Chapter 114: A Basketful of Guesses

He Yu still hadn’t fully processed it: “But other than half of it being torn off, there doesn’t seem to be anything special about this page. Isn’t it just another blank sheet of paper?”

“That’s not it. Only the top half of this page remains, while the bottom half was torn off,” I explained to him.

“Normally, if you wanted to destroy paper evidence, you’d tear out the whole page like the previous ones. But only the bottom half of this page was torn off, and the edge is very straight. That kind of habit is more like how we leave someone a note.”

Chen Canghai ran a finger over the edge of the page and asked me, “You think this torn half is a note Uncle Chen left for me?”

I nodded. “Though I don’t know if he managed to hide it. If it was taken by the people who searched his body later, that’s also entirely possible.”

He Yu had a sudden stroke of inspiration and said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea! Did your uncle have any special habits for where he put things? Or is there somewhere only the two of you know about? Maybe he hid the note there.”

Chen Canghai fell silent. He Yu and I exchanged a glance, tacitly falling quiet as well. I wasn’t in a hurry to figure out how to get out, since the dry rations we had on us could easily last the three of us three or four days.

What I urgently wanted to figure out was the ultimate goal of Chen Jianguo and Han Jian in coming here. So I had to do whatever it took to find this hidden, missing note from Chen Jianguo. Only by finding it would things finally start to make sense.

I thought this would be hard to figure out and that Chen Canghai would sit there for at least half an hour. Unexpectedly, he pondered for just five minutes before reaching for the fountain pen in his pocket. This pen had clearly been used for a very long time; the golden sheen on its cap had mostly faded to silvery white.

Without a second thought, Chen Canghai pulled off the cap, and out fell a tiny, rolled-up slip of paper.

“Holy shit!” He Yu hastily reached out to catch it, and the slip landed right in his palm. He shook off the dust on it. “Impressive! Who would ever guess someone hid a note inside a pen cap!”

Initially, we were sitting quite far apart. For one thing, this enclosed stone room was nowhere near as cool as the ventilated stone passages outside. For another, the three of us grown men hadn’t bathed in days; between blowing up a Buddhist pagoda, trekking through caves, and falling into water pits, we all reeked pretty badly, and none of us was eager to sit too close to the others.

Yet the moment that note dropped out, the three of us huddled together in an instant. Ignoring our sweaty stench, we were all eager to see what Chen Jianguo had written.

He Yu was a thoughtful guy. He didn’t unroll the slip himself, handing it over to Chen Canghai first. Since it was a message left by his uncle, it was only right to let him open it.

The two of us watched him. Chen Canghai didn’t hide anything from us; he opened it, scanned it, and read it out loud. The contents of the letter caught me off guard. The original note was fairly long, so I transcribed only the most important parts from memory, as follows.

To Canghai: This is a letter of farewell. I know you will come after me. As long as you come and find my corpse, you will find this letter. I will tell you everything I went through, but remember, this letter must not remain in this world. Be sure to destroy it once you have read it.

I was one of those involved in the Nine Rings Project of 1951. I know I can’t keep this hidden from you. If you’ve looked into the records, you should understand that the reason the project was shut down back then wasn’t the funding shortage stated in the archives. In recent years, my old comrades have passed away one by one. I know it is my turn now. That is why I am going to locate the pagoda shown on the rubbing, to try and find a Nine-Ring Jade Casket.

I thought I had moved quickly enough, but after coming inside, I realized that “they” were one step ahead of me after all. Our organization has fallen apart over these past decades. The only thing you can do now is seek help from the descendants of the Five Masters, and pray that they can turn the tables in the final round.

Your uncle’s final word of advice.

“What does this mean? Your uncle was involved in the Nine Rings Project of 1951 too? What kind of damn project is this that it involves your grandfather, his uncle, and so many people?” He Yu fell into total confusion after hearing it read out.

I took the letter from Chen Canghai’s hand and read it over three or four times. There was far more hidden between the lines than I had imagined. First of all, Chen Jianguo made no secret of his goal for this trip: finding the Nine-Ring Jade Casket.

Or rather, to be precise, “to find a Nine-Ring Jade Casket.”

I couldn’t quite figure out what he meant by “a”. The letter’s phrasing was concise and the handwriting faint and unsteady. Given the circumstances, Chen Jianguo had lost too much blood to write normally, yet he had still deliberately specified “a” Nine-Ring Jade Casket.

This inevitably struck me as odd. But looking at it from another angle, if Chen Jianguo was lightheaded from blood loss, leading to scrambled sentence structure, that explanation seemed plausible as well.

Furthermore, Chen Jianguo had actually been part of the original team that launched the Nine Rings Project in 1951, something I hadn’t expected at all. At first, we assumed everything revolved around the Nine-Ring Jade Casket—my Fourth Brother, the Five Masters, all of them. But now it seemed our judgment had been completely upside down. Everyone was actually revolving around the Nine Rings Project from back then, including the Nine-Ring Jade Casket itself.

