Chapter Fifty-two We Got Lost

  This whole journey was hair-raising, Cao Ke Rui kept talking to me nonstop, I pretended to be asleep and ignored him. But in fact, I couldn't sleep at all, those who can sleep on this kind of bus are all awesome people.

  "Where did this car come from?" I suddenly thought of and curiously asked.

  "This car, I rented it!"

  "What's rented? What's rented?" That big mountain forest, except for trees there's nothing, where can you have a car.

  Cao Ke Rui smiled and said 'I borrowed it from down the mountain'

  "Everyone is on the mountain, how did you run down from the mountain?"

  "Caught a cold, I came down the mountain yesterday. The big boss called me and I didn't go back, then he said you're back, so I rented a car and came down." Looks like this little girl is slacking off, full of energy, doesn't look like she has a cold at all.

  "So it seems like we'll have to go up there together in a bit"

  "That's right, this car will be returned soon"

  "Do you still remember the way?"

  Of course I remember

  After driving for a while, Cao Kerui stopped the car and exchanged a few words with a man in his 40s. He took out several RMB notes from his pocket and gestured to me to get off the car.

  I took out my luggage from the trunk because the road was bumpy, and I had been carrying it in my hands all along. I looked up ahead and saw a winding country road, guessing that if we went further forward, we should be entering the mountains soon.

  "Come on, a fellow villager just showed me the way. Follow me and we won't go wrong," Cao Kerui said with certainty.

  "You're not supposed to remember the way, why are you still asking?" I exposed her.

  She snorted, "Anyway, as long as we don't go the wrong way, it's fine," and then walked forward. I followed behind her with my luggage, asking along the way, "Can you understand what he said?"

  The dialects in China are so different that they seem like foreign languages. I've tried communicating with the locals here, but even with gestures and guessing, I couldn't understand what they meant. How did Cao Kerui figure out the route with just a few words? I'm still a bit worried.

  "Don't need to listen, can guess" Cao Ke Rui walked in front with a hop and skip, looking like he's in a good mood.

  The road was bumpy all the way, without a flat section. Walking a few steps and resting for a while, after walking for half a day, I finally arrived at the foot of the mountain.

  Cao Ke Rui turned back and said 'See, I told you it's right to follow me'

  "There's only one road in total, if I still get lost then I give up"

  She cut off a sound, turned her head and walked towards the mountain. I remember that from the foot of the mountain, it should be able to walk to the station in less than an hour, carrying luggage all the way, my arm was sore and numb, and after arriving at the place, I hurriedly took a good rest. Thinking about taking a good rest soon, my pace became lighter.

  "Hey, Sun Yiguo. How did you end up studying archaeology in the first place?" Cao Kerui asked me as he walked backwards in front of me with his hands behind his back.

  "I like being with and doing things related to bottles and jars."

  Cao Kerui nodded.

  "What about you? How did you end up doing this?" I asked

  "I like being liked, and I also like things in bottles and jars." Cao Ke Rui smiled sweetly.

  "Weren't you raised abroad since childhood? You shouldn't have had many opportunities to come into contact with these things, how can you be so interested?"

  "It's precisely because of the limited opportunities for contact that China's tomb culture seems especially mysterious. When I wasn't in this line of work, I thought archaeology was a particularly exciting and adventurous thing; after actually doing it, I didn't expect it to be so boring."

  "This can't be let the boss hear"

  "Of course, I'm not stupid either. For Lao Da, the tomb civilization that China has had for thousands of years is the most precious thing left to us by our ancestors, forever revered and worshiped." Cao Ke Rui learned from Lao Da's generous and passionate tone.

  The two of us chatted on and off, unknowingly walking for a long time. The sky had gradually darkened, and judging from the situation, it would be completely dark in about an hour, but I still couldn't see our destination, which made me feel a bit anxious.

  "What's going on? Why hasn't it arrived yet?" Cao Kerui muttered to herself before I could even open my mouth.

  I knew she was unreliable, without even a sigh of emotion, putting down her luggage and looking around.

  My sense of direction isn't bad, it's extremely bad. In this forest where everything looks the same, I couldn't even tell north from south. Cao Ke Rui was already exhausted and leaned against a tree to rest.

