Chapter 316: Strange Village

Poker-face grabbed me. My heart skipped a beat, and my first thought was: When did they get there?

Living in the city, we're used to looking straight ahead. Here, it never occurs to you to look at the hilltops, so when we first arrived, I had no idea if anyone was on that slope. If they'd been up there from the start, then they must have seen us climb into the stilt house, which was not good.

And judging by their expressions, they all seemed hostile, watching coldly from a distance. It was like the look villagers gave traitors in old black-and-white movies.

I was a bit at a loss, stopping for a moment to stare back at them. These people were all between forty and fifty, but mountain life is hard and makes people look older, so they might actually be younger. Two of them carried shoulder poles, as if they'd just brought something down from the mountain. They made no move at all, just stared straight at us.

I wasn't welcome in my hometown of Changsha, and I'd seen this kind of situation before. That expression meant they were very wary of us, but still unsure who we were. It seemed likely they'd seen everything we just did.

In a mountain village, you absolutely cannot offend the locals. The consequences would be unimaginable — at best we'd be kicked out, at worst taken straight to the police station. Our trip to Changbai Mountain, where we were betrayed by Brother Chu, left our records dirty. We didn't even know if we were wanted. If we ended up at the station and they checked the network, who knows what bigger trouble might come.

If we tried to climb back in now, we'd be asking for a beating. Fatty made a few "beee" sounds behind us, hinting for us to leave quickly and not stare back at them. That would be provocative, and we might piss them off enough to come down.

Being sneaky already left a shadow in my heart, and now my heart raced even faster. I tensed up, feeling a pressure pressing down from the mountain. But when I looked at the stilt house, I felt I couldn't leave. It was like something within reach but unattainable — like reading a novel where the answer is about to be revealed, but the author starts going in circles again. It was unbearable.

For a moment I didn't move. Fatty grabbed my arm and whispered, "Come back tonight. A few hours won't make a difference," while pulling me backward.

The three of us kept our bodies tense, trying to leave as naturally as possible. We walked into the village and only turned back after a good distance. Seeing that the villagers hadn't followed, we finally breathed a sigh of relief.

This scene was a bit like when I was a kid and went with Old Yang to steal oranges from an orchard. We came out and ran right into the owner, our pockets full of oranges, scared to death, so we pretended to be just passing by. That tension made it hard to even move your feet. Now of course I wasn't as scared as back then, but it still felt bad, and also a little funny.

Relying on memory, we took a few detours and went back to Agui's place. Agui wasn't there; his eldest daughter was weaving a winnowing basket. When she saw us, she asked why we were back so soon. I said it was too hot, we couldn't take it.

Fatty went straight back to the room and hid the iron chest under the bed. Only then did we relax, feeling the matter was behind us. Fatty said, "A fall into a pit, a gain in your wit. From now on, let's not be so impatient during the day. We need to scope out the situation first. Also, I think we should grease Agui's palm. He's the local big shot. We need to get him on our side, so when the time comes, we'll have someone to speak for us."

I thought to myself that it probably wouldn't help. This murky water, I was afraid he wouldn't want to wade into it either. Besides, there was a reason for my impatience. At this point, any unexpected development could trigger a butterfly effect, so it's better to be a little hasty.

After saying that, Fatty went out to ask for water. I was still thinking about the photos I hadn't seen, feeling restless and hot all over, so I lay down and forced myself to calm down. Soon I heard Fatty asking Agui's daughter where the mountain path behind the wooden house led and whether many people walked it. Agui's daughter said it led to a melon patch in the mountains. In summer, the watermelons were ripe, so people often went up to pick them. That old wooden house had been there for a long time; she'd heard an old woman once lived there.

I glanced at Poker-face and thought: An old woman? Could Poker-face have been living with an old woman before? Maybe those blank fifteen years of his were spent locked up there as a sex slave. That would be too tragic. Then I was surprised at where such a nasty thought came from. Probably I'd heard too many of Fatty's dirty jokes along the way.

But when Agui's daughter said "before," the time frame wasn't clear. It could have been much earlier, or it could have been after Poker-face left.

Then Fatty asked Agui's daughter about the disheveled man. It turned out there really was such a person. That madman had been there ever since she was born. No one knew who he was. The villagers called him "Ayu's son." He seemed to have been a hunter once but went mad somehow. He lived in a broken shack up in the mountains. Sometimes he'd come down to pick leftover food. Now he was rarely seen, probably too old to move around much. Some old folks took pity on him and would put food at the mountain pass, covered with a jar. He'd move the jar at night and take the food back.

I found this strange. The man I saw today was charging like a bull, not like an old man at all. Could it be that us city folk are even worse off than an old mountain madman?

