Chapter 413: Stone Shadow: Parasite

His expression was full of innocence, even a bit gloating, but I was completely stunned, unable to react for a moment. It took a full second before I thought to pull my leg back and see what he had done.

When I looked, I only saw my wound. There was blood, but none of the gruesome signs of a slit vein. I moved my leg, and aside from the pain of the wound, there was no discomfort.

I looked at him in confusion. He gazed back at me calmly, but I had no idea what was going on—which vein had broken? As I watched, he suddenly let out a slow, subtle smile, helpless and restrained. I grew even more bewildered. Then he said, "It's a joke."

"A joke?"

He chuckled, patted me, handed me his canteen, and told me to wash my wound myself. Then he said, "Your life must be really dull."

I slowly understood what he meant. I didn't get angry, just found it amusing. I thought to myself, "Kid, what gives you the right to lecture me? It's not like your life is any more exciting."

Still, this incident changed my view of him. I hadn't thought there was anything wrong with him before, but since our backgrounds were so similar—even though I was sure of my own personality—I could understand what kind of person he was most likely to be, or be forced to become, given that kind of life experience.

This was also the one thing everyone I'd met in this grave-robbing trade had in common, whether it was Fatty, Poker-face, Panzi, or Third Uncle—all those remarkable people acted with extreme pragmatism. I wouldn't say they were complete utilitarians, but they lacked an artist's mindset of "doing something completely unrelated to real life that no one else understands."

But Xiao Hua's joke was somewhat absurd, completely meaningless, which was why I couldn't react at first. People in the tomb-raiding business should always get straight to the point, not act like this. This joke made me suddenly realize that he was different from them.

Maybe it was because he was an opera singer. That reminded me of the old stories about Second Master of the Nine Gates—that brilliant hero who was also like a child; he was probably the most endearing person in the Nine Gates.

After treating the wound, I put on countless band-aids until my whole foot looked like a postmodern artwork. Then I pulled on my sock. He looked deeper into the cave and told me to take a look. I saw that the hair had begun to spread toward the entrance, clearly attracted by Xiao Hua's blood.

I asked him what to do next. In his condition, even moving was inconvenient. If only I knew what we were doing here, I'd have taken him down to the cliff base myself.

"For now, we'll stay out of there for a while," Xiao Hua said, rubbing his wound. "Grandma and the others should have news soon. There's no point going in now. We'll just wait for word."

The iron disk at the end of the cave—judging by its craftsmanship, I couldn't tell what era it was from or what its purpose was, let alone what Xiao Hua meant by "the tricky thing." But the situation inside the cave was already clear; there really was no need to go back in.

I remembered what the old woman had said about the two teams needing to cooperate, but I still didn't understand exactly how that cooperation was supposed to work. A vague unease lingered in my heart.

His men didn't come back up for another two hours, and they were almost unrecognizable. Seeing all the blood on the ground, they were startled. We explained the situation, and with their help, we hoisted Xiao Hua back to the top of the cliff. After that, they went back down to prepare more medicine and supplies.

Over the next few days, life was like being a bird—living in a nest on the cliff, only a tiny space surrounded by abysses. Either we didn't move at all, or when we did, it was the most extreme physical exercise in the world.

Xiao Hua had excellent composure. He either played games on his phone or stared blankly at the distant snowy mountains. At the top of the cliff, overlooking the fairy-tale scenery while playing Tetris created a strangely dissonant beauty that always felt unreal to me.

But I wasn't to be outdone. Leaning against the cliff, with the high wind blowing, the entire view—including the lush green canopy swaying beneath my feet—felt like a green wave. I chatted with Xiao Hua about the past, staring into space. It felt like two fools waiting for Godot. The only painful thing was going to the bathroom. That completely ruined all the beauty and came with life-threatening risks.

During this time, the men below the cliff went to the nearby village every day to use the phone there to check for news. The first few days there was nothing, but on the third day, a huge envelope was hoisted up from the cliff.

We opened it and found it full of papers and photos. The first one was a group photo of Fatty, Yun Cai, and Poker-face. Fatty was wearing shorts, striking a "Huang Jinrong" pose by the stream we knew well. Poker-face sat on a rock beside him, while Yun Cai struck a pose to match Fatty. She was probably wearing the ELAND girl's outfit Fatty had given her, innocent yet a little sexy, perfectly matching Fatty's bad taste.

On the back of the photo, Fatty had written three words: "Jealous, huh?"

I cursed under my breath and glanced at Xiao Hua, who was wearing a bloodstained vest. I thought, "Damn, did I join the wrong team?"

Many of the remaining photos were taken when they entered the mountains. Agui was also there, apparently leading the group. I saw the old woman sitting in her sedan chair, looking just like Empress Dowager Cixi. That reminded me of Chenpi A'si. I thought, "Isn't it said that grave robbers have tragic endings? If these people weren't so tangled up in their obsessions, their quality of life in old age would definitely be better than that of rich people."

Flipping through, I saw they had reached the rocky opening where I had pulled them out earlier. It was at the foot of the mountain, surrounded by bushes. It was impressive they found it. All their equipment was piled near the opening. Poker-face, wearing cave-exploration gear, seemed ready to enter.

After that, there were no more photos of people—only scenes from inside the cave. Any people captured were coincidental.

Xiao Hua got impatient and flipped through quickly until he reached a photo marked with a red pen. He pulled it out.

We saw a section of rock passage, the same kind I had crawled out of before. Under the flash, the passage walls looked pale, but you could see Poker-face at the front, moving aside to let someone behind him photograph what he had been blocking. It was a stone slab with a circular pattern carved in relief, something like an astrolabe.

