Book 3: Chapter 17: Strange Hole


    There was no use thinking about it. I also knew that I could never follow in Uncle Threes footsteps. Of course, it was a very heavy sacrifice to bear someone elses fate without being able to tell them about it, but I had never seen the concerned party actually escape because of it. In most cases, it was just like what I had gone throughescape was unsessful, the situation was unclear, and too many emotions and years had been wasted.


    I didnt want to deny this kind of sacrifice and love, but as a concerned party, I had to show myself and say that at this time, the most correct choice was to tell the truth and then face the problem together.


    So, I looked at Fatty and then woke Poker-Face up. After hearing the whole story, he looked up at me but didn''t give any other reaction. All he said was, "Understood."


    "Do you have any warnings?" I asked him. <em>Since its so dangerous, can you tell us more? </em>He shook his head and made a gesture that the three of us had to act in unison. I nodded and nced at Fatty, who saluted the sky, "May Tengri (1) bless us."


    Since Poker-Face felt that we had to be extremely careful in that ce, we wouldnt get to show off how clever and resourceful we were. In short, we had to make sure that we were fully prepared.


    After Fatty finished paying his respects, he looked at my determined eyes andughed, "Is Mr. Nave getting all motivated by himself again? Let me ask you a question: wheres the worlds second most valuable tomb? Have you found it?"


    I told him that although it didnt seem like I had made much progress, I should be close. Fatty was surprised, You were staring at the tbread in a daze. I didn''t see you doing any constructive work at all. How are you suddenly so confident? Are you really as enlightened as Old Jin said you were?


    I looked at the fragment of the ceramic figurines face and asked Jin Wantang, "Is there a woman in any of the teams you recruited?"


    Fatty thought it was a strange question to ask. "Mr. Nave, you have to concentrate. Now is not the time to think about this."


    I pointed to the paint on the fragment, which actually looked like it had been made with lipstick. The bodies we had found at the scene were all rough men, so the origin of this lipstick was a mystery. Unless one of them had a hidden hobby, there mustve been a woman involved in this incident who got away without being possessed by that evil thing.


    Jin Wantang nodded, "Little Master Three, youre still amazing. There are two women. The one who contacted me is called Shen Qianjue but I haven''t seen the other one. These two women are very amazing and are rising stars in the industry, but they already contacted me before we entered the grasnd and said that they wanted to withdraw. They should have left the grasnd by now."


    I told him to give me their contact information. These two women had to know what happened here. We were saving lives, and since they had already withdrawn, they should give us any information they had.


    But the satellite had already passed over us by this time so we couldnt contact the outside world until the same time tomorrow. As a result, our main job today was to thoroughly investigate the grove.


    I stopped eating, got on my horse again, and went to that strange ce with Poker-Face and Fatty.


    The forest was still dark and cool. We brought Ping Lian with us and searched the whole area, surprised to find that all of the pits we had dug up yesterday were filled back in. Ping Lian kept digging up the soil in those areas, which made it obvious that all of the bodies must have returned underground. And the man we didn''t catchst nightwell, we searched for a long time without finding any traces so he must have buried himself alive.


    This time, we didn''t dig them out again. First, we didnt want to waste our physical strength since our energy had to be used on the living. Second, what was the point of digging them out again? Not only could we not go anywhere with so many corpses, but they were more likely to cause trouble for us in the end.


    So, we stopped our horses in that area, burned incense to pay our respects, and made a mark to inform any teams that came afterwards. The three of us took some time to rest in the forest, and every time the dark clouds covered the sun, I felt as if I could hear the sounds of intive wailing surging up from beneath the ground.


    Nothing happened that night. Jin Wantang was able to contact another team toe and collect the corpses and people we had captured. It was inconvenient for him to join us, so he decided to do logistics work here.


    We got through to Shen Qianjue''s phone the next day. I thought that a rising starmoreover, a girlin this industry would be somewhat arrogant. Or, based on my past experiences, maybe I would be talking to someone who had lost their mind after experiencing such an event. But I was surprised to find that she was actually ok. In fact, she was easy to talk to and readily agreed to answer all of my questions. I was a little embarrassed, but she was still amazingly patient.


    "Service personality," I mouthed at Fatty.


    Fatty nodded and mouthed back, "This is a clear break in the industry. If your Uncle Three was like this, I''m afraid you wouldve never ended up like this. Youd have finished your journal in three pages."


    With the help of Shen Qianjue''s extremely detailed exnation, we finally knew what exactly had happened before we arrived here. It was as clear as the sound of a silver bell, but it still seemed more and more strange to us.


    "Youre right, we didn''t find the worlds second most valuable tomb, she said to us. Theres something very wrong with that grasnd. The key is the third night. The third night after you arrive in the woods is the most terrible night."


    "What did you see?"


    "A hole. A burial hole. Everything happened in that hole."


    ****


    TN Notes:


    (1) Per Tiffany: Tengri is one of the names for the primary chief deity of the early Turkic and Mongolic peoples. Since they were in the Mongolia area, Fatty prayed to a Mongolian deity. Wiki link here.