Book 1: Chapter 2: Abandoned Weather Station


    I rolled up the whole guestbook, pulled it off the string with a hard tug, shoved it in my pocket, and then left the museum. Fatty followed me out, but he didn''t seem to understand what was going on. We squatted down in a corner and carefully read the transfer statement several times. I flipped back and forth through the guestbooks other pages and found that all the other messages were normal. This was the only page that had a problem.


    "Thisdoes this really count?" Fatty asked me.


    I nodded. Although I didnt know much about these kinds of things, all the other documents must have been prepared if Uncle Three really wanted to leave me something.


    Fatty immediately went back in, saying that he would go through all the other guestbooks on the wall since there might be other plots that were transferred like this.


    I sat on the steps and waited for him. I was in a daze for a long time before I finally recovered and checked the information on my phone. The plot at No.87, Section A, Changping Road, Xiaosongshan seemed to be arge area in Yeshan, Nanjing that used to be a weather station. Uncle Three bought the whole plot after the station was condemned. He had done it more than a decade ago whennd prices were very low. Although that plot wasnt very valuable now, it was still a huge sumpared to what it had been worth at the time.


    But this wasn''t the first time that Uncle Three had boughtnd. He ended up buying most of thend around his old house, but he certainly hadn''t done it for investment purposes.


    My initial reaction was, <em>what''s underground?</em>


    But in this day and age, it was a well-known fact that the things in tombs often werent as valuable as thend the tombs upied. With this particr plot ofnd, it didnt seem to matter what was underground.


    Fatty didnt find anything and came back out, but he didnt seem dejected at all. We got in the car and headed for Yeshan Town. Fatty cracked the window, took out a cigarette, and then shook his head, "Mr. Nave, your uncle is actually quite loyal. Why didnt I have such an uncle? It looks like weve found a career in the second half of our lives. If God wants you to be rich at midnight, who can make you poor just before the dawn (1)? This Fat Master should be the general manager, yeah?"


    I didn''t have time to talk nonsense with him. I felt my heart start churning as I looked at the simple deed in my hand and the thumbprint that was on it.


    Uncle Three might not really be dead.


    On the one hand, an unresolved stone in my heart had finally begun to shift in a direction that made me feel at ease. If he wasnt dead, then it wasnt any of my business how he stirred up trouble outside. But on the other hand, if he didn''t die and didn''t show up, did that mean that things werent over yet? It was a terrifying thought.


    Not only had the Wu family secretly dealt with things for three generations, but I had already used up all my strength. My mind and even the demons in my heart were too old to keep going now. Was it really not over?


    I didnt dare think about it.


    We asked the Didi driver a bunch of questions as we headed towards the weather station. Yeshan was a mining town full of mountains and valleys. There were even a variety of rolling hillsides and various geological protection areas around the town. I checked the county annals and found that the underground mines in this town were all tunnels from past dynasties. The earliest discovered tunnels were from the Western Zhou Dynasty, and they stretched several hundred meters below ground. I didnt know whether Uncle Three had bought this ce because of those mines or if there was something else here.


    When we turned off the main road and started down the vige road, the driver told us that the weather station was on the mountain behind the vige. We got out of the car and headed into the old, cramped vige. Old wooden houses and new concrete houses were all crowded together, and the path in between them was only three people wide. Many slogans from the Cultural Revolution were still there. The vegetation out here on the outskirts of the city was well protected, and the trees were towering. Although the vige road was only a few steps away, there was still a sinister feeling that came with walking in the mountains.


    Once we left the vige, we followed the barren mountain road up the back of the mountain. Fatty was frowning and started scolding, "This lot can only be used to build a graveyard. Thend we just walked past is so good, yet all your Uncle Three left you was a corner."


    "Tomb real estate is still real estate. Do one business, love one business (2)." Iughed at him.


    The weather station had to be located in a ce with minimal environmental interference, so we were heading in the right direction. At the top of the mountain, I saw an old sealed iron gate that had a decaying sign on it that read: Weather Station. Many sections of the yellow cement walls on both sides of the gate had copsed and weeds were sprouting from them. I could see moss and centipede vines overrunning other parts of the walls, practically engulfing them. I looked through the bars in the iron gate and saw the weather stations old building still standing there. The outer wall lookedpletely moldy and mottled, and was covered in more moss and vines. Rotten leaves littered the ground inyers so thick that I figured they would reach my ankles when I walked in.


    The mountain air was filled with the musty smell of soil, grass, and rotten leaves, as well as the rusty smell of the iron gate. It made my throat feel tight.


    Fatty''s eyes were looking straight ahead, "Shit, they didn''t tear it down? Well have to do it ourselves. And we cant get equipment up the road, either. It''s a fucking loss."


    When I looked at this oversized Golmud sanatorium look-alike, my first reaction was to turn my head and walk away. There was no doubt that something was going on here. I could even feel a huge pressureing out of the decaying ruins of the building. This was another huge Pandora''s box that Uncle Three had given me, and I shouldnt open it.


    But I didn''t turn back.


