chapter 21

The nights in the mountains weren’t quiet, there were all sorts of bug, bird and animal calls, the sound of wind and the sound of water, but no matter what type of sound it was, it would never cause one to feel as uneasy as the voice of Man.

Huo Ran and Kou Chen looked at each other dumbstruck for a moment, before he picks the baton and LED flashlight up, sticking his head out of the tent and seeing Old Yang who had his head stuck out as well.

“What’s going on?” Old Yang lowers his voice to ask.

“Don’t know,” Huo Ran speaks softly, “What’s going on with the tents on that side?”

“Didn’t hear any noise, did they think it was Kou Xiao singing?” Old Yang says.

“Let’s go see,” Huo Ran says.

He was particularly unwilling to go take a look, but if they didn’t go look now, then there would be no way to get through the night.

“Wait for me,” Kou Chen struggles to remove himself from the sleeping bag, now simply regretting that he’d stripped into such naked glory so early.

Huo Ran doesn’t wait for him, exiting the tent after wearing his shoes, and was probably worried that the wind would get in, so exactly when he had also thought to stick his head out, he’d backhandedly pulled the tent’s zipper up.

“Fuck,” Kou Chen swears in a low voice, messily dressing himself with some urgency, “Why are you this fucking brave? This sort of thing and you actually…”

“Have you watched too many horror movies?” Huo Ran unzips the tent again, “When have you seen a ghost appearing in the wilderness in a horror movie? It’s not like there are graves nearby.”

“There are no ghosts in the wild,” Kou Chen says.

“Check around the campsite a little, your sister is still hiding the tent too scared to come out,” Huo Ran assigns the duties, “I’ll be by the woods with Old Yang.”

“Okay,” Kou Chen finally gets his pants on, slipping into his shoes then rushing out of the tent.

Huo Ran and Old Yang walk over to the edge of the woods one after another, and Kou Chen looks around the campsite whilst paying attention to their movements.

Nobody had come out from the tents on that side, nor did they turn their lights on, it was unknown whether they had already fallen asleep or they were doing a little something and hadn’t heard the singing earlier on at all.

When he passes Kou Xiao’s tent by, Kou Chen picks the trekking pole that had been left by the entrance up: “Jie.”

“Mn,” Kou Xiao responds from inside, “The two of them have gone to the woods?”

“They’ve gone,” Kou Chen lifts the tent’s curtain, sticking the trekking pole inside, “You hold onto this…”

Kou Xiao was sitting upright inside the tent, an iron pick used for barbecue in her hand.

“This one’s good, once I start stabbing I can stab you into a showerhead,” Kou Xiao says.

“…Fine, you use the pick,” Kou Chen nods, “I’ll go over there to look, if there’s anything just shout.”

“Don’t worry, who am I,” Kou Xiao raises her eyebrows.

Kou Chen glances at Huo Ran and Old Yang yet again, they were already by the woods and were currently shining the flashlight into it, Kou Chen’s gaze follows the light into the woods, but doesn’t see anything that could move.

He walks quietly up to the tents of those pairs of indecent males and females, listening before he opens his mouth to speak.

Out of the three tents, two had people speaking in soft voices, and the last one had the sound of panting… Kou Chen doesn’t start speaking, swiftly retreating on nimble hands and feet.

He felt like he was an eavesdropper, particularly indecent.

But after he’d retreated he’d still gone a few rounds around the tents, not discovering anything abnormal.

By the time he’d returned to their tent, Huo Ran and Old Yang had also come back.

“How was it?” Kou Chen asks.

“There’s someone in the woods,” Huo Ran says.

“Likely a female,” Old Yang says, “We heard her speak, but we didn’t see anyone.”

“Mn?” Kou Chen was stupefied, “Didn’t ask her what was going on?”

“In the middle of the night, a woman, singing and talking by herself in the woods,” Huo Ran looks at him, “And you want to talk to her?”

“Didn’t you say there aren’t ghosts in the wild?” Kou Chen says.

“Did I say that she’s a ghost?” Huo Ran says, “This obviously is a mentally-ill…”

“Oh,” Kou Chen gets it, “Fuck, it’s a nutcase?”

“80% likely,” Old Yang heaves a sigh, “Typically in these sorts of mountain villages, if there’s a nutcase in the family, it would be impossible to send them to a hospital nor have anyone bother, so they’re left to run, they’ll keep running then die just like that.”

