Chapter 001: Express Delivery from Father

  Everything started on the afternoon of August 26th, 2010.

  Liu Yi, a small antique shop owner, 1.8 meters tall, had learned swordsmanship and boxing from Tai Shan Xuan Yun Dao Chang, and practiced continuously for many years, making his muscles solid and his posture straight, strong like an ox.

  On that day, he was introducing the antique crafts in the store to customers with a gentle smile. At this time, a young man in his twenties walked in from outside and asked: "Is Liu Yi here?"

  Liu Yi turned his head and said: "It's me!"

  The young man looked at him and said: "Your express!", the young man put the package on a Ba Xian table, didn't even wait for him to sign for it, and turned around and walked out of the store.

  Liu Yi walked nonchalantly to the table of eight immortals, glanced at the sender's name on the package with a slanted eye, and then his face changed drastically. He hastily ran out of the store, wanting to find the young man who delivered the express, but he had already disappeared without a trace.

  He turned around and ran back into the store, repeatedly apologizing, dispersing all the customers in the store, letting Malacca pull down the rolling shutter door from inside to close the door. Then, with a frown, he excitedly circled around the octagonal table like an uneasy lion.

  Malacca approached him curiously, and when he saw the sender's name on the package, his face also changed color, sitting in the Eight Immortals chair without saying a word.

  This package is suspicious.

  The weirdness is in two aspects:

  One is the delivery time, not recently mailed out, but August 26, 2006, four years ago.

  Another strange thing is that the sender was actually Liu Yi's father.

  However, Liu Yi's father had gone missing four years ago.

  Both of these made Liu Yi's heart rise to his throat.

  What on earth is inside this strange package?

  Liu Yi had already guessed two possibilities in his heart: one was that his father had deliberately left him a clue to find before he disappeared; the other was his father's last words.

  However, neither of these possibilities is good news, because the former often refers to some kind of information that people leave for others after they know their own fate. As for the latter, it goes without saying that it must be the last words left by his father before he left this world.

  Liu Yi did not immediately go open the package because he didn't dare to.

  It wasn't because he was timid, but rather that he feared that once the package was opened, the bubble of hope in his heart that his father was still alive would be ruthlessly pierced.

  People are always like this, sometimes they have already vaguely guessed the outcome of things, but they don't want to believe in this cruel reality.

  He was like a moving iron tower, under the dim light in the store, he kept turning round and round. With his turn, a shadow flashed across Malacca's eyes again and again.

  Malacca looked at him worriedly and said: "It's either good fortune or bad fortune, but the misfortune can't be avoided. There may be clues left by your uncle inside. Open it and take a look!"

  Liu Yi heard this and stopped in his tracks, sitting down on the Eight Immortals chair, stroking the package and sighing: "How could I not have thought of it this way, but..."

  He didn't continue speaking, but Malacca knew what he was thinking in his heart. The two of them had grown up together since childhood and could understand each other with just one glance.

  Malacca station stood up and walked over to pat his shoulder and said: "Everything should be thought of in a good way!"

  Perhaps it was Malacca's consolation that took effect, or perhaps he had already made up his mind.

  He silently picked up the paper cutter on the table, cut open the densely packed tape on the package, disassembled the cardboard box, and a black wooden box was revealed inside.

  He carefully lifted the black wooden box out of the cardboard box and placed it on the table. Malacca curiously leaned over.

  The wooden box is a cube, about 40 cm in length, width and height. It's not locked but sealed with "X"-shaped sealing tape. The date and the name of the person who sealed it are written on the tape: August 26, 2006, personally sealed by Liu Shuqiang.

  The seal has faded a bit, but it hasn't been touched by anyone, which means that after Father Liu Shuqiang sealed the box, no one opened it again.

  Liu Yi knew that as long as he opened the box, there would be a definite answer inside, and the answer was right in front of him, but the fifteen little rabbits in his heart were still jumping around restlessly.

  He let out a breath, gently lifted the seal, opened the box, and was immediately stunned. Malacca beside him also had an expression of surprise.

  Even though they were both highly skilled and daring, they were still shocked into a cold sweat.

  Liu Yi was already shaken when he received the package his father had mailed four years ago, and what was inside left him stunned.

  Inside the black wooden box was not the letter or other relics they had imagined, but a skull.

  That was the skull of an adult Tibetan antelope, dirty and messy, with matted fur on its head, and lumps of dark red congealed blood all over its head. There were no horns on its head, so it should be a female one. There were no eyes, just empty eye sockets. The whole skull emitted an inexplicable aura of death.

  Liu Yi saw that there was no sign of his father's belongings inside, and his worried heart slightly eased. At least the skull in front of him couldn't prove that his father had already passed away, at least it still left him with some hope. What he feared most was opening the package and finding a letter written with words like "My son, when you receive this letter, I have already met with misfortune..."

  Malacca pointed at the Tibetan antelope skull and said: "Uncle, what do you mean by sending such a thing?"

  Liu Yi shrugged and smiled bitterly: "You ask me, I ask who?"

