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墨書 Inktalez
The street shop needed renovations, so the construction team was called in. The deputy director, Mr. Qiao, politely asked me how to handle the items inside the shop. I glanced at him; my heart felt like a pile of garbage. What else could I do? Just throw it away.
With the shop temporarily closed, Huang Hai and I found ourselves with nothing to do. Huang Hai spent every day at the hospital taking care of Fatty. I didn’t have the energy to seek out Cao Mingzhe to clarify my confusion. The goods in the shop had been completely burned to ashes, and with three mouths to feed, I needed to figure out how to bring back some real merchandise.
After running around for a while, I managed to exchange some items, albeit with some embarrassment, and handed everything over to Huang Hai. We were just waiting for the shop to be cleaned up and reopened. Seeing some actual goods made Huang Hai's mood much better; he even cheerfully wrote a couplet to hang up when we reopened for good luck.
The couplet read:
The head shopkeeper, second shopkeeper, third shopkeeper
Three shopkeepers with one heart
Big Fatty, Second Fatty, Third Fatty
Three Fatty s sharing one bowl of porridge
The horizontal inscription was: The more it burns, the more prosperous it becomes.
No matter how I looked at this couplet, it felt awkward. Setting aside the order of the three shopkeepers, calling us three Fatty s was just ridiculous. Only Song Gang could be considered a Fatty; Huang Hai was even thinner than I was—he had a skinny frame that wouldn’t gain weight no matter how much he ate. And sharing one bowl of porridge? That clearly suggested begging.
But this couplet was Huang Hai’s labor of love; he wouldn’t let me change a single word. There was nothing I could do but decide not to reveal my thoughts when we opened again—I couldn’t afford to lose face.
Huang Hai's calligraphy was truly impressive; it was evident that he had put in a lot of effort. One should not judge a person by their appearance, and the same goes for their writing.
Inside the house, valuable items had accumulated. Huang Hai became quiet, not even stepping outside, guarding the place like a cat watching over its territory, wary of the workers renovating the shop.
As for me, I finally had time to confront Cao Mingzhe. My mind was in disarray as I tried to figure out how to interact with people in the Antique Circle. Previously, they had sought me out, but now I found myself in a position of needing to ask them for favors.
It was quite an uncomfortable feeling. I had to carefully consider who I could approach for help and who I absolutely could not. In short, it was exhausting.
Before meeting Cao Mingzhe, I needed to take a moment to calm down and clarify my thoughts about his role in this entire situation.
The yard was too chaotic; the renovation workers had piled cement, sand, and bricks everywhere. The noise was incessant throughout the day, making it impossible to concentrate. So, I stepped outside and walked along a secluded path. Taking this route to reach the hotel where Cao Mingzhe stayed would be a long detour, but I intended to sort out my thoughts along the way.
Cao Mingzhe felt increasingly mysterious to me. The first information I heard about him suggested that he was having mental issues, which even Xiao Ting confirmed. However, from my recent interactions with him, it seemed that his mind was quite clear. He could calculate several steps ahead of me and set traps that I couldn't escape.
What I could confirm was that he had entered the Hakka People's Underground Cavern and had ventured deep into the altar-like Eternal Gate alone. Everything else remained a mystery to me. I needed to create a list of questions to ask him all at once. Regardless of how he planned to manipulate me, I wasn't going to blindly follow him or trade my participation for vague information. This would be a transaction of sorts.
However, I couldn't just ask any questions blindly; they had to be ones he knew the answers to—questions that would prevent him from saying "I don't know." This meant I had to consider various factors carefully so that he couldn't evade my inquiries.
The first pressing question is how we emerged from underground. This departure from the Hakka People's Underground Cavern was as bizarre and incredible as my previous escape from Lop Nur. I believe it cannot be explained by either common sense or extraordinary reasoning.
However, Cao Mingzhe must know. When we appeared outside, he had already been waiting there for quite some time. I don't know in what state or posture we emerged, but he does. He should have seen it clearly. Moreover, my first sensation upon coming out was as if someone had struck me hard in the abdomen; if I'm not mistaken, that blow was meant to slow me down. Did I fall from above?
This is a question that Cao Mingzhe must explain to me clearly. It is also a question he cannot evade. He is not only a participant but also a witness.
The second question is how he knew about and found the Hakka People's Valley, and what kind of deal he made with them. These are two questions but can be posed together. He has no excuse to feign ignorance regarding either.
Another term that puzzled me was "Dequantize."
This term left me baffled. I need an explanation from Cao Mingzhe. Furthermore, this word seems closely related to the Awakened and the Awakener; it appears that only the Awakened and the Awakener need to undergo energy transformation to retain their awakening abilities.
This question can be raised alongside inquiries about what the Awakened and the Awakener truly are. I heard these terms from the Hakka People, so where did Cao Mingzhe learn them? It shouldn't have been from the Hakka Population; he purposefully sought out the Hakka People and made a deal with them to gain access to their Underground Cavern, which means he couldn't have acted without a clear objective.
He should have known his identity as an Awakened.
Actually, I wanted to discuss the experiences from our last trip to Lop Nur with Cao Mingzhe. We had been separated for a long time in the Underground Passage. When I, along with Liu Squad Leader and Zhao Squad Leader, arrived at the entrance of the Underground Passage as a cover team, he, Xiao Guolin, and Hu Aiguo had already rushed into the maze-like Underground Passage.
When we met again, they appeared deep within the massive Dam, almost on the brink of freezing to death. Hu Aiguo was discovered by us before he and Xiao Guolin.
How did they navigate through the maze-like Underground Passage without any light and make it to the massive Dam? I could understand that they got separated from Hu Aiguo; our group had nearly gotten lost several times as well. What I couldn't comprehend was how we all managed to exit this maze-like Underground Passage simultaneously.
Our group had been chased out by insects; what about Cao Mingzhe and Xiao Guolin? Given their condition at that time, it was impossible for them to have run that far on their own because Xiao Guolin's clothes were missing, and Cao Mingzhe was barely covered. Two people in such a state could not possibly reach the icy depths of the Dam.
What had they encountered during that time? How did they make it to the depths of the Dam? I never found the time to ask these questions; there was no opportunity in the Underground Passage, and afterward, I never saw those who had shared that adventure with me again.
Thinking about this made my heart even more troubled. Cao Mingzhe knew so much information; where did he get it from? It seemed that Cao Mingzhe was someone with many secrets.
It wasn't the weekend, and it was a harsh winter; I was the only one on the walkway. Despite the biting sea breeze tousling my hair and freezing my face like a hard apple, I was completely unaware of it, my thoughts entirely consumed by Cao Mingzhe and those questions. It wasn't until I heard someone calling my name that I realized I had walked all the way to the Molding Factory where my Sand Table Model was being made.
“Mr. Zhang, you are too honest. There's no need to come all the way here in this cold just to settle the bill. Just give me a call and I would have come over; you didn’t need to make this trip,” said a middle-aged man.
His surname was Song, and he was the owner of the Molding Factory.
I cursed myself silently as I looked at Boss Song.
Recently, after that fire incident, I noticed that even the owner of the restaurant in the next alley avoided me. The only people I knew were my creditors, and I had to borrow money just to eat. I never expected to find myself at the doorstep of my biggest creditor today. I still owed him over a hundred thousand for the last batch of models.
I walked up to him, my words coming out unclear, “Boss Song, I really have something to trouble you with today.”
This was a sign of my guilt. But to Boss Song, it seemed otherwise.
He looked touched and said, “What trouble? Look at you shivering; don’t stand in the wind. Come inside and talk.”
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