    I thought of my Uncle Three. If he had been tied up by a perverted savage in the wild, then the only person who could save him was me. If I turned my head and left, my heart would never be at peace.


    Even though Fatty was disappointed, he still climbed through one of the breaches in the wall. I moved to follow him, and the two of us waded through the weeds. As we approached the concrete building, I saw a square line of numbers graffitied on the outer wall of the doorway.


    1773xxx5034


    It was a cell phone number.


    I took out my phone and pulled up the text message. This was the number that had sent me the New Years blessing text. At that time, the phones software couldnt tell whether it was spam or harassment.


    Fatty and I looked at each other.


    I pulled my Kukri out of my backpack and put it on my hip while Fatty found a brick nearby. But just as we were about to walk into the ruins of the weather station, I suddenly heard someone talking. Fatty grabbed me and hid in a bush.


    At that moment, we saw two or three peopleing out of the ruins. "I, Wu Sanxing, have always been a man of my word, one of them was saying. If you want thisnd, now is the time to buy it. In less than three years, thend prices here will double. Ive talked with the vige. Half the money for the road will go to them and the other half will go to me. You only need to sign your name."


    The man who answered him spoke in the Nanjing dialect. I couldnt understand what he was saying, but he didn''t seem to be satisfied. But the first person who spoke said he was Wu Sanxing and his voice was very familiar.


    But even though it was familiar, it definitely wasnt my Uncle Threes voice. <em>Who is it?</em> I wondered to myself.


    When we looked up from the bushes, we saw an old acquaintance walking out. It was none other than Jin Wantang, our oldrade.


    He brought the people to the door and pointed to the vige at the foot of the mountain. "This is a vige that gives rise to brilliantly talented people. Since the Ming Dynasty, there have been sixteen such people. I, Wu Sanxing, looked at the feng shui here and saw that it wasnt bad. You can go ask anyone. You could tear this weather station down and build a school. If you dont believe me, ask my nephew. I told him to stay in this vige before the college entrance examination. He didn''t believe me back then either, and only stayed here for half a month. He could''ve gone to MIT if he stayed here longer than that, but he got into Zhejiang University (3) instead. "


    Jin Wantang''s assistant started nodding beside him, "I was stupid back then. My uncle can''t be wrong in this regard."


    "Isnt this Big Gold Tooth? Why is he here? Fatty whispered. "What is he doing spouting such bullshit?"


    I frowned and listened for a while, suddenly realizing that these two guys were posing as me and my Uncle Three to sell thend.


    At this time, a hammering sound came from inside the ruins. There appeared to be some people working inside. When I nced at Fatty, he said, "Well this is awkward. How are you going to handle it?"


    "Damn it!" I quickly stood up and shouted, "Jin Wantang!"


    Said man had just sent the people away and immediately froze when he looked back and saw my unexpected appearance. Then, his whole body leaped up and he ran away with a "Wah!" Fatty and I moved to outnk him as his man came over to stop us. Fatty tripped the guy and pushed him directly to the ground. When the guynded, he didn''t dare get up again.


    Fatty continued giving chase.


    The three of us rushed into the vige, but Jin Wantang was too old to run. I kicked him into the courtyard of the viges ancestral hall and then went up and started cursing him, "Do you want to fucking die?" I took out my phone and pointed to the text message, "Are you fucking messing with me? Are you trying to trick me?"


    Jin Wantang looked at my phone, but didn''t respond. He could only point at me and say, "Little Master Three, Im still an elder. Even if I do something wrong, you can''t be so rough."


    I sneered, "You want me to pity you because youre old, right? If you dare say youre an elder one more time, Ill call Little Brother up and have him beat you to death."


    "I really wasnt messing with you. Your Uncle Three asked me to hand thend over to you, but I thought you would find it useless. I figured I could help you sell it first and then give it to you in cash. Im just providing a service. Jin Wantang looked at me seriously.


    "<em>Youre</em> helping <em>me</em> sell thend? You just want to take it for yourself!"


    "Why would I want this barren hill, Little Master Three? Thisnd is so strange, can''t you see it?" Jin Wantang said mysteriously. "Besides, do you know why your Uncle Three bought thisnd? Im doing it for your own good."


    ****


    TN Notes:


    (1) Basically, as long as you work hard, dont give up, and seize good opportunities, the God of Luck definitely wont pass you by.


    (2) Its basically an attitude that as long as you start doing a certain thing or working in a certain industry, then you should love it and continue to do it. Since theyre grave robbers, selling a plot ofnd to put graves in isnt that far off lol


    (3) If you couldnt tell, theyre super elite schools. MIT stands for Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is in the US. Zhejiang University is an elite Chinese university located in Hangzhou. Tiffany said Wu Xie actually studied at Zhejiang University, so he''s pretty smart (obviously lol).


    ****


    <strong><em>These are definitely long chapters lol. I think the short chapters from "10 Years Later" and the New Year''s Specials spoiled me. I''ll do the best I can with keeping updatesing this week, but my family has requested my presence for Christmas Eve/Day so I guess I''ll have to crawl out of my cave and be sociable for once lol. </em></strong>