Yan Tuo’s journey had been progressing smoothly.
Here, illumination was indeed a problem. Modern luminescent products in the market needed to absorb light before they could emit it. But Qing Rang had no sunlight to provide a continuous light source, so the luminescent directional markers sprayed by Rong and others would dim after a while, requiring constant “activation” by flashlight beams.
In comparison, the self-illuminating luminescent stones laid down by the Qin Dynasty’s Chantou Army were truly precious.
The entire journey was silent. At first, Yan Tuo worried about strange creatures suddenly appearing, but later even he grew lax: forget about any dangerous presence – his intuition told him there wasn’t a single living thing within several li around him.
Several hours later, he traversed through the clusters of human figurines and reached the ravine waters.
Perhaps because the weather had started warming and more snow was melting upstream, the ravine waters were more turbulent than last time – if the current had been this strong then, he estimated he wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds before being swept under.
It was terrifying to think about – during the flood season, anyone who entered these waters would likely never return.
Yan Tuo stood by the ravine waters for a long time.
When he was in the small courtyard, he had been eager to come here, feeling that everything would work out once he arrived. Now standing here, the excitement in his chest gradually receded, and he began to understand why Yu Rong had repeatedly tried to stop him from coming.
Not coming meant he could remain full of hope, feeling he just needed to make the journey.
But after coming and hastily walking the path from the small courtyard to the ravine waters, there was nowhere left to step forward.
—Who did he think he was, expecting his mere presence would stir a response from within?
After standing there for a long while, Yan Tuo suddenly cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted toward the opposite shore: “Pei Ke! Pei Ke, are you there?”
Then again: “A Luo, A Luo, are you there?”
The echoes lingered around him, the ravine waters roared below, but there was no response.
***
Night had fallen deep, and a day’s training had long ended. After a hearty meal, Jiang Baichuan curled up by the rocky mountain slope, snoring loudly – having reverted from human to beast, without thoughts or calculations, only eating and sleeping daily, who knew if this was fortunate or unfortunate for him?
Yu Rong and Que Cha were playing checkers on the ground, the so-called rural checkers: three wolves and fifteen pigs, large stones for wolves, small stones for pigs, wolves eat pigs, big eat small.
Beside them, a camp light that had absorbed sunlight during the day was giving off a soft glow.
Que Cha suddenly coughed softly twice and gestured with his eyes behind Yu Rong: “He’s back.”
Yu Rong turned to look, and sure enough, Yan Tuo had returned. He was still far away, his face unclear, but just from his gait and posture, one could tell this day had been spent in vain.
She pushed away the stones on the checkerboard: “I’m done playing.”
Standing up, she stretched her body with broad movements, waiting for Yan Tuo to come closer before casually asking: “No results, right?”
Yan Tuo nodded.
Yu Rong yawned: “That’s normal. It’s been quiet in there for days. If you came and immediately found something, that would be too coincidental – even storytellers wouldn’t write it that way.”
Que Cha added: “Like seeds growing into flowers, it needs slow nurturing. Take it slow.”
Yan Tuo smiled, the gloom in his heart lifting considerably.
—Like seeds growing into flowers, it needs slow nurturing.
He liked this saying.
***
Yan Tuo settled down inside the Golden Man Gate.
He went to the ravine waters almost every day, sometimes staying overnight, leaving every few days with the mule train to clean himself up before returning.
He got used to shouting toward the opposite shore, never receiving any response. The ravine was long, and he didn’t know where they might be on the other side. Afraid of missing them, Yan Tuo resorted to a crude method, using luminescent paint to spray messages on the high mounds on this side, writing one line after another.
When tired of spraying, he would shine his flashlight on those characters from afar. Before long, the jade-colored luminescent traces of the characters would spread out one by one in the night.
—Pei Ke, can we talk?
—A Luo, are you there?
—I come to the riverbank every day or two if you see this, could you wait for me?
—I’ve left some luminescent paint here, could you reply?
With so much written, surely they would see it if they came?
But what if when they came, all these characters had gone dark?
He couldn’t rely on just this one method. Once, Yan Tuo discussed with Yu Rong that he wanted to follow the map to find the musician figurines and see if striking the Chantou chimes would work.
Yu Rong jumped up as if stung by a hornet: “Are you crazy? You still want to summon those things?”