The photo was very clear. I immediately noticed that the pattern was exactly the same as the iron disk we had seen at the end of the hair-filled cave. Around the iron disk were many small carvings. The next few photos were close-ups of those details.

Xiao Hua looked at it and sucked in a breath of cold air, clearly not understanding what it meant. I told him to turn it over and look at the back. Sure enough, someone had written a line.

When I saw that photo, I suddenly understood that Poker-face's operation and ours were connected. Moreover, their destination was also related to ours.

The words on the back of the photo confirmed my guess without giving us any more clues. "Seven hundred meters in from the entrance, we encountered the first obstacle. The key to solving this obstacle should be with you. We don't know your situation. Please analyze it as best you can."

It was written very clearly.

From this, I inferred that they had re-entered the crack I came out of in the stone mountain at Banai, and based on the Yangshi Lei style, they had discovered the path leading to the ancient building in the mountain that Old Mrs. Huo had identified. But an obstacle had appeared on the path, and that obstacle was likely the object in the photo.

I couldn't tell if it was a door, a stone partition wall, or just a cross-section of a rock. But without a doubt, the pattern on it should be the same as the pattern on the iron disk. The two were intrinsically connected.

If what the old woman said was true—that the other floors of the Zhang family building were inside one of those rocky mountains—then the person who built and hid that ancient building, the Yangshi Lei who rebuilt it, and the expert who installed that iron disk on the cliff thousands of miles away must all be intricately connected. The story behind it could be unimaginably complex.

We clipped the key photos one by one onto the steel bars of our "nest" and examined them carefully.

I was almost certain that the relief on that stone wall depicted the iron disk. The circular relief should be the disk itself.

The patterns carved around the iron disk were worth a close look. In terms of carving style, the entire stone wall relief was not of high quality—it had little artistic value. Many lines were even unfinished. The relief must have been just a rough draft, not finely polished.

Stylistically, it had clear Qing Dynasty characteristics and was probably inseparable from the Yangshi Lei. If Yangshi Lei had overseen the design, yet it seemed somewhat perfunctory, then the purpose of this design must have been functional rather than decorative. This suggested that the stone wall blocking the path wouldn't be simple. We arranged the photos in order, starting from the twelve o'clock position.

The first photo showed a relief carving of a strange animal.

I could almost recite all the animals in traditional Chinese reliefs — bixie, lynx, and so on — but this animal was very rare. Although still quite abstract, I could immediately recognize it: it was a "hou."

There are two different accounts of the "hou." One says it is the grandfather of the qilin. The qilin is an ancient divine beast, but generally considered one rank below the dragon. The "hou" is the ancestor of the qilin, feeds on dragons, and sits at the top of the food chain. The other account holds that it is a type of "ba," meaning a very special kind of zombie.

In the relief, the "hou" was bound by a strange object, connected to the iron disk relief below.

The relief in the second photo seemed to be linked to the first one's hou, forming a single overall pattern, though I could see it was for decorative purposes. It depicted several people, but I could tell that none of them had a right hand.

There were nine people without right hands, some in the foreground, some in the background. All were bare-chested, wearing tile-patterned trousers, posed as if fleeing, but not in a panic.

I was well-versed in this craft. When I saw something good, I couldn't resist showing off. Pointing at the figures, I said: "There are no chisel marks or repeated corner-polishing. These few figures were carved in one go. Even so, the moving postures of the figures, with some in front and some behind, leap vividly off the wall. The carver was a top-notch craftsman. Although he didn't put much effort into it, his years of skill allowed him to convey his spirit with every casual stroke."

Xiao Hua's attention wasn't on that, however. He asked: "Why didn't he put much effort into it?"

I replied: "Ancient craftsmen are divided into two types. One type are those who are naturally dexterous and proficient in all kinds of engineering techniques, called 'master carvers.' But such people generally only make delicate small items; this crude stone grinding work would not be their business. The other type are what we call skilled handcraftsmen. These men possess extraordinary skills but toil all day, relying on physical strength and craftsmanship to make a living. Such people are craftsmen, not artists, so they don't hold themselves to strict standards; they'll slack off whenever they can."

My earlier judgment that the relief on this stone wall was functional was also based on this. The only way to make a craftsman give his full effort is to have a very demanding employer.

Xiao Hua nodded, indicating I should continue looking.

The next photo was at the six-o'clock position. The carving there was a bit harder to understand. It was still a group of people, but clearly not the same batch as the fleeing ones, because these people had all their hands intact and showed distinctive clothing characteristics. I could tell at a glance they were definitely not Han Chinese.

This group held long swords in their hands and wore strange headdresses. There were many of them. The craftsman used overlapping composition, so I couldn't count exactly how many. Judging by their postures, they seemed to be lying in ambush.

I found it hard to understand. According to common practice, in an overall composition every image expresses an independent meaning. But here, three panels of reliefs were joined together, yet it felt very natural. It was hard to say whether there were two layers of meaning.

So the last panel was crucial. I immediately looked at the last photo.

The relief in the last photo, however, surprised me. Not because the subject was bizarre, but because there was no relief at all — just three deep holes arranged in a plum-blossom pattern.

The four main motifs were seamlessly connected by abundant decorative lines. Together with the reliefs, they looked very much like a strange clock.

When Xiao Hua saw this, he raised an eyebrow at me. I couldn't tell if he had thought of something or wanted to express some objection. Then he asked me: "What do you think?"

I clicked my tongue. I still couldn't let it go in my mind: were these patterns connected or independent? If they were connected, then I seemed to have a vague clue.