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Huo Ran leads the two of them in the scattering of the tree branches that they hadn’t finished using for the barbecue around the tents, if anyone or any animal approaches, they’ll be heard when they step on them.

After speaking a little more while standing in the cold wind, they returned to their tents.

“Say, could those villagers have come to look for that mentally-ill person?” Kou Chen asks.

“Don’t know,” Huo Ran furrows his brows, “If they really were here to look for something, no matter what it is, it’s something that isn’t fit to be seen, if it were a normal search for a person or livestock they wouldn’t not have asked us, as long as they hadn’t asked, there’s definitely an issue.”

“Mn,” Kou Chen starts removing his clothes all over again, stripping himself bare and climbing into the sleeping bag, “I’ll sleep a bit first, you hold up for a bit, call me up when you get sleepy later, we’ll take turns staying up tonight.”

“Okay,” Huo Ran smiles.

Kou Chen tightens the mouth of the sleeping bag, only leaving his nose and eyes revealed, before closing his eyes.

Huo Ran looks at him.

After two seconds Kou Chen opens his eyes: “Fuck, aren’t you going to be a little moved? You’re not sleepy now, so I’m letting you stay up first, I’ll switch over when you’re at your sleepiest, did you not understand this order?”

“I understood though,” Huo Ran grins.

“Then are you not gonna be a little moved?” Kou Chen says.

“I’m moved,” Huo Ran nods.

“Fuck,” Kou Chen looks at him, closing his eyes after a moment, “My first time seeing someone who can be this calm while moved*.”

[*tl note: it’s actually more like ‘moved into such calmness’ but that phrasing doesn’t seem to make sense/convey the meaning at first glance]

Huo Ran starts laughing: “Actually I wanted to ask, you’re in a tent in the wilderness, do you have to strip into only leaving a pair of underwear?”

“Otherwise? If it weren’t in a tent in the wilderness but in my house, I wouldn’t even leave the underwear on,” Kou Chen says.

Huo Ran grabs a piece of chocolate and speaks while eating: “Don’t strip like that, what if there’s some incident, others can stand up and just run…”

“If I stand up I can also run,” Kou Chen says.

“Others have clothes,” Huo Ran says, “You’ll be running naked, it’s not the same, if it’s running naked it’s safer in the city.”

“Ai!” Kou Chen sits up, “You mean for me to get out to put my clothes on now, then go back in, have I fucking not had enough trouble?!”

Huo Ran doesn’t say anything, waving his hand at him.

Kou Chen lays back down and closes his eyes.

It was very quiet in the tent, outside the lady’s voice was also no more, not singing nor speaking any longer.

Huo Ran takes his phone out to look at, there wasn’t any signal.

For phone signal they’d have to continue forward in the direction of Old XiKou, they would start to get signal when they were just about a few kilometres away.

But that’d have to be tomorrow afternoon.

In the time between though, phone signal was a ghost in the wild, regardless of whether it existed or not, there was none.

He’d sent messages to both Dad and Xu ZhiFan when they’d been in a place with signal, he’d reported his location and had told them of their upcoming schedule, if something really came up, they would be able to find their way over…

Tsk.

Not thinking about this. He’d never heard about anything happening to any veteran along this route since he’d started his outdoor adventures.

Kou Chen hadn’t been asleep the whole time, he didn’t have the habit to sleep at 8-9pm, but he still kept his eyes closed, trying his best to forcefully sleep for a rather long time, after all he had to take turns to stay up with Huo Ran the whole night, he needed to conserve enough energy.

Just when he’d finally started to feel the tiniest bit of sleepiness, his phone gave a soft chime.

This was the alarm he’d set for himself.

It was 11pm.

He should get up to switch with Huo Ran.

Fuck?

Just started to feel a little sleepy and he had to get up already!

Kou Chen really regretted the arrangement he had made earlier regarding the schedule for keeping watch.

He opens his eyes very reluctantly, and sees that Huo Ran was still sitting in the position he had been earlier and hadn’t moved, only that his head was lowered, as though he had fallen asleep.

Too unprofessional, what was this work ethic! He’d actually fallen asleep while staying up?

“Is it time for your turn?” Huo Ran suddenly asks.

“Fuck,” Kou Chen was momentarily at a loss, “I thought you’d fallen asleep.”

