Chapter Ninety-Four: Concealment

Nearby, Boss Le was deep in a lively conversation with Tong Bin. Mostly Tong Bin was pouring out his grievances, while Boss Le listened with great seriousness and comforted him earnestly. Tong Bin had drunk quite a bit and, in his drunkenness, opened his heart to Boss Le, spilling out all the bitterness he had been bottling up as though upending a bamboo tube of beans. Boss Le, speaking as someone who had been through it all before, did his best to console him and even promised that he would set Tong Bin up with a girlfriend. By then, Tong Bin would surely have forgotten the pain of heartbreak and be ready to move on.

The two of them turned those same words over again and again before they realized Cheng Yao had not said a single word the whole time.

Boss Le turned and saw Cheng Yao frowning in thought, lost in some private reverie.

Boss Le gave him a pat. "What is it? Lost in thought over something?"

Cheng Yao seemed to wake up with a start. He straightened his back, glanced at Boss Le, then at Tong Bin. "Done talking?"

"I told him I'd introduce him to someone," Boss Le said simply, summarizing their conversation in much the same way as when he had first sat down.

Tong Bin stretched out his arm, seized Boss Le by the wrist, and shook it hard twice. "You have to help me, Boss Le. Thank you. Really, thank you!"

"Hey, no trouble at all." Boss Le patted the back of Tong Bin's hand.

"Mm... I remember something. I'll head off first," Cheng Yao said.

Boss Le was taken aback.

Tong Bin had sobered somewhat and looked at Cheng Yao, who was rising to leave, in confusion. "You're leaving already? You haven't even sat down long."

Tong Bin was drunk out of his mind too. Once he had started lamenting to Boss Le, he had gone on for more than an hour, laying bare everything that had happened between him and Kong Yajie. He had also downed three bottles of beer. His tolerance was plainly limited; even now his eyes were beginning to haze.

Boss Le was only surprised by how abruptly Cheng Yao was leaving. He had thought perhaps the two of them had made Cheng Yao feel left out and upset. But then he reconsidered: Cheng Yao did not seem like that sort of person, and nothing in his expression suggested displeasure.

"Go on, you two keep chatting," Cheng Yao said without explanation.

Neither Tong Bin nor Boss Le would try to keep him there.

Tong Bin lifted a hand, clearly intending to wave goodbye.

Boss Le pulled Cheng Yao aside and asked in a low voice, "Is this because of the person you saw earlier? Do you owe someone money, or does someone owe you money? If you've got any trouble, just say the word. I know people in that line of work."

He truly was well connected.

Cheng Yao did not know whether to laugh or sigh. "It's not that. Don't worry, I'm fine."

He greeted Tong Bin again, asked Boss Le to keep an eye on him, and then stepped out of the barbecue place.

Out in the dark, Cheng Yao's heart was pounding wildly. He quickened his pace down the lively little street, stopped a taxi at the intersection, and headed straight home.

In the back seat, his expression darkened by the second.

Back in the barbecue shop, he had not listened at all to Tong Bin and Boss Le. His mind had been fixed on that one glimpse of the so-called fellow patient. That was absolutely not their first "encounter." The smell of cigarette smoke, that sensation of being watched...

After turning it over and over in his mind, Cheng Yao finally became certain that the strangeness he had been feeling these past few days had come from that "fellow patient." He really had been followed, and followed all the way home. That person knew where he lived, had followed him to the cemetery, and therefore must also know about Bai Xiao!

Bai Xiao...

Cheng Yao's chest tightened. He took out his phone and dialed.

As the call went out, for some reason he thought of scenes from movies. There was always that kind of plot in thrillers and crime films: just when the protagonist needed quiet, needed to focus, their phone would ring at the worst possible moment.

Cheng Yao was already tense, and the endless ring tone only made his nerves draw tighter and tighter.

When the taxi reached the residential complex, Cheng Yao practically leaped out of the car and ran to the front door.

He did not go upstairs, and there was no need even to enter the apartment; his keen senses had already been activated back at the barbecue shop.

No one was home.

A far stronger sense of unease surged through Cheng Yao.

He kept watch over his surroundings. The fellow patient had vanished outside the barbecue shop earlier. Now, after such a long time, even along the way back he had not sensed that person's presence... Had that fellow patient ever gone to look for Bai Xiao?

Worried, Cheng Yao hurried home.

The door was shut. The lock had not been damaged. Bai Xiao's pair of sneakers was missing from the entryway. The windows in the living room and bedroom were both properly closed, and the lights and air conditioner inside were off. Only the little night light in the corridor and the refrigerator were still running. Beside the refrigerator, the dishwasher, which had stopped operating, now contained pots and bowls Cheng Yao had not seen before he left. The kitchen trash bin was empty.

Cheng Yao called Bai Xiao's phone again and, unsurprisingly, found the brand-new handset on the living room sofa. The TV remote was right beside it.

Everything looked perfectly natural, as though Bai Xiao had finished dinner, started the dishwasher, and then gone out to take the trash downstairs. She may have simply forgotten her phone, or thought she did not need to bring it for the brief walk downstairs.

