Chapter 315: Origin

To help Poker-face search for his lost memories, we came to the heart of the Ten Thousand Great Mountains, to Banai, known as the Siberia of Guangxi.

I always thought that plots of losing memory and searching for memory were unlikely to happen in reality, so at first I felt a hint of strangeness. Other people's pasts might be ordinary, but the story behind Poker-face should be different. It was like reading a suspense novel and being involved in it myself, which made me feel both anxious and excited.

Poker-face was as taciturn as ever. Whether someone like him could have the same inner struggles as ordinary people, I wasn't sure. At least, the patience he showed made me admire him. I had also hesitated. Helping him find his past was equivalent to pulling him back from his current peace into reality. I didn't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.

I won't go into the details of the journey into the mountains. Following the clues Brother Chu gave us, we found the stilt house where Poker-face used to live, and in a hidden compartment under the dilapidated bed, we discovered an iron chest. Then a series of things happened. Someone actually tried to drag the iron chest away from under the floorboards of the stilt house. Luckily we discovered it in time, but that person was clearly very familiar with the village environment and quickly fled into the village paths, disappearing from sight.

Just as we were bewildered and hadn't yet reacted to what

The incident happened extremely quickly; none of the three had time to react before the box was already on the ground, its lid wide open, and a fist-sized object rolled out from inside, coming to a stop at Fatty's feet.

Poker-face had said before that he had some vague memory of this box, and that whatever was inside might be very dangerous, so we must never open it. So the moment the box hit the floor, I instinctively raised my hands and hunched my shoulders into a defensive stance.

Fatty didn't have time to do much more than shrink his neck; we both froze there, not daring to move.

I had expected an explosion—there was no time to think, it was pure reflex—but after clenching my teeth and waiting with my neck tucked for a few seconds, nothing happened. No explosion, no hidden darts flying out.

I cautiously opened my eyes and looked down at Fatty's feet. What had fallen out looked like a piece of wood covered in bumps; I had never seen anything like it, but it didn't seem dangerous. Fatty gradually relaxed, took a few steps away, and I slowly lowered my hands, puzzled. Could Poker-face have remembered wrong? Or had it been so long that the thing had "expired" and lost its danger? I glanced at Poker-face; he didn't have any particular expression, but he had clearly been startled too.

It was like a firecracker that had fizzled out—no one dared to be the first to check what had happened. We stood frozen for a moment before Fatty, who had just been boasting about his hard life, finally moved closer. I followed. The object was shaped somewhat like a gourd, about the size of a wide-mouthed cup. Its surface was covered with pustule-like bumps, like the skin of a toad, which made people feel very uncomfortable. On closer inspection, I saw that among the pustules of this pockmarked "gourd" there was a metallic sheen of rust—it actually looked like it was made of iron.

Fatty reached out to pick it up, but Poker-face stopped him. He broke off a pumpkin leaf from the side, wrapped it around the "iron gourd," and lifted it.

From the way he held the "gourd," it was definitely iron, and quite heavy. The iron lumps looked as if they had been corroded by strong acid or had trapped a lot of air bubbles during casting. The red and yellow pustules were rust stains. It was just a gourd-shaped lump of iron, but I could see some ancient patterns on it, very faint, giving the vague impression that this was an antique.

Fatty stared at it and asked in confusion, "What the hell is this? Looks like a shell. Could it be an ancient hand grenade?"

I immediately shook my head. "Don't talk nonsense. Would you bury a hand grenade under your bed?"

Ming dynasty firearms were already quite advanced; "Thunderclap Bombs" and "Koxinga Bottles" were highly lethal. I had handled some before, but they were all emptied—meaning no gunpowder—(no one could trade a live one; that would be dealing arms). These weapons were first netted by Fujian fishermen from the sea and then bartered away by antique dealers for daily necessities, but this iron lump didn't look like a marine artifact, so it probably wasn't a firearm. Besides, burying this thing under the bed—what if it exploded during dry weather? Poker-face would never do something that brainless.

Poker-face weighed it in his hand, sniffed it, and also shook his head. I asked if he still felt the same sense of danger. He didn't answer, but his expression was odd. Staring at the iron gourd for a moment, he said, "Only the outer layer of this thing is iron; the real object is wrapped inside the iron sheet."

I was taken aback. "What makes you say that?"

Poker-face said, "It's too light."

Fatty exclaimed in surprise, "You can tell by weighing it, you bastard?"

That wasn't strange. Anyone who regularly handles antiques must practice this kind of skill. Besides, anyone who has weighed pure iron or made molds knows that the weight of a piece of iron is different from ordinary expectations. A piece of iron the size of a pencil case can't be pinched with two fingers by someone of average strength.

I said to Fatty, "People like you who came to the trade halfway don't have the basic skills. For things like this hand feel, we all have to practice a few families' techniques."

Fatty spat. "Why the hell should I waste time practicing that? How much does an electronic scale cost these days?"

I made a disdainful face, then asked Poker-face, "What kind of thing would be preserved by wrapping it in iron? Do you have any ideas or memories?"

