Just as the cook had said, Yi Sa got the first serving of food – fragrant and steaming hot.
As she was eating, Ding Yudie came in.
After a morning of being suddenly flooded with so many secrets, his whole demeanor had changed, no longer seeming so frivolous. As he passed Yi Sa’s table, he shot her a fierce glare: “Kept it very secret, didn’t you? Not much of a friend!”
Perfect – first Yi Yunqiao blamed her, and now Ding Yudie was following suit. Yi Sa gave him a sideways glance: “Weren’t you the one who didn’t want to get involved at first? Didn’t we agree that after everything was over, we’d tell you the story?”
Ding Yudie was stumped by her retort, unable to find words to argue back. So he turned his frustration on the cook instead: “Pack it up! I’m not eating here – don’t want to see certain people’s faces!”
The cook replied: “This isn’t a restaurant, I don’t have takeout boxes.”
That didn’t stop Ding Yudie. He found two large bowls, filled one with rice and one with dishes, grabbed some chopsticks and a spoon, and stormed off.
Yi Sa rolled her eyes with chopsticks in her mouth, thinking Ding Yudie was acting more and more childish.
Back in the tent, Ding Yudie moved aside the sleeping bag and proudly placed the food bowls in the center, taking the chopsticks for himself and giving the spoon to Zong Hang: “Don’t worry about Sasa coming to find us. I just deliberately said some harsh words, so she wouldn’t bother with me for at least a day. Also, I intentionally didn’t bring extra utensils – if I’d brought two pairs of chopsticks, people might have been suspicious… Learn from this – this is wisdom.”
Zong Hang was quite curious about how much Ding Yudie knew: “Ding Panling… what did he say?”
Ding Yudie took a mouthful of rice, his cheeks puffed out: “Weren’t you involved in basically everything? But Uncle Panling sees the bigger picture – he extracted the core of it all. He showed us a behavior diagram broken down into phases.”
Using this as dinner conversation, he roughly recounted everything following Ding Panling’s narrative order. With so many details, there were inevitably some omissions, but since Zong Hang had experienced it firsthand, he didn’t mind the brevity.
From the looks of it, Ding Yudie now understood everything about being controlled to draw on the computer and the heaven-sent Xiaomi vinegar incident. Surprisingly, he wasn’t angry – quite the opposite, he seemed oddly excited.
“These kinds of things don’t happen every year. I’ve really caught the big era – found the sunken ship at Laoye Temple, went down to the golden pool at Hukou, and now we’re going to the drifting cave. Satisfied! So satisfied!”
Satisfied? One man’s poison is another man’s honey indeed. The previous experience in the drifting cave still left Zong Hang somewhat traumatized – he would never use the word “satisfied” to describe it.
Zong Hang was spooning rice, eating slower and slower, when he suddenly thought of something: “I think you need to…”
Ding Yudie quickly interrupted him: “Hey, look, isn’t there a bug on this dish?”
Zong Hang, being straightforward, quickly looked down to check.
Ding Yudie also leaned forward, but his hand went around to Zong Hang’s back, first writing four characters:
— Battle-ready state.
Zong Hang’s heart jumped, his tongue stumbling: “That’s not a bug, it’s green onion.”
Ding Yudie expressed surprise: “Really? Oh my, my eyesight’s gone bad from playing too many games.”
But his hand kept writing:
— Important things, don’t say them, write like I am.
From science fiction to fantasy to spy thriller – these genre shifts were almost too much for Zong Hang to handle.
He put his hand around to Ding Yudie’s back, hesitated for a moment, then began writing:
— You need to warn Ding Panling.
— If I were the Taisui, I might kill him.
You hope things will conclude, hope it will show its hand – but will it do as you wish?
When the plot is revealed and the dagger appears, you start keeping silent here and blocking its eyes and ears, but how do you know it doesn’t have countermoves?
Ding Panling was in real danger – after all, at every point where each Taisui thought they could get away with it, it was he who kept pulling at the threads, forcing them closer to the truth.
Right now, the final truth hadn’t surfaced yet, and the breathing nest under Poyang Lake was already activated. Perhaps the Taisui thought that by eliminating Ding Panling, there was still a chance to protect this intimate secret.
Ding Yudie snorted and slowly wrote back one sentence with his finger:
— If you’ve thought of this, how could Uncle Panling not have?
Zong Hang stuck his neck out and said: “That’s useless – they understand you so well, but what about you?”
The three families were the Taisui’s “eyes” – to put it bluntly, the Taisui had “watched” them grow up, but their understanding of the Taisui was mostly guesswork. Even now, they only knew it looked like a huge mass of flesh.
Although important words were better written by hand, such a cryptic sentence wasn’t worth worrying about being overheard.
They stared at each other for a while, and finally, Ding Yudie thoughtfully said: “You have a point.”
The next day at noon, the camp broke up.
