“Miao Miao, did you guys find anything?” On our way over to the medical university, I gave a call to Miao Miao and put her on speaker phone so Zhenzhen could hear too.
“Oh, ah…” a relaxed and comfortable yawn sounded on the speaker. “Hey! The sky’s already dark, what time is it? I’m starving!”
“You… weren’t just sleeping, were you? Didn’t you go with Xueqing to monitor Professor Xiao?” God! Was this damn girl here to work or just play around?
“Ah…” Miao Miao yawned again. “Mm, isn’t this Xueqing’s jacket? Where is she…”
“I’m here.” Xueqing’s voice sounded from the speaker. She was actually right next to Miao Miao. She took the phone and said, “Ah Mu? We found something. What about you?”
“We’re heading over to the university. We’ll be there in about ten minutes.” Fortunately Xueqing wasn’t here to play. No wonder Boss had the two of them work together. If he’d made Miao Miao my partner, she’d have infuriated me. If Zhenzhen partnered with her, that would be even more scary. Who knows if someone might lose their life. On that matter though, why did the boss let Miao Miao onto the team anyway? That old fox would never recruit anyone who would drag him down. Unless Miao Miao had some talent that made her better than others. But no matter how you looked at her, she was as dumb as a brain-damaged middle school student, even though she’d already graduated from college.
What was the boss up to? Was this rat poison or a strength enhancer? It really made a person confused.
“Prof Xiao’s already returned to his dorm and he probably won’t head out again. We don’t need to watch him now. We’ll meet you at the school gates in ten minutes.” Xueqing sounded like she was giving me an order. After she spoke, she hung up, without a care to whether I agreed or not. Although I knew she didn’t have any ill will, this kind of attitude really was hard to accept.
When our car pulled up to the school gate, they were already standing on the side of the road. Miao Miao carried a powder blue backpack with Hello Kitty print. When she got in the car, she pulled out some snacks and orange juice, which made me even more certain that she was here today to go on a fun outing. Boss was either a cat looking to get burned or he’d lost his mind, otherwise he wouldn’t have chosen a subordinate like her even if she were the governor’s daughter.
“We didn’t find anything substantial from the monitoring, but we accidentally came across something else…” Xueqing refused the Dove chocolate that Miao Miao tried to feed her, and told us what they’d discovered—
Prof Xiao’s full name is Xiao Guoqiang. Male, 62 years old. Chief physician, professor, and doctoral advisor. Prominent contributor to the nation, receives government subsidies… Current dean of the medical university, head of the cardiology department, head of cardiac research at the provincial general hospital… He has served as editor for the ‘Chinese Journal of Medicine’, chief editor and editorial board member of ‘Journal of Interventions’, author of ‘Practical Cardiology’, ‘Xiao Guoqiang’s Heart Surgery Cases’…
There was nothing particular about his morning. Professor Xiao gave a lecture and then buried himself in his papers at his lab. He also ate lunch in his lab room. I thought that we were going to return without any success, but then in the afternoon, we saw an unusual scene.
Although our monitoring spot was more than 200m away from Prof Xiao’s lab, with high definition military binoculars, we could see very clearly each and every strand of hair on his head. And he looked younger than his age. Even though his hair was white, his complexion was ruddy and he didn’t have many wrinkles. He looked maybe 50 years old. If he were to dye his hair black, no one would believe that he was over 60.
After he gave his lecture, he stayed in his lab, going through documents and writing his thesis. There wasn’t anything particularly eye catching. But about 15 minutes later, a pretty 30 year old woman with hair down to her back walked in with a stack of documents. She closed the door with her round bottom and then put down the documents on his desk. Judging from her age, she was likely Prof Xiao’s assistant, Zeng Qianyi.
When she first walked into the lab, Prof Xiao hastily drew the curtains closed, but there was still a two finger wide gap that wasn’t covered up. The area around the desk could just barely be seen.
After he drew the curtains, Prof Xiao grabbed Zeng Qianyi from behind and reached into her blouse with his left hand and under her skirt with his right hand. Her pale face blushed slightly, and hidden in her intoxication was a slight inkling of helplessness. After groping her up and down, Prof Xiao pushed her onto his desk and rushed to lift her skirt and pull down her panties…
“Ah…” After listening to Xueqing’s account I couldn’t help shaking my head with a sigh.
