Si Teng (Rattan) – CH 007

Chapter 7

Time flew by; three or four days had already passed.

Someone curiously asked Luolong Erjia about Si Teng.

“What’s that pretty woman upstairs like?”

She kept her door ajar day and night. Whenever that someone passed by, she’d be seen watching TV. How many lifetimes had she not watched TV? Was TV really that good? There were people who lacked the five elements—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—but had never heard of someone lacking TV.

Luolong Erjia thought these people were quite ignorant. He asked, “What’s wrong with watching TV? Haven’t you seen those news reports about gamers who stay awake for days and nights? They like watching TV. Maybe they want to be on TV. Maybe they’ll become a TV actor in the future.”

After sending them away, Luolong Erjia went to see Si Teng and reminded her, “Young lady, be careful when you’re living alone. Although hotels are safe, you can’t guarantee that every guest is a good person. What if someone has bad intentions? Don’t leave the door open when you sleep at night.”

Then he asked about Qin Fang, “What about your friend? Did he leave and will never come back?”

Si Teng’s eyelashes drooped slightly, and she said nonchalantly, “He’ll be back in two days.”

She then said, “Please help me make a cup of instant noodles later. I want seafood flavor this time.”

***

That night, Luolong Erjia was on duty again. After midnight, he heard the door open and a guest entered. As he approached, he looked familiar, and suddenly he remembered: Wasn’t that Qin Fang?

He greeted Qin Fang: “Oh, you’re back…”

He swallowed the rest of the words on his lips and looked at Qin Fang with some surprise: he looked extremely tired, his eyes were bloodshot, and there were scratches on his clothes and face. To be frank, he looked like a fugitive on the run.

He wondered what he’d been doing these past two days.

“Is my friend still here?”

Luolong Erjia’s thoughts were abruptly interrupted, and he stuttered, “She’s…upstairs. She hasn’t been out.”

“Didn’t cause you any trouble?”

“Oh no… no,” Luolong Erjia waved his hand quickly. “Han girls are very easy to talk to. She likes instant noodles morning, noon, and night. I told her she couldn’t eat them all the time, so she bought some biscuits.”

He finished his sentence by pointing to a corner of the counter, where several bags of tube-shaped biscuits were stacked. The packaging was similar to that of “Qu Duo Duo.” A closer look revealed the brand was “Qu Duo Shao.” These knockoffs might not be popular in big cities, but in some remote areas, they surprisingly found a market.

Qin Fang found it inconceivable that someone who loved instant noodles would even buy inferior biscuits. Si Teng seemed to be so picky about the quality of even her abalone and sea cucumber. She even used two fingers to pick up An Man’s clothes, yet she devoured a cup of noodles with relish? Unbelievable.

Unexpectedly, there was some interaction between Luolong Erjia and Si Teng. Qin Fang remained calm and inquired, “Did she mention me?”

“Oh, she said you’d be back in two days.”

“Back in two days?”

Luolong Erjia didn’t notice Qin Fang’s suddenly strange tone or the tightening of his gaze. He simply nodded frantically, “Yes, yes, back in two days.”

***

The past few days had been a nightmare for Qin Fang. Sitting in that bumpy little Jinbei car with Wangdui and Jinzhu, he was sweating more than he had ever sweated in his entire life. He lowered his head as much as he could, using his claw-like hands to pull the collar of his coat all the way up. He slowly pulled up his snow hat and pulled his scarf and gloves from the bag at his feet, covering his entire upper body with whatever he could. But he was still afraid. There might be a thousand or ten thousand people nearby, but only his clothes could cover a skeleton, unseen by the light.

He reached out and patted Wangdui again, mumbling, “Please stop, I need to go to the bathroom.”

Wangdui was so engrossed in singing that he didn’t notice Qin Fang’s voice was already raspy. He hummed a tune as he slowly braked.

Qin Fang got out of the car as naturally as possible. The door opened, and the cold wind from the mountainside hit his face. His feet felt like their joints were stiffening as they landed on the ground. Feeling guilty, he mentally reminded himself not to look, but his eyes, unable to stop, glanced ahead.

In the rearview mirror, his gaze met Jinzhu’s.

Jinzhu had been smiling, but her expression suddenly changed. She froze for a second or two, then screamed her heart out.

It wasn’t that she was timid. If you had seen two glass-sized eyes moving in two deep, nearly empty holes, staring straight at you, you would also collapse.

Qin Fang’s mind was instantly confused. Instinctively, he turned and ran. Behind him, Wangdui anxiously shouted something in Tibetan. Jinzhu screamed a few words, interspersed with a few unusually sharp words.

