The Lost Tomb : Ten Years Later

Chapter 30: Ten Years

In the past ten years, I had had many dreams. I dreamed of him as a young man whom I had met when I was young. I dreamed of the white bones in front of the bronze door. I dreamed that when I saw him again, he had become something like Chen Pi Ah Si. There were so many possibilities that I had imagined and accepted over these ten years. I also dreamed that Uncle Three tied me to a tree when I was young, and left me all alone there by myself.

Before everything started, my Uncle Three was the one that had left the biggest impression on me. When I was old enough to sit at the dining table—my table was in front of the window, outside of which was a bridge. There was a cotton fluffer [1] on the other side of the bridge whose children always snuck to my window, broke the screen, and stole my little toys from the table— my parents always talked about how much trouble Uncle Three caused. He liked to mess around, and whenever he visited my parents, if the rest of the family was cooking, he never helped with the housework. Instead, he would lift me on top of his head and take me out to catch crickets.

I had a very analytical mind, so once I recalled these things— especially over the past ten years—I could see many things that I couldn't see before. I liked catching grasshoppers, because you got to look at them quietly after you successfully caught them. They weren't as noisy or competitive as crickets, either. But Uncle Three liked the process of fighting for something, so his purpose for catching crickets had always been clear.

For me, catching grasshoppers was within my power, while catching crickets meant we had to go to dirty places and turn over bricks. I also thought crickets looked terrible and were dangerous, so I followed Uncle Three and watched him turn over stones, trample on oil gourds, and pounce on those crickets in the wet mud and dead leaves. Maybe my habit of following Uncle Three to spy on his world stemmed from my childhood.

As I sat in the dark, many things flashed through my mind— Grandpa's notes, Changsha Dart Summit, and those from Grandpa's generation. For those like Grandpa who only wanted a full meal and a warm bed, they had to try their best to achieve those things. In addition, their love almost always happened in an instant. They could see someone from afar with once glance, and that would be the moment they fell in love.

At that time, people used simple means for simple purposes, but made cruel choices that were unimaginable in this era. That was why Grandpa didn't trust people and liked dogs so much.

Over the past ten years, I had become more and more aware of Grandpa and even Poker-Face's indifference to the world. What was a person? Everyone in this world had their own complete set of problems to be solved, with their own complications, so if you connected with any one of them, you would be connecting with all their problems that needed to be solved.

During these past ten years, I had become more and more aware of the best thing I could give. If it wasn't an element that could solve the other party's problem, then you would be stunned by their determination to turn around and point the gun at you.

Most people in the world didn't know what they needed; they only knew what others had, and decided they couldn't live without it.

That was why most people's hearts were incomprehensible. No matter how much you took out, the huge spider-like web of desire between people wouldn't diminish.

If I were Poker-Face and had experienced this kind of heartache again and again, I would rather be alone in the world. Few people could remain innocent and guiltless after experiencing this kind of ostentatiousness, so those who were born pure could only live in endless loneliness.

I looked up at the continuously changing stars around me. They turned into jumping crickets and other scenes from the past ten years, which were full of sad and incomprehensible things that people had done.

A light in the distance slowly appeared. It seemed to be from an oil lamp, because unlike these stars, it was a distant dot of light that almost looked like a ghost fire.

My heart was weighing heavy in my thoughts just now, and for a moment, I couldn't tell whether it was reality or illusion.

The light drew closer and closer, and I slowly woke up and started to panic as I listened to the sound of footsteps coming from a distance.

If Fatty and Xiao Hua had followed the original plan, then they shouldn't be appearing here yet. This was the bottom of Changbai Mountain, so how could anyone be walking around with a lamp?

Was Little Brother tired of staying in the door and came out for a walk?

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Note:

[1] A traditional Chinese handicraft. The purpose is to make cotton softer and suitable for use.