I was confused and didn't know what happened outside. I wanted to ask my uncle, but I found that he was also dozing on the stool next to me, sleeping even more soundly than me. I ran outside the clinic and saw the villagers pulling carts and mules, all rushing into the mountains. A mountain kid was running and shouting : "It's not good, it's not good, there's a fire on the mountain."
I was shocked, thinking that maybe the fire we just set on fire had burned the forest. Thinking back to when we were burning the hole, we did not take any measures on the side. If the fire spread and burned the forest, it would be really wrong.
I was a little panicked. If this wildfire got big, it wouldn't just be a matter of one or two people dying. We, the people in the city, have no awareness of forest fire prevention, so this disaster is going to be huge.
I ran in and woke up my uncle. We carried out two urine-collecting toilets from the hospital. We made do with what we could find. We followed the group into the mountains. At this time, the fat man came running on a donkey-drawn cart, holding a washbasin in his hand and shouting , "We're in trouble. Come on up! Put out the fire!" We all jumped on the donkey cart and it swayed out of the village. We saw a large cloud of black smoke on the mountain in the distance. It looked like a big fire. My uncle was stunned and whispered, "Look at the direction. It was really the fire we set."
I quickly covered his mouth. A village cadre-looking man was running back in front of me, shouting, "Call the troops! The mountain ahead has collapsed !"
As soon as I heard it, I knew that the cave might have collapsed due to the fire. I was worried that it would be troublesome if those corpse beetles rushed out of the cave. We ran as fast as we could to the pile of earth washed out by the mudslide. The fat man had really bad hands and he whipped the donkey so hard that its butt was swollen.
Those villagers had been trained in forest fire prevention. Some of them cleared a path through the woods, while others began to fetch water with basins and carry it inside. I saw that it would take at least two hours to go back and forth to the fire scene with all these basins and jars. It was simply not enough to quench thirst. I hurriedly shouted, "Fellow villagers, stop fetching water. This little water can't put out the fire. Don't make unnecessary sacrifices. Let's wait for the troops to come!"
Those people looked at me like a lunatic. An older person said, "Young man, this water is for drinking. Without water to drink in a fire scene, you will die soon. We need to cut a firebreak on the edge. When the fire reaches there, there will be nothing to burn and it will go out on its own. If you don't understand, don't get involved." He looked at the toilet in our hands and shook his head.
My face turned red when they looked at me. I thought I had lost face and would never dare to express my opinions again. I lowered my head and followed the large group into the woods. All the trees on the road had been cut down, so we walked much faster. About an hour later, we could feel the temperature rising significantly. The sky ahead was filled with black smoke.
The villagers took out their masks and dipped them in the water, then tied them to their faces. I looked at the fat man, who didn't have much cloth left on his clothes. He seemed to have made up his mind, so he took out the gold-studded silk and dipped it in the water, then tied it to his face. He picked up a shovel and followed the villagers in digging a fire-prevention ditch.
Wildfires spread very quickly and are extremely harmful. Large wildfires can only be controlled by aircraft. The so-called control means letting them extinguish themselves. It is impossible to put them out like urban fires. It takes more than 20 years for a tree to grow into a timber, but a wildfire can burn it all in 10 minutes, which is extremely destructive. Moreover, the range of wildfires is very wide. If you only put out the fire at one point, it will quickly go around you from the edge that you can't see. When you wake up, you are already in the center of the fire zone and can only wait to die.
I remember an American film about a group of firefighters who were surrounded by fire and had no one to turn to for help. Of course, such a situation would never happen to us. The fire area is not very large, and the fire trenches were dug very quickly.
We worked there until after 2 p.m., when a forest ranger helicopter appeared in the sky. Soon many troops gathered in the woods and replaced our tools. I was particularly worried that someone would die in the fire, but fortunately, when we finally counted the number of people, only a few were slightly injured.
When we returned to the village, I almost fainted. I was so hungry that I asked a kid to get me two sesame seed cakes. I ate one in two bites. They were the best I had ever eaten. Tears came to my eyes . The man who looked like the village party secretary even praised us, saying that it was rare for people from the city to have such high awareness.
I thought to myself, please stop praising me. I will feel really bad if you continue to praise me. If you knew that I was the arsonist, you would strangle me to death.
The nurse changed Pan Zi's bandage and washed his wound. His breathing had obviously eased, but he hadn't woken up yet. The doctor told me not to worry, that he was not in danger for the time being, and that if there were any injured people, Pan Zi and his companions would be sent to a large hospital in the city. I felt a little relieved when I heard that.
