Chapter 308: Fellow Sufferer

The way Brother Chu put it made me feel he knew quite a lot, and I couldn't help getting nervous, so I urged him on, afraid he'd be like Third Uncle and stop halfway through.

That showed my weakness. Brother Chu looked at me and smiled. "Don't rush. I'll tell you everything I know, but first you have to agree to a few things."

"What is it?" I asked, thinking to myself: He's not going to ask for more money on the spot, is he?

He glanced at the door, shivering, and said, "You can't tell anyone that I told you this. After all, if I can tell you about Dumb Zhang for money, I could just as easily tell others about you. If word gets out, someone might come after me. I'm not in here for life—I still have to get out—and this place isn't as safe as I thought. If I weren't desperate, I wouldn't be selling this information."

I nodded. That I could understand. That's why he'd asked to see me alone and had Panzi step out—the fewer people who knew, the better.

"I've been friends with your third uncle for years, so I handled a lot of things back in the day, like investigating Chen Wenjin. I know a lot more than you think," he said, trembling. "And I know how deep this goes. You might not know it, but your third uncle often talks about you. I know who you are—you're not in the trade, which is why I dared to sell you this information."

Oh. My mind churned. That would explain how he'd gotten that photo. I asked him, "What's this all about?"

He went on, "I don't know if your third uncle ever told you about those people."

"You mean the expedition team?" I said, Third Uncle's words echoing in my mind: They weren't right. "He mentioned a little, but not much."

"Your third uncle spent his whole life tracking that bunch. When I was running with him, I'd hear him go on and on about it, but the more he dug, the more he realized those people were abnormal." Brother Chu finished another cigarette and lit another off it. "They were like loners, cut off from the world, no connection to society at all. No one knows where they came from, who they were, or what they were really investigating."

"I know that."

"At the time I told him to give up. He said he absolutely couldn't believe that people like that existed. For years we tried everything, but we got nowhere. Finally your third uncle listened to me and let it go. I thought that was the end of it. But then a year ago, after you, your third uncle, and that Dumb Zhang went to Shandong, he suddenly told me that Dumb Zhang was one of them—and that he hadn't aged. Shocked, we started investigating right away, targeting Dumb Zhang."

I sat up straight. Brother Chu lit another cigarette—I'd lost count by now. He took a deep drag. "At the time, Dumb Zhang was working for Fourth Uncle Ah Si. Your third uncle had borrowed him from Fourth Uncle. So I sent someone to dig into his background, and I heard some unbelievable things." He paused. "Rumor has it that the first time Fourth Uncle Ah Si met Dumb Zhang was really strange. It happened four years ago during a corpse hunt in Guangxi. You ever heard of corpse hunting?"

I nodded. Corpse hunting was an old custom, usually during disasters or in places with zombie legends. Drought-busting was one form. They'd dig up graves and expose bodies; sometimes real corpse disturbances happened, and the bravest villagers would use lassos to drag the stiffs out of tombs and scorch them in the sun.

But what Chenpi A'si's men and Brother Chu described was different. Brother Chu said it started with Chenpi A'si's business in Guangxi.

Guangxi had always been a melting pot of cultures, with many historical relics. But the cultural gap with the Central Plains was huge, so the usual trick didn't work there. Most active in Guangxi were treasure hunters or antique dealers, buying up antiques from villages. Because Guangxi bordered Vietnam, some Vietnamese caught on to this moneymaking scheme. They'd cross the border in groups to dig up ancient tombs. Guangxi had Lingnan culture with many tombs, many above-ground. The Vietnamese didn't know tomb raiding—they just dug recklessly—but still managed to get some things.

In the Central Plains, business in places like Changsha and Shaanxi was already tough. Sure, there were still tombs—rich ones that had been raided dozens of times and still had stuff left—so you wouldn't leave empty-handed. But real treasures, the kind with dragonbacks, were too rare. Opening a new tomb meant several crews hovering to grab the haul. With such a situation, change was inevitable, so many bosses started looking at other provinces. For a while, there were quite a few digging Jin-dynasty tombs in Heilongjiang. Guangxi was another line.

Chenpi A'si had a big operation, so he had ties with the Vietnamese in Guangxi. Once he sent men there because they said some Vietnamese had found a big tomb—unknown origin but impressive scale—and they needed someone to "guide" them on what was valuable.

Three men went. They followed the Vietnamese into the rainforest, seeing how they worked for the first time. The Vietnamese were fully armed—probably for more than just this line of work—and carried a basket. When asked what was inside, they said "A Kun." Chenpi A'si's men didn't speak Vietnamese and had no idea what that meant.

After three days traveling through the border forests, they reached the site. The tomb was practically open; the Vietnamese covered the entrance with banana leaves. It looked like a cellar. Just as they were about to enter, the Vietnamese stopped them with gestures meaning "careful."

Then one Vietnamese pulled something out of the basket. Only then did they realize the basket held a naked man.

His hands and feet were bound, hair disheveled, body covered in mud. The Vietnamese hoisted him down through the entrance.

Below the entrance was the tomb passage, stone steps leading down. The Vietnamese drew their knives; Chenpi A'si's men prepared black donkey hoof charms. Walking further, they saw the tomb was enormous—took over ten minutes to reach the burial chamber. At the bottom they smelled rot. Following the stench, they found a square well about the size of a washbasin in the center of the chamber. The smell came from below.

It was a two-story tomb, a mass burial from the Lingnan Kingdom. Shining a flashlight down, they saw a low chamber about one and a half meters high with wooden coffins arranged like sunbursts in standing water. A powerful stench rose from below.

