Shijia Bridge sat right on the highway. For safety's sake, Li Zhuiyuan stood by the roadside beneath the bridge, looking south every now and then to see if the car had arrived, then glancing over at Uncle Qin beside him.
Noticing Li Zhuiyuan's repeated glances, Uncle Qin looked down and asked, "Is there something you want to ask?"
"Uncle, was the movie tonight good?"
"Yeah, it was good. A pity you and A-Li were seated so far off to the side. You probably couldn't see very clearly."
"I saw clearly. It was good."
After that, Li Zhuiyuan fell silent and stopped looking at the man beside him.
Uncle Qin straightened up. He had thought the boy would ask about that matter, but he hadn't.
The child had always possessed a keen sense of propriety, which easily endeared him to others.
Yet thinking carefully about it, whenever an urgent need arose, he would break through those boundaries without hesitation—just like last time, and just like today.
A black sedan slowed as it reached the bridge. The window rolled down, and the driver poked her head out. It was a woman with a perm of wavy curls.
"Hello, are you Li Zhuiyuan?"
"Yes."
"Engineer Luo sent me to pick you up. Get in."
The car turned around and pulled over.
Li Zhuiyuan and Uncle Qin got in, both sitting in the back.
To make time, the car sped along, occasionally jerking the steering wheel or slamming the brakes to dodge bicycles and tricycles running without lights.
After riding for a short while, Li Zhuiyuan began to feel sick. He was car-sick.
With matters so urgent, he was too embarrassed to ask the driver to slow down. He could only turn the small crank handle on his door, hoping to crack the window for fresh air.
He cranked and cranked, but the glass didn't budge. After a few more turns, the little handle snapped right off the door.
Li Zhuiyuan could only slide the handle back onto its peg, leaning back against the seat in mild defeat.
Just then, Uncle Qin reached over, placing his palm flat against the window glass.
With a screech of harsh friction, the window was forced down by hand.
As fresh air blew in from outside, Li Zhuiyuan let out a relieved breath.
Still, he worried the driver might get angry, but she seemed completely focused on the road, oblivious to the change in the back.
Li Zhuiyuan tried turning the little handle in reverse, and once he found he could still roll the glass back up, he relaxed completely.
After helping open the window, Uncle Qin closed his eyes to rest, looking as though he had fallen asleep.
Li Zhuiyuan also turned slightly, resting his head against the seatback, hoping to doze off.
Yet for some reason, the car rattled with abnormal loudness as it drove. With his ear pressed against the seat in this posture, he could actually hear an incessant howling wind.
At first, Li Zhuiyuan thought it was because the window was open and letting gusts pour through. He cranked the window back up a bit, leaving only a tiny crack.
Yet when he leaned back in the same position, the wind in his ears hadn't changed in the slightest.
Li Zhuiyuan couldn't help but wonder: *Why is this Japanese car as thin as paper?*
Curious, he pressed a hand against the back of the seat. The surface sank in, forming a hollow groove that didn't spring back.
Li Zhuiyuan sat upright in silence. Best not to sleep, then; he would tough it out until they reached the hospital.
He looked out the window. The rural highway had no streetlights yet, leaving the outside pitch-black with nothing much to see, though whenever they passed through a township, shops and small clusters of people came into view.
Only, the lights from those shops were blindingly sharp.
In a daze, he felt as though the light wasn't shining in through the windows at all, but rather as if the entire car were translucent.
Yet this wasn't downtown, and the evening shops in town hardly possessed dense neon signs.
The car left the township roads and entered the city proper. The road conditions improved, but traffic grew heavier.
The other vehicles seemed utterly unruly: cutting people off and changing lanes without signaling were common sights. The driver honked relentlessly in fury, grumbling curses under her breath.
She spoke in authentic Nantong dialect; Li Zhuiyuan felt his grandfather, Li Weihan, couldn't speak the local tongue half as authentically as this woman.
After a grueling journey, the People's Hospital building finally appeared ahead.
Right then, Li Zhuiyuan noticed the driver staring at him and Uncle Qin through the rearview mirror. Seeing him look back, their eyes locked through the reflection.