Senzhi! Senzhi!

In spoken Tibetan, “senzhi” meant “living ghost.” Qin Fang didn’t understand, but he guessed it wasn’t a good word. He hadn’t been running for long when he suddenly heard a car roar behind him. Wangdui had actually driven to catch up.

Qin Fang nearly collapsed. What would happen if Wangdui caught him? Would he be reported to the highest levels of government, with the news media rushing in to exaggerate and dig up his entire family? Or would he be sent to a laboratory like a monster and tortured? No, even if it meant death, he couldn’t be caught alive.

As he turned a corner, he saw the trees below and jumped off the road onto the slope. He stumbled and rolled a dozen times, landing on the next level of the mountain road. He didn’t care that the roots and branches scratched his face, but he stumbled and followed the same pattern again. The car was going around the mountain, unlike his direct route up and down. Seeing that he couldn’t catch up, Wangdui stopped the car and angrily jumped on the ridge, cursing.

He didn’t believe Jinzhu’s nonsense. It was just a woman’s blindness, her cries of delusion. How could there be ghosts in broad daylight? He was angry that Qin Fang hadn’t paid for the ride. The drive from Nangqian to here had been exhausting, and the fuel had been drained. This was the first time he’d seen someone so brazenly evade payment. The Han people were so cunning, so cruel!

***

Qin Fang didn’t dare take the main road, only scrambling down the slope through the woods. Occasionally, when he heard the sound of a car, he’d duck down, wishing he could just hide in the ground. He felt like he was no different from a wild mandrill. At dusk, he finally reached the foot of the mountain. Gazing at the gradually brightening lights of Nangqian, he suddenly lost all his temper.

That night, he huddled under a rock in the woods at the foot of the mountain, suffering. His phone still had battery, so he checked his friends’ WeChat and Weibo online. It was then that he realized 2013 had already passed.

Everyone was summarizing the past year and sharing their achievements with joyful pictures. Some were partying, feasting, buying new clothes, and taking selfies, and some were cursing their bosses for being stingy and refusing to give them a raise. All the excitement seemed to have been slashed to the roots by a sickle, no longer having anything to do with him. Qin Fang browsed blankly, and while working, he didn’t notice that he had liked a friend’s post. The person quickly tagged him: “When are you and An Man having your wedding? Hotels are tight at the end of the year, so book in advance. Don’t let your friends have the wedding at KFC.”

Did that person know that the person reading the phone on the other end was already a ghost?

Qin Fang gritted his teeth and clenched his phone tightly. The Tibetan nights were freezing cold. The wind struck like a whip, and his hands and feet quickly lost feeling. He leaned stiffly against a stone, dazed, a burning sensation trickling from the corner of his eyes into his mouth. Qin Fang was stunned for a long moment before realizing that he was actually crying.

Men didn’t cry easily. He hadn’t cried in his entire life, as far as he could remember, except for… the time Chen Wan died unexpectedly.

***

It has been a while, huh? Seven or eight years ago?

Back then, he was still young. Chen Wan was his first girlfriend. He fell in love with her at first sight and doted on her relentlessly. For a time, he had no sexual desire for anyone of the opposite sex. One day, Shan Zhigang stole the key to his father’s suburban villa, and a group of them gathered there. While Chen Wan was chatting with the other girls in the living room, the brothers pulled Qin Fang aside and gave him a lecture, calling him henpecked, saying that he eroded the dignity of men, and that he was destroying the backbone of Chinese men. Qin Fang, young and full of energy, felt rather embarrassed and said, “Who said that? I’m a role model for Chinese men!”

The brothers urged him, “Why not today? You should be our spokesperson today!”

The whole time was noisy, half drinking and half feasting. Finally, they dragged Qin Fang into a card game, punishing him with various punishment tickets. They were having a blast when Chen Wan came over. She had drunk too much and felt a little dizzy. She grabbed Qin Fang’s arm, yelling that she felt unwell, and urged him to take her home.

As soon as Chen Wan appeared, all the poker partners coughed and winked at each other, watching Qin Fang’s attempts to be a role model for Chinese men. Qin Fang’s face darkened, and he spoke harshly to Chen Wan, saying things like, “Can’t you see I’m busy? How could I be uncomfortable? Will someone die later?” Chen Wan, who had never been treated like that before, responded with red eyes and went downstairs. Qin Fang felt distressed, but since this was a matter of the backbone of Chinese men, he feigned nonchalance, greeting everyone: “Come on, play cards; don’t spoil the fun.”

