novelraw Chapter 212: I Am Yan Xilou
Chapter 212: I Am Yan Xilou
After arranging a brief agreement with the High Priest about sharing follow-up intelligence and providing peripheral support, Lin Jie and the other three boarded the carriage again and returned to Luxor’s docks through the night.
They then took the fastest steamship sailing downstream and arrived back at the Cairo Second Branch’s underground fortress early the next morning.
A meeting involving every core team member immediately began.
The meeting room was moved to Julian’s temporary study.
That study had long since been buried under piles of ancient books, maps, and fragments of papyrus of uncertain origin.
Since returning from Luxor, the French scholar had thrown himself into research with intense zeal, scarcely allowing himself a moment’s rest.
When Lin Jie and Ethan entered the room, Julian was hunched under the dim kerosene lamp, cross-referencing the information the High Priest had revealed with forbidden documents he had copied from the Vatican’s secret library.
Over the next several hours, the entire team launched a brainstorming-style tactical simulation centered on the fragmentary ancient map and the scant UMA intelligence they had.
William, relying on his extensive desert combat experience, devised a very detailed operational plan covering caravan routes, supply distribution, and emergency defensive formations.
Ethan used his powerful moneyed influence and family connections to urgently place orders with major European arms dealers and alchemical workshops for batches of specially made alchemical rounds aimed at various UMA types.Lin Jie and Julian locked themselves in the intelligence room, attempting to sift through sporadic combat reports about symbiotic-type UMA left by earlier I.A.R.C. predecessors who had paid with their lives, searching for any possible common weaknesses.
Everyone was so busy they were close to losing track of time.
Then, a “tick-tick” suddenly sounded from a telegraph machine in the corner that received internal notices from London headquarters.
A young decoder in charge of communications, after receiving and decrypting a brief dispatch, wore a complex expression of oddity mixed with congratulations as he walked over to Lin Jie, who was leaning over the sand table.
He respectfully handed Lin Jie the freshly printed telegram paper, still warm with ink.
“Lin… Mr. Lin…” the decoder’s voice trembled slightly, “The London Headquarters’ Rookie Hunter Observation Committee has just released the final list of the 1888 fourth quarter Rookie Hunter Observation Roster.”
Lin Jie took the thin telegram with some puzzlement.
On the roster composed of countless unfamiliar young hunter names from around the world, one Eastern name he knew all too well had appeared as a striking dark horse!
It was hung high at the nineteenth position!!
“Lin Jie…”
“Commentary: Possesses tactical thinking and intelligence interpretation beyond his era, has demonstrated ‘artwork’-level command ability and miracle-creating potential in successive high-difficulty missions.”
“Overall rating: A+.”
“Recommended for early entry into the ‘Legend List’ preparatory observation sequence.”
After a brief silence.
“Ha! I knew it!” a loud, hearty laugh rang out from behind Lin Jie.
Ethan had somehow slipped up behind him.
He snatched the telegram from Lin Jie’s hand and loudly read the commentary aloud, word for word, to everyone present.
A sincere smile lit Ethan’s face, even brighter than when he himself had been selected.
“Nice work, Lin.”
The usually taciturn William extended a broad hand and gave Lin Jie’s shoulder a heavy, warrior’s pat to express his respect.
“An A+ rating… that’s the highest grade the Rookie Ranking can award,” Julian pushed up his glasses and said proudly.
“Looks like those stubborn folks at headquarters finally admitted that sometimes wisdom is more valuable than mere muscle.”
The heavy, oppressive war room was replaced by a rare lighthearted atmosphere.
This was a moment of honor for the team.
But amid the celebration, after reading the good news, Ethan’s face briefly clouded with remembrance and sorrow.
He handed the telegram back to Lin Jie.
“But don’t be too happy yet, Lin.”
“You can’t possibly imagine how few people who make it off the Rookie Ranking actually live long enough to reach that Legend List.”
He walked to the window and looked out over the boundless desert shrouded in night.
“My year’s 1883 roster had fifty names,” Ethan’s voice grew a little distant as he sank into far-off memories.
“Among them were proud aristocrats like me from Britain, descendants of German knights, and even a swordman from your Eastern lands who was always taciturn.”
