Mu Dai hesitated for a moment, pointing her flashlight in that direction and walking a few steps, then shining it down at the winding mountain path below.
She wanted to ignore it and continue, but her feet wouldn’t move. She took out her phone to check the time: if she didn’t take the long way around and instead went straight up and down the mountain, it wouldn’t take long at all and wouldn’t delay her.
Decision made, Mu Dai let out a breath, shook her hands, twisted her neck, then brightened her small flashlight and clenched it between her teeth. She sprinted a few steps to gain momentum, then raced up the nearly 70-degree slope, occasionally grabbing at clumps of grass or bracing against the ground for leverage when she lost her breath. With one final leap, she landed on the mountain path.
She remembered where the bat had flown from and carefully approached to look, finding nothing unusual—just an ordinary mountainside with hanging vines and scattered trees.
But perhaps disturbed by the flashlight’s beam, that strange sound appeared again.
Mu Dai stood for two seconds, suddenly thought of something, and reached out to grab the cluster of vines.
Sure enough, she pulled away a thick mass of them, with leaves and dusty soil falling from above, causing her to cough from the dust.
This was… a hidden cave.
The entrance didn’t face outward directly. A diagonal slab of rock jutted out like the screen wall or folding screen at the entrance of an old house, concealing the true opening. To enter, one would have to turn sideways and pass through a narrow passage.
Moreover, the vines covered the entrance perfectly. If not for the bats flying out from there, Mu Dai would have truly believed it was just ordinary vines hanging down the mountainside.
She carefully followed the narrow passage inside. Just before reaching the end, another sluggish bat clumsily flew out, startling Mu Dai. She instinctively swatted at it, her palm touching a slightly warm, writhing mass. Disgust and revulsion instantly shot to her head, and she hurriedly shook her hand.
Moving faster than thinking—a habit she could never break.
This cave was rather deep.
Mu Dai walked in with her flashlight. After just a few steps, the beam suddenly illuminated a face—deathly pale, with cloth stuffed in the mouth, struggling desperately. Upon seeing Mu Dai, the person became so agitated that they nearly cried.
Cao Yanhua?
Mu Dai could hardly believe her eyes. She froze for a good second or two, and just as she was about to go over, a sharp, thin, high-pitched female laugh suddenly came from behind her.
Mu Dai’s whole body tensed as she whirled around.
No one was there. She hadn’t even caught a glimpse of a shadow. The laughter seemed to have risen from emptiness and returned to silence.
Mu Dai didn’t want to go out to investigate, for fear of being lured away. The urgent matter was to free Cao Yanhua first—whether dealing with ghosts or monsters, two people would be better than one.
She moved sideways, slowly walking toward Cao Yanhua, dividing half her attention to the other side in case that strange voice appeared again or suddenly attacked.
After just a few steps, without warning, her foot met empty air.
Her body, beyond her control, fell straight down. In her desperate attempt to grab onto something, her fingertips merely brushed the edge of the trapdoor.
A trapdoor trap—she had heard her master talk about these.
Her master’s stories were all ancient legends.
He had said that trapdoor traps have a central axis with interlocking bolts on all sides. A person is lured to slowly walk over, and when their entire weight is on half of the trapdoor, the bolts are withdrawn. The lighter end rises, the heavier end falls, and even with lightness kung fu, there’s nothing to push against for leverage. With a crash, the person falls through.
Those with cruel hearts would place sharp knives pointing upward at the bottom, which had claimed the lives of many martial heroes.
Her master’s stories were different from martial arts novels. In novels, the protagonists never die, but in her master’s stories, they often met abrupt ends.
She was young then and had pestered him, “What happened next?”
“They died.”
How could those incredible, beautiful, dashing, charming, alluring people of all kinds die?
Her master had smiled and said, “Everyone dies eventually, often from the most unexpected circumstances. But because you’re not satisfied with that, storytellers make their heroes invincible and immortal.”
In reality, those people died suddenly and quickly, not always escaping death, not always having the luck to turn danger into safety.
