Daomu Biji

Master Zhang Fo Ye was one of the top three in The Mystic Nine and the largest of the nine families. Legend said that a giant Buddha was stolen from an unknown place and buried in the family's courtyard, so he was called Master Zhang Fo Ye (TN note: Great Buddha). His real name was Zhang Qishan and he robbed tombs at an early age, joined the army in the middle of his life, and engaged in politics during his later years. Zhang Fo Ye was one of the few people who could do great things in The Mystic Nine and cherished all of China. Therefore, when listening to the older generation chatting, the legend of Zhang Fo Ye always made people sigh with emotion.

Before, I always suspected that he had something to do with the Zhang family's ancient building. This was because when Uncle Two talked to me at that time, he was very vague. When Zhang Fo Ye moved to Changsha from the north, he seemed to be a member of the Zhang family that had relocated and were scattered by the j.a.panese at that time.

If it wasn't the same name and surname, then this Zhang Qishan should be Master Zhang Fo Ye.

Then this "Zhang Qilin" Zhang Ruitong was Zhang Fo Ye's grandfather. Sure enough, the first family of the Mystic Nine was indeed the Zhang family.

"So, what your uncle said was true." Fatty said.

"My Uncle Two is very smart. If he wanted to hide something, he would tell you irrelevant, but true information. You think you understand after listening, and it's all true once you check it out, but no one knows if there are any secrets behind it. Therefore, he must not be afraid of me proving what he told me."

Fatty sighed and I continued, "Zhang Fo Ye had been in charge of the whole thing and his team entered here to pay their respects. It must not be an accident that they opened the door of this room. It's impossible to be so coincidental—I found Grandpa Zhang's tomb as soon as I looked for it. Therefore, I believe that the people who opened this place must have been instructed by Zhang Fo Ye."

He probably had some clues and asked a group of people to find his grandfather's tomb to steal three of the funeral items.

However, why did the black gold ancient sword end up in Uncle Three's hands?

"If Zhang Qilin is a t.i.tle, what's Little Brother's real name? Can it be a name like "Zhang Ergou?" Fatty asked. (TN Note: Ergou can mean stupid dog in the Beijing dialect).

I said: "Judging from the epitaph, as long as he was elected Zhang Qilin, his name will be replaced by that t.i.tle. Little Brother, Zhang Qilin, must have also been selected. The black gold ancient sword of this Zhang Qilin right here finally came into the hands of the new Zhang Qilin. I always thought there was something strange about it."

Fatty looked at the epitaph again: "Wait, I suddenly had an idea just now. Look at this Zhang Qilin, how did he die?"

I calmed down and looked for the information in the small print on the wall and soon found it in his life.

Unlike the previous two, this Zhang Qilin died of illness. In his life record, he suffered from "loss of soul" during a fight.

"What is 'Lost Soul Syndrome'?" Fatty asked me.

I took a deep breath: "Memory loss."

At that moment I had a wild thought: was this Zhang Qilin our Zhang Qilin?

Because he also had the black gold ancient sword, and also had amnesia. Are they the same person?

But there were bones in this coffin, and this "Zhang Qilin" was Zhang Fo Ye's grandfather. Wasn't that more than 200 years old?

We explored that room for a long time before we came out and I was a little distracted. Although I dared not jump to conclusions, my premonition that "finding the Zhang Jialou will give me a lot of secrets" seemed to have come true.

I was pondering whether to move on, find some more rooms to see if I could get more information, or immediately find the opening to the next floor, when I smelled smoke.

"You're smoking so much when your f.u.c.king lungs are rotten." I shouted at Fatty. But he looked pale and had nothing in his mouth.

"It's not me smoking a cigarette, it's the smell of wood burning." Fatty said. He and I looked at each other and immediately thought that even though we had burned the floor before, we had extinguished the fire—was it not completely put out and revived after we left?

We hurried back immediately. After turning a few corners, I saw the fire and smelled the strong smoke. It seemed that the corridor behind the corner was already ablaze. We went around and when a heat wave hit our faces, we were shocked.

One of the rooms we explored before actually burned up and spread to more than a dozen rooms. Flames blazed across the corridor.

"Mamma Mia!" Fatty scratched his crotch, "I don't have that much pee!"

We covered our noses and mouths and ran over to find that the window paper burned most violently. Fatty took off his clothes and used them as a broom to try to beat out the flames that had just started burning in the rooms closest to us. Then he rushed to the core area that was already on fire.

