The owner of the door was a woman from the Menba ethnic group. She sighed and took two pots of water upstairs. The fat guy then said, “Hurry up! If I get diarrhea again, I’ll be in trouble. Ever since I came to this ghostly place, I’ve been having diarrhea at exactly seven every morning. Is your food not clean?” “No way, boss, it’s definitely clean. Are you just not used to the food here?” The owner entered the fat guy’s room, and her voice became muffled.
I lit a cigarette and couldn’t help but laugh. Having diarrhea at seven in the morning? Alright, I’ll just follow you at seven fifteen. The next day, right on time, I went to the bathroom. Besides a fresh, terrible stench, I saw a piece of toilet paper stuck to the back of the door with something disgusting, covered in writing.
I carefully tore it down, thinking to myself that he really did have diarrhea; the fat guy was going all out with his act. The paper had a lot of information, and after reading it, I understood everything. It turned out that the fat guy had discovered three weeks earlier that the phone at Agui’s house was being tapped. However, he couldn’t find anyone in the village who was watching him. He realized that the purpose of the wiretapping was not him, but rather me, since I called him every week.
So, he set up a trap, asking Agui to put his mobile phone next to the landline. Every time I called, Agui would not answer right away; instead, he would notify the fat guy to call his mobile. Then, he would put both the mobile and the landline on speaker, making me think he was still in Guangxi, while in fact, he had already left to secretly come to Hangzhou to find me.
When he arrived in Hangzhou, he found out that I was in Nepal, so he waited for me to return. He continued to wait until I reached Motuo, planning to stay there for a while before he finally came over. On the last call, he was almost nearby in Linzhi, and then he immediately entered Motuo.
Once inside, he didn’t meet up with me right away; instead, he waited for me at the mountain pass and then followed me the whole way. He said that if I left a place for more than three minutes, there would definitely be someone following me. They were all locals, and clearly not very experienced; they could only track me based on their familiarity with the area.
They didn’t realize that the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware that the fat guy was watching me from nearby. Because of this, he couldn’t contact me. He said that as long as he showed up, he would surely face the same fate as mine, because the place was too small. He would investigate on his own to see if he could discover anything. For now, he couldn’t find a better way to contact me secretly, so he asked me to pay close attention to all the restrooms around me.
I flushed the toilet paper down the squat toilet, feeling much more at ease. No matter how strong I was, having someone to protect and take care of me was always a good thing. In hindsight, I realized that at this point, I made another mistake, but this one was quite controversial.
According to my previous approach, I should have thought of nothing and just left this place with the fat guy first. However, both the fat guy and I were thinking about figuring out who was still plotting against us and what their purpose was. I pulled up my pants and pushed the door open, feeling that everything could be deliberated over; the game here had just begun.
But as soon as I pushed the door open, I saw two lamas standing at the restroom door. I was taken aback and asked, “Waiting in line?” The lama shook his head and said, “Mr. Wu, the Grand Lama wants you to go up the mountain immediately.” “What’s going on?” I asked. “What happened twenty years ago has happened again; another person has come out from the snow mountain.”
I can’t remember if I had told the lamas about my whereabouts, but they seemed to have great powers here, or perhaps they had come looking for me one by one. I didn’t have time to think about that as I followed them up the mountain and arrived at the lama temple, where I found everything in chaos.
Everyone looked suspicious and was bustling about, not knowing what they were doing; the place resembled a battlefield hospital. The lamas led me into the Grand Lama’s bedroom, where I found another person sitting inside. This person had his back to me, dressed in a Tibetan robe, quietly sipping butter tea.
I felt the atmosphere was somewhat delicate because as soon as I entered the room, several lamas by the side looked at me with very peculiar expressions. It wasn’t so much that their expressions were strange, but rather that they found me odd. This atmosphere made me feel uncomfortable, so I sat down next to that person and casually glanced to the side.
In that instant, I nearly jumped out of my seat and flipped to the side. My head buzzed, and I almost fainted from shock. The person sitting across from the lama was none other than myself.
No, my mind was in a jumble, and I was a bit incoherent; it wasn’t me, but I saw a face that looked exactly like mine. “Is it you?” I exclaimed in astonishment, unable to close my mouth. The other person looked at me with an indifferent gaze, simply nodded, and said, “I knew you wouldn’t die so easily.”
“Who the hell are you!” I shouted angrily. “What kind of monster are you, and why are you impersonating me?” As I spoke, I wanted to rush over and strangle him, but he immediately stood up and stepped back a few paces, causing my attack to fail.
Then he waved his hand and said, “We no longer have any conflicting interests, so you don’t need to be so extreme with me.”
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