“Stop being unreasonable. How could I possibly not go when the work has already been decided?” I pushed away Cheng Xia’s hand.

It wasn’t like I wasn’t coming back. At the time I just thought he was being inexplicable, so I got up and prepared to leave.

I had just reached the door when he pressed it shut with one hand.

“Go back,” he said. Even when losing control he was quiet, so at that moment I didn’t realize.

I had just exhausted all my patience and said, “I’m not going back. Move aside!”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me back with such force that I was practically slammed against the wall.

My head hit the wall hard, the pain made everything go black before my eyes. Later when I checked, I found a large bump had swollen up there.

“Cheng Xia, are you sick or something!” I was truly angry.

And Cheng Xia locked the door, stood there quietly watching me. His eyes were like bottomless black whirlpools.

Actually, if it had been any other time, I should have already sensed his abnormality. But the pain had thoroughly enraged me, and I started cursing wildly: “Are you fucking sick! If you want to go crazy, go to a mental hospital! Try touching me one more time! I’ll beat your brains out!”

I had learned well from my grandmother—level ten shrew scolding skills. But Cheng Xia remained unmoved. When I finally paused to catch my breath, he said…

He said…

He said: “Go back and eat.”

I completely exploded, jumping and cursing: “Eat your mom… eat your sister’s damn leg! I gave you face and you want to eat! I’ll tell you one more time—get out of the way! Otherwise we’ll never contact each other again!”

While cursing, I started calling for a car on my phone.

Just then, Cheng Xia suddenly lunged over to snatch my phone.

Of course I couldn’t just let him take it, but the strength difference between men and women was too great. Expressionless, he forcibly pried open my fingers, seized the phone, then walked into the inner room to lock it away.

I was truly furious!

I followed him cursing all the way, frantically pulling at him, demanding he return my phone.

But the whole time it was like hitting cotton. He didn’t make a sound. After locking away the phone, he said to me: “Eat. If you can’t eat, then go sleep.”

Next, whether I went crazy or tried reasoning with him patiently, he remained silent throughout, quietly eating. After finishing, he stood up and said: “Sleep here tonight. I’ll go run your bath.”

I finally realized I might truly not be able to leave.

This made my forcibly suppressed emotions explode geometrically.

I looked at that table of food I had rushed over this afternoon to personally prepare, talking to him so sincerely.

Yet he was being unreasonable! He was going crazy at me!

Why the hell was I such a masochist!

“Fine, eat! I’ll let you eat!” I rushed over and overturned the dining table. Fresh vegetables, red meat, hot oil, boiling water—all over the room.

Cheng Xia’s face was cut by flying shards of porcelain, but he just stood there silently, letting me vent.

Then lowered his head and began cleaning up.

“Give me back my phone! What right do you have to take my phone!” I pulled at him like a madwoman, but he acted like he couldn’t hear.

Clearly he was the sick one.

Yet I was the one acting like a lunatic.

In the midst of our struggle, I slapped him across the face, roaring: “Let me go! Let me go!”

In that instant, the entire world went quiet.

Cheng Xia stared at me fixedly. His eyes were two deep black lakes.

And I finally briefly regained my rationality.

How could I hit him?

No matter how crazy I went, I couldn’t use violence.

In that moment I even thought of my father, his eyes red as he swung his palm at my mother. Later he hit me too. I shouted at him with a hoarse voice: You only know how to use your hands! The more useless you are, the worse your temper!

And now, I sat in the midst of the mess all over the floor, looking at Cheng Xia opposite me, my fingers trembling.

Cheng Xia also looked at me. Then he raised his hand.

And forcefully slapped himself.

Then a second time.

A third time.

A fourth time.

I stared at him dumbfounded. His expression was calm, even gentle, yet one slap after another, as if he felt no pain.

He finally stopped and asked me softly: “Is that enough?”

I didn’t answer.

He got up, went to the kitchen, took a knife—a bright, gleaming silver knife—and placed it in my hand.

“If that’s not enough, there’s this. However you want to vent, go ahead.” He looked at me obsessively, his gaze carrying a shattered madness. “I was wrong, I’m sorry, but I won’t let you go.”

My hand touched that gleaming silver blade. It was very cool, very thin.

That sentence his father had said, which had circled in my mind, finally became real.

Cheng Xia was sick.

The next day, I still appeared at the train station on time.

After two days and nights on the train, plus another five hours by bus, I finally arrived at the Jiaolong Village resettlement site.

This place was another village called Wuleji, a typical hollow village—most of the young and strong in the village had gone out to work, leaving mostly the old, weak, women and children. Moreover, the land was vast and sparsely populated, with a permanent village population of less than three hundred.

The original plan was to resettle the Jiaolong Village residents here and merge the two villages.

But residents of both places had major objections and frequently caused trouble at the construction site.

As soon as I arrived on site, I saw dust flying in the distance. It was a young man rapidly whipping his horse, galloping toward us.

At that moment, because of motion sickness, I had vomited until I was weak all over, and stood there stupidly in a daze.

The young man saw my foolish appearance, revealed a malicious smile, viciously cracked his whip, and shouted something I couldn’t understand.

Seeing horses on TV, they were just docile herbivores. But when one came right at you, you realized what a massive creature it was. That white horse neighed and reared up its hooves—those hooves crashing down were as big as my head.

At the critical moment, a hand lifted me up and tossed me to the roadside.

