Translation checker: Rin
Editor: a.s.
Li Yan was not considered a native Beijinger. According to his grandfather, forty years ago, a terrifying epidemic swept through their hometown, prompting their family to flee to Beijing. His grandmother and his uncle’s family all perished in that deadly plague. In his grandfather’s storage room, Li Yan had come across old newspapers reporting the tragic events in the Li Family Village. A small section featured a blurry black-and-white photo depicting police, medical personnel, and four or five bodies covered in white sheets. The chilling image and the accompanying words depicted the tragedy of that year.
To the average person, the Li Family Village was just an ordinary small mountain village. However, it was also home to a once-famous figure: the heroic thief Swallow Li San. “Swallow” was not an individual, but a title, the leader’s title in the Li family. Forty years ago, Swallow Li San was the village head and also Li Yan’s grandfather’s cousin. After the village head’s family perished in the epidemic, Li Yan’s grandfather, Li He, took on the title of Swallow, which was then passed on to Li Yan’s father, Li Feipu, and eventually to Li Yan.
This gray profession had a very blurry boundary between what could be done and what could not be done, which was even more blurry for Li Yan because Li Yan’s father, who was constantly working away from home during Li Yan’s childhood, did not provide much guidance to him. When it came to what being a “heroic thief” meant, Li Yan only remembered a saying from his grandfather.
“A hero has righteousness, and righteousness has a heart. Don’t forget the ‘heart’ of ‘righteousness,’ which is the main ‘point.’ Without the heart of righteousness, a Swallow has no point, and he is no longer a Swallow.”
After settling in Beijing, Li Yan’s father continued and developed the skills from his hometown, carving out a place in the gray area of this land. On the other hand, due to his longing for his wife, Li Yan’s grandfather returned to settle near their hometown after Li Yan came of age. According to him, he went back to where he came from. However, Li Yan knew that grandpa wanted to be closer to his dead relatives.
Almost as if it were planned, Li Yan received a call from Dogtooth not long after leaving Huang Yuliang.
“Saw Mr. Huang? How did it go?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“It went okay. He didn’t know much either. I suppose he’ll contact me if he gets any information.”
“Lf vlvc’a vlrmerr afgwr klat sbe?”
“Lf wfcalbcfv atf qjswfca kbeiv yf vlrmerrfv joafgkjgvr jcv vlvc’a rqfmlos atf jwbeca, yea jrregfv wf la kbeiv yf j qglmf P mbeiv joobgv.”
“Rb ajix jybea wbcfs?”
Ol Tjc ofia qehhifv. “Rbcf ja jii…”
“Yt cb, bt cb, bt cb… Dgbatfg, vbc’a yijwf wf obg vfmflnlcu sbe, Zg. Lejcu lr j kfii-xcbkc lcobgwjalbc ygbxfg lc atf olfiv. Po sbe kjca ab lcnfralujaf rbwfatlcu, tf mjc vfolclafis olcv la obg sbe. Dea sbe…”
Li Yan furrowed his brow, finding this situation quite awkward. “Stop beating around the bush. Could he really harm me?”
“Why didn’t you negotiate the price with him?”
“He said it would depend on the difficulty of the task. How could I negotiate?”
“You fool! If you don’t agree on money with him, he could ask for anything else! Anything!”
Li Yan realized he might have been drawn into something. For people like them, money was the cheapest exchange item. One unit of money and something worth one unit of money had entirely different meanings.
Dogtooth paused on the other end. “My bad, my bad. Even if I led you into a trap, it’s not entirely my fault…”
“So, what should I do then?”
“I’ll tell you, your dad didn’t get rid of his last item. I don’t know what it was. Before things went south, he was always asking around about something and someone, but he never seemed to be looking for a buyer. As for what it is and who he was asking about, I have no idea. Consider this the information I can provide for free. We’re even now.”
Li Yan quickly processed this information, even forgetting about Huang Yuliang’s matter. “Alright, I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”
“No need to thank me. We’re even. Goodbye!”
After ending the call with Dogtooth, Li Yan contemplated the hypothetical clues this information could bring: First, since the item wasn’t sold, his mother’s death was likely not an attempt to silence her but more a threat to force his father to reveal the item. Since there was no news about his father’s death, he might have been kidnapped or have escaped with the item. If Li Yan could find the whereabouts of his father’s last possession, the clues would likely become clearer. Second, his father’s inquiries about people and events indicated there would be many related contact records. Those who had contact with his father might know the value of the last item and could help identify others interested in such things.
