After Wu Yuping left, Luo Ren remained dazed for a long time.

He posted in the group chat, “Has anyone tested Wu Yuping with blood?”

The replies came in succession: No, no, I haven’t either.

This seemed illogical. Luo Ren’s brows knotted into a lump.

Mu Dai pulled at him: “Let’s go, the sun is already setting. We still need to find Ding Guohua.”

He had to put his doubts aside for now. After checking the electronic map, he determined the nearest walking route.

On the way, Mu Dai said, “It’s strange, I’ve lived here for four years but have no sense of familiarity.”

She tilted her head to look at Luo Ren: “Like a radish forcibly planted in a vegetable garden. No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t feel like home.”

Luo Ren glanced at her: “I don’t care what metaphor you want to use, but why a radish?”

Mu Dai’s large eyes, visible above her mask, darted around. She hugged his arm and said, “Probably because I’ve spent too much time with radishes.”

Luo Ren smiled and put his arm around her shoulders, just like any couple deeply in love.

However, walking conspicuously on the main street still made Mu Dai uneasy.

She asked him: “Will the police pay special attention to me?”

Luo Ren said, “They’ll assume you’ve run away and found a hiding place. Even if you appeared in public, they’d expect you to be skulking around suspiciously. Few criminals are this brazen, strolling down the street like nothing’s wrong with a boyfriend in tow.”

Mu Dai said, “I never noticed before, but now I envy those who can walk with their heads held high in the sunlight.”

Though she wasn’t a criminal, she carried an excessively vigilant heart. Hat and mask on, she lowered her head whenever someone passed by. When police cars drove past, a fine tremor would rise up her arms. Instinctively, she would scan her surroundings: Where would be the best escape route?

Luo Ren pinched her face through the mask: “It will be over soon.”

Mu Dai asked: “What if it isn’t? What if we fail at the last moment?”

After she asked this, the street’s clamor seemed to diminish. Life is a vacillating bitch, speaking of justice and fairness on one hand, while carelessly sending the wronged to their bloody deaths on the other.

Don’t count on heaven to wash away your grievances. The troposphere, the closest atmospheric layer to the ground, averages ten to twenty kilometers in height. With all the noise on the ground, how could heaven hear your thin cry of injustice?

Luo Ren said, “Then I’ll take you away. We’ll never pay for something we didn’t do.”

“Where would we go?”

They would be wanted, pursued. Abroad? They probably couldn’t even leave the country.

Luo Ren asked her: “Have you ever been on a plane?”

“Yes.”

“Looking down from the highest point, you can’t see national borders, governments, institutions, organizations, or regulations. Only land, rivers, hills, and plains. We can go wherever we want. The whole world belongs to us.”

As he spoke, the sunlight slanted down, illuminating his face. Luo Ren instinctively raised his hand to shield his eyes. The light filtered through the gaps between his fingers, casting shifting shadows across his face.

Mu Dai smiled, suddenly stepping forward to wrap her arms around his waist. She wanted to bury her face in his chest, but the brim of her hat got in the way, so she had to turn her head sideways.

A good lover is like a pair of eyes, showing you bluer skies, longer rivers, and a broader world. All those walls confining your spirit vanish completely.

A bad lover only makes your gaze turn inward, filling your vision with life’s constraints, a hopeless future, and dysfunctional relationships.

An old man passing by with a shopping basket grinned at the couple.

Mu Dai smiled back, even winking at him.

It’s just a frame-up, she thought, just dirty water splashed on her. Wring out the towel and clean up. At worst, take a shower or a bath. One bucket of water couldn’t drown her.

Ding Guohua’s home was on the sixth floor of an old-style residential building.

For someone who had been a chief physician twenty years ago, these living conditions were decidedly subpar.

It wasn’t completely dark yet, but the stairwell was already dim to the point of near-invisibility.

Luo Ren knocked on the door—three raps—then listened. There was movement inside; someone was home.

Perhaps he should have asked Ma Tuwen to find out more about this person’s background… but never mind, he was just seeking information, a matter of a few sentences.

There was the sound of a chair being dragged, followed by slow footsteps, then a click as the lock was released. The door opened just a hand’s width, with a security chain stretched across the gap.

Above the security chain was an old man’s gaunt, vigilant face.

His tone was harsh: “Who are you looking for?”

Luo Ren looked at him: “Dr. Ding Guohua?”

The word “doctor” seemed to touch a nerve. Luo Ren noticed his pupils visibly contracted.

“What do you want?”

Luo Ren sensed that crossing Ding Guohua’s threshold today would be difficult.

