that looked exactly like mine? If we really caught Wenjin, I would have to ask clearly. But now wasn't the time to consider that. I said to Fatty, "Regardless, the probability that Wenjin knows is much higher than that she doesn't. I think that now that we're at a dead end, we shouldn't be focusing on these trivial details. Instead, we should think carefully about how to catch her."

Fatty lit a cigarette, took a puff, and said, "It's not just difficult—it's impossible. She'll run if she sees us. Even if she's carrying a GPS, we might not catch her in a place this big."

I said, "Maybe we can set a trap to lure her over."

"How do you plan to lure her? With sex appeal?" Fatty said irritably. "The three of us stripping and wandering through the woods? Wenjin probably isn't into that."

I sighed. It was indeed troublesome. If she was on our side, then if we shouted or used light signals, she would eventually respond, and we could adjust our directions and meet up. But the problem was she ran away when she saw us. Why was that?

I said gloomily, "You know, why did she run when she saw us at the canyon mouth? Wasn't she the one who asked Tuo Dingzhuo Zhuoma to pass the message to us? She was waiting for us there, so why didn't she join us? Is she really losing her mind?"

Poker-face slowly shook his head. He said our judgment that she was mentally unstable was made when we saw her covered in mud. Now that we knew there was a reason for her being covered in mud, it was obvious that Wenjin was extremely calm when she saw us. She ran based on a situational judgment.

Fatty didn't understand: "So you're saying she had a good reason to run? We wouldn't harm her—what was she running for?"

"Calm... running..." I understood what he meant, and a chill ran down my spine.

What was Wenjin afraid of? In her notes and her message, she repeatedly mentioned that she was escaping from something, which she called "It." Moreover, she told us that "It" was among us who entered the Qaidam Basin. So there was only one relatively reasonable possibility. I clicked my tongue and said, "Could it be that Wenjin ran because she saw that 'It' was among the few of us?"

Poker-face nodded: "That's likely it."

I immediately looked at Fatty, at Panzi in the tent, and then at Poker-face, thinking: damn, no way? "At that time, the people present were Xiao Ge, Xiao Wu, me, and Big Pan. So, one of the four of us scared her off?" Fatty also looked at us. "Is one of us a bad guy?"

Poker-face and I were both silent. Fatty immediately raised his hand and said, "Your fatty here is a good person. It's definitely not me. I'm not interested in that little lady of yours at all."

"That's just one idea. Maybe it's not like that," I said, feeling very uncomfortable with this notion. Everyone here had been through life and death together. I would rather believe Wenjin ran away because she was crazy.

"The key question is, what exactly is that 'It'?" Fatty asked. "Xiao Ge, don't you know either?"

Poker-face looked up at him and shook his head.

"Could someone be disguised as one of us? Is one of us a fake?" Fatty asked, then vigorously pulled at his own skin to show he was genuine. "See, your fatty's face is original."

"I thought of that. While you were asleep earlier, I already checked both you and Panzi," Poker-face said. "No problems."

I remembered when I saw him, he was crouching next to Panzi. So that's what he was up to. It seemed he had thought of this long ago but never mentioned it. This guy was really cunning.

Fatty then looked at me: "What about Xiao Wu?"

I immediately pulled at my face: "Don't worry, absolutely original."

"Hard to say. You joined us halfway—maybe you're the fake. Come on, let your fatty check." Fatty reached over and gave a hard pull, hurting me so much my tears came out before he let go, saying, "You pass."

"So, it shouldn't be a problem in this area." Poker-face pointed to Wenjin's notebook in my pocket and asked me, "Are there any relevant records in here?"

I took it out, flipped through it, and shook my head: "What I can be sure of is that in Wenjin's description, this 'it' was tracking them. It should have intelligence, and I feel it should be a person, I just don't know why they used this 'it'."

Fatty stood up, took a few sips of water, handed the canteen to Poker-face, and said: "Speaking of which, wasn't it your Third Uncle who was tracking them? Could it be that 'it' is your Third Uncle? In the pitch black, Wenjin might have mistaken it – aren't you a bit like your Third Uncle?"

I thought to myself that I'm much better looking. Poker-face took the canteen from Fatty and was about to speak when, at that moment, Fatty suddenly reached out to pinch Poker-face's cheek, grabbing it and giving a hard tug.