The Vietnamese pushed the bound man down, then dropped a rope loop and shined a light, as if waiting for prey.

Chenpi A'si's men understood immediately: something was wrong in the tomb. Maybe people had already died on their first entry. This time they'd brought in bait. That man was like fish bait—they wanted to lure something out with a live person, then rope it and haul it up. It was indeed a form of corpse hunting. It sounded brutally cruel; stealing artifacts was about money, but taking a life changed everything. But given the historical context in that region, it was hard to judge. Chenpi A'si's men knew the Vietnamese were desperadoes—interfering could lead to anything.

But after waiting a long time, nothing happened. The Vietnamese were puzzled. They discussed in Vietnamese for a while, then the leader forced one of them to go down and check.

The man went down, looked around, and waved that it was clear. The others followed and started hauling things up. Chenpi A'si's men were careless and didn't go down. But after only two items were brought up, something went wrong below. They heard screams, and blood splashed out of the well.

The Vietnamese were tough—some scrambled back up, and two actually made it. Then a corpse hand with extremely long nails shot out of the well, nearly dragging the leader down. Terrified, they had no choice but to seal the well with stones, stacking a dozen big rocks, and fled in panic.

Chenpi A'si found out about this later. An experienced boss like him wouldn't give up a tomb just because of a few stiffs. So he personally led a team back to Guangxi, arriving at the tomb a week later. When they moved the stones, they found a mess below—severed limbs everywhere, stench overwhelming.

Chenpi A'si thought everyone was dead. But when he went down, he saw a dozen stiffs lying on one side of the chamber, their necks snapped. A completely naked man sat on a coffin in the middle, surrounded by the stiffs, staring at him expressionlessly.

Brother Chu said, "That man was the 'A Kun' the Vietnamese had used as bait, the Dumb Zhang we know now. That was their first meeting."

I gasped. "That's too dramatic."

"There's bound to be exaggeration—stories grow in this trade." Brother Chu seemed to enjoy telling it, as if he were reliving his days before prison. "Supposedly, the Vietnamese found Dumb Zhang in a Guangxi village. He was delirious, and they thought he was an idiot, so they tied him up as bait. But the gist of it should be true—maybe the number of stiffs is exaggerated. After that, he became Fourth Uncle Ah Si's man. This story spread among Fourth Uncle's trusted crew, but they never told outsiders."

"And before that?"

"Nobody knows. Dumb Zhang was incredibly capable, and Fourth Uncle thought very highly of him. But I doubt even Fourth Uncle knew his background. There are rules in this trade—you don't ask too many of those questions."

I thought to myself, It wouldn't matter if Chenpi A'si knew—I have no idea where he is now. Where would I even ask him?

"Although this is just a legend, it at least gave your Third Uncle a direction," Brother Chu said. "But then things took a sharp turn. Your Third Uncle rushed off to Xisha, so I went to Guangxi in his place, taking that photo of Dumb Zhang to ask around in that area. That was no job for a human being—it took me a full two months before I got some leads in a small village called Banai in Shangsi County—"

That village was in the mountains, near the China-Vietnam border. Someone there recognized Dumb Zhang, whose local name was A Kun, and took Brother Chu to the place where A Kun lived.

I let out an "Ah," truly surprised: "You mean he lived in a rural village in Guangxi?"

"Pretty remote, but that place was Chenpi A'si's hangout in Guangxi, with a lot of Vietnamese around. He should have been living there, but I can't be a hundred percent sure. When I went to Changbai Mountains to assemble the crew, I contacted him through Fourth Uncle A. He spent most of his time out in the field, and you could tell the house wasn't lived in much. Maybe he left Guangxi back then and never went back."

"What was his house like?" I asked. I was a little curious—what would Poker-face's home be like?

"Very ordinary. It was a stilted house, just like the mud houses the local ethnic minorities lived in. Inside, there was just a bed board and a table. On the table was a sheet of glass, with quite a few photos pressed underneath. I sneaked in, since it was Fourth Uncle A's turf and I didn't dare act recklessly—I didn't dare take anything out. I just rummaged around and took one photo—the one I gave you—planning to decide what to do after discussing it with your Third Uncle. But I didn't expect Chenpi A'si to have been watching me from early on. Before I even left Banai, I was caught red-handed. You know the rest." He paused, then added, "My own feeling is that when I was asking around about Dumb Zhang in Changsha, Fourth Uncle A had already noticed me. He might have known something, so as soon as I arrived in Banai, I was under surveillance. At that point, I had no other choice but to go along with him against your Third Uncle."

I asked, "Then what's this big secret behind it all you mentioned just now?"

Brother Chu looked at me and started trembling again: "I can't say that..."

I clicked my tongue in annoyance—I hate it when people speak in riddles—and said, "What do you mean you can't say it? Not enough money?"

Brother Chu shivered: "Young Master Third, to be honest, when your Third Uncle was around, what he hated most was you digging into things. Now his fate is unknown, and it's hard to say if he'll suddenly show up one day. If you find these things out on your own, that's one thing, but if he finds out I told you, I'm afraid I won't survive. Your Third Uncle isn't exactly a kind soul. I betrayed him once, but that was forgivable. To betray him again on this matter would be indefensible by the code of the underworld. You yourself said it—the underworld has its rules. If you want to know this, go to that house and look at the other photos under the glass on that table. You'll naturally understand why I told you to stop. I can only tell you this much. The specific details absolutely cannot come out of my mouth."

He wanted to light another cigarette, but he had run out. He coughed once, his gaze vacant, and for a moment it even resembled Poker-face's look.