Mysterious old man

  Luoyang?

  As far as I can remember, I have never been to Luoyang. To be exact, my memory at the age of three is very vague, and I don't know how I ended up wearing a thin dress in the wilderness, but I am quite certain that I was not born in Changsha.

  As for why I think so, I don't know how to say it, in short, that's just what my mind tells me.

  But then someone told me that they had seen me in Luoyang, which made me think of the place where I was born. Could it be a certain village in Luoyang?

  From a young age, I've been most curious about my own life story. No one could tell me who my parents were or where I came from. Why did they abandon me in the wilderness? These questions have troubled me for many years. I once asked my grandfather, and he just said that I was picked up from the wilderness, with no information about my parents on me. Before, I didn't think there was anything wrong with what Grandpa said.

  But now, I think my life is very strange. Why would parents abandon their child in a mass burial site? How could ordinary parents do such a thing? There's no one around in a mass burial site, and for a three-year-old kid, it's essentially suicidal behavior.

  Many times, I hate my own parents, can't say why.

  Compared with parents, I think more of grandpa, because in most of my life, it was grandpa who was by my side.

  There seems to be a very strong intuition in my mind, I always feel that Grandpa knows about my life, but why doesn't he say it? Is Grandpa worried about something?

  As I was thinking this, Old Wang's voice came up again: "Third Master is not from Changsha, it's all written in the file. Third Master escaped from Changsha without you by his side, but as soon as he arrived in Luoyang, there was a child by his side."

  Is there a connection between Old Wang and Grandpa? Otherwise, how would they have met me?

  I listened to Old Wang's words and lowered my head to find the file I had just looked at, rummaged through my backpack, and was shocked to find it empty.

  The file is gone.

  "Xiao Jiu Ye, what's wrong?" Baishou Sheng asked upon seeing my intense reaction.

  I didn't respond to him, continuing to rummage through my backpack, but everything was there, except for that file. I emptied the entire bag in confusion, still nothing.

  How could it be possible that it's gone missing? My backpack hasn't left my sight, did someone steal it? Then I searched again in disbelief among these miscellaneous things, but still couldn't find it.

  "Little Ninth Master, what are you looking for again?"

  I rummaged through my backpack again, muttering to myself: "It was that file I looked at this morning, it was definitely in my backpack, how could it suddenly disappear?"

  As soon as the words came out, Bai Shou's face changed in an instant, and Hei Shu turned his head around, with eyes like dead ashes staring at me tightly. Then, without saying a word, he turned his head back.

  "Xiao Jiu Ye, are you sure it's in the backpack?" Bai Sheng's face didn't look very good, probably because of this file, after all, it was a confidential thing.

  "I said with great certainty: 'Definitely, I clearly put it at the very bottom of my backpack.'"

  I remember it clearly, when I put that file away, I even moved all the things in my backpack to one side and pressed the file at the very bottom.

  "Has someone taken it away?" asked Hyakushou.

  I shook my head, this was almost impossible, the backpack had not left my sight, but wait, I remembered that I dozed off on the bus, could it be taken away at that time?

  The backpack was pressed under the seat, if someone picked up the backpack, I would definitely wake up, let alone open the backpack and take out the files at the bottom.

  If someone really took it away, then this person's skill is quite impressive.

  In the car, it was just us few people, so who could it be?

  Hei Shu, Bai Shou Sheng, Lao Wang, and Qi Xie. None of them could have taken the files from under my nose, so who is this person?

  All the way, I felt a bit dizzy and confused because of thinking about these issues. Before I knew it, the sky had darkened, so we stopped halfway to rest for a while, found a restaurant to solve our hunger problem, and then chatted idly in the car.

  From the moment I said that the file was gone, all the way to Zhenxiong County, the car fell into a long silence. Even Hei Shu and Bai Shou didn't say a word on the road, and no one mentioned the missing file at all, as if I had fabricated the whole thing out of thin air.