“We were the brightest new stars of our era. We thought the whole world would bow before us.”
“But five years passed.”
Ethan slowly turned back, his eyes filled with deep desolation.
“Of those fifty names, more than twenty have been eternally left behind on their first and last Kingdom-class missions.”
“Of the remaining thirty, more than half chose to walk away forever, tired of this endless life filled with death and madness, returning to the mortal world.”
A wry, self-mocking smile crossed Ethan’s face.
“So, Lin…”
He stepped in front of Lin Jie, locking eyes with the young genius who might—perhaps for the first time in a decade—have a real shot at making it that far.
“Please, you must survive.”
…
Dawn the next day.
After discarding nonessential equipment, a desert exploration team slipped out quietly from the western city gate of the ancient capital under the cover of the predawn darkness.
The team consisted of twelve single-humped Sahara camels, each capable of carrying several hundred kilograms, and twenty Bedouin guides and Cairo branch guards.
They entered the vast sea of sand, known in ancient Egyptian as the Duat, called the Libyan Desert by explorers, and marked in red as the Sea of Death on informed maps.
The jangle of camel bells sounded lonely and faint in the silent air.
Whirling dust soon obscured the receding “City of a Hundred Gates” behind them and severed their ties with the known civilized world.
Ahead lay unknown temples and relics waiting for rebirth.
Though they had allies and rear support behind them, in this vast desert any crisis would leave them relying only on each other and their weapons.
The long caravan left a string of footprints across the yellow sand, already being eaten by the wind.
On the first day, the journey went fairly smoothly.
Under the direction of the experienced one-eyed guide Hassan, the caravan followed the edge of a relatively hard gravel plain, making steady progress into the desert interior.
The camels’ broad feet were an efficient, reliable “transport” across this land.
By day they silently trudged under the blistering sun;
by night they lit fires of dried camel dung and sat together sharing flatbread and water.
By the dim firelight, Julian fervently studied the papyrus manuscripts gifted by the High Priest, showing great enthusiasm.
His eyes glinted with academic fervor as he muttered arcane phrases about Osiris and rebirth.
After tending his weapons and gear, Ethan took upon himself the duties of night watch and patrol.
He no longer offloaded small chores onto others and even brought William the last mouthful of Scotch from his silver flask for the convalescing veteran.
Though William judged the fiery liquid inferior to the camp’s disinfectant alcohol, the clumsy kindness of the noble youth lent a faint warmth to the cold desert night.
Trouble began on the second day.
The caravan left the flat gravel and formally entered the Sea of Death, a stretch made up of countless gigantic, shifting crescent dunes called baalkhan.
A sudden side wind disrupted their course.
Those seemingly beautiful sands began altering the terrain around them in strange ways.
Old Hassan, relying on instinct, shepherded the caravan around several enormous quicksand traps that could have swallowed the entire party.
But ultimately they lost their bearings.
The stars were obscured by lifted sand, and compasses began spinning erratically under the area’s chaotic magnetic fields.
They lost all contact with the mapped world.
By the third day, the pervasive silence and the fear from being directionless began to attack everyone’s psyche.
Water was being consumed at an alarming rate, and food supplies tightened.
A young Cairo branch guard, watching his camel collapse from dehydration, finally snapped.
He drew his curved blade in a frenzy and charged into the sand sea he saw as endless hell, screaming, “Water… water… Nile water…”
William knocked him unconscious with a hand strike.
And that was only the beginning.
Lin Jie could feel despair and collapse spreading through the caravan like a silent plague.
At dusk on the fourth day, supplies were more than halfway gone and the camels’ steps grew increasingly labored.
The last reserves in the water skins were developing a lukewarm taste.
Everyone’s nerves had been stretched to the breaking point by days of monotonous silence and heat.
At that most fragile, dangerous moment.
“Wait!”
A low hail full of vigilance and killing intent suddenly rang out from the front of the caravan!
It was William, the steady veteran who marched at the head, who abruptly raised his right hand to signal the whole party to stop moving!
His gaze froze on the top of a large dune about half a kilometer ahead.
“What is it?” Ethan immediately swung down from his camel, deftly chambered his twin pistols, then half-kneeled in combat stance, alert in the direction William watched.
