While it was called a treasure map, it was filled mostly with written records.
The pictorial portion occupied only one-third of the entire treasure map. Although most of it had been repaired, much of what was on it was still not very clear.
As for the text, it was all ancient place names and descriptions.
There was no record of the Sui Hou Pearl, only that a country named "Taohuai Kingdom" guarded a treasure.
And this so-called "Taohuai Kingdom" was an ancient country in the Western Regions, belonging to nomadic people who had no fixed abode.
The information on the treasure map was limited, the only indication being that this "Taohuai Kingdom" was located in the Pamir Plateau region.
Guan Zhenwan gave me a week to study the treasure map, and I spent most of that week in a hotel in Yanjing.
According to Guan Zhenwan, all members of the expedition team had a copy of this treasure map, and as the person in charge, my job was to lead them to the place mentioned on the map.
After research, I could roughly determine a location, but whether this place was the treasure's location, I was not sure.
On the day of departure, Fatty, Li Chuang, and I first went to the Kashgar region.
There, I met all the members of the expedition team, and Song Bing was among them.
From their conversations, I gathered that there were a total of nine of us on this trip, but we were divided into four factions.
Fatty and I were naturally on the same side, Song Bing represented Wu Tingxiu, and Li Chuang represented Guan Zhenwan. As for the remaining five people, one man and one woman were clearly together, and another two men and one woman were together.
We met at the hotel, and as soon as we met, everyone knew who I was.
It seemed they all had information about me.
I also knew their backgrounds.
That man and woman were overseas Chinese. The man, named Jiang Ye, was thirty-one years old and a member of a well-known expedition team abroad, having traveled to many places and possessing rich wilderness survival experience.
He somewhat resembled Yang Hanxue, also with a thick beard, but his eyes were not as large as Yang Hanxue's, being narrow, and his nose was rather flat.
When he spoke, he always liked to mix in some English words.
The woman with him was his wife, named Zhao Xuezhen, with the English name Lisa.
She was quite good-looking, but her attire was truly unmentionable; it was too avant-garde, with clothes that either exposed her navel or her arms, and a very prominent cleavage.
She didn't look like someone on a treasure hunt at all, but rather like someone on vacation.
She spoke in a sweet, delicate voice, calling out "darling" all the time, which I found quite exasperating.
The other three were even more troublesome. An old man named Fu Kui, reportedly a big shot in Chinatown, was called Grandpa Fu by others.
His hometown was in Hong Kong, and before Hong Kong's handover, his family immigrated to Canada. From the information Guan Zhenwan gave me, he was also a member of the "Big Circle Gang" in Canada.
The two people with him were his bodyguard and his niece.
The bodyguard was named A Yuan, and the niece was Jin Qiaoyue.
In any case, these five people were not to be trifled with; they were all foreigners with yellow skin.
However, I knew they were all wealthy, otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to join this expedition team.
As for the information they had on me, I had also seen it. It praised me to the skies, calling me the number one explorer in China, with rich experience in tomb raiding, an unparalleled expert in antiques, and even bringing up the reputations of my ancestors.
At first glance, it was quite intimidating, but only I knew that Guan Zhenwan had deliberately elevated me.
Considering that Song Bing paid ten million to join the expedition team on behalf of Wu Tingxiu, others surely wouldn't pay less than that amount.
After spending so much money to join this expedition team, it was natural to find a very capable leader.
On the contrary, Fatty, this guy, benefited from my connection and followed me without spending a penny.
The reason I brought Fatty along was that he was someone I could absolutely trust.
With him around, I felt much more at ease, to be honest.
We rested in the Kashgar region for a few days. During these days, Li Chuang procured a lot of equipment from other places. This equipment was hard to obtain domestically and was all imported.
Some of the items I had never seen before; they were all high-tech products.
I must say, it's different when rich people go out.
Thinking about the tombs I had visited before, besides the essentials, I didn't carry much else.
After packing the equipment, we agreed to set off the next day.
Fatty, Song Bing, and I shared a room, not to save money, but because the three of us could be considered our own people on this trip.
I had been interacting with Song Bing for quite some time, and since we knew each other's backgrounds well, we naturally trusted each other.
The next day, Li Chuang brought a guide. This person had been going to the Pamir Plateau area for years and was a living map of the region.
Li Chuang got two cars, a pickup truck and a minivan.
The pickup truck was loaded with equipment. Fatty, Song Bing, and I, along with the guide, rode in the pickup truck, while the rest of the people rode in the minivan.
The guide's name was very long, and even after hearing it several times, I couldn't recall it. We ended up calling him Rexiti.
He didn't mind. He was a long-haul truck driver who used to drive all over the country. He had only returned to his hometown to do some small business in recent years.
He was a few years older than Song Bing, thirty-six this year, and quite talkative.
He told us that the place we were going to was in the no-man's-land of the Pamir Plateau. Not only was the altitude high, but there were also many wolves in that area.
Before setting off, he had specifically prepared a hunting rifle.
As for our equipment, Li Chuang had also equipped some firearms. I wasn't sure where he got them from.
In the afternoon, we reached Tashkurgan and rested. Since Grandpa Fu, who was traveling with us, developed altitude sickness, we had to stop in Tashkurgan and planned to continue our journey the next day.
We found a hotel to stay in and ate at a small restaurant in the evening.
The meal was naturally a whole roasted lamb. If you don't eat lamb when you come to Xinjiang, it's as if you haven't come at all.
During the meal, I noticed that Grandpa Fu's mental state was very poor. Honestly, seeing him like that, I almost wanted to advise him to turn back.
Of course, I couldn't say that since he had paid the money, so I just acted as if nothing had happened.
Fatty got me a big plate of chicken. As I was eating heartily, Grandpa Fu's niece, Jin Qiaoyue, found me and said she wanted to talk to me privately.
I could tell that Grandpa Fu had clearly asked her to convey something to me, so I followed her to the curb outside the restaurant.
This Jin Qiaoyue was only twenty years old this year and looked like a high school student.
I lit a cigarette and said while smoking, "Miss Jin, what is it you want to see me about?"