Genius Club-Chapter 552 - 7: The Pomegranate Tree_2
"Ah... you two have really had a tough time, climbing up Nine Immortals Mountain like that... it must have been incredibly difficult..."
He made this statement to try and extract some unknown details about the burial, although Gao Yang had only heard about Nine Immortals Mountain for the first time yesterday.
The old lady then just shook her head and chuckled:
"Nine Immortals Mountain is not tall, and the place on the west is quite low, just a few mounds that can hardly be considered mountains."
After chatting for a while longer, Gao Yang managed to obtain another crucial piece of information—
A pomegranate tree.
At the site where Zhang Yuqian was buried, the old lady had planted a pomegranate tree, as a way of cherishing her memory.
"What about the details of the car accident, and whether there was cremation, do you have any clues?"
This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.
Lin Xian asked while climbing the mountain and looking back.
"Definitely not."
Gao Yang, supporting his waist and wiping the fine sweat from his forehead, shook his head:
"Those things can’t be coaxed out with mere words; asking in such detail would basically end the conversation immediately, and the old lady’s emotions would definitely not handle it."
Lin Xian nodded.
Being able to inquire about the exact location of the grave was already quite good and was enough, the remaining task... just needed them to open Zhang Yuqian’s coffin, and everything would be revealed.
Considering what Gao Yang had mentioned before.
It was likely that Zhang Yuqian’s birth time was around January 21, 1980, just before 1 AM.
So there was a great probability that her actual birth time was indeed 00:42.
Then directing the thoughts to her time of death...
Lin Xian also often wondered if Zhang Yuqian wasn’t killed in a car crash but, like Chu Anqing, at the moment of turning 20 in life, disappeared into tiny specks of Blue Stardust at the instance of 00:42.
But if that were true, there definitely wouldn’t be any remains.
What then of burial or cremation?
The car crash from over twenty years ago certainly had some deception somewhere, by someone.
Speculating which part involved a lie...
Guessing endlessly was meaningless.
Uncovering Zhang Yuqian’s grave and opening her coffin would naturally reveal the truth of that crash; if there really were remains to be found, and they could be compared through DNA against Chu Anqing’s hair, then more mysteries would be unraveled.
"Lin Xian, that way is west."
Gao Yang pointed to the left:
"We can’t keep going higher, such places are definitely not for burying graves; Zhang Yuqian’s parents back then surely just found a secretive place to bury her... Carrying a coffin is difficult as it is very heavy, they wouldn’t have been foolish enough to lift it so high, and it’s not like it was a grand ceremony at Mount Tai. Why bury it so high?"
"Since the old lady said that the west slopes of Nine Immortals Mountain are quite low, it must be buried near the west side, in a quiet place away from noisy tourists... I think the feng shui there looks good, let’s search for the pomegranate tree over there."
Lin Xian nodded, instead of continuing up the stone steps.
He bent down and, along with Gao Yang, shielded themselves with leaves, entering the wild bamboo grove nearby.
On the plane ride here, Lin Xian had also analyzed.
And had generally confirmed the location of Zhang Yuqian’s tomb, even marking a circle on the map.
Nine Immortals Mountain’s peaks, the tallest being over 500 meters and the shortest over 200 meters, were all considered tall enough.
If it was just climbing the mountain, this altitude would be no issue, easy and effortless. But carrying a coffin to bury someone... not to mention 200 meters, even 100 meters, or 50 meters could be strenuous.
Moreover, as per the traditional beliefs in China, falling leaves return to their roots; burying too high might be considered inauspicious or unsuitable, Lin Xian didn’t understand much about it, but his intuition said that Zhang Yuqian wouldn’t be buried too high up.
Also, the mountaintop was mostly rocky, not suitable for digging holes; the ground at the base of the mountain was more suitable for burying a coffin.
In summation.
The western part of Nine Immortals Mountain, without peaks and more forests and vegetation, flat terrain with both mountains and water, flowers and natural beauty, truly was a nice place.
Although it was muddy without a main road, making it inaccessible to machinery and vehicles, wasn’t this exactly what Zhang Yuqian’s parents would have wanted? A quiet, remote location undisturbed, they surely hoped for their daughter to be buried in such a thinly populated, quiet, and beautiful place after her death.
As for carrying the coffin...