Dogtooth’s information pointed Li Yan in a clear direction, which was worth a lot of money. Li Yan only began to wonder why Dogtooth was so generous, but he didn’t dwell on it too much. After all, if he could find the clues on his own, there would be no need for Huang Yuliang’s assistance.
Li Yan’s family had several residences in Beijing, some owned and some rented, each hiding different things. The residence where his parents had the incident was a single-story house outside the southern Fourth Ring Road. Besides organizing the belongings and taking away the necessary “assets” once, Li Yan hadn’t returned. Apart from the fear of being emotionally affected, he also had another consideration. He was afraid that the perpetrators would ambush him there.
However, based on the information provided by Dogtooth, Li Yan wanted to re-examine all of his parents’ residences. The old house where his mother was killed was kept for the last, and this time, he chose to investigate it at night.
His father’s consideration for the residence still followed the ancestral experience—single-story houses were easy to escape from, convenient for hiding, and easy to destroy.
Opening the iron gate of the courtyard, Li Yan heard the sound of plastic boxes being crushed by the closing gate. It was a small test he had left the last time he was there, so he was reassured that no one had tampered with the lock to enter. Li Yan entered the courtyard and used a flashlight to illuminate the surroundings along the courtyard wall. The several fine threads in the yard were exactly as he had arranged them, indicating that no intruder had been here.
Li Yan’s main targets were his father’s bedroom, study, and cellar. If there were any clues, the probability of finding them in these three places was higher. Ideally, he hoped to discover a list of relevant contacts his father had been in touch with, but he knew that was unlikely.
The cellar and bedroom yielded no results, but the study presented a discovery. Behind the desk, the wall was hollow. Li Yan tore off the wallpaper from the edge and found a brick with a different color underneath. With a slight push, the brick was pushed aside, revealing a cloth package.
Inside the cloth package was an iron box emitting a pungent camphor smell when opened. It contained four thick crystal panels, or rather, eight thin panels with a piece of paper sandwiched between every two panels. The edges were sealed with glue, and it was evident that each paper had been vacuum-sealed with a layer of film. The meticulous preservation indicated that the information inside was of great importance.
Li Yan carefully examined each of them. The first panel was a partial map with burnt edges. It did not feature any names and did not resemble the drawing method of the officially published maps on the market. The winding lines did not reveal whether they represented provincial boundaries, railways, or rivers and mountain ranges.
The second panel depicted a black-and-white family portrait of four. A middle-aged couple was accompanied by their older son, a teenager of about thirteen or fourteen, and the wife was holding a child of around one year old, whose gender was indiscernible. A quick glance indicated that the photo was quite old. Li Yan was certain it wasn’t a picture of his grandfather’s family from years past, as he had seen their youthful photos at his grandfather’s place. However, he couldn’t shake off the subconscious association with his own family, and upon closer inspection, he noticed a slight resemblance between the middle-aged man and his grandfather’s forehead.
The third panel contained a piece of paper that Li Yan recognized—it was a fragment of the newspaper that had reported the tragic events in the Li family village years ago. Unlike the complete newspaper that his grandfather had kept, this panel only contained this particular news clipping.
The fourth panel held a yellowed sheet of paper, which could easily be identified as rice paper upon visual inspection. Regardless of whether Li Yan examined it under ultraviolet light or incandescent light, it remained blank.
Li Yan spread out the four crystal panels, revealing a map, a group photo, a newspaper, and a blank paper. Apart from the newspaper, the edges of the other three sheets bore faint traces of scorch marks. Li Yan vaguely felt that the events in the Li family village years ago might be a breakthrough. Not only did his grandfather keep a record of the incident, but his father also retained a report about it. If it was merely for commemoration, how could the other three panels be explained? The family in the photo might have been close relatives from the Li family village, but what about the map and the blank paper? He couldn’t fathom their significance.
Given how these four panels were sealed so tightly for safekeeping, it was absolutely impossible for Li Yan to store them here anymore. He promptly stowed them in his bag, intending to take them back home.
What would Huang Yuliang ask? You can’t just ask anything, right?
Thank you for the chapter!