adminI was confused and didn’t know what was happening outside. I wanted to ask my uncle, but I found him dozing off on the bench next to me, sleeping more soundly than I was. I ran outside the clinic and saw villagers hurriedly pulling carts and mules up the mountain. A young boy was running and shouting, “Not good! Not good! There’s a forest fire up the mountain!”
I was taken aback and thought, could it be that the fire we just started has spread to the forest? Reflecting on the earlier incident where we set that hole on fire, I realized we hadn’t taken any precautions nearby. If that fire spread and ignited the forest, it would be a serious problem.
I felt a bit panicked. Once a forest fire gets out of control, it’s not just a matter of one or two people dying. We city folks have no awareness of forest fire prevention, and now we might be in big trouble.
I rushed back in to wake my uncle. Together, we grabbed two bedpans from the clinic, as we couldn’t find anything else, and joined the main group heading up the mountain. At that moment, a chubby guy came running towards us on a donkey cart, holding a basin and shouting, “We’ve got a disaster! Get on! Hurry to put out the fire!” We all jumped on, and the cart swayed as it left the village. In the distance, there was a large plume of black smoke, indicating the fire was quite big. My uncle was stunned and quietly said, “Looking at the direction, it really is the fire we started.”
I quickly covered his mouth as a village official ran back, shouting, “Call the army! The mountain has collapsed ahead!”
I immediately realized that the cave might have collapsed due to the fire. I worried that if the corpses inside rushed out, it would be a disaster. We hurriedly raced to the site where the mudslide had emerged, and the chubby guy was whipping the donkey so hard that its rear was swollen.
The villagers had all undergone training for forest fire prevention. Some were clearing a path in the woods, while others started carrying water in basins to the fire. I saw how long it would take to transport water back and forth—it would take at least two hours, and it was futile. I shouted, “Fellow villagers, don’t carry water! This little bit won’t put out the fire. Don’t make unnecessary sacrifices; let’s wait for the troops to arrive!”
They looked at me as if I were crazy. An older man said, “Young man, this water is for drinking. There’s no water to drink at the fire site, and people will quickly die of thirst. We need to create a firebreak so that when the fire reaches there, it will have nothing left to burn and will extinguish itself. If you don’t understand, don’t interfere.” He glanced at the bedpans in our hands and shook his head.
I felt my face turn red from their stares, thinking I had really embarrassed myself and wouldn’t dare to voice my opinions carelessly again. I hurriedly lowered my head and followed the main group into the woods. All the trees along the way had been cut down, making our progress much faster. About an hour later, we could feel the temperature rising significantly, and the sky ahead was filled with black smoke.
The villagers took out masks and dipped them in water before putting them on their faces. I looked at the chubby guy; he already had very little fabric left on his clothes. It seemed he had made up his mind, taking out a piece of gold-threaded cloth, soaking it in water, and tying it around his face. He picked up a shovel and began digging firebreak trenches like the other villagers.
The wildfire spreads extremely quickly and poses a great danger. Large-scale wildfires require the deployment of aircraft to control them. “Controlling” means allowing the fire to extinguish itself; it is impossible to douse it like a city fire. A tree takes over twenty years to grow, but a wildfire can burn everything down in just ten minutes, causing immense destruction. Moreover, the area affected by wildfires is very vast. If you only try to extinguish the fire at one point, it will quickly circle around to your back from the edges you can’t see. By the time you realize it, you might find yourself in the center of the fire zone, with no way out.
I remember a movie from the United States that tells the story of a group of firefighters surrounded by flames with no way to call for help, facing their last moments of life. Of course, such a situation is unlikely to happen to us; the fire area is not very large at the moment, and the firebreaks have been dug quickly.
We worked there until after two in the afternoon when a helicopter from the forest protection team appeared overhead. Soon after, many troops gathered in the woods to relieve us. I was particularly worried that someone might sacrifice themselves because of this fire, but fortunately, when the headcount was taken, only a few people had sustained minor injuries.
When we returned to the village, we were almost in shock from exhaustion. I was starving and asked a kid to get me two baked pancakes. I devoured them in two bites; I had never tasted anything so delicious, and I couldn’t help but shed tears. The village party secretary praised us, saying that it was truly rare to see such high awareness in people from the city.
I thought to myself, “Please don’t flatter me. If you keep praising me, I’ll feel guilty. You should know I’m the arsonist; you’ll have to strangle me for sure.”
The nurse changed the bandage for Panzi and cleaned his wounds. His breathing had noticeably eased, but he was still unconscious. The doctor reassured me that there was currently no danger, and if there were any injured, they would send Panzi to the major hospital in the city. Hearing this gave me a bit of peace of mind.
