Sweeping Mouse Ridge – Chapter Nine : 3

“A ghost town,” Xiao Chunhua said, pointing straight ahead.

A towering, leaden gray building complex, like a vast mountain range arched out by tectonic activity, suddenly appeared on the horizon. For kilometers around, there wasn’t a single tree; it was just a massive, leaden gray blob. Because it was an unfinished project, all the walls were crumbling ruins, all the ditches were unfilled, all the mounds of earth were covered in dust, and the ground floors of all the buildings were gaping open, revealing rows of windows that looked like giant honeycombs. When the wind blew through, a deafening buzzing sound filled the air, chilling to the bone.

The Tucson drove slowly along a road strewn with gravel and clods of dirt. The massive buildings blocked out the already meager sunlight, creating a straight, eerie path before them. The walls on both sides were stained with urine, and weeds grew from the cracks in the ground. Occasionally, a few black garbage bags and strips of white toilet paper drifted by…

The car drove for a very long time without seeing a single person, a dog, a bird, or even a ghost. Perhaps it was the excessive silence; an empty soda can rolled by with a loud, drum-like sound. All the traffic lights at the intersection were off. The convenience store, newsstand, and police station were all empty; the intact glass windows were even more eerie than if they were shattered. Ma Xiaozhong suspected he had stumbled into the documentary “The World After Humanity Disappeared” and felt a little uneasy.

Only when he saw a group of thugs with red, yellow, or purple dyed hair, wearing skull necklaces, and dressed in black leather jackets, squatting on the ground smoking behind an excavator with rusted tracks, did his heart calm down slightly.

Perhaps because he was distracted, the punk next to him suddenly flung open the car door and jumped out, rolling on the ground before struggling to his feet and running towards the group of thugs, shouting, “Master Shen! Master Shen! Help!”

Ma Xiaozhong cursed and also jumped out of the car.

A tall, thin man stood up from among the thugs. Although he looked only in his early forties, his hair was gray. He had a round face and wore ordinary glasses, appearing like a refined scholar. However, when he grinned, a set of yellowed, stained teeth was revealed, making his smile appear particularly cruel. When the punk ran up to him, he grabbed the chain of his handcuffs, causing the punk to scream in pain. He lazily remarked, “What new jewelry are you wearing?”

“This guy’s a cop; he arrested me and beat me!” the punk said, pointing at Ma Xiaozhong, who was walking towards him.

The thugs who had been squatting on the ground smoking stood up, glaring fiercely at Ma Xiaozhong, their faces filled with murderous intent.

“Blackie?” Ma Xiaozhong pointed at the man surnamed Shen and whispered to Xiao Chunhua beside him.

Xiao Chunhua shook her head: “This guy’s the boss of ‘Ghost City’; he’s usually fairly well-behaved.”

At this moment, Guo Xiaofen also got out of the car. One of the thugs, seeing her pretty face, whistled lewdly.

The man surnamed Shen glanced at Ma Xiaozhong. Although he was certain Ma Xiaozhong was a policeman based on his gait, he also sensed something sinister about him and hesitated.

Ma Xiaozhong walked up to Shen, grabbed the punk’s hair, lifted him like a chick, took out his keys, unlocked the handcuffs, and then pushed him back to Shen.

This was a gesture of courtesy. Shen understood, took out a cigarette, and lit it for Ma Xiaozhong, who took a couple of puffs and nodded, and the two went to a corner away from the crowd to talk privately.

“You aren’t welcome here,” Shen said.

“I will leave as soon as I’m done,” said Ma Xiaozhong. “Do you have someone here named Dong Yue?”

The man surnamed Shen clearly hadn’t heard of the name. He waved to the crowd and called over a cross-dresser whose face was covered in makeup whiter than her buttocks: “Is there someone named Dong Yue here?”

“She just arrived; she hasn’t been working here long,” the cross-dresser said, fluttering her long eyelashes.

“We need to talk to her,” Ma Xiaozhong said, staring at the man surnamed Shen. “Half an hour, we’ll leave after we are done—you can listen in.”

The man surnamed Shen nodded and said to the cross-dresser, “Lead the way.”

Only after entering this enormous beehive did Ma Xiaozhong realize that this was a completely unfamiliar world. Because it was an unfinished building, there was no electricity or elevator. No matter how many floors there were, you could only climb the stairs. The concrete stairs didn’t even have handrails; walking on them was precarious, and one wrong step could send you plummeting to the concrete floor below, smashing to your death. The lower floors were empty. Climbing to about the sixth or seventh floor, a strange odor suddenly filled the air—a foul, pungent, and slightly rancid smell, as if it were the odor of excrement and urine sealed together and stored for a summer. It was nauseating. The cross-dresser and the man surnamed Shen, however, seemed unfazed and continued walking into the ground floor. Ma Xiaozhong and the others followed behind, frowning deeply.

