The call ended abruptly after a long wait, replaced by an emotionless electronic female voice from the receiver: “Hello, the number you have dialed is switched off. Sorry—”
Huo Ranyin’s fingers tightened. With a grim face, he hung up. He didn’t stop. He dialed again, contacting the main bureau directly. After a brief exchange, he got in touch with Gao Fang and Gao Yuan, who had gone up the mountain earlier.
“Current situation.”
“…”
“Report your location.”
“…”
Zeng Peng, handcuffed, could do nothing but listen to Huo Ranyin on the phone. Halfway through, he suddenly noticed Huo Ranyin had stopped talking. He looked up and saw the police officer standing with one hand in his pocket, his eyes fixed on the village ahead, his face as cold as an ice sculpture.
“I understand.”
Huo Ranyin hung up crisply and turned to head up the mountain.
“Wait!” Zeng Peng, as if waking from a dream, quickly called out. “Take me with you! I can help! Ji Xun came here because of my business. I want to help him!”
“Backup will arrive in twenty minutes. You stay here obediently. Don’t even think about running. You can’t escape.”
“I don’t want to…” Zeng Peng had said this phrase so many times today that he was in a daze.
“Also, Ji Xun didn’t come for you.”
Huo Ranyin said again, his figure growing more distant. He walked into the darkness, tearing it apart.
“He came for the truth.”
The vast sky was framed into a square by the opening of the pit. The pit’s mouth was like the mouth of a well, and he, he was like the frog at the bottom of it, a dying one at that.
“…Since it’s come to this, I think we might as well talk it over,” Ji Xun called out to the people above.
Since it had come to this, he could only start spouting nonsense, to see if his level-ten persuasion skills could buy him some time.
“Everyone, don’t be nervous. I’m not a police officer. I’m just a run-of-the-mill novelist you can find anywhere on the street. Novelists, you know, we tend to be more curious and observant…”
A clump of dirt suddenly rained down from above.
Caught off guard, Ji Xun got dirt in his eyes and even accidentally swallowed some. He spat it out repeatedly, but there was no sound from above. Clearly, these people weren’t interested in his profession. He changed his tune:
“Although I’ve sent the photos and videos to the police, and they’re on their way to arrest you, they haven’t actually arrived yet. As long as you rush back to the burial site and move or destroy the remains, the police won’t be able to convict you without physical evidence—but you have to hurry. It’s been half an hour since I reported it. No matter how remote this place is, the police should be arriving soon, right?”
This time, he hit a nerve. His words seemed to sober them up. At the mouth of the pit, the crowd was both chagrined and annoyed. After a flurry of agitated conversation, someone couldn’t take it anymore and shouted at him:
“Didn’t you just say you took pictures and videos, so it’s useless for us to move the remains and destroy the evidence?”
“I didn’t know you guys were so obedient…”
Ji Xun’s light, irritating comment brought immediate retribution. Clumps of dirt rained down again, faster and faster, leaving no room to breathe. It was clear he had thoroughly enraged the villagers above.
At first, Ji Xun tried to block the dirt with his hands, but soon he couldn’t stand it anymore and started coughing amidst the flying dust.
“Damn… no way, are you guys planning to bury me alive?”
“Is it really necessary?”
“How about a more dignified way to die? You could cover the top with that plank and let me scream my lungs out in here for a few days? Isn’t that how you used to discipline the women you trafficked?”
He taunted them several more times, but to no avail. The villagers above had fallen silent again, focusing all their energy on filling the pit, relentlessly pouring dirt down, determined to give him a quick end by burying him.
While he could still breathe freely, he took a deep breath, then looked up and said to them:
“Alright, I get it. You’re determined to see me dead. But at the end of my life, you have to tell me one thing, so I can die with some understanding. Tonight, when you saw me discover the body, someone said something. He said, ‘A girl is worth a bride price when she grows up.'”
“Since a girl can be exchanged for a bride price,” he asked, “why do you still kill baby girls?”
Someone squatted down at the edge of the pit, bent over, and peered in.
It was a dark, simple-looking face.
The face wore a cheerful smile, but the words it spat were laced with poison:
“And you thought we were the ones killing infants? Why would we kill infants?”
The face disappeared. Dirt rained down again, filling the pit around Ji Xun.
The air grew thin. The moonlight he could see before was gone. It became pitch black, so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. The sounds from outside were also gone. He could only feel the vibrations from above, sensing that someone was still pouring dirt down.
Ji Xun had taken off his coat early on and held it over his head, creating a small space for him to breathe.
But it didn’t seem to make much difference. He was already starting to feel dizzy, nauseous, and a ringing in his ears—all concrete signs of oxygen deprivation.
Looks like I can’t hold on for much longer, Ji Xun thought with a sense of boredom. He didn’t feel much panic. Ever since that incident three years ago, the emotion of panic seemed to have vanished from his life.