This puzzled Li Zhuiyuan deeply, because the driver's gaze never returned to the road ahead.
Meanwhile, through the windshield, he could see their car drifting into the oncoming lane, straight toward an approaching truck.
"Watch out for the truck!" Li Zhuiyuan shouted.
Yet the driver never broke her fixed stare in the rearview mirror. Far from hitting the brakes, she stepped on the gas.
At this rate, they would crash head-on into the truck within seconds.
Uncle Qin opened his eyes. He raised both feet and stomped downward.
*Bang!*
Li Zhuiyuan's eyes went wide. He watched Uncle Qin's feet stomp clean through the floorboards!
Immediately after, Uncle Qin reached out and grabbed the boy by the nape of his neck. Li Zhuiyuan felt himself hoisted up.
It was a bizarre sensation: you were sitting inside a car, yet when lifted, your body somehow decoupled from the vehicle's momentum. What followed defied every law of physics in his mind.
*Crash! Clatter!*
The car seats, rear windshield, and trunk all smashed straight through their bodies.
He felt the force—it stung, but not severely.
The next instant, Li Zhuiyuan found himself standing on the road, held up by Uncle Qin. Passing right before them was a sedan whose back seats had been punched through with a gaping hole.
With unstoppable momentum, the sedan hurtled straight toward the oncoming truck.
The expected roar of a collision never came. Most of the sedan disintegrated instantly, and what remained was flattened beneath the truck's wheels.
All around, splinters of bamboo and wood sprayed outward, alongside scattering clouds of colored paper.
This car was made of paper!
Uncle Qin turned sideways and led Li Zhuiyuan onto the sidewalk steps. As the truck rumbled past before them, the driver in the cab could be seen rubbing his eyes furiously, checking his rearview mirrors again and again.
He, too, seemed to feel he had struck something, yet wondered if fatigue behind the wheel had caused an illusion.
Uncle Qin set Li Zhuiyuan down. Taking a deep breath, Li Zhuiyuan asked, "Uncle, what kind of car were we just riding in?"
"You've seen them before. There are some on the first floor at home."
"But..." Li Zhuiyuan looked around, then gazed back toward the hospital building ahead. "Are we really at the People's Hospital?"
"We are."
Li Zhuiyuan reached out instinctively to touch Uncle Qin's arm. He couldn't tell whether the Uncle Qin before him was real or fake; what if Uncle Qin hadn't caught the soy sauce bottle this time either?
Uncle Qin pointed ahead. "The hospital gates are right there. Aren't you going in?"
"But are we really here?" Li Zhuiyuan still couldn't comprehend it.
"Where else would we be?"
"How was it done?"
Li Zhuiyuan furrowed his brows. He could accept paper effigies turning into living people, he could accept the wild absurdities in dreams, and he could even accept that he had just ridden in a car made of funeral papercraft.
What he couldn't comprehend was how he had actually ridden a paper car all the way from Siyuan Village into the city!
Uncle Qin patted Li Zhuiyuan's shoulder gently. "She carried us on her back."
"Huh?"
Uncle Qin seemed disinclined to explain further. "Go on in. If you dawdle any longer, that big friend of yours might die."
"Oh, right."
Li Zhuiyuan reined in his thoughts and walked into the hospital with Uncle Qin. At this hour, they needed to check the emergency room first.
Yet on the steps below the building, Li Zhuiyuan spotted the female driver from before, wearing the exact same clothes and permed wavy hair.
Holding what looked like documents or test results, the woman wore an anxious expression, stopping passing medical staff from time to time to ask questions.
Most importantly, she didn't seem to recognize the two of them at all. Even though they stood so close, she showed no reaction.
"Uncle, is she alive?"
"Yeah."
Li Zhuiyuan stepped forward and asked, "Auntie, could I ask where Xue Liangliang is?"
"Little boy, who are you?"
"My name is Li Zhuiyuan. Director Luo told me to come."
"Director Luo... The car I arranged only just left a short while ago. Did you come on your own?"
"Yes."
"All right, I'll take you upstairs first."
