Chapter Twelve: The Owl

  "Lao Yu, my family leave has been approved, half a month haha haha" Jin Gang was very excited on the phone.

  "Are you happy to go back and see your parents, or are you excited to finally meet that pen pal of yours?" Jin Gang Pao has a female pen pal in our hometown, and she's said to be quite pretty.

  "They're all there, I'm taking the car from the cooking class to buy vegetables, and when I get back, I'll bring you dried pumpkin and Chorizo."

  "Dog shit intestine" is actually the wind-dried sausage made from pork and donkey meat in our hometown, because its appearance is similar to that thing, so we commonly call it "dog shit intestine".

  I hung up the phone and arranged the training tasks, letting the deputy lead the team to train. I took a short leave to visit Bai Lang, and had a heart-to-heart talk with him. From the bottom of my heart, I pitied Bai Lang - we were both born from the same mother, but his brothers and sisters lived in clean and tidy kennels, eating carefully prepared feed, gnawing on bones, and enjoying warm air in winter and air conditioning in summer. Meanwhile, Bai Lang could only huddle in a mountain cave, going hungry one day and full the next. One time, I received an urgent task to escort a batch of ammunition with my dog to a brother unit. Originally, we planned to return within two days, but we were delayed on the road and didn't return until five or six days later. Fortunately, it wasn't a wasted trip - I easily earned a third-class merit for Nalou.

  I rushed back to the squad as soon as I got off the bus, grabbed a few handfuls of grain feed, and carried a water bottle into the White Wolf's cave. Because I was worried that others would see it, so I put a chain on it. When I arrived at the cave, I burst into tears.

  As I was about to leave, I gave the white wolf a few steamed buns, which it quickly devoured. One of the buns had rolled away and was just out of its reach. The wolf was struggling to grab it with its front paws, but couldn't quite get it. Between its paw and the bun, there was only a short distance, and it had already dug a small ditch in its efforts. I quickly grabbed a small bowl and mixed some feed with water, handing it over to the wolf. Watching it gobble down the food, I couldn't help but burst into tears as I hugged it tightly. From then on, I visited the white wolf more frequently, putting aside all other tasks except for strengthening its advanced training in location guarding. As soon as the wolf met the requirements of this training, I would be able to release it from its chain and limit its activity area, allowing it to roam freely.

  It didn't take long before I was writing work notes in the office, when Jin Gang burst in, his face streaked with tears, and the first thing he said to me was: "Old Yu, do you have any money?"

  "What's wrong? Why are you back so early?" I felt something was off.

  "I've made a big mistake, a huge one. Do you have any money?" Jin Gang's voice was shaking with sobs.

  "Hurry up and say it." I urged.

  This guy muttered to himself for half a day before I could make out the general idea; it turned out that this guy got off the train without even going home, and went straight to see his female pen pal. After messing around for a few days, he slept with someone, and in the middle of the night, six or seven people broke in to catch him in the act and blackmail him, but he ended up overpowering them all.

  The woman saw that things were not going well, so she turned against him. She demanded that he pay her 20,000 yuan within three days to settle the matter privately, or else she would accuse him of rape. He was stunned and had no choice but to hand over his military ID card and write an IOU note.

  "I was so angry that I kicked him down with one foot. 'You stupid pig brain, you're still serving in the army with a brain like yours?'"

  "What can we do?" Jin Gang Pao climbed up.

  To be honest, although Jin Gang is one year older than me, when we are together he always listens to me. The relationship between the two of us is not ordinary, sometimes he doesn't even have a penny on him and leaves his last few cigarettes for me.

  Once in trouble, at the critical moment they naturally think of me, but what can I do. At that time, the little money every month was not enough for me to smoke, and my relationship with my family was not good, how could I have the face to open my mouth.

  I didn't pick up his hint and instead asked him "What's today's date?"

  "What happened last night, I came back by car today. Old Yu, my family moved from Northeast China, originally we had many brothers, and I still have two elder brothers who don't have a house yet, our family really doesn't have money, do you have money?" This guy always pinned his hopes on me.

