Chapter 482: The Man Zhang Qishan

Zhang the Buddha was the head of the top three families in the Old Nine Gates, and also the most powerful among the Nine Gates. Legend said that in his family courtyard there was buried a huge Buddha statue stolen from somewhere unknown, so he was called Zhang the Buddha. His real name was Zhang Qishan. In his early years he robbed tombs, in his middle years he joined the army, and in his later years he entered politics. Zhang the Buddha was one of the few in the Old Nine Gates capable of great deeds, with the world on his mind. So when the older generation chatted, the legend of Zhang the Buddha always made people sigh with emotion.

Earlier, I had always suspected that Zhang the Buddha had some connection to the Zhang Family Ancient Building. Because when Second Uncle told me about it, he said something very vague. Zhang the Buddha moved from the north to Changsha, and it seemed he was originally a branch of the Zhang family that had migrated, but was scattered by the Japanese back then.

If it wasn't a case of the same name, then this Zhang Qishan should be Zhang the Buddha.

Then this "Zhang Qiling" Zhang Ruitong would be Zhang the Buddha's grandfather. Sure enough, the first clan of the Old Nine Gates were Zhang family members.

"If that's the case, then what your second uncle said turned out to be true," Fatty said.

I said, "My second uncle is very clever. If he wants to hide something, he'll tell you trivial but truthful information. After you hear it, you think you know, and when you check it's all true, but no one knows if there's more behind it. So what he can tell me must be something he's not afraid of me verifying."

Fatty sighed. I continued, "Zhang the Buddha's branch oversaw the whole matter. His team entered here for a burial, and it couldn't have been a coincidence that they opened the door to this room. It's impossible—they just happened to find Zhang the Buddha's grandfather's tomb chamber. So I believe whoever opened this place must have acted on Zhang the Buddha's instructions."

Zhang the Buddha might have had some clues in his hands. He sent a group of people to find his grandfather's tomb chamber and then stole three of the burial items.

But why did the black-gold ancient blade end up in Third Uncle's hands in the end? "If 'Zhang Qiling' is a title, then what is Little Brother's real name? Could it be something like 'Zhang Ergou'?" Fatty asked.

I said, "From the epitaph, once someone is chosen as Zhang Qiling, their name is replaced by Zhang Qiling. Little Brother is called Zhang Qiling, so he must have been chosen. The black-gold ancient blade of this generation's Zhang Qiling ended up in the hands of the new Zhang Qiling. I feel there's something strange about it."

Fatty went back to look at the epitaph. "Wait, I just had a thought. Look, this Zhang Qiling—how did he die?"

I calmed down. I searched for this information among the tiny characters on the wall, and soon found it in his biography.

Unlike the previous two, this Zhang Qiling died of illness. According to his biography, during a tomb raid he had an attack of "lost soul syndrome."

"'Lost soul syndrome'? What's that?" Fatty asked me.

I took a breath. "It's amnesia."

At that moment I had a strange feeling: could this Zhang Qiling be our Zhang Qiling?

Because he also had a black-gold ancient blade and also had amnesia. Could they be the same person?

But there were bones in this coffin, and this "Zhang Qiling" was considered Zhang the Buddha's grandfather, so wouldn't he be over two hundred years old? If it was the same person, wouldn't our Little Brother be an old demon?

We explored that room for a long time before coming out. I was a bit distracted, though I still didn't dare jump to conclusions. But the premonition I had earlier—"find the Zhang Family Ancient Building and you'll get many secrets"—seemed to be coming true.

I was debating whether to continue forward, find a few more rooms to see if I could get more information, or immediately look for the passage to the next level. Just then, I smelled smoke.

"Your lungs are rotten, why are you still smoking so much?" I yelled at Fatty, but saw his face was pale and there was nothing in his mouth.

"It's not me, that's not cigarette smoke, it's the smell of wood burning," Fatty said. We exchanged a glance. Immediately we remembered that we had set the floor on fire earlier, but then we put it out—could it be that we hadn't completely put it out, and after we left, the fire rekindled? We hurried back. After a few turns, I saw flames and smelled thick smoke. It seemed the corridor past the turn was already blazing. We went around, and a wave of heat hit us. We were stunned.

One of the rooms we had explored earlier was now completely on fire, and it had already spread to more than a dozen rooms. Tongues of fire were running wild all over the corridor.

"Mama mia!" Fatty scratched his dantian. "Old man doesn't have that much piss left!" We covered our mouths and noses and ran over, finding that the window paper was burning the fiercest. Fatty took off his shirt and used it as a broom to beat out the flames, putting out the ones that had just started in the nearest rooms. Then he charged into the core burning area.

