Book 4: Chapter 9: A Brief Account of Moving Forward
Instead of moving forward immediately, we decided to rest where Poker-Face had engraved his mark.
At this time, Fatty put forward a valid question: if this dragon vein went straight to the dragon ancestor, then would bad things happen if we went to the bathroom inside of it?
That shouldn’t be the case, I said to myself. With such a huge amount energy, do you really think you can destroy it with just a small pile of poop? But it really did feel weird. Fortunately, I ate and drank very little along the way.
As I looked around at the darkness, I found that the huge impulse I felt to enter it had weakened yet again. The three of us ate something quickly and then prepared to doze off without hesitation. I wanted to volunteer for first watch again, but Poker-Face patted me and climbed onto a big rock, indicating that I should get some sleep.
I sighed heavily in my heart. I knew that I had lost their confidence, but I couldn't argue. So, I wrapped myself in a sleeping bag I had taken from one of the corpse’s backpacks and prepared to take a quick nap. But before I knew it, I was sleeping like the dead.
People never seem to realize how tired they truly are. I woke up twice in the middle of the night but only stayed awake for about three seconds each time before I fell asleep again. When I woke up again, I found that the corners of my mouth were covered in drool.
I turned to look around and saw that Fatty was keeping watch and Poker-Face was sleeping next to me.
I didn't dare wake him up, so I got up carefully and then went to Fatty’s side. I found that Fatty was staring at the depths of the gap.
"My dear friend, you shouldn't keep watching that," I said to him.
Fatty glanced at me and asked, "Do you know what I saw just now?"
When I shook my head, Fatty said, "Something bad is definitely going to happen when we go in."
"What did you see?"
"I saw Yun Cai." Fatty lit a cigarette and motioned for me to go away. I stared blankly for a moment before I also looked at the darkness in front of me.
"Is it a hallucination?"
"I’ve never hallucinated Yun Cai before. This is the usual part of the movie where something is trying to tempt us."
"What did Yun Cai do?" I asked. "Did she wave at you or something?"
Fatty didn't speak, but his face twitched and he opened his hand to show me something.
There was a rusty bullet in the palm of his hand.
I looked at him and felt my throat tighten as I realized that Fatty might not just be seeing things.
"She came to me and handed me this." Fatty’s face was pale as he spoke. "Then she walked into the darkness and disappeared."
I took the bullet and found that it really was a bullet. What does this mean?
Fatty looked at me and said, "Despite all of this, I didn't follow. You see, Mr. Naïve? This is what it means to keep watch."
I looked at him. He was obviously in a bad mood and trying to suppress it, so I went over and gave him a hug.
"Can this dragon vein resurrect people?" I didn’t believe so since all of the similar situations we had encountered in the past ended up being illusions or conspiracies.
Or some other kind of nonsense. But I couldn’t remember it clearly.
Fatty took a hard drag of his cigarette and said to me, "Yun Cai is dead. Even if a vivid image of her walks in front of me, it’s definitely not her. You have a special constitution, so I hope you can understand that you may encounter the same situation in the future. Don't get emotional."
I looked into the depths of the gap and then at Fatty's expression. I knew that he was hiding something and that he had definitely seen more than what he had just told me.