“You stupid c*nt, look closely, there’s no dust. You go on duty for three days and don’t come home and the table has a layer of dust, how can there be no dust in here if it’s really been empty for a year?”
Xia Gehuai’s buttocks were fitted with springs and he jerked up from the sofa, grabbing me by the collar, “Why didn’t you say so earlier?!”
He ran out the door like he was on fire and laughed so hard my stomach hurt.
When he was out, I took another look around the house, the floor was full of rubbish, but the photo album was in its drawer.
After leaving the cottage, I went to look at the other two rooms, which were similar in construction to this one, although Shaggy Wai was against it.
It gets dark early in the mountains and by three o’clock in the afternoon, it’s all dark and yellow.
We only had a torch with us, which we had to use for the night journey, and apart from the photo album, I didn’t find anything of value.
At half past three, Xia Gehuai and I had to decide to return. From the map, it looked like it was too far for us to go back the way we had come, and it would be too slow to make the journey at night, so we might as well go north to the next county, Qing Shui.
The bas*ment of the villa was locked with two iron cables, I couldn’t get in, and such locks can’t be picked with wire. But I reckon there must be a tunnel in one of the bas*ments.
After walking north for twenty minutes, a small house covered with vines appeared in front of us.
If I hadn’t been so experienced in fighting in the forest, it would have been really hard to notice the house, as he was completely covered in green vegetation.
“Zhang Chao, what are you doing? You’re going to go in and take a look at this too, huh? This house has collapsed.”
“It’s too close to the villa and I feel a bit strange. These two houses can’t be okay.”
I pushed aside the dead tree trunk blocking the front door, then looked at the house that had caved in and was stunned.
When Xia Gehuai saw me standing there still, he was busy drilling over to ask me what was wrong, and just as he asked, he too looked at the house in shock.
“Here is, is ……”
“The bungalow where they took the group photo. This is where my mum lived when she was a kid.”
Although the house had collapsed, the two stone lions at the entrance still looked exactly like the ones in the photo, except that they were covered in moss.
This place was my grandparents’ house decades ago, and after they moved away, this old site was left vacant, and then Han Kun came back and built three villas nearby.
But was it really Han Kun who built them? There were still children’s clothes on the site, it didn’t look like Han Kun lived there alone.
This is too weird.
I hadn’t seen my grandparents since I was born, and if people in the jungle hadn’t told me about the Ji family, I would have thought I was born without grandparents.
The first time I came into contact with my grandparents’ family was surprisingly in such a way that I couldn’t see them in living form, I could only touch these cold wall bricks.
I was tempted to go inside and take a look, but it had collapsed too badly and it looked as if there were signs of burning.
Had my maternal grandfather’s family evacuated from here not by choice but, like the Yin family, had been hunted down before leaving?
My maternal grandfather’s family sheltered the last male member of the Yin family and became a thorn in the side of the Seven Great Clans of the Jianghu after they found out about it, and the Ji family fell after that.
It is likely that the Ji family left the area back then because they were chased by the Seven Great Clans.
I was more shocked than struck by lightning, I didn’t have much equipment with me today, it wasn’t safe to go into this house and there wasn’t enough electricity.
When I send Xia Gehuai back, I’ll be right back for another trip, I must find out what the hell is going on.
I reckon there must be a road around here that my grandfather’s family used to travel up and down the mountain back in the day. They were a famous family in the Jianghu area, and if it wasn’t easy to get out of a mountain, then they couldn’t be a famous family.
As I expected, we found a mountain road that had been abandoned and covered in moss, but at least people could walk it without having to cut weeds to make a path.
It was obvious that a donkey cart had travelled this mountain road and the moss had been pressed out of two tracks, presumably within the last two or three days.
I was going to head for Qing Shui County, but then I suddenly thought, this donkey cart must have transported the people who were living in the villa out, and these people were definitely related to my grandfather’s family, so I followed their ruts and might be able to find their landing place.
Xia Gehuai and I sulked on our way and finally arrived in Heshui County at around six o’clock.
This county has a road that leads straight to downtown Tongcheng and is much livelier than Haishan County, with a night market that is very lively at night.
I had expected this time to be a small city similar to Haishan County, where the locals would notice if any outsiders came here. But once I arrived at this place I despaired, this place is completely different from Xiaoshan County, Blackwater County is developing tourism and the lights are bright at night, no more than the city of Tong City.
Xia Gehuai was too tired to walk one step, so we had to get a hotel to stay for the time being.
“I’ve travelled so much with you today, if you dare to fool me with a hotel chain, I’ll f*cking shoot you.” Xia Gehuai dragged his feet and walked forward.
“Put your gun away and cover it with your clothes! Don’t take everything out!”
I hailed a taxi and told the driver to drive straight to the best hotel nearby.
This driver’s eyebrows jumped up at that, “The best one nearby is the Four Seasons Hotel, you’re a tourist from out of town, aren’t you? I hear your accent like you’re from the city of Tong.”
Xia Gehuai said breathlessly, “It’s all in Mandarin and there’s still an accent, huh?”
“That’s for sure, I heard your accent is the Mandarin of downtown Tong City, standard, I used to drive a taxi in the city, I can hear it.”
This driver was full of talk, how could the best hotel in a tourist-heavy town like Blackwater County be just the Four Seasons? But I was thinking about my grandfather, so I didn’t ask him what was going on.
He and Xia Gehuai fought with each other for 40 minutes before I woke up with a start: “Where are you taking us? Heshui County is only a small place, how long have you been driving?”
It was only when Xia Gehuai heard me say this that he also realized that it was pitch black outside the car window and there were no more lights of the city.