Poker-face shook his head. Fatty said, "There used to be something called 'iron-wrapped gold'—when transporting gold bars, they'd wrap them in iron to make them inconspicuous. But the iron layer on this thing looks like it was cast on, and it's still light, so it's definitely not gold inside."

"Iron-wrapped gold"—I'd never heard of that. I only knew of a dog breed called Iron-Wrapped Gold Tibetan Mastiff. My grandfather once had one, but it couldn't adapt to the climate and later got kicked to death by a village cow. I didn't know if Fatty was talking nonsense or had actually seen it. What bothered me was the faint pattern on it. Since there were patterns, this object at least had a decorative function; it couldn't be a simple casting. It must have had a real purpose.

"Could it be a part of some iron implement?" Fatty added. "Like the foot of an iron incense burner, or an ornament from an old cart wheel?"

I thought it was possible. I didn't have deep knowledge of iron artifacts. Iron rusts easily and is hard to preserve in ancient tombs, so it circulates on the market far less than bronze or porcelain. The value of iron artifacts is generally low, so most antique dealers aren't familiar with them. I really had no clue.

But since it was an antique and had been hidden under Poker-face's bed, the thing must have had some history, probably connected to his experiences in this village.

I recalled Fatty's idea from yesterday and had a guess. Fatty said that there might be an ancient tomb near Yangjiao Mountain. So the sequence of events might be like this: Back then, Poker-face was probably part of Wenjin's archaeological team, and this "gourd" might have been something they brought out of that tomb. But for some reason, Xiao Ge hid the "gourd." Otherwise, it would be hard to explain its origin.

Fatty frowned his chubby brows. "I guess so too. So back then, Xiao Ge hid the thing—obviously he was guarding against something. The situation then must have been very complicated."

Guarding against something implies hostility, which means what happened to the archaeological team here couldn't have been as simple as what Agui said.

We were silent for a moment. I felt a mix of relief and frustration—glad that we had gotten much more information than I expected, but frustrated that it only gave a rough outline of "an event," without touching the details.

Wenjin appeared here. In the photo, Agui was only seventeen or eighteen. Now Agui must be over forty, so that means it was more than twenty years ago. That was right around the time of the Xisha incident. So Wenjin's appearance here should have been shortly before the Xisha incident—they went to Xisha after leaving here. I didn't see anyone else in the photo. Whether Wenjin came here with another team or with the Xisha archaeological team was unknown.

Poker-face was tied up by the Vietnamese as Ah Kun here about five or six years ago. That left a gap of fifteen years in between. What was he doing during those fifteen years? I felt something was wrong. With his skills, those Vietnamese should have been no match for him. Even if they had guns, I thought he could have escaped easily. Why was he tied up like a pig? Had his meeting with Chenpi A'si been prearranged? All these were questions.

"Could that person who grabbed our stuff just now be connected to this too?" Fatty asked, looking in the direction where the man had disappeared.

I thought of that and asked them, "Did either of you get a clear look at his face just now?"

"Damn, that guy ran faster than a rabbit. Forget the face, I didn't even see his ass. Only saw that he was disheveled, about your build, and vanished in a puff of smoke."

I wondered who he was. We came here without attracting much attention. Was he just a common thief following us, or someone involved? This caught me off guard; I felt like we were being shadowed. If he wasn't just a thief, then he must be connected to this affair, which would mean our situation was quite bad. We'd have to lock the door at night.

"Let's ask Agui later. That guy looks crazy; maybe Agui knows something," Fatty said. "What do we do now? We've got nowhere with this iron gourd. How about we find a blacksmith later and see if he can melt part of it open."

I disagreed; the wisdom of the working people is boundless. I knew there was a way to handle this—using sulfuric acid to thin the iron shell bit by bit. Look at these rusty lumps, someone must have already tried it, but for some reason they stopped without succeeding.

Perhaps the one who did that was Poker-face. I had a feeling that his impression of this thing being dangerous might have come from when he was dissolving the iron seal. At that time, he might have suddenly discovered some sign of danger that left an extremely deep impression, making him immediately stop the work. Now, even though he has forgotten everything, that impression still lingers in his mind, making him uneasy.

Of course, this is pure speculation. Even though I feel it's very possible.

Fatty said eagerly, "Sulfuric acid is easy to get—I'll go ask the fertilizer station for some."

I thought it was better not to mess with that lightly, and told him to take it easy. We could bring it to Agui's place later to examine it carefully and let Poker-face take a good look.

Poker-face put the iron gourd back into the iron box and closed the lid. Fatty immediately picked it up: "Alright, we've got something today. I'll have to keep this on me at all times now. You two hurry up and check the place again—that girl will be back soon, so we need to make the most of the time."

I remembered the photos Brother Chu mentioned that I hadn't looked at yet, and thought that was the real priority, so I immediately got up and headed for the window.

I had just stood up and taken a couple of steps when Poker-face suddenly noticed something and grabbed me. I saw the look in his eyes and instantly felt something was off. I followed his gaze and was startled. On the slope above the stilt house, there stood several villagers. I didn't know when they had appeared, but they were looking at us with dark faces.