“What? Is there a problem?” Zhenzhen didn’t understand. Her face was slightly rosy, likely a reaction to Xueqing’s short ‘porn piece’.
“If only I were there, ah…” I sighed again.
“Was my work inadequate?” Xueqing’s cold voice sounded from behind. I saw her brows furrow in the rearview mirror.
“Your work wasn’t inadequate. I was just thinking that it was really such shame not to be able to see such a stimulating live show with my own eyes! Ouch…” As I was speaking, a fist landed on my right cheek. At the same time, someone knocked me on the back of my head.
Zhenzhen had wanted to high-five Xueqing, but the other party appeared to not even see her outstretched white palm. She continued reporting about the info she’d received today, and so Zhenzhen could only foolishly high five with Miao Miao’s outstretched hand, a bit embarrassed.
Aside from accidentally discovering that Prof Xiao was having an affair with Asst Zeng Qianyi, Xueqing also found out that he was widowed early and had yet to remarry. But he had a son named…
“What? Xiao Yixuan is his son?” So Prof Xiao and Xiao Yixuan were father and son. This cast another burst of fog onto the case.
Although Prof Xiao was already over 60, but with his position in the medical world, there were tons of young and beautiful girls who would give themselves to him. Wasn’t there a young masters student, a Ms Weng, who married an 80 year old physicist?
If Prof Xiao intended to remarry, there probably wouldn’t be a shortage of pursuers. So then, why didn’t he marry a second wife instead of messing around with his assistant? If the media got hold of this immoral matter, he could come to ruin in his late age.
And did Prof Xiao’s relation with Xiao Yixuan have anything to do with the missing hearts case at the general hospital? If yes, then what did he need so many hearts for? Suppose he wanted them for research purposes, he could ask the hospital to donate them. Did he have to steal them?
The number of questions kept growing. It was too complicated to figure out now, so the best thing to do was put it aside in the meantime. First, let’s go talk to Uncle Liu. Where a car travels, there will be a road.
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Miao Miao left on her own by taxi. Although she was a cop, we weren’t very at ease. Unfortunately, we still had work to do, so we couldn’t send her home. After she left, Xueqing continued to monitor Prof Xiao, and Zhenzhen and I paid a visit to Uncle Liu at the security room.
The security room was lit with a dim light. The radio on the table was playing Teresa Teng’s ‘Small Town Story’, and Uncle Liu was sitting on a chair with his eyes closed as his right hand tapped against the arm rest to the melody. His lips were slightly parted as he sang along quietly to the classic song.
This scene couldn’t help but bring out an aching feeling in my heart. Most older men were just like him, spending the whole day with a TV or radio as a partner. They’d dedicated their youth to our society, but in the end, society abandoned them.
“Uncle Liu, I came to play some chess.” Zhenzhen and I entered the security room and dropped the snacks we’d plundered from Miao Miao’s bag onto the table.
“Your company alone is fine. Why did you buy so many things?!” Uncle Liu was clearly overwhelmed by all the snacks on the table.
“It’s fine, someone else gave them to me, so I’m just sending them along. Come on then, let’s play chess.” I took a seat as if we were old friends.
“Sure. If you have time, we can play all night.” Uncle Liu set up the chessboard.
Zhenzhen didn’t have the patience to watch us play chess, so she told me she’d go for a walk outside. Without waiting for a response, she just left.
During our match, I asked Uncle Liu if anything out of the ordinary happened during the construction of the female dormitory. After thinking about it for a bit, he started to tell me what he knew. “It must have been 30 or so years ago. Enrollment started increasing and they naturally couldn’t all fit in the original dorm, so the school decided to build a new one. At the time, the area around the school hadn’t yet been developed. The number of students wasn’t exactly large, so I was often idle working security here. Usually when there was nothing much to do, I’d take a stroll over to the construction area and get to know the workers. I still remember that the guy in charge was called… something like An ge…”
“Was his name Ye Ping’an?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, that’s right. His name was Ye Ping’an. His last name isn’t a common one, and his name was rather meaningful, so I still remember it. An ge was a pretty good guy, whether it was to his men or an outsider like me. So when I had some free time, I would help them out with some light work.” As Uncle Liu recalled his youth, a smile slipped onto his face, but this smile quickly turned into a slightly pained expression. He continued, “The good die young. I don’t know if the dorm had bad fengshui or if the place was haunted by spirits, but accidents kept happening to An ge and his crew.” (Note: Ye Ping’an means that the night is calm and safe)
“The first accident was Xiao Zhang’s. That day, he and An ge and the rest were on the rafters, putting in the exterior walls for the fourth floor of the dorm. Originally, he was chatting and laughing, but then he suddenly said his stomach hurt. Then he fell off. When An ge and the other guys finally climbed down, he’d already stopped breathing and was dead.