The woman led Li Zhuiyuan and Uncle Qin up the stairs. In their brief exchange, Li Zhuiyuan learned that although emergency resuscitation had just ended, Xue Liangliang's condition was very poor, with signs of systemic organ decline.
Inside the ward, Luo Tingrui stood by Xue Liangliang's bed, looking down at him with an anxious expression.
He truly couldn't understand why a simple lurch of the boat and a brief fall into the river—from which Xue had been pulled out almost immediately—had resulted in this state.
At this moment, Xue Liangliang was pale-faced, still muttering deliriously:
"No, no, no, I don't want to stay here! I won't be a matrilocal son-in-law! I won't marry in!"
Luo Tingrui adjusted his glasses. He couldn't fathom why Liangliang was saying such things in his sleep.
He hadn't even introduced his daughter to him yet, nor did he have any interest in taking in a matrilocal son-in-law. So which family was forcing him?
Then again, who could force him?
Luo Tingrui knew about Xue Liangliang's conduct at school. The lad was quite capable of earning money, and he had no intention of staying on at the university, remaining local, or securing a cushy government job. His mind was set entirely on heading to the Great Southwest after graduation to work on national construction.
To be frank, as an outstanding graduate of Haihe University, considering the working conditions in the Southwest right now, any unit out there would welcome him with open arms; there was no need to pull strings or find connections.
Baffling as these ravings were, they were at least intelligible. Earlier, Xue Liangliang's ravings had been:
"Don't lock me up! Don't hit me! Don't strangle me! It hurts so much, it hurts... Please, let me go, don't torture me anymore..."
At that point, Luo Tingrui had even begun to wonder whether Xue Liangliang had suffered some inhumane abuse in childhood that left deep psychological scars.
The door opened, and Li Zhuiyuan led Uncle Qin inside. Luo Tingrui nodded at Li Zhuiyuan, but his gaze fell primarily on Uncle Qin.
Overlooking a small child was only natural; he already surmised that the middle-aged man would be the one who could help.
The doctors had already said they had done all they could. Although monitors were hooked up, they could only keep him under passive observation. If his vitals worsened further, the outcome would be irreversible.
Luo Tingrui was not an obstinate man. Thinking of Zhao Hequan still lying in the hospital and Xue Liangliang's earlier ordeal, he had reason to suspect the trouble sparked by that divine statue was far from over.
"Please step outside for now," Luo Tingrui told the woman.
"Yes, Director." The woman left the ward.
Luo Tingrui then pointed to himself. "Do I need to step out?"
Uncle Qin didn't answer. Walking straight to the other side of the bed, he placed a hand on Xue Liangliang's forehead and rubbed gently.
Soon, cold sweat broke out across Xue Liangliang's face in copious amounts, soaking the pillow almost instantly.
Luo Tingrui grabbed a towel to wipe it away, but the moment he touched it, he found the sweat astonishingly greasy, like lubricating oil used in a machine shop.
How could human sweat look and feel like this?
Right then, Uncle Qin balled his fist and punched straight down toward Xue Liangliang's abdomen.
"Don't!" Luo Tingrui couldn't stop him in time.
*Thud!*
Li Zhuiyuan noticed Uncle Qin's fist didn't actually hit Xue Liangliang; it stopped just short. Yet the quilt over Xue Liangliang's belly suddenly caved inward.
A piercing, shrill shriek instantly rang through the entire ward.
Li Zhuiyuan covered his ears at once, but to no avail. His eardrums throbbed with sharp pain, on the verge of being pierced through, and his brain felt as though someone were bludgeoning it with an iron hammer.
Luo Tingrui caught only a faint hint of a strange noise before glancing in confusion at Uncle Qin, and finally at the boy curled against the corner wall, wondering what was wrong with him.
Uncle Qin's gaze also shifted to Li Zhuiyuan.
Surprise flickered in Uncle Qin's eyes. He hadn't expected Xiao Yuan's perception of such things to be so extraordinarily sharp.
Liu Yumei's instructions echoed in his mind: *Only teach him hand-to-hand martial arts.*
Uncle Qin swallowed hard.
*A boy like this, and we only teach him martial arts?*
Over on the bed, after pouring sweat and receiving the phantom blow, Xue Liangliang remained asleep, but his demeanor looked far more relaxed.
