The warming weather brought an additional effect: more tourists visiting Lijiang daily, causing business at the bar to rise like a boat on rising waters. Almost every day, Mu Dai was ordered by Uncle Zhang to help out.
Yes, nominally, she was the bar’s little proprietress, but in reality, Uncle Zhang still ran everything. As Yi Wansan privately muttered to Cao Yanhua, “If we let the little boss lady manage things, wouldn’t we be drinking northwest wind for every meal?”
The so-called “helping out” was nothing more than carrying trays, taking orders, taking orders carrying trays.
That evening, after Mu Dai had cleared plates and delivered them to the bar counter for the Nth time, she spoke dejectedly and listlessly: “This isn’t the life I want.”
Uncle Zhang was busy helping Yi Wansan behind the bar, and upon hearing this, he smiled: “Then what kind of life do you want? You’re the little boss lady, we’ll support you with the entire bar’s effort.”
Mu Dai became even more dejected: “The key is, I don’t even know what kind of life I want. I’m worse off than Fatty Cao.”
Every time after finishing his training, Cao Yanhua would solemnly take out his wallet, open it, and salute a photo of Jackie Chan. Without asking, one knew he was quietly trying to emulate his idol. Whether it was far-fetched or not, at least it was better than her situation.
Uncle Zhang sympathized with her: “Well, why not find someone to marry?”
Never mind, carrying trays was more realistic.
Mu Dai, with a dark expression, loaded the tray with drinks and shakily lifted it. Uncle Zhang couldn’t bear to watch: “Being this lazy, what’s wrong with making two trips to deliver orders?”
What’s wrong? It’s tiring, that’s what.
The tray held opened Baileys, prepared cocktails, tall glasses and short glasses. Some had lemon slices on the rim, others had elegant little umbrellas slanted in them. The differently colored liquids swayed slightly with each step, and occasionally one could hear the light clinking of glasses.
Mu Dai kept her eyes fixed on the tray, hardly daring to breathe, mechanically repeating: “Excuse me, please make way.”
Someone passed by her side and said with a laugh, “Mu Dai has gotten fatter.”
Mu Dai didn’t react at first and continued walking forward a step or two before suddenly stopping.
Huh?
Was that… Luo Ren?
When did he return? Why didn’t he tell her?
And clarify this—what do you mean I’ve gotten FATTER!
Luo Ren had just arrived. After Uncle Zheng brought Pin Ting into the house, he praised how clean the room and courtyard were.
If Cao Yanhua had heard that, he would probably have been especially gratified.
After settling Pin Ting, thinking the bar probably hadn’t closed yet, he came over to say hello.
Indeed, it was dazzling with flowing colors, a kaleidoscope of hues—the most lively time.
Yi Wansan saw him and seemed somewhat uncomfortable, slightly nodding in acknowledgment. The bartender was the pillar of the bar, and Luo Ren didn’t want to disturb him. After looking around, he sat down across from Cao Yanhua.
“Mu Dai is so busy, yet you’re sitting idle?”
Cao Yanhua held out his arms to show: “Look at how my hands are shaking, like I have Parkinson’s disease. Whatever I carry, I drop.”
Only then did he get around to greeting: “How is my sister Pin Ting doing? Did the surgery go well? That thing…”
At this point, his voice suddenly lowered, giving a knowing look.
Luo Ren understood his meaning: “I brought it.”
Cao Yanhua drew in a sharp breath: “Can it be contained?”
Hard to say, it was like an unpredictable bomb, impossible to know when it might catch people off guard again.
“Cao Yanhua, I want to ask you, have there been any… unusual occurrences these days?”
Cao Yanhua shook his head: “No, just exhaustion, training exhaustion. My sister Mu Dai…”
He had originally wanted to complain a bit, but suddenly saw her taking orders from customers just a table away. His voice abruptly rose by eight octaves: “But how should I put it, a strict master produces excellent disciples…”
The lingering sound circled the table and up the beams, earning him an irritated eye-roll from Mu Dai.
Luo Ren frowned, seeming somewhat disappointed, but still asked one more question: “Have you ever… seen any hallucinations?”
