Landlord in the Arctic-Chapter 55: Treasure

A low rumble echoed.

The stone wall began to shake violently. A shower of rubble broke away from the cliff face, and sand and grit cascaded down, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Feng Mountain covered his head with his arms, grabbed the curious Prince, and scrambled back with Nash.

When the dust settled, Feng Mountain waved away the lingering specks in front of his face.

To his surprise, he saw a mysterious cave in the stone wall.

The entrance was triangular, and a yellowish-white mist seeped out, carrying the thick smell of gunpowder.

’Could it be that the button I pressed was a detonator for some explosives?’

Because of this, Feng Mountain waited a while longer. After all, with an explosion blasting open the entrance, there was no telling if it might have caused a collapse inside the cave.

He first went to the bus to get a kerosene lamp.

Once the smoke cleared, a cold wind began to whistle out of the cave’s entrance.

’What could my grand-uncle’s treasure be?’

Feng Mountain’s eyes filled with anticipation. He took a deep breath and, holding the kerosene lamp, walked toward the entrance.

Nash naturally followed behind. Prince and Coca-Cola forgot their roughhousing and curiously tagged along after the two men.

Entering the cave, Feng Mountain was surprised to find the interior was exceptionally spacious and dry. It seemed to be a natural cavern. The ceiling was high overhead, dotted with strange rock formations, and a faint light from the entrance barely illuminated the path ahead.

The sound of their footsteps echoed in the vast cavern.

After they had walked about ten meters, the light inside the cave grew dimmer. Feng Mountain lit the kerosene lamp. In its dim yellow glow, he saw long wooden crates, stacked in neat rows.

Frank had said there was once a rumor in the old US government that the Crown Lord of the Crown Territory was the last keeper of the Tsarist treasury, guarding a massive treasure for the Tsarist Royal Family. It was said to contain tons of gold and mountains of jewels. Otherwise, Tsarist Russia would never have held onto the Crown Territory, even at the cost of giving up the sale of Alaska.

At the time, the Americans had sent out survey teams to inspect every inch of the Crown Territory but never found the so-called treasure. With the technology of that era, they certainly wouldn’t have thought to look for a treasure hidden inside a mountain.

The time to uncover the secret had come.

Feng Mountain, filled with excitement, approached the crates with the kerosene lamp. Despite the long years, the wooden crates were still solid and intact.

He motioned for Nash to pry open a crate with the shovel. Inside the crate was a layer of burlap. He grabbed a corner of the cloth and gently lifted it.

Instantly, Feng Mountain’s pupils dilated.

Rows of grease-coated rifles lay inside the wooden crate.

’How could it be guns?’

’What happened to the promised golden treasure?’

Placing the kerosene lamp on a protruding rock, Feng Mountain picked up a rifle. He used the burlap to wipe away the grease from its body. The oil had stained the wooden stock a dark red.

It looked a lot like his grand-uncle’s 98k, but the barrel was a bit longer, and the style was very vintage.

He worked the bolt; it was exceptionally smooth.

’They must be new guns, sealed up in this cave right after leaving the factory.’

Putting the gun down, Feng Mountain called Nash over to help open all the crates and inspect their contents.

The two of them moved the crates to the ground and took count. Each crate contained twenty identical rifles.

Before them were at least a hundred such crates, along with some square iron boxes. Opening those revealed grease-sealed bullets.

’Holy cow!’

’What treasure? This is a whole armory!’

’What was Grand-uncle, or rather, that Feng Family ancestor, trying to do?’

’Prepare to help Tsarist Russia counter-attack the Americans?’

Feng Mountain was completely bewildered.

"Khilla." Nash walked over, holding a wooden box with a distinctively Chinese design.

Opening the box, Feng Mountain saw a stack of letters and documents.

Among them was the ownership document for the Crown Territory, as well as the supplementary agreement his grand-uncle had signed when he inherited it.

The other thick stack of letters and documents was written in Russian. Feng Mountain had never studied Russian, so he couldn’t read them.

But now that he had found the most important documents, the old rifles didn’t seem so important. They were all century-old guns. Maybe he could sell them for a bit of money to help with expenses. He’d find time to talk to Frank; with his wide network, he should be able to get rid of them.

’Then again, this cave is pretty great.’

’It’s spacious, cool, dry, and well-ventilated—a natural refrigerator.’

’It would be perfect for a food storage room.’

Feng Mountain put away the wooden box and had Nash carry a few of the rifles as they left the cave.

It was a shame the original stone entrance was destroyed; he would have to figure out how to build a door for it later.

...

He put the wooden box and rifles back in the bus. When he had the chance, he’d buy a Russian dictionary to see what was written in those letters.

The two of them went back to clearing the drainage ditch, as if what had just happened was merely a minor interlude, far less important than the ditch itself.

Prince, however, never expected Coca-Cola to be so petty. Even after all this time, it still remembered being bitten. The moment they were away from their master, it pinned Prince to the ground and gave him a beating.

After dumping a load of sand and gravel, he returned.

He saw Nash frowning, crouched by the bus’s log foundation, poking under the vehicle with a shovel. A pile of rotten wood chips lay beside him.

"What’s wrong?" Feng Mountain walked over.

"Rotten." Nash picked at one of the logs, and a large chunk of decayed wood fell away, revealing a blackened, moldy interior.

’Is it that bad?’

Feng Mountain crouched down and picked off a piece of rotten wood himself, then turned to look at the other logs supporting the bus.

"Are they all like this?"

"Yes."

Nash stood up, grabbed the shovel, and struck each log in turn. The result was no surprise: every single log showed some degree of rot.

Feng Mountain didn’t have a good solution for this.

Each of these logs weighed over a thousand pounds. It was impossible for the two of them to move the entire bus; even Feng Mountain was powerless to do so.