“After that, An ge’s team started to die, one after another. I heard they all came down with gastrointestinal diseases like stomach cancer. When the dorm was completed, only An ge was left. But he didn’t make it long after that. A few days after the dorm’s completion, he also left. Ah…” Uncle Liu let out a long sigh. Recalling these things of the past could only make people sigh.
Auntie Mei said that her husband often complained about the poor food at the construction grounds, so I asked Uncle Liu if that was the case. Was it possible that that was related to An ge and the others’ deaths?
“It was a bit poor, but not to the extent that it would kill a man!” Uncle Liu was incredulous at my conjecture. “That year, there was a shortage of ingredients. Being able to fill your stomach was already pretty good. Back then, the food for their team was provided by the school cafeteria. It wasn’t the best, not really much different from what they fed a pig, but all the students and I also at the same thing. Nothing happened to us!”
“I heard that An ge and his team dug out a snake. Is that really true?” I only asked this casually. Who would have expected the unimaginable past I was about to hear of.
“This…” Uncle Six pondered a moment. “I seem to recall such a matter. An ge and the guys cooked up the snake and even asked if I wanted to eat some.”
“Did you eat it?”
Uncle Liu seemed to recall something frightening and his shriveled up body shuddered. “I didn’t. I never could eat those types of wild animals. Moreover, that snake was pulled out from a coffin. I didn’t have the guts for it.”
“From a coffin? Do you have more details?” Uncle Liu’s words caught my attention.
“I heard it from An ge. What happened was something like this…” Uncle Six retold An ge’s tale. I organized the story in my head a bit, and the scene from 30 years ago gradually formed in my mind—
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The day was passing as the blood-red sun set in the west.
An ge and the other eight men were sitting on the site eating their pig feed-like dinner. Not only was the cafeteria food poor tasting, for guys in their line of work, the portions were definitely not enough. It was probably only enough to make them half full.
Originally, they could go home, just like the foreman, to enjoy their wives’ home cooking. It may not have been the most delicious, but they would at least be able to eat until they were full. But to earn a bit more money to support their families, they stayed at the construction site with their bodies covered in sweat.
After lunch, they rested a bit before continuing to dig out the foundation area. “Hey, everyone, get over here!” Xiao Zhang’s urgent cry caught the others’ attentions and they all headed over to him.
“An ge, what do we do? It looks like an ancient tomb. Should we tell the foreman?” Xiao Zhang pointed at the dark cavern before him. His voice trembled with both excitement and nervousness.
Even if you’d never tasted pork, you’ve seen a pig run before. While the construction workers had never excavated a tomb themselves, they’d heard about it before. It wasn’t a very rare situation. An intact tomb, regardless of its size or age, and there would be at least a few valuable things inside. Gold and jade weren’t uncommon. For this group of laborers, even a small gold ring would be equivalent to several months of their salary.
An ge silently looked at the hole and then his eyes swept over the disturbed faces in the crowd. He spoke in a heavy voice, “The foreman’s already gone home. As long as no one says anything later, we’ll be the only ones who know what’s in this hole. Those who don’t want to suffer from poverty and aren’t afraid of death, come with me to take a look. If we find anything valuable, we split the profit. If anyone doesn’t wish to go, I also won’t force you…”
“I’ll go!” “I’ll go too!” “Count me in…” Everyone was very excited, as if they’d already seen the treasures inside the hole.
“Okay! If there are treasures, we eight will share them! If there’s hardship, we eight will bear them! If anyone has wicked intentions, let them die a painful death!” An ge’s expression was excited but slightly uneasy. He led the group into the cave that appeared like a giant behemoth devouring its prey. Xiao Zhang followed behind him with the oil lamp, and the other men also eagerly headed into the cave.
