Zong Hang paced back and forth outside the police station.
Initially, he had only casually asked if he could see Old Ma, not expecting much. However, Long Song agreed surprisingly quickly, claiming he had connections and knew people, saying that with some money to grease the wheels, it wouldn’t be a problem.
So Zong Hang came along, but when they reached the entrance, the promised “connection” was nowhere to be seen. Long Song, unable to save face, stormed inside to look for them, telling Zong Hang to wait.
Zong Hang waited obediently, and it wasn’t boring at all. The police station entrance was quite interesting – people coming and going either had stories written all over their faces or looked like they’d been in accidents. He even witnessed some news in the making – several cursing foreigners were dragged out of a police car, reportedly arrested for some indescribable group activity.
While watching this scene, his phone rang. It was Ding Yudie.
The police station entrance was as noisy as a market. Zong Hang answered the phone, repeatedly saying “Wait a moment,” and then jogged to a distant flower bed.
Ding Yudie told him everything about meeting Ding Haijin, concluding with: “See? I told you I’m straightforward and would keep you updated on any progress.”
He had indeed said this before. For a while, Zong Hang would visit him in Taiyuan every few days, claiming to check on Uncle Pan Ling’s whereabouts. Ding Yudie got annoyed and complained: “You don’t need to keep coming. I’ll tell you if there’s any progress. We’ve been through life and death together so many times, there’s no need to hide things from you.”
Zong Hang held his phone, watching people gather and disperse at the police station entrance, and after a while just responded with an “Oh.”
Ding Yudie was unsatisfied with this “Oh”: “Is that all you have to say?”
What else could he say?
Zong Hang didn’t know how to respond: “I’m used to it now.”
A year had passed, and no one could maintain their initial state of excitement or fear. It’s like when people first learn they have a terminal illness – they might wail and despair at first, but if they’re still alive a year later, they’ve mostly come to terms with it, calmly accepting their IV drips and medications.
Ding Yudie felt the same way: “I’m the same. That black notebook – I haven’t opened it once this year. We’ve all been going in circles, lost in the maze. That painting by Yi Baoquan was obvious from beginning to end.”
Carving corpses into boats, the dead ferrying the dead – someone wanted to return to life through corpses. Whether they were from a previous human cycle, aliens, or ancient ancestors, they were trying to “come back.”
Zong Hang thought for a moment: “Ding Haijin thinks those ‘beings’ are ancient people who sought immortality?”
Ding Yudie made an affirmative sound: “The old man grew up in the north, and heard many legends about Taisui. They say it was an elixir of immortality in ancient times. Folk tales say when Emperor Qin sent Xu Fu to search for the elixir of immortality at sea, he was looking for Taisui, and…”
He lowered his voice: “They say he found it, but Emperor Qin only vaguely knew that physical bodies would perish, and this immortality took another form, underground. That’s why he built his underground mausoleum so grand and sturdy, preparing for eternal life underground. When I heard this, it made me think: if ancestor tablets truly preserved people’s souls long-term, isn’t that another form of ‘immortality’? And the Taisui in the Three Rivers Source was indeed hidden deep underground.”
Zong Hang suddenly blurted out: “21 grams.”
Ding Yudie didn’t understand: “What 21 grams?”
Zong Hang said: “Haven’t you read those inspirational articles? They say that at the moment of death, the body becomes 21 grams lighter, so some people say that’s the weight of the soul.”
Those clusters of “grape-like” objects he saw in the drifting cave, each containing an ancestor tablet – he wondered if what was merged inside weighed exactly 21 grams.
He felt somewhat dazed: “Actually, I often think about what happens when I die. My physical body will be gone, but where do all my thoughts go? My feelings when I like someone, my views on things, my countless memories – where do they all go? And if these could be preserved, would that person be dead?”
Thinking carefully, Ding Haijin’s view made sense.
Ancient people sought immortality through countless means, yet called their bodies “stinking sacks of flesh” – perhaps they never pursued physical immortality at all.
