I sat down on the sofa, pulled out a cigarette from my pocket, and offered one to Gu Song. He hesitated before taking it and lighting it.
He said to me awkwardly, "I used to smoke too, but I quit after Xiao Tang got pregnant."
I asked, "In the days before and after your wife's accident, did Xiao Tian ever go out like he did today?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. You know Xiao Tian is actually a ghost. If he wanted to leave, he could do so without alerting us at all."
I nodded and lit my cigarette.
At that moment, Eccentric Song suddenly appeared beside me. "I have a feeling he's hiding something from us. Ask him what else happened to them in Lop Nur."
"Mr. Gu, did you find something in Lop Nur?" I asked.
"Huh?" Gu Song looked up at me. Eccentric Song said softly, "He's flustered. Your question has made him uneasy."
"No, we didn't find anything. Didn't I already tell you?" Gu Song replied.
I frowned. "Mr. Gu, if you don't tell us the truth, we can't help you. Even if Xie Yi were here, he wouldn't want you hiding anything. Your concealment could very well cause us to make the wrong judgment. Delaying things would be the least of it—we might even die without knowing why."
My words were harsh, but that was truly how I saw it.
"So if you refuse to tell us the truth, we won't concern ourselves with your affairs anymore. You'd better think carefully."
Gu Song froze. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He looked deeply conflicted, as though he was considering whether to tell me the truth.
I wondered how things were going on Xu Qiuyan's side and whether she had found that little ghost.
"Mr. Jiang, I'm sorry. I did conceal something from you before. The truth is, we entered Lop Nur that time to look for something."
Gu Song finally couldn't hold it in any longer.
"What was it?" I asked.
"The Twin Fish Jade Pendant!" After saying it, Gu Song seemed to let out a breath of relief.
The Twin Fish Jade Pendant? My eyes widened. That thing was nothing more than a legend. How could it possibly exist?
"You really believe such a thing exists?"
Gu Song nodded emphatically. "Of course I do. Not just me—Xiao Tang believed it too. Everyone who went with us believed it. Otherwise, we wouldn't have gone looking for it together."
"How did you find out about it?"
"Zhuanghe saw a post on a forum. It said that over twenty kilometers southeast of the center of Lop Nur, there was an underground city. Calling it a city was an exaggeration—it was only about the size of a modern-day village. It was a ruin left behind by the people of Ancient Loulan. The person who made the post said he had been there and made a major discovery. He was certain that the underground city was a replica. Everything in it, including the objects and even the humans who had once lived there, were replicas. That was because more than twenty kilometers northwest of the center of Lop Nur, in the opposite direction, another identical underground city had been discovered. And by identical, I mean that if you put the two underground cities together, you wouldn't be able to spot the slightest difference."
My eyes widened. What he described was utterly unbelievable.
I wasn't an archaeologist, nor did I know much about archaeology, but I had basic common sense. Two underground city ruins, even if they were only the size of an ordinary modern village, could not possibly be truly identical.
So I began to have my doubts as well.
"Did you already find those two underground cities?"
"Yes. The person who made the post wasn't lying. The two underground cities were indeed identical, as though one were a backup of the other. You know I'm a university professor, and Xiao Tang specializes in archaeological research and cultural relic appraisal. It wouldn't be easy to fool us. The reason Zhuanghe approached us was because he valued Xiao Tang's expertise. Before we went, we only half believed it. But after seeing the two underground cities, Xiao Tang was almost certain that this was the work of the Twin Fish Jade Pendant. She firmly believed it truly existed and was hidden somewhere beneath Lop Nur."
I was completely speechless. I glanced at Eccentric Song, and he shrugged, meaning he had no idea whether that thing truly existed.
After thinking it over, I took out my phone and called Xie Yi. This should have been a major discovery, and he ought to have been interested.
"Do you know about the Twin Fish Jade Pendant?" I asked bluntly.
Xie Yi's reaction was somewhat strange. "Why are you asking about that?"
