Chapter 328: It

I was stunned by what he meant, but Pan Ma quickly told the whole story. After just a few sentences, I felt ice-cold all over and instantly understood where the smell of the dead came from. But this matter was too horrifying, too far beyond my expectations—after hearing it, my first feeling wasn't confusion, but disgust.

I simply couldn't imagine such a thing could happen, couldn't understand his purpose at the time, and couldn't fathom why people's hearts were like that back then. If what Pan Ma said was true, then what he carried was not some secret, but a huge sin.

The earlier part of the process was exactly as Pan Ma had described; the key issue was in what he said about that time he went into the mountains and found that the archaeological team had vanished.

Pan Ma had lied. That time he went into the mountains, the archaeological team hadn't vanished at all, and he hadn't gone alone—he brought four of his brothers to carry gear for him, so they could also hunt on the way back.

After delivering the supplies, they didn't leave, because if they stayed at the campsite until evening, they could get a meal of white rice—a treatment they considered fit for an emperor. But the archaeological team didn't allow them inside the camp, so they stayed outside, joking and chatting, waiting until dusk for dinner.

During this time, one of the four brothers, looking at the archaeological team's supplies, suddenly had an evil thought.

The poverty in the Ten Thousand Great Mountains back then was unimaginable today. With continuous border conflicts, even the beasts had fled deep into the mountains. The children had no meat to eat, only some rice ears and wild vegetables, and were malnourished. White rice was treated like candy. The team's supplies were an enormous temptation to them—a few sacks of rice could feed them for a year.

Since villagers hired to haul grain would inevitably pilfer some along the way, the grain was weighed upon delivery. If a shortage was found, though there would be no prosecution, the workers would be replaced next time. That brother calculated that after the grain was weighed and the team went to sleep, they could sneak in and scoop out a few bowls—enough to avoid losing the job while letting their families taste the benefit.

It was originally a very simple matter. Pan Ma didn't agree—his own skill was good, his family decent, not suffering to the point of starving his children—but the other four were tempted.

Pan Ma had no choice but to let them go. He waited outside, never expecting that something would go wrong once they went in.

They scooped three bowls of rice from each sack. On their way out, they ran into a young man who had entered a tent to check on things. It was a time of military tension; everyone's nerves were on edge. The young man immediately raised his gun, but he didn't see that there was someone hiding behind him. In a panic, the man behind him grabbed the young man, and the four of them smothered him to death with a rice sack.

After killing someone, the four were terrified. If the murder was discovered, they would definitely be executed on the spot. They fled and told Pan Ma, who immediately knew it was bad.

There was no way he could extricate himself from this matter. The archaeological team had hired him, and he had brought these brothers to help. He couldn't escape any of the responsibility, and at that sensitive time, no one would believe he hadn't been involved.

He quickly thought of a plan: they had to drag the young man's body out of there, make it look like he had gone missing. Otherwise, they would certainly be investigated.

They sneaked back, replaced all the rice, and dragged the body out of the tent. But before they had gone far, a sentry spotted them. The sentry chased after them, asking what they were doing. In a moment of panic, Pan Ma and the others were caught—the body was seen. The sentry immediately raised his gun, but the man who had initiated the theft was already prepared and slashed the sentry's throat.

Almost without thinking, they had killed two people in a frenzy. Pan Ma felt everything was already ruined and said they should run, but the brother who had killed was now bloodthirsty. He said, "We've already killed two—killing two is the same as killing them all. If we let them go back and report to the government, we'll have to hide in the mountains for the rest of our lives. Better to kill them all and say they disappeared—everyone else will think it was the Vietnamese." It was a sudden impulse under a strange atmosphere. The archaeological team wasn't large, and most were sound asleep. Thinking of the white rice, the submachine guns, and what would come next, Pan Ma himself couldn't suppress the evil thought.

What followed was disgusting. They took the submachine guns and knives, crept into tent after tent, and killed everyone inside.

After the killing, they threw all the bodies, guns, ammunition, and supplies into the lake. They secretly carried the white rice and food back to the village and hid it under their beds. Some daily items they could use but couldn't carry were also hidden, to be retrieved later when things calmed down. They agreed never to speak of this again.

Pan Ma, feeling guilty and after much deliberation, began to spread word in the village about the strange disappearance of the archaeological team, to lay groundwork for the future. Since border conflicts were frequent, a team disappearing near the Vietnamese border would usually be blamed on Vietnamese agents.

They thought everything was foolproof. None of them expected that this would be the beginning of their nightmare.

Three days later, Pan Ma went into the mountains again, back to the lakeside. He wanted to rummage through the things and take back the valuables first. The madness of that night still made his heart pound, so he first looked from a distance. What made his hair stand on end was that he saw another camp by the lake, with people moving around.

Another team? Had the bodies been discovered? Trembling with fear, it took him a long time to recover. When he finally mustered the courage to creep closer and observe, he was stunned—before his eyes, the same archaeological team had appeared again.

Pan Ma didn't know what to feel. He couldn't figure out what was happening. Watching the people bustling around the camp, it felt like a hallucination. Those people seemed completely unaware of what had happened before, and they all greeted him.

He thought he was dreaming. He pinched himself several times but found it was real. Their faces, though not familiar to him, were all faces he had seen in the team. He even saw several people he had personally strangled, chatting and laughing.

He fled back to the village in a daze, panicked, and quickly told the others. They went to check and found it was true. They were terrified, wondering what this meant. Could it be that the lake was a demon lake that could bring the dead back to life? But those people were alive and well, not like zombies at all.

Pan Ma was utterly perplexed. The villagers were superstitious and believed mountain spirits and lake ghosts were playing tricks, scared out of their wits. After pondering for a long time, Pan Ma mustered his courage and went back to the lake to deliver supplies again. He tentatively asked about that day, but everyone said nothing was wrong, and their expressions showed no abnormality.

It was as if that day had been flipped over, with the god of heaven extracting it completely. Or maybe the killers had all shared the same dream that day—they had never actually killed anyone.

Pan Ma was not one to simply accept fate. He didn't believe he had dreamed it, but no matter how he thought, he couldn't understand it. He kept an eye on these people, trying to figure out whether they were human or ghost—but no matter how he looked, he couldn't find a single flaw.

The only thing that struck him as strange was that he could smell a peculiar odor on those people, one that hadn't been there before.