“Cough, cough, cough—”
Ji Xun hurriedly pulled the bottle of mineral water away from his lips and bent over, coughing for quite a while until his cheeks turned red.
“What are you getting so worked up for?” Old Hu, on the other hand, remained calm, his face carrying that uniquely elderly composure of someone who had seen through the ways of the world. “You’re each wearing an earring on one side—just short of hanging a sign around your necks saying ‘we’re a couple’ for all to see. And yet one little comment and you get shy?”
“What’s there to be shy about?”
Ji Xun finally managed to catch his breath again. If not for the steamed buns, then at least for pride; since Old Hu was calm and composed, he too put on an airy, indifferent front.
“I just drank too fast. But you, old sir—you seem to know Huo Ranyin awfully well. You must’ve done your homework, huh? What, did you know one of his elders?”
“Need to do homework for that?” That strange smile appeared on the old man’s face again. “Go back a few decades—who in this city didn’t know Miss Huo of the Huo family?”
“…”
Ji Xun’s gaze sharpened.
Good thing Huo Ranyin isn’t here… he thought, then added, “Then what about the abandoned port?”
This time, it was Old Hu who fell silent.
“That place must mean something special to you. For example, maybe you used to work at the Huo family shipyard, so you went there to mourn the past,” Ji Xun said.
“I didn’t go there because I was a shipyard worker.” Old Hu denied Ji Xun’s guess. He explained himself with utter seriousness, as if clarifying something that absolutely could not be mistaken. “I went there because of the containers.”
“Containers?” Ji Xun thought of the container that had been dressed up so meticulously.
“I wanted to see the world from inside a container. Containers… they’re what I miss most.”
“But before, you said it was because of the blue tears.”
“There’s no conflict there. That was my love. Just like the two of you somehow crossed the line and ended up together, I too have a strange, hidden love of my own to mourn,” Old Hu said.
Ji Xun’s curiosity was thoroughly hooked.
“Since you’ve already gotten this far, you wouldn’t mind going on and telling me more about this strange love of yours, would you?”
“That was a story from a long, long time ago…” Old Hu smiled. In that moment, the wrinkles on his face seemed to ease with the smile, and his well-shaped features appeared to slip free of time’s restraints, leaving behind in the light the shadow of the handsome man he once had been. “But I still remember it perfectly clearly. I’ll hold this story against my chest, burn with it in the flames, and carry it with me into the grave. Then it will stay with me forever.”
“That happened when I was younger.
Though calling it young probably isn’t accurate—not as young as you are. I was more like a middle-aged man in the prime of life.
Back then, I was doing a very boring job. You could say I was basically a maintenance worker.
A very boring job. Most of the time, it meant staring at machines I had already seen a thousand times and then staring at them a thousand times more. If the machines didn’t break, there was nothing to do. If they did break, then I had to run around in a panic.
And the people around me—
They were all crude laborers with no education. The stupid ones made a living selling nothing but brute strength. The ones with a bit of cleverness, because they’d never systematically studied any technical skills, could sometimes fix a machine based on experience—but they were just as likely to make it worse. And when that happened, you couldn’t just let them show off and create trouble for you.
But those half-clever types always loved to show off. The moment you stopped them, they’d think you were afraid of losing your position, and they’d secretly start holding a grudge against you.
So there I was, stuck every day in a place no bigger than a palm, wasting my life day after day, night after night.
In the dead of night, when everything was quiet, it was hard not to feel empty and start doubting the meaning of your own existence.
But when the sun came up the next morning, I’d still go back to work as usual. Everything was like some rigid program that had been designed in advance.
Anyway, no matter how you looked at it, I was never a particularly well-liked person.
But compared to the other laborers, a technical worker still had a bit of status, so they had no choice but to smile at me.
One fake smiling face after another floated around me like masks, and they suited perfectly those containers stored deep in the warehouse, hidden away in the dark.
To put it simply, it was a job so boring it wore down your will. It was no job for a human being.
That day, when I came out of my room, I saw my coworkers gathered around a large white bird that had accidentally landed there, making bets on whether it was male or female… Yes, in that dull, lifeless, stagnant environment, even the sex of a bird could spark heated discussion.
If management hadn’t been strict lately and forbidden them from drinking, they probably would’ve ended up fighting over the bet after getting drunk.
