Berechnen

Kapitel 12

"Ha, look what I found!" Wei Xian suddenly exclaimed, holding up a notebook.

"The diary, the diary of the Sun brothers." He had clearly already turned several pages.

"Great, let's take a look when we get back."

“We also need to take this back.” Wei Xian took a few steps and pulled out the flag that Sun Huizu was holding in his left hand.

“And…” Wei Xian then tried to pry open Sun Huizu’s right hand.

No, it should be the right hand bone, the right hand bone that gripped the head.

"What's going on?" Wei Xian tried several times, but couldn't wrest the head from the thick, white bone.

"He's already dead, his flesh has turned to ash, why are you still holding on so tightly?!" Wei Xian cursed.

Watching Wei Xian struggle desperately for a head from the skeleton, a chill ran through me.

"Forget it, Mr. Wei, let's stop now. We'll talk about it next time. I've already taken pictures."

Wei stopped what he was doing.

“Okay,” he said, standing up.

His answer was so readily given that I realized he had been feeling guilty all along, and my words had given him a way out.

"With this diary, we should be able to figure things out. Let's go back first and come back when we've figured it out."

Wei nodded in agreement.

We slowly retreated from the long and magnificent tomb passage. The pressure on my heart gradually weakened, and when we returned to the spot where the removed bluestone slab had been, I let out a long sigh of relief.

Sun Huizu's skeleton (8)

Looking back at the stone steps in the cave, the fire below was still burning, and the view was no longer dark, but bright.

I think I just walked right back to the brink of death.

After crouching low and walking through the dimly lit passageway, exiting the basement, and reaching the central "three-story building," they stood in the bright sunlight.

In broad daylight, I felt like I had been reborn.

The sealed bulletproof vest I took off has been put back in my travel bag, and the clothes I'm wearing now look like they've been pulled out of the water.

Wei Xian was the same.

“Let’s go back and change our clothes first. Come to my place before dinner and we’ll study that diary together.”

"Okay," I said.

Perhaps the experience I had just had was too shocking, or perhaps I had focused too much attention on that diary, but at that moment I completely forgot that in Wei Xian's travel bag, besides a diary from sixty-seven years ago, there was also half a flag.

Half a ghost flag.

The Nightmare Begins (1)

I've rung the doorbell three times already, and still no one has come to open the door.

I checked the room number again, and yes, this was Wei Xian's room.

Could this guy have taken the diary and run away? That thought flashed through my mind.

He probably wouldn't be that kind of person, but what if his diary contained something extraordinary...?

Just as I was about to pound on the door, it finally opened.

"What's wrong with you? Why did it take you so long to open the door?"

"Oh, nothing, I was just spacing out for a while." Wei Xian looked a little lost.

The wind was blowing against my face, and it was very strong. I looked behind Wei Xian; the window was wide open. This was the eighteenth floor of the Hilton. The building was tall and the wind was strong. With the window open like that, a few pieces of paper were blown to the ground, making the room look a bit messy.

Why open such a big window?

"I need to get some fresh air; it's a bit stuffy."

Wei Xian's face seemed to show some fear.

Perhaps I misjudged him. What was he afraid of? He didn't seem afraid at all in that tomb.

On the coffee table, I spotted the diary at a glance.

Sun Huizu's blood had already soaked through this diary. Although it was not hit by an arrow and the paper was not torn to pieces, the congealed dark brown blood still posed a great obstacle to reading.

As I held it in my hand, I could smell a faint scent of blood.

I carefully opened it, afraid that the paper would tear. After flipping through it a little, I found that except for the first few pages, the rest of the paper was stuck together with blood.

The first few pages were originally glued together, but Wei Xian has clearly separated them.

"Why didn't you finish reading it?"

He managed to wait for me to look at such important information together, but I'm afraid it took him some time to shower and change.

I asked this casually, but Wei Xian didn't answer and didn't seem to care. He turned back to the first page and tried to decipher the words on it.

The first page mentioned the Ghost Flag. It was then that I realized we had retrieved half of the Ghost Flag in that tomb passage!

"Wei Xian, is that flag with you? Quickly take it out and let me see it." I said to Wei Xian as I looked down.

...

There was no answer! I looked up and was suddenly taken aback.

The wind in the room had died down for a while, and I thought Wei Xian had closed the window slightly. But now I was shocked to see that Wei Xian had already stepped one foot out of the window and most of his body was outside.

What's outside the window? My first thought was that Wei Xian had seen something outside the window, which was why he was in such a dangerous position to investigate. Perhaps this position wasn't dangerous for him?

The thought flashed through my mind in an instant, but I subconsciously felt that something was wrong.

Wei Xian's hands were not able to grasp anything, and he simply let his weight fall towards the window.

"Wei Xian!" I shouted, but before I could finish speaking, I saw Wei Xian turn his head to look at me and step out of the window with his other foot.

That bewildered face!

I rushed to the window, but it was too late.

I saw Wei Xian's face rapidly moving away, his expression shifting dramatically from bewilderment to terror, as if he suddenly found himself suspended in mid-air, before letting out a desperate scream.

I watched his body fall from the eighteenth floor, and when he hit the ground, I thought I heard a loud thud. I staggered back a few steps. How could this happen?

He clearly jumped out of the window by himself, so what reason would he have to commit suicide under the current circumstances?

