Chapter 47: Menyouping

I sat on my backpack while the doctor from Aning's team bandaged my wound. The wound on my hand was particularly severe and it took three stitches to close it up. It was cut when the corpse was pulled down from the stone beam. Although I was not spoiled since I was a child, I had never done any heavy work, so it was easy to get injured from such bumps and bruises. If it was Pan Zi, I'm afraid nothing would happen. The doctor disinfected me and told me not to touch water or do anything with this hand. I nodded and thanked him, and he went to take care of others.

After falling from the stone corridor, Aning and the others were extremely surprised by my "appearance". Aning did not recognize me at first (in fact, I was disheveled at the time, and it was amazing that she could recognize me in the end), until the fat man called them on the stone beam, she reacted, and was so surprised that she could not speak, and looked at me with an unbelievable look.

The two gangs stood there in a stalemate for a long time before they gradually reacted. I moved around, anxiously wanting to see if the man on his back was my third uncle. But as soon as I moved, the people surrounding me suddenly and automatically retreated several steps without a trace, as if they had seen a ghost. Some of them even raised their guns again reflexively.

Fatty and Pan Zi had just breathed a sigh of relief on the beam, but they had to quickly raise their guns again. I quickly raised my hands to show that I had no hostility. Aning also waved her hands and said to her men, "We are one family, we have cooperated before, put down your guns." After saying it several times, her men put down their guns doubtfully, but the foreigners were still very nervous and stared at me.

I noticed that the veins on their faces were bulging, and it was obvious that their emotions had been strongly stimulated. If they were frightened a little more, they would probably collapse. So they didn't dare to move and just stood there, not knowing what to do.

Aning frowned. From her expression, it was obvious that she didn't know we were here. She looked up and asked me, "Why... are you here..."

The fat man on top chuckled: "This is called White Snake looking for a partner. Those who are destined to meet each other will travel thousands of miles to meet each other, while those who are not destined to meet each other will take off their clothes and hug each other and still complain that the other person is rough - do you believe me when I say we just passed by?"

Fatty said as he and Pan Zi jumped down from the stone beam. At this time, several people in Aning's team obviously recognized Fatty and shouted in surprise. Apparently, Fatty's appearance here triggered some bad memories of theirs.

The fat man walked up to us. Perhaps because he had worked with these people before, the atmosphere eased a little. Several people who were on edge breathed a sigh of relief, lowered the safety on their guns and cursed. One person even said to himself: "That's good. We've met bad people in a bad place."

When I think of the first time I met a fat man, I feel that this sentence is so appropriate and I can't help but laugh.

The fat man glared at the man, then greeted a few other people who might be familiar with him. Aning wanted to ask him some questions, but Pan Zi and I couldn't help it anymore, so we ran to the foreigner who was carrying someone on his back and looked at the person he was carrying to see if it was our uncle.

The foreigners seemed to be very considerate of me. When I ran over, they all walked away. The foreigner who was carrying someone on his back didn't seem to be afraid. When he saw that my target was the person on his back, he put the person on the ground. I went up to him and quickly flipped open the mountaineering hat on his head.

Behind the mountaineering hat was a very haggard face with a scruffy beard. I almost didn't recognize him. I just thought it was my uncle. After a closer look, I said "Ouch" but almost didn't yell.

It turned out to be the long-missing Third Uncle, that old thief! After only a few months of not seeing him, the old bastard seemed to have aged by more than ten years, with gray hair. At first glance, he was unrecognizable.

To be honest, I was not mentally prepared for such a meeting. I thought that I would eventually meet my third uncle in a tomb, and that he would tell me everything, or that he would appear to rescue me when I was in danger... But he suddenly appeared in Aning's team so casually. I saw it clearly, but suddenly I didn't believe it.

Did I really see Uncle San again? Did I find him? I froze there, not knowing how to react, not knowing if I was dreaming or hallucinating.

