Yi Shi held the candy and the man opposite noticed the child was missing, looking around anxiously, asking his wife, “Where’s Miaomiao?!”
His wife was burning spirit money, upon hearing this she stood up, shouting towards the rows of stone tablets in the cemetery, “Miaomiao! Miaomiao! Where are you!”
Another man who resembled a pretty boy said, “Lao Lü, why didn’t you hold Miaomiao’s hand? There’s a lot of yin energy here, and kids are prone to wandering off.”
“I wasn’t paying attention! He was just standing here, and when I turned around, he vanished!”
Their conversation fell into Yi Shi’s ears, as he watched the child darting around the front row of graves, persistently searching for his parents. The overlapping calls from the cemetery’s hillside were unheard and unseen by each other.
What on earth was going on?
Yi Shi had never encountered such a strange occurrence. Could it really be that the cemetery’s atmosphere was too heavy with yin, causing this phenomenon akin to “hitting a ghost wall”?
Miaomiao’s father ran toward Yi Shi, who was about to speak, but the man brushed past him, his gaze straight ahead, with no reflection in his pupils.
“The child is right below!” Yi Shi shouted, but the man paid no attention, continuing to search aimlessly, completely unaware of him.
Yi Shi scanned the cemetery and ran towards Miaomiao’s direction.
*
Xiao Shitou had just been spreading feudal superstitions about ghosts on the mountain, then Miaomiao disappeared, followed closely by the calls of the Lü family couple: “Miaomiao! Miaomiao!”
“Miaomiao! Where did this child run off to?!”
“Miaomiao! Where are you? Mom and Dad are here!”
Xiao Shitou pursed his lips, and Lin Heyu glanced at him, pulling him and turning back towards the steps.
Lü Kanshan searched through several rows of graves, few people visited the cemetery, and only two or three families came to pay respects. At a glance, one could see the entire area. In such a short time, how could a little child like Miaomiao run down the mountain and where else could he go?
Teng Xiaojuan was sweating with anxiety, seeing Lin Heyu turn back, she hurriedly asked, “Lin Heyu, did you see Miaomiao down there?”
Without a trace, Lin Heyu glanced at Xiao Shitou, who was silent and bowed his head, shaking his head.
Yuan Maoqiu was no longer in the mood of burning paper for his master, bowing three times and extinguishing the sparks of mineral water. Such an act was disrespectful to the deceased; according to the old man, until all the paper money was completely burned, the deceased would not receive it, and interrupting the process was taboo, causing the person below to come up and demand repayment. But now it’s important to save the living. Teng Xiaojuan apologized to Lao Zhang and said that she would go to find her son first, and come again during the Qingming Festival to burn more spirit money.
“Miaomiao!”
“Miaomiao! Can you hear me?!”
“Miaomiao, come out quickly! Don’t scare mommy!”
They walked back and forth through the four burial areas. Xiao Shitou kept following Lin Heyu. He wasn’t anxious; instead, he was somewhat afraid to look for Miaomiao because he had watched Miaomiao disappear right before his eyes.
Miaomiao had been running, and ahead it seemed as if a transparent door appeared. Without any warning, he stepped through it, and his lively figure vanished without a trace.
*
Yi Shi chased after Miaomiao. The child was nimble and could crawl under the short trees planted beside each gravestone. Additionally, Miaomiao was panicked and running aimlessly, making his route unpredictable, causing Yi Shi to miscalculate several times.
They had now run from the north area to the south area. Miaomiao was crying while running, and his parents were calling out in heart-wrenching voices. He tried to crawl under another small tree. Yi Shi, with his sharp eyes, noticed this, stepped on an unnamed gravestone, and jumped over to grab the child’s collar.
Miaomiao was startled: “Why is it you again?! W-who are you? My mom and dad are both police officers!”
Yi Shi showed no expression. He wasn’t good at comforting children, so he simply flashed his badge in front of the boy, mimicking the action of an officer conducting an inspection.