My mind is a mess. I thought we were getting closer to the truth, and when we were nearing danger in the tomb passage, I finally managed to persuade Wei Xian to come back, and nothing went wrong. But now Wei Xian has committed suicide.

It turned out that everything was out of my control. Wei Xian's leap sent a chill down my spine.

And his final expression...

My gaze fell on the diary. Could it be that he saw something in the first few pages that caused him to suffer an unbearable blow?

Or perhaps it's that half of the ghost flag.

Looking back, Wei Xian's expression had been off ever since he opened the door. If only I had noticed it sooner...

But now is not the time to think about these things. The police will be here soon. I am now a suspect in Wei Xian's murder. And how am I supposed to explain Wei Xian's identity? How am I supposed to explain the contents of the travel bag? How am I supposed to explain this bloodstained diary and...

The Nightmare Begins (2)

By the way, where is that half of the Ghost Flag now?

Wei Xian's travel bag was right next to the bed. He had put the flag inside. I quickly opened it to look for it while praying that he hadn't put it on his person, because it would be troublesome to get it back if he did.

To my surprise, I easily found the half flag in the bag. So, Wei Xian hasn't taken it out to look at it yet?

I shoved the flag and diary into my bag, my heart still pounding. These actions were almost an instinctive self-protective reaction. I wasn't close to Wei Xian, but we'd gotten along well these past few days. The shock of him dying before my eyes left me completely disoriented. At the same time, everything Wei Xian had left behind in this room was probably something I couldn't explain to the police.

So my thought at that moment was: leave as soon as possible.

I stood in front of the door, took a deep breath, calmed myself down, and then opened the door and went out.

There was no one in the corridor, so I slipped into the stairwell diagonally opposite, went down five floors, turned around on the thirteenth floor, and took the elevator to the ground floor.

When I stepped out of the lobby, the area outside the hotel was in an uproar, with crowds gathered in circles not far away.

I stood there, staring blankly at the crowd for a long time, before finally deciding not to look at Wei Xian's miserable state and turning away.

As I walked alone in the hallway just now, my emotions had stabilized considerably. At least compared to when it first happened, I was able to calmly analyze the situation. At that moment, I realized that if the police weren't incompetent, they would eventually find me.

I never expected something like this to happen, so I didn't try to avoid suspicion when entering and leaving the hotel. It would be easy for the police to find out who had been in frequent contact with the deceased recently. The staff may have also seen me when I came in. I didn't care at the time, but the police will eventually remember when they ask.

The scene should quickly lead to the conclusion that it was most likely a suicide, but as someone who was present when the deceased died, I will inevitably be suspected, so I will be in a lot of trouble.

I quickly weighed my options in my mind, went into a Lianhua convenience store next door, and stored my bag. When I returned to the crowd, which was several times larger than before, and struggled to squeeze in, the police arrived.

My face turned deathly pale after just one glance at Wei Xian's corpse.

Wei Buhui said he would die underground, but I didn't expect him to die so soon, even if he wasn't underground.

After that, I gave a statement to the police for several hours. Of course, I couldn't tell the police the truth about my relationship with Wei Xian. Just as I decided to face the police, I had already thought of an explanation that could explain my relationship with Wei Xian without getting too involved: online friends.

I told him that I met Wei Xian while chatting on S. He logged in as a random guest, and during our chat, I found that he had considerable insight into antiques and ancient Chinese history. Since we lived in the same city, we met a few times. Today, he called me and said he had something good to show me. I rushed over, but I found that he looked strange. Before we could even exchange a few words, he suddenly jumped out of the open window.

The police showed me the two sets of clothes in my travel bag, and of course I replied that I didn't know them and had never seen them before.

The police investigation of the scene quickly led them to the conclusion that Wei Xian had jumped down himself. Even more favorable to me was the fact that a waiter had come in to clean that afternoon and noticed Wei Xian's dazed expression and pale face, as if he were burdened with something heavy on his mind.

I stayed at the police station until after 9 p.m. before I was finally allowed to leave. The officer in charge of the case asked me to obtain police permission if I wanted to leave Shanghai before the case was closed. Of course, I had no choice but to agree.

Under normal circumstances, I shouldn't be subject to such restrictions. However, Wei Xian's identity is too mysterious, and there are also those strange tools and some rare antiques in the room. The value of those things would leave any expert speechless if they took a look at them at the police station.

How could I possibly let such a person go so easily, especially since I was the only person he knew who was dead?!

However, if their investigation yields little progress after a period of time, they'll probably have to close the case as a simple suicide. Those antiques will likely be acquired by the Shanghai Museum.

After leaving the police station, I hailed a taxi and went to the Lianhua convenience store to retrieve my bag.

Back home, I took out the flag and my diary, ready to begin my research.

The first thing I looked at was the half flag. I turned on the light on my desk, hoping to see it more clearly. My desk is nearly two meters long. With a computer monitor on the right, there wasn't enough space left to unfold the half flag.

The nightmare begins (3)

This flag is neither silk nor cotton, and I don't know what it's made of. It's stained with blood, and although it's been torn, it still feels very sturdy to the touch. The fabric hasn't rotted over time.

As I carefully examined the patterns on the flag, my brows gradually furrowed.

This must be the ghost flag. From beginning to end, neither Wei Xian nor I felt any pressure from this flag...