He began to take stock of the things he hadn’t finished.
The book isn’t finished… but the author is about to croak, so I guess the readers can forgive me. Maybe the publisher will even issue an obituary for me. A proper end.
The case is almost solved, just the last piece of the puzzle is missing. Should I bite my finger and write what I’ve found here on the inner lining of my coat? Ji Xun actually really wanted to record it. It was probably an occupational hazard for an author; whenever he had a bit of inspiration, he had to jot it down.
But Ji Xun was also a little worried. If his body was dug up later and people saw the words written in blood on his coat lining, they might think he was some kind of moral paragon and hold a memorial service for him, awarding him a “model citizen for righteous acts” award or something, which would be really embarrassing.
His thoughts drifted aimlessly. His head grew dizzier, the ringing in his ears louder. Opportunity is like a shooting star, appearing only for a brief moment, fleeting.
Forget it, Ji Xun thought. I’m too lazy to write. I’ll trust the police to solve the case in the end.
This was Ji Xun’s last clear thought. Then, his consciousness was like it had fallen into the sea, sinking all the way down. The heavy darkness was like seawater, seeping in from all sides, pressing down on him layer by layer.
Ge…
Gege…
…Gege…
He heard a voice, his sister calling him. The voice seeped in through the cracks in the darkness, but instead of alleviating his current state, it made his heart clench.
Ji Yu, just let me go.
He curled up into a ball.
A thousand mistakes, ten thousand mistakes, they are all my fault. Please let me go.
“…Ji Xun, wake up… Ji Xun, wake up!”
When consciousness hazily resurfaced from the darkness, Ji Xun heard someone calling him. The voice was quite familiar. He felt a rhythmic pressure on his chest. His mouth was pried open, and a puff of ice-cold air entered his mouth…
Damn! Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation!
The cold jolted Ji Xun awake. He tried to push the person on top of him with hands that felt like noodles but couldn’t move them. He could only summon the last of his life force to call out, “Huo… Ranyin…”
But the sound came out like a kitten’s meow, the kind from a newborn.
Thank heavens, Huo Ranyin heard it. The person breathing into his mouth paused, then propped himself up. A light shone directly at him. Ji Xun squeezed his eyes shut, feeling them sting and water.
“Move it… away…”
The light moved away, and it became dimmer. Ji Xun adjusted a bit and opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Huo Ranyin’s face. It was colder than usual, as if coated with a hundred layers of frost, so cold that even if a glacier melted, he wouldn’t. Then he saw Huo Ranyin’s hands. They were cupped over the flashlight, blocking most of the glaring light, leaving only a soft glow that flowed out from between his fingers.
Then Ji Xun noticed Huo Ranyin’s fingers. They were filthy, covered not only in dirt but also what looked like mottled bloodstains.
Bloodstains?
Ji Xun looked again and realized his dizzy eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. Huo Ranyin’s ten fingers were indeed scraped and bleeding.
These kinds of wounds could only be from one thing… This guy, he couldn’t have just dug him out with his bare hands, right? Was he that stupid? Didn’t even wrap a cloth around his hands?
“…Didn’t you say you weren’t coming? Why are you here again?” He took a breath and asked again, “Do you have any water?”
Huo Ranyin handed him some water, his sarcastic words not far behind. “If I hadn’t come, the next time I saw you would have been at your memorial service.”
“That would be a unique way to meet,” Ji Xun said weakly, coughing as he spoke. “It would certainly be memorable. Unforgettable for a lifetime.”
His words seemed to ignite Huo Ranyin’s inner fury. The man’s voice tightened, the frost on his face unable to suppress the fire in his words.
“Why didn’t you call me when you discovered the danger?”
“A person of importance is busy. Have you already forgotten that we never exchanged phone numbers?”
“That’s not an excuse. You could have called Tan Mingjiu, you could have asked Yuan Yue. Anyone would have told you.”
“Tch, I wouldn’t do something so troublesome…”
He was slapped.
A few cold fingers, still smelling of blood, slid from his cheek to his jaw. Huo Ranyin’s voice was like a knife, piercing through his ear and into his head. “I’m your partner to solve this case properly. If you want to die, go die somewhere I can’t see. Don’t fucking waste police resources.”
Ji Xun’s head was buzzing. He really couldn’t concentrate.
He stopped trying and simply followed his heart. He pulled Huo Ranyin’s hand over and blew on it gently.
“Alright, alright, I’ll listen to you. Next time I’ll die somewhere you can’t dig, so these beautiful fingers don’t get ruined from digging in the dirt.”
“…” Huo Ranyin’s fingers once again touched Ji Xun’s face. This time, he pinched his chin.
Ji Xun wasn’t scared. He didn’t flinch. With a smile, he even nuzzled against the hand.
“Captain Huo, has anyone ever told you? You’re super hot and super—intense.”