None of the unfinished rooms on this floor had doors. Only a few had curtains or wooden planks covering them, but the windows were all covered with semi-transparent plastic sheeting. When the wind blew, the sheeting bulged out in large bulges, making it look as if a pregnant woman was clinging to each window. The light was already poor today, and this obstruction made the room appear particularly gloomy.

The rooms were divided into different functions, and each function attracted a diverse group of people. Some haggled and cursed over prices in a room filled with snacks; others clattered around a mahjong table; some watched porn or played online games on their laptops; some rubbed their genitals in the dark, damp blankets; and still others sat against the wall, squeezing boils on their faces, their arms covered in injection marks.

In a room with four water dispensers and many blue water jugs, a drunkard slept soundly, hugging an empty jug, occasionally twisting his body to let out a series of loud farts… From some unknown room came a sputtering sound, presumably from the makeshift gasoline generator supplying electricity to the floor, but it sounded like even more drunkards exhaling more exhaust fumes, making the already pungent floor even more repulsive.

At the end of the corridor, heavy breathing and lewd moans echoed from several rooms. The man surnamed Shen stopped, and Ma Xiaozhong also halted. The cross-dresser went into one room and soon returned with a girl. She was short, with pretty features, wearing a light pink cardigan and sexy flesh-colored stockings, but due to malnutrition and a haggard appearance, she looked like a dehydrated white radish.

“Dong Yue?” Ma Xiaozhong asked.

A flicker of fear crossed the girl’s eyes; she seemed unwilling to hear that name again. She glanced at the man surnamed Shen and the cross-dresser, but their stiff faces revealed nothing, so she nodded blankly.

“Let’s talk somewhere else.” Ma Xiaozhong led her to a house a little further away. Guo Xiaofen and Xiao Chunhua also went inside, but the man surnamed Shen did not. The cross-dresser had just taken a step inside when he pulled her out.

“We are police officers.” Ma Xiaozhong showed her his police ID. “Don’t be afraid. We just want to ask you about something… Do you remember this person, Zhou Liping?”

A glimmer of light suddenly appeared in Dong Yue’s previously gloomy eyes. She nodded. “What… happened to him?”

“Well, as you probably know, he was imprisoned ten years ago for a serial murder case. But recently, our investigation has revealed that he may be innocent. During our interviews, we learned that you’ve been quite close to him over the past year, so we specifically came to find you to understand him in detail. We hope you won’t hold back and will tell us the truth. This will help us fully understand his situation and exonerate him if necessary. We believe you don’t want him to carry this burden for the rest of his life.”

This explanation was something Ma Xiaozhong and Guo Xiaofen had planned together. Although the case of Sweeping Mouse Ridge caused quite a stir, due to police control over media coverage, it didn’t become a major public focus. It’s estimated that Dong Yue couldn’t possibly know about Zhou Liping’s arrest. To alleviate her psychological pressure, a more “positive” reason for questioning was given.

After hearing Ma Xiaozhong’s words, Dong Yue was stunned for a long time, a faint smile appearing on her lips: “If only… if only it had happened sooner.”

“What sooner?” Ma Xiaozhong was completely confused.

Dong Yue didn’t continue.

Guo Xiaofen understood her meaning: “You mean Zhou Liping, because of his past as a murderer, was afraid of implicating you, so he didn’t stay with you but only found out after you left him?”

Dong Yue looked at her and slowly nodded.

Guo Xiaofen said with a sorrowful expression, “Don’t worry about it. Life is just a series of missed opportunities with the people you love…”

With those words, Dong Yue’s eyes welled up with tears: “From the first day I met him, I knew he was a good person. He took my little sister out of the orphanage and reunited us. When I worked at a nightclub and was groped, he stood up for me. People knew he had been to prison before, that he was a serious offender, and they were all terrified of him, so no one dared to bully me anymore. He knew I liked him, but in all the time we were together, he never did anything improper… How could someone so kind and upright be a serial killer?”

“Did he talk to you about the case from ten years ago?” Guo Xiaofen asked.