It was indeed possible. When they said "old," who knew how old? Maybe he was only in his forties, but with no food or drink, exposed to the elements, he looked very old. Still, living year-round in the mountains, his physique must be extraordinary.

Fatty came in with a cup of water and said to me, "Hear that? It's watermelon season. There are too many people over there. You need to be patient. This isn't the wild, where you can do whatever you want. Rather than take that risk, let's just wait a bit. I think waiting until the dead of night is best. Lack of patience messes up 'big business'." I did the math and thought to myself: No. If he's really a madman, his behavior is unpredictable. He might well climb back to check it out. For him, climbing into an abandoned old house in the village is no big deal. Who knows what he'll do inside. So I said I couldn't wait. After lunch I'd go have another look. If I could get in, I'd get it over with.

Fatty gave a bitter smile, not wanting to argue further, and said, "Suit yourself."

To make a long story short, after lunch, Poker-face and I went back to the old house. We found several old geezers sitting under the big tree at the entrance, enjoying the cool.

The difference between stories and real life is that in stories you can always speed things up at the crucial moment, but in real life there are always damn surprises. I crouched under a tree nearby, waiting for those old men to leave. I waited until the oil on my forehead was practically frying, but instead they chatted more cheerfully than ever.

I could hardly describe the anxiety clogging my chest. I didn't want to go back and let Fatty mock me, so I spent several hours in unease. Fatty came looking for us later; when he saw we hadn't come back for so long, he thought we'd been caught.

By now I had gradually calmed down, or rather "hot-calm," because the blazing sun was high, the air rippling with humid heat waves. Even fanning ourselves with banana leaves was useless. We were steamed until we felt swollen, too hot to have any motivation. All that anxiety was baked out through my pores. Poker-face really amazed me. Even in this heat, he stood unmoved, showing no sign of irritation, though he was also drenched in sweat. Even this iceberg of a cool guy couldn't resist the Guangxi sun.

Fatty taunted me, but I had no strength to argue back. He'd been in Beijing too long and couldn't get used to the humidity and heat here at all; he was even more miserable. So he said to us, "Let's go, go, go. Don't just wait around. Let's take a walk and find a creek to soak in, or I'm going to stink."

Outside the village, there was a mountain stream. We'd seen it on our way in — not wide, but with a fast current. At the time, I thought it must be a great place to escape the heat, but I didn't know how to get there from the village.

I really couldn't take it anymore. As soon as I heard that, it sounded good, so I got up and the three of us went together. Along the way we asked a few villagers, who pointed us in the right direction. Fatty picked a banana leaf to shield his head, cursing the sun all the way as we twisted and turned out of the stockade.

The stockade and the stream were basically adjacent. Mountain villages are usually built beside streams, with a stone beach between them. When heavy rain comes, the water rises, and these pebbles act as a buffer. We looked from the ridge and saw quite a few people playing in the water. It seemed the locals weren't immune to the heat either.

The emerald-green stream water was calmer than what we'd seen downstream. As we approached, a wave of coolness hit us. Most of the people playing were children. Teenage girls around fifteen or sixteen wore only shirts without underwear, their wet clothes clinging to their bodies, revealing graceful figures. Fatty perked up instantly, stripped off his clothes in a flash, and charged into the stream like Zhu Bajie seeing the Spider Demon.

I felt it was unsightly to be in just briefs, so I went into the water in my sports shorts. The stream water under the sun was a bit warm. I walked to a shady spot under a rock. Poker-face didn't get in the water; he sat under a tree nearby, cooling off.

After soaking for a while, the heat was completely gone, replaced by a leisurely comfort. Fatty was playing with the girls, and Poker-face was dozing off. I looked up toward the village and could see Poker-face's stilt house not far away. This was much more comfortable than waiting idly at Agui's place.

It was like a candidate waiting for the exam results; waiting in front of the bulletin board is more bearable than waiting at home. The anxiety from earlier made me feel a bit sorry for myself, so I told myself: Don't be nervous. This time we're not tomb raiding. Nothing will happen here. No zombies. Just take it slow.

So I lay down, submerged my body in the water, closed my eyes, and stretched out.

I don't know how long I lay there. As I was drifting off, I suddenly heard someone calling me. I slowly came to. Just as I sat up, a splash of water hit my face, jolting me awake. When I got up, I saw that the children playing in the water had all run back to the shore, shouting and running in one direction. Fatty was splashing me and yelling, "Wake up!"

I stood up and saw that somewhere in the village, smoke was rising. I asked what was going on. Fatty said, "Looks like a house is on fire."

I looked toward that direction. It was where Poker-face's stilt house stood. I immediately felt a sense of doom.