Chapter 267: Help

My high fever persisted until the afternoon of the fourth day, when I finally regained consciousness. Both of my hands were wrapped in four or five layers of bandages, their dressings needing to be changed every day. They had handcuffed one of my hands to an iron frame; after the last time I ran out of the tent into the rain, I was under strict orders not to get out of bed.

Later, the doctor attending to me said I had been unconscious for four days, and if I hadn’t woken up soon, he would have arranged a car to take me to a hospital in the city. While he was telling me all this, I questioned practically everyone who entered the tent.

My questions were always the same few words, as if my ability to speak had been reduced to nothing else: Have the bodies been found? Has anyone’s body been recovered?

Their answers were equally consistent—either silence, or telling me to stop worrying and focus on recovering. I knew the chances of finding the bodies that fell off the cliff were nearly zero. The underground river’s current was far too fast, to say nothing of the bodies that had been burned.

On the fifth day, Tian Yuqing finally opened my tent flap. The stubble on his face was shaved, but his expression was exhausted and heavy. He dismissed the doctor, unfastened the restraint strap on my arm, and said to me alone, “We found He Yu.”

I grabbed him. “How is he? How is he doing? His leg was hurt when he fell in—did you get a doctor to examine him? Which tent is he in? I’m going to see him!”

Tian Yuqing looked at me quietly for a long moment without saying a word. At his silence, my heart sank. The smile that had just begun to touch my lips faded, and then he said, “He Yu is dead.”

My mind went completely blank.

“We found his body on a rock downstream, but it was too late. The body had been in the water too long, and some of the tissue had already rotted.”

For a moment, I couldn’t process what he was saying. My brain seemed incapable of thought. He spoke so many words, yet only four kept echoing in my mind: He Yu is dead. He Yu is dead.

“Where is… where is his body?” I still gripped Tian Yuqing’s sleeve tightly.

He sighed. “It’s resting outside. The He Clan is coming to take his body back today.”

My legs were weak, so I had to lean on Tian Yuqing to haul myself out of bed. The moment my feet touched the ground, all the pain in my body seemed to awaken at once. From my arms down to my feet, everything ached, and my feet felt as though they had forgotten how to walk as I shuffled a few steps toward the tent flap.

Tian Yuqing grabbed my arm and yanked me back. “Can’t you face reality? It’s been four whole days. The body is bloated and rotted through. What good will it do to see him now? They’re all dead! They aren’t coming back! You’re the only one who escaped Eagle Valley. They sacrificed their lives to get you out. Gan Ji, after all this time, when are you going to grow up?!”

I looked at Tian Yuqing and said stubbornly, enunciating every single word, “I’m going out.”

Tian Yuqing immediately released my arm. He lowered his head in silence and pointed off in one direction. I turned, lifted the tent flap, and stepped outside. The sky was still deeply overcast, and the wind bit cold. Far from the tents stood an iron flatbed cart. It was covered with a white sheet, its four corners pinned down by stones.

Tears brimming in my eyes, I walked toward the cart step by step. The white cloth was stained with a few patches of dried, dark-red blood. I reached out and touched one of the stones holding the sheet down, its icy chill causing my hand to tremble uncontrollably. A sudden, overwhelming fear seized me, a dread so powerful that I didn’t dare lift the cloth before me.

How could I face my friend’s corpse? How could I face his unrecognizable remains? If I had just been more obedient and hadn’t gone running around everywhere with Fourth Brother, if I hadn’t dragged He Yu off to Inner Mongolia to search for answers, would He Yu even be lying here today? If he had just obeyed the clan’s arrangements and stayed with the archaeological team, wouldn’t he have finished the job and gone back home long ago?

At that thought, my hand pulled back a corner of the sheet beyond my control. But before I could even see the corpse, a wave of nausea overwhelmed me. I turned away, collapsed to my knees on the ground, and retched. I wept and heaved all at once. The agony of it was unbearable.

Later, the He Clan carted the body away, and I was forced back into the tent. For some reason, I was exhausted, yet I couldn’t sleep, nor could I eat. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw the faces of the dead and their smiles. Whenever I looked at food, I was reminded of bloated, waterlogged corpses and that awful stench.

Tian Yuqing sat at the head of the bed peeling an apple for me. He told me, “This matter is over. Tomorrow, you can go home.”

Holding the apple, with fresh dressing just applied by the doctor to the wound on my face, I turned my head sluggishly and asked Tian Yuqing, “Is it really all over? Home… where is home?”

Tian Yuqing didn’t know how to comfort me either. He clearly grew a bit uncomfortable. In the end, he said, “It’s bound to be painful in the beginning, but you have to get past this hurdle. You can’t let yourself be trapped in this. Once you go back, just carry on like before. Go to school like you’re supposed to, follow your normal routine, and stop overthinking it.”

I stared at the apple in my hand, my mind still hazy. “But they’re dead,” I murmured. “Dozens of human lives… how could I ever forget?”

Tian Yuqing stood up and handed me a business card. “Once you’re back, if you ever need help with anything, call me anytime.”

