?

  Xiu Xiu covered her mouth, muttering: "How is it possible, he's still alive?" Xiaohua reached out to feel the German's neck, and a faint pulse was transmitted from above. He looked around, hesitated for a moment, and sighed: "This cave has already reached its end, Wu Xie and the others should not be here."

  Xiu Xiu furrowed her brow and said: "If they're not there, where will they go?"

  Xiao Hua tore some cloth from the corpse, tied it into a rope, and bound the German's hands behind his back. He let Lao Mao carry the person and said to Xiu Xiu, "We've done our best. If we can't find them again, it's just bad luck. Let's go." The three of them carried the German back along the original path, soon exiting the cave. Outside, not far from the tree roots, a bonfire was burning, and the remaining people were huddled around it, roasting in the night sky with delicate snowflakes floating down.

  As soon as Samba saw the three men, he exclaimed with joy: "Great, they've come out!" Old Mao was panting heavily and threw the German to the ground, shouting at Samba: "What are you yelling about?"

  The remaining four big men immediately shouted in unison: "Ninth Master, Big Brother."

  Xiao Hua nodded and said, "How long has it been."

  One of them replied, "You've been gone for a whole day, and we thought that if you didn't come out tonight, we'd bring heavy firepower to find you." Xiaohua waved her hand and said, "This isn't a place to set up camp, let's head back to the cave." Immediately, the group extinguished the bonfire, packed up their gear, and rushed towards the cave. They didn't arrive at their destination until midnight. Xiaohua ordered that the German be tied up with five knots, took away his bullets, and administered some medicine, planning to interrogate him the next day.

  A group of people were busy for a day and night, and the three of them had an extremely dangerous experience. They slept soundly that night, and when they woke up the next day, they found that the German was already awake, but he was like a fool, neither speaking nor looking at anyone, his eyes staring blankly, either at the ground or into the vast expanse of snow.

  The old man was half dead, and he kicked him a few times in revenge, but the person didn't react at all.

  Lao Mao said, "Ninth Master, what to do? Shall we settle it here?" He made a shooting gesture, and Sangba on the side closed his eyes in fright, reciting Buddhist scriptures. Xiaohua didn't seem to care, ignoring Lao Mao and only saying one sentence, "Let's bring him along." The group then gave up searching for Wu Xie and continued to circle around Mount Nima under Sangba's lead until they reached the foot of the mountain, where they found a stone left behind by Road Person A.

  That's it, I listened to Xiuxiu's explanation and started to take care of the bewildered German man. To be honest, this person was no longer in human shape, so at first glance, I didn't even notice he was a foreigner.

  His skin was very pale, with a faint blue tint, his muscles were slack, and his eyes were closed as if he were dead. He was about 1.8 meters tall, but his body was very thin, wearing our down jacket, looking empty.

  I think what Xiuxiu said is clearly fishy, if this German really was from 80 years ago, wouldn't he be over a hundred years old by now?

  It's obviously a bit impossible, or else that team wasn't from eighty years ago, but rather a foreign team that entered the mountains in recent years? But Xiu Xiu's description of their equipment is too strange, and things seem to be too unreasonable.

  At this time, several people in the cave were already asleep, leaving only me and Xiuxiu, as well as that old Mao who hadn't slept. He must have also been hearing Xiuxiu talk about what happened in the cave for the first time. Without waiting for me to speak, he said in a low voice: "Is this really true? Tsk, no wonder they say we're the ninth master, ordinary people would have been scared shitless." The Jie family ranked ninth among the nine masters, and the head of the household was respectfully called Ninth Master on the road. I thought about Xiaohua's appearance and figure being called Ninth Master, and no matter how I thought about it, it felt strange.

  I glanced at Xiaohua and saw that she was already asleep. I asked, "Lao Mao, you've been following your Ninth Master for a long time, haven't you?"

  Originally, I didn't want to delve too deeply into Xiaohua and Xiuxiu's goals, but the events that have transpired over this period of time have made me feel more and more that things are not simple. Everything seems as if there is a pair of hands behind the scenes pushing, gathering all the people related to that matter together at Kunlun Mountain.

  I'm looking for Third Uncle and Fatso, what about Xiaohua and Xiuxiu? What brought them here?

  Xiu Xiu says it's because of Old Lady Huo's notes, but in my opinion, things are not that simple. Due to Old Lady Huo's affairs, the Huo and Jie families already had a rift between them, yet this time they met, Xiu Xiu was unexpectedly close with Xiao Hua; secondly, Xiao Hua had decided to leave the old ninth door, clear the Jie family's name, and move her assets abroad, but she suddenly returned, just because of a mysterious Tianyuan coffin that doesn't seem to have anything special?

  If their goal is Gui Xian, then what use do they have for Gui Xian?

  Unless... they still have something that hasn't been told to me, for example, when Xiu Xiu saw Chen Wenjin that time, what Chen Wenjin said might be far more than just one sentence, it's possible that they grasped other information that I don't know about.

  This information attracted two people to collaborate and decide to find the ghost seal in the Heavenly Coffin.

  Or perhaps their goal wasn't the Ghost Seal at all, but something else... what could it be?

