Tangdun Strange Tales Notes

Chapter 3

However, there was a case that gave Uncle Nan a long headache. The steel plant's staff dormitory area had been burglarized eight times in three months. Although the stolen items and cash were not huge each time, it was still a serious loss. Based on the analysis of the scene, it could be basically determined that it was the work of the same person. Uncle Nan said that these thieves, especially the veterans, all have their own specific habits. Although some thieves have apprentices, and for the first few years of apprenticeship, their timing of attacks, target identification, etc. are similar to their masters, after a period of time they will develop their own habits. This is what the thieves' masters taught them. After all, this way, when the police investigate, they won't be caught in one fell swoop.

Although the theft was committed by the same person, this person was quite audacious. There were eight thefts, each targeting only four households. This means that the person committed the theft twice at the same time. These four households were all leaders such as workshop directors in the factory. The stolen items were nothing more than gold necklaces, earrings, and the first theft always resulted in cash being stolen, followed by jewelry. Although the factory strengthened security in the dormitory area with the help of the police after the first theft, the second theft still occurred.

When Uncle Nan got to this point, he sighed and said, "You know, once a similar case happens, where can ordinary people vent their anger? They'll definitely take it out on the police. I was really worried about that during that time."

At that time, Uncle Nan had no choice but to summon all the informants in DuX Town for questioning. The so-called "informants" were what the police in J City called their informants. Don't underestimate these informants. They had been working with shady characters for a long time. Some of them not only had no guarantee of their livelihood, but even their lives were insecure. So during holidays, Uncle Nan and his team would give the informants some gifts and money. Uncle Nan said that without these informants, solving cases would be extremely difficult.

Since all the ponytails couldn't appear at once, Uncle Nan had to meet them one by one. He wasn't pretending to fish at the reservoir, but rather he'd get them arrested for some kind of fight. In short, it took him more than half a month to get a lead. One of the ponytails, nicknamed Fatty Elephant, said that a fourteen or fifteen-year-old boy had been frequenting those arcades recently and was very generous with his money. The arcades he was referring to weren't the places we used to go to when we were kids, but rather places that secretly operated card-flipping machines in addition to regular arcade games. Back in the 1990s, a large number of people started their fortunes by operating these card-flipping machines.

Fatty Xiang also said that the kid had a nickname, "Bastard," but he didn't know his real name. He only knew that the kid was very short and looked like he was born malnourished. He had seen the kid often for more than a year. Apart from hanging out in the arcade, he was often seen near the factory area. He used to commit petty theft.

The Notebook II: The Thief's Tale, Chapter 3: The Bastard Child

Uncle Nan thought that this bastard was probably related to the case. Either the child was familiar with the perpetrator, or the child committed the theft directly. However, Uncle Nan thought it was unlikely that the child committed theft directly. There must be a theft gang behind him. So he arranged for people to stake out the arcade and follow the child. To ensure that they did not get lost, Uncle Nan asked six people to take turns following the child called "bastard".

A few days later, Uncle Nan and his men figured out the bastard's whereabouts. The bastard lived in the steelmaking area of the factory at night, where scrap steel was dumped. Because the place was warm, he could just lie down next to it and fall asleep immediately, like a natural heater. However, he usually climbed over the wall from the factory very late at night and got up around 7 a.m., because by then the heating was almost gone. Then he would go to the school outside the factory and stand at the school gate, looking inside. It's unclear what he was looking for, but he would squat there for the whole morning. Then at noon, he would stand outside the school and play with the students who came out of school. They played the same games that students liked, nothing strange. In the afternoon, he would go to the arcade and play with the students after school. There was nothing strange about this kid; they just thought that this bastard was probably a little hoodlum.

After a week of pursuing the case without any results, Uncle Nan still didn't give up on the lead. During this period, no thefts occurred in the factory dormitory, which convinced Uncle Nan that the case was 100% related to the boy. Finally, the boy was caught red-handed by the police who were following him when he went to a jewelry store to resell the stolen goods.