Only then did Luo Tingrui breathe a sigh of relief and close his eyes, exhaling heavily.
"Ah..."
The screeching finally ceased, though Li Zhuiyuan's head continued to buzz.
He was about to brace himself against the wall to stand up, but as soon as he lifted his head slightly, he caught sight of something in the southwest corner of the ward: a pair of red embroidered shoes. Above them was a pale-bluish ankle, and higher still, the hem of a red skirt.
Li Zhuiyuan didn't look any higher, because he didn't dare.
He had seen several dead-flippers before, but none had ever inspired such intense alarm and dread.
She was not something he could observe, not even in secret. If he kept looking at her, disaster would fall upon him immediately.
The *Jianghu Zhiguai Lu* recorded powerful floating corpses with a phrase: *He who beholds them meets ruin.*
The word used was "ruin" rather than "death," yet ruin was sometimes more terrifying than death itself. With entities like this, even establishing visual contact could draw calamity down upon a person in an instant.
Uncle Qin noticed Li Zhuiyuan, who was crouching on the floor, turning his body in another direction.
He followed the direction Li Zhuiyuan had been looking, then looked back at the boy. His throat felt dry.
Not because of the one standing in the corner of the ward.
Rather:
*Xiao Yuan, can you even see her?*
He knew A-Li could see, but what was the point of A-Li seeing?
She locked herself entirely inside her own world, nearly cut off from everything outside.
Yet this little boy could speak, act, and run around full of life!
Li Zhuiyuan heard footsteps. It was Uncle Qin moving, stepping from the bedside toward the corner behind him.
Uncle Qin was approaching that woman.
Indeed, from Luo Tingrui's perspective, the middle-aged man had simply walked to the corner and stood there silently, as if facing the wall in self-reflection.
Luo Tingrui couldn't understand it, though he knew that if he could, he wouldn't be working in his current government department.
Meanwhile, Xue Liangliang, his condition improved, began raving again:
"I'm not living here! I won't stay here! I have a career to pursue, I have dreams to fulfill! You can't keep me here! I don't agree, I will never agree!"
Luo Tingrui looked puzzled. Was it because Liangliang was feeling better that he spoke with so much more confidence and grit?
Li Zhuiyuan turned his back to Uncle Qin's direction, stood up, and slowly moved toward the bed, watching Xue Liangliang.
He hadn't heard the two earlier outbursts, only this one. Lacking key context, he was in the dark.
Still, his current situation felt surreal: on one hand, it seemed terribly dangerous, but on the other, Uncle Qin's presence gave him a strong sense of security.
Luo Tingrui pointed toward Uncle Qin in the corner. Li Zhuiyuan shook his head at him, and Luo Tingrui understood, remaining still.
Xue Liangliang stopped muttering, and the room sank into a long, eerie silence.
Finally,
Uncle Qin broke the atmosphere.
He walked back to the bedside, pulled off his undershirt right before Li Zhuiyuan and Luo Tingrui, and tossed it onto the IV stand.
Then, using both index fingers, Uncle Qin began tracing lines across his arms, shoulders, and chest.
With every stroke, dark bruises of varying length and depth appeared.
Any one of these marks would have made an ordinary person scream in agony, yet Uncle Qin looked as if he were simply applying pigment to his own skin.
His expression was utterly serene, as though performing the most mundane, ordinary task.
Luo Tingrui had no idea what the man was doing, but once Li Zhuiyuan noticed the bruises on the left and right formed a symmetrical pattern, he understood: Uncle Qin was drawing talismans.
Fingers for brushes, body for paper, and the fresh wounds for ink.
Once finished, Uncle Qin walked to the door and pulled it open.
He looked back toward the corner where he had just stood,
and declared,
"I know why the Mistress sent me today. She wanted me to give the Bai family a message: The Qin clan hasn't died out yet!"
With that, Uncle Qin pressed his right thumb to the space between his eyebrows. When he pulled it away, a trail of blood remained, completing the final stroke of the talisman script.
Suddenly, a wind arose inside the ward.