I followed closely. We beat the fire desperately there, and I don't know how long it took before we put out all the flames.

I was completely dazed, either from the smoke or the heat. Dizzy and confused, I looked around at the large area that looked like charcoal, utterly amazed. I thought, such a big fire, and yet we managed to put it out like this.

The fire had spread to a dozen rooms. The outer doors with lattice windows were all burned away. The farther from the center of the fire, the less damage; the rooms closest to the ignition point were completely destroyed, even the epitaphs burned to charcoal.

Fatty coughed violently, blood spraying from his nostrils. I went to help him, but he waved his hand, saying it was fine. "Much better, much better. It's a good thing—coughing up blood makes breathing easier."

Our faces were all black, our hair was burnt and curled, and many places on our bodies ached faintly—we had definitely been burned.

I looked around, speechless. I thought, what bad luck we have. Fatty spat bloody saliva aside, sat down on the still-hot wood, a bit exhausted, and said to me, "Chairman Mao said, a single spark can start a prairie fire. That's so damn true. Tianzhen, I can't walk anymore. Take a break. You'll have to check again and put out all the sparks." I nodded. "Watch your own ass, don't let it catch fire too." Then I went to stamp out the sparks.

"Speaking of asses, we sat right on that flame and put it out. How did it burn up so fast?" Fatty asked. "There's no draft in this building either."

I said, "We were sitting on the door, and the door had window paper. It's very likely that a spark slowly ignited the window paper first."

"You know, Lei Style Thunder didn't even put a few fire extinguishers here! This large wooden structure is most afraid of fire," Fatty said.

"No one lives here, and lightning can't strike here," I said. "It's so damp here that the chance of fire is too small. Your internal organs are injured, so don't talk so much—speak less and rest well."

"If you want Fatty not to talk, you might as well just kill me," Fatty said. "Life is unpredictable; every word spoken is one less. The more I say, the more you'll remember my heroic grace in the future. No, Tianzhen, do you smell something strange?" My nose was clogged with ash and I couldn't smell anything. "What smell?"

"Smells like char siu (roasted pork)."

"Char siu? Get up!" I said. "Could your ass be cooked? Did you sit on hot coals?"

"Bullshit! With the oiliness of my ass, it definitely wouldn't smell like char siu—at the very least it should be Beijing roast duck! The smell is coming from over there."

Fatty pointed to the coffin in the tomb chamber. The coffin had collapsed from the fire, and the lid was completely burned away. If we had known this would happen, we wouldn't have put it back in place earlier.

"Could it be the burnt corpse? But earlier we saw that the body was just a pile of bones; it's impossible to get that burnt-protein fragrance, let alone the smell of char siu."

The floor was also badly burned; I carefully stepped over and shone my flashlight into the coffin.

I jolted instantly—I actually saw an unfamiliar charred corpse lying inside the coffin. Moreover, the coffin was filled with charcoal fragments.

This wasn't the skeleton we had seen in the coffin just moments ago. Where did this body come from? At the same time, I realized this wasn't an ancient corpse; it was a modern body. Judging by the gear, it should be someone from Xiaoge's team. But the face was completely scorched black.

Fatty wobbled over, took a look, then pointed his flashlight upward: "It fell from up there and landed on the coffin." I looked up and indeed saw a crack directly above the coffin, leading to the upper floor of the ancient building.

"The fire burned through the ceiling, the body fell down, and crashed into the coffin?" I muttered to myself.

Fatty said, "Then it got burned to death?"

"It wasn't burned to death," I said. "We didn't hear any screams. Look—there's no smoke dust in his nose at all. He was already a corpse before he fell. He must have been lying upstairs directly above this coffin; the fire burned through the ceiling, he dropped from above, and fell into the coffin."

"What are the odds of that coincidence?"

"It might not be a coincidence."

With that, I asked Fatty to give me a boost. Fatty shook his head and said, "No way. Fat Ye is old now. This time you be the one below."

I looked at Fatty's condition and thought, yeah, fair enough. So Fatty stepped onto my shoulders, stuck his head up—just enough to poke into the crack—and shone his flashlight inside.

Fatty was extremely heavy. When he put his full weight on me, I felt like a burst of air was about to be squeezed out of my lungs. I quickly clenched all my muscles to hold him up.

I couldn't see what Fatty was doing up there, only heard him yell, "Holy crap!"

Clenching my teeth, I asked what was up. He said, "Found them—the old lady and Xiaoge are both here, but…"

"But what?"

Fatty clicked his tongue. "Don't come up yet. You might not be able to handle it. Something's wrong. Let me check first."