He looked at me and the atmosphere was extremely silent. The tension in my heart became even more serious, and soon the tendons on my forehead began to jump. If it weren"t for the mask, my expression would have shown my fear.
“I don"t know.” After a long silence, he finally spoke.
I was immediately relieved, and at the same time felt a burst of ecstasy in my heart.
This response showed two things: the first was that Leather Bag may have guessed right, and the purpose of the real team wasn"t archaeology; the second was that my question didn"t arouse his suspicions, and it would be much safer to ask questions later.
“You don"t know?” I asked him, “There"s no way you wouldn"t know.”
“We were all cheated.” He said, “I"m afraid there aren"t more than three people who know it. If we had known, maybe I wouldn"t be like this." He suddenly looked up, “Didn"t this matter come from your "Chen Qing" group? You don"t know?”
“Mmm.” I made a judgment—this person didn"t seem to belong to Uncle Three"s faction. “Chen Qing group” is just a transliteration I heard. I don"t know which three words it should be, but it must be one of them. “We don"t know as much as you do.”
“I"ve been working on it for a long time, but n.o.body knows what it"s all for.”
“But I"ll know soon.” I said. I wanted to test what he"d do to us next.
He made a few noises that were hardly laughter, and instead of answering my words, he said, “Did you not join us because you antic.i.p.ated the result?”
“Does this result need to be predicted?” I said.
“Then why do you want your people to partic.i.p.ate in this matter? You shouldn"t even be here. You said that they"ve already ignored you, so you should never come to this place again. This doesn"t make sense.”
“There have been other changes.”
“Is it because of those foreigners?”
I thought about it but I really couldn"t explain what was going on. I came to Banai to find out about Poker-Face"s origin. I didn"t expect so many things to happen.
“In fact, it"s for one person.” I said, “Zhang Qilin.”
I said Poker-Face"s name and looked at his reaction. He suddenly laughed: “Impossible, you"re joking.”
“What"s impossible?”
“Did you come back here for me?” He said, “Quit your bulls.h.i.t.”
I paused and suddenly felt blinded, as if I were struck by lightning. Looking at the person in front of me, my first reaction was that I wanted to run out immediately and jump off a cliff.
Under these circ.u.mstances, I almost collapsed in an instant. At that moment, I felt that the whole world was unreal, but fortunately, Fatty patted me in time and said, “Master Three, hold your horses.”
“What?” The other asked, “Was I wrong?”
“I told Master Three not to joke with you. We can"t afford to joke now.” Fatty took the lead and gave me a hard pat, bringing me back to my senses.
I took a deep breath to hide my shock. I wasn"t sure if I heard it wrong just now, so I hesitated and said, “You still remember your name. I thought you had already forgotten it.”
“Our names have no meaning. Unlike your "Chen Qing group", we have no past and no future, so I may be better off here. You think I"ve become so miserable, but I think it may be a good thing." He said, “Tell me, what is it that brings you into this matter?”
I took a deep breath, thinking, “s.h.i.t, I can"t talk.” I really want to rush up, knock his feet out from under him, turn him over, throw my numerous questions directly into his face, and then use tiger stool, chili water, and all manner of cruel means to make him tell his secrets.
But there was no way out. Fatty was right: just hold your horses; otherwise I might get nothing like the previous times.
“It was really for Zhang Qilin, but not you.” Fatty said beside me, “it"s another man named Zhang Qilin.”
Attaboy, Fatty!
I was surprised when Fatty said it, but I immediately found that he went about it the right way. This would throw the problem to Ghost and force him a.n.a.lyze it. His a.n.a.lysis would certainly include a large amount of information he knew, thus pushing the initiative on him to a.n.a.lyze the problem.
Unexpectedly, Ghost wasn"t surprised at all, but said, “Oh, have they found another one?”
I kept silent and prayed in my heart: “Say more, say more, say more!”
He paused and said, “I don"t know what the name means but they"ve found so many people called Zhang Qilin all over the country. I was the only one who could stay, but it seems this plan is still going on after my "death".”
I thought for a moment and my heart dropped. It seemed that things weren"t what I originally thought. After hearing what he said, their organization had conducted an investigation and search all over the country for a person named Zhang Qilin. And it seems that they gathered this group of people, conducted tests, and finally only the person in front of us stayed.
I suddenly realized that in this period of history, there wasn"t only one person who used Zhang Qilin"s name. Could this be the reason why the information I found was messy and useless? What I found was the history interspersed by two completely different people.
But if so, what was that organization for? Was it to win a prize?
“Maybe it"s because you"re dead that they think you"re not the one they"re looking for.” Fatty continued, “I"ll be blunt. The Zhang Qilin we"re looking for now is unlikely to make such a virtue of himself.”
Ghost ignored him, only made a move to continue to talk to me.
I had a little story in my mind and told him that this Zhang Qilin was very special. I said a lot about his amazing deeds and told him that this Zhang Qilin made the older generation of The Mystic Nine very inviolable, so I was asked by them to help him find the past and so on.
Ghost didn"t speak and remained silent for a long time before he said, “Where is he now?”
I pointed to my feet: “He"s on the dead team you mentioned. He"s now in the mountains. Fatty said he"s… in a mirror.”
“You have made the biggest mistake of your life.” He suddenly said.
“What?”
“You will soon lose the key to unlock all these secrets.” He said, “The only key.”
“Why are you so sure they"ll die?”
“In short, it"s been determined that they will die. If I tell you the reason, you will surely feel that there is still a chance, which will only add to your troubles." He paused. “Unfortunately, I didn"t think this secret had a chance of being solved.”
“What if you go and save them?” Fatty asked him.
“I"d be a little better off than you two, but I won"t go in. I can take you in, however. Let"s go.”
“Do you understand our determination?” I was a little surprised.
“No, it"s because I don"t want to kill you myself.” He said, “You know, I won"t let anyone know I"m still alive. I didn"t expect to meet you here and have been thinking about what to do with you just now. Now it seems that it"s most appropriate to let you die.”
He stood up, took us to the middle of the mortar sh.e.l.ls and removed some boxes, revealing some long dark green boxes. He picked up a stone from the side, knocked off the iron lock on the box and kicked the lid off.
“You will need these.”
Inside were all submachine guns, wrapped in blackened oil paper, and underneath were copper bullets that were still orange and shiny, with 100 rounds ready to go.
“Still useable? Won"t they backfire?”
“You"d better hope they still work.”
“Just give me back my Doraemon.” Fatty said, “These old guns shoot too slow.”
“Your gun has 20 rounds at most and the number of rounds you need is 20 followed by two zeros.” Ghost said, “Take them.” He picked up two and tossed them to us.
We put the guns over our shoulders, and Fatty began to remove the ammo from the oilpaper and put them into the magazine, pressing it while asking, “Where can you take us? It seems very difficult to enter that building.”
“It"s not as complicated as you think. I"ll tell you but it"s no use saying it now.” Ghost found several bags from his belongings, put all the bullets in them, and tossed them to Fatty. “Do it after you go in, there"s no time. The sky will be bright soon.”
Ghost quickly left and Fatty and I looked at each other. Fatty said to me, “Don"t ask, just watch.”
I nodded. When we followed him out, we heard Ghost whistle in the night and wondered what he was doing. We saw a commotion in the gra.s.s and then several lynx jumped out.
He made some strange noises, and the lynx immediately turned and walked forward. Ghost made a gesture for us to follow.
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