It wasn't strong, very faint, yet piercingly cold. Li Zhuiyuan shivered involuntarily, and across from him, Luo Tingrui folded his arms as well.
The wind didn't arise only in this room; it stirred across the entire floor, and even several floors above and below, converging right here.
In a blur, Li Zhuiyuan seemed to see numerous shadows flowing into Uncle Qin's body along with the draft, including a red shadow from this very ward.
*He's drawing all those unclean things into his own body?*
Uncle Qin stood in place for a long time before taking a step. He walked back to the bed, took his undershirt, and slipped it back on.
Li Zhuiyuan noticed that at first, Uncle Qin's steps were stiff, and even his facial expression looked vacant. But once dressed, he seemed to return to normal... or perhaps he had simply adapted.
The lights in the ward appeared noticeably brighter and clearer. In fact, it wasn't just this room; a good half of the building felt much fresher and brighter.
Hospital lighting at night often looked dim and hazy not because of the bulbs, but because such places harbored more of certain things.
Moreover, the appearance of the female driver and the paper car meant that the dreadful entity had long since cast its influence over this ward, watching even Luo Tingrui's actions.
Uncle Qin looked at Luo Tingrui. "I need to go somewhere. I need a vehicle."
Luo Tingrui said, "The car I sent to fetch you should still be downstairs."
"Director Luo, that car isn't there," Li Zhuiyuan said.
"Then how did you get here so fast?"
Li Zhuiyuan replied, "We rode a pedicab."
"Then... I'll arrange a motorcycle. Can you ride one?" Luo Tingrui looked at Uncle Qin.
Uncle Qin nodded. "Yes."
"All right, I'll have someone set it up right away." Luo Tingrui led Uncle Qin out of the room, called over the female comrade, gave instructions, and signaled for Uncle Qin to follow her down to fetch the vehicle.
As they stepped out, Li Zhuiyuan, staying behind in the ward, heard Xue Liangliang muttering again:
"No, I won't marry you! There's no love between us! We only just met! I don't treat marriage so casually! Stop dreaming!"
Li Zhuiyuan couldn't help wondering if Brother Liangliang was acting out a Chiung Yao romance drama in his sleep.
Lately, romantic melodrama had become a craze, with university students among its main audience. Li Zhuiyuan often saw older students on campus discussing the shows or holding the novels.
Just then, Uncle Qin returned to the doorway. "Xiao Yuan, let's go."
"Coming, Uncle."
Li Zhuiyuan followed Uncle Qin downstairs to collect the motorcycle. As the kickstarter was kicked down, the engine roared to life.
Uncle Qin rode fast, weaving rapidly through the city before heading toward the outskirts.
Sitting behind him without a helmet, Li Zhuiyuan could only press his face against Uncle Qin's back to shield himself from the wind, gripping Uncle Qin's waist with both hands.
He felt an overwhelming sense of wonder: Uncle Qin had been farming fields that afternoon, had just faced down a red-dressed woman in a hospital ward, and now was tearing through the night on a motorcycle.
Li Zhuiyuan could feel the sheer madness of this world.
Meanwhile, in the hospital room, Luo Tingrui once again heard Xue Liangliang's ravings:
"No, coming back once a month is impossible! My future work won't allow me to leave the construction site! That's the culmination of so many people's blood and sweat, I can't be that irresponsible!
"Once every six months won't do either! Major engineering projects in the future won't have such short timelines, and not a single mistake can be permitted!
"My future isn't in Nantong, nor in Jiangsu! I'm going to the Great Southwest—that's my dream, that's my future!
"So stop dreaming, really! I won't marry you, and you can forget about binding me here!"
Luo Tingrui took off his glasses, breathed warm air onto the lenses, and wiped them on his clothes.
He felt moved, sorrowful, and somewhat amused all at once. *You wretched lad, reduced to such a sorry state, yet still dreaming of building the Great Southwest.*
Putting his glasses back on, Luo Tingrui sighed.
Middle-aged people were habitually dismissive of the halo of idealism on youth, deeming it naive and immature, yet rarely reflected on whether it was they themselves who had fallen and lost their way.