Miaomiao was stunned, his eyebrows raised: “You must be a fake cop! An actor!”
Yi Shi’s dark eyes stared at Miaomiao, making the child feel a chill throughout his body. He shivered before quietly asking: “Why?”
Miaomiao twisted his hands together, somewhat afraid of Yi Shi: “Because, because you look like a TV star.”
“…” Yi Shi couldn’t be bothered to explain. He switched from holding the back of the child’s neck to grabbing his arm. “I’ll take you to find your parents.”
Miaomiao looked up at the young uncle. He wasn’t here to catch him? He was going to take him to his parents? Was this uncle really a police officer?
He didn’t look like one at all. Police uncles should all have smiling faces and be chubby like a steamed bun, like his dad.
Yi Shi led Miaomiao, taking the shortest route from the south area back to the north area. Along the way, Miaomiao chattered like a little chatterbox. When Yi Shi stepped over people’s gravestones, Miaomiao corrected him: “You’re doing it wrong! Uncle Yuan said stepping on gravestones will bring bad luck, and the grave owners will come to get revenge!!”
“You didn’t mind stepping on them earlier. Be quiet.”
Yi Shi’s tone wasn’t severe, but his voice was too cold, sounding like an order. Miaomiao really quieted down like a chicken, not uttering another word along the way.
He brought Miaomiao back to Row 15, Number 20 in the north area, the spot where the group had been paying their respects. But the place was clean, with no traces of burnt paper money or offerings. Yi Shi wondered if the area had been cleaned by the staff when Miaomiao pointed to a gravestone: “It’s not here! The picture isn’t of Uncle Zhang!”
Yi Shi looked down. The name on the gravestone was Wang, and the photo was of an elderly woman with white hair.
Miaomiao started crying: “Mom and Dad don’t want me anymore! They’re gone!”
The child’s voice easily went up eight octaves, effortlessly producing a tenor voice. Yi Shi frowned and pressed his hand on the child’s head: “Don’t make noise.”
His hand seemed to press an off switch. Miaomiao, mouth agape, stopped crying, tears hanging at the corners of his eyes in a comical way.
Yi Shi pinched his brows, carefully recalling the information from the record book. Row 15, Number 20 was registered to an 85-year-old woman named Wang Guilan, matching the gravestone information. They hadn’t found the wrong spot. But the child claimed the deceased was “Uncle Zhang,” and there were no signs of offerings here. They might indeed be in the wrong place.
However, there was only one north area in the whole cemetery. The ashes from the mother and son’s previous visit still held residual warmth, and Number 10 was that peculiar gravestone with just a surname. The location couldn’t be wrong.
Yi Shi took out his phone and began searching the web. Miaomiao, standing on tiptoe to see the screen, asked out of curiosity: “What are you looking at?”
“Studying.”
“Phones are for playing games. You can play many, many games.” Miaomiao began chatting again. “I can play ‘Candy Crush’ and have reached level 324. Mom isn’t as good as me! I also play ‘Honor of Kings’ with Uncle Yuan. He’s a noob and needs my help…”
The child’s emotions came and went quickly. He had been terrified earlier but now focused on games. Yi Shi wasn’t distracted, reading through the web pages swiftly. On Zhihu, similar questions had various answers: some said it was a “ghost wall,” others said it was time travel, and some claimed it was entering a parallel world, all seemingly unreliable.
“And also, I play ‘Plants vs. Zombies!’ Like this, ‘I’m going to eat your brains’~~~~~”
Miaomiao started mimicking zombies again. Yi Shi, annoyed by the noise, handed him a candy he had picked up earlier, hoping it would keep him quiet.
Miaomiao examined the gummy for a few seconds, then tugged on his sleeve: “Your candy is fake.”
Yi Shi glanced at it, and Miaomiao said seriously: “Hello Kitty is printed backwards.”
“It’s yours.”