The weather was uncooperative – the cold wind blew and rain mixed with snow fell. Everyone wore face masks and hoods, making it impossible to recognize people from just two or three meters away. Many tents needed to be rolled up and countless supplies loaded onto vehicles, making the whole camp appear chaotic.
Yi Sa and Yi Yunqiao had gotten into their car early, enjoying the heater and sipping hot tea while watching others busy themselves outside.
Ding Yudie seemed to have undergone a personality change – usually the laziest about taking on tasks, he was now actively participating in moving supplies and packing up tents, even directing people to pile things at his designated spots.
Before long, the camp was nearly cleared, with most bulky items packed up and stacked like small mountains waiting to be loaded. Next to them stood a lonely orange tent, shaking in the wind.
That was Ding Yudie’s tent. Yi Sa found it strange and lowered the car window to call out to someone passing by: “What’s going on? Why hasn’t Ding Yudie’s tent been packed up?”
The person replied: “Uncle Panling just had someone ask about that too. He said he’s not packing it, says he’ll come back after everything’s done, and wants to leave it as a landmark. Said something about leaving it for Tibetan herders as a rest stop… Since the tent isn’t worth much, Uncle Panling just let him be.”
Leave it for herders as a rest stop? Since when did he become so kind-hearted? And are you sure you’re not just leaving behind trash?
As Yi Sa was puzzling over this, Yi Yunqiao, who was curling her hair with rollers, commented from beside her: “Isn’t Little Butterfly Ding always like this? His mind doesn’t work normally, always being dramatic.”
Outside, amid the chaos of voices, the passenger vehicles began departing one after another, leaving only the supply trucks slowly backing up with their deep engine sounds.
Ding Yudie ducked into the tent, tossing in a bag of boiled eggs and hard bread: “Here, I’m being nice – I’ve left you food and the tent. You have your phone and money, arrange your ride back.”
Zong Hang ground his teeth in anger: “What’s wrong with letting me continue following? I can help.”
Ding Yudie sighed: “Give it up, don’t think you’re some secret weapon. The Taisui already knows you’re here, and besides, I’m tired of covering for you all the time. Uncle Panling’s got enough brains, and we’ve got enough water ghosts – we don’t need someone from a ground family jumping around trying to help. Everyone’s busy with important matters now. If you want to chase after Sasa, contact us after we’re done.”
Zong Hang glared at him, looking like he might grab his collar. Ding Yudie’s face darkened: “Don’t cause trouble. Want to bet if I shout right now, Uncle Panling and Sasa will know you’re here? Then we’ll have to spare people to escort you home – if you can’t help, why make trouble!”
With that, he flicked the tent flap and went out.
Outside, things were almost finished, with the supply trucks loaded and securing their tailgates. An SUV came around the bend, honking frantically at him. Someone leaned out: “Ding Yudie, let’s go!”
Ding Yudie waved them off: “You go ahead, I’m riding in the truck this time, for a change of pace.”
He watched until all the miscellaneous people had left and the ground was clear, then took out his phone to take some selfies before getting into the driver’s seat.
The driver had grown impatient waiting, and just as he started the engine, Ding Yudie suddenly patted his pockets: “Oh wait, wait, I think I forgot something.”
The driver quickly hit the brakes: “What did you forget?”
Ding Yudie dawdled, checking from his outer pockets to inner pockets, from jacket pockets to pants pockets, finally breaking into a grin as he pulled a key from the last pocket: “House key, found it, found it.”
Due to the widespread rain and snow, the vehicles moved slowly, but darkness fell quickly. Yi Yunqiao kept dozing off, while the vehicle’s radio occasionally carried conversations about road conditions, weather, and warnings to rear vehicles about avoiding mud pits.
There was also one time when it seemed Ding Panling was speaking, asking about Ding Xi’s whereabouts. Someone responded that they’d sent him the location, and while he would be later than everyone else, he wouldn’t be later than tomorrow at the latest.
Yi Sa rested her head against the car window watching streaks of rain slide down, holding her phone and wanting to ask if Zong Hang had made it home. But she worried that might seem too “eager,” and after much hesitation, she dozily fell asleep too.
She had a dream.
She dreamed of Zong Hang’s home, a two-story villa with, true to his word, an allamanda tree in the yard. It was lush and leafy, almost as tall as the villa, with a broad canopy spreading wide, covered in white flowers with yellow centers.
Zong Hang sat cross-legged under the tree, and despite being grown up, was playing with a toy fishing game, catching one fish after another.
She dared not approach, afraid of being discovered, so she hid behind a thick cluster of branches and leaves to watch secretly.
As she watched, Zong Hang suddenly lifted his head, oddly sniffing the air once, then again, muttering: “What’s that awful smell?”
While muttering, he stood up to look for the source of the smell.
Smell? Yi Sa lowered her head to smell her arm and saw her once fair, plump arm had become skeletal, old skin folding over itself in layers.
