adminI felt a bit guilty, but I immediately understood that Men Youping was right. I am not a person of strong will, and in this state of fatigue and not fully recovered, I couldn’t keep watch properly. A careless mistake could put everyone in danger. At that moment, having Men Youping keep watch all night was really a necessity dictated by the circumstances.
Fatty didn’t oppose this either; he simply said, “I think one person isn’t enough. Little Brother, you can’t guard such a large area alone. I’ll keep you company for half the night. If we get through tonight, we can find another place to rest well tomorrow.”
Men Youping thought for a moment but didn’t show any reaction. Fatty added, “It’s settled then.”
I was wondering if I should stay awake too, but then I thought, Men Youping would definitely need to rest tomorrow, and I could take over for him after I rested. This thought made me feel a bit better.
Fatty stretched and said, “Well, that’s basically settled. Let’s not dwell on it. Let’s think about what to do tomorrow. Little Brother, you just said you have a way to find the entrance. What’s that about?”
Men Youping looked at him and said, “That method is very unlikely to succeed. It’s better not to mention it.”
Fatty immediately said, “No, please, don’t! You have to tell us. I really don’t want to go back empty-handed.”
Men Youping was silent for a moment, then looked at us and said, “We need to capture Wen Jin.”
Both Fatty and I were taken aback, and I couldn’t help but smile wryly while shaking my head. Indeed, this method was very unlikely to succeed. Getting to this camp had already been quite difficult, and now we had a massive target with signal flares. Wen Jin was just one person, and she could run away. Searching for one person in such a vast forest was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Fatty, who had initially been full of hope, now slumped in disappointment and said, “You might as well say we should catch her uncle; the difficulty is almost the same. Besides, Wen Jin might not even know about that entrance. Didn’t the notebook that Xiao Wu found say she didn’t enter here and just went back?”
Men Youping tossed a few sticks into the campfire and said, “No, she must know.”
“Why?”
“My intuition.”
Fatty looked at me and shrugged, feeling stuck. He sighed, “Intuition? My intuition tells me this time we’re definitely going back empty-handed.” He took a sip of water, looking frustrated.
Everyone fell silent, and I leaned against the wall and thought about it. I felt that Men Youping’s reasoning was still somewhat valid.
Based on the sequence of events, everything stemmed from those videotapes. Both Qiu Dekao and I received the tapes, and through different means, we learned about Wen Jin’s expedition several years ago, which led to this current expedition. Therefore, Wen Jin’s purpose in sending out the videotapes must have been to lure us to this cursed place.
My third uncle’s goal for this trip was to follow Qiu Dekao’s team and figure out what they were really pursuing and what their true purpose was in their activities over the years in China. However, Qiu Dekao’s team collapsed before they even entered the Devil’s City, making the pursuit meaningless. Given my third uncle’s character, after meeting up with the Black Bear, he would have subjected the remaining Qiu Dekao members to severe interrogation to uncover the purpose of Qiu Dekao’s expedition.
So the information that Uncle San might have is probably limited. In this case, it seems that Wen Jin, who sent out the videotape, must be the person who knows the most. There’s no reason for Uncle San to have clues that Wen Jin wouldn’t know.
Thinking about those tapes made me feel a bit uncomfortable. What exactly is the deal with that face that looks exactly like mine? If we really catch Wen Jin, I must ask her clearly. But now is not the time to consider these things. I said to the Fatty, “In any case, the probability that Wen Jin knows something is much greater than that she doesn’t. I think we shouldn’t be considering these things when we are already at a dead end. The most difficult part should be catching Wen Jin.”
The Fatty lit a cigarette, took a puff, and said, “This isn’t difficult; it’s impossible. She’ll run away when she sees us. Even if she has a GPS on her, in such a large area, we might not be able to catch her.”
“Maybe we can set a trap to lure her over,” I said.
“How do you plan to lure her? With sexual temptation?” The Fatty curiously asked, “Are the three of us going to dance striptease while wandering in the woods?”
