The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 173: Cause of Death

The four-year-old child was already very sensible, but her young hands made picking the coal slack up very hard. Sometimes after they picked up a lot and sold it, Lin Qizhong would buy her a piece of candy.

To tell you the truth, I was deeply touched when I heard this, because I also had such a childhood. Although it wasn't as difficult, the lack of materials still made everything seem precious. Although those days seemed bleak, I bet they were at their happiest during that time.

But this was a fragile state. We often say that there's happiness in poverty, and sometimes the pleasure found in poverty is much more than that of wealth. But this wasn't a problem that could be solved by a good mentality. The biggest problem with poverty is that at many turning points in your life, you don't have the ability to protect the people you want to protect, or resist the erosion of the outside world.

As a result, when people become anxious to pursue wealth, they often exchange their happiness for a sense of security.

On the day of the accident, they had a good harvest. NanNan was counting the slack one by one, because Lin Qizhong had told her that if there were more than ten, he would buy her candy to eat that night. NanNan was very happy, but at this time, the last coal truck appeared.

She and her brother held their breath as they waited for the coal truck to pass.

But this time, the things that came along were completely different from what they had been expecting. They found that it wasn't a coal truck, but a convoy of at least ten vehicles. When the vehicles passed, all the stones shook violently, and they heard a lot of slack falling.

But unlike the trucks from before, these vehicles didn't drive off. Instead, they stopped one by one after the shaking had quieted down. Lin Qizhong didn't know whether there was a problem, or if something else was going on.

When the people got out of the vehicles, Lin Qizhong was surprised to see that all of them were very young and dressed in black. They weren't wearing workers' clothes or uniforms, but something in between the two.

They worked on one of the vehicles for a long period of time, but there didn't seem to be any result. In the end, they started a fire beside the vehicles. These people were very silent and seldom communicated with each other, but when they did, they spoke in a very standard northern dialect. They had dinner and stayed up very late before getting in the vehicles to rest.

Lin Qizhong didn't dare take a single step out of his hiding place. He was carrying too much slack, and knew it would definitely be confiscated if he came out. He was absolutely loath to give it up, so he and his sister waited for these people to leave. But it appeared that these people weren't ready to leave, because they went straight to their vehicles to rest.

It wasn't until all the lights in the vehicle went out that Lin Qizhong and NanNan poked their heads out. Because the liberation trucks were too high, they couldn't clearly see what the situation was under the moonlight. If they bent over, Lin Qizhong figured the people above wouldn't be able to see them either, so he carefully backed up with the bamboo basket on his back.

After taking a few steps, NanNan felt something under her feet. She looked down, and saw that it was some slack that had fallen. She grabbed her brother and pointed to the ground.

Lin Qizhong was no longer in the mood to do such a thing, but looking at his sister's eyes, he had no choice but to crouch down and pick it up. At this time, he found that there was a large amount of slack under the truck.

The slack had been left by the vehicle that had driven by previously, and this truck had parked right above it. Lin Qizhong couldn't reach down with the bamboo basket on his back, but NanNan was so absorbed in picking the slack pieces up that she didn't realize the danger and climbed underneath. It was very dark under the truck, and the hands and feet of such a young child weren't particularly dexterous. As soon as she picked one up, she'd drop another one. Lin Qizhong didn't dare speak; all he could do was stand there and worry.

At this time, the whole convoy suddenly started up.

(To me, this particular detail was strange. They had obviously stopped there due to vehicular failure, and didn't set off immediately, because the failure had obviously not been repaired successfully. It was getting late, so they were going to repair it the next day. If that was the case, then why did the vehicles suddenly start up at this time? If we do a reverse analysis, this proves that the vehicle may not have stopped there because of a malfunction. So what was it for?)

The truck was driving very fast, and there was no way Lin Qizhong could remain silent at this time. He shouted, but it was too late. The truck dragged his sister for six or seven meters, and when he went to see her, the sight was beyond any sort of description. At her time of death, she still had a few pieces of slack clutched in her little hands.

At that time, both Lin Qizhong and the old lady collapsed. In the county seat where the car accident had occurred, the coal mine paid Lin Qizhong some money and then left. Because it was immoral for children to steal coal slack, the compensation was very pitiful, just enough to be considered humane. Those people never appeared again. Lin Qizhong couldn't even remember their faces clearly because it had been dark at that time. The villagers helped bury NanNan, only knowing that it was a car accident.

This was how the accident occurred that year. If you think it's all very ordinary, then you're wrong. The creepy thing is yet to come.

Just three days after the accident, the old lady and Lin Qizhong wanted to go to the mine to get another explanation. When they reached the dirt road, however, they found that it was gone.

The whole road was at least more than ten kilometers long, but when they went to the forest three days later, there were overgrown weeds and rocks, as if the road had never been cleared at all.

Lin Qizhong carefully walked along it twice. He found that it was absolutely impossible that he had gotten it wrong, but the whole road had definitely disappeared. Based on the surface signs, there were no traces of concealment, nor had anyone ever been there.

This was like a haunting. It was absolutely impossible that Lin Qizhong had hallucinated it all, since he had been picking up slack here for such a long time. But it was also absolutely impossible for a road to disappear in such a short amount of time.

They went to the village closest to the road to ask about it, and got even more puzzling feedback. No one knew that there was a coal mine there, and no one had ever seen the dirt road, let alone coal trucks coming and going.

They asked three or four times, walked six or seven miles around all those people's homes, and were still given the same answer. Lin Qizhong looked at those people's eyes, and knew that they weren't lying.

The old lady began to doubt NanNan's real cause of death. She felt that Lin Qizhong didn't take good care of his sister, and left her alone while he went off to play somewhere else. After that, her suspicions became more and more serious, and the relationship between mother and child became strained.

When I heard this, I initially understood one thing that I had been wondering before— how Lin Qizhong was so sure that the body belonged to his sister. When I looked at the bones earlier, I noticed some black crystals on them, which turned out to be coal slack that had been embedded in the bones after she was crushed.

This kind of coal slack was very unique. I call it coal, but it was probably composed of other substances, since it had a kind of jade luster, and showed a greenish gray color.