Inside the hole was a stone room that was smaller than they’d imagined, only about 40 sqm. It was a tight fit with all eight men inside. The air wasn’t as thick as they’d imagined either. Presumably, when they’d dug out the entrance, fresh air had already streamed inside. Xiao Zhang raised the lamp above his head, shining it across the entire room. The group looked around, hoping to find the glimmerings of gold, but they were only left disappointed. This small and narrow room wasn’t fit to be called an old tomb, perhaps just a grave. There were no funery objects anywhere in sight, just four walls with a sarcophagus in the middle of the room.
With disappointment, the men’s eyes landed on the sarcophagus. Both the stone walls and coffin were simple and unadorned. There was no decorative design on them, so the tomb’s owner was likely not a very rich person. However, since they were able to build a tomb, the place couldn’t be without at least a few gold bars!
The greedy men gathered their courage and their strength, and forced the heavy lid off to the side, hoping to find something valuable on the owner’s body. When Xiao Zhang lifted the oil lamp to shine over the coffin, everyone was shocked.
There were no gold or jade treasures in the sarcophagus. In fact, there weren’t even any clothes inside, because there was no human corpse lying inside. Instead, there was a motionless white snake with crude feet attachments curled up inside.
“Fuck, it’s a snake!” someone called out, breaking the silence. Following, the other men started cursing. Suddenly, Xiao Zhang shrieked. He pointed at the snake’s head, his mouth gaping wide but unable to say anything. The others turned to the snake and saw its round, open eyes and a tongue sticking out of its slightly open mouth.
The men unconsciously stepped back, but after a moment of observation, they realized that while the snake was alive, it couldn’t move. “Since there’s nothing valuable here, let’s just eat this big snake!” An ge had just been speaking out in anger. He didn’t expect that the other men readily agreed with this idea.
Because they didn’t have any cooking tools, An ge went to find the security guard, Xiao Liu– that is Uncle Liu, to help out. They went to the cafeteria to find some tools, and of course, he explained the entire story to Xiao Liu, even inviting him to taste it.
Helping them get some tools wasn’t a problem, but eating a snake? Uncle Liu didn’t dare. Moreover, it was a strange snake pulled out from the ground.
After the white snake was pulled out from the cave, the men didn’t find anything particularly strange about it, just that it didn’t move. Even when they cut its stomach and peeled its skin, it didn’t struggle. But that just made it all the easier to slaughter and cook the snake.
An ge personally handled the cutting up of the snake. Although it was his first time, he was still able to dig out the gallbladder in tact. When he asked who wanted to eat it, everyone pushed it off to someone else. In the end, the snake gallbladder was left for him. He ate it in a single bite.
After they cut up the snake, the men built a fire with branches and twigs to make a snake soup. An ge said it was very tasty and the others said it was the most delicious thing they’d ever eaten. Uncle Liu wasn’t sure if they were saying that to goad him into eating some with them, but they really ate it up eagerly. There wasn’t a drop left in the end, and they even chewed up the bones before spitting them out…
After Uncle Liu finished retelling this memory, we continued our chess game as I started to wonder– Why did the sarcophagus hold a white snake within it, or rather, why would a white snake be in a sarcophagus?
Suppose the white snake had crawled into the sarcophagus on its own, then there were two possibilities. One possibility was that when the snake was smaller, it crawled into the coffin from a gap and then grew larger after eating the corpse inside. However, a snake’s method of consumption was to swallow things whole. Would a snake that could crawl through a small gap be able to swallow a human corpse? Even if it could swallow one, would eating a human corpse make it grow a small pair of feet? The other possibility was that the snake was originally large and powerful, enough to be able to push the cover aside to eat the corpse inside. Then it turned the coffin into its nest. While there was still some possibility that the snake was able to push aside the cover, being able to close it afterwards was just too unimaginable!
If the white snake was unable to enter the sarcophagus on its own, that meant someone put it in there. If that was the case, then the tomb was likely created for fengshui purposes.
I kept thinking about it, but to no avail, and then I lost the chess game as well. After I thanked Uncle Liu, I decided to check up on Xueqing’s progress with Zhenzhen. If she hadn’t found anything, then we’d just call it a day. But when I called Zhenzhen’s phone, she didn’t pick up. After several calls, it was still the same. I suddenly had foreboding feeling. Uncle Liu seemed to find it strange as well, so he grabbed a flashlight to help me search for her.