He decided to get straight to the point: “I’d like to ask you something. Twenty years ago, you were the chief physician at the county hospital. At that time…”

Ding Guohua interrupted: “I don’t know.”

Luo Ren laughed incredulously: “I haven’t even told you what it’s about…”

Bang! The door slammed shut, and rust particles from the top of the door fell, brushing past his face.

Quite the cold shoulder.

Luo Ren turned to Mu Dai: “Besides Ding Guohua’s name and address, don’t you have any other background information?”

Luo Ren called Ma Tuwen, who complained about his impatience: “You know how Wan Fenghuo works. Information comes bit by bit.”

That was true. Wan Fenghuo believed that information was valuable precisely because it was “timely.” Like news, today’s headline that everyone scrambled for would be yesterday’s wilted vegetable by tomorrow. So he never held back, delivering whatever he discovered as soon as he learned it.

Luo Ren asked: “Is there any follow-up information?”

Ma Tuwen spoke affectedly: “Just wait, I’m expecting another package today.”

In the background, a woman’s voice: “Oh my god, we’re out of shower gel! I told you to buy some. Did a dog eat your brain?”

Luo Ren silently put away his phone. It seemed Ma Tuwen had reconciled with Ba Mei. Some forms of love truly manifested strangely—pulling hair, scratching faces, glaring at each other—yet they somehow managed to growl their way through eternity together.

He turned to look at Mu Dai, then up at the lit window on the sixth floor: “Ma Tuwen might have new information coming. Let’s wait a bit. What would you like to eat? I’ll go buy it.”

Mu Dai looked at him: “Luo Ren, you never deal directly with Wan Fenghuo.”

That was true. He always went through Ma Tuwen.

Luo Ren smiled: “So?”

Mu Dai didn’t want to guess: “Why?”

Luo Ren said: “Since returning to China, I’ve never taken planes, trains, and rarely ride in cars. I drive myself everywhere.”

“The house in Lijiang was signed for under Uncle Zheng’s identity. At Phoenix Tower, I’m the owner, but none of the paperwork Uncle Zheng rushed around to complete bears my name.”

He looked directly at Mu Dai: “Why?”

Mu Dai answered: “You don’t want to be found by someone.”

Luo Ren exhaled and said, “In times like these, a person who appears frequently in public can’t completely disappear. I can’t avoid being found. But some measures must be taken…”

Such as keeping distance from all-pervading information networks like Wan Fenghuo’s.

Mu Dai asked: “Who is it? An enemy from the Philippines?”

Luo Ren remained silent.

The night was growing deeper. Dinner time had arrived, and the aroma of stir-fried dishes wafted from many open windows, accompanied by the sizzling sound of hot oil hitting the wok.

He seemed to see that Black youth, the short Youris, with his gun slung across his shoulders like a carrying pole, peering into the pot, his eyes barely able to open due to the cooking smoke.

“Luo, does this work? This is how Chinese people eat?”

Then he grumbled, “Why does Qingmu like to eat raw food? You’re both Asians.”

He also saw him lying on the bed, his blackish upper body bare, white bandages stained with blood wrapped around his torso. Luo Ren teased him, saying in the darkness, only the white circle was visible.

Youris pounded his chest in frustration, but not because of Luo Ren’s words.

“Asian women,” he said, “I will never trust Asian women again, especially Malay women. I must warn my sons, my grandsons, my neighbor’s sons and grandsons!”

And beneath the bed, a group of them laughed raucously together.

Mu Dai asked softly: “Is your enemy very powerful?”

Luo Ren remained silent.

Suddenly, visions of a tranquil silver beach and azure sea flashed before his eyes. He was wearing scuba gear, diving headfirst toward the seabed, picking up a sky-blue starfish from the underwater rocks.

Surfacing, he saw Youris wearing an orange life jacket, dramatically flailing about in the water: “Luo, Luo, save me, I’ve flipped over!”

Somehow, Youris had managed to somersault in the water while wearing a life jacket, like a turtle flipped on its back, unable to right itself.

Luo Ren didn’t rescue him. Instead, he pulled open Youris’s collar and stuffed the starfish inside.

Youris screamed: “What’s that? It’s cold and it’s moving!”

Luo Ren said, “Today, you either learn to swim or die in the water.”

Later, Youris finally learned to swim. Whenever he had the chance, he would happily splash about in the sea, his clumsy movements creating huge splashes.

“Luo, I’m a black fish. In China, black fish are precious, right?”

Luo Ren said, “Yes, a fish that’s respected.”