Uncle Nan said that according to his deduction, the kid should be out of money, since he went to that arcade every day. The owner said that the kid sometimes lost more than 600 yuan a day there, which was not a small amount in the 1990s.

After Uncle Nan and his men caught the boy, he barely said a word, only drinking water. When asked why he stole things, he glared at the policeman and said, "I was hungry and had no money for food. Do you need to ask me that? You're crazy!" He almost made the policeman faint with anger.

Seeing that the child wouldn't speak, and knowing he couldn't ask about the case, Uncle Nan decided to just detain him. But he brought the child some food from home every day. Children are children, and they are more easily influenced than adults. In less than a week, the child asked to see Uncle Nan. Uncle Nan was delighted: there was hope.

Chapter 8 of "Strange Tales of Tangdun"

Chapter 8 of "Strange Tales of Tangdun"

Author: Tang Xiaohao

After meeting Uncle Nan, the boy asked him for a cigarette. (Uncle Nan said he later noticed a pattern in the boy's behavior: whenever the boy asked someone for a cigarette, it meant he liked that person and was about to ask.)

The boy took the cigarette Uncle Nan offered and began to confess his entire crime. He explained that he hadn't originally lived in DuX Town; he'd wandered over from another town in J City. The reason was simple: it was convenient to find a place to sleep in DuX Town during the winter, and he wouldn't get cold. He added that he didn't dare steal clothes because he'd seen many children his age steal clothes, only to be caught by sharp-eyed thieves within days. He'd had to continue wearing the same few sets of clothes as before. (Uncle Nan secretly admired the boy's patience, noting that he was even smarter than some adult thieves.)

After arriving in DuX Town, the bastard discovered that the most economically powerful group in the town was the steelworkers (of course, the bastard didn't use the word "economically powerful" at the time, but before the steelworkers fell into crisis, they were indeed the wealthiest group in J City. Back then, young people who could find a partner from the steelworkers considered it a blessing from their past life). However, the bastard also noticed that the steelworkers were much more cautious than ordinary residents, and their dormitory area was heavily patrolled by security guards. His long-term surveillance led him to a point of entry: the children of the steelworkers. So the bastard started playing with those kids at the school gate for a long time. Some kids in the steel mill area were born to play, and they would play with anything new and exciting. After a while, the bastard became friends with a few of the kids' leaders and started to get information from them about who was rich and so on. Then he suggested taking those kids to places he frequented, such as arcades, but he said that the kids' school uniforms were inconvenient, so he asked the kids to take them off and put on his own uniform. He would give the kids money to play, and then he would put on the kids' school uniforms, tidy himself up, and sneak into the dormitory area.

At first, the bastard wandered around the dormitory area, doing nothing and not making any moves. He just walked around and memorized the terrain of the dormitory area, the height of the buildings, and which houses had air conditioners. Those with air conditioners were obviously wealthy families, so he wrote them down for future crimes.

When Uncle Nan got to this point, I asked, "Then how did he commit the crime? Through the sheath?"

Uncle Nan shook his head and said, "Kids usually don't know what a lock is. Some of them climb in through the balcony, but this bastard just uses a key!"

After identifying which families were wealthy, the bastard would gather the kids and have them play together. Using the same old trick, he would change clothes, enter the arcade, steal the keys, make a copy, and then brazenly enter the residential area to commit burglaries in broad daylight.

Uncle Nan said that this bastard was very clever. The reason why he only took cash during his first theft was simple. After all, many people keep their jewelry somewhere in their homes, but they don't necessarily lock it. Even if he saw jewelry after going in, he wouldn't take it because if he did, the other person might lock it or move it, making it difficult to retrieve it next time.

I asked Uncle Nan, "That's not right. Logically speaking, if a house is burglarized, even if the valuables aren't stolen, they should be moved to another place."

