The-Grave-Robbers-Chronicles-Volume-6-Final
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Grave Robbers’ Chronicles Vol. 6: Yinshan Gu Lou Written By: Xu Lei Translated by: MereBear 2 Summary: In order to help Poker-Face regain his memory, Wu Xie and Fatty travel with him to the hinterland of Shiwandashan in Banai, Guangxi to re-enter the dangerous situation, and collect the remaining clues about the Xisha incident. Members of the archaeological team back from the dead, iron blocks full of strange smells, strangers who died suddenly…. With Father Pan Ma’s story, everything is even more complicated and confusing. And the nightmare is just beginning. They enter the magic lake, discover the ancient Yao village located hundreds of meters underwater, find the hidden Han-style compound hidden within, and discover something more frightening than an ancient tomb! The scary events are much more than that: the burial of an iron man, the statue that resembles the Thunder God, the shadow in the stone, human sacrifice… On the brink of death, the intention of “it” is so elusive… What kind of great conspiracy is hidden in this flooded thousand-year-old Yao village? With the echo of the Qilin tattoo and the ancient village, Poker-Face’s life experience has become clearer than ever before… 3 Chapter 1: Discussion Two weeks later, Poker-Face was discharged from the hospital. I went to Beijing to meet him and Fatty and discuss what happened next. The most difficult thing for me after I came back was how to deal with the mess left by my uncle. The events of the past year, although intense, were all done in secret. My family had no idea of the drastic changes that took place on my side, and my uncle was really missing and might never appear. It was one thing to try to explain the events from this side, but on the other side was Poker-face. He had now become a dead weight, and as his memory recovered, I had to face the problem of getting to know him again. He had no relatives, left no trace in this world, and didn’t know where he lived. He asked a lot of people, but hadn’t heard anything back. As he had said before, he had almost no connections with this world. All his equipment was left in the basin, he had no money or documents, and at this time, he was left alone. I was afraid he had no other choice but to go to the side of the road to be a tramp. Fatty had done quite well and opened a shop in Liulichang. We decided to meet there since we hadn’t seen each other for several months. Poker-Face had regained his former complexion, and apart from the furrow between his eyebrows, the other things gave me a familiar feeling that made me feel relieved. When I saw him, he was leaning against the window and didn’t look at me. His eyes were like a mirror, paler than before, as if his mind had already ceased to exist in this world. I said some conventional remarks at first, but he didn’t respond, so I asked Fatty how he was and what the doctor had said. 4 Fatty shook his head: “Don’t worry about it. They said he recalled some fragments. The doctor said he had been under a lot of stress, so he needs to be mentally stimulated to get better, otherwise it would be useless to stew pig’s brain every day.” I sighed, not knowing what had happened in the meteorite at the last minute to make him like this. “Do you have any plans?” Fatty asked me after discussing the boring stuff. “I only have little more than forty square meters here, so it’s really cramped. If you want him to live here, I won’t even be able to find a lover. When people see me hiding such a pretty face, they’ll think I’m a pimp.” “You really have no conscience. He’s saved our lives on more than one occasion. What are you worried about?” I retorted angrily. “He’s not living at your place, so of course it doesn’t hurt for you to stand there and talk. You want me to pay to find a house for Little Brother(1)? Say the word. He wants to live in a courtyard? I’ll take him down. But he can’t live with me; it has nothing to do with whether he saved my life or not.” Fatty said. “How about this, I’ll pay the rent and you pay for a babysitter. Let’s settle him in the neighborhood and give him some good food and drink. We’ll visit him on the weekends.” “You son of a bitch. You’re acting like a sugar daddy.” I said, “He’s not a fool. You have to ask him what he thinks.” (1)Characters are 小哥 (pinyin: Xiaoge), which can be literally translated into “little older brother.” Reader ziye00 said it’s actually used to address a young man informally when you don’t know his name. There’s probably not an equivalent word in English, but my lazy ass isn’t searching through almost 500 posts to fix it, so “Little Brother” it is lol. It’s also why you’ll see a lot of fans refer to Poker-Face as “Xiaoge”. 5 So Fatty looked at the Poker-Face and said, “Little Brother, what do you say? What are your plans for the future?” Poker-Face closed its eyes and seemed to be thinking. It took a long time before he finally said, “I want to go somewhere.” I asked, “Go for a walk? Where to? Do you have a destination?” “I don’t know,” he said calmly,” I’ll go to the places you’re talking about– Changsha, Hangzhou, Shandong– and see if I can remember anything.” My heart thumped, as this was the last thing I wanted to hear–he originally wanted to remember something, but now his mind was blank, and his past was a huge mystery. But the bigger the mystery, the more it eats at you, and if his memory started to recover during his travels, then the emotional fragments that would emerge in his mind would be extremely tempting. A little hint would reveal all kinds of threads, which would make him miserable in the end. I understood that for those who lost their memories, their whole purpose in life was to find their past. There was no way to avoid it, but I really didn’t want him to take that old road again. Seeing my face change, Fatty knew there was a knot in my heart, so he patted me and said: “We agreed to let nature take its course. It’s unrealistic for you to keep him here.” I sighed. If that was the case, then the only thing I could do was think about these things with him and look after him. After all, we had been through so much, so there were many things we could do to prevent him from going to any extremes. I also thought over his idea. I had planned to take him to some people in Changsha, but now that the situation over there was chaotic, I didn’t know who to look for. At that moment, I suddenly thought of something and asked Fatty, “Didn’t you say last time that you had a way to learn about Little Brother’s background? Why didn’t you check with them?” 6 “Don’t mention it, it makes me sick.” Fatty said, “I had planned at that time to find those information brokers to ask. They have a lot of information, so I figured that since Little Brother could be contacted by your uncle, he must have left some information with them and we could find out this way.” I listened, thinking that this was a viable way, so how was it disgusting? Fatty continued, “I didn’t think that all these people would shake their heads and go quiet. They’re in the procuring business, but at this time, they pretend to be saints and gentlemen.” I snorted, thinking that it was obvious. There were rules in this business, so you couldn’t blame them. They probably counted on that information to eat, but once it was revealed, they may not only be unable to put food on the table, but may even be killed. “These people are extremely tough, so this was also a dead end.” Fatty said. “How about you?” I sighed and told him that if my uncle were here, I might be able to find something out. But the people I was in contact with weren’t qualified enough. Those old vultures were eccentric by nature and were now watching the situation on my side. If I wanted to get especially close to them, and not give them any food… it wasn’t something people like me could do. “Let’s not think about it, and just do as Little Brother said. We’ll sign him up for a tour group, prepare some money, and let him go out for a walk,” Fatty said. “Why don’t we just ask for a marriage for him, and give him to a rich woman? With his good looks, I think we could still make some money. Later, he could look into the past on his own. What do you think?” This is bullshit, I said to myself, as I shook my head and didn’t say a word.