Yan Tuo said: “I’ve thought it through. When the time comes, you all can retreat into the Golden Man Gate, and they can’t do anything to you there. As for me, as long as Pei Ke is there and I can talk to her, there won’t be any problems.”
Yu Rong was speechless, wanting to advise against it, but then thought better of it. Let him be – don’t stop someone when they’re obstinate, they’ll only become more so. Even the hottest soup will cool down if left alone; blowing on it frantically won’t cool it faster.
She provided Yan Tuo with the map.
Yan Tuo searched for two full days before finally finding it. Just as Xing Shen had said, the terrain here was very peculiar, like a giant horn that transmitted sound inward.
However, the scene before him was complete devastation: all the musician figurines had been smashed, fragments scattered everywhere, and the Chantou chimes were also destroyed, leaving only broken chime frames and a piece or two of chime stone.
Yan Tuo paced around the site for a long time before picking up a piece of chime stone to take back.
That day, Que Cha and Sun Li had gone out of the mountain, and the other two on duty gathered to discuss. One was very certain: “Brother Shen didn’t smash them. When he struck the chimes, I was there too and even went up to try striking them a couple of times. We waited there for a long while after, but when nothing happened, we left. When we left, both the chimes and the musician figurines were still perfectly fine.”
Was it Lin Xirou’s people who smashed them? Unlikely, she didn’t know much about the Chantou Army matters.
Yu Rong thought for a moment and said: “It seems like White Pupil Ghost’s doing. Pei Ke was from the Chantou Army.”
Yan Tuo couldn’t understand: “Why would she destroy this?”
Yu Rong pondered: “Probably to completely sever ties with the Chantou Army above ground. She took such drastic action, kidnapping so many people – from the looks of it, she’s not planning to maintain any friendly relations with us.”
Yan Tuo was silent for a long time.
He felt he had hit a dead end: the luminescent paint messages never received responses, and now the Chantou chimes path was cut off. What could he do next?
Wait? Who knew how long that would take?
Or… enter the Black and White Ravine?
Yan Tuo suddenly shuddered.
***
Time passed quickly, and another month had slipped by. Except for the daily turbulence of the ravine waters, Qing Rang remained as dead silent as ever.
During this time, Liu Changxi returned to Youtang, Lin Ling enrolled in some sculpture crash course recommended by Old Cai, and Sister Lu remained in the small courtyard, tactfully asking him once when Nie Jiuluo would return home, saying her housekeeping contract was about to expire.
Every time he received such calls, Yan Tuo would brush them off perfunctorily. He was now trapped by his obsession, completely in a gambler’s mindset, unable to leave the Golden Man Gate: having waited so long, what if someone appeared on the opposite shore right after he left?
Just wait a few more days, just a few more days.
When Yu Rong told him they were preparing to withdraw, Yan Tuo was caught off guard: “Huh?”
Yu Rong sighed: “I’ve been here for over two months already, can’t treat this as home, right? Uncle Jiang’s situation is about settled, it’s time to handle the next matters.”
She added: “Given our friendship, I can occasionally accompany you once or twice, but I can’t stay permanently.”
Yan Tuo tried to salvage the situation: “What about… the others? I can pay to keep them here for a while longer.”
As long as people were helping him guard the Golden Man Gate, and muleteers bringing in supplies with their mules, the current situation could be maintained.
Yu Rong: “Didn’t you hear what I said? We need to handle the matters ahead and still need to explore the South Ba Monkey Head. This place needs to be put aside for now. You should also go live a normal life for a while, staying here all the time, you’re becoming disconnected from the outside world.”
Que Cha, listening nearby, spoke without thinking: “Yeah, it’s not a matter of a day or two, might need to be a long-term struggle…”
Suddenly remembering to give Yan Tuo “confidence,” he quickly shut his mouth.
The word “long-term” was like a bucket of cold water, chilling Yan Tuo to the core.
He wasn’t afraid of “long-term” – three to five years, seven to eight years, thinking about it wasn’t hard to endure. Hadn’t he endured for a long time by Lin Xirou’s side?
What he feared was a “long-term” with no end in sight.