In the instant of falling, this conversation with her master flashed through her mind like a movie.
She didn’t want to die.
Desperately reaching out to grab something, the trapdoor had already closed, and her body plummeted rapidly, fear instantly transforming into cold, seeping sweat.
—She had no idea how deep this was.
In her panic, she suddenly felt the stone wall, rugged and protruding. She curled her fingers, trying to grab hold.
She couldn’t catch anything; she was falling too fast. She could even hear the scraping sound of her nails against the stone wall.
Mu Dai didn’t give up, trying again.
—Even the slightest friction could slow her descent. She didn’t want to die.
She knew wall-climbing skills. Her master had taught that to become like a gecko, one must press limbs and abdomen against the wall: “Imagine you have a suction cup in your belly.”
She tried again, desperately pressing her abdomen against the wall, holding her breath, her limbs straining. Whenever she touched the stone wall, regardless of the cost, she had to grab hold.
She continued plummeting, her abdomen burning with pain, probably cut by protruding rocks, perhaps even severely wounded—who knew? She couldn’t think about that. Before hitting the bottom, she had to keep trying to grab onto something.
The scraping continued… her nails quickly wore down to the quick, then came the excruciating pain. Ignore it, don’t think about it.
Finally, with a thunderous crash, she hit the ground.
The impact jolted her internal organs, making her chest and abdomen feel like a churning sea of discomfort.
She had landed, finally landed!
Her first reaction, surprisingly, was immense joy: I didn’t die from the fall, I’m still alive!
She laughed, the sound echoing in this enormous cave, harsh and strange—so harsh that she suddenly stopped laughing: Is that me laughing? Or have I died, and this is my soul laughing?
She lay there, motionless, closing her eyes, then opening them again a moment later.
The cave wasn’t completely dark; pale green phosphorescent fires were scattered near and far.
Mu Dai painfully turned her head to see her left hand splayed beside her, and saw that the nail of her middle finger was standing upright.
Fingernails should lie flat against the finger, shouldn’t they? Why was her fingernail standing up?
Once she understood what had happened, intense pain shot straight to her eyes. Tears welled up without warning, streaming down her cheeks and dripping into the cold mud beneath her.
After a while, she took a deep breath, raised her right hand, and carefully, slowly placed it over the back of her left hand.
In her mind, she counted: “One, two, three.”
On “three,” she clenched her teeth and quickly, forcefully, squeezed down.
—
Near midnight, at the China-Myanmar border.
This village was called Naqibo, located at the Yunnan-Myanmar border, near Myitkyina.
During the day, it was just an ordinary village, with listless chickens, lethargic dogs, and gaunt villagers heading to the fields in small groups, carrying hoes.
However, on certain nights, between eleven o’clock and two in the morning, it would become unexpectedly lively.
Canopies would be set up at the village entrance, most open on all sides like the outdoor food stalls in mainland China.
There were trading canopies where sacks would be emptied of jade or other raw gemstones. The vendor would sit cross-legged, shirt open, a blue dragon tattoo visible among the black chest hair, thick wads of money in various currencies stuffed in their waist pouches.
There were seafood canopies, and although this place was nowhere near the sea, they would have the freshest seafood. Plastic boxes would be emptied, ice cubes mixed with oysters, shellfish, fish, and shrimp cascading down. Barbecue specialties included something called Bordeaux wine grilling, with a peculiar taste.
There were also card tables for mahjong, but no money was visible, only chips. Ten blue chips equaled one red chip, ten red chips equaled one gold chip. Usually, when someone took a gold chip, the chip stacker would change expression and mutter a curse.
There were seductive women, slender-waisted with long legs, full breasts, and rounded hips, moving gracefully through the crowd. With just a glance, they would stop with a smile beside a certain man. No bargaining, no commotion—everything progressed naturally in silence.
Those canopies that weren’t open on all sides typically had black cloth fronts. Casual passersby wouldn’t enter or even browse. Burly men guarded the entrances, and only specific people who matched half a banknote or playing card would be quietly admitted.
