Rain Falls Suddenly, Night Listening to the Tide (3)

"When we got into the tomb, the facts quickly proved us wrong. The golden coffins were genuine, and there was more than one of them displayed in the underground burial chamber, laid out like exhibits in Manial Palace Museum... The dating was fine too. These really were relics from a civilization thousands of years ago, exquisite like crafts fresh out of the forge yesterday. The underground chamber was like the resting place of a king, unbelievably vast."

"Time seemed not to exist in that underground chamber. That was exactly why it felt increasingly wrong. It was too intact, too exquisite—nothing that the ancient civilizations of Central or Western Asia should have possessed. Neither the Parihat Civilization nor the Sumerian Civilization could have smelted gold like that."

By the time Old Tang got there, even Lu Mingfei, a complete layman, could tell something was off.

Not something ancient people could have built with human labor alone—didn't that sound like those claims that aliens built Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza?

Lost in thought, Lu Mingfei tore open a packet of ketchup and squeezed it onto his flatbread for dinner. He recalled something Chu Zihang and Caesar had once explained: dragons had actually left traces throughout the history of every human civilization.

Humanity had written one history without dragons, but every line of another history bore the shadow of dragonkind.

Dragons had never truly gone away, and one day, they would return.

At the end of that twilight, the black dragon would spread its sky-blotting membranous wings and bite through the roots of Yggdrasil, just as the myths foretold.

Looking down, Lu Mingfei was struck speechless. It wasn't because he was worried about humanity's fate—he had squeezed out too much ketchup while distracted, and it had gotten all over his fingers.

Compared with the resurrection of dragons, wasting ketchup hurt his heart far more.

"...Mingming, hold on. Let me Google this. I dropped out of high school, so I'm not exactly cultured. I'm worried I won't explain it clearly."

"No rush. Just tell me more about Norse Mythology later." After sending a little black bear sticker patting someone on the shoulder in comfort, Lu Mingfei turned to the internet café owner to mooch two more packets of ketchup.

Less than ten minutes later, Old Tang actually sent him a passage in classical Chinese.

"From Dayuan westward to Parthia, though the states differed greatly in speech, their customs were largely alike, and they understood one another. Their people had deep-set eyes, many beards, and were skilled in trade, haggling over every penny... They did not know how to cast coins or tools. When deserters from Han envoys surrendered, they taught them to cast other weapons. Whenever they obtained Han gold or silver, they would immediately make vessels from it..."

Lu Mingfei slowly typed three question marks.

What was this? Was this fellow Chinese American about to give him a Chinese lesson?

Fortunately, Old Tang had no intention of playing coy and quickly typed out an explanation.

"This passage comes from the Book of Han: The Western Regions. A friend I went into the tomb with sent it to me. It describes an exchange between the Han Empire and the Central Asian civilizations of the same period. 'They did not know how to cast coins or tools' describes the Central Asian civilizations of that time—a region that had developed highly advanced smelting techniques two thousand years before Christ, yet two thousand years later needed other great powers to teach and help them cast tools."

Damn, he couldn't really follow that. Where exactly had those Central Asian civilizations been located? All he knew was that the Han dynasty often elbowed around those guys in the Western Regions... After thinking it over, the despairing uncultured Lu Mingfei typed out the possibility that the culture had been lost, then opened Baidu.

"The casting of those golden coffins surpassed even modern craftsmanship. No matter how much was lost, it couldn't have been lost that badly. People can get Alzheimer's, and civilizations can naturally regress too, but it's like dropping ranks in a game. Um... Let's put it in levels. You can fall from level thirty to level twenty, but can you fall from max level to level twenty?"

"Unless that level and that rank were never yours to begin with."

Old Tang typed faster and faster, as if he had caught some rhythm. Even through the screen, Lu Mingfei could picture him trembling with lingering fear, then gritting his teeth in fury.

"I searched Hunters' Net. The general belief is that around 2000 BC, Central Asia was occupied by an indigenous civilization skilled in using high temperatures and smelting metals. Theologians believe that a civilization of that level would not need a highly complete secondary civilization, unless it wasn't a 'group,' but an 'individual'—an ancient god connected to smelting, ruling over the Parihat Civilization. This was a near-ancient epic of a god and his servant flock."

