Chapter 283: Shelter

After the long trek, I was completely exhausted, and seeing what was in front of me, I couldn't even react; I just took a few steps back reflexively, feeling so drained I might pass out.

But when the people around saw my expression, they all started laughing, and then someone helped the two corpses to their feet. Only then did I realize that those two were fakes—they had stuffed something into the diving suits, and the heads were two inflated black waterproof bags with two flattened pieces of gum stuck on them, with two pebbles in the middle for eyeballs. Because the gas mask lenses were blurry, combined with my frayed nerves, at a glance they really did look convincing.

I couldn't help laughing myself then. The person who had helped up the dummy moved it to the stone door, and I asked the person next to me what they were doing. Someone said to me, "Scaring snakes. The snakes here are too damn clever; as soon as there are fewer people, something always happens, so we don't dare leave anyone to guard the camp. But it seems they can't tell real people from fakes. Stick these at the entrance, and we can sleep more soundly at night."

From the way that person spoke, he had clearly suffered a lot from these snakes. Then someone took out one of those yellow smoke grenades and threw it into the campfire. Suddenly thick smoke billowed up, and someone else used a branch to beat the equipment on the ground.

"That's sulfur, used to drive off snakes," the person continued.

After beating around for a while, there didn't seem to be any movement, and only then did these people sit down, sprawling in all directions.

Someone took out a few more crude dummies made of tied branches from the equipment on the side, took off his own clothes, draped them over the dummies, and then piled them all at the entrance and the collapsed opening.

After that was done, the atmosphere finally relaxed. Black Blind added firewood to the campfire and split it into several piles, lighting up the small space inside the ruins a bright red. One by one, people took off their gas masks. When someone saw that I hadn't taken mine off, he gestured that it was okay, saying these snakes were very strange and never came near fire, plus we had just checked and it was basically safe.

I had no choice but to take off my gas mask. After wearing it for six or seven hours, my face felt like it was melting. It was so much clearer now, and the things in front of me became clearer too. I finally got to see the real faces of Third Uncle's men.

Looking them over, I knew Panzi was right; aside from two or three familiar faces, the rest were all new. It seemed Third Uncle really didn't have many old hands left.

We greeted each other. One of the men who had explained things to me earlier told me his name was "Mop" and that he had brought this group to work with Third Uncle.

There was something a bit off in the way he spoke, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Black Blind was still as carefree as ever, grinning at me as he took out some food and started eating. Many people took off their shoes to dry their feet by the fire, and soon the whole place stank of foot odor. I thought to myself, damn, with a smell like this, those snakes wouldn't come in even without the dummies.

Just as I was thinking, Third Uncle sat down next to me, handed me something to eat. We looked at each other and couldn't help but wryly smile. He said, "What the hell are you laughing at? Damn it, if you weren't my nephew, I'd really want to slap you to death."

I didn't even have the energy to argue with him. But looking at Third Uncle now, I noticed that he had shed the listlessness from the hospital. He looked completely revitalized, as if he had regained his old dominant nature. I felt a bit relieved and said, "Even if you slapped me to death, I'd still follow you as a ghost. Third Uncle, let's not beat around the bush. Your nephew knows this matter involves me inescapably. If you were in my shoes, would you just let it go?"

Third Uncle must have already heard the full story of how I came to follow. He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and still smirked bitterly, "Alright, I admit defeat. You're just like your old man—look all soft on the outside, but stubborn as hell inside. I won't say anything more. You're here now, and I can't send you back."

I grinned and asked him, "So, what happened with you people? How did you get ahead of us? Didn't Panzi say you'd wait for our signal outside?"

"Couldn't wait any longer. Your Third Uncle knew Wenjin was waiting for him here, and with only this much time, how could he possibly wait for your signal?" Black Blind laughed from the side, patting Third Uncle's shoulder. "Third Master, you're too sentimental. When we were singing karaoke in Changsha, you never showed this side of you."

Third Uncle slapped his hand away, glared at him, and explained, "When I heard from that old woman that Wenjin was waiting ahead, I realized this might be my last chance to see Wenjin in this life. I couldn't miss it no matter what—otherwise, my whole life would have been wasted. So I couldn't take any risks. To be honest, if I can see Wenjin just this once, I'd be willing to die right after."

I shuddered. "Wait—'heard from that old woman'?" I suddenly realized he meant Zhaduo Zhuoma. My head spun, and I thought, "No way." "So... she... gave you a message too?"

