“Why?” I was slightly surprised. He said: “If he wanted to test you, he didn't need to use such complicated equipment at all. He just needed to send a message to your cell to see if your reply was the agreed message. These computers and other things are redundant."

I thought for a moment, and it sounded reasonable, so I asked, “What are you thinking?”

He said: “This was definitely not a trap and these two computers must be useful. That person had been living under this house; otherwise, you wouldn't have seen those quilts when you went down."

“Didn't you say that basically no one had used these two computers?” I asked, “How do you explain the contradiction?”

“Contradiction is contradiction, Caesar is Caesar.” (TN note: no idea, pretty sure it's not a wordplay or anything). He said, “It's very simple. This person lived below, but his communication with you didn't depend on this computer. The computer was a trap, but the secret room below wasn't.”

I smoked a cigarette: “So what do they rely on to communicate?”

All the conversations above could be heard clearly in the bas.e.m.e.nt, but I was sure the person below couldn't hear anything.

“Maybe there was no need to communicate?” He said, “Maybe he wasn't hiding, but monitoring?”

I only thought about it for a few seconds when it suddenly hit me like a thunderbolt, and all the previous contradictions started to line up.

He didn't make the modification to Uncle Three's computer. Maybe Uncle Three didn't even know there was such a room under his house, that his computer was connected to another computer, and that all his words could be heard.

Any and all messages from Uncle Three could have been intercepted by that person.

Who was this man? He was like a ringworm living in Uncle Three's belly.

I sent my cla.s.smate away and promised to pay within three days so that he would continue to ponder over this issue and immediately tell me any new ideas he had.

After that, I sat among the debris in the yard at the table where Uncle Three usually drank his tea, and leaned on the chair to make a phone call to Uncle Two. When he picked up, I asked him, “When did Uncle Three build his house?”

Uncle Two hesitated for a moment, but didn't answer, and instead asked me, “Where are you?”

I prevaricated to say a place, and Uncle Two still hesitated, apparently not particularly convinced.

There was something strange in his tone and I kept feeling like something had happened, but at this time I didn't want to know more, just wanted my question answered. Uncle Two told me, “The foundation of the house was built in the 1970s, but I don't know since it's undergone several renovations since then. At first there was only a small bungalow, but later your Uncle Three made more money and slowly expanded it. The biggest expansion was in 1988, when he practically lived at my house."

After saying this, Uncle Two suddenly said, “Stop messing around so much and stay in Hangzhou.” Then he immediately hung up.

I always felt that Uncle Two was busy dealing with something. After hanging up the phone, I thought some more and decided to call my father.

I sat there smoking while chatting with him. I wasn't thinking about any particular problems, just taking one sentence at a time while thinking about some small details that would help me with my own reasoning.

I hadn't had such a good chat with my father in recent years so he was completely blindsided. In the middle of the conversation, he carefully hinted to me: “Is it that Xiao Xie is lovelorn and is grieving to his father?”

I gave a little chuckle and smiled, thinking that my dad was quite sensitive and could tell that something was on my mind. But I knew my father so well that even if I told him everything, it wouldn't help.

From the chat with him, I was able to grasp the whole course of events surrounding our Wu family from Changsha to Hangzhou. After listening to it, I found it was just like a part of a serialized drama. In particular, the stories of my grandfather, Granny Huo, and my grandmother sounded like a very good feature film set under a historical background.

My grandfather became famous in Changsha when he was very young because he was the first master to train dogs to smell the earth. A well-trained dog was ten times more efficient than a human and could smell all kinds of oil and fire traps, and even whether a zombie was dead or not.

Since my grandfather had trained his first dog, his wealth had acc.u.mulated extremely fast. In a few years, he may have even been the number one in Changsha city: the number of tombs he knew, the number of ghostly objects he didn't sell, etc. Even Zhang Fo Ye's men would come to ask him for the location of tombs.

