“Cut off” – easier said than done. How exactly would they cut it off? The last time they went to the Drifting Cave, such a major incident occurred that they couldn’t even figure out its dimensions, and now they’re casually talking about “cutting it off.”
Ding Panling seemed to know what Yi Sa was thinking: “It’s difficult, but it’s our only option. We’ve already sent people to search for the Drifting Cave around the Three Rivers’ Source area. Once we get news, we’ll organize a convoy to go there. Yi Sa, are you interested in joining?”
Another convoy? To that place again?
Everything from ’96 floated over like a huge cloud above her head: she still remembered the excitement of setting out, that “Shanghai Bund” song floating in the night, the fire-smoked aroma when peeling peanut shells.
That was where everything began.
She came back to her senses: “Sure, we should go there, but do you have any new understanding of that place?”
From what she’d heard so far, besides speculating it was “their” headquarters, their knowledge of the Drifting Cave hadn’t improved much since ’96 – under these circumstances, wouldn’t going there be pointless? Just sending more people to their deaths.
Ding Panling answered: “That’s why while waiting for news, we’re working on two things. First is reviewing the family genealogies, searching for any relevant useful information.”
Genealogies weren’t just simple company-like tree diagrams. Truly comprehensive genealogies included not just lineage records, but also important figures’ deeds, family migrations, business ventures, clan rules, with reference illustrations and more.
The three families had never skipped a generation, and ancient times particularly emphasized maintaining genealogies. One can imagine how much material was left – describing it as “enough to fill a barn” wouldn’t be an exaggeration. Some years ago, someone suggested that in this digital age, they should consolidate everything onto one disk, but one look at those several rooms in the ancestral hall – from pottery shards to wooden strips to silk to paper, from images to oracle bones to seal script, and even printing plates – immediately silenced them.
With such vast volumes, who knows what information might be scattered throughout the genealogies.
“Second, we believe starting with the resting nests could uncover quite a few clues. Besides, the Yellow River has no hanging water lake, so its resting nest structure should be different from the Yangtze’s – we want to take a closer look at Hukou and attempt to lock a golden vault there…”
Yi Sa’s heart stirred: “Without any commission, just pretending to lock one?”
Ding Panling nodded: “Pretending, but following all the real rituals, led by Ding Yudi, the youngest water ghost of the Ding family. We’ll need to trouble young Mr. Zong here to go underwater with us and see what the situation is like at the bottom of the Yellow River.”
Yi Sa suddenly understood.
No wonder Ding Changsheng reminded her to “bring Zong Hang” when he called; no wonder Jiang Taiyue wanted to confirm at the start that “Zong Hang isn’t affected by the ancestor tablet.” Unexpectedly, Zong Hang had become the key figure.
The Yellow River bottom wasn’t like Poyang Lake – with the Hukou Waterfall’s massive scale and powerful current, who knows where someone might be swept off to once they went down. It seemed too risky. Yi Sa felt she couldn’t make this decision: “You’ll have to ask him yourself.”
Ding Panling looked at Zong Hang: “Do you have any concerns?”
Zong Hang was used to Yi Sa speaking for him and hadn’t expected the decision to suddenly be in his hands. What’s more, not just Ding Panling, but Jiang Taiyue and Ding Changsheng were all looking at him, awaiting his response.
Zong Hang said: “Well… if Yi Sa goes, I’ll go too.”
Ding Changsheng had Yi Sa and Zong Hang stay at the hotel, saying they’d go to Hukou together when things were ready there. Someone would be sent to collect and bring their luggage from the inn, and Wu Gui would be cared for by specific people.
Everything was taken care of – what was there to complain about? Yi Sa led Zong Hang to the front desk to get their room keys.
The people remaining in the conference room hadn’t moved.
Jiang Taiyue kept rubbing the head of her walking stick. All this talk of “implantation,” “birth canals,” “floating through water,” and “death and revival” suddenly reminded her of an old matter.
She asked Ding Changsheng: “What were the circumstances when you found Sasa back then?”
That scene had left quite an impression, and Ding Changsheng answered in detail: “About ten or more li from the convoy’s main camp, by a small stream. She was curled up, half in the water. There was someone beside her in very serious condition – bones had grown out from their body. They were barely alive and died before the rescue team arrived.”
