Sam stayed here for several months. Later, after they did some research, they discovered something that made Old Lama even more distraught: Lama Dean had indeed been registered at the temple, and the very first record was from when the temple was first built. Looking further, he found that in almost every generation of lamas, there was someone named Dean, all the way up to the current generation, when the name Dean finally disappeared from the register.

This was definitely not the same Dean, but rather many generations of Dean. And, judging from the records, almost every Dean would take on a disciple also named Dean.

What was this—another tradition of the temple?

It seemed that the name Dean held special significance for the temple, and that every generation of lamas had to have someone named Dean.

The Dean who became a mummy should have been the last Dean. For some unknown reason, he died in his room and had no disciple, which led to the end of the Dean lineage.

Why was this? Was this really just an ordinary lama temple? Old Lama could no longer suppress his curiosity. Besides being able to control his emotions, there was another advantage to being a monk: if he realized his cultivation was lacking, he could be honest about it. He realized that Sam was definitely connected to this temple, so he didn’t need to keep his questions to himself out of politeness.

He found Sam and asked him for the truth.

Sam told him, seemingly without any intention of hiding anything.

(I almost spat blood when I heard this, because I wondered why Sam could be so straightforward with the lama, but so stingy with me?)

Sam said that he had a kind of illness: every so often, he would forget everything that had happened before, except for some childhood memories—his mind simply couldn’t retain new memories.

He really did come out of the snow mountains, and brought a secret out from there, but before long, he would inevitably forget that secret.

A long time ago, before entering the snow mountains, he had a very special relationship with the last Lama Dean. They made an agreement: ten years later, he would come out of the snow mountains with a huge secret, but by the time he returned, he would have completely forgotten the agreement. So Lama Dean would wait for him in the temple, and before he forgot everything that happened in the snow mountains, he would tell it all to Dean, who would record it?

Old Lama thought about what he said, and broke out in a cold sweat.

Did this mean that the ten-year cycle was not a coincidence, and that all the Dean existed to record the memories of the visitor from the snow mountains? Was the temple originally built here because someone knew that every ten years, a person carrying a secret would come out of the snow mountains and bring the secret to a lama named Dean?

Unfortunately, this generation’s Dean passed away before Sam came out of the snow mountains, and he didn’t even find himself a successor.

Perhaps knowing he was about to forget, Sam told Old Lama everything he knew. He told Old Lama the reason he came to the Tibetan plateau.

He was looking for someone.

藏海花Ⅰ Chapter 10 The Past of 闷油瓶

In the early twentieth century, after World War I, the United States experienced a period of rapid development. American explorers and expeditions could be seen all over the world. Nepal and Bhutan, two small countries at the foot of the Himalayas in Southeast Asia, served as buffer zones between India and China and were bustling with all kinds of trade, full of various scents, with Americans making up a significant portion.

A mixed caravan of Indians, Bhutanese, and Chinese was resting at a relay station. The station was crowded with all sorts of people, including French merchants from North Africa, passing along information about the nearby border conflicts—news whose authenticity was impossible to verify.

Within the caravan, there were four people who seemed to be the core members. From these four, one could discern the makeup of the caravan. Among the Indians, there were two leaders: one named Avery, the other Cooper, two brothers. The Bhutanese leader was called Nolan, and there was only one Chinese, whose name was Charles Dean—an alias.

Charles Dean's real surname was Zhang, and he was a Chinese border merchant, a member of a large Chinese family. He originally had his own caravan, but the route from Nepal to Tibet and Sichuan had been cut off by war. Now, he was following the Indian and Bhutanese teams, doing some small-scale border trade.

Charles Dean's goods were quite special. In wartime, they weren’t actually very valuable, and many of them cost more to transport than they were worth. This trip, Charles Dean was just earning a commission for carrying the goods.

Charles Dean had a face that looked very Tibetan, which made it much easier for him to operate locally. In the Himalayas, all sorts of powers were mixed together, and a lone merchant was in considerable danger. Charles Dean was a shrewd man and handled this aspect very well, often getting by with his Tibetan language skills.

The caravan rested at the relay station for twelve days before gathering all the necessary supplies and waiting for a rare spell of good weather. They entered the Himalayas and began heading toward the Chinese border.

This was the last news their friends had of them.