Third Uncle seemed to be not very clear-headed, with his eyes squinted, and I didn't know if he could see me. But when I called him, I noticed that his whole body suddenly had a slight reaction, and his cracked lips moved slightly, as if he was asking, "Nephew?" But then there was no movement.

I suddenly felt a pang in my heart, and an indescribable feeling came up. Seeing that the old man was safe, I immediately felt relieved, and the anxious feeling of losing my backbone disappeared immediately, but a surge of extreme anger came up again, and I wanted to push him down and beat him up. The two feelings mixed together, and I didn't know what expression appeared on my face, but it was definitely very funny.

The fat man on the side was talking to Aning and they seemed to be arguing. I had no time to pay attention to them. Pan Zi looked at Uncle San and shook him several times, then untied his clothes. I was stunned when I saw Uncle San's clothes were full of sticky stuff. I looked carefully and saw that his chest was full of ulcers. Countless hard-headed centipedes were squeezed under his skin. Uncle San wanted to pull them out, but the centipede's tail broke when touched, so the centipede broke inside, and the wound would not heal. After a long time, it all festered.

Pan Zi grabbed the foreigner next to him and was about to beat him, but was picked up by the others. Pan Zi struggled and shouted: "What the hell did you do to the Third Master! How could you make him like this?"

I looked at the foreigner's horrified expression when he saw the wound, and I knew they were definitely unaware of the situation. However, Uncle San was in such a miserable state. I trembled as I asked the foreigner, "Where did you find him? Why is he like this?"

The foreigner almost vomited, turned around and said, "He is under the coffin well here. We just found him and thought he was dead, but later we found he was still alive. The leader said that this old man knew a lot of things and we must take him away - I didn't know he had these things, otherwise I would never carry him even if I died!"

"It must be you!" Pan Zi was furious. "I've seen this in Vietnam. The Vietnamese used this method to interrogate prisoners. They learned it from you Americans. You must have interrogated me before. I'll kill you!"

The others were all around us. I waved my hand to calm Pan Zi down and said, "It has nothing to do with them. If they did it, they wouldn't be so panicked because they don't know that dead centipedes will attract their own kind."

Aning came over and took a look, and also gasped, and immediately called the team doctor, and several people hurriedly straightened Uncle San. At this moment, I suddenly felt that Uncle San secretly put something in my pocket, and the action was very fast. In an instant, I felt my pocket move. I was stunned for a moment, and my heart moved.

My mind buzzed in an instant, and I knew immediately: Third Uncle might be awake! I was suddenly shocked and relieved. I was shocked that he pretended to be unconscious, and I didn't know what his purpose was; I was relieved that he could do such a little trick, which meant that this old guy was not far from death. I looked around with the corner of my eye, and everyone else was shocked by his wound and didn't notice it, so they continued to support him without saying anything, but I squeezed his shoulder hard, indicating that I knew there was something in his pocket.

Uncle San's eyes were distracted again. The team doctor wiped his wound with alcohol, then cut open his skin with a burned army knife, used tweezers to remove the centipede inside, and then released the pus. Because it was too cold here and it was easy to freeze, Pan Zi and I lit a smokeless stove and kept baking Uncle San.

There were 16 wounds in total, and several centipedes were still alive when they were pulled out, so they were thrown directly into the fire and burned to death, and then the wounds were sutured . Pan Zi watched the whole process intently, and I couldn't even wink at him. I had something on my mind, but it would be inappropriate for me to suddenly leave in such a situation. I wanted to know what my uncle had put in his pocket, so I had to wait.

After all the problems were finally dealt with, the team doctor covered him with a blanket and let him sleep on the side. Pan Zi asked him how he was. The team doctor sighed and said, "I have done everything I can. Now his wound is infected. I will give him an injection of antibiotics later, but he has a high fever now. I don't know if he can hold on until the day he gets out. It depends on his personal will. Don't bother him, let him sleep." Only then did I have an excuse to pull Pan Zi away. When I moved, I found that I was also covered in wounds when I rolled down, and I couldn't even stand up.