“Among those who died at the scene, many had bones growing out from their bodies. Later observations showed that people with these symptoms were very aggressive, especially when they lost consciousness – we speculated this person had grabbed Sasa, intending to take her somewhere, but their physical changes were too intense and they couldn’t get far.”
“Sasa had no wounds, but there was quite a bit of blood on her clothes. We thought it was that person’s blood, possibly from when they grabbed her neck, flowing down from their neck. Worried the blood might be contaminated, we didn’t even bother to examine it and just burned the clothes.”
“You all know what happened after – the entire Yi family convoy was gone, only this little girl came out unscathed. It seemed too extraordinary, so I wondered if she might also be infected but still in the incubation period, which is why I’ve always had various restrictions on her…”
Jiang Taiyue made a sound of acknowledgment, then looked at Ding Panling: “What do you think?”
Ding Panling guessed her thoughts and casually drew on paper: “It’s hard to say.”
When he finished speaking, he realized he had drawn two squares, one small and one large.
He then drew a large circle, enclosing both squares within it.
Suppose this large circle was the Drifting Cave, and these two squares were boxes hidden inside it, used to store fertilized eggs.
The small box contained the advance guard, and the large box the main force.
The founding master had a plan.
He knew that one day, people from the three families would enter the Drifting Cave, and the small box was prepared for them, aimed at transforming this group into “midwives.”
In his design, after they entered, they would trigger some mechanism causing them all to die without exception, becoming bodies suitable for “implantation.”
At the same time, the small box would open, and “implantation” and “grafting” would begin the transformation. By the time Ding Changsheng and others rushed to rescue, the “death and revival” here was already in full swing.
The founding master couldn’t precisely predict how many people from the three families would enter the cave, but like preparing a feast, one would always prepare more dishes than needed, better too much than too little – the number of fertilized eggs in the small box should have exceeded the number of three families’ members present. Those who couldn’t find matches couldn’t implant, so they flowed out through the birth canals, waiting for the next opportunity.
One can imagine some of them flowed down the Lancang River into Tonle Sap Lake, lingering there long-term, ultimately benefiting Zong Hang.
What about Yi Sa?
Ding Panling stopped his pen: “There are two possibilities. First, she was lucky – after that person grabbed her, they couldn’t hold on any longer before they could harm her.”
“Second, looking at it from a different angle, she might have already been dead at that time: half-lying in the stream water, with a dying ‘midwife’ beside her, and coincidentally fertilized eggs flowing by in the water… her situation might have been similar to Zong Hang’s.”
These words left the room silent for a while.
After a long time, Jiang Taiyue finally instructed Ding Changsheng: “Whether that’s the case or not, have someone… keep an eye on her.”
After speaking, she unconsciously touched her chest: “That Zong Hang just now, sitting across from me – although he seemed fine and is helping us now, I still feel…”
Honestly, if they had grown as deformed as Jiang Jun and the others, obviously strange, or if they were simply aliens, she could accept that.
But to be indistinguishable from normal people, yet under that skin, they were “them”…
It gave her the creeps.
The room keys had been prepared in advance.
Zong Hang took them and looked – two cards. At first, he thought they were two keys for one room, then realized they were for two different rooms.
“Two rooms?”
The receptionist: “Aren’t there two of you?”
Oh right, he had gotten used to staying with Yi Sa these days.
Zong Hang had to give one card to Yi Sa. His was 203, hers 204 – if not opposite, they should at least be next to each other.
The hotel had quite a high occupancy rate, with people coming and going all the way up the stairs.
On the second floor, things changed dramatically. 203 was around a corner, while 204 was way around, requiring going down another corridor.
Zong Hang was angry: What kind of hotel doesn’t know how to arrange rooms in order?
Yi Sa didn’t mind: “You’ve arrived, rest first. Call my room phone if anything comes up.”
Zong Hang made a sound of acknowledgment, watching her walk away with longing eyes, feeling quite dejected. He leaned his head against the door, trying to insert the key card into the slot but missing several times. Feeling increasingly frustrated with everything about this hotel, he roughly tried to turn the door handle. While struggling with it, someone behind him couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing: “Zong Hang?”
That voice…
Zong Hang’s heart skipped a beat as he quickly turned around: “Jing Xiu?”
It was Jing Xiu.