***
Since they were preparing to withdraw, in the final few days, Yan Tuo went to the ravine waters even more frequently, trying to bring more batteries each trip, walking continuously along the riverbank, constantly feeding light to the luminescent paint – as he walked, a long band of light would stretch out behind him.
Sometimes, he would stop at the riverbank, considering the possibility of steeling himself to enter the Black and White Ravine, but ultimately couldn’t make up his mind: once in, there would be no turning back.
This day, as usual, he fed light along the ravine waters, and those darkened large characters, as they absorbed the light, lit up one after another, brightening and dimming, looking somewhat melancholic.
As he walked, Yan Tuo happened to glance toward the ravine waters.
What he saw made his hair stand on end.
Above the ravine waters, at some places where high mounds faced each other, arrow ropes were suspended – probably left behind when White Pupil Ghost crossed the ravine. Yu Rong and the others felt no need to destroy them – they weren’t made of steel and concrete, and if destroyed, one arrow would set them up again – so they were left there.
Previously, Yan Tuo often saw these ropes, lonely, floating in the air and the water.
But now, a woman was standing on the rope, head lowered, watching the turbulent ravine waters flowing beneath, then turning to look at the nearby high mound and the messages spray-painted on it.
Yan Tuo felt all the blood in his body rush to his head as he shouted: “Pei Ke! Are you Pei Ke?”
He practically rushed over, stumbling several times, almost failing to stop at the riverbank and nearly plunging into the river.
The woman turned to face him.
Yan Tuo’s vision blurred – it was Pei Ke.
Perhaps due to being away from light underground for so long, she looked younger than her actual age, appearing only twenty-five or twenty-six, with long black hair. If not for those eyes, her features were beautiful.
Her clothing was different from last time too. Last time it had been simpler, suitable for fighting. This time, it had more of a robe-dress feel, more casual and flowing.
He hadn’t noticed before, but Nie Jiuluo and Pei Ke looked very similar.
Pei Ke looked at him for a while before finally speaking: “I wasn’t wrong, you did come back.”
Then she said: “You know me?”
Yan Tuo’s heart was beating hard: “Yes, A Luo… how is A Luo? And, that little girl with you last time, was she called Xinxin?”
The roar of the ravine waters was too loud. Pei Ke’s figure swayed, and she had already moved up the rope, crossing several high mounds before landing in a relatively quiet place farther from the riverbank.
Yan Tuo hurried over in large strides.
Pei Ke spoke first: “You’re quite close with Xixi, I heard Nie Xihong died?”
Yan Tuo was startled, then realized: that having kidnapped so many people, she must have been able to learn about Nie Xihong’s situation. Perhaps she even knew quite a bit about him too.
“Yes, he died by jumping off a building, supposedly out of love for you.”
Pei Ke made a sound of acknowledgment, her face showing no expression: “Is that so, and others believed it?”
“Not everyone. One of your friends, called Zhan Jing, didn’t believe it. He kept saying you were killed by Nie Xihong.”
Pei Ke looked puzzled: “Zhan Jing?”
After thinking for quite a while, she said dismissively: “Oh, him.”
From her tone, Yan Tuo felt his guess was correct – Zhan Jing was indeed an insignificant figure to Pei Ke.
He steadied himself: “A Luo… how is she now? Has she… changed?”
Pei Ke was silent for a moment.
This silence made Yan Tuo anxious. Just as he was about to ask more, Pei Ke spoke.
“I have something to tell you.”
“Your name is Yan Tuo, right? That little girl, called Yan Xin, should be your sister.”
Yan Tuo felt his eyes burn hot – speculation was just speculation, nothing could match the excitement of confirmation.
His lips trembled slightly: “Then where is she? Is she nearby?”
Pei Ke’s voice was cold and hard, not answering his question: “I kidnapped some people. I know these aren’t all of them, there must be more outside. Go back and tell them there’s no need to search, no need to rescue, these people will never return.”
“And there’s no need to traverse Qing Rang anymore. In the future, no more ground hawks will escape, and there will be no more ground hawks here.”
What did that mean?
Yan Tuo’s mind was a bit confused, but he caught the keywords.
“‘You’ kidnapped some people?”
Shouldn’t it be White Pupil Ghost who kidnapped these people? Pei Ke’s words made it sound like this was her action.
Unexpectedly, Pei Ke nodded: “That’s right, I was the one who wanted to kidnap them.”