I followed closely behind. We fought hard there and didn't know how long it took to put out all the flames.

I was completely blinded, and didn't know whether I was choking or hot. I looked dizzily at the c.o.ke-like area around me, very surprised that such a big fire could unexpectedly be put out like this.

The fire had spread to more than a dozen rooms, and the outer doors with panes were all burned down. The further away from the center of the fire, the lower the degree of burning was. Several rooms near the ignition point were completely burned down, and even the epitaph was burnt to black charcoal.

Fatty coughed violently and blood spurted from his nostrils. I went to help him but he motioned with his hand and said it was nothing. "Much better, much better. It's a good thing. When I coughed up the blood just now, my breathing became more comfortable."

Our faces were all black, our hair was all curled up and there was a dull sting in many parts of our body—it must have been from burns.

Looking around, I swallowed speechlessly. My heart said that all the bad luck had been spread to us. Fatty spat blood off to the side, sat down on the still hot wood, collapsed a little, and said to me, "Chairman Mao said that a single spark can start a prairie fire. d.a.m.n right. Mr. Naive, I can't walk. I'll have a rest. You have to watch it again and put out any sparks."

I nodded: "Watch your a.s.s, don't get burned, too." As I said this, I went to stamp out the sparks.

"Speaking of a.s.sess, we pressed ours on the flames at that time and they all went out. How could it burn like this so quickly?" Fatty said, "There's no wind in this building."

I said: "At that time, we were laying on the door and there was window paper on it. It was probably a spark that slowly ignited the paper."

"I say, Yangs.h.i.+ Lei should've put a few fire extinguishers here! This large wooden structure is a fire hazard." Fatty said.

"No one lives here, and no lightning can strike." I said, "It's so humid, the probability of fire was too small. If your internal organs are injured, don't talk so much. Say less if you can, and have a good rest."

"If Fat Master can't talk, it's better to kill me directly." Fatty said, "Life is too impermanent to say one sentence less. I've said a lot so you'll remember my style a little better—no, Mr. Naive, do you smell anything strange?"

My nose was clogged with soot and I couldn't smell anything. I said, "What smell?"

"It's like barbecued pork."

"Barbecued pork? Get up quickly!" I said, "Isn't your a.s.s ripe, are you sitting on the coals?"

"Bulls.h.i.+t! The levels of fat in my a.s.s are definitely not the smell of barbecued pork, at least it should be Peking duck! Where's the smell coming from?"

Fatty pointed to the coffin in the tomb. It had collapsed and the lid of the coffin had completely burned away. If I had known this would happen earlier, I wouldn't have bothered to put it back.

"Is the body burned? But just now we saw that the corpse was a pile of bones. It's impossible to smell burning protein, let alone the smell of barbecued pork."

The floor was also badly burned. I carefully stepped over and shone a flashlight into the coffin.

In an instant, I saw a strange burnt corpse lying there, and the coffin was full of pieces of charcoal.

This wasn't the skeleton we just saw in the coffin. Where did the body come from?

At the same time, I also found that this wasn't an ancient corpse, but a modern one. Judging from the equipment, it must be someone from Little Brother's team but the face had been completely burned.

Fatty staggered over, looked at it for a moment, and then pointed his flashlight above his head: "It fell from above and hit the coffin." I looked up and saw that there was a crack right above the coffin in the floor of the ancient building's next level.

"The fire burned through the ceiling, and the body fell down and landed in the coffin?" I asked myself.

Fatty said, "And then burned to death?"

"It wasn't burned to death." I said, "We didn't hear any shrieks and you can see that there's no soot in this man's nose. He was already a corpse before he fell. He should have been lying upstairs—directly above the coffin. The fire broke through the ceiling and he fell from above into the coffin."

"Is there such a coincidence?"

"It wasn't necessarily a coincidence."

I asked Fatty to give me a hand but he shook his head and said, "No, this fat man is old. This time you're down there."

I looked at his situation and knew he was right. So Fatty stepped on my shoulder and stretched out his neck just enough to see into the crack, s.h.i.+ning his flashlight inside.

Fatty was extremely heavy, and when his whole body weight was pressed on me, I felt that all the air was about to squeeze out of my stomach so I quickly tightened my muscles.

I couldn't see what he was doing up there and only heard him cry, "s.h.i.+t!"

I gritted my teeth and asked what he saw. He said: "I found them. The old woman and Little Brother are there, but…"

"But what?"

Fatty tsked, "Don't come up yet, you may not be able to accept it. It's not good so I'll check it out first."