The next second, this young rider happily charged through the construction site, followed by a vast herd of horses carrying a crushing force, thundering through the site. The barriers, scaffolding, carts that had just been set up… everything was scattered in chaos.

Only dust remained everywhere, making it impossible to open one’s eyes.

The man who had pulled me shouted curses at the backs of the horse herd. I wiped my face and asked: “Who is he?”

“From the village, a punk. He does this every few days.” The man who pulled me was named Ba Te, a cadre sent by the county to mediate conflicts between the two villages. “Are you okay? Want to wash your face?”

I shook my head, but the construction site couldn’t withstand this harassment every few days.

Ba Te was a local, a full six feet three inches tall, but had properly gone to university in Beijing and returned. He spoke in a refined manner: “The two places have some historical conflicts. They say before liberation they fought over water sources. Jiaolong Village killed many people from Wuleji Village and stole their livestock, so they don’t want to live together.”

“But the notice was sent out very early. Why didn’t they make trouble then?”

“Exactly!” Ba Te slapped his thigh. “Now that construction has started, selecting another resettlement site would cost a huge sum of money. The county has no money!”

Actually, I didn’t think it could be because of this.

The reason was simple: both villages were very poor. Poor people’s hatred doesn’t last that long—survival is the supreme law for the lower classes.

Behind the persistent troublemaking, there must be conflicts of interest.

Zhao Yu was still in the city hospital. I wandered around the village by myself for a while.

The distance between the two villages here was generally very far, and transportation on the Wuleji side wasn’t very smooth. There was only one vehicle to the county seat, and it took over an hour.

The village only had some small stores selling daily necessities and one internet cafe.

Old machines, smoky and filthy inside. There were some who looked like they’d just graduated from elementary school, with childish faces—minors. There were also middle-aged men with fierce faces, playing games while puffing away.

The internet cafe manager was a very pretty girl. Heavy makeup couldn’t hide her youthful face. She sat cross-legged in black stockings in front of a computer, slurping instant noodles.

“How much for internet?” I asked in Mandarin.

She gave me an eye roll and said: “Can’t you read yourself!”

On the wall was written: “Internet one yuan per hour.”

I said: “You speak Mandarin! That’s great, I’ve been looking for someone who speaks Mandarin for so long.”

She responded with another eye roll.

“Want to earn some pocket money?” I said. “I need to do some business here and need a translator.”

She glanced at me sideways and said: “How much can you pay?”

I was best at dealing with this kind of girl.

Because that was the young me.

So, with one MAC lipstick and at a price of fifteen yuan per day.

I acquired a pretty little translator.

I wasn’t in a hurry to go to the village to understand the situation.

First, I chatted with this little girl.

Ba Te was very puzzled and asked me: “If you want to understand the village situation, you should ask those elders. What’s the use of getting close to a little girl!”

I said: “This kind of pretty girl who doesn’t study, eight or nine times out of ten has a locally famous boyfriend. And this young boyfriend is generally the main force in causing trouble.”

I guessed right.

The little girl was named Ha Rina, only seventeen years old. She had a handsome and impressive boyfriend who drove big trucks in the transport team.

“My husband was the fiercest fighter at Number Three Middle School,” she said. “Once for my sake, he fought with some local tough guys from the county, one against five. He almost crippled them, that’s why he dropped out.”

I gasped appreciatively: “That fierce? I have to meet him.”

The company had assigned me a car. I drove her to the county to find this boyfriend.

This road was muddy and bumpy. I almost threw up.

“Qinglong!” Ha Rina called out.

A disheveled boy emerged from the vehicle yard dormitory, eyes still sleepy, a cigarette tucked behind his ear.

His bearing was a complete mess, his body reeking of sweat. But I still recognized him at a glance.

He was the spirited bad boy on horseback from this morning.

Ha Rina said: “This sister wants to do business in our village. She’s asking you about some things.”

Qinglong picked at his ear, disdainfully looked me over, then said something to Ha Rina. I didn’t need a translation to know it wasn’t anything nice.

I said: “Hey, no rush. I just want to get to know Brother Qinglong first. Come on, let’s eat and chat.”

The barbecue here was quite delicious—very fresh mutton, sprinkled with just a bit of salt, yet fragrant as hell.

Young people have such good appetites. This Brother Qinglong ate a full two jin of my mutton, drank a case of beer, then contentedly lifted his shirt. That belly was flat and actually had abs.

However, he finally revealed some information: “The people from Jiaolong Village are this!”

He raised his dark little finger triumphantly and said: “Want to build houses in our place? Dream on!”

“Why? I heard the county allocated funds. When Jiaolong Village comes, the whole village will also be properly developed!”

“Develop my ass!” Qinglong and Ha Rina both scoffed. Qinglong said: “My grandfather said, after the Jiaolong Village people move over, they’ll fucking live in new houses, and the new houses will block all our sunlight… If they dare build, we’ll go in with white blades and come out with red blades!”

Ha Rina looked at Qinglong admiringly.

I coughed and said: “So what does grandfather think?”

Qinglong said: “Ten more skewers of lamb kidneys!”

Me: …

After rambling all evening, I finally got some useful information.

The people of Wuleji Village mainly hated that after the Jiaolong Village people moved in, they would occupy the sunny spots along the river. They wanted to cause trouble so that after the houses were built, they would live in the new houses and the Jiaolong Village people would live in the old houses.

And of course the Jiaolong Village people wouldn’t accept that.

Rather than suffer this injustice, they might as well relocate elsewhere. So they were also causing trouble.