Zong Hang came closer, reaching out to part the branches. She reacted as if struck by lightning, violently shaking the branches to strike at him, screaming: “Go away! Get away from me!”
…
Yi Sa woke from her desperate hysteria.
It was completely dark now, the vehicle crawling at a snail’s pace. Her phone had fallen to the floor, but she lacked the energy to pick it up. She just thought wearily about how violent and awful she’d been even in her dream, actually hitting Zong Hang to hide her unsightly appearance.
Some say dreams reflect people’s truest intentions, so perhaps this was really how she felt: preferring to stay away and hide rather than let anyone see her deterioration.
The radio crackled with static, and someone announced: “Everyone attention, speed up, speed up! Just received a call, the drifting cave has opened, it’s opened…”
Opened? Yi Sa was startled.
They had thought they’d have to wait quite a while, but it had opened so quickly. Ding Yudie was inexplicably excited, constantly urging the driver to go faster: What would it look like when a thousand-meter-deep hole suddenly appeared in the ground? It was impossible to imagine.
Despite hurrying as much as they could, the final stretch still took almost two hours. After rounding a mountainside, they saw a faint glow in the distance – a mixture of fluorescent powder and camp lights.
The vehicles stopped successively at the camp’s edge. Everyone immediately got out, with Ding Panling striding at the front, asking Ding Changsheng as he walked: “Have you urged Ding Xi? When can he get here?”
Ding Changsheng didn’t understand why Ding Xi had suddenly become so important: “Called him twice. He said as soon as possible, but the earliest would be midnight.”
Ding Panling frowned deeply: This chance to enter the cave would likely be wasted. If Ding Xi couldn’t make it, it meant they wouldn’t have the equipment he was sent to buy. Without that gear, he wasn’t confident…
As he was thinking, his heart suddenly tightened, and he stopped abruptly, shouting: “Don’t move! Don’t speak!”
Everyone on this trip could be considered “above average” in skill, and their reactions were quick. Within a second or two, they all stopped, instantly holding their breath and making no sound.
After staying on the plateau for these few days, everyone had become familiar with the nighttime environment.
Usually, there was just wind, of varying intensities, sometimes violent, sometimes sharp, occasionally carrying what sounded like wolf howls. But these beasts feared humans and never approached the camp, not even leaving paw prints or droppings.
But tonight there was no wind. Snow was still falling, very fine particles that made a dense, rustling sound as they hit the scattered tents.
Yi Sa’s heart began pounding.
This camp… seemed to have no people.
That’s right – no people. Though there were tents and lights, there were no human sounds. Even with so many vehicles rumbling up from afar, no one had come out to greet them.
Ding Panling asked quietly: “When was the last contact with this group?”
Someone answered: “Less than two hours ago.”
Ding Panling pondered for a moment: “Everyone arm yourselves. Four people take guard positions at the camp’s four corners. Everyone else, pair up and check the tents.”
This camp had about a dozen or so tents erected, more than half of them large ones, some lit, others dark.
Yi Sa gripped the Wugui dagger in one hand and a flashlight in the other as she entered an unlit large tent – this tent seemed to be set up as a makeshift dining hall, with plastic tables and chairs already arranged and a stone stove built.
Yi Yunqiao followed behind, also sweeping her flashlight around, her voice slightly panicked: “This isn’t right. Even if something happened, there should at least be bodies. Where did everyone go? Down into the cave?”
Yi Sa shook her head: “Impossible. They wouldn’t go down before the main force arrived.”
She went to examine the stove closely.
The fire underneath hadn’t completely died out, with embers still glowing in the ashes. There was leftover oil in the wok with burned scallions, ginger, and garlic, and a plate of sliced meat nearby.
Yi Sa quickly scanned the area around the stove.
The soup ladle, strainer, bowls, and chopsticks were all there, but the wok spatula was missing.
In Chinese cooking, you typically heat the oil and fry the aromatics first – the aromatics were already in the wok, so the next step would have been adding the meat. Did that mean the person was attacked right after frying the aromatics, before adding the meat, while still holding the spatula?
Yi Sa pointed her flashlight at the ground, originally intending to look for any scene evidence, and crouched down, reluctantly reaching out to feel…
When she touched it, she suddenly felt her flesh crawl and yanked her hand back as if electrocuted.
She seemed to have felt a cluster of short, stiff… hair.
Yi Sa held her breath and shone the light closer to that spot.
There was hair, about ten strands, only showing about one or two millimeters above ground: in such weak light, and with the ground naturally rough, it would have been impossible to notice without touching it.
She swallowed and used the serrated edge of the Wugui dagger to slowly scrape around the area.
Yi Yunqiao had also noticed something was wrong and said curiously: “Sasa, what are you scraping…”
She didn’t finish her sentence.
Because she suddenly noticed that a lock of her own hair, defying gravity, was slowly… rising upward.