Later still, Youris died in the swimming pool of that mansion where they had fought fiercely. He floated face down on the surface, his clothes bloated, blood spreading through the azure pool water.

Luo Ren clenched his teeth and slowly closed his eyes.

Mu Dai leaned closer, her cool, soft cheek against his face, whispering in his ear: “Little Knife Luo, be good. I won’t ask anything more.”

When Luo Ren opened his eyes again, the mist of moisture and the spreading bloody fierceness had vanished, replaced by clear serenity.

He asked Mu Dai, “What would you like to eat?”

“Soup dumplings, dipped in slightly sweet vinegar, with all that slurping soup.”

Surprisingly, Jiangsu and Zhejiang-style soup dumplings were quite popular here, with many people queuing.

Luo Ren received a call from Ma Tuwen.

“That Ding Guohua stopped being a doctor long ago, about twenty years back. He left his position at the hospital.”

Luo Ren was surprised: Twenty years ago, being a doctor was a golden rice bowl, wasn’t it? How could he give that up?

“His wife divorced him, too. Said he was a bit strange, though she couldn’t pinpoint exactly how. Anyway, he rarely goes out, stays cooped up at home, and doesn’t see people. Later, during the restructuring, the hospital tried to invite him back, but he flatly refused, wouldn’t even let them through the door.”

Luo Ren felt more balanced now. It seemed that refusing visitors’ entry was normal behavior for Ding Guohua.

Ma Tuwen sighed: “His life grew increasingly impoverished. A chief physician from twenty years ago—that was a highly educated intellectual…”

Luo Ren’s mind stirred.

Twenty years ago, around that time, many things had happened.

Supposedly, Mu Dai’s mother contracted AIDS—Mu Dai was abandoned and sent away—Ding Guohua suddenly left his position as a doctor—even though the Tengma Sculpture Platform was built over twenty years ago…

There were connections, certainly ongoing, just temporarily obscured by fog, preventing a clear view of the whole picture.

Mu Dai sat on the steps by the community garden flowerbed, waiting for Luo Ren, alternately looking down the road and up at the sixth floor.

Some windows were already dark. In small towns, people retired early. The community was deathly quiet. Apart from Luo Ren leaving, there had been no movement.

A thought occurred to Mu Dai.

You won’t open the door? But you can’t stop me from having a wall ladder.

She walked to the base of the wall, took a deep breath, spread her arms, and pressed close to the wall surface.

Master said: You can’t consider the wall as a wall. You are you, otherwise you’ll always fall. You must think of the wall as your ground. If you slip and fall occasionally, you’re just falling to the ground.

Mu Dai’s toes pushed against the wall, her hands, feet, and abdomen applying force at five points. She shot upward.

They called it “gecko wall-climbing,” but that was just to fool outsiders. It was impossible to move as freely as a gecko or viper. She always needed multiple points of leverage. Fortunately, the old building’s walls were rough with many holds.

She quickly reached the sixth-floor window.

Holding her breath, she grasped the windowsill with both hands, twisted her body, and braced her feet against the neighboring air conditioner unit, achieving an almost effortless balance.

Then she peered inside.

Ding Guohua was about to sleep, but not quite yet. The table lamp was dimmed. He reclined on the bed reading a book, turning a page only after a long while, the very picture of unhurried calm.

The book, from what she could see, was quite thick.

Mu Dai’s elbows were getting sore. Looking down, she saw Luo Ren had returned and was looking up at her. The light was too dim and the distance too great to make out his expression.

But surely no man enjoys seeing his girlfriend randomly scaling walls, especially one six floors high.

Mu Dai felt somewhat guilty. Turning back, she saw that Ding Guohua seemed to be preparing for bed. He placed the book at his bedside and rose to go to the bathroom.

When he walked, he dragged one foot, his leg movements stiff.

After a while, he emerged with a basin of water, preparing to wash his feet.

Breathing heavily, he removed the shoe and sock from his right foot and immersed the skinny foot in the hot water, sighing contentedly.

Who washes feet one at a time? Truly eccentric.

Her elbows grew increasingly sore. Looking down again, she saw Luo Ren had seated himself on the steps.

If he asked what she had seen when she came down, how should she answer? That she see Ding Guohua washing his feet?

How utterly uninteresting.

Vexed, Mu Dai was just about to twist her body to descend when Ding Guohua moved again.

He picked up the foot scrubber towel beside him, hastily dried his right foot, then lifted the basin and shuffled back to the bathroom.

Splash—the sound of water being dumped.

This old man called Ding Guohua only washed one foot.