Chapter 22: The Mysterious 02200059
By the time Wu Xie woke up, the bed next to him was already empty. Panzi was injured too severely, Wu Sansheng was getting on in years, both were still sleeping deeply, only Fatty was as awake as him.
When he opened his eyes, Fatty was on the phone.
“What? What did you say? He’s got some nerve, bear heart and leopard guts, I#*&…@%￥#” followed by a string of extremely furious, non-repeating curse words that left him somewhat dazed.
After Fatty finished speaking quickly in a lowered voice, he turned back and saw him sitting there with eyes open in a daze, somewhat surprised: “Yo, young comrade, you’re up pretty early too.”
Wu Xie rubbed his temples, that dazed feeling after extreme exhaustion still influencing him: “Has my Third Uncle and the others not woken up yet?”
Fatty shook his head: “Not yet. I asked the doctor after I got up earlier. He said it’s exhaustion from overexertion, just fatigue. Panzi’s injury isn’t a big deal, it was a bit infected before, but the doctor disinfected and bandaged it again and gave him a tetanus shot. With some good rest back home, he’ll be fine, probably back to his lively self in half a month.”
Wu Xie dazedly acknowledged it, watching Fatty quickly pack up his things while muttering nonstop: “Hey, young comrade, remember that the money from selling the jade burial suit has a share for me. Just transfer it to my account when the time comes. No rush on this thing, buyers aren’t that easy to find. But your family seems to be the Nine Gates Wu Family, probably have some connections. Something came up at my shop, so I gotta head back first, won’t stick around. If you and that young comrade next to you wanna find me later, just come straight to Panjiayuan in Beijing, mention Fatty Ye’s name and you’ll find me.”
Hmm? He then felt something was off.
Where was Lin Yan?
It seemed like since he woke up, he hadn’t seen Lin Yan at all, the bag was still here, but where did the person go?
Fatty hadn’t noticed anything wrong yet, still nagging like an old mother, telling him to note down his mobile phone number and bank card number, and reminding him not to let Wu Sansheng forget the profit share.
Wu Xie couldn’t help interrupting him: “Fatty, have you seen Lin Yan?”
Fatty was stunned for a moment, shook his head: “Nope, he was gone when I got up. Maybe he’s already left?”
He slung his bag over his shoulder, circled around Lin Yan’s bed: “Probably hasn’t left, bag’s still here. Maybe he just went to the bathroom and hasn’t come back yet. Anyway, I’m off. Say hi to Third Master and them for me.”
He waved to Wu Xie, left a “Don’t forget to come to Beijing and hang out” and sauntered off dashingly, leaving Wu Xie alone clutching his head in a daze in the room.
Fair enough, Lin Yan was a living person, no way he just vanished. Thinking of this, he slowly got up. After the chatterbox Fatty left, the ward seemed extremely quiet, and with Third Uncle and Panzi not awake either, he didn’t want to keep being a patient cooped up here.
After handling personal hygiene, Wu Xie wandered the corridor for a bit, not daring to go too far from the ward, afraid someone might accidentally approach their equipment and cause unnecessary trouble.
It wasn’t until he returned to the room that he realized what was wrong. Fatty had been gone nearly half an hour, how come Lin Yan still hadn’t appeared? Going to the bathroom shouldn’t take this long. So he grabbed a passing little nurse to ask: “Hey, have you seen my friend? Same ward as me, about my height and build.”
The little nurse thought for a moment, slapped her forehead: “Oh, you mean that young handsome guy. Earlier when none of you were awake, a handsome guy in a hood came and took him away, said they were transferring hospitals. Didn’t even refund the hospitalization fees, just carried him off on his back.”
She looked Wu Xie up and down: “What, you don’t know him?”
Wu Xie was stunned for a second, nodded hurriedly: “I know him, I know him, it’s fine, he’s my friend too. I just didn’t expect it was him who came to pick him up.”
The little nurse nodded, asked if he had anything else. If not, she had to go change dressings in another ward. Hearing this, Wu Xie let her go, walked back to the ward alone, and for some reason, felt a sense of loss.
Mute Bottle and Lin Yan, two equally mysterious people, abruptly joined their journey like this. At the start, they clearly didn’t know each other, yet in the end, they mysteriously disappeared together, one taking the other. Who were they? What was their goal? And why did they disappear? These questions swirled in his mind, but answers were slow to come.