"Xie Xiaotang's death may be connected to the Twin Fish Jade Pendant. They entered Lop Nur before in order to search for it, and they discovered two identical underground cities..." I gave him a rough account of the situation.
Xie Yi fell silent for a moment after hearing it. "I understand. Keep investigating, and be careful."
Then he hung up.
For some reason, his reaction struck me as strange, though I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong.
"You haven't finished, have you?" I looked at Gu Song.
He nodded. "Didn't I mention the team member who went missing? Zhuanghe and the others found him later, but Xiao Tang noticed something was wrong. She didn't say anything to the others, only told me."
I narrowed my eyes.
He continued, "Xiao Tang said the person they found wasn't the same team member who had gone missing. He looked exactly the same, but she remembered that the position of a mole on his chin had changed slightly. The mole had originally been a little to the left of the centerline beneath his nose, but the mole on the team member who returned was a little to the right. It was like the mirror image produced when someone looked into a mirror."
As he said this, he swallowed. "So Xiao Tang suspected that he was a replica, not the person who had originally gone missing. At the very least, he wasn't the original."
What he said shocked me.
Looking at it that way, it really did seem possible.
"Did you ever find the Twin Fish Jade Pendant in the end?"
"No. Xiao Tang and I both believed it should have been somewhere in that area, but you know that area wasn't small, and there were only seven or eight of us. More importantly, someone had already met with trouble. Xiao Tang and I discussed it and decided to suggest that Zhuanghe leave that place first and make further plans after returning. Xiao Tang had her own considerations. She was an archaeologist and a public employee, so she had to report this matter to the authorities. Before, we had only gone to verify whether that post was true. Once we found something, we couldn't keep going about it through unofficial channels."
Gu Song was right. Xie Xiaotang had a strong sense of responsibility. This was no longer merely a matter of cultural relics. What the Twin Fish Jade Pendant involved went far beyond archaeology alone.
"But Zhuanghe had his own agenda. He wasn't very willing. We knew that if the team member hadn't gotten into trouble, he wouldn't have readily agreed to come back first. He also realized that Xiao Tang and I would never continue searching for the Twin Fish Jade Pendant with him, so we ultimately returned."
I frowned. "Could Zhuanghe have organized people to go to Lop Nur again himself?"
"You guessed right. We heard that he did find several more people and was preparing to return to Lop Nur, but before they could set out, something happened to him. Just like that team member, it was as though he'd been cursed. We heard that when it got serious, he couldn't even recognize people anymore. He kept babbling nonsense, all about the Twin Fish Jade Pendant."
Just then, Xu Qiuyan returned.
"Did you find Xiao Tian?"
Gu Song asked anxiously.
Xu Qiuyan nodded. "I found him, but..."
Gu Song's expression immediately tightened. He looked beside Xu Qiuyan and asked timidly, "Where is Xiao Tian?" Though the little fellow was a ghost, Gu Song would always see him as his son. That was why he asked.
Xu Qiuyan raised her left hand. She wore a jade bracelet on her wrist, and she had already been wearing it when I first met her. "Come out!"
A Phantom suddenly appeared before us. It looked like a child, but the figure was extremely faint, flickering in and out of view.
"Xiao Tian! Wh-what happened to him?"
Gu Song stepped forward, wanting to hold the child, but his arms passed through empty air.
"He was already like this when I found him. His soul must have suffered severe damage. He was lucky to survive. If I'd been any later, his soul would likely have scattered completely. Mr. Gu, let him return to the Soul Urn first. He can't come out again for a while. He needs a long period of recovery."
Though Xu Qiuyan said it, I knew Sister Hong must have told her to say it.
I just hadn't expected that bracelet of hers to be able to house ghosts as well. I suddenly became curious whether Sister Hong lived inside it too.
If I married her someday, what would happen on our wedding night? Would her good friend and my good friend be secretly peeping on us every moment?
Before you continue