Old Man Yan trembled with anger: “Hongsha, shut your mouth!”
A lifetime of decisive action, and he had produced such a thoughtless granddaughter who blurted out such important matters in front of outsiders—did she have any sense of priority anymore?
“How many good years do I have left? This last job, how many years can I benefit from it? Isn’t it all to leave something for your younger generations? Every one of you, all useless…”
As he reached a point of agitation, he broke into violent coughing, his eyeballs rolling back. Yan Hongsha became frightened and ran over to pat his back, only to be roughly shoved away by Old Man Yan.
Useless, every one of them useless!
Did he not know what Yan Jiuxiao was doing outside? Not cut out for business, he had taken the family’s money, invested here and there, and lost everything clean. He had even mortgaged the family mansion. The creditors were showing respect, assuming the Yan family had vast wealth and not pressuring them immediately, but if the walls came tumbling down, how much money would be left?
There had been no news from Yan Jiuxiao lately, and Old Man Yan knew perfectly well why: he was probably too ashamed to return.
This job, he had wholeheartedly wanted to earn enough to ensure Hongsha’s future without worry, but this granddaughter angered him even more. Fearing hardship and difficulty along the way was one thing, but failing at the critical moment was another matter entirely.
Originally, he had planned well. When they were close to digging up the corpse, he would find an excuse to send Mu Dai away, quickly bury the body, and this past case would be covered up without anyone knowing. Who would have thought…
Old Man Yan considered, then said evasively to Mu Dai: “It’s nothing serious. Years ago when treasure hunting, a fellow hunter fell ill and died suddenly. There happened to be a treasure well nearby, so we buried him there. Now to extract the treasure, we have to dig, and Hongsha is afraid…”
Mu Dai had her doubts but knew this was their private matter and didn’t want to pry. So she went along with him: “No wonder Hongsha is scared. I’m afraid of corpses, too. Please don’t make me look.”
Mu Dai pulled Hongsha, signaling with her eyes not to anger her grandfather, then climbed back up the tree.
All around was quiet, with only the rustling sound of wind through leaves. Strange—not a single bird could be seen in this forest.
The sun retreated behind the clouds, darkening the sky. It looked like it would rain again.
There was too much rain in these mountains. No wonder many households hung Sweeping Fine Weather Ladies…
Thinking of the Sweeping Fine Weather Lady, Mu Dai felt her heart sink.
If that Sweeping Fine Weather Lady had truly walked back to the well by herself, what could be the reason? Could it be possessed by the evil scroll?
That didn’t make sense either. The evil scroll needed to use the power of living people or creatures to act. That cloth doll was lifeless, utterly useless, and there was water in the well—the evil scroll was definitely afraid of water.
That meant someone had thrown it back?
It couldn’t have been Hongsha, nor Old Man Yan. Hongsha was the last to go upstairs last night, and no one had gone out during the night.
Could there be someone else living in that village?
Snap! Like a breaking branch.
Mu Dai tensed all over and stood up to look carefully. Drizzle began falling from the sky, and it was getting dark, reducing visibility.
Yan Hongsha had dug the well pit about a meter deep.
Mu Dai took out the telescope again and looked at the surrounding trees. This time, she saw something.
A vermilion amber pendant on a black silk cord, hanging from a tree not far away, swinging gently, occasionally turning to face her like a narrow red eye.
Someone must have hung this pendant there. After all, she had looked at the surrounding trees dozens of times, and someone must have just hung it there!
Mu Dai screamed: “Someone’s here! There’s someone nearby!”
Cao Yanhua was singing.
“Forward, forward, forward, our ranks toward the sun, feet treading on our motherland’s soil… Ow!”
A small stone flew over and hit him on the back of the head. Cao Yanhua turned around in pain.
Yi Wansan had been falling repeatedly and now looked like he’d just rolled out of a mud bath: “Can you be quiet? Stop singing, okay? Don’t attract all kinds of weird things!”
The story Zha Ma told yesterday had left a psychological shadow on Yi Wansan. He felt unsafe all the way, always feeling that wild men were lurking around, and this mindless Cao Fatty was still singing, which made him increasingly annoyed.
Luo Ren walked in front, occasionally crouching to examine traces on the ground, his frown deepening.
Cao Yanhua threatened Yi Wansan: “If you’re so capable, don’t follow me.”
He ran a few steps to catch up with Luo Ren. Yi Wansan hurried after him—he didn’t dare risk being too far from these two. If wild men appeared and snatched him away, Luo Ren and Cao would be unable to save him.
The two of them, one before the other, quickly rushed ahead of Luo Ren.