"Liangliang, if you pull through this time, I'll take you to the Southwest myself."
...
The motorcycle reached the riverbank. Li Zhuiyuan hopped off. Uncle Qin propped the bike up, dusted off his hands, and stared at the water with eyes full of deep emotion.
Li Zhuiyuan remembered Liu Yumei mentioning that her ancestral roots were on the river.
Since ancient times, great rivers had always been the cradle of civilizations.
The sand and silt along both banks were piled high with countless joys and sorrows, and who knew how many tales and mysteries had settled at the bottom of the river with the passage of time.
Brother Liangliang had mentioned that the local gazetteer recorded the wrong location for Baijia Town... Facing the direction of Chongming Island, Li Zhuiyuan roughly estimated the bearing and distance.
A suspicion gradually formed in his heart:
*Could Baijia Town really lie at the bottom of the river right before us?*
Uncle Qin began stripping off his clothes. Unlike at the hospital where he had removed only his undershirt, this time he stripped down completely, folding his clothes neatly on the bank and weighting them down with a cobblestone.
Next, Uncle Qin rolled his neck, reached up with both hands just beneath his ears, and tore violently downward.
Li Zhuiyuan heard the sound of ripping flesh. Looking closely, he saw five long wounds beneath both of Uncle Qin's ears.
As blood oozed from the slits, they opened and closed rhythmically.
Like... bloody fish gills.
Immediately after, Uncle Qin began stretching his limbs. With each movement, the crisp popping of joints came from within, accompanied by the tearing of flesh.
Soon, dense streaks resembling stretch marks appeared across Uncle Qin's body.
Only, they weren't on his belly, but evenly distributed across his arms and legs.
After finishing the set of stretches, Uncle Qin paused, standing in place to steady his breathing. The bloody slits beneath his ears opened and shut in sync with his breath.
Li Zhuiyuan felt Uncle Qin had changed somehow; his physical frame had undergone a distinct transformation.
"Xiao Yuan."
"Yeah."
"Keep an eye on the things on the bank."
"Got it, Uncle."
Uncle Qin nodded, leaned forward, and began running under the moonlight.
He wasn't running exceptionally fast, yet his body moved with astonishing grace. Reaching the water's edge, he leapt forward, plunging into the river and vanishing instantly.
Like a fish returning to water.
Li Zhuiyuan glanced at the river, which had settled into stillness once more, then looked at Uncle Qin's clothes on the bank.
He raised a hand and tapped his own forehead, as if only now realizing what had just transpired.
"He really... just went down like that?"
Li Zhuiyuan stood for a while, but as his legs grew sore, he sat down.
Time ticked away. Uncle Qin had been down for a long time, and the river surface showed no sign of activity, not even an unusual bubble.
Yet all Li Zhuiyuan could do was wait.
He yawned and looked toward the horizon. The dark night resembled a garment washed too many times, its deep shade thinning out, soon to turn pale with dawn.
Shaking his head, Li Zhuiyuan forced away his drowsiness, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and stood up once more to gaze across the water.
This time, he spotted movement.
Out in the middle of the river, a figure seemed to surface and disappear. Just as Li Zhuiyuan wondered if his eyes were playing tricks, he saw Uncle Qin walking out of the river near the bank.
His body was covered in shocking wounds, many blackened and oozing pus.
Most terrifying was the gash across his chest, so deep and long that white bone was nearly visible beneath.
Yet Uncle Qin acted completely unbothered, squatting by the bank to wash himself with river water.
Li Zhuiyuan brought the clothes over. Up close, he saw numerous long fingernails and teeth still embedded inside Uncle Qin's wounds.
Seeing them made it easy to imagine how those things had swarmed him, tearing and biting in frenzy.
At the same time, Li Zhuiyuan noticed a distinct anger in Uncle Qin's eyes.
Uncle was furious.
"Uncle, how did it go?"
"Not well."
"Did it fail?"
"It was almost a success." Uncle Qin reached down and pulled out a long fingernail as he spoke.
"And then?" Li Zhuiyuan stepped behind Uncle Qin, grabbed a severed finger embedded in his back, and yanked hard. The finger was still wriggling; though clearly human anatomy, it felt like a freshly chopped snake.