You ask why I didn’t quit if I hated it so much?
People can have all sorts of reasons for looking for a new job. But there’s only one reason not to quit.
No matter how many flaws that ‘maintenance worker’ job had, it had one advantage at least: the pay was high enough. So I was willing to let it wear down my will and waste away my life there.
After all, if people wanted happiness and joy, who would go to work?
That day, while they were all crowding around that bird, I was still doing my usual inspection in the dark. When I reached the warehouse, I noticed an unusual container.
Its lock had been pried open. All that remained were two lonely iron loops, like a little mouth mocking me.
What was going on? Someone had actually dared sneak into the warehouse to steal?
For a moment, my shock outweighed my anger, and I couldn’t help reaching out and lifting the lid—
And then I saw her.
Lying on her side, head tilted downward, knees drawn up, hands wrapped around them, sleeping soundly inside the box in a posture as pure as an infant’s—
She was a young girl.
Her cheeks were pale, like apricot blossoms just budding on a branch in March. Her eyelashes were long, fluttering with the rhythm of life. Her lips were rosy red, like the juicy pink blush on a ripe peach.
You can’t understand it.
No one can understand it.
When a numb, deadened man, in the darkness and wholly unprepared, suddenly sees a woman so vivid, so beautiful, so utterly different from the rotten people and things around him—what does that feel like?
It feels as if his mind has exploded.
And every spark from that explosion becomes a firework blazing in brilliant color.
He looked at the container he had opened with his own hands, looked at the girl hidden inside it, this jewel whose radiance not even the darkness could conceal.
And in that instant, he realized with the greatest ease:
I fell in love with her.”
“‘A love that certain only comes once in a lifetime,’” Old Hu murmured, quoting The Bridges of Madison County.
“Even if I can’t fully understand it, I imagine that must have been a very moving scene…” Ji Xun said with interest. “She must’ve been a priceless gem in your life. Did you two end up together later?”
“No,” Old Hu said.
“Huh?”
“Beauty itself has no way of existing in this world. It can only exist in your heart,” Old Hu said softly. “She is my sapphire. She is my blue tear. Glittering, gleaming, forever shining like stardust on the farther shore in boundless darkness…”
“But what does that have to do with Huo Ranyin?” Ji Xun asked again.
He had already prepared himself for the possibility that Old Hu wouldn’t answer that question.
But after a long silence—after the other man’s eyes had grown clouded with memory—Old Hu answered.
“They have a similar kind of beauty. I didn’t give the brooch to him. I gave it to her.”
A twilight-aged old man, throwing around money on the street, all just to look for a phantom dream from the past in a beautiful young man.
Who was she?
Ji Xun wondered. Could the person Old Hu had met have been Huo Ranyin’s mother, Huo Qiyu? But if it really was her, why would the old man describe his treasured jewel with the words “who in the city didn’t know”?
But if it wasn’t Huo Qiyu, then who else shared a beauty similar to Huo Ranyin’s?
Maybe someone among Xu Chengzhang’s relatives?
That was where their conversation stopped. Another ten minutes passed, and Huo Ranyin finally returned.
Ji Xun and Old Hu both looked at him.
Meeting their gazes, Huo Ranyin gave his answer. “I asked twenty people—five monks from five different temples, and fifteen worshippers. Not a single one of them said there was any construction on this mountain last year.”
“That’s impossible!” Old Hu shouted. “This isn’t some made-up story—this is a murder case I saw with my own eyes!”
“Easy, old sir.” At that moment, Ji Xun was the calm one instead, soothing him. “You said yourself you don’t climb mountains often, right? This happened last year. Misremembering which mountain it was isn’t anything strange.”
“But I remember it was Daye Temple, Daye Temple, Daye Temple—how could I possibly remember it wrong…” Old Hu still seemed unable to believe it, muttering the words over and over under his breath. “I should’ve written it down somewhere… right… where was it…”
Seeing that he wasn’t going to remember anytime soon, Ji Xun stepped forward and came to Huo Ranyin’s side.
He saw that Huo Ranyin’s breathing was a little hurried and that several beads of sweat hung beneath his jaw, so he reached straight into Huo Ranyin’s pocket, accurately felt out a packet of tissues, tore it open, and pulled one out to dab at the sweat.
