roccoschili Chapter 25: The Cheng Family's Secret Mark
Chapter 25: The Cheng Family's Secret Mark
Cheng Xiaojin didn't sleep a wink all night.
It was 3:30 a.m. when he left Ma Ye's house. Instead of going back to his rented room in Fengtai, he rode his old bicycle straight to Tong Kexin's place on Huguosi Street.
He wasn't looking for Tong Kexin, but rather to retrieve the camphor wood chest that he had left in his rented apartment.
The box was too heavy to move, so he took out all five handwritten notebooks and stuffed them into his canvas bag before riding his bicycle to Tieguai Li's underground workshop.
Tieguai Li was still awake, sitting in front of the workbench, sanding a piece of iron with burrs on the interface of his prosthesis.
"Why are you back again?"
"Old Li, can I borrow your workbench for the night? I need to look through some things."
"What are you flipping through?"
"My grandfather's notes."
Cheng Xiaojin laid out the five notebooks in a row on the worktable, turned on the desk lamp, put on his head-mounted magnifying glasses, and began flipping through the first page of the first notebook.
Tieguai Li glanced at him, asked no more questions, put down the sandpaper, and poured a glass of cold water for him.
After flipping through more than forty pages of the first notebook, Cheng Xiaojin found a vertical hook at the bottom of a sketch of an object on page seventeen.
The sketch is a side sectional view of a bronze tripod. There is a line of small text at the bottom, and the vertical hook is drawn in the lower right corner of the text. It is drawn with a pencil and the strokes are very light.
"Old Li, come and take a look."
Tieguai Li leaned on the worktable and came over.
"What are you looking at?"
Do you recognize this symbol?
Tieguai Li squinted and stared for a long time.
"Like a hook, the one you engraved on the fake iron?"
"The same."
"Did your grandfather use this symbol too?"
"Not only my grandfather, but my father used it too."
Cheng Xiaojin handed the old photo that Master Ma had given him to Tieguai Li, pointing to the lower left corner of the iron gate.
Tieguai Li held the photo up to the lamp and stared at it for half a minute.
"Damn it, it really is the same."
"Keep flipping through."
Cheng Xiaojin buried his head and continued flipping through his notes, while Tieguai Li held down the corners of the pages for him.
I found three vertical hooks in the first notebook.
The second book found five.
The third book has six entries.
There is one and a half in the fourth and fifth books. I say half because the end of one of them was stained with ink, leaving only half of the curved line.
There are seventeen in total.
Each vertical hook has a label next to it. Some are labeled at the bottom of the object sketch, some at the end of a text description, and some are drawn separately on a blank page, with the date and a place name noted next to them.
Cheng Xiaojin took pictures of all the pages with vertical hooks and wrote them down one by one in his phone's notes app.
Tieguai Li squatted beside him, watching him take notes. The old shrapnel wound on his thumb throbbed under the lamp.
"Little Gold, what does this mean?"
"I don't fully understand either, but I know one thing." Cheng Xiaojin's finger stopped on the page of the third notebook. There was a vertical hook drawn in the blank space on that page, with a date written next to it: August 1994.
My grandfather taught me a game when I was eight or nine years old.
"What game?"
"Make small marks on the iron surface, then cover them with rust powder and tell me to find them."
Cheng Xiaojin closed his eyes and tried to retrieve that memory from the deepest part of his mind. It was very difficult because it was so long ago and the edges were already blurred.
"He told me something at the time: only the Cheng family can recognize this mark. Outsiders would just think it's a rust crack and wouldn't pay attention to it."
Tieguai Li's eyes lit up.
"Secret mark?"
"Yes, it's the Cheng family's secret code. My grandfather taught it to me, and my father also knows how to use it. He even uses it when he's on missions outside."
Tieguai Li stood up and took two steps, his prosthetic leg making a thumping sound on the cement ground.
"You mean your dad might have left some kind of mark outside?"
"It's not possible." Cheng Xiaojin pointed to the vertical hook on the iron gate in the photo.
"This is the mark. My father left a secret mark of the Cheng family on an iron gate with an ouroboros relief. I don't know where the gate is, but this mark shows that he has been to that place."
"That photo was taken in 1997. When did your father go missing?"
"Around 1997."
Tieguai Li remained silent for several seconds, then tapped the head of his cane on the ground twice.
"You mean, these markings might be road signs left by your father for his descendants?"
"I dare not think this way, but I have no choice but to think this way."
Cheng Xiaojin closed the five notebooks again, tied them with a rubber band, and stuffed them back into her canvas bag. She took out her phone and glanced at it; it was 5:12 AM.
He sent a text message to Master Ma.
"Grandpa's notebook has seventeen vertical hooks, each with a location mark next to it. I suspect my dad also left marks outside, those marks might be clues he left for his descendants to find him."
After sending the message, he stared at the screen waiting for a reply, his fingers tapping incessantly on the back of his phone.
Less than two minutes later, Master Ma returned.
Four words.
"Don't rush, check slowly."
Tieguai Li stared at his phone screen and clicked his tongue.
"Master Ma always speaks in the same few words, like he's sending a telegram."
"He said to investigate slowly, which meant I shouldn't make a fuss about it yet." Cheng Xiaojin put his phone back in his pocket and stood up to stretch his sore neck.
"Old Li, right now only you and Master Ma know about this, so keep quiet about it."
"Do you still need to explain to me?" Tieguai Li patted his prosthetic leg.
"I didn't budge an inch when I lost this leg at the border, how could I possibly let my guard down with you?"
Cheng Xiaojin patted him on the shoulder without saying anything.
As dawn approached, a faint, gray light shone through the small window of the studio.
Cheng Xiaojin slung his canvas bag over his shoulder, pushed open the iron gate, and walked out.
"Are you going to set up a stall today?" Tieguai Li asked from behind.
"Keep the business as usual, set up the stall as usual, and don't let anyone think I'm acting strangely."
Cheng Xiaojin's sneakers stepped onto the cobblestone street in the early autumn morning, the air carrying a slight chill that seeped into his shirt through his collar.
When he arrived at the entrance of Panjiayuan Market, the sun had just peeked out from behind the rooftops on the east side.
Then he saw the car.
A brand-new black Land Rover was parked on the curb to the right of the market entrance. The paint was shiny and the wheels were clean. It was not the van or used Jetta commonly seen in Panjiayuan.
The car window was rolled down halfway.
Cheng Xiaojin didn't stop walking, but she glanced over out of the corner of her eye.
A man in his early thirties with short hair and strong facial features sat in the driver's seat. He had a shallow scar on his nose that stretched less than an inch from his nostril to his left cheek.
The man's gaze swept over Cheng Xiaojin, lingered for less than half a second, and then looked away.
The car window rolled up, the black Land Rover's engine gave a low growl, and it slowly drove away from the curb, heading towards the East Third Ring Road.
Cheng Xiaojin stood at the market entrance, clutching the strap of his canvas bag tightly.
The way that person looked at him wasn't sizing him up or observing him.
It is being confirmed.