“There’s someone there.”
William’s voice was suppressed to a whisper.
The trained Cairo branch guards and Bedouin guides immediately and efficiently drove the camels together to form a crude circular defense, leveling their charged rifles and shotguns in unison toward the unknown danger!
Lin Jie also dismounted, using the camel’s tall body as cover, and slowly raised his field glasses.
After several seconds of careful scanning and focus adjustment, his pupils constricted!
On the dune’s crest, dyed red by the blood-colored setting sun, four dark silhouettes stood alone in that gorgeous yet deathly outline.
Three camels.
And one person!
They stood motionless, looking down at the caravan from above.
A chill of cold scrutiny ran through Lin Jie’s body.
In the heart of this Sea of Death where even birds rarely passed, could there really be other living people?!
“Friends or foes?” Julian asked tensely.
“In a place like this, you only ever meet one kind of person,” Ethan’s face curled into a cold smile, “the dead.”
Both sides stood hostile and wary a few hundred meters apart.
Seconds ticked by.
The blood-red sun finally sank below the last rim of the horizon.
Cold darkness was about to swallow the great land of sand.
Finally, the visitors on the dune broke the suffocating stalemate first.
The lone figure dismounted from a magnificent white camel.
Then he laid down every object he carried that might be considered a weapon.
Alone, with hands raised in an attitude of goodwill and honesty, he walked toward the caravan in an unhurried, deliberate manner.
“Looks like they don’t want a fight,” William said warily.
“Hmph, someone walking toward us alone at this distance,” Ethan replied, “is either a madman confident in his own strength, or a harmless idiot.”
“Either way…” Lin Jie put down the field glasses, “let’s go meet him.”
They finally made first contact in the flat open space between two dunes.
When the figure became clear under the moonlight, Lin Jie’s eyes betrayed a stunned surprise he could not hide.
The man was Eastern.
Approximately thirty-five or thirty-six years old, dressed in a white Chinese-style long gown made of high-quality silk, the cut tasteful and proper, though dusted with sand.
He was tall and handsome, with long jet-black hair tied at the back with a simple jadepin, giving him a scholarly, refined air.
Most striking were his eyes.
They were bright, calm black eyes.
There was no panic or exhaustion of a traveler in desperate straits, no fear at facing a dozen muzzles.
Only a serenity beyond his years, as if he had seen through the joys and sorrows of the world.
“What an incredible coincidence, isn’t it?” the Eastern man spoke first, his voice gentle and magnetic, carrying a London accent even more precise and elegant than Ethan’s.
“I had assumed that in this desert forgotten by Allah, besides profit-hungry Bedouins and hungry sand wolves, I would never meet another soul with whom to conduct civilized conversation.”
A warm, friendly smile brightened his face.
“Who are you?” Ethan asked with caution, “Why are you here?”
“Me?” the Eastern man bowed slightly to Ethan, “I am merely an unfortunate merchant. My name is Yan Xilou. I travel between Qing China, India, and Egypt, trading in silk, spices, and some ‘special antiques.’”
“As for why I’m here…” Yan Xilou wore a helpless, self-mocking smile, “the reason is simple, gentlemen. My caravan was struck by a damned storm three days ago.”
“We got lost.”
The explanation was plausible and perfectly timed.
Even suspicious Ethan could not immediately find a flaw.
After a short, barbed-yet-friendly exchange, William confirmed there was no malice or spiritual fluctuation about the man and half-believingly accepted his temporary request to join the caravan.
After all, another person meant an extra hand.
Moreover, this man seemed to have a peculiar knowledge of the desert that differed from theirs—a sort of local expert.
Yan Xilou naturally accepted Lin Jie and the others’ invitation and walked into the grim circle of camels with composed grace.
That night, at the desert campfire banquet, he effortlessly won over everyone except William with a kind of cultural “overmatch.”
He was gentle and refined, widely learned.
Yan Xilou knew the pharaohs’ lives inside and out, and could hold an evenly matched debate with Julian on professional topics like the mystery of Tutankhamun’s origins.
His knowledge of the Silk Road since the Middle Ages came off as casual anecdotes.