At that time, although the Huo, Qi, and Xie families were already well known, the Huo family was forced to slowly focus on their business because of the serious civil strife, and no one went down to the tombs (it was too easy to lose soldiers and leaders). The Qi family had always been good at business and was neutral when it came to the Huos, while Jie Jiuye had just returned from j.a.pan. My grandfather's acc.u.mulation in recent years had even exceeded that of several generations of the Qi family. (TN note: I've seen Xie and Jie used interchangeably anywhere I look regarding these novels so I'll do the same b/c I honestly forget to keep changing them all the time lol. Just remember that Jie Jiuye and Jie Lianhuan are from the Xie family).

My grandfather was quite proud of this experience at that time and always said: “Scientific and technological innovation was the first productive force, especially in the traditional industry of grave robbing. A little innovation can bring about earth-shaking changes.”

My grandfather really had a good time in Changsha. He was young and legendary at that time, but he had no dignity, spent money like dirt, and was amiable. This kind of person would definitely have countless friends— and friends of friends—who were full of admiration for him. This was where his relations.h.i.+p with Huo Xiangu began. At that time, she was older than him, and liked him to death.

Then I was told about the previously mentioned Changsha case from before, where Qiu Dekao sold everyone out. My grandfather's family wealth was gone and he hid in a tomb for a period of time before fleeing to Hangzhou. Jie Jiuye was already on the up and up at that time. Although he didn't have as much wealth as my grandfather, he became the best businessman in The Mystic Nine because of his family background, wide contacts, and good management skills. It was through Jie Jiuye's protection that my grandfather met my grandmother.

At that time, my grandfather was supposed to have moved to my grandmother's house under Jie Jiuye's introduction (her family and the Xie family were distantly related), and she was responsible for taking care of him. At that time, the temperament of Jiangnan's pretty daughter was completely different from that of Hunan's female grave robbers and this was when my grandfather should've cheated. Without any sort of explanation, Huo Xiangu was directly defeated by my grandmother. Of course, my grandmother didn't know about it.

At that time, the whole country was in a state of war and chaos and even letters couldn't be sent, so the matter slowly pa.s.sed by. About two years later, when Huo Xiangu came to Hangzhou, my grandfather had already married my grandmother, who was pregnant with my father. At that time, Huo Xiangu didn't see my grandfather either and just politely chatted with my grandmother in the room for an hour and then left.

From then on, each side knew the existence of the other and how they were doing, but they never met again.

No one knew what they were talking about that day, but all the servants could say was that they had a good time.

When my grandfather heard the news at that time, he must've been sweating like a waterfall. I couldn't help sympathizing with him.

It took about three more years for my grandfather to push his business back to Changsha, and then he basically moved back and forth between the two places. Every time he went to Changsha, my grandmother would accompany him, so my grandfather and Granny Huo would never have the chance to revive. In another year, Huo Xiangu was married in Beijing. My grandfather was very emotional when he talked about it, saying that he felt terrible when he was there, and disappointed when he left.

My Uncle Three joined the business when he was 13 years old. First he played around in Changsha, and then he got some experience and money and came to Hangzhou to buy this piece of land. At that time, he didn't buy it with any particular idea in mind, simply got it through his connections and built a house. It was later that he slowly s.h.i.+fted his focus to business, and this place had been expanded many times, getting better and better.

Uncle Two had been studying and opened a teahouse about seven years ago. It wasn't to make money, but simply to have a meeting place with his friends. I had never seen a woman beside my Uncle Two, and he seemed to be a safflower dripping water (TN note: not sure what this means, all I could find was Chinese water torture stuff on google lol). But perhaps Uncle Two's mind was particularly meticulous, and no one knew about his troubles. Back then, my father left home very early and went from the south to the north to do geological surveys, not coming back until the late 1970s.

Following his return, he got married and had me. My old mother was from a strong family, a girl from a local official's family in Hangzhou. Later, there was a period of time when she divorced my father every day, which almost annoyed me to death.