She wasn’t dressed as colorfully as when they first met, wearing a striped dress and her long hair in a ponytail, making her look much more plain.
Zong Hang stammered: “You… how did you come here?”
Jing Xiu glanced at him sideways: “How did I come here? I’m supposed to take care of you for a year, did you forget?”
As she spoke, she stepped forward, took the card from his hand, gently inserted it into the slot, and opened the door. While walking in, she kept talking non-stop: “Ding Xi told me you’d be in either 203 or 204, so I’ve been walking back and forth in this corridor waiting. I just saw you come by – you have such big eyes but didn’t see me, just staring at her until she disappeared, then you went all limp, couldn’t even open the door… You like her, don’t you?”
Zong Hang had complicated feelings about Jing Xiu.
After the boat incident, they didn’t meet again, and he had mentally put her in the same category as Ding Xi. But seeing her now, with her warm smile and friendly face, just like when she used to take care of him day and night…
She didn’t seem like someone who had deliberately tried to harm him.
But her words, one after another, about “taking care of you for a year” and “Ding Xi told me,” left him unable to keep up, always a step behind. When he finally heard the last part, as if a secret had been exposed, he almost jumped up, stammering: “What… what are you talking about?”
Jing Xiu closed the door: “You don’t like her?”
Of course, that’s not…
Zong Hang hesitated for a long time, stuttering: “Yi Sa… she’s so good, everyone likes her, who wouldn’t like her?”
So her name is Yi Sa.
This might fool others, but Jing Xiu was sharp as a tack when it came to matters of the heart: “Everyone? Who’s everyone? Show me one person – I don’t like her, the street sweeper outside doesn’t like her, the kitchen staff chopping vegetables doesn’t like her. You’re the only one who likes her, yet you’re using ‘everyone’ as a shield.”
Zong Hang was speechless, his eyes darting around, wanting to smile but trying hard to hold it back.
What’s wrong with liking her? He was proud of it.
Jing Xiu wanted to laugh.
From beginning to end, being with Zong Hang felt the most relaxing – no constraints, no worries, no need to think about past or future, no need to be cautious… The sky seemed higher and brighter.
Zong Hang came back to his senses: “By the way, where did you go after the boat incident?”
Jing Xiu glared at him: “I should be asking you where you went! Made me put up missing person posters all over the dock.”
She was in a good mood and spoke lightly, telling him what happened afterward. It was simple when summed up: she had coincidentally met a former client she liked on the boat, but they still had feelings for each other, so everything fell into place naturally.
Zong Hang was relieved to hear it was just a coincidental meeting, not the conspiracy he had imagined, letting out a long breath. But as he listened on, something felt increasingly wrong, and he couldn’t help interrupting: “You mean you’re going to be with Ding Xi from now on? No, Jing Xiu, do you know what kind of person he is?”
Jing Xiu was startled, paused, and then asked him: “Zong Hang, what exactly is the conflict between you and Ding Xi? I asked him, and he said he saw you being kidnapped back then and didn’t help… Is that why you hit him?”
Didn’t help? Yes, he didn’t help, but why don’t you mention that the “death” was caused by you too?
If the matter wasn’t so far-reaching, Zong Hang wanted to spill everything Ding Xi had done.
Seeing Zong Hang silent, Jing Xiu became a bit awkward: “I came to find you for two reasons. First, we’re friends, and I wanted to come see you. Second, everything should have a proper ending – Yi Xiao hired me for a year and gave me a deposit, then disappeared without a trace. I couldn’t contact her. I worked for about a month, was terrified, and almost got fed to crocodiles – taking a piece of persimmon gold isn’t too much to ask. So, if you can see her, please help me tell her the contract ends here, okay?”
At this point, she smiled embarrassedly: “It’s just… not saying anything makes it feel like things are left hanging, making whatever comes next feel unsettled.”
Whatever comes next? Starting a new life with Ding Xi?
Zong Hang’s heart was pounding: “Jing Xiu, Ding Xi isn’t a good person.”
Jing Xiu smiled slightly: “I know. Neither of us would be considered good people in the traditional sense. From what he’s said, his godfather probably had him do quite a few shady things…”
Blood rushed to Zong Hang’s head, and he blurted out: “He’s killed people, Jing Xiu, more than one.”