  I took out my phone and found it had been dead for a while. 'What should I do, my phone is out of battery.'

  Cao Ke Rui took out his own phone and shook it twice 'I have'

  "Let's call Lao Da and tell him we're both lost."

  Cao Kerui slowly dialed the phone number and hung up after it rang for a long time, shaking his head at me, apparently no one answered.

  "Let someone else continue fighting"

  Cao Kerui flipped through the contact list, sat on the ground and continued to dial non-stop. The sky was about to darken, Cao Kerui's phone ran out of battery, and we were completely stuck.

  "Ah oh," Cao Kerui muttered.

  What's wrong?

  She shook her phone at me, "I'm out of battery too." I sighed and she continued, "Luckily I was smart. Before it automatically shut down, I sent a text message to Lao Da, hoping he'll see it and come find us."

  "It can only be like this" Since we couldn't find the way, we might as well sit down and take a rest. I picked up some firewood and started a fire. Cao Kerui hummed a little tune, I shook my head, not knowing whether to say that this child is too carefree or what.

  I took out a jacket from my luggage and threw it at Cao Kerui: "Put it on, it's cool in the mountains tonight."

  She took it and smelled it, then blushed and smiled. I didn't understand her behavior, why did she still need to smell it before wearing it? Was she implying that my clothes had a bad odor? Joking aside, I've always been a clean person.

  I picked up a branch and poked at the fire, casually asking her "Who was that person who went missing from our team during the day?"

  Cao Kesui whispered mysteriously close to me 'It's Sun Yaoyang'

  It's actually Sun Yaoyang, I remember that he is a man of few words and rarely communicates with us. He is very cautious, has worked for so many years without any trouble or causing any problems, who would have thought that this time he disappeared silently.

  Actually, before you left, Sun Yaoyang was a bit off. The person who slept in the same tent as him said that for those few days, every night Sun Yaoyang would mumble to himself and no one could hear what he was saying. But nobody paid attention to it, until after he went missing, then they felt something was wrong.

  "He went missing a few days after I left?"

  That night. The night you left, it wasn't until 2 am that he didn't return to the tent and realized someone was missing. The leader searched with people for half a night but couldn't find anyone.

  "Didn't the boss report it to the police? Someone's gone missing in our team, this is no small matter."

  "Of course, we reported it. The police from the foot of the mountain didn't arrive until the next afternoon and they weren't in a hurry at all. After they arrived, they just went through the motions and searched around a bit, not even bringing a dog with them." Cao Ke Rui curled her lip. "The police said that people often go missing in this area, and who knows how many of those adventure teams have gone missing."

  "So the police didn't care?"

  Cao Ke Rui sighed and supported her chin, "Others didn't say they wouldn't take care of it, you call to urge them and they'll come, if not, they won't."

  "Haven't you reported it to the higher-ups? It's useless for just us to stay here"

  It's not just Sun Yaoyang's matter, Lao Da feels that the grave is a bit strange; so he didn't withdraw.

  "What else is weird? Last time everything that needed to be cleaned up was cleaned up and everything that needed to be taken out was taken out."

  "I don't know, he didn't say. He just said that something felt off, and he's been wandering around the mountain all day without saying anything. He said he found a stone tablet, but then it disappeared later. When asked what kind of tablet it was, he said he didn't know."

  The boss is not a person who likes to make things complicated, if there's really something going on, he'll definitely be the first to spill the beans. If he doesn't mention it, I reckon even he himself can't figure out what's wrong.

  Cao Ke Rui and I both sat silently under the tree, not saying a word. Before long, she fell asleep. I took out another coat to cover her with. I forced myself to stay awake, constantly adding branches to the fire so it wouldn't go out.

  Zhangjiajie has a big temperature difference, and it's even colder at night. My nose is running non-stop, and the cold air is making my nose runny and wet. Luckily I have the habit of carrying tissues with me, or else my snot would freeze into ice. As they say, northerners rely on heating to get through winter, while southerners rely on their own inner energy.

  I kept blowing on my hands and drawing with twigs on the ground.

  The village left a pile of questions, who would have thought that returning to the team would add more trouble. I don't know when one thing after another will come to an end.

  Actually, things in life have no solution, we just find it hard to convince ourselves.