But something was wrong. It was already past eight, and when Cheng Yao had run back into the neighborhood, he had not seen Bai Xiao anywhere in the complex. She definitely was not here.

Where had she gone?

Sweat broke out on Cheng Yao's forehead.

He forced himself to calm down, but he could not stop the wild pounding of his heart.

The instant of the car crash thirty-five years ago replayed in his mind.

His body began to tremble. He seemed to see Bai Xiao slumped in the passenger seat, gradually losing all sign of life.

Cheng Yao bit his own tongue and used the pain to force himself awake.

No. He would not lose Shengsheng again!

Cheng Yao extended his senses as far as he could.

Bai Xiao's scent flooded his nose. His sense of smell had become keener than a dog's. The world before his eyes also acquired another layer of marks invisible to ordinary sight: fingerprints, skin oils, bodily secretions, each trace appearing in a different depth according to how long it had remained there.

Walls and objects were processed by his brain and became like a transparent cross-section in his mind. Those traces were marked out as important, and through imagination he reconstructed the path Bai Xiao must have taken without ever seeing it himself.

There was a distinct handprint on the doorknob. Cheng Yao could even see that the left-hand print was missing a section, exactly where the wedding ring would have been fixed to Bai Xiao's finger.

Cheng Yao rushed to the door and pulled it open.

Following Bai Xiao's scent in the air, he ran downstairs and found the same handprint on the main entrance door handle downstairs.

Once outside, the trail became hard to see clearly, but Cheng Yao could still catch that faint thread of Bai Xiao's scent in the air.

He ran after it.

...

On the television, Cheng Yao was running through the darkness. He was as fast as lightning, and the camera captured every minute movement, every expression, even the slightest shift in muscle, while the background behind him blurred into streaks of light and shadow, reflected in the doctor's deep-blue eyes.

The television room was no longer pitch-black. A lamp had been added beside the sofa. The massive filing cabinet still stood behind it, though the files on it were now in disarray, several pulled out and scattered across the sofa, the coffee table, and the floor.

The DVD player had been pulled out and tossed aside. Like the files, the discs scattered beside it glinted in the light of the standing lamp.

A file lay open on the doctor's knees, yet his eyes were fixed on the television without blinking. Both fists were clenched tightly, as though he were cheering Cheng Yao on. Those brilliant deep-blue eyes widened in excitement. The ten nails crushed in his palm shrieked noisily, as if protesting that they could not see anything, or perhaps shouting on the doctor's behalf.

Cheng Yao's running pace faltered. His expression changed several times, and the camera gave a close-up of his face.

His eyes swept the surroundings. Surprise, confusion, and hesitation flashed through them, then turned to tension, worry, and restlessness.

All these emotions surfaced and vanished in the close-up shot.

But it all happened in the blink of an eye.

Cheng Yao gritted his teeth and ran again.

Beneath his mask, the doctor let out a strange laugh.

The camera shifted from running alongside Cheng Yao to falling slowly behind him, following his figure as he crossed the empty streets.

Along the way there was not a single person in sight, nor many streetlights, and no surveillance cameras either.

The camera followed Cheng Yao all the way into the abandoned factory...

Cheng Yao suddenly slowed. Head lowered, he took a few cautious steps forward.

The camera moved over his shoulder and looked down at the ground.

There were tiny fragments scattered there.

Cheng Yao crouched down; his body swayed before he managed to steady himself.

His outstretched hand was trembling.

Some of the metal fragments on the ground, unlike the trash in the surrounding factory yard, were not covered in dust.

The pieces were too small to make out their original shape.

Cheng Yao swept his gaze across them, then suddenly stood and flashed to the side of an abandoned machine tool. From the corner of that machine he picked up a tiny stone.

With two fingers he pinched it, and the stone sank into the flesh of his palm, difficult to distinguish. But the camera had already followed his line of sight and caught that piercing glimmer.

Cheng Yao closed his hand around the stone.

His face went pale. He moved a few steps before starting forward again.

He ran out of the factory and vaulted over the fence...

The image on the television suddenly opened up.

Cheng Yao stood by the riverbank.

Before the camera stretched a straight riverside promenade, its streetlamps decorated with beautiful carved ornamentation. Only one flaw marred the scene: the nearest lamp had blown its bulb and stood dark and lifeless. The concrete path was covered with fallen leaves and trash, and was broken by pits and cracks. On the right were the lovely river waters and the buildings across the way; though a stretch of the railing along the river was slightly bent and deformed, it was still largely intact. On the left, however, was a dark little grove. The part closest to the road was bare, trampled until not even weeds remained, with tables and benches piled there; farther in, one could still make out trees lying toppled on the ground.

Bai Xiao had both hands on the railing. She turned her head in surprise and looked toward the camera, and toward Cheng Yao as well. Keeping that startled expression, she asked, "Where did you come from? Weren't you drinking with Tong Bin?"

Cheng Yao's breathing sounded.