He didn’t think much of it while wiping him down, and Huo Ranyin seemed not to think much of it either. He simply leaned into Ji Xun’s hand on instinct, rubbing against it a little to wipe away the dampness that made his skin uncomfortable.
As Ji Xun wiped the sweat away, the two of them naturally drew closer.
Winter air was dry, and Ji Xun’s half-long hair—which he was usually too lazy to take proper care of—chose that moment to start acting up, creeping toward Huo Ranyin’s shoulder.
By the time he finished wiping the sweat away, it was already too late.
Ji Xun’s hair, charged with all the excessive static of winter, had latched onto Huo Ranyin’s shoulder like an octopus and refused to let go.
When Ji Xun leaned back slightly, the hair stuck to Huo Ranyin had to leave his shoulder at once, instantly drooping in dejection.
But the moment Ji Xun leaned in again, that same hair seemed to be possessed by a soul, springing back to life, baring its teeth and claws as if terrified someone might fail to notice how eager it was.
Ji Xun leaned back, leaned in, leaned back, leaned in—
and his hair closed, opened, closed, opened…
It looked just like a jellyfish drifting in the sea: adorable, and entirely brainless.
“Looks like I really do miss you,” Ji Xun said.
“…”
Huo Ranyin said nothing.
“My hair knows my heart.” Ji Xun hooked an arm around Huo Ranyin’s shoulder, indulging the yearning of his hair as he sighed emotionally.
“…”
Feeling the faint prickling warmth of Ji Xun’s hair clinging to his shoulder, Huo Ranyin silently swallowed back the deeply unromantic comment, Your hair’s too dry. You should really do some emergency conditioning.
And just like that, the two of them standing shoulder to shoulder, they began discussing serious matters.
In a low voice, Huo Ranyin said, “Just because there’s nothing here doesn’t mean there’s nothing elsewhere.”
“Mm, true.” Ji Xun nodded. “If it’s fake, that’s one thing. What’s scary is if it’s real.”
“There are twenty-three temples of all sizes on the ginkgo-famous mountains in Qin City. There may also be some small nunneries or roadside shrines that aren’t well known,” Huo Ranyin said. Clearly, in the time he had spent asking around just now, he had already investigated everything thoroughly. “I called the local police and asked them to check last year’s missing persons list. But even they can’t say for certain whether the temples underwent construction or renovation. If a temple wants to do small-scale construction, it can decide that on its own. And if it’s large-scale construction, it doesn’t report that to the police for approval either. If we want the most accurate information, we’ll probably have to go investigate them one by one ourselves.”
At this stage—this tedious phase of going around and checking everything—if they didn’t trouble themselves, then they’d have to trouble someone else.
For a matter with a clear beginning and end, asking someone else for help could at least be justified. But for a case with no head and no tail, it was hard to open one’s mouth and make that request.
“Then we definitely won’t make today’s high-speed train back. It’s fine—I’ll refund the tickets and extend the hotel booking too. If I’d known something like this would come up, I wouldn’t have been in such a rush to pack this morning. Oh, right, Old Hu—”
Ji Xun turned toward where the old man was standing, only to see Old Hu’s fingers flying rapidly over the screen of his phone—the latest iPhone.
As expected of a fashionable old man. He was seriously smooth with smartphones.
Ji Xun leaned over for a closer look. It was a chat window in some social app.
“Who’re you talking to?”
“My wife.”
“All right then. You can get home by yourself, yeah? My boyfriend and I are going to use your story as a lead and go investigate all the Buddha statues around Qin City.”
Old Hu lifted his head and studied Ji Xun for a moment.
Ji Xun had actually been a little worried that the old man might insist on coming along with them. Thankfully, Old Hu also seemed to feel the whole thing would be too exhausting. In the end, he merely waved them off and emphasized:
“I didn’t lie. Once you confirm the murder case I told you about, remember to come get the brooch. Have a little pity and fulfill one dream for an old man who’s already halfway into the coffin!”
Ji Xun narrowed his eyes but didn’t respond.
From where he was standing, the old man looked full of vigor and strong on his feet; living another ten years or so didn’t seem impossible at all.
If a passerby happened to show up right now and was asked to judge which of them was in better health, and saw one young man with a deathly pale face and dark circles under his eyes, and one elderly man with a booming voice and a rosy complexion, they’d probably freeze up for quite a while too, unsure how to answer.