At two o’clock sharp, everyone and every vehicle would withdraw, turning on their headlights in the darkness, silently returning to wherever they came from.
This was the Naqibo three-hour night market at the China-Myanmar border, known to many but never spoken of openly.
Luo Ren was now sitting in a seafood canopy, on a small cloth stool, at a small table with uneven legs—one corner even propped up with a broken brick.
Yet the food on the table was exquisite: thinly sliced salmon arranged languidly on a mound of crushed ice, a small porcelain dish with soy sauce and a dab of wasabi in the center, and chilled prawns with transparent, crystal-like flesh that occasionally still twitched.
There was another seat across from him, but no one was sitting there yet.
Luo Ren poured himself a drink, ice cubes melting inside, with a round green plum sunken at the bottom.
A young woman approached, her red lips slightly pursed, eyes seductive, several thornless roses tucked diagonally into her bodice. Luo Ren passed her a bill, then made an outward gesture with his hand.
She understood—this meant he wanted to discuss business, not play.
The woman, knowing the customs, took a rose and inserted it into a crack in the small wooden table. The rose stem was thin, its trembling shadow dancing across the tabletop.
She said in a soft, gentle voice, “This way, the other sisters won’t disturb you.”
This, too, was part of the rules.
Luo Ren continued waiting. The night breeze swept from one end of the canopy to the other. His phone showed the time: 11:45 PM.
Heavy footsteps, mingled with the distinctive sound of metal braces. Luo Ren didn’t turn around until Qingmu awkwardly walked over and sat down.
He wore an external fixation frame on his right lower leg, making his gait heavy and somewhat fierce, as if warning others not to provoke him.
Qingmu was about thirty, with typical Japanese features—bright, sharp eyes, a straight nose, thin but by no means weak. His sleeves were rolled up, showing blocks of muscle on his arms. On his forearm were vertical Chinese characters.
The tattoo read: “Silver bowl holding snow, white horse entering reed flowers.”
Luo Ren stared at Qingmu, indescribable emotions surging in his chest, his eyes growing warm. After a long while, he said, “Long time no see.”
Qingmu didn’t use chopsticks. He picked up a slice of salmon with his fingers, dipped it in the sauce, and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing vigorously. The soy sauce trickled down the corner of his mouth, but he made no move to wipe it away.
Luo Ren picked up the large-bellied, narrow-necked sake bottle to pour himself a drink. Qingmu snatched it away and poured it onto the ground—splash, splash, splash—the partially melted ice cubes falling out one by one. Only the soaked, swollen green plum remained, stuck at the bottle neck, unable to escape.
He then took Luo Ren’s cup and emptied it onto the ground as well.
The canopy attendants, accustomed to such scenes, didn’t even bat an eye.
“Luo, I went to Lijiang.”
Luo Ren looked at him. “Did you paint that picture?”
“Just to remind you that I can find you, and if I can, the Cheetah certainly can too.”
Luo Ren fell silent.
Qingmu reached out, snapping his fingers at the attendant, who brought another bottle of sake.
This time, Qingmu poured some for Luo Ren.
“I know you opened a restaurant in Lijiang, became a small business owner, got yourself a pretty girlfriend who smiles sweetly and looks like she’d fall over in a gust of wind.”
“You’ve forgotten about us, haven’t you, Luo?”
Luo Ren said, “No.”
Qingmu stared at him, his gaze gradually filling with anger, blue veins bulging on the back of his hand. With a cold smile, he enunciated each word: “You’ve forgotten us, Luo. You went off to live your own life.”
His face suddenly contorted with rage as he gripped the bottom of the table and flipped it sideways.
What a waste of such fine seafood.
The phone was also knocked off, covered in a layer of crushed ice.
Luo Ren bent down to pick it up, brushed off the cold water, and checked the time: 12:20 AM.
Why hadn’t Mu Dai called yet?