In the face of all these deaths, he seemed almost too detached, as though his state of mind hadn’t been affected much at all. I thought perhaps this was connected to what he had gone through in his younger years. I could already imagine the deaths he must have witnessed, so many that he had grown numb to them. Now that these people were dead, he mechanically managed the aftermath and solved problems with a stoic face, just like when I first met him.

The next day, I was sent back to Kaifeng. Turning the key in the lock felt like opening a door to another lifetime. When I had left, the journey was full of laughter and lighthearted banter; now that I was back, those memories were nothing more than empty illusions.

That night, I went downstairs and bought a bowl of stewed noodles. Sitting at a low table, I shoveled the noodles into my mouth chopstick by chopstick. Tears quietly trickled into the bowl, dissolving into the cooling broth. There was no sobbing, no whimpering, not a single sound. The silence in the room was terrifyingly absolute.

Having been away for over half a year, I was forced to take a year’s leave of absence upon returning. Wanting to forget everything I had experienced, I spent my free time hanging out in the art studio with my old classmates. I had never been one to eat lunch with my roommates, but now I tried to join them almost every day, blending in and talking about whatever they wanted to chat about.

I drank and played cards with them, and they were more than happy to include me, thinking I had finally wised up and become more social. After immersing myself in this life for two or three months, I woke up from a nightmare in my rental apartment for the tenth time. Staring into the bathroom mirror that night, I realized one thing.

I couldn’t let go, and I couldn’t forget.

My best friend, my greatest partner, the relative who was both mentor and friend, my most loyal subordinate, and my closest elder. How could I possibly wipe these people from my memory as easily as erasing a blackboard? It was impossible.

At four in the morning, I rummaged through my things, digging through the luggage Tian Yuqing had sent back until I found my backpack. Inside was that bronze piece with the strange patterns I had recovered from the jade casket. I had no idea what this bronze piece was for, and the fastest way to find out was to show it to someone who knew the trade.

I also had the address book Tian Yuqing had left me, filled with numbers Fourth Brother had transcribed. These contacts might be able to help. And so, I began calling the numbers in that book, dialing from four in the morning until noon, and from noon until three in the afternoon.

When the last call ended, I threw my phone across the room in a fit of rage. These former “business partners” of Fourth Brother were either unavailable or too busy. Those with better manners spoke to me for two or three minutes; those without told me to get lost and stop harassing them.

A plucked phoenix really is worse than a chicken^[1], damn it.

However, I didn’t come away entirely empty-handed. I learned that Gan Rong was no longer in Henan; she had returned to the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area two months ago. I had originally thought about trying my luck with her. After all, “face” wasn’t that important to me, and she was my biological mother. She couldn’t just leave me to rot.

But then I thought better of it. Gan Rong hadn’t called me once since I returned to Kaifeng, so she probably didn’t care much whether I lived or died. Han Zhuo’s funeral hadn’t been that long ago, and for me, the “culprit,” to go crawling to her for help now would be asking for a beating.

I slumped over the table with my head in my hands, scratching my hair into a bird’s nest. I felt like if this continued, I’d go bald before I ever found an expert. Just then, a flash of inspiration struck me. I thought of someone. If I took this bronze piece to him, he would definitely have a way!

I scrambled out of my chair, picked my phone up off the floor, and quickly pulled up a specific number. After a moment of hesitation, I pressed dial.

The ceiling fan whirred overhead, and the continuous ringing in the receiver made me incredibly anxious. I closed my eyes and nervously rested my forehead against the wall, hoping the cold surface would cool me down.

Please pick up, please pick up. If he doesn’t answer, I’m truly out of options.

The phone rang for a while, and then the ringing abruptly stopped. He actually answered!

I snapped my eyes open and stood up straight, dark circles under my eyes as I spoke. “Hello? Hello? It’s me. Hello, did I dial the right number?”

The man on the other end gave a low hum, his voice as steady as ever. “You have the right number.”

Hearing that familiar voice, I felt all the tension drain out of me in an instant, so overwhelmed I felt like crying. After such a long period of intense mental strain and having nowhere to turn, this sudden relaxation made my vision swim. I quickly grabbed a handful of candy from the table, unwrapped one, and shoved it into my mouth, only then feeling the dizzy spell gradually begin to fade.

Holding my head, I said, “I’m back in Kaifeng. I’ve run into some problems I can’t solve on my own and want to talk to you in person. Are you free lately? Give me an address and I’ll come find you.”

He was silent for a moment before saying, “That’s fine. I’m not busy lately.”

We exchanged a few brief words before hanging up, and he sent me his address. I immediately sprang into action, booking a ticket and packing up all the clothes on the sofa. Finally, I collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling in exhaustion. My heart, which had felt completely dead, finally flickered with a spark of hope. It seemed a person couldn’t stay unlucky forever; beyond the dark willows and bright flowers lies another village^[2]. Heaven was still lending a hand.

I looked at the Nanjing address on my phone.

Good. Once I’ve gathered my forces, I will have my revenge!