  Suddenly, Malacca seemed to have discovered something, and pulled the wooden box in front of him, lowered his head, and stared at the empty eye sockets of the sheep's head for a long time.

  He felt that under the dim light, a gleam of light was emitted from the empty eye socket, and he was curious. He stretched out his middle finger and poked it into the right eye socket, turned it around, and then used his fingers to lift up the whole "sheep's head skin" on the sheep's head.

  Inside the sheep's head skin was surprisingly not a sheep skull, but a "crystal sheep head".

  The sheep's head was carved out of a whole piece of crystal, with a smooth surface that seemed to come alive in the light, reflecting a kaleidoscope of colors. It was unclear whether this was intentional on the part of the sculptor or due to some other reason, but the crystal sheep's head surprisingly had no eyes, giving it an eerie appearance.

  As soon as the crystal sheep's head appeared, both of them exclaimed in unison.

  From receiving the package, to opening it, and then discovering that the sheep's head was not a real sheep's head, a series of bizarre events like a triple jump, plunged Liu Yi's mind into chaos.

  The father went to great lengths to hide a crystal sheep's head under a "sheepskin", what is he hiding?

  Where did Father go?

  What is he looking for?

  These two questions sealed in Liu Yi's heart once again emerged from his mind.

  ……

  Liu Yi's father went missing in 2006, with no specific date known.

  Before this, his actions had been somewhat baffling to Liu Yi. He would often go out and come back with tattered clothes and a disheveled beard, looking like a wild man who had lived in the deep mountains for a long time. Moreover, he kept his actions secret, and no matter how much Liu Yi coaxed or scolded him, he couldn't get any explanation out of him.

  Liu Yi took over his father's antique shop the year he graduated from university and has been operating it poorly ever since. His father, however, hasn't shown up again since handing over the shop to Liu Yi in 2006.

  He knew his father's last stop was Qinghai, so in 2007, a year after his father went missing, he went to Qinghai alone to look for his father and met his childhood friend Ma Liu Jia at that time.

  They were both extremely happy after meeting in the uninhabited area of Koko Xili, and Liu Yi chatted with him and brought him to Jinan to run that so-called antique shop together.

  After graduating from high school in Malacca, he enlisted in the army and later joined an anti-poaching organization, becoming a proud volunteer. He was shorter than Liu Yi by one head, with a tiger-like back and waist, weighing 250 pounds, nicknamed "Two Hundred Fifty".

  There was a Malacca who could blow and deceive, and the business of the small shop also gradually improved. Liu Yi also had more time to search for his father and went to Qinghai many times alone. However, searching in the vast crowd without any clues was like a headless fly, and he always returned in disappointment.

  Liu Yi's mother died early, and after the age of five, it was his father who raised him single-handedly. The father-son relationship is very deep.

  Time can turn a vast ocean into a mulberry field, and can turn a low-lying land into a high mountain, but it cannot erase the deep affection.

  As time goes by, that thought becomes increasingly intense.

  Every time it's late at night and he is alone in the empty house, looking at his father's photo, he always regrets why he didn't stop his father back then.

  He also didn't understand why his father had abandoned him alone to explore what was called danger? To find what was called treasure?

  Because of this knot in his heart, Liu Yi became a bit taciturn and rarely spoke. Usually, when greeting customers at the store, it was mostly Malacca who took charge, and only when things got extremely busy would he muster up the energy to come forward and help out.

  ……

  Once the excitement stops, all that's left is calmness.

  "This crystal sheep head is extremely rare, but I don't know what secrets it holds inside?" Malacca said, turning his head to ask Liu Yi: "I've only heard of the Mayan crystal skull and the Chinese twelve zodiac bronze sheep head, but I've never heard of a crystal sheep head? Has such a thing appeared in history?"

  Liu Yi slowly shook his head and said, "This crystal sheep's head should still be given to the instructor for research. I don't know anything about it."

  "I don't even know what era it's from? Looks like it's worth a lot of money!" Malacca picked up the crystal sheep head, admiring it from all sides, with an expression that said he couldn't bear to part with it.

  Liu Yi saw his greedy look, smiled and walked up to him, giving him a slap on the head, saying: "What are you thinking? This is a clue left by Father, following this skull may very well lead us to Father! Who knows, it might even be a fake crystal made of glass, hehe..."

  Although he said so, he carefully put the crystal sheep's head back into the black wooden box and then stuffed it into his backpack.

  "Will Uncle leave any other clues?" asked Malacca, rubbing his own head.

  This remark suddenly reminded Liu Yi of a series of strange events, which had almost made him forget one thing, that was to ask his father about the situation when he mailed the package that year, and maybe he could find some clues.

  He picked up the phone and dialed the express company's phone number left on the express list, but found that the phone had long been an empty number.

  "What a broken express company?" Liu Yi pointed to the words "Qinghai Xining City Private Customized Express Co., Ltd." on the express list and muttered.

  Malacca whispered on the side: "Go online and check if there is a record of this company? This company is very strange, it can even store things and send them to the future!"

  This remark reminded Liu Yi, who hastily opened his computer.