After the team doctor bandaged my wound, he went to see the others. Aning's team had about 16 or 17 people. The fireworks gradually went out. It was too dark to count. Fatty was pulled aside by Aning and kept talking. I couldn't see the situation there. I wanted to pull Panzi to a place where there was no one, but Panzi was a little confused and just sat next to Uncle San, unable to react.

I was really annoyed. I couldn't help at the critical moment, so I had to find a way to avoid the people around me. Aning's team was divided into two groups, one group was injured and rested, and the other group went down to the coffin shaft. These people didn't seem to have any ill will towards me, which might be related to the fact that Fatty knew them all. But maybe because I just repelled the centipede, wherever I went, they looked at me with a strange look. This round tomb was so empty, there was really no place for me to hide.

I made up my mind and walked over to the fetus that I had stepped on and pretended to squat down to look at it. Then no one came over to look at me.

The corpse looked like a giant mantis shrimp, and its facial features were blurred by my stepping on it. My scalp went numb when I saw it, but I didn't care. I took something out of my pocket and saw that it was a small piece of paper. I looked back and saw that there was no one behind me, so I nervously unfolded it and saw a few lines of words written on it. I was surprised when I saw it. The first half of these words were not written by Uncle San. Judging from the shape of the words, it seemed to be written by Men Youping. It said:

I went down.

That's it, you guys should go back quickly, if you go any further, this is no longer a place you can handle.

Everything you want to know is in the Snake-browed Bronze Fish.

The signature surprised me even more. It was the strange symbol we saw... It was indeed left by Men Youping. What does it mean?

Below that were Uncle San's very sloppy handwriting, which looked like it was carved with fingernails, but was still clear enough, with only one line.

We are only one step away from the truth. Give the bronze fish to Wu Laosi, who is under Aning, and let him decipher it. It doesn't matter. The most important thing is with me. They dare not do anything to us. The clouds are deep and there is no trace.

Obviously, when Uncle San arrived here, he must have found this note from Menyouping somewhere, and this note must have been written to us. Menyouping seemed to want to stop us from going down. Judging from the meaning of the note, there seemed to be some passage. He went to a very dangerous place. But Uncle San obviously didn't appreciate it. This was really terrible. What on earth did this old guy want to do? What key things did Uncle San have? Since Menyouping didn't want us to go down, who did he leave the mark for? Was it for himself ?

My mind suddenly wandered away. In fact, I felt that more and more clues had emerged in this period of time, but because the previous mysteries were too messy, once a new idea came into my mind, it became particularly confusing.

I thought of the mark in the underwater tomb. When Menyouping saw it, he realized that he had been there before. Now he carved a mark. Could it be that... he knew that he would lose his memory? So he left his mark in advance so that he could remember it by the mark when he came next time?

It was too messy, and my head started to hurt again. At this time, Aning and the fat man called out to me, and I was startled. I looked back and saw that they were asking me to pass, so I simply gave up thinking about it, folded the note, put it back in my pocket, and walked over.

Aning handed me a pot of water. I took a sip and she said, "I talked to Mr. Wang and we are officially preparing to cooperate. What do you think?"

Cooperation? I saw the shape of her breasts under her tight clothes, and recalled what happened on the boat. I was a little afraid to look at her. I remembered Menyouping's warning and Third Uncle's words, and I didn't know what to say.

After finding my uncle, I felt relieved. There was also a selfish element in this relief, because I could get out. In fact, what I wanted in my heart was to get out of this place. But as my uncle said, we seemed to be very close to the truth. It seemed that my uncle himself had his own puzzle. If we rescued him, he might not know anything. If we could forget it, it would be fine. But if not, with my uncle's character, he would definitely do it again. Could I just sit back and watch?

After thinking about it, I gritted my teeth and said, "How can we cooperate? Tell me. To be honest, I really need to consider cooperating with you."

