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Although Snake Ancestor couldn’t read English, I could. Unfortunately, however, I couldn’t absorb such fine details in the illusion. I could only vaguely see the English word for rock written on the paper. The word had been written very large and was emphasized.

This could be interpreted in many ways: one was that these bugs may have been related to some kind of rock; another was that the word may have been referring to someone’s name. I knew that throughout the history of exploration in this area, there was a very famous man named Rock (1), who had completed the West’s preliminary exploration of this mysterious region.

There were a lot of sketches of this bug on the following pages, including close-ups of certain parts.

With foreigners intervening, things had become very complicated. Unlike the Russians, the Americans and British didn’t go to Dunhuang or the Heishui River, but instead came to these kind of backwater regions. They often had loftier interests than treasure, such as the great honor and status brought by exploring the unknown world. There was also the thirst for new species.

By entering an area that even the Han people in southern Xinjiang were unfamiliar with, the possibility of obtaining new species would be much higher.

But this kind of bug was really too shocking. It had never been seen before, and there wasn’t even anything that came close to it. Although poisonous insects were everywhere in southern Xinjiang, and the numerous deep mountain tribes had a lot of mysterious customs, these kinds of poisonous insects had never appeared in the previous legends. The fact that they were suddenly appearing didn’t make sense.

If this kind of bug appeared in the village, and the people either died or fled, it showed that this bug’s appearance was a very sudden event. I just didn’t know if it had anything to do with the foreigners appearing here.

Phoenix and Snake Ancestor exchanged a look. Although they didn’t get along with each other, at this time, they had reached the same conclusions based their experience working in this business.

There was a big crisis in the village, and the situation had significantly changed. They shouldn’t carry out any more activities at this time, and the best thing to do was to leave here.

They still had some time before it got dark, so the two of them left the building, found a bare rock to rest on, and Phoenix blew a long whistle of retreat.

After the long whistle had sounded, there was no response. Phoenix spat and unfastened her collar, revealing half her chest, which was full of fragrant sweat. She said angrily, “That smoking iron chopsticks must feel like he won’t be able to finish his customer’s job if he goes back like this. If he doesn’t respond to us, I won’t give my fucking life for this amount of money. When Big Brother Zhang comes back, the three of us will take a vote. We’ll either withdraw and not refund the money, or they’ll have to give us more money.”

“You may not get your wish.” I felt uncomfortable every time I heard “Big Brother Zhang” and wanted to ask, Zhang Qiling, can’t you have a better nickname? At least Poker-Face can be regarded as both elegant and trendy. I can’t believe you once had such a common name. Rather than Big Brother Zhang, I should just call you Fish Brother Zhang (2). “I listened to Iron Chopsticks and the boatman whispering to each other on the way here in their local dialect. When I spent some time riding in a caravan, I took lessons from some of the people, so I could understand a little of what they were saying. They purportedly brought us to help find the Bimo here, but it seems like the foreigners hired them to find their missing companions here.”

“Foreigners again?”

“This village is on the edge of southern Xinjiang’s hinterland. There are only a few people who have been in the huge forest, and the mountains are connected. There are no roads, no people, and poisonous insects everywhere along the cliffs. In recent years, many foreigners have wanted to go inside, and have spent a lot of money to do so. I don’t know what they were looking for, but many of them died. The last expedition started from this village. There was a Bimo here who acted as a guide and took them in, but he was the only one that came back. Afterwards, no one in the village was allowed to see him. None of the foreigners came back, so Smoker brought people in to try and find out what happened to the expedition.”

Snake Ancestor said: “We’ve just told Iron Chopsticks about the foreigners and the situation here. That is exactly the kind of information they’re looking for, so now they have to find out more.”

As soon as the words were spoken, a whistled response came from the far end: all the people on board are in the water. Stay still, we’ll rendezvous with you immediately.

<Extra 2.12> <Table of Contents><Extra 2.14>

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TN Notes:

(1) Joseph Rock (1884 – 1962) was an Austrian-American botanist, explorer, geographer, linguist, ethnographer and photographer. More info here

(2) Tiffany said “Fish Brother Zhang” sounds exactly the same as how Chinese pronounce “Squidward” in SpongeBob SquarePants. So Wu Xie was basically calling Poker-face Squidward lol.

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Just want to clarify that Smoker and Iron Chopsticks is the same person and I’ll be using them interchangeably. “Smoker Iron Chopsticks” or “Iron Chopsticks Smoker” sounds REALLY stupid and doesn’t flow (in my opinion lol). Remember, “iron chopsticks” is slang in their business for someone who is basically an information broker on tombs and artifacts and stuff.

I also love how Poker-face is like “I only understood a little” and then gives them a pretty detailed breakdown. Then Wu Xie’s over here having a crisis about Poker-face’s nickname (＾▽＾)

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