At this point, all of the events surrounding the Wu family's stay in Hangzhou were very clear. The question now was how exactly did the secret room under this building come about? Was it dug before or completed during reconstruction?

If Uncle Three himself didn't know of its existence, then the room must've been secretly completed, so it couldn't have been designed when this place was built. It must've been excavated during a later reconstruction.

I studied architecture, and I knew that digging a bas.e.m.e.nt wasn't a simple thing. So I went out and took a few steps to measure it by pace and soon found that things were not as complicated as I had thought.

The exact location of the bas.e.m.e.nt wasn't under Uncle Three's house, but under the wall that connected with the next house.

I looked at the building next door and realized that I had never noticed it before. There were a lot of farmers' houses here and every time I came to visit Uncle Three, I always went up to the second floor to see the goods, and didn't stay too long. I really didn't know who was next door.

My mind was in chaos as I walked to the gate next door and knocked.

It was a metal door, a kind of special security door for farmers' houses that was especially familiar and st.u.r.dy. After a few knocks, I found a piece of paper on the door that had almost peeled off. It said, “Room for rent” and below was the phone number.

No one came to open the door. I knocked for half a day without any response so I took out my cell phone and dialed the number.

It rang three or four times but no one answered.

I looked around and saw no one, so I found a place to climb over the wall and jumped.

My own agility startled me. It seemed that this was the result of the “field” exercise I had done over the past two years. After landing, I found that the house should be unoccupied, as the courtyard was in a depressed state full of fallen leaves. I was wondering where these fallen leaves came from when I saw several more floating down. As soon as I looked up, I saw some plants growing on the roof of this house. The plants hadn't been cared for in a long time and had all died, causing the leaves to fall from the roof.

I measured the yard with my steps and found that if someone wanted to dig a pa.s.sage from here to underneath Uncle Three's house, it was really feasible. But I had to know when it was dug up.

I walked to the door of the building and saw another guarded entrance that was a large copper-clad door. This family had no taste. This kind of bra.s.s door looked golden and magnificent, so many rural local bosses liked it.

Although the door looked tacky, the security was really excellent. I estimated that ordinary small explosives couldn't be used to blow it open, and this kind of door usually had six or seven latches, which were really difficult to pry open.

How could I get in? I thought about it and saw that the second floor was also heavily guarded with iron railings, and all the windows were tightly wrapped, as if specially to guard against a large group of burglaries. Just as I was about to call for help, my phone rang suddenly and I saw that the number I had just dialed was calling me back.

I picked it up. A man's voice asked me why I had called, and when I said I wanted to rent a house, he said, “The house has been rented for a long time.”

“Impossible,” I said, “the house has never been occupied.” He replied “The house was rented nineteen years ago, and the note may not have been torn off. For the past nineteen years, the rent's been paid on time every year, so I've never asked around."

Nineteen years ago? I paused and looked at the layout of the house, realizing that it definitely wouldn't have looked like this nineteen years ago and must've been renovated. I asked him if it had been renovated at any time during those nineteen years.

The other party said he didn't know, and couldn't help either, especially since there was an increasing proportion of money every year. Then he asked, “Is something wrong?” I told him, “It's nothing, just wanted to rent a house.” As I said this, I had a sudden idea and asked him, “Can you give me this person's contact information? I want to see if he'll sublet and then you'll have two renters.”

The other party was quite enthusiastic and told me to wait a moment while he got the number. He said that he hadn't contacted the tenant for a long time, but if there were any problems, he would be able to call him.

My heart warmed as I thought that there was still good in the world after all. So I dialed the number he gave me and waited as it rang a few times, but no one answered. I put down the phone to see if I dialed the wrong number when I suddenly saw a name pop up on the screen. The number was actually in my contacts!

Looking at the name, I immediately clutched the phone tightly, thinking, "Son of a b.i.t.c.h, that's impossible."

<> <><>