Seeing my expression, she smiled and shook her head: "Well, I didn't have time to say goodbye to you on the island. Now thank you for saving me. I was in the sea... I had my reasons. I didn't mean to hurt you."

I thought of the things in the underwater tomb, sighed, and thought to myself, "No one would believe you." I lit a cigarette and said, "If you really want to cooperate, then tell me what's going on. What are you looking for in the sea? What are you doing here?"

The fat man said on the side: "Yes, it is easier to do things if everyone is open and honest."

Aning showed a surprised expression: "Don't you know that your Third Uncle didn't tell you about the matter? You... just ran around desperately without knowing anything?" I took great pains to type this and repost it. Please indicate the source. Thank you - Yunshen Wuji

I smiled bitterly and thought to myself that if Uncle San told me about it, I would not care about his life or death. I shook my head and said, "He didn't tell me. I have been a headless fly."

Ah Ning frowned and looked at me for a long time. She seemed to find that I was not lying and said, "No wonder. I always thought you were a very powerful person. I couldn't tell that you were lying. It turns out that you really don't know anything."

I suddenly felt something strange. Why did this woman suddenly come to us for cooperation? They have so many people, with plenty of soldiers and food, and we only have three people. Why would she cooperate with us, Yun Shenji? Even if it was because I could repel the centipedes, at most they could just tie me up. Could it be that - I looked around - their situation was not good, or there was some compelling reason?

Aning saw my expression and probably guessed what I was thinking. He didn't point it out and sighed: "In fact, we small characters don't know much. We just work hard for the boss." Then he asked us to sit down and called another foreigner over. Aning introduced me to him and said that this foreigner was called Kirk. He was a sinologist who specialized in Dongxia. He knew the most about the whole thing and I could ask him. The foreigner shook hands with me and said: "Originally, we kept it strictly confidential, but now in this situation... Just ask whatever you want to ask."

My heart skipped a beat.

He continued, "I'm sorry, I can't tell you about our boss's purpose. To be honest, I'm just a team leader. Aning and I only know that we need to enter a place, take out something, and then we're done. I really don't know what the top management wants these for. So we have two goals in the underwater tomb. One is a jade seal, which you Chinese call the Ghost Seal. It's said that it can summon the army of the underworld. The other is the organizational diagram of the underground palace here. Unfortunately, we didn't get it. In the end, it was our Aning who took action and got back what we deserved."

"Ghost Seal?" I almost jumped up when I heard it. "Are you talking about King Lu Shang's Ghost Seal? It's in the underwater tomb?" When Fatty heard us talking about the Ghost Seal, he became interested and came over. Aning seemed to hate Fatty, but there was nothing he could do.

Kirk nodded and said, "Yes, I believe you know something. After the tomb of King Lu Shang was dug up by the Wangzang pirates, the latter replaced the Ghost Seal with a snake-browed bronze fish. We always thought that the Ghost Seal was taken to his own tomb, but we can't find it. And the organization diagram of the Heavenly Palace may have fallen into the hands of your third uncle. We still don't know how many tricks we have been played by this old fox, but we still have to cooperate with him. His information is much more accurate than ours."

I nodded and smiled bitterly. I also felt deeply about this. The fat man said, "So what did Aning bring out when she went to the bottom of the sea with us?"

Kirk opened his mouth and was about to speak, but Aning stopped him and said to him, "Say what you should say, and don't say anything you shouldn't say."

The fat man said angrily: "What do you mean?"

Kirk didn't seem to appreciate Aning's kindness. He laughed and said, "Even if you don't tell them now, you will have to take it out eventually. Besides, it's useless even if you have these things now."

Aning glanced at us and stamped his feet, seeming very unwilling: "I worked so hard to make this, and you guys are really getting it for free."