A group of his friends yelled and showered Qin Fang with praise. Upstairs, the card game was in full swing, while downstairs, the girls huddled together to watch a horror movie, screaming and shrieking. It wasn’t until late at night, when the game was about to end, that Qin Fang realized Chen Wan was missing. When he asked, the girls replied, “Didn’t she go upstairs to watch you play cards?”

“Play cards? Didn’t she go downstairs to watch a movie with you guys?”

Qin Fang assumed Chen Wan had left in anger and that she’d inevitably have to apologize someday, so he didn’t take it seriously. After saying goodbye, he had just left the villa when he heard a scream from the other side.

A girl who had lagged behind noticed something lying in the swimming pool. Curious, she leaned over to take a look, then flipped on the poolside light. A single glimpse nearly frightened her to death.

It was Chen Wan, who had drowned in the pool.

***

The police later investigated and concluded that she had accidentally fallen into the water after drinking. To outsiders, it seemed like this girl had bad luck, a true calamity, a curse of fate. With so many people in the villa that day, half playing cards and half watching a horror movie, the noise was as chaotic as a street vendor’s archway, and no one heard her cries for help.

It was said that it would take only 4-6 minutes for someone to die from drowning. How desperate must Chen Wan have felt in those few hundred seconds?

Qin Fang knelt by the pool, crying until his voice was hoarse. Shan Zhigang and the others couldn’t pull him up. Later, Chen Wan’s father arrived and slapped him a dozen times before his friends persuaded him to leave. Qin Fang staggered to his feet, his nosebleed staining his chin and mouth, then dripping into the pool, where it lingered and bloomed, surprisingly gorgeous like a flower.

It had been a long time since he’d thought of Chen Wan. He’d assumed the passage of time had dulled the pain. Only then did he realize that some feelings never faded. They usually lay quietly, only to sneer and stretch in your most painful moments, reminding you that, even in this state, they still existed.

***

The resurfacing of memories of Chen Wan made time suddenly lose its meaning. Qin Fang curled up in the woods, staring blankly at the sun rising again and again, until his body inflicted another, even more unbearable torture.

Hunger.

Some might disagree that physical torture was more painful than mental torture, finding it vulgar and unrefined. However, it was undeniable that humans were inherently physiological creatures. Those who complained that mental torture was more unbearable were often well-fed. There were also figures like Boyi and Shuqi, who starved to death rather than eat Zhou grain. But in the long river of history, hasn’t there been only two such figures?

Qin Fang walked towards Nangqian. Pedestrians gradually filled the road, and the more people there were, the more nervous he became. He lowered his head, buying steamed buns and eggs outside a restaurant. As he waited for the owner to bag them, someone nearby suddenly yelled, “Hey!”

It wasn’t necessarily a call to him, but as panicked as Qin Fang was, his first reaction was, “Something went wrong again?”

Qin Fang’s nerves suddenly tensed. Without even glancing at who was calling him, he abruptly turned and ran. In his panic, he collided head-on with an oncoming cart, sending him plummeting to the ground. The cart owner, anxiously trying to grab his shoulders, slipped and ripped the scarf from his face.

As the sunlight hit his face, Qin Fang felt completely ruined. He rolled on the ground like a madman, screaming hysterically and desperately covering his face with his hands. A crowd gathered around him, Han and Tibetan alike, whispering, “Is this guy crazy? Is he having a seizure?”

It took a long time for Qin Fang to realize something had changed. He hurriedly removed his gloves, seeing his hands, which were no different from those of a normal person. He reached out to touch his face: skin, elastic muscles, bones.

At some point, he had returned to normal. Was it because he had returned to Nangqian?

Qin Fang experimented. He bought a mirror and walked slowly away from Nangqian in the opposite direction. After walking a bit, he took out the mirror and looked at his face.

It turned out that change happened step by step.

Everything started out normal, then his complexion gradually darkened, his skin lost its luster, certain muscles suddenly spasmed, lividity formed, his flesh withered, and he became like a skeleton… This time, Qin Fang walked even further than last time, until his neck felt as if it were being strangled, and he couldn’t breathe.

Qin Fang laughed out loud as he stood at that critical point. He thought of the compass he had learned in middle school. He felt like he was trapped in the circle drawn by the compass. There were three hundred and sixty degrees of directions—east, south, west, and north—and he could never get out of that arc.

After laughing, he turned around and saw the outline of Nangqian County’s buildings looming over the distant mountain line, but he knew the center of the circle wasn’t Nangqian.

It was Si Teng.