Chapter 310: Inheritance

That was a slightly brownish black-and-white photo, quite similar to the one Brother Chu had shown me, tucked among many photos, not easy to distinguish. It showed a picture of two people, and I was surprised to discover that one of them was actually Chen Wenjin.

This photo was much larger than the one Brother Chu had shown me, so it was quite clear. In the photo, besides these two people, there was also a child in the background. The other man, wearing Yao ethnic folk clothing, had a tense expression, while Wenjin was smiling brightly.

What was going on? How could a photo of Wenjin appear here? I got goosebumps all over and immediately asked Agui, "When was this photo taken?"

Agui took it and looked at it. "Decades ago." He pointed at the man in folk clothing. "This is my father. This woman was from the survey team."

"Survey team? A survey team came here?" I almost jumped up. "What's this all about?"

"I'm not sure. It seems they said they found something in the mountains over there." Agui pointed in a direction. "They worked for several years, then suddenly there was no follow-up."

I shouted inwardly, "We searched high and low without finding it, but now we get it without any effort." This trip had really been worth it. I immediately pulled Agui to sit down and asked him to tell me all about the survey team.

Agui was bewildered, thinking what was wrong with this guy, why was he so excited upon hearing this. Fatty said, "The few of us just like this stuff. Don't mind him. Just tell us, we'll pay you, give you a manuscript fee, thirty per thousand words."

As soon as Agui heard there was money, he immediately perked up. He quickly waved for his daughter to come over and count the words, and told us the whole story from beginning to end.

When it happened, Agui was only in his teens. At that time, Banai was very poor, almost isolated from the outside world, so the appearance of the survey team left a deep impression on him. He remembered the team had over a dozen people, led by a woman, who followed the people returning from the market back to the village. Since his father was the village liaison at the time, he went to receive the survey team.

That woman told his father that they were an archaeological survey team from the city, coming to conduct archaeological surveys in the area, and hoped that his father could cooperate.

They had government documents with red stamps. This was a big deal in the village. Agui's father dared not neglect them, so he arranged accommodation and guides for them.

The survey team stayed here for six or seven months. However, during this period, most of the time they were out in the mountains running around. The villagers basically had no contact with this team; the only ones with the closest relationship were the guides arranged by Agui's father.

Later, after the survey team left, they asked the guide what they were actually doing in the mountains. The guide couldn't explain clearly either. Over those months, they had almost traversed all the nearby mountains, and only in the last few months did they seem to find the place they were looking for. When they no longer needed to run around in the mountains, the guide was not needed to accompany the team. The woman told him to report in every three days, specifically reminding him not to come early or late.

Later, something that sounded quite eerie happened.

At first, the guide went every three days without any major problems. Once, he needed to help his relatives cut grass, and thought it would be fine to go a day early. But when he went, he found that the archaeological team's camp was completely empty, with no one around, and he didn't know where they had gone. He was terrified, thinking they had met with some disaster, but didn't dare say anything. He went looking by himself, but searched all the nearby mountains and found nothing.

He returned to the village in fear, not sleeping all night. When he went again the next day, he found that those people had reappeared, the camp bustling as if nothing had happened. At the time, he felt it was abnormal, thought it was the mountain god causing trouble, and didn't dare mention it. Only after the archaeological team left did he tell the villagers.

When the archaeological team left, they took away over a dozen boxes of things, said to have been found in that area. No one knew what was inside. This photo was taken at the time of their departure, a group photo of the female leader and his father. It was developed in the city and mailed back. Because of this incident, his father later became a village official, so his father hung this up on the wall as his glorious history.

After Agui finished, Fatty could no longer contain his excitement and gave me a wink. I knew what he meant: the disappearance of the archaeological team might be because they had gone down a tomb. I made a gesture for him to calm down and asked Agui, "What year was it? Do you remember?"

Agui pointed his pipe at the child in the background of the photo. "This is me. I was too young, I'm not sure of the year. I didn't go to school back then. But surely someone will remember. If you want to know more details, I can ask around for you tomorrow."

I thanked him, my mind churning. It seemed that things here were indeed not that simple. The survey team had appeared here, so Poker-face living here was no coincidence. There must be a connection behind this with that survey team. Although Agui's information was not much, it was already certain that they had indeed conducted a series of archaeological activities in the mountains. This obviously should be related to their plan.

I looked at the mountain and asked Agui, "You're a local. Is there any legend about that mountain around here? What could be there?"

"That area is called Yangjiao Mountain. I really don't know what could be there, actually I'm quite curious myself. Later, I asked some people, and according to some old folks, there used to be an old village in that ravine. No one knows when it was from. Some say it was from the Ming Dynasty. Later, during a war involving the emperor, a mountain fire broke out and burned most of it, killing many people, and it was abandoned. Maybe they were researching that." Agui said. "What? Are you interested too?"

"Quite interested!" Fatty said sincerely.

"That mountain is a bit far, the roads are bad, and strangely, there are very few wild animals. We usually don't go there. However, there is a river valley there where you can catch fish. It rains a lot this season, so it'll be dangerous. I suggest you not go there to play."

