bad seeds - Chapter 9
This expedition yielded nothing. We obtained no "magical artifacts," had no idea how to "exorcise demons," and had no clue where or what the "demons" were or how the "warriors" of hundreds or even thousands of years ago had done it.
We rented a room in a hotel in Delingha. After dinner, changing our clothes and washing off the dust, we decided to take out the parchment scrolls to study them some more, since we had only used one of them and there were still four left.
The parchment scrolls had been torn to pieces by our rough handling during our expedition. As I tried to piece them back together, I discovered writing on the back of the last parchment, which I hadn't noticed while carefully examining the scrolls.
"Enter my sacred chamber, take my sacred stone, entrust it to the south, and cast it into the demon mountain. Where the stone remains, demons will not arise."
South of Tuosu lies Yaoshan.
Could it be Mount Baigong?
Ancient village ruins, an underground alien base, and Baigong Mountain—these three mysterious locations near Delingha are now connected.
"Perhaps the government has also noticed something amiss, and Baigong Mountain has been sealed off," I said.
"Let's ignore Baigong Mountain for now and get the 'Holy Stone' first," Ye Tong said.
"'Holy Stone,' where can we find it?"
“Isn’t it clearly written here? ‘Enter my holy chamber and take my holy stone.’”
“But there’s nothing in the ‘sanctuary’ except for that pillar…”
“It’s that pillar.” Once Ye Tong was out of danger, she showed her meticulous nature as a girl. “Do you remember that there’s a spider pattern on that pillar that’s the same as the pattern outside the ‘Sacred Chamber’? Since the one outside is the mechanism to open the door to the ‘Sacred Chamber’, then the one on the pillar must be the switch to open the place where the ‘Sacred Stone’ is stored.”
So we decided to explore the "sanctuary" again early the next morning.
Ye Tong resumed her determined demeanor, as if she had completely forgotten that just a few hours earlier, she had almost lost her life for this legend.
Perhaps three hundred years from now, we too will become the "demon-slaying heroes" praised by the Demirshi people.
Chapter Five - Liang Yingwu
Early the next morning.
When we arrived at the entrance to the "Sacred Chamber," it had already become as bustling as a market.
The roar of large excavators, over twenty tents, a large amount of equipment and vehicles, and a busy crowd, along with iron fences and guards reminiscent of the Baigong Mountain area—it all seemed unbelievable, as if it had fallen from the sky. If it weren't for...
Ye Tong and I had a life-or-death experience here last night, we must have thought we came to the wrong place.
So we pretended to be passing travelers and tried to approach the hill where the entrance to the "sanctuary" was located.
We were stopped just a dozen meters away:
"Hey you two, I'm talking to you! This place is sealed off, don't come any closer!"
"Can you do me a favor? We've run out of water. Can we borrow some?" Ye Tong called out.
"Don't go any further, or I won't be polite!" The guard remained unmoved.
I suddenly shouted:
"Liang Yingwu!"
Liang Yingwu is someone I know.
To be more precise, he was my classmate in high school and college.
To be more precise, he is the only person I know whom I acknowledge as a "genius".
In high school, he was my deskmate. Thanks to his excellent math, physics, and chemistry scores, even someone like me who was extremely insensitive to science could easily score in the eighties on regular tests.
During the college entrance exams, we both got into the prestigious F University. I studied journalism, and he studied bioengineering. I spent four uneventful years in the journalism school, while he became a legend in the life sciences department—he not only easily passed all his major courses, but also excelled in all the numerous elective courses in chemistry and geophysics. After he graduated and went abroad, I never heard from him again; it was as if he had vanished into thin air.
I met him again four years later in an extremely unusual event. That unexpected encounter almost completely changed my life. In addition to learning that he had earned a PhD in Life Sciences from Harvard and a Master's degree in Nuclear Physics from Stanford in three and a half years—which was not the most surprising thing for me—I learned about the existence of "Organization X." From then on, I could no longer escape the intricate entanglement with this mysterious organization.
But to be honest, Liang Yingwu, apart from being incredibly intelligent, was a guy with almost no sense of humor.
At this moment, meeting him in this vast Gobi Desert, which holds countless secrets, is not particularly surprising.
"Liang Yingwu!" I shouted.
He glanced at me, a smile on his face—he clearly recognized me—and walked over to the guard and said:
"Let them in."
"Yes!" the guard replied respectfully, indicating that he was an important figure here.
"You're still alive? You're doing well!" I said as we walked.
"Me? Heh, still the same as always," he said casually.
"What are you doing here? Look at this project, it's quite large, with iron fences and guards, quite a show of force!" I tried to probe his intentions.
"Don't you know?" He stopped and turned to look at me.
I shrugged and spread my hands.
"Come with me." He smiled again.
In a tent filled with cutting-edge electronic devices, he gestured for us to sit down, dismissed his assistants, and zipped up the tent entrance.
This action made me a little nervous, so I adjusted my posture and put my left leg on top of my right leg.
“I think we don’t need to hide anything from each other anymore; it’s pointless. You know why we’re here, and we know exactly why you’re here.” He hadn’t changed at all; he was still as blunt and utterly devoid of humor as ever.