"Only nations have relatively equal technological exchanges, only cultures help one another. A master simply gives tools he doesn't care about to servants and has them work. When the master stops handing out tools, the techniques for making those tools naturally disappear."

A god who commanded smelting... Lu Mingfei didn't quite understand, but it sounded impressive. He straightened up.

According to Chu Zihang and the others' theory, dragons and gods seemed to occupy highly overlapping ecological niches in reality.

The Four Dragon Monarchs—the First-Generation Species—would undoubtedly have been godlike beings in the ancient world.

The King of Bronze and Fire, the King of Ocean and Water, the King of Sky and Wind, the King of Earth and Mountains.

The one fitting that description seemed to be... the King of Bronze and Fire?

Lu Mingfei made a blind pick based on the literal meaning of the monarchs' names. He didn't know much about the Dragon Monarchs, so he wasn't very confident.

Logically, someone called the King of Bronze and Fire shouldn't be unable to work bronze or control fire, right? That would be as absurd as someone named Rukawa Kaede being unable to play basketball.

"But there are too many strange things in our line of work. Who would turn down money? There wasn't much internet back then to ask for help or investigate, so we chose to open the coffins one by one."

Old Tang paused. QQ showed "typing," but it took a long while before the words finally appeared.

"After that, everyone in the tomb... except me, devoutly knelt on the ground and murmured, calling this place 'Odense.' The name came from the Old Danish 'Odins Vi,' meaning 'Odin's temple.'"

"This place already had an owner. It was occupied ground."

"Then I saw something I would never forget for as long as I lived, something that perhaps should only have appeared in the Bible or the Mahabharata."

Old Tang paused again, seemingly hesitating over whether to tell the final part.

"Forget this story, Mingming. I shouldn't have brought this up to you."

"Sometimes I just like making up stories, hahaha."

"..."

Cryptic riddle-makers, get out of Gotham. Lu Mingfei pursed his lips and sent a game invitation. Since Old Tang suddenly didn't want to tell the whole story, he naturally had no intention of pressing him. At most, he would teach Old Tang a brutal lesson in StarCraft.

He, Lu Mingfei, was not petty at all.

"Come on, one round?"

"Sure. One round decides the winner."

After a billion rounds, the gray sky over Berlin Brandenburg Airport sank into sleep, and the retro street walls beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows were edged in a faint yellow glow.

Old Tang rubbed his dark circles.

Beside the airport was the famous Unter den Linden. Its more precise name was Unter den Linden, Avenue Under the Linden Trees, a green ribbon winding through the buildings.

The avenue had been built by Frederick William, the Great Elector. The name "Unter den Linden" was a wonderfully mistaken transliteration that spread overseas, and it was better known in East Asian countries than its original name.

It had once been the heart of imperial Berlin. The opera house, Royal Library, and Humboldt University had once composed and sounded Prussia's new military bugle there. During the Cold War, the university on Unter den Linden and Brandenburg were assigned to Soviet Union-backed East Berlin, and shattered hegemony came to an end in ashes.

After putting away his computer in a black briefcase, Old Tang finished checking in at Gate B20 of Berlin Brandenburg Airport. He was heading back to his tiny rented room in Brooklyn, unable to suppress the lack of excitement that came with finishing a job.

He had a feeling he had gotten himself involved in something huge...

Everything he had told Lu Mingfei was something he had truly experienced, but he had not revealed the part that had genuinely terrified him. He desperately wanted someone to confide in, yet he still possessed the restraint a hunter ought to have.

He posted the edited version of his experience on the paranormal forum beneath Hunters' Net, seeking help and expanding the group of people who knew about it. Just in case... just in case someone wanted to silence him, they definitely wouldn't silence the entirety of Hunters' Net.

This mission was a trap. His instincts told him that saying any more might drag down the friend he had only recently met. Most importantly, he couldn't reveal the part about the audience.

Had he been baited into a sting? But what qualifications did he have to be targeted?

If all the mighty powers in the world wanted to show themselves, they should pay more attention to those damned rich landlords, not a nobody scraping by like him.

Could Hunters' Net really still be trusted at this point...

Maybe after one big final job, he should quit. For the rest of his life, he could go join a friend at a farm in Kansas, or perhaps visit the homeland he had never seen.

"Brother..."

The call at his ear made Old Tang whirl around in terror.