Mute Bottle was brought by his Third Uncle to deal with Jia Lama, so logically, his Third Uncle should know something. As for Lin Yan, he frowned, it seemed even Third Uncle didn’t know where this person came from, and the way he appeared was so… thinking of this, he felt a faint pain in his abdomen.
On the other side, by the time Lin Yan woke up again, he was no longer in the hospital. He was still in the same clothes from before, but his luggage was gone.
He rubbed his sore neck to clear his mind.
How did he end up here? Why did it feel so bumpy? Hiss… the person he saw before being knocked out was… Zhang Qiling? Then where was he?
He quickly looked up and glanced around; he was actually on a bus. The surroundings looked like mountains? Dense forests and exposed yellow rocks all around, and looking down, a dirt road! No wonder it was so bumpy!
Good grief, where was Zhang Qiling taking him? Believe it or not, he’d call the police right now for human trafficking?
“You’re awake.”
The familiar indifferent tone as the person beside him spoke—Zhang Qiling hadn’t run off.
Lin Yan glared at him irritably: “If you wanted me to come with you, just say so. Why knock me out?”
Zhang Qiling remained expressionless: “Would alarm others.”
Lin Yan felt anger bubbling up: “Alarm who! I was the only one awake in our ward, who were you gonna alarm? And where are we going?”
Zhang Qiling glanced at him, still in that unhurried tone: “If I told you the place, you wouldn’t want to come with me.”
“Where? Tell me. If you don’t, how will I know if I wanna go? Maybe you won’t even need to lift a finger, and I’ll follow you myself.”
“Qinling Mountains.”
“Qinling Mountains, Qinling Mount—wait, what the hell did you say?” Lin Yan jolted, his voice involuntarily rising, drawing disapproving looks from people around.
He quickly smiled apologetically, seeing Zhang Qiling’s I-knew-it look: “What the hell are you taking me to the Qinling Mountains for?”
He hadn’t even decided yet if he wanted to go back through that magical bronze ancient tree in the Qinling Mountains, and now they were already on the road? That place was eerie as hell; a rookie like him going would just be delivering himself. Even Zhang Qiling might not be safe! Wait… he wasn’t going ahead to scout for Wu Xie, was he? No way.
No matter how much he pressed, Zhang Qiling wouldn’t answer. If he pushed too hard, he might get another chop to the neck, so he could only close his eyes and rest.
Leaving Lin Yan to his poor and pitiful journey, Wu Xie was making some progress.
They stayed one day in the village clinic, rested a bit, then headed to Jinan where the hospital facilities were better. Wu Xie and Wu Sansheng were fine, but Panzi’s leg injury was still somewhat serious; a big hospital was more reliable.
While Panzi was hospitalized, they took out the treasure box they’d gotten earlier to study. The key Wu Xie obtained still couldn’t open the treasure box, but it was clear the key and treasure box matched. Wu Sansheng saw it at once and knew this key wasn’t for opening, but for locking.
“For locking?” Wu Xie was shocked. Wu Sansheng twisted the top of the box, and the four corners of the bottom unfolded evenly, revealing a dial with eight holes, each with a number: “This kind of box is hard to open, can only be unlocked with a code. The key is for closing it. Without the code, you’d be better off taking it to a hardware store to have it dismantled.”
Wu Xie thought about it; the treasure box was found inside the tomb, so the code should correspondingly be visible somewhere in the tomb. But scanning everywhere he’d been at the tomb bottom, there were few things related to numbers. There were a few numbers on Lu Shang Wang’s coffin, but they didn’t seem to be eight digits, and the burial date’s heavenly stems and earthly branches didn’t match either. So the only remaining number-related thing was the steel stamp on the belt of the corpse that Lin Yan fell and saw.
But that was clearly a modern person; would the code really be stamped so boldly? Unless the whole company stamped the code on their belts? Wait, if that corpse was with that A Ning, it made sense! They knew the code first, that’s why they came to the tomb, so that woman threatened them on the platform and in the tree hole, ultimate goal to open this treasure box! So whether this eight-digit number was the treasure box code, just try it and see.
The code wasn’t hard to remember: 02200059.
Wu Xie hesitantly turned the numbers, and unexpectedly, the top of the treasure box flipped open automatically.
It actually opened!