Uncle Nan chuckled and said, "This is just a way of thinking for that bastard. For example, you put a valuable item in a corner of your house, and in that corner there's a cabinet full of clothes. Inside the clothes is a smaller cabinet, and outside the smaller cabinet are piled mothballs, making it seem like there's nothing there. Then you put that item inside. When something falls out of your house, you check and find that the item is still there. Wouldn't you move that item?"

I shook my head and said I didn't know. Uncle Nan said, "You might not move, because even if you do, you might not think that place will be safer than the previous one. After all, the item wasn't lost when it was stolen last time, understand? This kid is exploiting this psychology."

After successfully stealing, the bastard would kick the door lock as soon as he left (back then, although security doors existed, they were rare; most doors were wooden and had ordinary spring locks that could be kicked open with one kick). This was to let people know that he didn't enter with a key, but kicked the door open. This way, when we investigated, we wouldn't immediately think that the thief entered with a key, and sooner or later the investigation would lead back to the child. That's why he left immediately after kicking the door. Even if someone knew the door had been kicked open and rushed in, there was no one inside. Tell me, who would magically have a sixth sense and report someone for stealing a perfectly good door?

The second time the bastard broke into other people's homes, he kicked down the doors of three different houses, went in, grabbed the items from the correct spot, and left. He also planned to leave if he couldn't find the place where he had seen the items. What's even more amazing is that he brought a new lock with him the first time he went to one of the houses. He threw it under the table after entering, having already made a copy of the key. He was just trying it out, and the second time he went, the family actually changed the lock that he had left on the coffee table.

Hearing Uncle Nan say this, I got so excited that I coughed from the smoke. Damn it, that bastard is really... I really don't know how to describe him. Later, Uncle Nan went to verify and found that when the family was changing the locks, they found a new lock under the coffee table while tidying up. They didn't suspect anything and assumed it was the one they had bought before, so they put it back on. As a result, the bastard used the same method the second time and directly opened the door with the key to get in.

I stared at Uncle Nan and said, "This kid must be highly intelligent, right? It's amazing that he came up with this idea."

Uncle Nan smiled and shook his head, saying, "Back then, several of us veteran police officers were amazed that this kid was even more difficult to deal with than the average adult thief. If he hadn't confessed, it would have taken us quite a while to investigate. The most amazing thing was yet to come."

The bastard then confessed to what he stole from each house, how much money he stole, and even the denominations and quantities of the stolen bills. He also remembered the layout of each house perfectly, pinpointing the location of the television, refrigerator, washing machine, and sewing machine. He could also name which item belonged to which family, where it was placed, and how many there were. (Later, Uncle Nan confirmed that the bastard hadn't mentioned a single location; everything was correct. Uncle Nan said that of all the thieves he'd caught, only the bastard's story was truly unbelievable.)

Notes II: The Thief's Tale, Chapter 4: Acquaintances

The bastard also mentioned that a family had a bankbook hidden under the very bottom of their wardrobe, with a piece of brown paper underneath it. He took it out and looked at it. Because bankbooks were too risky, and they didn't know the password, they put it back untouched. When Uncle Nan told the family about it, they were surprised to learn that they had been searching for the bankbook for half a year, and a thief had actually found it for them.

Uncle Nan asked the bastard how he knew there was a bankbook under the kraft paper. The bastard said he just felt there must be something underneath because the four legs looked obviously uneven. A piece of kraft paper couldn't possibly contain something like that. He was just curious and wanted to see what it was. Uncle Nan had been to that family's house and stood in front of the wardrobe for a long time but still couldn't figure out why the wardrobe was uneven...

According to my country's Criminal Law, persons aged 14 to 16 who commit intentional homicide, intentional injury causing serious injury or death, rape, robbery, drug trafficking, arson, explosion, or poisoning shall bear criminal responsibility. If a person under the age of 16 is not criminally punished, their parents or guardians shall be ordered to discipline them; when necessary, the government may also place them in custody for education and rehabilitation.