I cleared my thoughts, intending to address the questions one by one, and started by asking Chen Canghai, “As far as I know, no complete archives were kept for the Nine Rings Project of 1951.”

Chen Canghai didn’t deny it, nodding in agreement. “If you’re looking for official archives, they’re bound to be blank. All records regarding the Nine Rings Project back then were destroyed the moment the project ended.”

He took a deep breath and continued, “My uncle was the youngest on the project team back then. After he was brought into the fold, his job was cleaning cultural relics and verifying certain records. Before the project was scrapped, he couldn’t let his old habits die. He secretly kept a portion of the files, which included the treasure rubbing he sold to Han Jian.”

“It’s one thing for your uncle to come here himself, but why sell the rubbing to Han Jian? Han Jian isn’t a descendant of the Five Masters,” I said.

“He indeed isn’t a descendant of the Five Masters, but he is Han Cheng’s biological brother,” Chen Canghai interrupted me bluntly. “And Han Cheng is the boyfriend of Gan Rong, the only daughter of Gan Rukui of the Central Plains. That alone is more than enough.”

I was completely choked up by his words, and the look I gave him grew unreadable. This kid had actually investigated our relationships thoroughly. He might have even memorized our passenger list backward and forward before we ever set foot on the boat.

I pulled my thoughts back, trying not to let Chen Canghai steer my logic, and asked, “So did you find out the real reason the Nine Rings Project was scrapped in 1951, like the letter mentioned?”

Chen Canghai remained calm. “I don’t know. No reason was given. I read that section of the files hundreds of times day and night before coming here, and it only cited funding issues alongside some supernatural phenomena.”

“The Nine-Ring Jade Casket?” He Yu cut in suddenly. “Did your uncle get it wrong? The Nine-Ring Jade Casket is still with Xiao Yao’s Fourth Brother. Why would Chen Jianguo come to this pagoda looking for it?”

I had already been mulling over a scenario that could account for both situations. In fact, I had been pondering the likelihood of it for quite some time.

“It’s very likely,” I said, “that there isn’t just one Nine-Ring Jade Casket.”

The moment I voiced this idea, both of them fell silent. He Yu processed it for a moment, then stared at me with wide eyes. “Are you out of your mind? Didn’t you open that drawer and pull the casket out yourself back at your grandfather’s?! It’s hard enough to come across even one of those things—it’s not like everybody gets one! Wouldn’t everything be completely upside down?!”

“I’m just suggesting a possibility. What are you getting so worked up about?” I kicked him gently with my foot.

My line of thinking was pretty out there. Main thing was, if there really were multiple Nine-Ring Jade Caskets, wouldn’t the very treasure the Five Masters fought tooth and nail over become practically dirt cheap and easy to come by?

In the end, it would be like handing out candies to kids in kindergarten: one Nine-Ring Jade Casket per person, no fighting, no stealing, and full information sharing. Mom would never have to worry about me running out of tombs to raid for the rest of my life.

Besides, if there really were multiple Nine-Ring Jade Caskets, what would have been the point of making so many in the first place?

“Also, who does ‘they’ refer to?” He Yu brought up another question.

Seeing us all sitting there without saying a word, He Yu glanced at his watch and shifted the topic. “How about we take a breather? My brain cells are pretty much fried right now, and we won’t figure out jack no matter how hard we wrack our brains. Let’s look for an exit first. Once we get through this, maybe a fresh angle will strike us. What do you say?”

He Yu made sense. Taking his advice, I turned on my flashlight and stood up while Chen Canghai used his fire-starter to burn the letter completely. The two of us watched as the piece of paper was gradually consumed by the flames, quickly turning into a pile of ash on the floor.

I stomped my foot on the ground. The sound wasn’t muffled, which meant there was likely space directly beneath the stone chamber. On the map I had memorized, a passage spanned nearly the entire underground palace, though it was drawn only as a schematic without indicating its length, width, or capacity.

By my reckoning, Lu Ayao might have fallen into this narrow passage, or perhaps into a craftsmen’s hiding spot connected to it. The only way for the three of us to escape now was to find where the stone chamber connected to the passage, get inside, and follow it to the core of the underground palace.

“All four walls are seamless. How the hell did Old Lu find the mechanism earlier? Did you see it? What did it even look like? Round or square? Long or flat?” He Yu asked me.

Hunched over, I searched the wall inch by inch, turning back to snap at him. “You’re asking me? Who the hell am I supposed to ask? How much do I actually know about his business? Why do you keep asking me?”

A sudden surge of petty spite compelled me to mock He Yu. For once, I actually felt like teasing him, so I crossed my arms and walked up behind him. “Lu Ayao was with you for so long, and you two were so in sync. What? He didn’t tell you about this? Ah, guess your bond isn’t as rock-solid as I thought!”