Chapter 21: Letter from Wei Dai

This is definitely not a trap.

Wen Jiajia, who quickly calmed down, guessed this because no one would put bricks in a trap.

It seemed like something was built here. Could it be that there is a military base? Wen Jiajia was frightened by her own speculation.

Coming to her senses, she realized it was more reasonable to guess that this was a fortress left over from the war.

“It hurts me, why is there a hole here?” After Fang Mingyan fell, she twisted her foot and leaned against the mouth of the pit in pain and shouted.

She was angry. “Who would set a trap here? This is close to the village; there shouldn’t be any wild animals around.”

Wen Jiajia was speechless. “It was probably set a hundred or ten years, or even a thousand years ago.”

She had initially guessed it might be a trench, but when she saw a stone statue buried in the earth with only half of its body exposed, she refuted her suspicion.

It’s not a trench; it’s a tomb or a robbery hole.

Suddenly, everything that had puzzled her over the past few days made sense.

Not a robber, not a thief, not a spy trafficker, but a grave robber.

The public security and the commune must have known about it, so they arranged for people to search the mountains but did not make the information public.

On the one hand, they were afraid that the tomb robbers who had fled to the mountains would destroy the tomb, and on the other hand, they were afraid that some villagers would be tempted to dig it up if they learned about the tomb.

Wen Jiajia swore it must be a big tomb.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have arranged for people to search the mountains at the expense of the autumn harvest.

Fang Mingyan was about to be scared to death and couldn’t wait to pull Wen Jiajia and say, “What?! Whose grave? Let’s go, let’s go!”

“……”

Wen Jiajia didn’t want to stay long, fearing that a zombie might pop out of the tomb.

She first lifted Fang Mingyan, who had twisted her ankle, up, and then Fang Mingyan lay at the entrance of the hole and pulled her up.

Given Fang Mingyan’s condition, she couldn’t go down the mountain quickly. Wen Jiajia decided to take her to wait by the side of the road and ask for help from someone passing by from the village.

The hillside was overgrown with weeds and trees, making it hard for people on the mountain road to see clearly.

The birds in the mountains and forests sang endlessly, but they made the place feel eerily quiet.

There it was again, that familiar sixth sense. Damn, Wen Jiajia’s hair was standing on end.

If it weren’t for the blue sky and the faint red in the distance, indicating good weather, she would have been terrified of being ambushed in the jungle.

“Hey, you said that man…”

“What? Do you still want to talk about me? You don’t have any strength. I lifted you up, and you almost pulled me down.”

“What…”

“Stop quibbling, let’s go. There must be many people going down the mountain at this time, and I can’t help you alone.”

Fang Mingyan wasn’t very clever, but she was definitely not stupid. Although she didn’t know what Wen Jiajia meant, she wouldn’t argue with her at such a time.

Wen Jiajia’s face was as usual, and it wasn’t until they walked out of the jungle and came to the slope where they had picked the fungus a few days ago that her face showed signs of relief at escaping.

Fang Mingyan’s legs were about to give out, but she still supported herself tightly to keep from falling.

They didn’t stop and went straight to the side of the road.

Many people came to the mountains to pick mushrooms, and they only had to wait for five or six minutes before meeting some.

It was only then that Wen Jiajia breathed a sigh of relief.

She asked, “Auntie, Yanyan’s foot is broken. Can you help us down the mountain?”

“Okay! You help on one side, and I’ll help on the other.”

Half an hour later, the group finally descended the mountain.

After these aunts left, Fang Mingyan sat on the ground with weak legs and grabbed Wen Jiajia. “What happened to you just now? You can’t have trampled on someone’s grave and been possessed, right?”

Wen Jiajia glared: “What nonsense!”

She hurriedly rubbed her arms. She was no longer the person who watched three ghost movies in one night and slept with the curtains open without fear. Fang Mingyan’s words gave her goosebumps.

“Oh, I’ll send you back first,” Wen Jiajia hurriedly said. She then had to go to Captain Fang.

Fang Mingyan saw that her face wasn’t looking too good, so she didn’t say much. She also wanted to tell her father about stepping on the grave and ask him to quickly burn incense and money for the spirits.

After Wen Jiajia sent Fang Mingyan home, she ran to find Fang Baoguo. Not seeing him, she saw Lin Ying and found out that Captain Fang was at the brigade headquarters.

“It’s like a meeting,” Lin Ying said.

So Wen Jiajia ran to the team headquarters.

She arrived just in time, and Fang Baoguo was just finishing a meeting. Seeing Jiajia running in as if a dog was chasing her, he couldn’t help but be stunned.

“Ahem, what’s wrong with you?” He put down his glass of water and asked.

Wen Jiajia’s eyes were wide with a mix of worry and excitement.

She said, “Captain, you should quickly lead people to search Rocky Mountain, especially after going up the mountain. The third fork is against the hillside on the left, and then go inside; there’s a forest…”

“Leopard’s Head Ridge?”

