The Lost Tomb Vol. 8

Chapter 78: Sacred Snowy Mountain

Poker-Face stood on the snow-capped mountains with a solemn expression. I didn't know what kind of emotion this was, but I knew that these snow-capped mountains held special meaning for him.

I imagined his heart couldn't be blank at this time, as everything here must've had a certain origin with him, but I didn't even have any sort of direction to speculate.

Poker-Face stood like this for a long time.

That night we didn't move on, but dug a nest in the snow, covered it with a tarp, lit a smokeless stove, and passed the night.

The next day, we set off again with our equipment and continued our journey into the mountains.

Along the way, I kept talking about the beauty of the world, telling him of all the places he had never been to, and the delicious food there. He never spoke or showed any signs of boredom.

In reality, I didn't know what he was interested in and so I searched all my experiences with him and looked for something he seemed to like. For example, he always looked out the window so I thought he might have a special preference for traveling.

At the beginning, the intensity of my persuasion was quite high, but in the end, the road became more and more difficult to walk, and my physical exertion became greater, so I could only keep silent. After walking for several days in a row, we reached the snow-covered crest of the mountains, and there wasn't a bare surface in sight. As I stood on the high ground and looked behind me, I noticed that none of the villages could be seen.

At first glance, I could see the Changbai Mountains stretch as far as the eye could see, with thousands of peaks and valleys, many of which were inaccessible. I had been unable to judge whether our route this time was the same as the last time we entered the mountain.

I remembered when Shunzi brought us here he told me the names of some peaks, including the Three Sacred Mountains and the Yaozi Mountain. At that time, the appearance of those peaks seemed different from what I was seeing now and I remembered Pan Zi had told all kinds of jokes. But now, the mountains and the people were different.

We put up a tent on the third night. It was very close to the line I had set for our separation, and I estimated that it was only a day away.

We found a dry place and lit a fire. While sitting in front of it, Poker-face looked at me silently for the first time.

I also stared at him for a long time, and since he kept looking at me like this, I began to wonder whether the focus of his eyes was actually on me. When I found that he was really looking at me, however, I felt very strange. "Is something wrong with me? Is there a monster behind me?" I asked him several times, but he didn't respond. I knew he wasn't very normal at ordinary times, but I certainly couldn't— and didn't need to— understand this situation now. But after a while, he suddenly asked me for a cigarette.

I handed it to him, thinking that he would chew on it like before, but I didn't think he would put it in the fire and light it. Then he really started smoking.

"Wow, he really knows how to smoke." I said to myself in horror.

In the light of the fire, he suddenly asked, "How long are you going to follow?"

I couldn't help but be shocked and said, "It has nothing to do with you, it's my own business."

He replied: "If you continue to follow me, I'll knock you out tomorrow."

I looked at his expression and knew that he was definitely not joking. I felt overwhelmed and stammered, "You... what do you want to do? Don't mess around."