The best option would be to hire a professional construction crew to do the repairs.

Next, the two of them continued digging the drainage ditch.

It took them the whole afternoon to clear the entire hundred-meter-plus length. Looking at the clean, free-flowing ditch, Feng Mountain felt an odd sense of accomplishment.

He had to make a big feast tonight to reward himself.

He took out the new bow case he had bought last time in Fairbanks. The gun shop salesman had told him this recurve American hunting bow was an 80-pound heavyweight, capable of piercing not just grouse or Thunderbird, but even a brown bear with a single arrow.

He opened the bow case. A natural wood-colored recurve hunting bow lay quietly in the foam.

"This bow is for you." Feng Mountain picked up the hunting bow and handed it to Nash.

Nash shook his head, refusing as he took out his own crude, simple bow and arrow.

Already used to Nash’s stubbornness, Feng Mountain shrugged and took out the string and accessories.

He slid the upper bowstring loop over the upper limb’s nock and set the lower loop in the lower limb’s string groove. He took the bow stringer and placed its ends over both limb tips. Then, holding the hunting bow horizontally, he stepped on the middle of the stringer cord, pulled up on the riser with his left hand, and pushed the bowstring into the upper nock.

With that, the bow was officially strung.

Lifting the hunting bow, Feng Mountain took a deep breath. The moment his fingers touched the string, a strange sense of familiarity washed over him.

It was as if this wasn’t the first time he had picked it up, but that it had long been a part of his body—even more familiar than holding a rifle.

Drawing the string, aiming—it was all one smooth motion, without the slightest awkwardness or hesitation.

Every movement was natural and fluid, requiring no thought, as if he had been born with the skill.

Perhaps the Feng Family, since the time of their ancestors, had a natural affinity for the bow and arrow.

Feng Mountain bent down and took the arrows from the bow case. When he bought the hunting bow, the salesman had talked him into buying the best set of arrows.

Aluminum-carbon arrows. They had better consistency and flight performance than standard carbon arrows, and were both lightweight and durable. Their only downside was the price.

He drew an arrow, nocked it, and pulled back the string, his eyes locking onto a strip of dried venison hanging on the meat rack.

His fingers released.

The arrow flew in an instant. The next moment, the arrow tip severed the rope holding the meat, and the dried venison fell to the ground. The arrow itself sank deep into the log wall of the workshop.

Nash, standing to the side, was momentarily stunned.

He often used a shotgun to hunt in his tribe; he only used a bow and arrow to follow the old traditions and knew well that archery was far more difficult than shooting.

Shooting a gun was just a matter of using the equipment; it bypassed the initial difficulty of mastering the device, and could be learned with a little training.

But an excellent archer had to overcome their body’s minute movements to achieve high consistency and control, and even then, it required years and years of practice.

But Khilla could sever a rope with a single arrow. He himself couldn’t do that.

’Is this the power of the spirits again?’

"Not bad." Feng Mountain was very satisfied with the result of that shot. He slung the hunting bow over his back and hung the quiver diagonally behind him. "Let’s go hunting."

WOOF WOOF!!

Hearing they were going hunting, Prince immediately started wagging his tail like a fan. Coca-Cola, on the other hand, was getting lazier and lazier, preferring to nap on a warm deerskin blanket if it had the time.

The two men and one dog left the camp with their packs.

Upon entering the Moonlight Forest, the biting cold wind that had just been raging on the tundra seemed to hit an invisible barrier and vanish without a trace.

Layers of fallen leaves were piled up under a blanket of snow. Every step was met with heavy resistance, making the already difficult trek even harder.

Feng Mountain struggled to lift his feet, pulling them laboriously from the snow before carefully setting them down again, afraid of sinking in with a single misstep.

’I should have worn snowshoes.’

The crunch of leaves and the compression of snow underfoot broke the forest’s original silence.

CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK!!

The distinctive calls of Thunderbirds echoed through the woods.

Hearing the sound, Prince’s ears perked up, and he ran toward the noise. But with his short legs, his entire body sank into the snow with every step, and he could only push his way forward by plowing through it.

Feng Mountain couldn’t bear to watch. He reached down, scooped Prince up, and tucked him under his arm.

Following the calls of the Thunderbirds, the two of them arrived at a patch of bushes.

A dozen or so Thunderbirds were gathered in the bushes, leisurely searching for berries not covered by the snow.

As the tundra was about to enter winter, the Thunderbirds’ plumage had already turned completely white. If they weren’t making noise, it would be difficult to spot them against the snow.

He’d been eating smoked bear and smoked venison every day recently. Seeing the Thunderbirds and thinking of their tender meat, Feng Mountain swallowed hard.

So, he issued a challenge to Nash.

"Let’s see who can shoot more."

Without giving Nash time to think, Feng Mountain reached back to his quiver, drew an arrow, and nocked it on his hunting bow.

He slowly raised the hunting bow, his movements gentle and steady.

He aimed at one of the Thunderbirds, concentrating his strength in his drawing arm. The bowstring was pulled back into a full draw, his gaze locked on the target.

With a WHOOSH, the sharp arrow flew from the string.

In an instant, the arrow shot toward the Thunderbird like a bolt of lightning.

A dull THUD—a direct hit!

The Thunderbird didn’t even have time to react before it was struck and fell, the arrow pinning it firmly to the snowy ground.

Just as a trace of delight appeared on Feng Mountain’s face...

Another WHOOSH was heard. Nash had also shot an arrow, hitting another Thunderbird.

If you were to rank tundra animals by how carefree they are, Thunderbirds would have to be number one.

They saw two of their brethren flopping on the ground with arrows sticking out of them.

The other Thunderbirds, as if nothing had happened, continued to peck at the ground, looking for berries.

...