Chapter 34: The Sound of Opera Outside the Mine Shaft

Chapter 34: The Sound of Opera Outside the Mine Shaft

At dusk, Old Man Zhang came back and threw the trussed up old man in front of Zhang Qishan. The old man had a pockmarked face and kept his head lowered as he sat there trembling.

Zhang Qishan thought of the chiefs lynching punishment, and knew why he was so afraid. Lieutenant still hadnt come up yet, nor had those who had gone down with him, so he couldnt help but worry.

The others searched the entire camp, but found nothing.

Zhang Qishan used a torch to burn the shacks along the riverbed for three or four miles, and Qi Tiezui was relieved to see the raging fire flowing out like a river. The only body left now was the one that had been moved out of the shack. While waiting for Lieutenant to come back up, Qi Tiezui turned the body face up again and watched it flip itself back over. He had done this eight hundred times, and Zhang Qishan felt like the corpse was about to jump up and start scolding him if he flipped it over again.

The soldiers standing nearby thought it was strange and asked him what he was doing. Qi Tiezui said, "This could be the Japaneses secret weapon. You see, if the two bodies are tied back to back, theyll keep rolling. If a bomb was tied to them do you know how terrible that would be on the battlefield?"

"Do they turn in the same direction every time? If not, isn't there a fifty percent chance theyd roll back to your position? When one of the soldiers asked this, Qi Tiezui showed a sudden enlightened expression.

Zhang Qishan was questioning the old man while waiting for Lieutenant, but the old man refused to answer. All he would say was that they had the wrong man and he hadnt stolen anything from the mine. As for the dead here and what happened in the camp before, he pretended not to know anything.

After reaching this stalemate, Zhang Qishan felt like something bad had happened to Lieutenant, and couldnt concentrate anymore. The old man saw that Zhang Qishan looked a little impatient while standing at the entrance to the mine shaft and suddenly asked, "Sir, do you have friends in the mine?"

"So mysterious." Zhang Qishan was amused.

Qi Tiezui leaned forward and said, "Not necessarily, Fo Ye. Listen to the words. It's Er Ye's song. This seems to be something arranged for us."

Zhang Qishan never understood opera and couldn't make sense of the words, so he asked his men to spread out in the tomb passage and see where it was coming from. They ended up finding a tunnel leading downward, where the singing appeared to be coming from. He grabbed the old man and asked, "Where does this shaft lead?"

The old man had been listening to the song and looked extremely terrified as he said, "Theres a big cave under the mine with a Taoist temple in it, but I don't know when it was built. Thats where everyone started to die."

After he spoke, the old man suddenly saw Qi Tiezui's bag and was stunned. He looked between Qi Tiezui and the bag and asked, "This gentleman are you also a Qimen feng shui master?"

Qi Tiezui frowned and nodded, and the old man immediately started kowtowing, "Ive been waiting for you! Sir, your ancestor came here earlier and told me to give you a message."

Qi Tiezui felt his heart clench, unsure of what the old man meant. "What is it?" He asked.

"That expert said you have to look at this in reverse, and" he whispered the rest in Qi Tiezui's ear.