Li Zhuiyuan threw the finger onto the ground, where it continued crawling toward the river, its blood-red nail glinting eerily.
"Smash it," Uncle Qin said.
"Okay." Li Zhuiyuan picked up a stone and brought it down hard. The finger deformed, yet kept wriggling. After several more fierce strikes, it was finally mashed to pulp and stopped moving.
Li Zhuiyuan panted, reluctant to look down at the bloody mess.
*Plop!*
Uncle Qin pulled another finger from his body and tossed it in front of Li Zhuiyuan, his meaning unmistakable.
Li Zhuiyuan had no choice but to lift the stone again and smash away.
If an early riser had passed by and seen this from afar, they might well have thought it a heartwarming father-and-son scene.
Once the unclean things embedded in his flesh were cleared out, Uncle Qin picked up his clothes and put them on.
"Uncle, your wounds..."
"We'll let your aunt handle them when we get back."
"Oh." Li Zhuiyuan nodded, then asked, "Uncle, is Baijia Town really down there?"
"You know that much?"
"Brother Liangliang told me all of it."
"Yeah, it's down there."
"Then were you in Baijia Town just now, Uncle?"
"I got in. Everything was about to be settled, but..."
"But what happened?"
"You'll see when we get back to the hospital. That big friend of yours really makes people look at him in a new light. A ruthless character, truly, too ruthless."
Li Zhuiyuan could tell Uncle Qin was angry because things hadn't gone the way he intended, and the person responsible for that outcome seemed to be Xue Liangliang.
"Get on."
"Uncle, can you still ride?"
"You want to drive instead?"
Li Zhuiyuan obediently climbed onto the motorcycle.
When they reached a rural house on the outskirts, Uncle Qin stopped, walked onto the courtyard, took a coat hanging from the clothesline to drape over himself, and clipped some cash onto the line.
With so many wounds on his body, a mere undershirt couldn't cover them, and he probably wouldn't even be allowed into the hospital.
The motorcycle pulled into the hospital grounds, and Uncle Qin parked.
As Li Zhuiyuan dismounted, he asked, "Uncle, will Baijia Town keep causing trouble in the future?"
Those Lady Bais were practically impossible to shake off; Li Zhuiyuan was genuinely afraid another one would pop up before long.
"Things will stay quiet for a long time, because the greatest Lady Bai has already given her word."
In truth, compared to his injuries, the outcome of the Bai family affair gave Qin Li a far bigger headache.
His mission had been to slap the Bai family back into place, yet the slap had only landed halfway when the remaining half couldn't be driven through.
He still had to figure out how to explain this to Liu Yumei upon their return.
"Uncle Qin, Grandma Liu was only in a bad mood today, but a whole night has passed now. I think after a good sleep, Grandma Liu will have calmed down."
Qin Li nodded. He felt the boy was quite right, and he could tell the lad was comforting him. Still, he had grown accustomed to such behavior from the child.
"Let's go, Xiao Yuan. Go up and see your friend, then we'll head home."
"All right."
Heading upstairs back to the ward, they ran into Luo Tingrui stepping out with a thermos. "You're back! Perfect timing. Liangliang woke up earlier, but fell back asleep. Keep an eye on him for a moment while I fetch some hot water."
Li Zhuiyuan walked into the room and saw that the monitoring equipment had already been detached from Xue Liangliang. The young man was no longer comatose, but sleeping soundly.
"Uncle, is he all right now?"
"He's in big trouble."
"What?"
"Ask him yourself when he wakes up. I'm going downstairs to buy some bandages." Uncle Qin got up and left the ward.
Just then, the sleeping Xue Liangliang ground his teeth and began muttering in his sleep:
"Two years? Two years won't do, at least three. I can only guarantee I'll visit you once every three years."
Xue Liangliang clutched his quilt and rolled over, continuing his sleep-talk:
"We won't have children, will we?"
Hearing Xue Liangliang's words, shock appeared on Li Zhuiyuan's face. He seemed to piece together an astonishing realization, yet because it was so utterly preposterous, he convinced himself he must have misunderstood.