“Miao Miao, did you guys find anything?” On our way over to the medical university, I gave a call to Miao Miao and put her on speaker phone so Zhenzhen could hear too.
“Oh, ah…” a relaxed and comfortable yawn sounded on the speaker. “Hey! The sky’s already dark, what time is it? I’m starving!”
“You… weren’t just sleeping, were you? Didn’t you go with Xueqing to monitor Professor Xiao?” God! Was this damn girl here to work or just play around?
“Ah…” Miao Miao yawned again. “Mm, isn’t this Xueqing’s jacket? Where is she…”
“I’m here.” Xueqing’s voice sounded from the speaker. She was actually right next to Miao Miao. She took the phone and said, “Ah Mu? We found something. What about you?”
“We’re heading over to the university. We’ll be there in about ten minutes.” Fortunately Xueqing wasn’t here to play. No wonder Boss had the two of them work together. If he’d made Miao Miao my partner, she’d have infuriated me. If Zhenzhen partnered with her, that would be even more scary. Who knows if someone might lose their life. On that matter though, why did the boss let Miao Miao onto the team anyway? That old fox would never recruit anyone who would drag him down. Unless Miao Miao had some talent that made her better than others. But no matter how you looked at her, she was as dumb as a brain-damaged middle school student, even though she’d already graduated from college.
What was the boss up to? Was this rat poison or a strength enhancer? It really made a person confused.
“Prof Xiao’s already returned to his dorm and he probably won’t head out again. We don’t need to watch him now. We’ll meet you at the school gates in ten minutes.” Xueqing sounded like she was giving me an order. After she spoke, she hung up, without a care to whether I agreed or not. Although I knew she didn’t have any ill will, this kind of attitude really was hard to accept.
When our car pulled up to the school gate, they were already standing on the side of the road. Miao Miao carried a powder blue backpack with Hello Kitty print. When she got in the car, she pulled out some snacks and orange juice, which made me even more certain that she was here today to go on a fun outing. Boss was either a cat looking to get burned or he’d lost his mind, otherwise he wouldn’t have chosen a subordinate like her even if she were the governor’s daughter.
“We didn’t find anything substantial from the monitoring, but we accidentally came across something else…” Xueqing refused the Dove chocolate that Miao Miao tried to feed her, and told us what they’d discovered—
Prof Xiao’s full name is Xiao Guoqiang. Male, 62 years old. Chief physician, professor, and doctoral advisor. Prominent contributor to the nation, receives government subsidies… Current dean of the medical university, head of the cardiology department, head of cardiac research at the provincial general hospital… He has served as editor for the ‘Chinese Journal of Medicine’, chief editor and editorial board member of ‘Journal of Interventions’, author of ‘Practical Cardiology’, ‘Xiao Guoqiang’s Heart Surgery Cases’…
There was nothing particular about his morning. Professor Xiao gave a lecture and then buried himself in his papers at his lab. He also ate lunch in his lab room. I thought that we were going to return without any success, but then in the afternoon, we saw an unusual scene.
Although our monitoring spot was more than 200m away from Prof Xiao’s lab, with high definition military binoculars, we could see very clearly each and every strand of hair on his head. And he looked younger than his age. Even though his hair was white, his complexion was ruddy and he didn’t have many wrinkles. He looked maybe 50 years old. If he were to dye his hair black, no one would believe that he was over 60.
After he gave his lecture, he stayed in his lab, going through documents and writing his thesis. There wasn’t anything particularly eye catching. But about 15 minutes later, a pretty 30 year old woman with hair down to her back walked in with a stack of documents. She closed the door with her round bottom and then put down the documents on his desk. Judging from her age, she was likely Prof Xiao’s assistant, Zeng Qianyi.
When she first walked into the lab, Prof Xiao hastily drew the curtains closed, but there was still a two finger wide gap that wasn’t covered up. The area around the desk could just barely be seen.
After he drew the curtains, Prof Xiao grabbed Zeng Qianyi from behind and reached into her blouse with his left hand and under her skirt with his right hand. Her pale face blushed slightly, and hidden in her intoxication was a slight inkling of helplessness. After groping her up and down, Prof Xiao pushed her onto his desk and rushed to lift her skirt and pull down her panties…
“Ah…” After listening to Xueqing’s account I couldn’t help shaking my head with a sigh.