I felt very strange at that time, why did Aning and the others cooperate so well? Later, I talked about this with my uncle, and he said that Aning and the others were actually desperate at that time. She had no other choice but to cooperate with you, because they were amateurs after all, and no matter how good their technical equipment was, they were not as good as a half-baked farmer like me. But she was very smart, and she actually wanted to tell you everything, but she still tried to get something out of you bit by bit, hoping to get something out of you in exchange . This is called being an old man. Fortunately, I didn't tell you anything on purpose, otherwise you would definitely give her the whole thing, and then my plan would be ruined.

Kirk said, "It was taken from the main tomb chamber when you went into the sea together. This is a narrative mural, very important. You can take a look at what is painted inside."

I counted them and found that there were fifteen murals in total. There were changes on all of them, and they were obviously connected, but there was no necessary plot connection between the murals. I saw some paintings of climbing snow-capped mountains, some paintings of overlooking mountains, some paintings of rock climbing, and some paintings of soldiers fighting. There was no necessary connection between the pictures in each mural.

Kirk knew from my expression that I couldn't understand, so he took out a picture and showed it to me, saying, "Look, this is the first picture. What do you see?"

The picture showed several people dressed in Jurchen costumes tying up a Han Chinese. I asked, "Are they capturing prisoners on the battlefield?"

"You can say that, but who do you think the prisoner is?" Kirk smiled mysteriously.

I looked at the photo of the mural carefully and found that the appearance of the prisoner was very similar to the image of Wang Canghai in the porcelain painting. I was surprised and said, "Is this Wang Canghai? The Jurchens are trying to capture him?" There was no trace of him.

Kirk said, "Yes, this is the first picture. It shows this picture. What does it mean? It means that Wang Zanghai may have been forced to build this place. He was abducted."

I immediately saw some clues, and then looked at the other photos, saying, "What about these photos?" "They all show what Wang Canghai experienced at the hands of the Dongxia people after he was abducted. Although we can't fully understand it, we can guess it from the previous photos."

I looked at one of the photos carefully, and suddenly found something wrong: "This one..."

Kirk took a look and nodded: "You have a sharp eye. This one is also crucial. Did you notice that this is the imperial tomb in the crater? When Wang Canghai was captured, the imperial tomb already existed and was already in great disrepair."

I exclaimed, "Ah!" Wasn't it him who built the imperial mausoleum above our heads?

Kirk said, "We have studied it. The overall style of the imperial mausoleum is from the Shang Dynasty, but he changed it to the Ming style. The Dongxia people captured him not to repair the imperial mausoleum, but to renovate it because the imperial mausoleum has been there for too many years and can no longer be used."

"Then the underground palace here has existed for a long time?" asked the fat man.

Kirk nodded. "We relied on these photos to find the old road leading here. However, there are still some photos that we can't understand, such as this one."

It was a mural of countless evil spirits rushing out of the rocks. It was the third to last one. There was another one that actually depicted a group of black soft-bodied creatures that were climbing up from some huge cliff, and someone was pouring something down from there.

I was so nervous that I breathed a sigh of relief and was about to sit down to take a closer look. At this moment, Aning suddenly stretched out her hand to me and said, "Okay, we have finished talking about our business. You can look at the photos anytime. Now do you have to tell us something too?"

"Tell what?" I was puzzled.

"I have told you everything about me, about your relationship with Wu Sanxing," Aning looked at me, "You are not more stingy than a woman like me, are you?"

I thought to myself, what the hell are you talking about? It's like saying nothing. You didn't even mention the main point. You f*cking thought I was the Wu Xie who knew nothing before. Then I thought about it and asked her, "Is there a person called Wu Lao Si here?"

Ah Ning nodded and asked curiously, "Why? Do you know him?"

I pulled out two bronze fish from my pocket and waved them in front of them: "Everything you want to know is in there. If Wu Lao Si is not dead, let him out!"

In a moment, I saw Kirk almost fall to the ground, and Aning's eyes were wide open, and he stammered, "Oh my God! You actually have two..." As soon as I moved my arms, their eyes followed me.