Dong Yue nodded: “For a while, I felt like I was a fire to him, and he was always ice to me, so I got angry, ignored him, didn’t answer his calls, and blocked him on WeChat. But I also hoped he would contact me every day. I thought that with his tough personality, I would have to take the initiative to contact him in the end. Who knew that after two days of not being able to reach me, he got anxious and came to the nightclub to find me…

“He talked to me on the street in the middle of the night about many, many things from the past, but I didn’t understand much. I asked him why he took the blame for a serial killer back then if he wasn’t one. He said that he was about to graduate from high school and probably wouldn’t get into university or find a decent job. They wanted to kick him out, leaving him nowhere to live. He was extremely disappointed with his future, feeling that life was meaningless, and wanted to give up on himself. He hoped to die with a chance to save someone, but then that incident happened. For the sake of that girl’s reputation, he impulsively took the blame. It was that simple; he didn’t think much about the consequences…

“I asked him why he hadn’t gone to the police station to explain the situation ten years later. He said that the case in the western suburbs was a big one back then, and if it were overturned, there would definitely be a lot of media coverage, which would be detrimental to that girl. She had just gotten married and was doing well, so he should wait and see. I got angry immediately. I asked him if he still liked that girl. He stared at me blankly for a long, long time before saying, ‘no.’ Just that word, he said it so seriously, and I immediately understood: he truly liked me…”

Dong Yue turned her head, wiped her eyes, and continued, “I asked him directly, ‘Since you no longer like her, why are you always so mean to me?’ He just said ‘no’ and then fell silent. I was so angry. We were on a bridge then, and I turned my back to him, looking into the distance, ignoring him and not saying a word. That night the wind was quite strong, and the wind blew into my eyes, and I don’t know why, but I started crying. He panicked and tried to explain to me that he had spent eight years in prison and had figured out a lot of things. He said that everything a person does and doesn’t do in this life is predetermined, arranged by God. While he was in prison, he looked forward to his release every day, and when he finally got out…

“He discovered that most people outside were just trapped in another kind of cage, unable to move. ‘The subway during rush hour stinks worse than a prison cell,’ he thought, so he became indifferent to everything… Just then, not far from the bridge where we were standing, a railway bridge spanned another station, and a train was pulling out, a slow, green train, clattering along. Watching it disappear into the distance, I said, ‘Aren’t you afraid that one day I’ll take a train and never come back?’ He gently put his arm around my shoulder from behind and said, ‘No, no matter where I go, I’ll come looking for you…’ After I left, I waited for him to come find me, but he never came, never again…”

“After you left, did he really not contact you at all?”

Dong Yue shook her head. “No text messages, no WeChat messages, not even a phone call. I thought it was probably over, just like my departure. Suddenly, I was gone, saying goodbye to the place I’d spent several years in… Actually, I’ve always been thinking about him, worried about him…”

“Worried about him?” Ma Xiaozhong abruptly seized on the key point. “He’s a grown man; what are you worried about?”

“Around that time, before I left, he kept cursing someone surnamed Xing in front of me, saying that person was scum and deserved to be torn to pieces. I asked him what Xing had done to offend him, but he wouldn’t say. He just sat there on a bench in the park, hunched over, staring blankly for a long time, looking extremely resentful and helpless. I suddenly remembered…

“The director of the orphanage where my sister was located was surnamed Xing. I begged him countless times to keep my little sister there, working several jobs and giving him a lot of money… I quickly asked Zhou Liping if the Xing he was cursing was that director and if that director had done anything to my little sister. He quickly reassured me, saying it wasn’t the same person at all, and told me not to overthink it. I was still scared, so he patted his chest and loudly said, ‘With me here, who would dare touch a single hair on your little sister?’ Only then did I feel relieved.”

“And then?” Guo Xiaofen asked.

“Later, for a long time, he was sullen and quiet. Only once, he didn’t show up for several days, and when I saw him again, he looked exhausted. I asked him where he had been, and he said he had gone to find a friend, traveled a long way, and searched many places but couldn’t find him… This was the first time I heard he had a friend. He said that his friend was his only friend in the world, an exceptionally wise person. When he was arrested, everyone said he was a serial killer, but only this friend did his best to defend him, helping him shorten his sentence as much as possible. Later, when he was in prison, this friend visited him again. Now he was facing a very distressing situation and hoped to find this friend to ask him for advice…”

“He didn’t reveal at all what was troubling him?” Guo Xiaofen asked.

“No, he’s never been a talkative person. When he doesn’t want to talk, you couldn’t pry his mouth open even with a stick,” Dong Yue said after thinking for a moment. “However, he did tell me about a high school essay he wrote…”

“A high school essay?”