He had run all the way here, so panting was only natural, but his breath did not sound like exhaustion. It sounded more like a long exhale after an emotional swing from one extreme to another.

At last Cheng Yao lifted a foot and stepped forward.

The camera moved down, filming his clenched left hand and Bai Xiao standing not far away.

The surprise on Bai Xiao's face had already faded. She smiled calmly and looked back at the river under the night sky and the buildings across the water whose lights still shone.

"How beautiful. It wasn't this beautiful before," Bai Xiao murmured. Her hands remained on the railing, her body relaxed, thoroughly enjoying the cool breeze blowing toward her.

Cheng Yao reached out and touched Bai Xiao's short hair. "Why did you cut your hair? And buy new clothes?"

"I just took a walk while going downstairs to throw out the trash, and happened to see that the barbershop was empty. Then I kept walking and ended up here," Bai Xiao said with feeling. "This whole area has changed so much. I barely recognize it anymore."

Cheng Yao did not look at the lovely night view. Instead, his gaze traveled farther away, through the grove beside them.

"This park was newly built, wasn't it? It's open twenty-four hours. There are so many street vendors outside. There are people singing and dancing at the two squares, though I think it's a bit noisy. This place is quite quiet, though it must be lively in the daytime," Bai Xiao said.

Cheng Yao did not answer. He only narrowed his eyes, his gaze still fixed on that grove.

Bai Xiao looked at him. "What's wrong? Did you quarrel with Tong Bin?"

Only then did Cheng Yao turn back and, after considering his words, tell her about the fellow patient. As he spoke, he kept his eyes on the river below. Only at the end did he look up and stare at Bai Xiao. "Did you see anyone like that? I'm a little worried..."

Bai Xiao frowned in thought. "Now that you mention it... I think I did see a man in a trench coat. I thought it was odd..." She paused. "Though not that odd, I suppose. It's typhoon season lately, so maybe he was wearing one of those raincoat-style trench coats. The typhoons now seem much stronger than they were in my time."

Cheng Yao asked again, "Did you see him tonight?"

Bai Xiao shook her head. "No. I think it was a few days ago. Maybe while I was out buying groceries..." She thought for a long time, but could not remember the exact day.

Cheng Yao still looked grim. He turned to glance at the streetlamp with the blown bulb, then at the bent railing, the depressions in the pavement, and the fallen trees in the distance that could only be seen as dark silhouettes.

The camera swept over each of those places in turn and finally settled on Cheng Yao's clenched fist.

Bai Xiao's voice came from off-screen. "You think he did something here? I didn't see anyone tonight. These should be caused by park visitors, right? I saw wheelchairs and electric carts coming in before. That pile of tables and chairs over there looks like people were playing cards here during the day. I don't know if it was gambling... Or maybe the typhoon damaged things."

The explanation sounded perfectly reasonable.

In the neglected corners of the park, old men and women sometimes drove little carts in, gathered together to play cards, even gamble. Whether caused by people or by typhoons and heavy rain, a broken railing, a damaged stretch of pavement, a blown bulb, or a few stunted trees was all entirely ordinary.

Cheng Yao withdrew his gaze.

The camera turned back with him, and the television showed the two of them, one facing forward and the other with her back turned, standing beyond the railing. Bai Xiao had somehow turned around and now leaned against the railing, both hands behind her back, gripping it.

"Don't be so nervous. You keep thinking about the Monster Clinic..." Bai Xiao said helplessly, then changed into a playful tone. "Take it easy, relax, relax!"

Cheng Yao could not help laughing.

"You were the same way when you confessed to me. Your face was all stiff." Bai Xiao smiled, tilting her head as she looked at Cheng Yao. "And later, when you proposed, and at the wedding, and when we moved into the new place, and when we were trying for a baby... You're just too easy to get nervous. Come on, take a deep breath! Open up your chest a bit! Breathe in deeply!"

Cheng Yao obeyed, spreading his arms and taking large breaths.

"Inhale—exhale—"

Bai Xiao stood up straight, lifted her chest, raised her chin, and also took deep breaths, still holding onto the railing, standing on tiptoe and swaying gently back and forth, looking wonderfully content.

Cheng Yao clenched his fists and breathed deeply while stretching his arms. After doing this several times, he lowered his hands and lowered his head slightly, looking at Bai Xiao.

Bai Xiao shifted a little to the side, took a step back, and extended her right hand.

Cheng Yao also extended his right hand and took hers, wanting to draw her into his arms, but instead felt Bai Xiao pull him toward her.

She drew him close, slipped her arm around his and led him forward, pressing against him as they walked toward the park gate.

Naturally, Cheng Yao did not struggle. He followed her movement obediently, turning as she guided him.

The camera held still.

On the television, the image changed from their joined right hands to the backs of the two as they walked away.

The camera moved.

The section of railing Bai Xiao had been holding now looked as though both ends had been twisted off and then screwed back into place, the joints at either end twisted like strands of rope.

The doctor before the television narrowed his deep-blue eyes. As the ten fingernails in his palm clattered and shrieked, he snapped the file shut on his lap.