I sighed; it really is a mess. If she is heading towards us, then if we shout or use firelight as a signal, there will be times when we get a response. By adjusting our directions, we might run into each other. But the problem is, why did she run away when she saw us?
I felt frustrated and said, “Why do you think she ran when she saw us at the canyon entrance? Wasn’t it her who sent the message through Tuo Ding Zhuo Ma to us? She showed up there at that time, waiting for us. Why didn’t she meet up with us? Could it be that she really lost her mind?”
The Silent Oil Bottle slowly shook his head, saying that the judgment of her losing her mind was made when we saw her covered in mud. Now that we know there’s a reason for her being covered in mud, it’s clear that Wen Jin was extremely calm when she saw us. Her running away was a result of her judgment based on the situation.
The Fatty was confused. “So you’re saying she ran away for a reason? We wouldn’t harm her; why would she run?”
“Calm… running away…” I understood his meaning, and my spine went cold.
What was Wen Jin afraid of? In her notes and messages, she repeatedly mentioned that she was avoiding something, which she referred to as “it.” Moreover, she told us that “it” was among us when we entered the Qaidam Basin. So, there’s only one plausible explanation. I clicked my tongue and said, “Could it be that Wen Jin ran away because she saw that ‘it’ among us?”
The Silent Oil Bottle nodded, “It’s probably just that.”
I looked at the Fatty, then at Panzi in the tent, and then back at the Silent Oil Bottle, thinking to myself, no way.
“At that time, there were four of us present: Xiao Ge, Xiao Wu, me, and Da Pan. So you’re saying one of us scared her away?” The Fatty looked at us. “Is one of us a bad guy?”
The Silent Oil Bottle and I remained silent, and the Fatty immediately raised his hand, saying, “I, Fatty, am a good person. It’s definitely not me; I’m not interested in your little girl at all.”
“This is just a thought; maybe it’s not like that,” I felt uncomfortable with such statements. Everyone here has been through life and death; I’d rather believe that Wen Jin ran away because she went mad.
“The key question is, what exactly is that ‘it’?” the fat man said. “Hey, bro, don’t you know either?”
The muffled oil bottle glanced at him and shook his head.
“Could someone have disguised themselves as one of us? Maybe one of us is an impersonator?” the fat man asked, pulling at his own skin to prove his innocence. “Look, my face is the original!”
“I thought of that. While you were sleeping earlier, I checked you and Panzi,” the muffled oil bottle said. “There’s no problem.”
I remembered seeing him squatting next to Panzi; it turned out he was checking this. He must have thought of this long ago but hadn’t mentioned it. This person is indeed quite scheming.
The fat man then turned to me, “What about Xiao Wu?”
I immediately pulled my face. “Don’t worry, it’s definitely the original.”
“Hard to say; you joined us halfway, so you might be the impersonator. Come on, let me check you,” the fat man said, reaching out and giving my face a hard tug. The pain made me tear up, and only then did he let go, saying, “You pass.”
“So, it shouldn’t be a problem in that regard,” the muffled oil bottle pointed to the notebook of Wen Jin in my pocket and asked, “Is there any relevant record in there?”
I took it out and shook my head. “What I can confirm is that in Wen Jin’s description, this ‘it’ is tracking them; it should have intelligence. Moreover, I feel it must be a person, but I don’t know why it’s referred to as ‘it’.”
The fat man stood up, took a few sips of water, and handed the water bottle to the muffled oil bottle, saying, “Speaking of which, isn’t it your third uncle who’s tracking them? Could that ‘it’ be your third uncle? In the dark, Wen Jin might have mistaken him; after all, you do resemble your third uncle a bit.”
I thought to myself, I’m way more handsome. Just then, the muffled oil bottle took the fat man’s water bottle and was about to speak when the fat man suddenly reached out to pinch the muffled oil bottle’s face and gave it a hard tug.
