The fat man was carrying the lama while I led the way through the pitch-black corridor. I had no idea how many courtyards we passed before arriving at the one with the statue of a young man. Strangely, the entire temple was exceptionally quiet along the way, with no sign of human presence at all. Could it be that the various crises earlier had made everyone sleep particularly soundly?

When the fat man saw the statue, he was startled and almost kicked it. I grabbed him and randomly chose a room in the courtyard, kicking the door open. We laid the lama down on the ground and used our phones to illuminate him, only to find that he had nothing on him.

“What a broke loser,” the fat man cursed.

“You can’t act like you’re touching a corpse every time you do something,” I lectured him. “You’ve gotten rich more than once, so why do you always behave like a petty thief?”

“This is called humility, do you understand? Besides, considering how dark you are, he might already be dead, and there’s not much difference from a corpse.”

I felt a jolt in my heart and thought to myself, please no, I don’t want to owe a debt of life. The fat man continued, “This guy’s facial structure looks like a Han person. Could it be that your uncle’s enemy has been following you all along?”

“Your enemy is the one who has the guts to chase you to the foot of the Himalayas,” I replied. I had some difficulty distinguishing ethnicities, except for some particularly distinctive Kham people.

The fat man tied up the lama and checked his pulse, saying, “Looks like it’ll take some time for this guy to wake up. I’ll go check on the Zhang family and the Germans. You keep an eye on him.”

As he said this and started to leave, I grabbed him. He asked what I was doing, and I said, “I used to often take on the role of guarding prisoners, but something went wrong every time. I’m not doing that anymore. You watch him; I know this temple much better than you do. If you go out, you might end up wandering around until dawn.”

After a moment of thought, the fat man agreed and said, “Just be careful, don’t do anything stupid.”

I thought to myself: Don’t worry, I’m not the old me anymore. I nodded and left the room.

As I stealthily moved along, I let out a sigh of relief and suddenly felt quite impressive. Now I could leave the fat man to guard the old camp. In a daze, countless memories of my previous days guarding camps flooded back, filled with monotony, boredom, and anxiety, all mixed with a sense of helplessness and feeling like a failure.

Wu Xie, oh Wu Xie, you’re finally not a laborer anymore; you can now be a combatant.

I arrived at a place where the lamas were more active and became cautious, moving along the shadows of various buildings, inching closer like a ninja, and sneaking back to the place where the Zhang family had interrogated me before.

When I got there, I was taken aback. The brightly lit area was now completely dark, with not a single light remaining, only the pale moonlight casting a few mottled shadows.

What the heck? I wondered in confusion. How could it be so clean? Had everyone gone back to sleep? These people must be pretty relaxed. Or could it be that those just now were all ghosts, putting on a ghost show? But these ghosts are pretty boring; why would they come to the foot of the Himalayas to mess with me?

After hesitating outside the yard for a while, I felt I had to go in and take a look; otherwise, I would be at a loss for words facing the fat guy. So I went back. When the fat guy asked me what happened, I told him, “Ah, it’s nothing, they all left. Let’s go.” The fat guy almost spat blood.

I carefully crawled into the yard, fortunately, the snow had all been swept aside. I reached the door and saw it was open, and all the charcoal stoves inside were extinguished.

I went in and touched the stoves, finding they still had some warmth. I grabbed a handful of charcoal and discovered it had been extinguished with butter tea. What on earth had happened? Did the Zhang family suddenly turn against the Germans after we left? Given the Zhang family’s skills, the odds of a comeback were quite high, but there was no reason for them to leave! Moreover, we hadn’t heard any gunshots at all. Logically speaking, if the Zhang family suddenly extinguished all the lights and launched a counterattack, I could believe they had that kind of tacit understanding, but there was absolutely no need to extinguish the charcoal stoves.

Could it be that the Germans had attacked? If the Germans wanted to kill the Zhang family, they actually had a very good opportunity; they could gather in secret. Even if they couldn’t kill everyone, they could take out a large portion, and then the people around could use rapid-fire weapons to eliminate the rest. If that were the case, the scene in this room might be entirely different; perhaps all the Zhang family members had been shot in the head and died inside.

But there was no smell of blood in the air; I couldn’t smell it at all. I lit the oil lamps one by one to illuminate the room again. There was no one, no traces of bullets, and no blood.

Had they really left? I thought, those damn bastards are really lacking in loyalty. Just then, a particularly familiar feeling washed over me.

Damn, could this be a case of collective disappearance? Sure enough, little brother, your bad habits aren’t your fault; it’s a hereditary condition. The problem is, could you not disappear so neatly next time? It’s really quite frightening.

Thinking this, I ran out of the house, suddenly realizing that on my way here, I hadn’t seen anyone at all; the entire temple felt as if it were dead.