A Gui had been waiting for me at the door, squatting on the ground and smoking in frustration, clearly unaware of what Pan Ma and the others were up to. As soon as he saw me, he stood up, and I said to him, “Let’s go back.”

On the way, I asked him if he knew about the lake at Sheep Horn Mountain that Pan Ma mentioned. A Gui nodded and said he had heard of it before but had never been there himself. I told him I would pay a high price to help me find a hunter to take us there as soon as possible.

A Gui readily agreed and cautiously asked me what exactly Pan Ma had told me. However, he asked very carefully, and I thought to myself that telling him would only put him in danger, so I casually brushed it off.

We hurried back to A Gui’s house, eager to share my discovery with the silent oil bottle (Men Youping), only to find that there were only Yun Cai and her sister cooking at the stove; the fat guy and Men Youping were not home.

I thought it was strange and asked Yun Cai where they were. She said that the quiet boss had come back and, seeing that the fat guy hadn’t returned, asked her about it. When she told him that the fat guy hadn’t come back all night, he hurried off to look for him.

Initially, I was very excited, but my enthusiasm quickly faded. I thought to myself, “The fat guy hasn’t returned all night?” In the mountain village, there are no entertainment venues like in the city for him to indulge in. It was a bit unusual for him not to come back all night. I knew the fat guy’s character well, and recalling what he had mentioned about getting some sulfuric acid, I suddenly had a bad feeling.

I believed that Men Youping, like me, immediately thought of this possibility, which was why he went to look for him right away.

I quickly asked A Gui to take me to the village office; if the fat guy had encountered any trouble, he would definitely be there. Just a few steps out, we ran into the fat guy and Men Youping coming back. The fat guy had a bandage on his face and was cursing as he walked, looking like he had been injured.

Upon questioning, I found out that the fat guy had bought sulfuric acid and, on his way back, had spotted a hornet’s nest. He got curious and miscalculated his own abilities, resulting in being stung quite severely. He had spent the night at the village office getting saline treatment. The fat guy said that the hornets here were different from the ones he had encountered before; previously, the hornets only got aggressive after being provoked, but this time, as soon as he got close, they swarmed around him fiercely.

I told him not to look for objective reasons; he had to admit that he was getting old. “Old fat guy, don’t boast about your past bravery; you should do less of this kind of thing in the future to avoid being laughed at.”

After going back to the room to change the fat guy’s bandages, it was obviously extremely painful. If it weren’t for wanting to show his masculinity in front of Yun Cai, he would have surely cried out like a pig being slaughtered.

Yun Cai, on the other hand, was very calm, gently disinfecting his face. I noticed that several areas on his chin had swollen to the size of fingernails. Yun Cai used a bamboo stick to pierce the swollen areas before applying medicine, which was akin to carving flesh; no wonder it hurt him so much.

After finishing, the fat guy struggled to eat. Once he finally finished his meal, it was getting dark. We sat in the corridor extending from the high platform to cool off, and I recounted everything I had heard at Pan Ma’s house.

After listening, both of them frowned. The fat guy asked, “Is there really such a thing? Damn, this sounds like the ghost stories we used to scare girls with when we were kids. Can this really be true? What do you think your hypothesis is?”

“I believe that Pan Ma absolutely did not lie,” I replied. “This matter is definitely true, but his truth is not of the kind that we typically understand.”

“What’s your point?” the胖子 asked.

“Let’s consider the most reasonable possibility without thinking about things like magic lakes or monsters. What do you think is the most likely situation regarding this matter?”

The胖子 shook his head. “Cut the crap. My brain cells have all been stung to death by wasps. I won’t guess what you’re thinking; just say it directly.”

I gave a wry smile. It was hard to get a chance to express myself, but the胖子 wasn’t cooperating. I said, “Alright, let’s eliminate all the impossible factors. There are no magical lakes, no resurrected corpses, and no monsters. But the situation must be reasonable, and what Pan Ma said must hold true. Therefore, the only possibility here is quite obvious—people cannot come back to life. So, the archaeological team that went into the mountains and the one that came out must not be the same team.”

The胖子 paused and understood. “You mean to say that the dead didn’t come back to life, and the ones who walked out are a different group?”

“The people that Pan Ma and his team killed are indeed dead. Pan Ma doesn’t know that team. If there was another team that disguised themselves, I don’t think it would require too advanced a disguise to fool Pan Ma.”

“But why would they do that? Isn’t that just playing with him?”

“I’m merely speculating. Based on the situation of that team and Pan Ma’s situation, I feel there might be some discrepancies. Let’s assume this is a long-planned conspiracy. It’s possible that on the day Pan Ma killed the archaeological team, that team was already set to be wiped out. However, the plan might have gone awry. Perhaps the assassins sent to kill the archaeological team encountered some unexpected event in the forest and didn’t arrive, resulting in Pan Ma completing the task instead. Afterward, a replacement team came here, thinking the assassins had completed their mission, and thus began their disguise as planned. This could explain why Pan Ma ended up talking about a magic lake.” I continued, “This is a reasonable conjecture. The facts may not be like this at all, but it shows that there’s a possibility this situation could arise.”

“Hey, this sounds somewhat plausible, but I feel like I’ve heard a plot like this somewhere before,” the胖子 said. “Do you have any evidence?”

“Just a few details. For example, the archaeological team was led in by Pan Ma, but when they came out, they didn’t wait for Pan Ma to lead them out; they set off on their own. This suggests that the following team was familiar with the terrain here and had the ability to leave. What happened afterward might have been because the archaeological team discovered some clues and were killed by Pang Ergui and his crew.” I said, “I don’t know if this archaeological team is the same one that went to Xisha, but I feel that even if it’s not the entire team, definitely a few of them are. If that’s the case, do you think someone might have switched teams to join this archaeological team going to Xisha?”

The胖子 said, “Damn it, but how do you prove that?”

“The most direct method is that we should go check the lake at Yangjiao Mountain. The lake has shrunk now, so I think we could dive down and see what’s underneath, whether there are any corpses that were thrown into the lake back then.”

“Damn, that sounds a bit difficult. It’s been nearly forty years; any corpses would have long since decayed.”

“Surely the bones are still there,” I said. “Panma and the others don’t have a boat, so the place where they disposed of the body must be by the lake. I think we can try our luck.”