"Have you been there?" Poker-face suddenly asked. "I haven't been either. My grandfather went, said that mountain fire was very severe, everything visible on the ground was gone. Maybe there are some foundation posts left in the soil. That was many years ago," Agui said. "If you want to know about that archaeological team, why don't I take you tomorrow to ask that guide from back then? He must know more than I do. Best not go into the mountains."

Poker-face didn't respond to that, only said: "If we must go, how should we get there?"

"You need to follow the stream. The path is very difficult. If you want to go, I can find a guide for you. Two hundred kuai, how about it? But you can't go tomorrow. At least two days from now—the hunters haven't returned yet."

Poker-face looked at me, and I nodded. We had to go and see no matter what. Two days' time was just right. We could first thoroughly inquire about Poker-face's matters in the village, then go into the mountains. The timing wouldn't conflict.

Agui muttered, "The problem is, that place has nothing—just woods. If you go, you won't see anything."

Fatty immediately said to him, "It's still good to go scout it out."

Agui smiled wryly, shook his head and sighed, "That path is really hard to walk. You city folk—I don't understand it. You like to spend money to suffer." Then he suddenly thought of something and asked us, "By the way, why are you asking about all this? You're not selling smuggled cultural relics, are you?"

Fatty was drunk and cursed, "What 'smuggling cultural relics'? That sounds so uncultured. Let me tell you, we're actually —" I quickly poked him and continued, "We're tour guides. A tour group is coming in, but there's no local guide here. We came ahead to scout, looking for scenic spots."

Upon hearing this, Agui became very interested: "That's good. Bring the people over and I'll help you arrange things. There are plenty of fun places here. That mountain isn't fun. If you go yourselves, that's fine, but the guests certainly won't like it."

I nodded with a forced smile and agreed, silently cursing Fatty in my heart. Fatty knew he had misspoken and stopped babbling, going off to relieve himself.

I still wanted to ask Agui for some detailed information, but he said he really didn't remember. It seemed he had been away working for quite a while and wasn't too familiar with the village's past, so I had to let it go. I'd have to wait until tomorrow to ask others. That matter was settled. Then we sat outside in the open air to cool down and continued discussing some details.

When Fatty saw Agui go back to his room, he immediately lowered his voice and said, "That damn archaeological team appears and disappears like ghosts. They're never seen during the day, and they took so many things when they left. Obviously there's an ancient tomb in the Yangjiao Mountain area. This is really a blind cat bumping into a dead mouse. We came here for tourism but got this news. What do you say, you two? Shouldn't we follow the will of heaven and conveniently loot that tomb?"

I said to Fatty, "I knew you'd definitely bring this up. That there's an ancient tomb in the mountains is just your speculation. We'll only know when we get there and see it. And every single tomb that group entered was bizarrely abnormal. I really don't want to go in."

"This time will definitely be fine. Didn't you see they all got out safely?" Fatty said. "And they even brought out several boxes of grave goods. Damn, that must be worth a lot of money."

"Come to think of it, it's strange. According to what Agui said, these people clearly didn't adopt the archaeological method of fully exposing the top. It seems they also dug a grave-robbing tunnel to go down. That's really rare," I said. "If I weren't sure that these people have a government background, I would absolutely think they were professional grave robbers disguised as archaeologists."

"This is where you're being ignorant. When conditions aren't ripe, archaeological teams sometimes use grave tunnels to salvage artifacts. I think this tomb might be pretty huge—given the conditions in Shangsi County at the time, they couldn't have excavated it properly." Fatty said, practically drooling. "That little Amei said the Vietnamese are still in the mountains. I bet they've heard about this too and are looking for the tomb. Even if we're not in it for the money, we can't let those Vietnamese bastards, who can't even handle a Luoyang shovel, get the advantage."

I sighed and thought to myself, I really don't want to go underground again. No matter how much you argue, I won't listen. But if there really is an ancient tomb there, it's bound to be connected to what the archaeological team was chasing. It'd be a shame not to go in. That's a bit tricky.

Fatty kept nagging in my ear, so I played a delaying tactic, telling him not to get worked up. We'd go check out the site in two days and decide then. Even if there was a real tomb, the area was so big he might not find it. But if he did and wanted to go down, we'd help. Only then did he let it go. But he couldn't contain himself anymore—as soon as Agui returned, he grabbed him and fired off questions.

I was worried he'd let something slip, but my mind was a mess, so I couldn't be bothered to keep an eye on him. I just leaned against the porch pillar, imitating Poker-face by staring at the moon, and tried to figure out what to do.

The night was muggy and hot. We fanned ourselves, letting the cool mountain breeze carry the fresh scent of trees. Soon the alcohol went to our heads, and I felt a little dizzy. Fatty was chatting with Agui, but I couldn't hear clearly, and my mind wouldn't focus. I just felt that looking at the stars here reminded me of being a kid in the countryside—natural and peaceful.

In my daze, I suddenly noticed that in the window of Agui's own wooden house on the other side, someone seemed to be watching us. The light was off, so I could only make out a blurry, strange shadow.

I rubbed my eyes and saw that the shadow's shoulders were completely collapsed, just like the shadow behind the screen in the photo Brother Chu had given me.