The Lost Tomb : Restart (The Sound Of Providence)

Chapter 159: Explosions in The Mountain

Loud explosions echoed throughout the valley, knocking out my message that said: there's poisonous gas in the spring. Send a message if alive.

This knocking method was a code without any of the normal coding logic. It could only be accomplished by experiencing countless details of our daily life, so it was basically impossible to learn. The only real way to learn it was by living with us. I was very interested in coding, so I had studied it for a long time. The source lay in the Zhang family's secret code system. Having said that, the Zhang family's set of codes came from a lost ancient Chinese language. Since Poker-Face didn't experience a formal inheritance, he could only use a few of these symbols. When we looked at the parchment we had found in the Zhang family's ancient building, we saw that countless areas in China had different symbols. Up to now, I still didn't know what those special symbols meant.

So, I wasn't worried that someone would understand my secret code. I set off the explosives three times in a row and then stood on the edge of the cliff. I listened to the layers of echoes as I looked out over the entire valley, waiting until all the noise had died down.

This was the only thing I could do.

Off to the side, I dug to the bottom rock layer with the Luoyang shovel and then had Liu Sang stick his ear to the shovel's steel pipes. If there was any echo underground, he would hear it.

I sat down and looked at the nearby tulou. The sounds of the explosions must have shocked everyone there. Some of them should've been able to hear which direction the explosions came from and would send someone to check soon. But it was like the horse dying as it ran towards the mountain [1], or someone trying to ascend to the heavens. After the sounds disappeared, it would be too difficult for them to find us.

I opened Liu Sang's backpack and found a folding recurve bow inside. I took it out, surprised that he would use this kind of weapon.

"I don't like loud noises," Liu Sang said quietly from behind me. "I like to hear other people's voices clearly, so I hide myself and use soundless weapons."

"Are you a good shot?" I asked him.

"I took my first lesson right before coming here," he said. "I haven't been able to shoot the target yet." When he saw me silently looking at him, he explained, "I rely on my ears to make money. I just brought this thing to practice."

I pulled an arrow from the quiver, nocked it, and then pulled the string back with all my might. The bow's resistance was much greater than I was expecting and I let go halfway through. The arrow shot out crookedly and landed in the grass not far away. I threw the bow back into his bag, took out some chocolates, and ate them quickly.

"What are you thinking?" He asked me.

"Boss Jiao's people are coming over. It'll be very difficult for them to find us, so they'll be anxious after looking for a while. We still have some explosives on hand, so when they become anxious, we'll detonate a few and lead them in the right direction little by little. That way, they'll they find us."

"And then what?" Liu Sang was horrified. "If those men in black come out, we're both dead. You don't even have any weapons."

I finished the chocolate and then looked at my hands. I was very experienced when it came to wooded areas. In the woods, there was no light at night and their flashlights could only light linearly. Even if they were lured in by the explosives and came within a few hundred meters of us, they still might not be able to find us. That was why fugitives always fled into the mountains and their pursuers had to rely on crowd tactics to catch them. Boss Jiao's men might try to catch us, but there was no way they actually could.

But it was much easier for us to catch one of them in the chaos.

As I was thinking this, Liu Sang suddenly raised his hand and told me not to talk. I frowned and started to walk over, but he also told me not to move. Then, he put his ear close to the steel pipe and asked me to stretch my hand out. He started gently tapping out a rhythm on the back of my hand.

I knew he had heard a sound come from underground.

The rhythm was code for: "Saw Little Brother's mark. The mark means farewell." 

****************************************

Note:

[1] When a horse looks at the mountain, it thinks it's close. But when it starts running towards it, the distance is so far that the horse might as well die while running. Basically, it's used to say that you think something is close, but it's actually far away.