Wu Xie
Before heading back to the safety of the town, Xiaoge had insisted for both Wu Xie and Pangzi to take the antidote that Panma made in the forest, just to be on the safe side and so they did. Then, they went back to town, guided by Panma, which knew the closer route to Mr. Gui's home and they went in with him in the middle of the night.
Mr. Gui greet them, glad to see them all alive and well, although Pangzi's shirt was stained with blood. Mr. Gui brought a first aid kid to have a look at it, but Xiaoge did it for him, asking Pangzi to take off his shirt, while cleaning and treating the wound properly, to make sure there will be no infection later on for overlooking the bite. Once Xiaoge was satisfy with the treatment, he bandage the wound and ask Pangzi to dress back.
By the end of it, Pangzi was still tired from the previous ordeal with the spiders, then been poison and walk back in a rush, so he decided to take some more rest on a chair outside Mr. Gui's house after Xiaoge treat him and he dressed back.
Mr. Gui offer them something to eat and drink and they carry the dishes outside to had their dinner under the light of the full moon on the long table, then after Mr. Gui urged Panma to go back to his house, as his son was worry sick about him, Wu Xie stood up along with him, determined to get the information he wanted from the old man no matter what.
"Now can you tell us what happen back then?" Wu Xie asked Panma and the old man accented.
"Come with me." Panma said and so Wu Xie stood to go with the old manto his house, but when Qiling was going to follow them as well, Panma turned and pointed at Qiling.
"He stays here with the other man. I can talk with you and tell you everything you want to know, but not him." Panma said and Wu Xie frown, while Xiaoge gave a step back.
"Why not?" Wu Xie asked coming closer to the old man.
"It's for your own good. I can tell that you two been together will only end with one of you meeting your demise sooner than later and you most likely than him." Panma said and Wu Xie felt enraged, yet he controlled himself as he gave Xiaoge a loving look.
"He is not someone who will hurt me and it's because of him that I am still alive to this day. I cannot said the same for you, after all, you already try to get rid of us..." Wu Xie said, but Xiaoge wanted answers too.
"You know me?" Qiling asked, quite eagerly to know the answer and Wu Xie knew it was more than just curiosity, he was really bother by Panma's accusation that he will cause Wu Xie's death.
"If you want to know, then do as I ask. You rick of them way too much..." Panma said as he moved away, back into his own house and Wu Xie tapped Xiaoge's shoulder a few times.
"I will get the answer for him. Stay with Pangzi for now." Wu Xie told him.
"I don't trust him." Qiling whisper as he looked at Wu Xie intensely.
"I know and I don't either." Wu Xie assure him, but Xiaoge was still reluctant to let him alone with Panma and Wu Xie smiled to him.
"I can handle an old man on my own, don't worry." Wu Xie assure him, yet Xiaoge was still uncertain, which only give him one choice. He kiss Xiaoge slightly, ignoring Pangzi's whistle and then headed after Panma. Qiling stood there, watching as Wu Xie's slender figure disappeared in the dark street and his heart filled with anxiety.
"Xiaoge... you must trust Tianzhen a bit more... but if you still can't resist your instinct to protect him, we can always sneak in, unnoticed. You are quite fitted to do stealth jobs, with both your inhuman abilities and quiet nature." Pangzi said and Qiling smirked back, agree with Pangzi's plan wholeheartedly.
"Then, you lead the way and I will follow you like a shadow." Pangzi suggested and soon, both of them where into the street, following Wu Xie and the old man from a safe distance and once they went in and Panma's son went out, they look for a place to hide, that will be away from the impatient Panma's son, yet close to the old man whereabouts to overhear their conversation.
Wu Xie sat in front of the old man as he smoked from a long bamboo pipe.
"What do you mean before? Why do you said that Xiaoge will cause my demise? Had you see him before here in Banai?" Wu Xie asked the old man first.
"You have no idea of what kind of person your friend is. Staying close to him will not end good for you, it never does."
"So you really know him?" Wu Xie asked.
"I don't know his face, but I recognize his smell well enough, even after so many years of having smelling it for the first time." Panma answer, which was still nothing more than a vague one with not real information.
"What smell?" Wu Xie insisted.
"The smell of the dead." Panma told him and Wu Xie huffed. Was he kidding with him now? Such a thick headed old man.
"Are you saying that my friend is dead? I have been in hell and back again together with him for years now, so my friend I know him well and I know he is very much alive right now." Wu Xie asked.
"I had said what it needs to be said, is up to you to believe it or not."
"Okay, it's my choice then, so thanks for the warning. However, what I really want to know is what happen in that expedition that was done here a long time ago. Can you tell me about it?" Wu Xie asked, changing the theme, seen that the other one leaded to nowhere.