Although the bastard may not bear criminal responsibility for theft, this does not exempt him from civil liability. If the minor has property, he should compensate for the loss with his property. If the minor has no property, his parents or other guardians should compensate on his behalf. The bastard is under 16 years old, has no parents, and no relatives. He's just a drug dealer; he shook his head for a long time and then started crying. Besides, he has no property at all. At that time, a kind-hearted policeman in the police station applied to adopt the bastard. While the bastard went to school, everyone in the police station inquired everywhere about the bastard's family, but they never found them. The bastard never said where he came from or where he lived, but judging from his accent, he should be a local from J City.

Later, when they were preparing to give the bastard a nickname, he suddenly said that his surname was Wu and his name was Wu Qiang. The police officers from the police station joked that the name was well chosen, as it truly meant "strong in everything".

Uncle Nan started laughing at this point and stopped talking. I asked, "And then what happened? Was there no 'afterward'?"

Uncle Nan said, "Later we found one of Wu Qiang's relatives. According to that relative, his father had committed a crime and was arrested while on the run. After his father went to prison, his mother ran away with someone else and left Wu Qiang at his relative's house. Since his relative only sold breakfast on the street, no one cared about him. So he just wandered around and eventually ended up in DuX Town."

I asked Uncle Nan, "What happened next?" Uncle Nan turned to a handsome young man at his table and said, "Then this kid sat here and drank with me."

When I saw the man, I was stunned. Wasn't that Wu Laoyu, who was on good terms with me? Old Yu who was in the fish business, Qiang Ge who was about my age, Wu Laoyu who always delivered fish to our shop... No wonder Uncle Nan sounded so familiar when he mentioned Wu Qiang, but I never imagined that Wu Laoyu was that bastard.

Wu Qiang stood up and walked over to Uncle Nan, saying, "Uncle Nan, are you talking about me again? Those are all things of the past, and I only did it once. There's no need to repeat it again, is there?" Uncle Nan pointed at me and said, "Your brother Dun is a big reporter. If I talk to him about it, maybe one day he'll be in a good mood and write a book about you, and you'll become famous."

Wu Qiang chuckled at me and walked over. Suddenly, I didn't know what to say to Wu Laoyu; he seemed like a complete stranger. Wu Laoyu sat at the bar, looked at me for a while, then leaned closer and said with a smile, "Brother Dun, got a cigarette? Want one?"

Uncle Nan gave me a wink, and just as I was about to reach for my cigarette, I noticed that Old Wu had already taken mine out, placed it on the table, and started smoking it himself, while smiling at me.

[over]

Chapter 9 of "Strange Tales of Tangdun"

Chapter 9 of "Strange Tales of Tangdun"

Author: Tang Xiaohao

Notes II: The Thief's Chronicle - My Organization

I don't doubt the story Uncle Nan told me, because I later talked to Old Wu about those past events. Old Wu admitted it, and even said that his biggest interest now is performing magic tricks? Or rather, exploring magic. I have to admire Old Wu's flexible thinking and skillful hands. He knows what he should make you pay attention to and what you don't want to pay attention to. A small gesture can lead your attention to where he wants you to focus. I think he should be a magician, not a thief. Below are some questions I wanted to ask him and his answers to me.

First point: Did he have any master to teach him the art of theft?

Wu Laoyu said he had never apprenticed under any master; he had only seen his former playmates pick locks and thought it looked fun, so he tried it himself. But in the end, he concluded that instead of racking his brains to figure out how to pick locks, it was better to find a way to get the key directly.

Second point: How exactly did Wu Laoyu discover that there was a savings book under the cabinet of that family?

Old Wu just smiled and told me that the cabinet seemed a bit crooked, but Uncle Nan said that after looking at it, he had the same opinion as that family—he couldn't see anything wrong with the cabinet with the naked eye. However, Old Wu insisted that the cabinet was definitely crooked; he could tell at a glance. I went to the teahouse and asked for a cheap deck of cards. I divided it into two piles behind my back, one pile missing a card. I placed each pile in my palms, about half a meter apart, with my palms slightly raised. Old Wu easily pointed out the pile with the missing card. I repeated this several times, and he always identified it correctly. I thought, if it were a coincidence, it couldn't be that coincidental, could it?