He could precisely explain how thirteenth-century Venetian merchants sold Eastern porcelain to European nobility at a hundredfold profit, which resonated with Ethan, who came from a mercantile family.
Yan Xilou showed a special familiarity with Lin Jie, who hailed from the same homeland.
“Brother Lin, forgive my presumption.”
After wrapping up the debate with Julian about the Library of Alexandria, Yan Xilou turned his deep gaze toward Lin Jie, who had been silently listening.
“From your accent, you don’t sound like you’re from Canton or the capital. You speak with the soft dialect of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, don’t you?”
“My father was a silk merchant in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. I just picked it up growing up,” Lin Jie answered calmly, not revealing his identity and sticking to his earlier fabricated persona of an Eastern scholar.
“Ah, that explains it—no wonder you carry that Jiangnan literati’s gentle, jade-like temperament,” Yan Xilou said, casually shifting his glance away from the Europeans seated by the fire.
They were raptly listening to Ethan’s exaggerated aristocratic tone as he boasted about his “heroic deed” of hunting a Bengal tiger alone in the Indian jungle.
For a moment, Lin Jie saw a trace of deep disdain flicker in Yan Xilou’s eyes.
Yan Xilou withdrew his gaze and returned it to Lin Jie.
His smile remained warm.
Then his speech suddenly switched from fluent English to precise, formal Mandarin of the capital.
“Brother Lin,” his voice was low but it carved a line between the two of them and the surrounding foreigners, “we are all strangers here, and since we are compatriots, perhaps we can speak more frankly.”
“Have you received any news from home on your trip to Europe and Egypt besides your academic research?”
Lin Jie stirred inside, unsure of Yan Xilou’s intent.
“There is news,” Yan Xilou’s face betrayed the worried look of an expatriate without revealing much, “nothing but unbearable tragic tidings.”
“Tragic tidings…” Yan Xilou slowly repeated the phrase.
“The phrase ‘tragic tidings’ is too mild,” his voice grew heavier, “it’s not mere tragic news. It is national mourning.”
“A great ancient country, passed down for thousands of years, its backbone smashed by a bunch of overseas petty powers we once called barbarians with their ironclads and cannons!”
“I have seen those blonde, blue-eyed Westerners,” his eyes cast a contemptuous glance in Ethan’s direction, “embrace our women, drink our rice wine, trample our silk and porcelain under filthy boots, and call them ‘cheap playthings of inferior peoples!’”
“I have even seen our brothers and sisters, shriveled from opium and racked with hunger, sell their sons and daughters, split apart families for that one fleeting taste of hollow joy!”
“So, Brother Lin…” Yan Xilou turned to stare at Lin Jie as if trying to read his soul, “you and I, as remnants of an empire rotting at the core, when we are fortunate enough to leave the country and see the West’s power and wealth…”
“...are you really content?”
“Content to stand by and watch our homeland sink? Content to see our civilization replaced, assimilated, and finally forgotten by so-called ‘modern civilization’?”
The bloody, tearful accusation struck Lin Jie’s heart hard.
He could feel the national pain in Yan Xilou’s words was not a pose;
it was a cry from his soul.
Lin Jie fell silent—for a very long time.
At last he met Yan Xilou’s expectant, scrutinizing gaze and replied,
“I am not content.”
“But, Mr. Yan… external forces cannot save an empire already rotten from its roots.”
Lin Jie shook his head, sorrow etched across his face in a way Yan Xilou could not fully grasp.
“We thought we had learned how to re-arm the dragon with steel fangs.”
“And what did we actually lose? Was it merely that our ships weren’t sturdy enough or our cannons blunt?”
“No!” Lin Jie’s voice rose sharply, laced with agonized frustration.
“What we lost were people’s hearts, the national spirit!”
“When corruption like a cancer eats the empire from top to bottom, even the sharpest fang serves only as a utensil for the locusts.”
“Therefore, Mr. Yan, if I may be frank.”
Lin Jie’s gaze hardened.
“True strength springs from ideas that can create everything.”
“It comes from millions of people opening their eyes to the real world and developing independent thought and moral discernment.”
“It comes from institutional reform that makes the cage supervising power stronger and more reliable than the factories that manufacture shells!”