My uncle and I returned to the guesthouse and took a good shower. You wouldn't have known the situation until you took off all your clothes. I looked from head to toe and saw that almost no part of my body was intact. It was either bruised or broken. I didn't feel anything when I was running for my life, but now they all came to remind me. When I came out of the bathroom, I could hardly move my legs.
I went back to bed and fell asleep immediately . It was a really good sleep, and I slept until noon the next day. When I woke up, I saw Fatty and Uncle San also lying on their beds, snoring like thunder.
I went downstairs to have breakfast and asked the waiter. The fire had been put out. It was only a small forest fire. The army had withdrawn. I felt relieved. I asked the staff at the clinic and found out that Pan Zi had been taken to Qianfoshan Hospital in Jinan. I thanked them and decided that I couldn't stay in this place for long, so I prepared to go back.
Without further ado, we returned to Jinan a few days later. My third uncle and I went to the hospital that admitted Pan Zi to complete the hospitalization procedures. He is still in danger and still in a coma. My third uncle and I decided to stay here for a few days. As soon as Fatty came out of the mountain, he hurriedly said goodbye to us, leaving only a phone number for future contact. He gave the gold-studded silk book to my third uncle to deal with. On this day, I called the hospital, but Pan Zi hadn't woken up yet. I couldn't help but sigh. At this time, my third uncle walked in with a gloomy face and cursed: "I'm so angry. I was tricked by someone!"
I was very surprised and thought he was cheated in the antique market, so I said : "Uncle San, with your qualifications, you were still cheated, which means that the imitation is very good, and there will be no problem if you sell it again."
Uncle San took out the piece of gold-inlaid silk and said to me, "Switch it around, what the hell, I'm not talking about the antique, I'm talking about this thing !!"
I nearly fell off the bed, screaming, "What! Impossible !"
Uncle San said, "It's absolutely true. I sent it for testing. The gold content in this thing is too high. It couldn't be refined in that era. This is an almost perfect fake !"
I couldn't believe it. Uncle San sighed, "I have suspected it for a long time. That young man could obviously defeat the blood corpse, so why did he just run away at the beginning and get rid of the blood corpse at the end? He must have wanted to get rid of us and do something by himself."
I was surprised and said, "Did he go to that cave and open King Lu Shang's coffin during the time he got separated from us? And put this fake gold-inlaid silk in it? How is this possible? How could one person do that ? And the tree hole was torn open by those iron chains. If it had been opened by someone, we would have been able to find traces."
Uncle San said, "Have you seen the back of the coffin? He is a tomb robber. He may have dug a hole behind the tree and directly replaced the gold-inlaid silk with the back of the coffin !" After saying that, he sighed, "It's a pity that even with more than ten years of experience in the martial arts world, I still couldn't tell that this person is really unfathomable. I originally thought he was just a descendant of Fa Qiu Zhonglang Jiang, but it seems that his origins are far more than that."
I was very confused and asked , "Are all the things recorded above false?"
Uncle San nodded and said angrily , "These stories, which are similar to the Classic of Mountains and Seas, didn't sound very credible in the first place, but we were infected by the mysterious atmosphere of the ancient tomb and actually believed it. Now when I think about it, there are too many loopholes. And think about it, with your level, why can you only understand the two most important paragraphs? You can't understand the others, which means he put a lot of effort into these two paragraphs."
I opened my mouth wide, and Uncle San sighed loudly, "It seems that he is the only one who knows the secret of the Lu Palace. Now that the tomb has collapsed, it is impossible to go in and take a look."
At this moment, an idea suddenly occurred to me, and I said , "Oh, oh, I almost forgot, it's not all hopeless, I brought something out of the cave!" Then I started to frantically search my backpack, praying that it was not lost. Fortunately, the purple gold box was still there, and I took it out and said, "This is it, I took it from the fox corpse."
Uncle San took a look and said, "This is a maze box. The main space inside is used to install locks. It can't hold much. This box is very difficult to open. Look." He twisted the top cover of the box, and the four corners of the bottom of the box unfolded together, revealing a rotating plate . There are eight holes on it, and each hole has a number, which looks like the dial of an old-fashioned telephone. "This kind of box is the oldest password box. You need to know the password to open it. Wait a minute, go to the car repair shop and get a gas cutter to cut it open and have a look."
My third uncle came running out in a hurry, and I didn't even have time to shout for him. I thought, this eight-character password, could it be 02200059? How is that possible? This number is printed on an American's belt stamp. I tried dialing it, 0-2-2-0-0-0-5-9. There was a click, and I was startled. The box made a sound like a clockwork, and the lid of the box automatically flipped up.