Third point: Why was Wu Laoyu able to remember the layout of those rooms?

At that time, Old Wu took out a piece of paper and drew me a floor plan, which was the interior layout of the teahouse. He drew it simply, even noting how many people were sitting in the rooms he had seen when he went to the toilet, what color their clothes were, and which direction they were facing while playing mahjong. I took the paper and ran to the room near the toilet, and it was almost identical. Old Wu also said that although he remembered these things very clearly, he had a headache when asked to recite texts or look up words in his textbook.

Fourth point: How did Wu Laoyu take my cigarettes out when we were at the hot pot restaurant?

I remember clearly that the cigarette was in the right side of my shirt pocket. If someone appeared on my right, I would definitely have noticed. Old Wu chuckled and said that later he learned a term called "blind spot," and then he never said anything more.

Notes III: The Quest for Immortals, Chapter 1: Four Herbs

Before recounting this story, I must mention someone, a sleazy man who is rarely seen. Every time this man appeared in front of Lai Bao and me, our first reaction was to beat him up without saying a word... Almost no one could pronounce his full name directly. We called him Lao Fu. According to Lai Bao, even his teachers often called him that when he was in school. The reason was simple: his parents had named him Fu Qing!

Pay it all? Father!

Old Fu is a year younger than Lai Bao and me. He's basically the kind of person who's afraid of everything, afraid of losing money in business and losing face even when washing dishes. But in the early days of China's reform and opening up in the 1980s, Old Fu's father made a bold move into business, starting with steel trading and eventually getting involved in decoration and real estate. The year Old Fu started university, his father suddenly put a large sum of money and a large number of shops in City C in Old Fu's name, then left a letter saying he was going to find Old Fu's grandfather, and then disappeared. To this day, his father's information is still in the missing persons section of the police station in City S.

For this reason, while Lai Bao and I were still struggling to make a living every day, he drove his Nissan Bluebird around the city every day, chatting with the tenants at his shop, reminding them to pay the rent, and then calling the police station in S City to inquire about his father.

Although Lao Fu talks nonsense all day long, he always pulls out a yellowed book with the first layer of cover almost completely peeling off from his bag around noon every day. I once asked to see the book, but Lao Fu sternly refused, saying that the book was passed down from his grandfather's father's generation, and that no one other than the Fu family could read the contents. I secretly glanced at it and saw that I couldn't recognize any of the words on it; it was completely a book of mystery.

Lai Bao told me that Lao Fu never actually said what the book was about, but it must have something to do with his family. Once, when Lao Fu was drunk, he talked about the book, but before he could get to the point, he started crying like the girls who were getting married in the past. In the end, he started calling out the names of women like "Fang," "Hong," and "Li"... Lai Bao also said that there was a way to see the book.

I asked Lai Bao, "What's the plan?"

Lai Bao said that Lao Fu said only the Fu family could see it, right? You then very seriously called Lao Fu aside and, with tears streaming down your face, told him, "Fu, there's something I have to tell you. Actually, I also have the surname Fu, and I'm your biological father!"

I immediately abandoned this idea, because it would only result in Lao Fu beating me up and my face being covered in his spittle...

In the spring of 2004, I had already resigned from the TV station and, on the recommendation of Lai Bao, a jerk who had resigned earlier, went to work for a foreign company as an advertising designer and copywriter. Although the salary and benefits were much better than at the TV station, the job was very tedious. I spent all day sitting on the computer writing one proposal after another, and each proposal was usually no more than 1,000 words. I had to write dozens of proposals a day, but probably only one was usable. Lai Bao often lamented: "Luckily, these things aren't calculated by the thousand words, or we would all starve to death."