Money makes the world go round, and Zhang Shi was so wealthy back then; these problems that could be solved with money were not issues for him.
Of course.
The most crucial and conspicuous landmark was still the pomegranate tree that Yan Qin had planted herself, growing above the grave of Zhang Yuqian.
The pomegranate tree normally takes about six to eight years to mature before it starts bearing fruit, and it can continue to produce fruit for decades.
Based on the time of Zhang Yuqian’s death, the pomegranate tree was estimated to be about 24 years old, having grown without human interference for so many years... It must have grown quite large and robust by now, with flourishing branches and leaves.
Therefore.
The most crucial clue right now was to find that pomegranate tree!
...
Crackling through.
Lin Xian and Gao Yang, making their way through the primitive jungle, had their clothes slashed by unidentified plants and a few scratches on their arms, which were slightly itchy.
Surviving in the wild was not something an ordinary person could handle, and their current situation was akin to wilderness survival.
"This is a bit harder to find than I thought..."
Gao Yang complained,
"I looked it up online, and it said this mountain covers an area of just 2.45 square kilometers. I thought that wasn’t very large, just over a kilometer long and wide. But stepping into it, the mountain is genuinely vast!"
"2.45 square kilometers is actually quite large." Lin Xian parted a fork in the branches, looked over there, and then looked back:
"Not to mention, mountains are three-dimensional, covering many times the area of a flat plane. To find a pomegranate tree in this mountain, with its vision-obscuring jungle... It’s almost like looking for a needle in a haystack, or rather a piece of rebar—it’s not as exaggerated as a needle."
"Besides, you saw Zhang Yuqian’s father, Zhang Shi. Given his wary and panicky demeanor when we faced him, having a guilty conscience, he surely chose a concealed, hard-to-find spot that only they knew about to bury Zhang Yuqian. That would be sufficiently discreet to cover up his ’guilt’."
"Could he be guilty because he didn’t cremate the body back then and secretly buried it instead?" Gao Yang turned around, wiping the sweat from his forehead:
"That shouldn’t be the case either. It’s been over twenty years. Even if it were discovered that he didn’t cremate the body, what difference would it make? They can’t reassemble the skeleton and cremate it again... I really don’t know what Uncle is hiding."
"Speculating now is useless; no matter what we guess, we need to open the coffin to find out the truth. Come on, let’s go check over there."
Lin Xian led Gao Yang deeper into the thicket.
When he was a child, there was a pomegranate tree in his grandpa’s yard.
Whenever that pomegranate tree started growing small fruits, Lin Xian, on his way home from school, would always check to see if they were ripe and when he could eat them.
As a result, he was quite familiar with the growth cycle of the pomegranate trees. Generally, in March or April, the pomegranate trees would start flowering, eventually bearing fruit, and mature by autumn.
Therefore, at this time of year, the pomegranate trees should definitely be in bloom.
The crimson flowers of the pomegranate should stand out remarkably in this remote wilderness, and be very easy to spot from a great distance, given their vivid color.
As they delved deeper and deeper into the forest.
The ground underfoot became increasingly moist and soft.
It was a mixture of years of accumulated fallen leaves and dead grass, along with dry branches, fallen rainwater, sedimented dust, and static time.
Stepping on it.
One could truly feel the traces of years, the silence of time, the silence of history.
All birds had flown away, and all paths were overgrown.
For some reason, Lin Xian thought of this quintain, which seemed to resonate with the moment.
It seemed that what they were stepping on was the historical river studded with Millennium Stakes, and the beams of sunlight seeping through the tall branches were like barriers between life and death, being breached by them.
"Lin Xian! Look quickly!!"
From upfront, Gao Yang suddenly shouted out loud, laughing heartily, hastily pulling Lin Xian from behind and pointing down a slope ahead—
"Look quickly! Do you see it? Where my finger is pointing! On that lawn!"
Lin Xian hurried over.
Following Gao Yang’s finger, he looked diagonally downward.
A lawn that bore no signs of maintenance but was brimming with greenery, carpeting this tranquil paradise with a breeze-fluttered carpet.
Surprisingly, there were no trees around the area.
And right in the middle of this time-capsule lawn, there grew a pomegranate tree that should not belong there!
Its green leaves were glossy.
Its flowers...
Bright red, swaying.