“What? Is there a problem?” Zhenzhen didn’t understand. Her face was slightly rosy, likely a reaction to Xueqing’s short ‘porn piece’.
“If only I were there, ah…” I sighed again.
“Was my work inadequate?” Xueqing’s cold voice sounded from behind. I saw her brows furrow in the rearview mirror.
“Your work wasn’t inadequate. I was just thinking that it was really such shame not to be able to see such a stimulating live show with my own eyes! Ouch…” As I was speaking, a fist landed on my right cheek. At the same time, someone knocked me on the back of my head.
Zhenzhen had wanted to high-five Xueqing, but the other party appeared to not even see her outstretched white palm. She continued reporting about the info she’d received today, and so Zhenzhen could only foolishly high five with Miao Miao’s outstretched hand, a bit embarrassed.
Aside from accidentally discovering that Prof Xiao was having an affair with Asst Zeng Qianyi, Xueqing also found out that he was widowed early and had yet to remarry. But he had a son named…
“What? Xiao Yixuan is his son?” So Prof Xiao and Xiao Yixuan were father and son. This cast another burst of fog onto the case.
Although Prof Xiao was already over 60, but with his position in the medical world, there were tons of young and beautiful girls who would give themselves to him. Wasn’t there a young masters student, a Ms Weng, who married an 80 year old physicist?
If Prof Xiao intended to remarry, there probably wouldn’t be a shortage of pursuers. So then, why didn’t he marry a second wife instead of messing around with his assistant? If the media got hold of this immoral matter, he could come to ruin in his late age.
And did Prof Xiao’s relation with Xiao Yixuan have anything to do with the missing hearts case at the general hospital? If yes, then what did he need so many hearts for? Suppose he wanted them for research purposes, he could ask the hospital to donate them. Did he have to steal them?
The number of questions kept growing. It was too complicated to figure out now, so the best thing to do was put it aside in the meantime. First, let’s go talk to Uncle Liu. Where a car travels, there will be a road.
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Miao Miao left on her own by taxi. Although she was a cop, we weren’t very at ease. Unfortunately, we still had work to do, so we couldn’t send her home. After she left, Xueqing continued to monitor Prof Xiao, and Zhenzhen and I paid a visit to Uncle Liu at the security room.
The security room was lit with a dim light. The radio on the table was playing Teresa Teng’s ‘Small Town Story’, and Uncle Liu was sitting on a chair with his eyes closed as his right hand tapped against the arm rest to the melody. His lips were slightly parted as he sang along quietly to the classic song.
This scene couldn’t help but bring out an aching feeling in my heart. Most older men were just like him, spending the whole day with a TV or radio as a partner. They’d dedicated their youth to our society, but in the end, society abandoned them.
“Uncle Liu, I came to play some chess.” Zhenzhen and I entered the security room and dropped the snacks we’d plundered from Miao Miao’s bag onto the table.
“Your company alone is fine. Why did you buy so many things?!” Uncle Liu was clearly overwhelmed by all the snacks on the table.
“It’s fine, someone else gave them to me, so I’m just sending them along. Come on then, let’s play chess.” I took a seat as if we were old friends.
“Sure. If you have time, we can play all night.” Uncle Liu set up the chessboard.
Zhenzhen didn’t have the patience to watch us play chess, so she told me she’d go for a walk outside. Without waiting for a response, she just left.
During our match, I asked Uncle Liu if anything out of the ordinary happened during the construction of the female dormitory. After thinking about it for a bit, he started to tell me what he knew. “It must have been 30 or so years ago. Enrollment started increasing and they naturally couldn’t all fit in the original dorm, so the school decided to build a new one. At the time, the area around the school hadn’t yet been developed. The number of students wasn’t exactly large, so I was often idle working security here. Usually when there was nothing much to do, I’d take a stroll over to the construction area and get to know the workers. I still remember that the guy in charge was called… something like An ge…”
“Was his name Ye Ping’an?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, that’s right. His name was Ye Ping’an. His last name isn’t a common one, and his name was rather meaningful, so I still remember it. An ge was a pretty good guy, whether it was to his men or an outsider like me. So when I had some free time, I would help them out with some light work.” As Uncle Liu recalled his youth, a smile slipped onto his face, but this smile quickly turned into a slightly pained expression. He continued, “The good die young. I don’t know if the dorm had bad fengshui or if the place was haunted by spirits, but accidents kept happening to An ge and his crew.” (Note: Ye Ping’an means that the night is calm and safe)
“The first accident was Xiao Zhang’s. That day, he and An ge and the rest were on the rafters, putting in the exterior walls for the fourth floor of the dorm. Originally, he was chatting and laughing, but then he suddenly said his stomach hurt. Then he fell off. When An ge and the other guys finally climbed down, he’d already stopped breathing and was dead.