“Resting my eyes*,” Huo Ran opens his eyes and raises his head to send him a smile.

[*tl note: more accurate would be something like ‘closing my eyes to meditate’]

“Okay,” Kou Chen sits up, “Sleep then, I’ll call you 2.”

Huo Ran didn’t wait for him to be seated properly before he’d already slipped into his sleeping bag and laid down.

“…You’re not stripping?” Kou Chen looks at him with shock.

“This is how I sleep,” Huo Ran squirms a little inside the sleeping bag, tossing his jacket out, “Call me at 1, not 2, that’s too late.”

“Oh,” Kou Chen nods.

He doesn’t put clothes on, just sitting in the tent in a daze with the sleeping bag wrapped around him.

After Huo Ran fell asleep, he experienced what was called ‘the night seemed to drag on’ for the first time.

But at 1am he didn’t wake Huo Ran up as per their agreement.

Nor did he at 2am.

But it wasn’t because of how great he was.

Rather it was because he’d only held on for half an hour after Huo Ran had fallen asleep before he’d passed out asleep.

The instance in which he’d collapsed, a sentence even flashed in his mind hazily.

‘If someone really came over, we probably would be able to hear the branches getting stepped on wouldn’t we.’1

Huo Ran clearly also hadn’t woken up at 1am, much less 2am, conscientiously.

When Kou Chen gets shoved awake in the morning, the first sentence he hears is: “I just knew this would be the result.”

Kou Chen instantly starts laughing: “Ai, I forgot to set the alarm.”

“Thank goodness you didn’t set it,” Huo Ran speaks as he keeps the sleeping bag away, “Affects sleep.”

“Nothing came up last night, right?” Kou Chen sits up.

“Something did,” the hand Huo Ran was using to roll the sleeping bag up pauses, “The chicken wings we didn’t finish have gone missing.”

Kou Chen immediately feels the hairs on his back rising: “He Hua came?”

“Get lost,” Huo Ran laughs into choking up, “It might’ve been a small animal… of course it might also have been a person, so hurry and get up, we’re setting off after eating some instant noodles.”

The indecent males and females on that side were completely out of the know regarding what had happened the previous night, only after they’d finished eating breakfast and packed their things up did two males exit their tents, going off to the side of the woods to pee.

Huo Ran goes over to remind them to be aware of strangers, before coming over to check their own campsite, and only after confirming that nothing had been missed out did he give a wave of his hand: “We’re setting off.”

“Let’s leave these behind,” Kou Xiao takes the remaining two sticks of sausages out, “Do we still have dry food and that there’s a place for resupplying ahead?”

“Yes,” Huo Ran nods his head.

“Then…” Kou Xiao hesitates a little, “If someone had come over to eat the chicken wings in the middle of the night…”

“Place them by the woods then,” Old Yang understands what she means, pointing to a rock by the woods, “Put it on that, it’ll be easy to spot.”

“Okay,” Kou Xiao goes over to place the sausages on the rock.1

Because of last night’s experience, this ordinary journey that had originally only been for looking at scenery and working up a sweat in addition instantly became an exhilarating one, in the three hours after they’d set off, the conversation topic stayed on villagers and singing in the middle of the night as they walked along a small river valley.

“No kidding, if anything happens in this place, we wouldn’t be able to call the police would we,” Kou Xiao says, “My phone hasn’t had signal all this time.”

“There’ll be signal up ahead,” Huo Ran says, “On and off occasionally probably, do you want to report this to the police?”

“What do we say if we report? Someone was singing in the middle of the night, the 3 chicken wings we had left had secretly been eaten?” Kou Xiao heaves a sigh.

Kou Chen was very grumpily poking everywhere using his trekking pole while he walked: “If we bump into any villagers or something*, I’ll definitely charge over to grab one, if it really is a nutcase, the villagers in this area definitely…”

[*tl note: a sort of lost joke, the first character in the term for what I’ve translated as ‘villagers’ 老乡 (lǎoxiāng) means old, kou chen swaps the ‘old’ to ‘young’ as sarcasm of a sort]

The sound of rocks rolling came from behind them, with the river valley indistinctly carrying a few echoes.

Beneath their feet was a riverbed that had almost dried up, so making this sort of sound when stepping onto rocks was something that happened often, but this sound from behind them was of a certain distance.