“Oh, I don’t know what kind of ridge or forest it is, just go and search.”

Fang Baoguo glanced at her helplessly. “You didn’t give a reason. What am I searching for?”

Wen Jiajia said excitedly, “I found a tomb there. It’s not just any grave, but a tomb.”

Fang Baoguo stood up, shocked. “How do you know it’s a tomb?”

Wen Jiajia explained, “When I was digging yams, I fell down with Yanyan and saw a stone sculpture inside. The kind that looks like a person. I also saw a lot of green bricks.”

Therefore, it couldn’t be the grave of common people.

Wen Jiajia hesitated for a moment, then lowered her voice and whispered, “Captain, you said that the person you’ve been looking for these past few days might be a tomb robber. If he is, maybe he was planning to rob this tomb.”

So, they needed to hurry up; maybe they could catch him directly.

Fang Baoguo considered this and hurriedly ran to call for backup.

“You go back first, and don’t say anything to anyone else,” he instructed Wen Jiajia before leaving.

Wen Jiajia nodded. She was so scared of dying, there was no way she would say anything.

What happened after that had nothing to do with Wen Jiajia.

The farm work in the village came to an end, all the grain was distributed, and the grain distributed to the Wen family was enough to fill half of the granary.

There were eight large bags of rice, a bag of soybeans, a bag of mung beans and red beans, and a bag of glutinous rice.

There were also sweet potatoes drying in the room of the original owner’s parents downstairs. Since sweet potatoes are not very durable, she sent half of them to the brigade flour mill. An aunt there helped with processing in exchange for some payment, and 50 catties of sweet potato flour would be ready the day after tomorrow.

Don’t think 50 catties isn’t much. 50 catties of sweet potato flour can fill 5 big bags, enough for her to fry, boil, cut into small pieces for buns, and more. Different ways to eat it once a week would last a year.

Additionally, there was a small bag of taro, about 20 catties, which Wen Jiajia put in the kitchen to eat within a month.

There were also hundreds of catties of corn drying in the yard. After drying, it could be ground into corn flour and stored for slow consumption.

Two bags of peanuts were sent to the oil mill for oil extraction.

Finally, there were the potatoes.

The village planted two crops of potatoes. The first crop had already been sold. The second crop wasn’t ripe yet and would be harvested in December.

Grain in the warehouse truly brought happiness.

Ay! With food in hand, there’s no panic in the heart.

There was a lot of noise in the village, and Wen Jiajia realized that the tomb robber had been caught.

It was 10 o’clock in the morning. The sun had risen completely, filling the front yard and the back yard with light. Dew was evaporating, and many villagers who were going to work went home to take out their clothes to dry.

It had rained for the past two days, and the clothes were damp, so they needed to be re-exposed to the sun to remove moisture and odors.

Wen Jiajia did not go to work today.

She had asked for leave because she was really scared. Though she appeared full of excitement when looking for Fang Baoguo, after reacting, her whole body lost strength, and she felt a throbbing pain in her arm.

What was wrong? She had fallen into the hole.

Wen Jiajia feared there might be some bacteria or viruses, so she went to the commune to find Fang Lan to help clean it. She endured the pain and disinfected it with alcohol, which gave her some relief.

Hearing the commotion, Wen Jiajia put down the dried bitter oak cake in her hand, stood up, and rushed out.

Many people in the village gathered at the entrance. Wen Jiajia ran over, glanced around, and came to Chen Qianyue’s side. “What’s going on?” she asked.

Chen Qianyue had been working in the field next to the village entrance, at the foot of the rocky mountain, facing the mountain path, making her part of the first group to hear the news.

“You don’t know? They caught the man who fled into the mountains. He said he was caught in the tomb. Oh my God, we have a tomb here.” Chen Qianyue’s face was full of disbelief. “How big is the tomb? Will anyone come to dig it up?”

Wen Jiajia glared. She had really guessed it.

“Where was he caught?” Wen Jiajia asked.

Chen Qianyue said, “They say it was in Rock Mountain. Oh my God, it’s so close to us, and I heard he had a gun in his hand. When he was caught, our captain was still holding a terracotta figurine, and his face was pale.”

Wen Jiajia’s face turned pale too.

Really… She had almost died again.

The enthusiasm of the villagers for the discussion of the tomb robbers had now subsided, and all attention was on the tomb.

“It’s definitely a big tomb,” Fang Duocai swore. “I secretly went to see it. There are stone statues and horses carved in stone.”

“Hey, how much do you think the captain’s carrying in his hand is worth? When the captain came down the mountain, everyone fell, but he still held the thing high.”

“Why do you have to be five, six, seven, or eight? You say…”

What followed was clear to everyone present—they just wanted to pick up the leftovers.

After all, anything a tomb robber might risk their life for must be valuable.

However, before the villagers could make any decisions, the mountain was sealed off.