Chapter 443: 442
Once again focusing his attention at his feet, Ye Tian realized that the ground he stood on was also out of the ordinary—it couldn’t be described as smooth as a mirror, but in such a cave, it was absolutely an extraordinary work of nature.
How could an additional cave suddenly appear in the ice wall? Even if nature is full of wonders, it wouldn’t just create sothing like this out of nothing.
All of Ye Tian’s questions returned to that rosewood box; to be precise, he had beco interested in the contents inside. This person, turned to bones, should be the last person to understand the structure of this cave, and the contents of his backpack should be all the tools he could have used.
Taking out the box again, Ye Tian examined it carefully; if he couldn’t get information from here, he really had no other options.
“Old soldier, my apologies. We are from the sa country, if there’s anything inappropriate in what I do, please forgive . If you do not forgive , when I co to find you later, then you can take your revenge on .”
Ye Tian replaced the skull with a rock to hold the rope in place, then he neatly gathered the pile of bones together, packed them in the backpack, and leaned it against the rock wall. Then, he knelt before the backpack and respectfully kowtowed four tis.
“Old soldier, I’m sorry, but I have to unravel the mysteries here. If we continue digging this cavern, it would lead directly to our country. Considering our national security, I have to see what’s inside, right?”
He took out the box and began to investigate.
It was really not easy. Although it was made of wood, the box featured a password lock with a key. Old Thief Saint had said that to open this device, one needs to find both the password and the key, otherwise it’s all pointless. Moreover, these kinds of boxes often have a secret compartnt; if opened incorrectly, a cloud of sulfur powder might puff out towards you. Upon contact with air, it ignites, and disfigurent is the least of your worries.
Ye Tian smacked his lips—this was troubleso. Could there really be so secret within this box? Like those novels or TV shows suggest, there should be sothing good inside.
Suddenly, Ye Tian rembered the key he found under the mani pile stone, and it seed to indeed have numbers on it. Hastily, he fished the key out from the inner pocket of his jacket. It was still warm.
1588.
The password lock on the wooden box was of the rotating disc type, with four small dials the size of fingernails lined up over the opening. There were two locks on either side of the keyhole, and red indicators had to be turned to unlock the box. Ye Tian checked the key over and over again, but still had no confidence. Still, waiting around was no use, he might as well give it a try.
Gently, he inserted the key into the lock and began to turn the dials.
For the first lock, Ye Tian turned the red dial so that the indicator pointed to 1, and proceeded with the sa thod for the remaining three. After setting all the dials, a “click” sound ca from inside the box—as if so chanism had been triggered. After waiting quietly for a few minutes, Ye Tian finally breathed a sigh of relief, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and carefully twisted the key. It turned smoothly, feeling like rotating a chanism’s axle, with slight resistance.
At last, a sensation ca from his hand, the feeling of having unlocked sothing correctly.
No explosion, no sulfur powder—it was a success.
Slowly lifting the lid of the box, he left a small crack and shone a flashlight inside. The first thing that caught his eye was a yellow-orange five-pointed star. Ye Tian knew that the box could be safely opened now.
Lifting the lid, indeed, a five-pointed star lay in the center of the box, beneath it was a shoulder rank insignia with one bar and two stars—Captain’s military rank, not low at all. And underneath that, there was a yellowing notebook.
After taking out these items and setting them aside, he looked around the box for anything else, but found nothing. It was curious—such a precious box, and yet it contained so few items.
Turning over the items inside again, he found nothing else. Examining the five-pointed star and the shoulder rank, he couldn’t decipher their significance. Looking at the yellowing book, Ye Tian opened it and was taken aback—it wasn’t a book; it seed to be a diary. The words were written with a black fountain pen, and they hadn’t faded, but the yellowing of the paper made them slightly blurred.
The first page recorded no content other than a na and a date, along with an introduction.
“Zhao Ziming, Dragon Team Leader, January 18, 1962.”
“This records the bits and pieces of my days searching for items for the organization and the country. I know my days are numbered, and I’ve already offended so relative organization’s interests. I can’t escape, nor can I evade, so I can only use my clumsy words to record my days, and also convey so details of the operations. Please rember, the real strength is never the power of arms, but the strength of one’s heart and the support of the people. Zhao Ziming, respectfully yours.”
Sotis, weight does not stem from the object itself but from the spirit that it carries.
Holding the notebook in his hand, Ye Tian’s hands began to tremble. The Dragon Team of Huaxia was not an organization assembled temporarily—those old-tirs had indeed deceived him. He was not a first generation mber of the Dragon Team; the team had already existed back in the ’60s, and the person in front of him was very likely one of the original mbers of the Dragon Team.
The dry bones before him were now transforming into a kind of spiritual encouragent, infusing strength into Ye Tian’s body.
With his trembling hands, Ye Tian shakily opened the diary.
“1954.02.11, Thursday, clear skies, Tanzania.”
The location was in Africa, which was sowhat unexpected to Ye Tian. At that ti, Huaxia had just been established and didn’t seem to have the strength to send out exploratory missions abroad.
“Today is a clear day and also the first anniversary of the founding of the Dragon Team. I don’t know if writing these words counts as going against the discipline of secrecy, but when I look back on the events of the past year, I realize that so kind of change seems to have happened within the organization. Nationwide, the situation was thriving, and there should have been no issues. Yet the ssages received by the group were quite different from the dostic situation.
Commander Chen’s words suggested that he wanted us to ramp up efforts to find the items sooner, but once the ssage reached the lower ranks, the aning had completely changed. The shift reflected in the increasingly restless mood of the team mbers. Random killing, careless use of weapons, and sotis even village massacres, how does this differ from the actions of capitalist armies? We bear foreign military ranks on our shoulders, but that doesn’t justify the massacre of innocent civilians; no, this is outright slaughter.”
Reviews
All reviews (0)