When a person dies, it’s like a lamp being extinguished – these 21 grams are like the vanishing light, ceasing to exist the moment the flesh perishes.
So the question arose: how to preserve it, and with what?
Zong Hang pondered: “Ding Haijin believes that the souls of those who consumed Taisui were preserved in ancestor tablets. Could we understand it this way: both Taisui and ancestor tablets are special substances – Taisui’s function is to guide, while ancestor tablets store. This way, when a person reaches their end, their lifetime of consciousness doesn’t scatter but has another destination.”
Ding Yudie gave a dry laugh: “Stored in ancestor tablets?”
“Yes, nobody deceived them – this is ‘immortality.'”
Ding Yudie couldn’t help but say: “That’s worse than being in prison!”
At home, he had food, drinks, novels to read, and games to play, yet still found life boring and meaningless sometimes. What about these people?
Zong Hang nodded, forgetting that Ding Yudie couldn’t see him: “I watched a sci-fi movie before, about how in the future, technology was so advanced that after death, consciousness was uploaded to a large server. This server had various virtual worlds, and consciousness could role-play in different worlds like playing games and living life after life – that wouldn’t be boring. But if you’re just preserved in an ancestor tablet staring into space every day, that really… would be worse than death.”
Ding Yudie swallowed: “But they can’t die, not only can’t they die, they can’t even reach an end, because it’s ‘immortality’… Damn, that’s too pitiful!”
He suddenly thought of something: “Hey, Zong Hang, when you say ‘they’ came, seemingly wanting to possess corpses for rebirth, could their ultimate goal be to ‘die’?”
Zong Hang was stunned for a moment, feeling that the words “go die” seemed familiar.
On the other end of the phone, Ding Yudie became more convinced of his guess, muttering: “Damn, it might be true, an indirect approach, seeking death through life. If it were me, I wouldn’t want this kind of ‘immortality’ even if they paid me. What’s the point of living if you can’t do anything? And, and, shit, I just remembered, Sa Sa had ‘go die’ tattooed on her ankle…”
Zong Hang felt embarrassed: no wonder those words seemed familiar – they were tattooed on Yi Sa’s ankle. He had asked Yi Sa about it before, and she had explained it quite poetically, saying something about how from birth, people walk step by step toward death, so having “go die” with each step was normal, stopping would be the problem…
But Ding Yudie gave a completely new interpretation: “When she was found by the stream in the Three Rivers Source, she had a high fever for several days, and reportedly kept mumbling ‘go die’ many times…”
He sighed again: “Wonder how our Uncle Pan Ling is doing, fighting against them. Feels like the odds aren’t great fighting one against many. If he’s been subdued, he might even sympathize with them…”
Zong Hang was about to say something when he glanced up and caught sight of Long Song excitedly coming out of the police station. From his expression, things must have worked out.
He quickly wrapped up the phone call and hurried over. Long Song was already getting impatient and immediately waved him over: “Quick, quick, they only gave us ten minutes for a private meeting, you need to hurry.”
Long Song warned Zong Hang that Old Ma was already elderly and had chronic illnesses. During the past year with Su Cai, he had been frequently beaten and cursed, suffered greatly, and his mental state was very poor. His reactions were slow, showing signs of senile dementia.
Zong Hang met Old Ma in the small meeting room.
At first glance, neither recognized the other.
Old Ma’s appearance hadn’t changed much – his hair was longer, his shoulders more hunched, and he looked older – but he gave a completely different impression from a year ago. A year ago, he had been poor but cunning and crafty; now he was elderly, dull, and slack.
Old Ma didn’t recognize Zong Hang either. He squinted at him for a long while and asked: “Who are you?”
Zong Hang sat down opposite him and reminded him: “I’m Zong Hang. A year ago at the airport, I helped you fill out an application form. Later, we were both held in Su Cai’s water hose, and the fat guard pulled out one of my teeth.”
Old Ma stared at him, his eyes gradually focusing, and finally nodded repeatedly, his voice hoarse: “It’s you, it’s you.”