“Yes, he said he wrote many essays in school, but the one that impressed him the most was about a spring outing. While other classmates wrote about how bright the spring sunshine was, how happy the visitors were, and how beautiful the flowers were, he wrote about the park at night, in the pitch black darkness, petals scattered all over the ground. No one saw how they withered, but that ‘resolute determination in the darkness, never pitying oneself’ was true beauty… Then, he asked me if the essay was a bit melodramatic. I said a little, and he burst out laughing. That was the only time I’d ever seen him laugh so heartily since I’d known him. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t hear any happiness in his laughter; I only felt that he was extremely sad, extremely heartbroken…”

After their conversation ended and they prepared to leave the “ghost town,” Dong Yue escorted Ma Xiaozhong, Guo Xiaofen, and Xiao Chunhua all the way downstairs. Sometime later, the sun disappeared, and a north wind swept across the gloomy, iron-colored sky. An invisible gale, like a raging torrent, poured into this “ghost town” made of reinforced concrete, rushing through every street, whipping up clouds of sand, and weaving through every hole, unleashing a deafening roar, as if trying to sweep everything away, or if it could not, whip, dismember, tear, and pulverize it—in short, leaving not a single trace of life in this cluster of buildings bearing the name “ghost.”

They walked along the wall to the Tucson, and Guo Xiaofen asked Dong Yue, “Are you really not planning to go back?”

“No, I’m not going back. What can I do back here in this state?” Dong Yue glanced at her clothes, giving a shy and pitiful smile. “I thought I could find something to do back home, maybe even start a small business and earn some money. But the economy’s so bad, so I’ve ended up in this ghost town, just scraping by. Every month I have to send five thousand yuan to Director Xing’s account. In a few months, the money in my bank account will be gone, and I don’t know what I’ll do…”

Guo Xiaofen couldn’t bear it and didn’t know how to tell her about Dong Xinlan’s death.

Ma Xiaozhong, standing beside her, was quite straightforward: “Dong Yue, that Director Xing has been dismissed for making a mistake at work. The new Director is very honest, so you don’t need to transfer money to Director Xing’s account anymore.”

Dong Yue was surprised and somewhat incredulous: “Really? You aren’t lying to me.”

“We aren’t related to you; why would we lie to you?!” Ma Xiaozhong glared at her.

“That’s wonderful!” Dong Yue was overjoyed. “The person I care about most in this world is my little sister, but I’m not too worried. With Zhou Liping around, he’ll protect my little sister. He won’t change his promise to me. I know him; his promises—ten years, twenty years, thirty years… a hundred years—will never change.”

A blush rose on her pale face. Guo Xiaofen quickly turned her head away, afraid she would see the tears in her eyes.

The moment the car door closed, the howling wind seemed to be cut off, becoming much thinner, but the car body still swayed like a sampan in a raging storm.

The car started moving, and after driving quite a distance, Guo Xiaofen turned around and saw Dong Yue still standing in the middle of the street, hugging her trembling body and looking at them.

The rows of buildings on both sides were like cold, rough well walls, and the dim distance was like the unfathomable bottom of a well. Dong Yue stood there, like a child thrown into a tunnel ventilation shaft…

“Wait! Stop the car!” Guo Xiaofen suddenly shouted.

Xiao Chunhua was startled and slammed on the brakes. The Tucson screeched to a halt.

Guo Xiaofen jumped out of the car and ran back to Dong Yue against the wind, her hair blowing wildly.

Dong Yue stared blankly at her, wondering why she had come back.

Guo Xiaofen took off her misty pink wool coat and put it on Dong Yue. The coat was so warm that Dong Yue shivered involuntarily.

Guo Xiaofen buttoned the coat up one by one. The diamond-shaped crystal buttons were a little difficult to fasten, but once they were fastened, they were very secure, blocking out all the cold wind… She continued fastening until she reached the bottom button, then squatted down and fastened it just as tightly as the others.

—Dong Yue squatted down and fastened the bottom button for her little sister, reminding her, “Girls are most afraid of the cold, so every button on your clothes must be fastened tightly. Don’t let your calves get cold, remember that.”

It was all fastened.

Guo Xiaofen stood up, softly said “Goodbye,” ran back to the Tucson, and closed the door, and the car started moving again, this time receding into the distance, never stopping, never looking back.

Dong Yue turned and walked into the building, but after only a few steps, she slowly squatted down, hugged her knees, and burst into tears. She cried so bitterly, like a little sister who would never see her big sister again…