“After that, An ge’s team started to die, one after another. I heard they all came down with gastrointestinal diseases like stomach cancer. When the dorm was completed, only An ge was left. But he didn’t make it long after that. A few days after the dorm’s completion, he also left. Ah…” Uncle Liu let out a long sigh. Recalling these things of the past could only make people sigh.
Auntie Mei said that her husband often complained about the poor food at the construction grounds, so I asked Uncle Liu if that was the case. Was it possible that that was related to An ge and the others’ deaths?
“It was a bit poor, but not to the extent that it would kill a man!” Uncle Liu was incredulous at my conjecture. “That year, there was a shortage of ingredients. Being able to fill your stomach was already pretty good. Back then, the food for their team was provided by the school cafeteria. It wasn’t the best, not really much different from what they fed a pig, but all the students and I also at the same thing. Nothing happened to us!”
“I heard that An ge and his team dug out a snake. Is that really true?” I only asked this casually. Who would have expected the unimaginable past I was about to hear of.
“This…” Uncle Six pondered a moment. “I seem to recall such a matter. An ge and the guys cooked up the snake and even asked if I wanted to eat some.”
“Did you eat it?”
Uncle Liu seemed to recall something frightening and his shriveled up body shuddered. “I didn’t. I never could eat those types of wild animals. Moreover, that snake was pulled out from a coffin. I didn’t have the guts for it.”
“From a coffin? Do you have more details?” Uncle Liu’s words caught my attention.
“I heard it from An ge. What happened was something like this…” Uncle Six retold An ge’s tale. I organized the story in my head a bit, and the scene from 30 years ago gradually formed in my mind—
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The day was passing as the blood-red sun set in the west.
An ge and the other eight men were sitting on the site eating their pig feed-like dinner. Not only was the cafeteria food poor tasting, for guys in their line of work, the portions were definitely not enough. It was probably only enough to make them half full.
Originally, they could go home, just like the foreman, to enjoy their wives’ home cooking. It may not have been the most delicious, but they would at least be able to eat until they were full. But to earn a bit more money to support their families, they stayed at the construction site with their bodies covered in sweat.
After lunch, they rested a bit before continuing to dig out the foundation area. “Hey, everyone, get over here!” Xiao Zhang’s urgent cry caught the others’ attentions and they all headed over to him.
“An ge, what do we do? It looks like an ancient tomb. Should we tell the foreman?” Xiao Zhang pointed at the dark cavern before him. His voice trembled with both excitement and nervousness.
Even if you’d never tasted pork, you’ve seen a pig run before. While the construction workers had never excavated a tomb themselves, they’d heard about it before. It wasn’t a very rare situation. An intact tomb, regardless of its size or age, and there would be at least a few valuable things inside. Gold and jade weren’t uncommon. For this group of laborers, even a small gold ring would be equivalent to several months of their salary.
An ge silently looked at the hole and then his eyes swept over the disturbed faces in the crowd. He spoke in a heavy voice, “The foreman’s already gone home. As long as no one says anything later, we’ll be the only ones who know what’s in this hole. Those who don’t want to suffer from poverty and aren’t afraid of death, come with me to take a look. If we find anything valuable, we split the profit. If anyone doesn’t wish to go, I also won’t force you…”
“I’ll go!” “I’ll go too!” “Count me in…” Everyone was very excited, as if they’d already seen the treasures inside the hole.
“Okay! If there are treasures, we eight will share them! If there’s hardship, we eight will bear them! If anyone has wicked intentions, let them die a painful death!” An ge’s expression was excited but slightly uneasy. He led the group into the cave that appeared like a giant behemoth devouring its prey. Xiao Zhang followed behind him with the oil lamp, and the other men also eagerly headed into the cave.