“No, of course not… wait!”
Cao Yanhua suddenly realized something and leaned forward: “Did you just say… hallucinations?”
The bar closed in the middle of the night. Luo Ren, Mu Dai, and the others sat gathered around a table. Uncle Zhang, not interested in young people’s affairs, was washing glasses behind the bar. The sound of running water, interspersed with the occasional light clinking of glass, further accentuated the bizarre and absurd nature of their conversation.
“What Cao Yanhua saw should be the same as what I saw. What about Yi Wansan, did you see anything?”
“See what? Little people?” Yi Wansan spread his hands. “No, I’ve drawn everything I saw.”
“I’m not sure if they were little people, but they looked like it,” Cao Yanhua tried hard to remember. “There were just a lot of them. Honestly, if there were only four, I would have thought it was Tang Monk going to the Western Heaven to fetch scriptures. The one in front seemed to be riding a horse.”
After thinking about it, his expression changed to one of horror: “Why can we see hallucinations now? Could it be that… we’re infected?”
Though it wasn’t a good thing, Mu Dai felt envious and disappointed: “You can all see it, but I can’t.”
Luo Ren pondered: “It’s not necessarily that you can’t see it, maybe you haven’t been paying attention, because we all discovered it unintentionally.”
Yi Wansan had twisted his neck and was able to see the light reflection on the water surface from a strange angle.
Cao Yanhua, exhausted and about to fall, saw a line of small figures fleetingly in the rising dust.
As for himself, he was playing with a knife while on the phone with Mu Dai when he glimpsed a blurry image on the blade from the corner of his eye.
All were ordinary situations easily overlooked.
A thought occurred to Luo Ren: “Have you noticed that Yi Wansan saw it in water, Cao Yanhua saw it in rising dust—dust can be considered earth—and as for me, it was on a blade, a straight steel knife, which can be loosely considered metal.”
Cao Yanhua understood and nodded excitedly, though he didn’t know how to express it in words: “Yes, yes, that’s exactly it.”
According to Shen Gun, the deadly simple would deliberately hide itself, and their clue came from the phoenix-phoenix lock, whose origins were the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth…
Mu Dai instinctively stared at the table surface: Since her surname was Mu (Wood), she should see it from wood, right? This table was made of wood, so it should give her some hint.
“Also, I want to ask Yi Wansan for help,” Luo Ren suddenly remembered something. “When we were at Xiaoshang River, each of us saw the water shadow to some extent, but when Shen Gun came to find me, we couldn’t see anything—I’m wondering if it’s because Yi Wansan wasn’t there.”
It was already very late. Uncle Zheng and Pin Ting had gone to bed. Luo Ren led Mu Dai and the others to the room at the far end of the second floor, took out a key to open the padlock, and switched on the light.
The room was empty except for a table in the center with a large box on it.
It wasn’t the same one as at Xiaoshang River. Yi Wansan glanced at Luo Ren, who didn’t deny it: “To be safe, I had a new one made.”
The box was made of thunder-struck jujube wood, commonly known as “evil-repelling wood,” in a purplish-red color. All four sides were densely covered with vertically arranged characters written in gold powder. Cao Yanhua leaned in and struggled to read: “The Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way; The name that can be named is not the constant name…”
Luo Ren admitted: “I had someone copy the ‘Tao Te Ching’ in gold powder.”
Mu Dai couldn’t help but want to laugh. Luo Ren was trying his best, even bringing out the “Tao Te Ching.” Turning to another side, she suppressed her laughter even harder: he had even drawn a picture of Laozi riding an ox.
Luo Ren didn’t care—laugh if you want to laugh. He was just trying anything that might work. He couldn’t find any authentic handwriting of Laozi, but if he could have, he would have stuck it on the box.
Opening the lid, at first glance, it appeared to be a box of soil, but Luo Ren reached in and lifted out a square-shaped soil package.
It was soil packed in transparent mesh with rope ties at the top for easy lifting. In the middle of the soil was a transparent glass water tank with a lid, and the deadly simple lay silently at the bottom of the water.