Then he asked indistinctly: “You’re not dead? They said they killed you, in the lake.”
Zong Hang didn’t answer directly: “I heard you reported to the police and brought down Su Cai?”
Old Ma paused, then started giggling, pointing at himself: “It was me, it was me.”
Zong Hang shook his head: “I heard an important reason for Su Cai and the other side’s suspicious firefight was that they found outgoing call records on the Dan Zai phone, and their boat was sabotaged. Later you said you did it all.”
Old Ma didn’t look at him, staring down at the table, mumbling: “It was me, just me.”
Zong Hang said: “You couldn’t have done it. Su Cai’s group was very careful. Even if you could occasionally overhear things, you definitely couldn’t get close to them. Someone helped you, right?”
Old Ma’s body stiffened, and he quickly shook his head: “No, no.”
Zong Hang continued: “In the floating village, the Thai people had their area. Normal people would be discovered as soon as they got close.”
He leaned closer to Old Ma and lowered his voice: “Unless the person helping you came up from underwater, where others couldn’t see.”
Old Ma froze, and after a while, he slowly lifted his wrinkled eyelids and looked warily at Zong Hang.
Zong Hang’s voice was as soft as a whisper: “You don’t need to hide it from me. I know her.”
Old Ma remained silent.
Several months ago one evening, after dinner, the fat guard had somehow taken a dislike to him and grabbed him for a severe beating, making his mouth bleed.
As he stumbled back to his broken shack, his legs gave way and he fell. If he hadn’t quickly grabbed the edge, he would have rolled into the water.
When trying to get up, the water surface below reflected flickering light – water light mixed with lamplight from the house. Then, a woman slowly surfaced.
Old Ma was stunned, forgetting to cry out or even feel afraid.
He only remembered that woman smiling slightly and telling him softly that Ma You was already dead, asking if he wanted revenge. If he did, she could help him and told him to think it over carefully.
After speaking, she slowly sank back into the water, like a water ghost from legends or a water spirit from strange tales.
When Old Ma came to his senses, he frantically splashed that spot in the water until water sprayed everywhere, soaking his face and head.
After that, he kept looking into the water, constantly thinking about her offer to help, and often squatted by the platform late at night, waiting for the water to ripple again.
He was very lucky – he didn’t have to wait too long.
…
Zong Hang looked back at the door, moving even closer to Old Ma: “You’ve insisted everything was done by you alone. Did you make a deal with her? She would help you, but the condition was that you couldn’t tell anyone about her existence?”
Old Ma still didn’t speak.
Zong Hang said: “I’m looking for her too. Su Cai sank me in the lake, trying to kill me. She saved me, underwater.”
Hearing this, Old Ma’s eyes finally showed some light. He stared at Zong Hang and asked in a low voice: “Is she human?”
Zong Hang nodded: “After Su Cai’s incident, have you seen her again?”
Old Ma hesitated for a while before slowly nodding: “Yes.”
Zong Hang’s heart beat rapidly: “Where?”
Strictly speaking, Yi Sa hadn’t lost contact – at least he knew that Ding Yudie maintained regular contact with her. But even Ding Yudie admitted that her location was too unpredictable. After a phone call today, tomorrow they wouldn’t know where she was. The places she went were very remote, sometimes even phone calls couldn’t get through.
Old Ma said: “When the police took me out, sitting in the small boat when reporters were taking photos.”
After a firefight and a raid, the Bagai floating village had fallen apart, and many houseboats simply sailed away.
He was squatting in the small boat when he happened to look up and saw her.
At that moment, a large houseboat was moving away nearby, its engine rumbling. He saw that young woman standing on the second floor of the houseboat, her hand on the railing.
When their eyes met, the woman’s face was expressionless, but she raised her index finger and gently pressed it to her lips.
He shrank back and quickly lowered his head.
However, that houseboat left a deep impression, not because it was built grandly, but because behind her, the door had Spring Festival couplets pasted on it, and a bronze gourd hung swinging under the door frame.