Chapter 107: The Secret Of The Bronze Fish
That day’s drinking party ended with Lin Yan helping Wu Xie back. He had truly never seen this side of Wu Xie, almost exactly like hanging out with a university buddy, every sentence full of profanity and never straying far from women. Who would’ve thought, he’s actually quite repressed.
For some reason, Lin Yan always felt that the earring on Lao Yang’s ear was very similar to the Bronze Bell, but unfortunately, he couldn’t ask him for it to take a look. It might work if Wu Xie asked, but he couldn’t, they really weren’t that close. Moreover, Lao Yang gave him a not-so-good feeling, always thinking this NPC wasn’t very reliable.
After going back, Lin Yan specially took out the Bronze Bell to look at it. With his memory, the one on Lao Yang’s ear was almost exactly the same as the one in his hand, except for the size! Could it be that there are sets of bells with different sizes? He hadn’t seen any on the White Coral Tree in the Underwater Tomb before either, all the bells there were the same size.
When Wu Xie got up the next day, Lin Yan went to ask him, but got this Answer: “The style is the same? Yeah, that’s one reason I agreed to go to the Qinling Mountains with him. If there weren’t connections, how could there be two identical bells in the world? I suspect those in the Underwater Tomb were also collected by Wang Canghai after digging them from some Place, and that Place might be the Qinling Mountains! Plus that third Snake-browed Bronze Fish, I suspect it’s also in the Qinling Mountains!”
He looked at Lin Yan and proposed an idea: “Tell me, with one Snake-browed Bronze Fish in the Lu King’s Palace, one that came from the Underwater Tomb, and the Qinling Mountains connected to the Underwater Tomb, could the third one possibly be in the Qinling Mountains?”
This… really possible! Lin Yan also didn’t remember where the third Snake-browed Bronze Fish was, anyway not in the Snake Marsh or the Heavenly Palace, at worst in Bana, couldn’t escape these few Instances. But the Qinling Mountains Place, indeed possible too. Isn’t the Bronze divine tree in the Qinling Mountains? Maybe Wang Canghai went there too, and the bell was brought out from inside!
Time too long, he couldn’t remember, what was this Snake-browed Bronze Fish for again?
In the next period of time, Lao Yang often came to find Wu Xie, sometimes to consult about Equipment, sometimes just to have a meal with him, and along the way got familiar with Lin Yan too. After getting familiar, Lin Yan discovered that this Lao Yang, aside from stuttering a bit and being a bit lecherous, was actually okay? Although he looked slick and oily, he was unexpectedly reliable when doing things, just a bit too good at deceiving.
According to him, three years ago when he went tomb raiding in the Qinling Mountains, he was caught together with his cousin, but only his cousin got life imprisonment. He was supposed to too, but he bluffed his way into being a pitiful person forced into tomb raiding, getting the lightest sentence of three years. If he hadn’t actually gone into the tomb, he might’ve been released on the spot! This deceiving skill, not ten Zhao Benshans?
Lin Yan thought about it, maybe his previous bad impression of Lao Yang was one because of his face, and two because of his mouth that could talk the dead into life. Although he had no memory of the original work’s description of Lao Yang’s personality, subconsciously he retained that impression, so even after so long he still had some instinctive dislike. For someone like this, if he deceived him, he’d probably count the money after being sold!
Isn’t that right, wasn’t Wu Xie deceived into going like this?
This brings up a problem.
“Wu Xie, how does he confirm he can still find the tomb he raided three years ago? What if that tomb has been protected?”
Wu Xie gave him a helpless look, spread his hands: “Lao Yang won’t say, how would I know? He just says his mark works not just after three years, but thirty years, don’t know if it’s true or false.”
Lin Yan was helpless: “Alright then, didn’t you contact anyone to go with us? Not to say, after entering the trade, don’t you have any idea about the tombs you’ve raided? Without a few two-meter tall burly men, it always feels unsafe.”
Wu Xie shook his head: “In our line, if you’re not a famous figure on the paths, Jia Lama has to find acquaintances, otherwise very likely to be double-crossed. I contacted Fatty before but didn’t reach him, that Mute Bottle didn’t even leave us a phone number. I told Third Uncle’s shop assistant side, asked them to inquire as much as possible, but don’t hold too much hope, maybe this trip it’ll really just be us three.”
Lin Yan was numb, although in the original work it was just them two, but how is it so unreliable?
Speaking of Zhang Qiling. Wu Xie had been checking something on the computer these past few days, he fiddled with it twice and showed the result to Lin Yan: “I was always curious about what kind of person Mute Bottle really is, but asking him he wouldn’t tell me. These past few days with nothing to do I checked, originally searched his name, got tens of thousands of results, looked at dozens of pages and couldn’t go on. Later I thought he participated in the expedition with my Third Uncle, so put his name and my Third Uncle’s name together. And the result is this right in front of you.”
On the computer screen in front of Lin Yan was a missing person notice, with their group photo from twenty years ago, listing everyone’s names. Further down, just one sentence: “Fish is with me!”
No need to think, this fish definitely refers to the Snake-browed Bronze Fish! Just don’t know if it’s the second one that appeared before, or the third that hasn’t appeared.
Wu Xie continued: “This missing person notice is very strange, who posts a search without leaving their own info? Then if someone finds, where to find him? After seeing this I felt something off, like someone fishing, so found a computer expert to see if could trace who posted it. But with so much time passed, he said could only trace it to being posted from Jilin side, nothing else, unless find a real computer expert to handle it.”
He remembered Lin Yan saying before that the one seeking the fish was internal to the Nine Gates, feeling something off: “I checked the Nine Gates side a few days ago, besides our Wu Family in Hangzhou, no one else developed in Jilin. Do you think someone else might know about the Bronze Fish?”
Lin Yan remembered Qiu Dekao telling A Ning to get the Bronze Fish from under the Lu King’s Palace, feeling maybe related to him, but then thought not likely. Qiu Dekao so rich, what reason not to leave contact info? At worst leave “tip-off provider gets 100k reward” or something, that’s his style.
Reasoning backwards from this angle, besides Wu Sansheng’s group with tampered memories, who else would care about the Underwater Tomb? Don’t say, he really thought of a possibility.
“Maybe someone from that research project twenty years ago? Didn’t your Third Uncle say some old professors knew about the Bronze Fish? Maybe someone in that expedition team was their student or something, so posted a missing person notice? Don’t forget, your Third Uncle said all materials were sealed by officials back then, if it’s a respected old professor who participated in the research, maybe they really could bring up the Bronze Fish?”
“But didn’t Third Uncle say all materials were burned in that fire with issues?” Wu Xie wasn’t stupid, after Lin Yan proposed this idea, he spotted the blind spot. How so coincidental that the fire destroyed exactly this batch with the Bronze Fish info? And official place’s fire prevention didn’t find issues, could only be internal personnel. In other words, that reward poster worked there, then fled to Jilin and posted this message?