What's most infuriating is that our supervisor, Touyang Zhan, is a complete idiot who doesn't even know how to turn a computer on or off. I heard he joined the company because of his exceptional foreign language speaking skills; he could basically read classical Chinese texts aloud in English. But Lai Bao and I have never heard him mention it. We just know that the first thing he does every morning when he comes to the company is call me or Lai Bao to his office to turn on his computer, and then he sits in front of it grinning like an idiot...

Lai Bao and I had been with that company for less than two months when Yang Zhan was fired by the newly transferred regional manager. This was because Yang Zhan frequently left the company without permission and kept his phone off. In short, he disappeared.

On the day Yang Zhan packed his things to leave the company, Lai Bao and I were sitting outside his private room, so we kept peeking at him. We discovered that Yang Zhan was secretly laughing as he packed his things, seemingly very happy. Lai Bao and I were puzzled. What was this idiot laughing about? How could he be so happy about being fired?

When Yang Zhan finished packing and came out, I stood up and said to him against my will, "Boss, don't be discouraged. If this place doesn't want me, there are plenty of other places that will. Don't take it to heart, I understand." As soon as I finished speaking, Yang Zhan sneered and said, "Do I need to be understood by a mortal like you?" After saying that, Yang Zhan walked away and recited a poem: "With sword in hand, I'm already mad in the mortal world; with wine, I can easily ascend to the heavens; I roam among the stars and play with the sun and moon; drunk, I lie on the clouds and laugh at the world."

After hearing this, I said to Lai Bao, "I never thought this idiot would be so cultured?"

Lai Bao glanced at Yang Zhan's retreating figure and said, "Cultural my ass! Haven't you played 'The Legend of Sword and Fairy'? That's the part where Li Xiaoyao meets the Drunken Sword Immortal in the dilapidated temple."

Lai Bao and I had just left the company after get off work when we saw Yang Zhan standing outside the company gate, carrying a bag and dressed like he was going on a trip. Cigarette butts were piled up around him, making him look like a newly erected trash can if you weren't paying attention. Just as I was pulling Lai Bao to show him, Yang Zhan ran towards us. Before we could say anything, he asked, "You guys used to be reporters, right? I remember it was on your resumes."

Lai Bao and I nodded, and Yang Zhan pulled us aside and whispered, "You must know a lot of people, can you help me find something?"

I asked Yang Zhan, "What is that?"

Yang Zhan took out a piece of fresh paper from his bag. There were many characters written on it with a brush. I looked at it for a long time before I could recognize two of them. One was purple alum, and the other was bitter bean grass. The other two were written in such amazing calligraphy that even though I have a higher education, I couldn't make out what they were. I handed the paper to Lai Bao and asked Yang Zhan, "Boss, what do you need these for?"

Yang Zhan's expression changed instantly, and he almost gritted his teeth as he said to us, "This is none of your business. Just help me find it. I'll reward you handsomely if you find it. You have my phone number, but my cell phone is off. You can reach me by calling my landline, but I can't be sure if I'm home. If you find it and I'm not home, deliver it to this address." After saying that, Yang Zhan handed me a piece of paper and turned to leave. I grabbed Yang Zhan and said, "Brother Yang, there are two words on this that we don't recognize."

Yang Zhan turned around and wrote four names on the slip of paper: Bitter Bean Grass, Purple Agar Sand, Sheep Rhododendron, and Red Lady Insect.

After Yang Zhan finished writing, he glanced at Lai Bao and me, then turned and left. It was more like he ran than walked, looking around frantically as he ran. We saw Yang Zhan get into a taxi and then slowly head home with the papers in his hand.