Inside the hole was a stone room that was smaller than they’d imagined, only about 40 sqm. It was a tight fit with all eight men inside. The air wasn’t as thick as they’d imagined either. Presumably, when they’d dug out the entrance, fresh air had already streamed inside. Xiao Zhang raised the lamp above his head, shining it across the entire room. The group looked around, hoping to find the glimmerings of gold, but they were only left disappointed. This small and narrow room wasn’t fit to be called an old tomb, perhaps just a grave. There were no funery objects anywhere in sight, just four walls with a sarcophagus in the middle of the room.
With disappointment, the men’s eyes landed on the sarcophagus. Both the stone walls and coffin were simple and unadorned. There was no decorative design on them, so the tomb’s owner was likely not a very rich person. However, since they were able to build a tomb, the place couldn’t be without at least a few gold bars!
The greedy men gathered their courage and their strength, and forced the heavy lid off to the side, hoping to find something valuable on the owner’s body. When Xiao Zhang lifted the oil lamp to shine over the coffin, everyone was shocked.
There were no gold or jade treasures in the sarcophagus. In fact, there weren’t even any clothes inside, because there was no human corpse lying inside. Instead, there was a motionless white snake with crude feet attachments curled up inside.
“Fuck, it’s a snake!” someone called out, breaking the silence. Following, the other men started cursing. Suddenly, Xiao Zhang shrieked. He pointed at the snake’s head, his mouth gaping wide but unable to say anything. The others turned to the snake and saw its round, open eyes and a tongue sticking out of its slightly open mouth.
The men unconsciously stepped back, but after a moment of observation, they realized that while the snake was alive, it couldn’t move. “Since there’s nothing valuable here, let’s just eat this big snake!” An ge had just been speaking out in anger. He didn’t expect that the other men readily agreed with this idea.
Because they didn’t have any cooking tools, An ge went to find the security guard, Xiao Liu– that is Uncle Liu, to help out. They went to the cafeteria to find some tools, and of course, he explained the entire story to Xiao Liu, even inviting him to taste it.
Helping them get some tools wasn’t a problem, but eating a snake? Uncle Liu didn’t dare. Moreover, it was a strange snake pulled out from the ground.
After the white snake was pulled out from the cave, the men didn’t find anything particularly strange about it, just that it didn’t move. Even when they cut its stomach and peeled its skin, it didn’t struggle. But that just made it all the easier to slaughter and cook the snake.
An ge personally handled the cutting up of the snake. Although it was his first time, he was still able to dig out the gallbladder in tact. When he asked who wanted to eat it, everyone pushed it off to someone else. In the end, the snake gallbladder was left for him. He ate it in a single bite.
After they cut up the snake, the men built a fire with branches and twigs to make a snake soup. An ge said it was very tasty and the others said it was the most delicious thing they’d ever eaten. Uncle Liu wasn’t sure if they were saying that to goad him into eating some with them, but they really ate it up eagerly. There wasn’t a drop left in the end, and they even chewed up the bones before spitting them out…
After Uncle Liu finished retelling this memory, we continued our chess game as I started to wonder– Why did the sarcophagus hold a white snake within it, or rather, why would a white snake be in a sarcophagus?
Suppose the white snake had crawled into the sarcophagus on its own, then there were two possibilities. One possibility was that when the snake was smaller, it crawled into the coffin from a gap and then grew larger after eating the corpse inside. However, a snake’s method of consumption was to swallow things whole. Would a snake that could crawl through a small gap be able to swallow a human corpse? Even if it could swallow one, would eating a human corpse make it grow a small pair of feet? The other possibility was that the snake was originally large and powerful, enough to be able to push the cover aside to eat the corpse inside. Then it turned the coffin into its nest. While there was still some possibility that the snake was able to push aside the cover, being able to close it afterwards was just too unimaginable!
If the white snake was unable to enter the sarcophagus on its own, that meant someone put it in there. If that was the case, then the tomb was likely created for fengshui purposes.
I kept thinking about it, but to no avail, and then I lost the chess game as well. After I thanked Uncle Liu, I decided to check up on Xueqing’s progress with Zhenzhen. If she hadn’t found anything, then we’d just call it a day. But when I called Zhenzhen’s phone, she didn’t pick up. After several calls, it was still the same. I suddenly had foreboding feeling. Uncle Liu seemed to find it strange as well, so he grabbed a flashlight to help me search for her.
