Chapter Seven: Jiangnan

On second thought, that made sense. If this happened a few more times, Fatty could switch careers and become a firefighter. Still, I could more or less understand Professor Chen’s state of mind. Carried away for a moment, I said at once, “Don’t worry, Professor Chen. We’ll help you find those three people. Alive, we must see the people; dead, we must see the bodies.”

Professor Chen immediately turned to look at me, his eyes shining with tears of gratitude.

Of course, my words were mostly useless. Fatty was the practical one. “Professor Chen, so what you mean is, only the three of us are going in this time?”

“Oh, no, no, no. Among my other students there are several volunteers as well. With you included, there will be eight people altogether. It’s just that, ah, when the time comes, I’ll need the two of you to lead the way.”

“Well, naturally. Otherwise what did you bring us here for?” Fatty said. “So when do we leave?”

“The sooner the better, of course. I think you should rest here tonight and build up your strength. Early tomorrow morning, I’ll come pick you up. Once we get there, there’ll be no need to delay. We’ll go straight in. Ah... only...”

Scholars all seemed to be like this, always speaking in fits and starts. “Whatever it is, just say it,” Fatty said.

“Among my five students, one is a girl. Heh, I thought I should mention it in advance, so you won’t be too surprised when the time comes.”

“What, there’s a woman too?” Fatty was instantly displeased. “Professor Chen, well... tsk, it’s not that I look down on women, but if you let a girl go in there, aren’t you worried?”

Fatty had surely already calculated how many people he could bring into an ancient tomb. Six or seven would be manageable for him, but now that there was suddenly a woman added to the number, he clearly saw her as baggage.

But Professor Chen merely smiled. “That won’t be much of a problem, because this student of mine has a very special background. In fact, she’s the one I’m most at ease about.”

Fatty’s expression changed. After a moment’s thought, he said, “Professor Chen, we’ve known each other longer than a day or two. You know what sort of work I do. That girl you mentioned—could it be that she also...?”

Professor Chen smiled faintly and waved a hand. “What she does has a bit of a connection to your trade, but the two of you cannot really be called people of the same path.”

That answer was so mysterious it made even me curious about the girl.

“In any case, the discovery of this ancient tomb, as well as its initial location, was basically all accomplished by that student of mine,” Professor Chen said.

The moment Fatty heard this, the puzzlement vanished from his face. “Oh—now I understand. Hmph. Since everything’s ready, then we’ll just wait here for you tomorrow.”

After a brief farewell, Professor Chen left the room. The moment I turned back, I saw Fatty glaring darkly at his retreating back.

“What is it?” I asked at once.

“Damn it, looks like the old fox has been holding something back,” Fatty said, taking a savage drag on his cigarette.

I thought for a moment and said, “You mean that girl?”

Fatty nodded. “That woman’s definitely an expert in geomancy and numerology. People like that are valuable talents, whether in archaeology or in our grave-robbing line of work. She’s bound to have some kind of background. Professor Chen brought us in—he may be planning to use us as cannon fodder, the bastard.”

Hearing Fatty suddenly blurt out a Sichuan curse, I could not help laughing. “If that’s the case, we can just leave.”

“Leave? Bah!” Fatty said. “I want to see what tricks that woman has. Damn it, if she dares scheme against your Fatty here, then if I don’t walk off with a couple of funerary artifacts, I’ll have let down the great masses of tomb raiders everywhere.”

He had probably assumed before this that he was the most important figure on the team, the one who could control the whole situation. But now he knew there was an even more formidable expert in geomancy among them, and a woman at that, so naturally his confidence had taken a blow. The grave robber’s true nature showed itself at once. Then again, it was equally possible that Fatty had already been planning to slip a few objects out anyway, and was only using this as an excuse.

I felt nothing much about any of that. What I wanted to know now was why Peanut would be among those people.

Afterward, Fatty took me out to eat the local specialty, brocade shredded fish. The two of us ate, drank, and chatted from four in the afternoon all the way until seven in the evening.

Having learned my lesson from last time, I went to bed very early that night. At six the next morning, Professor Chen came to pick us up. We were riding in a pickup truck, and the driver was also one of the eight people going into the tomb this time. His name was Yang Lang, a fourth-year college student, though he was tall, powerfully built, and looked extremely capable.

Once we got in, Fatty started chatting with Professor Chen, while I stared out the window, a little lost in thought.

The moment we left Lishui City behind, I realized at once that the scenery here was astonishingly beautiful. I had traveled in Zhejiang before, and to be honest, I had been deeply disappointed. In my imagination, Zhejiang ought to have been all the charm of the south of the riverlands. But when I got there, although West Lake still had its graceful waters, it always felt as though it lacked that poetic, painterly mood; there were too many traces of human contrivance. After visiting quite a few places, I had the feeling it was little different from wandering through any ordinary park.

But the scenery before me now was entirely different.

Once we left the main road, the truck rolled onto a country lane. Before my eyes lay fields green and gold, with low hills scattered among the farmland like gleaming jewels strewn across the earth. Bustling villages, cooking smoke drifting in the distance, farmers already up at dawn... for a moment, I felt as though I had come to another time and space. Perhaps this landscape could not rival the legendary beauty of Suzhou and Hangzhou, yet it let one feel true tranquility, true beauty.

Especially after we entered Yunhe County, that dreamlike southern scenery spread fully before my eyes. The swift waters of the Ou River grew gentle and calm here. It was still early, and a faint mist rose from the river’s surface, veiling the layered mountains on either side, like a tender and deeply feeling woman of the south smiling beneath the morning sun. Fishermen swayed their oars as they sang soft local tunes; along the river stood a row of white walls and black tiles; children splashing in the water waved and shouted to us... all at once, I wanted to get out of the truck and stay there a little longer.

“This is the last Jiangnan,” Professor Chen said suddenly with a sigh.

“Hm?” I turned to look at him.

Professor Chen lit a cigarette and gazed at the beautiful view outside the window. “The country has developed too fast. So many things we saw in our childhood are already gone. I still remember when my father first took me to Zhejiang—ah, how beautiful it was then... Now the economy in the southeast is too prosperous. What you see more often are rows and rows of buildings. West Lake is no longer West Lake, and Hangzhou is no longer that Hangzhou. This part of southwestern Zhejiang, for certain reasons, has developed much more slowly than the coastal areas, and that is why these landscapes have been preserved. Around Yunhe County there are nearly a hundred ancient villages. The people there have gone on guarding this land, and now tourism brings them a decent living too. Ah... I just don’t know how much longer they can keep guarding it.”

I understood what Professor Chen meant. Economic development is not a mistake. But in another hundred years—no, in another thirty or fifty—when people of that time look back on all that has vanished from this yellow earth, will they feel the same sorrow and regret that Professor Chen does now?