Why did Yangzhan ask Lai Bao and me to find these things? What are these things? What are they for? After returning home, Lai Bao and I started a heated discussion about these four items. I pointed to "purple alum" and said, "This thing is probably porcelain, right?" Lai Bao glanced at it and nodded, saying, "Probably, maybe a purple clay teapot or something." I then pointed to "red ladybug" and said, "This should be some kind of insect." Lai Bao nodded as well. I then pointed to "bitter bean grass" and said, "This thing is definitely some kind of Chinese medicine, judging from the name." Lai Bao nodded again... Finally, I stared at the three characters "sheep rhododendron" for a long time without being able to pronounce them, and then after thinking for a while, I said, "This is probably the name of a bracelet?"

Chapter 10 of "Tangdun Strange Tales Notes"

Chapter 10 of "Tangdun Strange Tales Notes"

Author: Tang Xiaohao

As soon as I finished speaking, I heard a voice cursing from the side: "Bullshit! You two illiterate people! You're really stupid. You can only recognize half of the characters. The character '皴' has a different radical than '躅'. And you call yourselves college students, majoring in Chinese literature? And you keep saying you want to be writers in the future!" Lai Bao and I looked up sharply and saw that bastard Lao Fu yawning as he walked out of the inner room, holding a cup of coffee in his hand, drinking it while looking at Lai Bao and me with contempt.

Old Fu sat down, picked up the paper, looked at it, and said to me and Lai Baoshou, "These four things are all Chinese medicines; they all sound familiar to me."

Just as Lai Bao was about to speak, I pointed at Lao Fu and said, "You bastard, what are you doing in our house? You've trespassed! Be careful, I'll take you to the authorities and you'll be locked up for at least 15 days!"

Old Fu ignored me, continuing to hold the paper in one hand, and taking out a key with the other, placing it on the table without looking up, saying, "Lai Bao gave me the key last night. I had insomnia and nothing to do last night, so I came here."

Lai Bao then said to me, "You drank too much last night and slept like a log before 9 o'clock. That bastard came and slept with me."

Old Fu looked at the paper, then suddenly put it on the table. He bit his finger, seemingly lost in thought, then suddenly stood up, then sat down again, holding the paper and asking us, "This thing... this thing... where did you get it?"

Seeing how agitated Lao Fu was, Lai Bao and I told him the whole story about Yangzhan. Lao Fu, biting his fingers, said, "Strange, strange, what a coincidence!"

Lai Bao and I had no idea what Lao Fu was talking about. We looked at each other, then each of us flanked Lao Fu on one side, pressed him down to sit, lit a cigarette and held it to his lips, saying, "Lao Fu, let me tell you the truth. If you don't tell the truth today, you probably won't be leaving this house."

When Lao Fu saw us like this, he was stunned for a moment, then laughed. He was about to get up, but Lai Bao and I grabbed him. Lao Fu shook his hand and said, "I'm going to get some water, this coffee is too strong." Lai Bao and I let go of him. As soon as Lao Fu went around, we suddenly opened the door and rushed downstairs without even changing our shoes. Lai Bao and I quickly chased after him. We don't know why he ran so fast this time. As soon as we got downstairs, we saw him get into his car, start the engine, and drive out of the community. When Lai Bao and I realized we couldn't catch up, we called him and cursed that bastard, but Lao Fu didn't answer the phone.

Notes Part 3: The Quest for Immortals, Chapter 2: Tianchi Village

For the next few days, Lai Bao and I had no news of Lao Fu or Yang Zhan. We called Yang Zhan, but no one answered. Lai Bao and I wondered if Lao Fu had some connection with Yang Zhan, but we couldn't figure it out. So, after get off work, we went around asking people to help us find the medicine. Finally, we asked one of my college classmates, whose father owned a pharmaceutical company. He asked the company's researchers, who said that the four things were indeed Chinese medicines, with different uses and some were toxic. If not handled carefully, they could be fatal. He also said that some of them might not be easy to find on the market.

Lai Bao and I knew absolutely nothing about this stuff, and we didn't know if what my classmate said was true or false. We just always felt that anything involving traditional Chinese medicine was mysterious, which is why we've always given up on studying foreign things and focused on things in China that we don't understand. If we can't even understand our own country's things, why would we study foreign things? That's just nonsense!