Old Lama looked at Sam. The two of them stared at each other in silence for a while. He felt a bit awkward and said, “It’s warmer inside. Why don’t you come in and rest for a bit, have a cup of butter tea before you go?”

Old Lama was just being polite, but Sam didn’t stand on ceremony and nodded directly, saying, “Alright.”

So Old Lama led Sam into the lama temple.

As the host, and since it had been a long time since he’d had any guests, he naturally wanted to show proper hospitality. After making sure Sam was warmed up and had some butter tea, he took Sam for a walk around the temple.

During this time, Old Lama would, intentionally or not, always try to ask Sam some questions. Strangely, Sam didn’t hide anything. He repeatedly emphasized that he came from the snow mountains, and in his words, there was not the slightest sign of lying or concealment.

At that time, although Old Lama was young, he had at least undergone some cultivation, and had a special control over worldly curiosity. He didn’t continue to press further.

(This matter, originally, would have passed after Sam stayed for just one night. After Sam left, Old Lama’s life would have returned to normal.)

藏海花Ⅰ Chapter 9 Key Clues about Sam

That night, after Sam finished the last few words with Old Lama in Old Lama’s room, explained that he would leave the next day, and expressed his thanks, Old Lama escorted Sam back to his own room.

The structure of the temple was quite complex. Without someone to guide you, it was impossible for an ordinary person to find their room. They wound their way through the temple, and as they passed a courtyard, Old Lama’s oil lamp went out.

In total darkness, the courtyard under the moonlight was especially dim. Old Lama stopped to relight the lamp, and at that moment, Sam looked up at the sky.

The sky in Tibet, filled with stars, was as beautiful as a dream. For Old Lama, who had seen it since childhood, the sky was just like that—he didn’t find anything unusual about it.

He lit the lamp and set off again, only to find that Sam wasn’t moving, just quietly gazing at the sky.

“Honored guest, this way,” Old Lama called out. Only then did Sam come back to himself and ask, “Master, does your lama temple have one hundred and twenty-seven rooms?”

Old Lama was taken aback. Indeed, this lama temple had one hundred and twenty-seven rooms. He’d known this since he first arrived at the temple. Although some rooms were very small, the total was one hundred and twenty-seven. How did Sam know?

Old Lama nodded in confirmation. Sam then said, “Would you mind letting me look at every single room?”

“Honored guest, why do you suddenly have this idea—” Big Lama wanted to ask, but was immediately restrained by his cultivated self-control. No idle thoughts, no curiosity—he shouldn’t be interested in these things.

Old Lama held himself back and suddenly wondered if Sam had been sent by the heavens to test his cultivation. So he nodded and said, “Alright.”

“I remember the starry sky here,” Sam murmured to himself. “A long time ago, I must have been here. I seem to vaguely recall that I left something for myself in one of the rooms here.”

“May you find it,” Old Lama said, his curiosity almost making him want to cough up blood.

(I thought to myself, it’s really not that my cultivation isn’t enough—Sam’s words could make even the Buddha cough up blood.)

That night, they went from room to room, searching one after another. Old Lama couldn’t remember which room it was—he only knew that more than two hours had passed when they opened an unused room. As they walked in, Sam’s steps slowed and he stopped.

Old Lama also stopped, but he knew there must be something in this room that had touched Sam.

Sam walked into the room. In the center was a wooden table piled high with miscellaneous items. He moved the items aside, and among them, a dried corpse was revealed.

The corpse was slumped over the desk, completely mummified, covered by the clutter and dressed in monk’s robes, making it impossible to see what it originally looked like.

Old Lama was shocked. He had never imagined that in some long-unused room of the temple, there would be a mummified corpse.

But everyone in the temple was accounted for. Who was this person? Could it be that this was a lama from long ago who died here and had never been discovered?

“Wh-who is this?” Old Lama could no longer hold back and stammered out the question.

“This is Lama Dean, my friend. I never expected he would die here.”

“Lama Dean?” Old Lama had never heard this name before.

Sam tidied up the table and found that the mummy was clutching a scroll of scripture. He unrolled the scripture, let out a faint sigh, and said to Old Lama, “Please tidy up this room and give Dean’s body a proper burial. I’d like to stay here.”

Old Lama was completely unresponsive. Suddenly, he felt that everything around him had become unfamiliar, and that he didn’t know the temple as well as Sam did. Sam sat down, gazed at the scripture, and no longer spoke to Old Lama.