A few hours later, transported by a private jet, we landed at Sartu Airport in Daqing.

The Wei family has exhausted all its resources to save Wei Shengnan's life.

As soon as my plane landed, a local business owner picked me up from the airport.

Inside the Rolls-Royce driving down the street, the middle-aged man who came to pick him up offered him a cigarette: "Mr. Duan, my name is Xue Haihua, and I trade crude oil futures. General Manager Wei called me and told me to take good care of you. If you need anything here, just let me know."

I'm here on behalf of the Wei family. After listening to Xue Haihua's explanation, I got straight to the point: "Mr. Xue, I don't know if Mr. Wei has told you the purpose of my trip to Daqing! We are here to investigate a local shamanistic altar. If it's not too much trouble, I hope to start the investigation as soon as possible."

"You're too kind. I'm just here to help you with this. It's no trouble at all."

Xue Haihua smiled and said, "I've already sent people to investigate the altar you mentioned, but unfortunately, it no longer exists."

"It no longer exists?"

When I heard Xue Haihua's response, my expression changed immediately: "Mr. Xue, what do you mean by that?"

"The altar you mentioned was a temple built by the Qing government. It was demolished in the 1980s due to oil field development. The place is now a factory, and there is no trace of its former self left!"

Xue Haihua paused for a moment: "As you know, although Shamanism is a religion, it is relatively loose, unlike Taoism and Buddhism, which have believers living in temples! Moreover, the temple you are looking for exists as a cultural relic, and its rating is not high. The information that can be found now is quite pitiful."

"There's nothing left?"

I looked at Xue Haihua, somewhat bewildered: "What about the things that were removed from the temple back then?"

"Oh, you're putting me in a difficult position! This happened decades ago, and it's even uncertain whether the paper records still exist!"

Xue Haihua shook his head: "I went to great lengths, but all I found out was that the temple was demolished. As for other details, I really couldn't find out anything else."

After listening to Xue Haihua's words, I felt a little depressed: "Since we're already here, then please take me to see the old temple site, Mr. Xue. I want to do an on-site investigation! Also, please use your local social connections to find the people who were in charge of this project back then, as well as the construction workers, etc. In short, the more people you find, the better, so that I can reconstruct the situation at that time as accurately as possible."

"Okay, I'll do my best."

Xue Haihua's task was to take good care of me, so after hearing what I said, he readily agreed: "Mr. Duan, let me give you a heads-up. This temple was demolished decades ago, and it's unknown whether the person in charge back then is still alive. Don't have too high hopes."

When they were at the Wei family's house before, Old Master Wei had mentioned that they had close ties with several high priests of shamanism in Northeast China and would ask them to help gather information.

However, shamanism has many branches and is different from Taoism and Buddhism, which are practiced in temples. Shamanism is practiced in seclusion in the city and has little sense of belonging to a group.

The vast majority of shamans practice alone, like the tribal wizards or state advisors of the past.

Now that tribes no longer exist and feudal society has been overthrown, most shamans practice folk rituals or fortune-telling.

However, based on my observations over the years, most fortune tellers who claim to practice shamanism are frauds. It would be difficult to find even one truly knowledgeable successor out of a hundred.

It seems that the information from Daqing was obtained by the Wei family from those high priests, and it has not yet been verified.

Led by Xue Haihua, our convoy quickly arrived at an industrial park on a mountain in the suburbs.

Looking around, all sorts of buildings are scattered across the hillside. Not to mention the altar, even the original appearance of the mountain is nowhere to be seen.

Standing under the car, seeing the situation and Xue Haihua's continued lack of feedback, I sighed helplessly. "Mr. Xue, could you please take me back to the airport? I have another friend in Suihua. I'll go there to meet him first. If anything happens here, we can keep in touch."

"Alright, I'll urge them to conduct an investigation as soon as possible."

Xue Haihua nodded: "As you know, Daqing is a resource-based city. Back then, in order to develop the oil field, many ancient buildings had to be destroyed! Even many of the more mainstream Taoist temples and Buddhist temples disappeared. The temple you are looking for is too remote and its cultural value is not high. I think it is questionable whether there are any records at all."

I did not respond to Xue Haihua's words, but I was already feeling a little worried.

My concern wasn't that we'd come up empty-handed, but rather that the intelligence provided by the Wei family was of extremely poor quality.

If all our teams are facing similar situations, the chances of finding the idol are extremely slim.

Just as I was hesitating whether to ask the snake for help, Xue Haihua received a phone call and then said to me, "Mr. Duan, I have good news. My secretary has contacted an archivist at the Cultural Relics Bureau. He has retired and lives in his hometown in the county town, which is about a two-hour drive away. Shall we go and take a look?"

I heard that a round trip takes four hours, so I picked up my bottle of mineral water and asked, "Can I call him and talk to him on the phone?"

Xue Haihua shrugged: "That's probably unlikely! This archivist is over eighty years old this year. Not only is he hard of hearing, but he is also mentally unstable. He is sometimes confused and sometimes lucid, making it difficult to communicate with him on the phone."

"In that case, let's go take a look!"

After much hesitation, I decided to meet with them anyway, since that's what I came here for, and I couldn't afford to waste half a day.

The archivist that Xue Haihua found was sent to a nursing home by his children, which made it easier for us to ask questions.

Inside the old man's room, I yelled at him, "Sir, can you hear me?"

The old man glanced at me but didn't say anything.

I raised my voice: "Can you hear me?"

The old man rolled his eyes: "I'm hard of hearing, not deaf. As long as you speak a little louder than normal, I can hear you!"

"Sir, I've come here to ask you something! Do you remember a shamanistic temple that was demolished in the 1980s near Mawei Mountain on the outskirts of the city?"

After I asked that question, I waited nervously for the old man's answer.

His job was just an archivist. If, as Liang Haihua said, the small temple wasn't registered when it was demolished, or if the person who registered it wasn't this old man, then our trip was completely in vain.

Even if the old man recorded this event, it remains to be seen whether he can still remember it clearly after thirty or forty years.