Chapter 70: The Ones We Can’t Take With Us

I waved frantically in Fourth Brother’s direction. He saw me too, his eyes full of worry. Strangely, there was no surprise in them. He and a few of his men grabbed hold of the iron chain that extended to the cave entrance, and it took them a full half hour to haul us up.

The moment I climbed out, Fourth Brother yanked me aside. I stumbled, my ear aching from his grip, and he immediately started scolding me. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? What the hell were you thinking, running into a place like that?!”

Turns out, no matter how terrifying a bird might be, it’s still no match for modern firearms. The Owl-faced Bird’s nest had been riddled with bullets by the time they were done.

Hou Jinshan was tossed onto the stone path inside the cave like a sack of trash, headfirst. The Jade Casket he had just gotten his hands on was snatched away again. He was too weak to resist, barely able to breathe, let alone call for help.

I cried out from the pain as Fourth Brother dragged me, and only then did he finally let go. I was seething, but this wasn’t the time to argue with him.

When Lu A’yao was being pulled up earlier, I had already noticed how bad his condition was. We’d been hanging on that chain for quite a while, and for that entire half hour, blood had been dripping steadily from him onto me from above.

I was terrified he’d pass out from blood loss before we even made it up.

Worse still, I had no idea what kind of idiots Five Masters had for subordinates. They saw someone that badly injured and didn’t even try to help him, just let him sit wherever he collapsed.

I broke free from Fourth Brother’s grip and rushed over to Lu A’yao, who was slumped in a corner. When I got closer, I realized he had already passed out. I tried to lift him, but when I pulled, I couldn’t even get him off the ground.

I looked up at Fourth Brother and called out, “Fourth Brother, help me out! This is my friend. He’s saved me more times than I can count. If it weren’t for him, Hou Jinshan and I would’ve been bird food just now.”

But Fourth Brother just frowned at me, staring like I was holding a ticking time bomb. We stared at each other for a good thirty seconds before he finally waved to a few of his men.

Even then, the chubby guys just stood there, looking confused. I immediately jumped in like I’d been handed a royal decree. “What are you all standing around for? Get over here and help!”

At my words, the men rushed over and helped me carry Lu A’yao to the stone path inside the cave. As soon as we set him down, a girl with a thick braid from Fourth Brother’s team pushed me aside and knelt down, pulling all sorts of medical supplies from her backpack.

“Be gentle, okay? He’s lost a lot of blood,” I reminded her.

She shot me a look. “Don’t get in the way. I’m more qualified than you.”

I had no idea how to respond to that, so I just stepped back to give her room. But the moment I moved, a hand suddenly grabbed my sleeve and yanked me back hard.

“Ow! What the hell? Take it easy!” Fourth Brother dragged me aside like I was a baby chick. I hated when he did that. We weren’t even that far apart in age, but he always acted like he was my dad or something. With all these people around, it was seriously embarrassing.

He didn’t waste any time. “What are you doing here? At this hour, you should be at school.”

His words made me feel guilty, but then I remembered—I didn’t come here by choice. Chen Si had vanished without a trace, leaving me to deal with everything. If anything, I should be the one questioning him. Why was I the one feeling guilty?

So I put my hands on my hips and shot back, “Then why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here first?”

Before I even finished, Fourth Brother cursed under his breath. The outburst was so loud he quickly lowered his voice, then dragged me over to the stone wall and said, “You! That friend of yours—how do you know him?”

His question caught me off guard. I gave him a quick rundown of what had happened to me in Gansu. When I finished, he fell silent, lost in thought, and I sensed something wasn’t right.

I had always assumed he knew everything about what happened to me in Gansu. But now, it seemed like he didn’t know much about what Tian Yuqing and I had been up to. Maybe he had only deceived Liu Wan to a certain extent, but never intended to drag me into it.

The people with Fourth Brother were all quiet types, not like our usual Gan family crew. He had too many secrets. No matter how I tried to ask, he either stayed silent or brushed me off.

In the end, we both leaned against the stone wall in silence. Who knew how deep we were underground? After sitting for a while, the sweat on my body began to cool, and I shivered. One of Fourth Brother’s men went outside and broke off some coffin boards to start a fire in the stone passage.

I sat there flipping the flames with the back of my knife and asked, “Fourth Brother, did you see Yu Jingzi when you came in? I was with her earlier, but then everyone disappeared.”

Fourth Brother stared into the fire. “It was an illusion. You were caught in a hallucination. That pillar you climbed earlier is called the Shadow Pillar. We believe it’s a ritual artifact cast during the Shang or Zhou dynasty. The coffins you saw are just part of it. The locals call it the Ghost Copper Pillar. Legend says it’s filled with the dead and used as a medium to communicate with spirits.

“Don’t underestimate Liu Wan just because she’s a woman. She’s been in this game since you were still playing with mud. She’s got serious skills and wouldn’t fall for an illusion that easily. If she disappeared, it’s only because she didn’t want you following her anymore.”

He was zoning out while half-heartedly answering me, and it was pissing me off. I decided I wasn’t going to talk to him anymore.

But instead, he turned around and said to me, “The Lu family brings bad luck. Getting involved with him won’t do you any good. Once you’re out of here, try not to have anything more to do with him.”

I flared up the moment I heard that and snapped back, “Come on, Chen Si, it’s one thing to talk like that outside, but why are you pretending in front of me too? Since when did you start believing in all that old-school superstitious crap? Bad luck? He’s saved my life more times than I can count! That’s bad luck? What, you’re just gonna burn the bridge after crossing it? If it weren’t for him, I’d have been bird shit by now!”

Fourth Brother smacked me on the head with a sharp flick. “Where’d you learn to talk like that? You’ve only been hanging out with that He kid for less than a month and you’re already cursing like this? The Lu family’s cold to the bone, never had real friends. Back in the day, your grandpa—my master—walked several kilometers on foot just to bring Lu Xiaosu three sacks of rice. And when my master died, did even a single person from the Lu family show up to the funeral?”

I didn’t know much about those old stories, but I believed one thing for sure: when Grandpa brought that rice to Lu Xiaosu, it was out of pure goodwill. He was known far and wide as a kind-hearted man. There’s no way he did it just to earn a favor from the Lu family.

Fourth Brother glanced at Hou Jinshan, who was still lying motionless on the ground, then said expressionlessly, “We’re deep in now. This place isn’t some tourist spot. And we still have a long way to go. If the one named Lu doesn’t wake up in an hour, I’m not taking him with us. Carrying someone who can’t move on their own is too dangerous.”

I was shocked. “You’re just gonna leave him here? You just said this place is dangerous! What if he doesn’t make it before we come back? What if something happens to him?”

Fourth Brother turned to look at me calmly. His eyes were so still and deep, it was like staring into a bottomless lake. I met his gaze, and in that moment, I understood what he really meant. He wasn’t planning to come back at all.

I looked at his face. He wasn’t joking. But this wasn’t the Chen Si I remembered. The Chen Si I knew was righteous and straightforward. Why would he say something like this?

I shook my head, my voice full of helplessness. “Fourth Brother, we really can’t do this.”

Fourth Brother immediately looked annoyed. He stood up and stared at me. Then his voice suddenly rose several octaves as he said, “I only brought about twenty people down here. Everyone has their own job to do. No one has the time or energy to look after a deadweight. And we’ve still got a long road ahead. There’s no way we can carry him the whole way.”

Then he patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Even if you leave him here to die, he won’t blame you. In this line of work, the one thing we don’t lack is awareness of what we signed up for. Granny Yin was no exception.”