“Impossible!” Miaomiao pulled out a handful of gummies from his pocket. “All my Hello Kittys have bows on the right side… huh?”
Yi Shi looked at the candy in the child’s hand, his face turning serious.
All the candies were like the one he had picked up, with the Hello Kitty design reversed. The foreign text on the back was also mirrored, as if the image had been flipped. The child’s expression didn’t seem like he was lying. The issue might not be with his candy but with the cemetery itself.
Lin Heyu and Xiao Shitou returned from the east area to the north area, still unable to find Miaomiao. Moreover, while everyone scattered to look for the child, even the adults got lost in the expansive Southern Cheng’an Cemetery.
Xiao Shitou always kept his head down; this seemed to be his habit. Lin Heyu was also silent. The two quiet individuals stood together, almost communicating telepathically.
Suddenly, Xiao Shitou stopped and widened his eyes, hiding behind Lin Heyu, his voice trembling slightly: “…Miaomiao, Miaomiao is up there.”
Lin Heyu looked up and indeed saw Miaomiao standing by Zhang Rui’s gravestone, accompanied by a tall, skinny man. Though the distance made them blurry, Lin Heyu could picture his appearance: slender eyebrows, lashes like two small brushes, extremely handsome features, exquisite and cold. If he were an actor, his looks alone would attract many fans.
Images flooded his mind—scenes of a sunlit café, a blazing factory, and a shimmering lakeside… He used to remember more, but lately, perhaps due to stress, his memory was failing him. He could barely recall the man’s name.
What was his name?
Lin Heyu stared at the figure, opened his mouth, and a name rolled off his tongue softly.
“…Yi Shi,” he whispered.
Yi Shi seemed to hear his name, suddenly turned around, and looked down the steps at Lin Heyu. Their eyes met.
They met again.
Yi Shi patted Miaomiao on the shoulder and pointed downward. Miaomiao’s eyes lit up, and he waved at Lin Heyu, “Uncle Lin! Uncle Lin!”
Like a joyful little bird, Miaomiao ran down the steps, almost as if he had wings to flutter. Yi Shi followed, walking down steadily and confidently.
Miaomiao hugged Lin Heyu’s waist and noticed Xiao Shitou behind him, staring at him with a pale face. Miaomiao made a funny face at him.
Yi Shi stood in front of him, his delicate and refined face seemingly untouched by worldly dust. He stared at Lin Heyu and tentatively asked, “Lin Heyu?”
Lin Heyu nodded, and Yi Shi nodded as well, then asked, “How is it written?”
Lin Heyu’s expression was somewhat odd: “The ‘He’ of ‘hills and valleys (丘壑, qiū hè)’, the ‘Yu’ of ‘to give/to bestow’ (给予, jǐ yǔ).”
With hills and valleys in his heart, giving with restraint; it’s a good name, Yi Shi thought.
Knowing the name made things much easier. Yi Shi asked again, “Do we know each other?”
“…What do you think?” Lin Heyu sized him up, finally noticing something amiss.
Yi Shi’s eyes were unfamiliar. He wasn’t good at disguising, and his eyes clearly spelled out the words—”stranger.”
“No, we don’t.”
Yi Shi’s tone was indifferent. He took out a small notebook and began working: “It’s inconvenient to go back to the bureau now, so let’s take a statement here. Please answer truthfully. Why were you ambushing at the place where Zhao Chenghu appeared? Did you receive a tip-off or was it a coincidence? Have you had any conflicts with Zhao Chenghu before…”
Lin Heyu frowned and thought for a long time before asking, “Who is Zhao Chenghu?”
Yi Shi looked suspicious, “The one you caught.”
“I haven’t caught any suspect named Zhao Chenghu.”
“The incident from last night.”
“No.”
“On the mountain.”
“I was at work last night.”
Miaomiao looked up, curiously observing the back-and-forth conversation between Uncle Lin and this stranger uncle, completely out of sync.
These two adults seemed to have poor memories.
