Book 4: Chapter 16: Sneer


    Before Fatty had finished speaking, Poker-Face had already rushed over. I didn''t even have time to react at all as he instantly arrived in front of the backpack, grabbed its strap, and yanked it hard. The contents fell out, rolled all the way down the stones, andnded at our feet. Fatty and I immediately jumped back and picked up our guns.


    Fatty stepped on that thing and tried to smash it with the butt of his gun, but I quickly stopped him. At this time, I could see clearly that it was a simple piece of metal that was the color of rusted bronze. I didnt know what kind of household utensil it came from, but it was covered in detailed andplex patterns.


    Just now, the bag had suddenly moved by itself and stood up. I thought there was a living thing inside of it, so I honestly didn''t expect to find a piece of metal.


    Poker-Face directly held the backpack down in case there was something inside of it, but after pressing on it, he shook his head at us. This meant that the bag was empty.


    I wondered what exactly was going on with this bag. It wasn''t there just now, so how did it move? Fatty looked at the bronze piece and asked, "What is this thing?"


    When I pointed my shlight at it, I couldnt help but gasp.


    Whether it was the material or patterns on it, I knew this thing like the back of my hand. I was certain that it hade from the bronze meteorite I had seen before.


    I picked it up and rushed back over to the shrine. There was a mark at the bottom of the shrine that had been left by something sitting there for a long time. When I ced this bronze piece on it, I could see that the mark was consistent with the bottom of the bronze piece.


    This meteorite fragment had originally been ced in the shrine.


    I threw the fragment to Poker-Face, who caught it with one hand and started examining it.


    I nced at my watch. Poker-Face had moved so fast just now that even if there was a living thing in the bag, it couldn''t have run away. But there wasnt a living thing inside the bag at all. Still, the fact that the bag had suddenly moved was very strange.


    I looked at the time on my watch and broke out in a cold sweat.


    It seemed that we were missing a few minutes. Were we bestowed a heavenly gift again? But the time was so short. In these few minutes when we had been heavenly gifted, one of us had taken this bag and put it on the stone.


    But I couldnt remember the exact timeit was hard to understand the difference in a few minutesso I couldnt be sure if my guess was correct.


    In any case, this didnt alleviate my apprehension. If my theory was correct, then that meant that it absolutely wasnt safe here. The mysterious force here was still trying to bestow that heavenly gift on us, but its energy was intermittent in this area, which made it difficult to have any effect. In fact, just a few minutes ago, it was interrupted again.


    But even so, it was too hard to defend against. After thinking about it, I immediately said to Fatty, "Put all the hands back."


    "What''s wrong? Im thinking about making some sauce and dipping the Zhang familys treasured palms into it tonight before eating them."


    "When we were under the influence of the heavenly gift, we took both the hands and this bronze piece. This is because that force wanted us to destroy this ce. But the heavenly gift was interrupted before the destruction wasplete. We have to restore everything here. I think the protection here seems to be weakening."


    "Are you making up stories now?"


    "In any case, its unlikely that something bad will happen if we restore it, I said. I really was making up stories, but the logic was definitely sound.


    Fatty didn''t understand it the first time, so I repeated it again until he finally got it. After that, the two of us quickly began to put the hands back in ce.


    Since the corpses were mummified, we could put their hands back in ce with a toothpick, so it wasnt long before all of the hands were reset.


    <em>Is this a spell or some kind of array?</em> I asked myself. <em>Is it a feng shui array?</em> I didnt quite understand why these corpses and meteorite were able to ward off the heavenly gift.


    I straightened the meteorite in the shrine, let go of these stray thoughts, and patted my clothes again for cigarettes.


    I was a little startled by this behavior. I sniffed my fingers and realized that I had been smoking while under the influence of the heavenly gift.


    It seemed that over this past month, I had picked up my smoking habit again, which hadnt disappeared even though the heavenly gift had been lifted.


    Not only did this habit not disappear, but it even passed on to me.


    I had a special dent in my hand, a callus formed by smoking too many cigarettes over the course of my life. But after not smoking for so many years, there was only a vague outline now. I was now staring at that callus in a daze.


    During those extremely difficult years, I always felt that I was fighting against the gods. In those long days and nights when there was no chance of winning at all and I didn''t even know if the other party saw through my tricks, the only thing I could do most of the time was to look at this callus. This was also a very strong habit of mine.


    At this time, I suddenly saw a possibility of winning and sneered.


    ****


    <strong><em>Bad heavenly gift! Bad! How dare you let Wu Xie smoke when his lungs are terrible! Take it down Iron Triangle! Burn that heavenly gift to the ground!</em></strong>