"I knew that eventually someone will come to ask about what happen back then... I was young when an archeology team came to our village, looking for the lake in the Yang Jiao Mountain. At that time our village was very poor, we barely had enough food to feed our family and the archeology team was offering a good amount of rice to those who worked for them. I was to be their guide as I knew the mountain the best and I accepted their offer out of need."
"We travel for two days into the mountain until we reach the lake they were looking for. There was no river of streams nearby, so I wonder how the lake came to be, but it was not my task to find out. They settle in the shore and make a campsite there, to carry out their work."
"In what they were working?"
"My job was to guide them there, I was not told about their research. I was dismissed once my job was done, only to come back for supplies every two days."
"But there was more, right? We came looking for you because you told the locals an interesting tale about demons... don't let me hanging after starting your story. Was it true what you told the others? About how they disappeared one night and in the next day they were back as if nothing happen?" Wu Xie pressed.
"Some of it it's true... but not in the way I told the others. The truth is that something worse happen in that place... and I no longer wish to hide the truth of the sins committed back them. They had haunt me down for too many years already, so I will told you everything."
"They stayed in the lake for months, I have no idea of what they were looking for or of what they found. I was only there to deliver supplies to the team, I was not allowed to see what they were doing in the lake, but sometimes I saw them transporting a lot of boxes out of the mountain and in one occasion a small one drop on the ground when it fell from the donkey that was carrying it."
"I was curious, because the box looked like a tiny coffin and I try to see what was inside, but before I could open it, the leader of the expedition halt me and told me that the box was too dangerous for me to handle it, so I should stay away from it at all times. It was then that I first smelled the scent of death coming from the little coffin."
"Was it the size of a baby coffin?" Wu Xie asked curiously, trying to get out of that story as much as he could.
"No it was smaller than that and it smelled pungent, but no human could had been placed there, at least not entirely..." Panma said and Wu Xie was about to ask about what he meant by that when the sound of the nearby tree that started moving on its own distract them.
That scared Panma to a point of asking Wu Xie to leave immediately, that he needed to rest and he pretty much guide him to the stair that leaded out of the house and urge him to go back to Uncle Gui's house. Wu Xie had no other choice but to leave Panma in his own panic and walk down the stairs to go back to Xiaoge and Pangzi, but when he was about to go out to the street, a voice calling his name caught his attention.
"Tianzhen... here, come here..." It was Pangzi the one hushing him and not too surprisingly, closely behind, Xiaoge was there as well. Wu Xie sighed and meet with them in the back of Panma's house.
"Tianzhen... just now it was that slope-shoulder man climbing on the tree and when you left, he jumped down and left in a rush. I think he was trying to scare the old man..." Pangzi said.
"If that was his purpose, then he succeeded because Panma was in panic just now. He refused to tell me more of his story right when things were going to get interesting. This may prove that Panma is working along with this slope-shoulder guy, perhaps the one who order him to lure us there was the man with the tattoo in the first place. There is definitely a great secret behind this town and the closer we get to it, the more dangerous it will get. This slope-shoulder man is not as willing as Panma to reveal the secret..." Wu Xie whisper as he looked at Panma's house.
"Make sense..." Pangzi agree.
"Xiaoge... did you hear everything that Panma said inside his house?" Wu Xie asked and Xiaoge assented.
"Then, I think that what Chen Wenjin brought out of the lake was more than just old stuff. That iron piece was probably one of those things that were carry out in the boxes... he said that it had the same smell of dead... as you..." Wu Xie finish a bit guilty and at that Pangzi sniffed Xiaoge like a dog would.
"Xiaoge doesn't smell of death." Pangzi said and Wu Xie grabbed his elastic strap and pull it in a fast move to later let it free, causing Pangzi some pain by the impact.
"Idiot, of course he doesn't smell like the dead, otherwise I would had notice it way before you." Wu Xie said and Pangzi rubbed his chest.
"Tianzhen, I don't want to hear about your intimate encounters with Xiaoge... so I trust your word. on that." Pangzi said and Wu Xie was about to once again grab his strap, when a movement from the front part of the house caught his attention and all three of them hide on the bushes, to see the old man go out in a hurry.
Of course they follow him in silence once again into the woods from where they have come from just a while ago and into the Buffalo Trench in where they hear Panma talk with the man with the tattoo.
"I told you to kill them, not to bring them back unharmed. Is fine to fail at your old age, but telling them about what happen is another thing. Where you really going to spill your beans so casually?" Slope-shoulder asked to Panma.