  But I know it's not, the more Black Uncle and others don't mention this matter, the more complicated the situation is inside, and it also means that they knew such a thing would happen, but to what extent the complexity has reached, I have no idea at all.

  From the beginning of being forced to, to naturally speaking for finding grandfather's cause of death, this road, I feel like I'm surrounded by layer after layer of suspicious clouds, making me have a kind of unstoppable footsteps in searching.

  When we got off the bus, we had already arrived at a small village in Modangou Town, Zhang County. As soon as Zhang Lao got off the bus, his face didn't look very good.

  "Old Zhou and his family have already entered the mountain, saying that time is running out." Zhang Lao said this with obvious worry in his eyes.

  As soon as I heard this, I suddenly became a lot clearer and asked: "What happened?"

  If nothing had happened, at least we should have waited for us to enter the mountain together, why are you in such a hurry.

  "They left in a hurry and didn't leave much of a message." Zhang Lao said, "Given Old Man Zhou's temperament, he wouldn't be so impulsive unless it was a matter of life and death."

  When he said this, a glimmer of light flashed in his eyes, and then it was covered up.

  Hei Shu and Bai Shougen listened, but they didn't think much of it, their expressions unchanged, as if they had expected this all along.

  "What's going on now?" I was puzzled in my heart, and it was certain that Old Man Zhou had not given many instructions, so Zhang Lao didn't know what was happening either.

  "They went ahead and entered the mountain, but it didn't affect our journey. Our plan can't be changed, especially at this critical moment. Let's rest tonight and enter the mountain tomorrow to avoid having too many dreams." Hei Shu spoke up, and that was how he decided, but Zhang Lao and the others also didn't have any objections.

  So we found an inn and prepared to rest, after all, we had been jolting around for almost a whole day and still hadn't had a good sleep.

  I slept so soundly that I dreamed of dozens of different scenes, and when I woke up, I was drenched in sweat. Suddenly, I felt a little uneasy, as if something was going to happen.

  I silently prayed in my heart: "Hope I can make it on time!"

  My stomach growled a few times, and after sleeping for a while, I found that the food in my five internal organs had been digested.

  He looked at Hyakushobu on the opposite bed, but found that he was still sleeping like a dead pig, so he had no choice but to go downstairs alone.

  The owner of this house is an old man.

  "Don't say that our place is chaotic, it's all outsiders who make us look like this. We don't have the beauty of Lijiang, otherwise why would people from outside always come to this godforsaken place? It's clear they're here to rob graves! I'll tell you one thing, some of those people who were involved in the fight the other day stayed at my inn, and after they left, I found a bloody garment under the bed. That's when I realized."

  After I went downstairs, I heard this and was stunned. Then I found a seat and sat down, pretending that I hadn't heard the words.

  "Uncle, give me a bowl of noodles."

  "Hey, you're not from around here, are you? I couldn't quite place your accent." The old man asked curiously as he saw me walking down to eat at night. "I used to live in Luoyang, Henan, but later followed my parents to Changsha. This time, I'm traveling with some of my older relatives."

  I remembered what Old Wang said before, that he had seen me in Luoyang, so I brought up this topic.

  But in fact, they had agreed on this excuse beforehand.

  "It turned out that this place was famous for its adventurous terrain, and the locals loved to take risks." The old man burst into loud laughter.

  "Uncle, what's going on with what you just said? Are we in danger here?" I asked, shrinking my neck and speaking with some trepidation.

  "Haha, don't be afraid, kid. These people are all fugitives, but as long as you don't provoke them, nothing will happen. Just last month, there was a group of people staying here, and soon after that, a shootout broke out in town. If I hadn't found that stuff in the kitchen, I still wouldn't know what happened." Old Man said with indignation, his face somewhat flushed.

  "That package is still lying there now, it's better not to look at it. When I took a glance, I was startled - they were all guns inside."

  "Those people must be here to rob graves, one less is one less."