Sharp-eyed Cao Yanhua suddenly spotted something and cheered: “3! 3! Found 3, here!”
Looking in the direction he pointed, they saw a large tree with bark peeled off in the middle and three vertical marks carved with a knife.
Cao Yanhua scorned Yi Wansan: “See that? The path under your feet is the one my sister and Little Master walked yesterday. They even brought a half-blind old man, but you’re struggling as if it’s killing you.”
Luo Ren came over, stared at the marks for a long time, then suddenly shook his head and said: “Not right.”
Cao Yanhua asked in surprise, “How is it not right? Didn’t Zha Ma say that for so many days, only my sister and Little Master entered the mountains? These marks are so fresh, they must have been left by my sister and Little Master.”
Luo Ren said, “The path is too difficult. Some thorny paths haven’t been cleared at all. Yesterday, with Old Man Yan, how could they have walked this way?”
Cao Yanhua dismissed this: “Maybe they went around. My Little Master has good lightness kung fu, Sister Hongsha is not bad either, and Old Man Yan might be even more skilled. The three of them whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…”
He extended his arms, gesturing a flying motion, never missing a chance to mock Yi Wansan: “Brother San, maybe Old Man Yan is a martial arts master too. In that case, the wild men can only catch you…”
Yi Wansan was furious. The further they walked, the more uncertain he felt. If there was someone to take him back, he would have retreated already: let the capable ones do the labor—why did someone of his limited abilities have to come to the forest?
Luo Ren disagreed: “Old Man Yan specializes in seeing treasure aura, specifically training his eyes. Such people don’t focus on martial arts, and also…”
He stepped forward and gestured at the height of the marks, almost level with his nose: “Mu Dai isn’t this tall. When people carve marks on trees, the instinctive position is about chest height. To leave marks this high, she would need to stand on tiptoes, and that wouldn’t be enough—she’d need to stand on a rock.”
Yi Wansan instinctively looked around: there were a few scattered small stones, but no large rocks.
Cao Yanhua was dumbfounded: “Then… who carved this? And how are we going to catch up with Little Master and the others? This place is so vast, and everything looks the same.”
Luo Ren said, “Turn back now. At worst, we’ll return to the mountain entrance and track again. Three people walking together will surely leave traces. With luck, we’ll find the right path halfway back. But…”
He looked up at the sky.
But it was already afternoon, and they had wasted so much time.
Yan Hongsha stood on the tree, looking through Mu Dai’s telescope for a long time, then lowered it in confusion: “Mu Dai, there’s nothing. Did you… See wrong?”
Mu Dai said, “Did I do something wrong? If I saw wrong, how would I know it was an amber pendant with black silk cord, shaped like an eye—am I so detailed in my mistaken vision?”
Yan Hongsha fell silent.
After climbing down, she asked Old Man Yan: “Grandfather, what should we do?”
Old Man Yan remained calm: “Probably treasure hunters. Nothing we can do now.”
“The Yan family is prominent in this field. It’s not surprising that people watch us day and night. Perhaps they’ve been following since I left home.”
Is that so? Mu Dai remained silent. At least from Lijiang to entering the mountains, she hadn’t felt anyone following them.
“The location of the treasure well has been exposed. We’ll deal with whatever comes. If they’re reasonable, at worst, we can negotiate a split. If they’re unreasonable and strike with deadly force immediately…”
Old Man Yan lowered his voice, “You’d better be prepared early.”
Mu Dai’s heart sank. After a pause, she walked to the side and bent down to pick up straight branches: she certainly didn’t want to fight for her life, but if the other party wouldn’t be reasonable, there was no reason to sit and wait for death.
Yan Hongsha came over and asked: “What are you doing?”
“Making hand arrows.”
Yan Hongsha silently helped her pick up a few branches, then suddenly burst out in frustration: “My grandfather is driving me crazy! If he knew there would be such danger, why didn’t he bring more people?”
Mu Dai said, “Your grandfather has no martial arts skills, and you’re just a novice. He feared that if he brought skilled people, they might become greedy midway and turn on him, leaving him with nothing to show for it.”
That’s exactly it—being stingy can backfire.
Yan Hongsha felt very apologetic to Mu Dai: “I’m sorry for involving you, Mu Dai.”
Mu Dai smiled, a bit melancholy: “It’s not your fault. Didn’t I come for the money myself? At times like this, let’s not waste time apologizing and complaining.”
She gathered the branches and went to the treasure well’s edge to carefully whittle them, cutting each branch to the same length, removing protruding knots, and sharpening one end to a point.