Seeing my confused face, Black Blind let out a cackling laugh. Third Uncle nodded and told me how he and Black Blind had met up.

As it turned out, Third Uncle's progress was much faster than we had imagined. Less than ten hours after Panzi and I set out, Third Uncle and his group had already reached Devil's City and learned the situation. Just when he thought everything was going smoothly, that very night, Zhaduo Zhuoma came to find him too, just like when she had found me and Poker-face, and delivered Wenjin's message.

Third Uncle wasn't as gullible as we were. He immediately pressed Zhaduo Zhuoma for more details. She kept playing mysterious with him, but Third Uncle wasn't the patient type. As soon as he heard that Wenjin was still alive, he went crazy. He had his men take down Zhaxi and the old woman's daughter-in-law. Third Uncle didn't tell me the exact process, but it clearly got rough, and he threatened the old woman.

The way people in the underworld do things is really different from what I imagine. I couldn't do that sort of thing. Even though I didn't agree with Third Uncle's methods, it definitely worked. Zhaduo Zhuoma had no choice but to reveal the situation of Wenjin's message to her, and she also told Third Uncle that she had given the message to me and Poker-face.

"She said that a month after she and the expedition team split up, she met Wenjin again in Golmud. At that time, Wenjin seemed to have gone through a huge ordeal—she was very haggard and seemed to be hiding from someone. She took Wenjin home for the night, and that night, Wenjin handed her the videotapes and asked her to keep them safe," Third Uncle said. "After that, they had no contact for more than ten years, until a few months ago, when she suddenly received a letter from Wenjin asking her to send the three videotapes to three different addresses, and to pass on the message if anyone came asking about them."

Once he knew Wenjin was at Tamutuo, Third Uncle nearly went crazy. He set out immediately and found this oasis. Because our car had a flat tire, we made slow progress in the last few days. That was when they overtook us and entered the oasis, but through a different entrance than ours.

After that, they marched through the rainforest overnight and set up camp among the ruins. That night, Third Uncle led some men out to search for Wenjin. When he came back, the rest of the people were all gone, and he knew something was wrong. The next morning, they spotted our signal smoke, so Third Uncle sent up red smoke to warn us away and took his men to search around. The snakes kept luring them, and they eventually found the same mud pit. Then they heard someone screaming from under the beast's mouth and rushed in to rescue them. Unexpectedly, the sounds were actually made by snakes.

After that, there's no need to go into detail.

After hearing this, I was speechless. This was pretty much what I had imagined. When I first read the preface to Wenjin's notes, I had a feeling Third Uncle was involved. But now that it was confirmed, I kind of couldn't believe it.

So it seemed Zhaduo Zhuoma didn't know anything deeper. It was a complete accident that A Ning and her people found her and rehired her as a guide. Otherwise, we would have heard the message at her house.

The threads in my mind were getting clearer. Some pieces could already be pieced together: the three people mentioned in Wenjin's notes were obviously me, Poker-face, and Third Uncle. I had thought A Ning received the tape, but it was confirmed earlier that it was for Poker-face. This time, Poker-face cooperated with Third Uncle to send the tape to A Ning, so that A Ning and her team could find Zhaduo Zhuoma and set this whole operation in motion.

Everything pointed directly to the goal of Jude Kao's operation this time. This time, everyone was making their final gamble, exhausting all their cunning.

Thinking about it, I suddenly remembered something and asked Third Uncle, "Third Uncle, since you also received the message, shouldn't you have gotten a videotape too?"

Third Uncle looked up at me, threw his cigarette butt into the campfire, and nodded. "Yes."

"Just as I thought!" I said to myself.

"That videotape must have been sent to Hangzhou while we were in Jilin. I had a pile of stuff while I was away, and it got mixed in. I didn't notice it when I first got back, only later when I was tidying the shop." He looked at me. "It's not that I deliberately hid it from you." I nodded; I did believe that. Then, feeling a surge of emotion, I asked Third Uncle, "Third Uncle, don't you think this is strange? Sending it to you, or to that young man, that makes sense. But why did Aunt Wenjin send one to me? When you two were dating, I was still very, very young. I really can't figure it out—does this have something to do with me?"

And besides, there was that horrifying content in the videotape. Was that really me? Or was it just someone's prank?

Third Uncle saw my expression change, sighed, and said, "No, actually, your Aunt Wenjin had her reasons for sending that to you."