The few of them turn around with a start.

A human figure darts behind a muddy slope.

“Fuck your uncle,” Kou Chen throws his backpack onto the ground, setting right off in a chase.

Huo Ran wasn’t in time to stop him, and could only also toss his bag onto the ground, conveniently grabbing the baton and chasing behind Kou Chen: “Yang-ge you take care of Jiejie.”

“Take care my ass, Old Yang, we’re going!” Kou Xiao panics, because the two that had run off were minors, one was even her biological brother, if anything really happened, the one that would be made into sausages when they got back would be her.

The two of them also toss their bags and chase their way over.

If this had been a plan to ‘lure the tiger away from the mountain’ to steal their bags, they’d pretty much only be left with the clothes on their bodies.

The mud slope was very low, Kou Chen rushes to the top in a few steps and sees that on the other side was a field of wilted grass, a few sparse trees with awful shapes similar to lumbar disc protrusion.

There was a person who was dressed like a monk running among the grass.

“You fucking hold it right there!” Kou Chen roars, jumping right down from the slope, sliding down to the flat ground with his feet flat on the surface and continuing his chase.

“Fuck,” Huo Ran had not, in fact, wanted to let Kou Chen continue chasing, but also wanted to catch that person to clarify what was going on, otherwise they simply wouldn’t be too safe being on this road for the next few days.

He didn’t have the skill to match Kou Chen in suaveness, he squatted as he slid down the slope and when he turns back for a look as he was running out, Kou Xiao and Old Yang were sitting as they slid their way down.

“Kou Chen wait for me!” Huo Ran continues running, “Don’t go by yourself!”

“Hold it right there!” Kou Chen doesn’t pay his request any mind, charging as though he’d received a “Fly for Laozi” kick, he’d managed to run with a swiftness that made him seem like he was doing a 100-meter dash on a surface which had numerous indentations.

What’s he playing basketball for with this speed, he should be recommended to the school track and field team!

A field could be seen in a faraway place, but the area they were in was barren with only weeds and a few shrubs whose leaves had fallen off, out of worry regarding those odd villagers from the previous day, Huo Ran gives a few mindful glances that way and doesn’t see that there were people in the field, somewhat heaving a sigh.

“Ah——” a woman’s cry sounded from the front.

“Kou Chen!” Huo Ran roars.

“Come!” Kou Chen also shouts.

Huo Ran instantly achieves the speed of a track and field captain, and when he reaches him, he sees that Kou Chen already had the monk pressed into the ground.

The monk was currently struggling madly, trying to send scratches onto Kou Chen’s face and neck, and was even raising her leg to send kicks onto his body non-stop.

Huo Ran launches forward, first pressing the monk’s madly-kicking legs down.

The monk was extremely thin, thin to the point where Huo Ran felt that if he used even a little more force while holding her legs down he could break them right away.

“Help! Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” the monk starts shouting, “Mama! Mama! Kill me! Kill me!”

“We won’t kill you!” Kou Chen shouts, “Not killing you! We’re good people! Good people! Police! We’re the police!”

The monk pauses for an instant, and Huo Ran sees that this was a woman, no longer young, looking to be around 40 years old, her face extremely dirty, her body also emitted a bad smell.

Her chaotic gaze pretty much let him confirm that this was a nutcase, she was probably the one that had been going around their campsite the previous day.

“Mama has come!” Kou Xiao shouts as she runs over, “Mama has come!”

“Fuck!” Kou Chen takes the time to turn and look at her in the midst of the monk’s struggles.

“Is she looking for her mother!” Kou Xiao asks while running.

“…Yes,” the moment Kou Chen gets distracted, a slap from the monk lands on his face and he is instantly angered, turning back to shout, “You fucking dare to hit your uncle!”

The monk hadn’t calmed down because of this imitation mother Kou Xiao, still struggling with her life, she was going on about something indistinctly, even singing a few lines in between.

Old Yang valiantly pulls a rope off his waistband: “Tie her up first, there’s no way to communicate like this.”

The group including Kou Xiao get the hint, all pulling the ropes off their pants.

The scene was incredibly deplorable.

But at the moment they couldn’t be bothered with anything else, the group of them hold the monk down, and Kou Xiao uses the rope to tie her hands and feet up.

When they let go, the monk finally quietens down, laying on the ground and not moving, her eyes glaring at the sky.+