My uncle and I returned to the guesthouse and took a good shower. I hadn’t realized until I undressed that almost every part of my body was injured—either bruised or scraped. I hadn’t felt it while escaping, but now they were all reminding me. When I came out of the bathroom, I could barely move my legs.
I fell asleep as soon as I got back to bed. This sleep was incredibly refreshing; I slept all the way until noon the next day. When I woke up, I saw that Fatty and my uncle were still lying in their beds, snoring like thunder.
I went downstairs for breakfast and asked the waiter about the fire. It had been extinguished, and given its scale, it could only be considered a small wildfire. The military had already withdrawn. I felt a bit more at ease. I inquired with the people from the health station, and learned that Panzi had been taken to the Qianfoshan Hospital in Jinan. I expressed my gratitude and felt that I shouldn’t stay here any longer, so I prepared to head back.
Without further ado, a few days later, we returned to Jinan. My uncle and I first went to the hospital where Panzi was being treated to complete the admission procedures. He was still in danger and remained unconscious. My uncle and I decided to stay here for a few days. As soon as Fatty got out of the mountains, he hurriedly parted ways with us, leaving only a phone number for future contact. He handed over the gilded silk scroll to my uncle to handle. That day, I called the hospital, and Panzi still hadn’t woken up. I couldn’t help but sigh. At that moment, my uncle walked in with a gloomy face and scolded, “I’m so mad! I can’t believe someone pulled a fast one on us!”
I was greatly surprised, thinking he had been deceived in the antique market. I said, “Uncle San, with your experience, you still got cheated? This means that item was really well-made. You should have no problem selling it again.”
Uncle San took out the gilded silk and said to me, “Sell it? What nonsense! I’m not talking about antiques; I’m talking about this thing!”
I nearly fell off the bed, exclaiming, “What! That’s impossible!”
Uncle San replied, “It’s absolutely true. I had it tested, and the gold content is too high for that era. It’s an almost perfect counterfeit!”
I couldn’t believe it. Uncle San sighed, “I suspected it for a long time. That young man could clearly defeat the blood corpse, so why did he keep running away at first? Only at the end did he get rid of the blood corpse. He must have wanted to shake us off and do something on his own.”
I was astonished and said, “Could it be that during the time we got separated, he already went to that cave, opened King Lu’s coffin, and placed this fake gilded silk inside? How is that possible? How could one person do that? Besides, that tree hole was torn open by those chains; if someone had opened it, we would definitely see signs of it.”
Uncle San said, “Did you look at the back of that coffin? He’s a tomb raider; he likely dug a hole behind the tree and swapped the gilded silk from the back of the coffin!” After saying this, he sighed, “It’s a pity that with my decades of experience in the underworld, I didn’t see it. This person is truly unfathomable. I initially thought he was just a descendant of the tomb raider, but it seems his background is far more complicated than that.”
I was very confused and asked, “Are those things recorded above all fake?”
Uncle San nodded, angrily saying, “These stories, like those in the ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’, sound unbelievable. We were infected by the mysterious atmosphere of that ancient tomb and actually believed them. Looking back now, there are too many flaws, and think about it—given your level, why could you only understand the two most important sections? You couldn’t comprehend the others, which indicates he put special effort into those two.”
I gaped in shock, and Uncle San sighed heavily, “It seems the secret of the Royal Tomb of Lu is known only to him. Now that tomb has collapsed, and it’s impossible to go in and take a look.”
At that moment, I had a flash of inspiration and said, “Right, right! I almost forgot—it’s not completely hopeless. I brought something out from that cave!” I hurriedly rummaged through my backpack, praying I hadn’t lost it. Fortunately, the purple-gold box was still there. I took it out and said, “It’s this one; I got it off the fox’s corpse.”
Uncle San looked at it and said, “This is a maze box. The main space inside is used to hold a lock, so it can’t hold much. This box is hard to open. Look.” He twisted the lid of the box, and the four corners of the bottom unfolded, revealing a turntable with eight holes, each marked with a number, resembling an old-fashioned telephone dial. “This kind of box is the oldest type of password box. You need to know the password to open it. Wait a moment; go to that repair shop and borrow a gas cutter to see if we can cut it open.”
Uncle San rushed out in a hurry, and I didn’t even have time to call out. I thought to myself, could the eight-digit password be 02200059? How is that possible? That number is printed on a steel stamp on an American’s belt. As I contemplated this, I tentatively dialed it: 0-2-2-0-0-0-5-9. With a click, I was taken aback as the box emitted a sound similar to that of a winding mechanism, and the lid of the box automatically flipped open.