The saber wasn’t convenient to use. She missed Luo Ren’s small knife.
Yan Hongsha was digging again. The sky was gradually darkening—it seemed they wouldn’t finish today. Would they have to work through the night?
Just as she was thinking this, Yan Hongsha in the pit suddenly cried out and sank, stumbling. Mu Dai thought she had fallen and rushed over.
Looking down, she understood the mystery.
Below was a large board with two ropes nailed to it. Hitting the board with the shovel produced a booming hollow sound. It was about 1.5 meters from the well opening, probably secured by support nails dug into the well walls, then covered with the board and packed with earth.
Mu Dai pulled Yan Hongsha up. Yan Hongsha cleared the dirt with the shovel until the edges of the cover board were clearly visible.
The two stood at the edge of the pit, looking down at the wooden board, both somewhat apprehensive.
Old Man Yan said, “Each of you pull one rope and remove the board.”
Mu Dai bent down to pull one of the hanging ropes. Yan Hongsha suddenly said softly, “Wait.”
She ran over, took out a packet of facial tissues from her pocket, and tore one off for Mu Dai: “Plug your nose. It might smell terrible.”
The thought made her skin crawl. With constant rain here, water might have seeped down, half-filling the well, with a corpse floating on the surface.
Mu Dai felt a lump in her throat. She rolled the tissue into strips to plug her nostrils, then bent down with Yan Hongsha, each grabbing a rope, thinking: In the future, no amount of money would make her do this kind of work again.
She looked at Yan Hongsha and counted: “One, two, three, lift!”
On the first attempt, the soil around loosened, but they couldn’t lift it.
No matter, try again. Mu Dai took a breath and bent down again with Yan Hongsha: “One, two, three…”
The wooden board came up, tilted, and was quite heavy. Mu Dai and Yan Hongsha used great effort to lift and throw it aside.
The well wall appeared, pitch black, deep, with water seeping from all four sides.
Yan Hongsha’s legs went weak again. She whispered, “Mu Dai, how could I dare go down? To collect treasure next to a corpse…”
The thought alone made her nauseous.
Mu Dai said, “Don’t panic. Let’s have a look first.”
It was getting dark. Trembling, Mu Dai turned on her flashlight and shone it down into the well.
Black, water-seeping walls, jumbled rocks at the bottom, and an indescribable smell—the musty odor of years sealed away? It made one’s eyes sting and tear up.
Mu Dai felt something was wrong.
She looked again and blurted out: “There’s nothing.”
Yan Hongsha didn’t respond immediately: “What?”
Mu Dai grew bolder. She bent down for another look, very certain: “No corpse.”
None? Yan Hongsha was stunned for a moment, then quickly leaned over to look down. Even Old Man Yan came over supporting himself with his walking stick, his eye mask that never left him now pushed up to his forehead, looking somewhat comical.
There truly was nothing. With such a small well bottom, the light revealed everything.
Old Man Yan’s expression changed slightly as he mumbled: “How can there be nothing?”
He seemed disoriented, taking two confused steps to the side with his walking stick, repeating: “How can there be nothing?”
At that moment, a lasso suddenly flew out from the forest, like a rope for catching horses, accurately looping around Old Man Yan’s neck.
Mu Dai saw Old Man Yan’s body jerk violently as he was pulled down and quickly dragged toward the depths of the forest.
Yan Hongsha screamed: “Grandfather!”
Blood is thicker than water—at this moment, she reacted even faster than Mu Dai, lunging forward and grabbing Old Man Yan’s feet tightly. But the pulling force was so strong that after only a slight pause, it quickly dragged Yan Hongsha in as well.
Mu Dai charged after them with her knife, glimpsing a blurry, tall, dark figure in the forest. Without thinking, she hurled a hand arrow forcefully, flipped in mid-air, and chopped at the pulling rope.
The dark figure seemed to stagger, unable to stop, and rolled on the ground. With a tree trunk blocking the view, it suddenly disappeared.
The whole incident—only three seconds? Five seconds?
The forest was as quiet as death, with only the labored breathing of the few people. Yan Hongsha got up from the ground, crying as she shook Old Man Yan: “Grandfather? Grandfather?”
Old Man Yan groaned—good, at least he wasn’t dead.
Mu Dai held her knife, her arm trembling slightly. She cautiously took two steps forward and, in the dim light, saw hand arrows scattered all over the ground.
Had she missed? Impossible. At such close range, she should have hit the target.
Mu Dai suddenly became afraid. She retreated several steps, grabbed Yan Hongsha, and spoke incoherently: “Go, go, go, let’s go quickly.”