  "You know everything, you shit on the kang head, ah, you didn't think about today when you took off your pants. I'll go steal 20,000 yuan for you?" I was really angry.

  "Then I'll go ask those comrades again." He turned around and was about to leave.

  "What a joke! Even if they did, who would lend it to you?" My mind was racing with all sorts of ways to get the money as soon as possible.

  "Don't cry and look so gloomy, are you afraid of death?" I asked with a cold smile.

  "Lao Yu, what do you want to do?" He looked at me with a puzzled expression.

  "I have a way to make money, but it's very dangerous. Are you brave enough?" I stared at him.

  "What's going on? Is it against the law?"

  "It's not against the law, but it's very dangerous. Do you still remember that ancient tomb we went to last year?" I reminded him.

  "Remember, what's wrong?" This guy is slow-witted.

  "We didn't touch the coffin over there, maybe there's something valuable inside, let's take it to Sanhuai Antique Market and sell it." Besides this, I really can't think of any other way.

  "That huge worm is still there, are we going to go die together?" Jin Gang's face revealed a look of fear.

  "When you're having fun, you enjoy it yourself. When you're going to die, I'll be with you as a brother. What the hell are you talking about? Don't go if you can't handle it. Otherwise, they'll call the troops and you'll get kicked out."

  "Thank you for a lifetime, Lao Yu." This guy has gone mad.

  I reminded him a few more times and told him to go back to his own squad to prepare the necessary tools and come over again at night.

  I closed my laptop and lit a cigarette, carefully considering the details of what was to come. First, I thought that ancient tombs would basically have burial objects, which is undeniable. The ancients believed in treating death as life, so even poor people who didn't have a tomb chamber after death would still have some pottery. Based on my previous observations, the scale of the East Mountain Ancient Tomb didn't seem like it was built by someone who was very poor, so as long as I went in, I shouldn't come out empty-handed. This point I was fairly certain about.

  The biggest threat we are facing now is that snake-like creature in the tomb. According to our last encounter and Old Hu's account, I feel that the animal doesn't seem to be willing to harm people on its own initiative. Old Hu encountered it in 1929, until last year 2001, more than 70 years have passed, except for eating a sheep and scaring a fisherman out of his wits, it didn't seem to do anything bad. So I think it should be quite old and has gained some spirituality, it won't expose itself or attack people on its own initiative. But that's under the condition that we don't invade each other's territory. Now we are trying to barge into someone else's lair, which is a big taboo in the animal kingdom.

  "This stupid cannon is taking a break at the worst time, now it's on holiday, if it were earlier, before the awakening of insects, maybe that guy would still be hibernating, and it would be safer. Now look, it's already passed the awakening of insects for a long time, going now isn't just going to make itself into someone else's breakfast after waking up from a hangover? "TMD" I cursed the ancestors of this cannon in my heart."

  Scold if you want, but help is always needed, and a solution must be thought of. Who made us two sweep the pigpen together for half a year? Who made our relationship as good as real brothers? Looking at him getting anxious like an ant on a hot pot, I'm even more anxious than him, although this dead fatty doesn't deserve my sympathy, but I still sympathize with him...

  I recalled the size of the "dragon" that Old Hu told me he saw, and compared it with the snake skin we saw last year. It turned out that in over 70 years, it didn't grow very fast, and its "waistline" wasn't much thicker either. Logically speaking, ordinary snakes shed their skin every year, some even more than once. With each shedding, their bodies would grow a bit. However, so far, except for the one time we coincidentally saw a snake shedding its skin, it seems like no one has seen it again. Although our unit has high walls and electric fences, locals still occasionally sneak in, and our own soldiers regularly patrol the fence. If you say that no one has seen it or its shed skin in over 70 years, it's hard to believe. If someone had seen it, I'm sure it would have been on the news by now. Is it different from other snakes? Does it not shed its skin every year...