  Xiu Xiu had just finished speaking and was already snuggled into her sleeping bag. I thought about trying to get some information out of Old Mao, but he turned out to be an unreliable person too. As soon as I asked him a question, he waved his hand dismissively and said, "It's been three years, right? You're also in the same line of work, you should know that what matters most is brains and physical skill. We rough men don't understand all that Tang Song Yuan Ming Qing stuff, so we just find a tree to lean on." He showed off his yellow teeth as he spoke, saying, "What's with you? Want to poach our client? The price our Ninth Master gave us, you can't match it."

  I watched him get more and more worked up, so I let out a snort of laughter and said: "Your Ninth Master has unique tastes, I'm not comparable to you, nor do I have any interest in you or your brother." Old Mao grunted, patted my shoulder, and lowered his voice to say: "Actually...I don't have any interest in you either. When we get into a fight, be careful not to get shot by the devils."

  I couldn't help but let out a cold laugh and said, "So after all this, it turns out you're an old fellow from Changsha."

  Lao Mao smiled silently and lay down on the ground with his legs up, soon he started snoring.

  I slept too much during the day, so I'm not sleepy now. Plus, I haven't eaten much, and my stomach is rebelling fiercely. My gaze involuntarily falls on the roasted meat on passerby A's fur coat, just as I was about to grab a piece to fill my belly. Suddenly, passerby A's words echo in my mind: "Stay up all night, no sneaking food."

  I looked at my hand, which was already stretched out, and felt embarrassed. Then I reacted and scolded myself: "Damn it, listening to him is what's really embarrassing." I ate two pieces of meat in one breath, and when the sky was about to brighten up, I fell asleep dazedly. In a trance, I heard a big commotion in the cave, followed by Xiaohua's voice: "Rest for a day, set off tomorrow."

  I thought to myself, this Long March of ten thousand miles has just begun, and we've already been delayed all the way. Even if we had a lot of dry rations, they wouldn't be enough for such a waste. I wanted to speak up, but found my throat was parched, as if sewn shut with needles, unable to open my mouth.

  Right after that, a cool hand landed on my forehead. I only heard Xiuxiu say: "The fever has subsided a bit, you all go gather some more firewood." Then there were the sounds of people moving around again.

  At that time, I felt a lot of thick things piled on my body, and the cold air around me was blocked out at once. I guessed it was Xiaohua and others who covered me with thick clothes or something, and I didn't know how many layers were added. I felt like I was being pressed by a ghost, my body was very heavy, and I couldn't move.

  Although my body was extremely dull at this time, I was still conscious and couldn't help but think of the German who went blind from snow blindness that Xiu Xiu had mentioned. In any case, my teammates didn't abandon me, so compared to him, I was much luckier.

  Thinking of this, the little flower and Xiuxiu's doubts in my heart also eased a bit. Although I don't know what exactly happened, I believe that Xiaohua wouldn't intentionally harm me.

  Fatso always says I'm a weak scholar, can't withstand the wind and rain. When he's in the mood, he even sings a few lines from the Red Chamber Dream to tease me: "A Wu sister fell from the sky, like a small grass blown by the wind and rain." That broken voice, combined with those lyrics, makes me so angry that I want to kick him, but he dodges quickly, and I rarely get my chance.

  It's not that I'm really weak, in this era where everyone is sub-healthy, my physique is still okay, and among the crowd, I'm a sunny young man. But being with Fatty and San Shu, who are always below average, naturally makes me look worse by comparison. I've always disagreed with Fatty saying I'm weak, but unexpectedly this time I fell short, dragging everyone down at the critical moment.

  In such a daze, sometimes awake and sometimes asleep, I don't know how long it took for my spirit to recover. I opened my eyes to find the sky lit up, and the windbreak at the entrance of the cave, made of wooden sticks and large leaves, had been replaced by a dark green rain cloth.

  This is a common item for mountain camping. In the 1940s, during the Burma Campaign against Japan, this rain cloth was equipped in the army. The Burmese region is often overcast and foggy, with dense primitive forests everywhere. When marching and fighting in the forest, cotton quilts would get wet and infested with insects after a long time. Later, the US supported a batch of rain cloths, which were soft, waterproof, and could be spread on the ground to block the damp air. They could also be used as tents, making them very popular military equipment.

  Of course, in modern times, many things have appeared to replace it. The army has long since abandoned its shadow, and now most of them are used as equipment for mountaineering adventures, stacked up with a small volume, so they are very popular.

  The oilcloth was spread out and blocked the entrance of the cave, with large stones weighing down on the edges, only revealing a narrow exit for one person to enter and exit. The bright daylight shone in from outside. The cave was only about ten or so square meters in size, with limited space, and since I was lying flat on the ground, covered in a thick pile of clothes, it took up more than half of the space.

  The remaining piece of land was burning with bonfire, I moved and found some tightness on my body, lowered my head to open it, only to find that the wound on my body had been well treated, applied medicine, and wrapped in gauze, the wound no longer felt as painful as before.

  There was no one in the cave, and from outside came faint voices. I regained my strength, put on my clothes, and walked out of the cave to find Xiaohua and Mr. Lu sitting on a rock together, both with their heads down, holding a notebook. As I approached, I saw that it was the half map left by my grandfather for Old Lady Huo.