"I... have been tormented by my sin long enough, have nightmare almost every night from the last thirty years. I want to have some peace of mind for once."
"You are complaining about nightmares? Old man, you certainly are getting forgetful... it was you the one who make those nightmares a reality instead of just bad dreams."
"Yes... it was all my own doing... which is why I want to tell someone else about my own demons. It's about time I tell my secret..." Panma said with regret on his pained voice.
"Alright... since you no longer want to live... then let me give you judgment!" The slope-shoulder man shouted just before he moved to strike him, but before he could even come close, someone else dressed in black intercept him and fight head on with him, taking away his advantage.
Qiling had no intention to let the man go this time, so he give the other man a good fight, until Wu Xie and Pangzi showed up, which make the man even more surprise.
"You dare brought them here!" Slope-shoulder yelled in rage.
"Yeah, so let's see where will you hide this time!" Pangzi yelled back, ready for the fight, but the man in black seen he was outnumber, run back as he kicked a tree he knew had the poisonous spiders at the top and got away as the spiders reacted to the sudden movement and move down to get their prey.
Xiaoge was going to follow the other man initially, but halted as he saw how fast the spiders were coming down. Just a short while ago both Pangzi and Wu Xie had been poisoned, so he didn't wanted for either of them to be bite again and get killed if he run in a mad dash after his target, leaving them to their own mercy. Thus he end up staying where he was, ready to fight more spiders instead.
However, Panma called all three of them to follow him into the safe path he had created before and so they went back to the town as Panma promise to reveal his deepest secret in exchange of his son safety, which Wu Xie agree to fulfill, if he truly tells them of the events that took place thirty years ago, just like in a full moon night like the one shining in the dark sky.
Hei Xiazi
"So no luck in the waterway either?" Xiazi asked his lover who was now increasingly frustrated with his lack of luck lately.
"No, someone was there before me, actually many years ago to be exact, which is not uncommon. There are many tomb raiders around. However, this time I was not beaten by a common one, but by Zhang Qiling himself." Xiao Hua said on the phone.
"Yaba Zhang? Was his mark left in there?"
"Not only that, the casket was open so perfectly that only a Zhang could accomplish such thing without destroying it."
"Well Yaba Zhang had certainly travel far and wide, we all know that, even if he doesn't know it himself."
"Yeah... by the way, there is also something strange in Banai that have nothing to do with my quest. Apparently, Wu Xie stumble with a man that had a similar tattoo as Zhang Qiling. I went to the Xin Yue restaurant and asked the owner to spare some hints about the drawing Wu Xie sent me, but that also was a dead end. Zhang Rishan was uncooperative, as the rest of the old Mystic Nine. Xiu Xiu was quite fed up by him..." Xiao Hua said with a small laugh.
"Master Hua, aren't you having too much fun with the Huo girl?"
"Don't be jealous on me now, you know I don't like her that way, but it had been fun at times. She is even more impatient and reckless than me."
"And here I am missing you to death, while you have fun on my back. So unfair... hurry here, I want my fun too." Xiazi pouted and Xiao Hua laughed.
"Such a grown man acting like a cheated lover boy... grow up Xiazi. I will be there soon, don't worry."
"You said that last time, yet I'm still missing you to death."
"I need one more visit that I hope will give me some light."
"It's not going to be dangerous, right?"
"No, just to an old friend... then, I will make preparations to join you in Banai."
"It's a bit messy here. I hear that Wu Xie's Iron Triangle is running around right and left in the mountains. He taking some good risks."
"Ah, the idiot... wait, Iron Triangle?" Xiao Hua asked curiously.
"Yeah, that's how they had name their little tomb raider's team. It's sound kind of fitting. They definitely are at their strongest when adventuring together. Wu Xie has the brain, Yaba Zhang the skills and Pangzi the fire, what else is there for them to form such a strong team? What about us forming our own team, huh? What about naming us the Heihua Iron?" Xiazi asked with a smile on his face.
"Heihua Iron? In your dreams, you know I like more elegant names. I am an artist, after all." Xiao Hua refuted and Xiazi smiled even more.
"Ah, yes, you like more artistic approaches... like flower with glasses?" (Dài Yǎnjìng De Huā)
"Idiot... Yù Huā will be just fine."
"Why jade flower?"
"Your eyes are like jade..." Xiao Hua whisper with a faint blush, which make his lover laugh.
"I like it... see you soon, my Xiao Yu Hua..." Xiazi said before he hang up. On the other side, Xiao Hua smiled.
AN: Ah, such a long chapter, not time to edit, because it's a bit late. Thanks for reading and I hope you like the Heihua little teasing. 😊❣❣