Although it wasn’t their first encounter, seeing it suddenly made everyone’s heart tighten. Mu Dai instinctively stepped back, and the back of her hand inadvertently brushed against Luo Ren’s hand.
Luo Ren didn’t look at her but naturally turned his hand over and held hers.
Mu Dai’s mind buzzed, and a numb, tingling feeling extended to her forearm: What did Luo Ren mean by this? Had he grabbed the wrong hand? What if Cao Yanhua and Yi Wansan saw!
Luo Ren remained composed, as if nothing had happened. Mu Dai vaguely heard Cao Yanhua ask something, and Luo Ren answered: “There’s no fire. I don’t know how to put burning fire in the box, or maybe tomorrow we can surround the box with oil lamps to see if that works.”
Mu Dai didn’t care about this: Luo Ren was holding her hand! Did he even realize it himself?
Everything that happened afterward was somewhat hazy to Mu Dai. It seemed they turned off the lights, and everyone tried to see the water’s shadow on the water’s surface. This time, they could apparently see something, but not as densely or as much as Yi Wansan could.
Was it because Yi Wansan was present that they could all see it? But since he was primarily associated with “water,” others couldn’t see as much as he could?
It wasn’t until they were leaving that Luo Ren gently released her hand. Mu Dai didn’t dare look at him and was the first to dash out of the room. The night wind blew cool, and only then did she realize how burning hot the back of her hand felt.
On the way back, Yi Wansan and Cao Yanhua were whispering to each other. Mu Dai was suspicious, always thinking they were talking about her. She moved closer to listen and finally put her mind at ease.
It turned out they weren’t. What concerned them was whether the box was reliable:
—”This can’t be a long-term solution; we can’t just rely on our conjectures.”
—”We need to find a fundamental solution.”
…
Finally in bed, she still tossed and turned, continuously staring at the wood-carved pattern on the headboard. All the furniture and household items had been arranged by Hong Yi, whose taste was like that of the sturdy purple cricket gourd—exquisite and antique. Where others might have a plain, flat headboard, here it was finely carved with endless auspicious motifs.
The border was an unbroken swastika pattern, with bats fluttering at intervals, representing “continuous blessings.” In the corners were monkeys riding horses, symbolizing “immediate official promotion.” In the center was a treasure vase with two quails beside it. Back when the incident had just happened, she had nightmares every night and couldn’t sleep. After moving here, Hong Yi had shown her the room and pointed to the pattern, telling her: the treasure vase and quails symbolize peace and safety; Hong Yi hoped she would sleep peacefully every night.
How could she sleep “peacefully” tonight?
Confused, troubled, yet with a thin layer of happiness deep in her heart, she nervously composed a WeChat message to Luo Ren, six characters:
—”What do you mean by this?”
After hesitating for a long time, she steeled herself and sent it, then turned off the light and pulled the covers over her head.
No more thinking, sleep!
In the darkness, she sighed and turned over for the Nth time, slowly opening her eyes.
Huh?
On the headboard, the monkey riding a horse in the corner suddenly winked at her.
Was she seeing a ghost? Mu Dai was stunned, holding her breath as she leaned in for a closer look.
It wasn’t a monkey, but an immortal wearing a tall crown and wide belt, riding a phoenix. As if unable to see her, he moved forward gracefully, followed by a long procession.
The first was a small dragon, swaying its head and tail. The second was a phoenix, standing tall and proud. The third seemed to be a lion. The fourth was neither horse nor not-horse…
From the fourth onward, she couldn’t recognize them. They all seemed like oddly shaped beasts. The one at the end, however, left a deep impression—a monkey with a serious expression, but with a pair of wings growing from its back.
What kind of wings did it think it was a little angel. Mu Dai burst out laughing.
Just then, from somewhere unknown, a hand suddenly appeared, swiftly grabbed that monkey, and instantly withdrew back into the boundless darkness.
Mu Dai awoke with a startled “Ah!”
It was pitch black, the night still deep. Was it a dream?
After a pause of two seconds, she sprang up, turned on her phone’s light, and shone it toward the edge of the headboard.
A proud little horse, a joyful monkey—a perfect picture of “immediate official promotion.”