The Lost Tomb : Ten Years Later

Chapter 5: Train

I followed Xiao Hua's eyes. We were on the mountainside, so we could see the other mountain opposite us. Since this used to be a forest farm, the trees around here had been cut down, and all of the remaining ones were young trees that hadn't been old enough. But the mountain wasn't very big, and there wasn't anything strange about it. Then, I saw the mountain that Xiao Hua was talking about.

When I looked at the mountain in front me, I saw that there was a bigger mountain behind it far in the distance. Even though it was hidden in the clouds, I could still see the snow on top of it.

The mountain looked far away from us, and that saying about the horse dying as it ran towards the mountain popped into my head. My visual observation showed that it was already far away, which meant the actual distance may be even more exaggerated. The shape of the mountain was like a seal, which was why it had captured Xiao Hua's attention.

"Is this mountain in the same direction as the mountain we're going to?"

If the mountain was near the Three Sacred Mountains or on the same mountain range, this shape may not be a coincidence.

Xiao Hua took a photo of the mountain with his phone and asked Miao Xuedong what mountain it was. Miao Xuedong shook his head: "Now young people are looking towards the outside world, who cares about the mountains at home? And there are so many mountains here, you'd have to ask the old hunters if you want to know. But we can't find them now."

What could ten years change? When we had first entered this place, we could still find the old hunters. Even if they were eighty-nine or ninety years old, we could often find some. Ten years later, however, I knew that there might not be any of the so-called old hunters left.

If we had time, we could take a week to look inside. The closer we got to the mountain, the clearer it should be.

The other side had been dug up, and the surface had been shoveled away. After digging for more than a meter, broken wood, rotten wood chips, and soil were all mixed together. Although the wood was rotten and tender, it was still very difficult to dig through, and we encountered hard parts from time to time.

Everyone was soon exhausted. We were already considered very physical city people, but pure physical labor was beyond our imagination.

As a result, we dug until it was dark out, and all we ended up with was a big hole that looked shabby.

Come to think of it, Qin Shihuang had to use seven hundred thousand people to dig a mausoleum.

I called another group of people to take over while the others set up a tent to sleep in and made a bonfire. Some of the others sifted the soil and wood with a sieve like they were panning for gold.

After digging about six meters down, there was no longer any wood below, so we started to dig sideways. At dawn, someone came to my sleeping bag and woke me up to show me what they had found.

It was another arrow. It was still wet, and must have just been sifted out. I went to look at it under the sky, and saw that it was exactly the same as the one in my grandfather's ashes.

The whole forest farm had been dug out of shape, and this arrow was found ten meters away from where we had first started digging. Many pine cones had been dug out at the same time, indicating that there were pine trees here.

"At least we know that wherever these arrows were shot into the tree trunks, there are a lot of pines. According to the number of pine trees in the original forest here, we can at least reduce the scope of our search by half. It'll only take two hundred years to find it." Fatty said: "This Fat Master will start practicing T'aichi every day from now on. I can help you deal with it for thirty years, and cheer for the rest of the time!"

I gave him a blank look and grabbed a handful of the sifted pine cones and small rocks. "If we know the logging route from those days, we can narrow it down." It really wasn't possible. I could only follow the original road, which I still vaguely remembered. But if that was the case, I'd have to set out now, because the landscape would change and become indistinguishable once it snowed.

"Railway." Xiao Hua suddenly said.

When we turned to look at him, he said, "All the forest farms' logging routes are along the railway. The railway soldiers set up tracks in front, and the construction corps behind them followed the logging. All the wood was transported by small trains."

The small trains here referred to the locomotives specially used for special transportation, which were much smaller than normal locomotives.

At Kan Jian's command, the guys tossed aside their tools and started looking for tracks in the grass.

They soon found the rusted tracks. The railway ties were still there, along with the crushed gravel underneath. The tracks were also covered in weeds, but they were a little sparse because of the gravel.

The tracks crossed the square and led to a dilapidated brick house that didn't have a roof. The other side of the tracks extended in the direction where Wang Meng had just run.

"What should we do?" Kan Jian asked me.

I gave a tsk and asked Xiao Hua, "You have deep pockets. Do you know where they sell trains?"