At that moment, Xue Liangliang stirred awake. He looked at Li Zhuiyuan standing by the bedside, and Li Zhuiyuan looked back at him.
After a brief pause, Xue Liangliang pulled back his gaze, sat up against the bedhead, and stared blankly ahead, looking as though he had just suffered a devastating blow.
Li Zhuiyuan picked up an orange from the bedside table and peeled it in silence.
Finally, Xue Liangliang spoke, his voice bleak, laden with heavy melancholy and desolation:
"Xiao Yuan, let me tell you something terrifying."
"Go ahead, brother, I'm listening."
Li Zhuiyuan finished peeling the orange, pulled off a slice, and fed it to Xue Liangliang. Xue Liangliang took it into his mouth, and his already miserable expression grew sourer still.
Xue Liangliang held his mouth open, unable to speak for a moment, the emotions he had so carefully gathered abruptly derailed.
Just as he regained his composure and prepared to speak, Li Zhuiyuan offered a second slice to his lips.
"Xiao Yuan, you have some too."
"No, it's sour."
"Then why..." The second slice entered his mouth.
Tears welled in Xue Liangliang's eyes. Chewing, his voice trembled as he said, "Xiao Yuan, your big brother is married."
"Congratulations."
Li Zhuiyuan offered another orange slice. This time Xue Liangliang didn't resist. Eating the fruit, whether from the sourness or genuine emotion, tears streamed down his face.
"Your sister-in-law is actually a pretty good person."
"As long as she's good, that's what counts," Li Zhuiyuan agreed, nodding. "My grandfather told us that choosing a partner is mainly about character and personality. Other things, like how good-looking they are or whether they're dead or alive, don't matter."
Xue Liangliang looked at Li Zhuiyuan with a pained expression, his mouth taking another slice of orange. "Your grandfather is quite open-minded."
"Yeah."
Li Zhuiyuan finally sorted out the logic. Uncle Qin had been fighting on the front lines, while Xue Liangliang had been negotiating at the table.
He and Uncle Qin had rushed all the way from the village to the hospital and then to the riverbank, ratcheting up pressure step by step. That had given Xue Liangliang better and better bargaining chips, forcing the other side into continual concessions.
Xue Liangliang himself had been completely unaware of this.
Yet just as Uncle Qin was about to breach their home base and settle the matter once and for all, Xue Liangliang thought he had secured the best possible deal and signed on the dotted line.
Had he held out for just a little longer, he wouldn't have had to get married at all.
No wonder Uncle Qin was furious. He was fighting tooth and nail on the front line, on the verge of victory, only for his own ally to sue for peace.
So Uncle Qin leaving the ward to buy bandages was probably just an excuse; staying in the room looking at the lad on the bed would likely make him want to punch him into the floor.
Li Zhuiyuan couldn't bear to break this truth to Brother Liangliang; it would be countless times sourer than the half-eaten orange in his hand.
What was done was done, an established fact. Better to comfort him, pick some positive topics, and ease his mind.
"Brother, did she ask for a bride price?"
"No, none of that."
"That's great. Free love, a modern marriage."
"Actually, your sister-in-law wanted to give me a dowry."
"See, how wonderful! Others would be green with envy."
"I flatly refused, of course." Xue Liangliang held his head high, like a proud young rooster.
"Mm, my Brother Liangliang has true backbone."
"You bet. I'd never be a matrilocal son-in-law."
"Impressive."
"I talked it through with your sister-in-law, and she agreed. I only need to come back to see her once every three years. The rest of the time, I can go wherever I want and do whatever I please."
"That's really great."
Li Zhuiyuan suddenly realized his worry had been entirely unnecessary. This was Xue Liangliang, a man of immense inner fortitude. No matter how dire the difficulty, he would never give up on life, always managing to adjust his mindset quickly.
Otherwise, there was no explaining the inexplicable hint of smug bragging in his tone. Finding joy in sorrow was resilient enough, but Brother Liangliang could turn bitterness straight into sugar water.
"Still, Xiao Yuan, I did make one concession."
"Oh?"
"I promised her that our second child will take her surname."
Chapter 24