SES Chapter 107 Part 1

Chapter 107

Huo Zihong, rattled and at a loss, slowly calmed down thanks to Luo Ren’s steady composure.

People are like that—being caught off guard and being seasoned are two very different things.

Luo Ren asked about the area code. That meant the call was from out of town, right? He was calmer than she was. In just a few questions, he had already grasped the gist of the situation. Huo Zihong wanted him to step in. He would be more suitable than she.

She tried to think of how to phrase it.

“Luo Ren, even though you and Mudi… that’s all in the past now…”

“But the two of you are still friends. If something’s wrong with her, I hope you can—”

Luo Ren cut her off: “You don’t need to remind me. I know what I should do.”

He helped Huo Zihong to her feet. “I’ll go check on her first. If anything comes up, I’ll let you know. Don’t be too anxious—Mudi’s personality, you know how she is. Maybe she just got the news and panicked. Once she cools down, she’ll be fine.”

Huo Zihong stood there blankly for a while until her senses began to return.

She vaguely recalled watching an AIDS awareness film once. What did it say again?

Something about an incubation period, averaging around ten years. But Mudi was already almost twenty-four.

And AIDS was supposed to break down the immune system, leaving patients with weak resistance. But Mudi’s health had always been good. Because of martial arts training, she rarely got sick.

Huo Zihong let out a long sigh. The past few minutes had felt like someone had flipped her upside down, head dangling, brain in chaos. Now she felt righted again.

She gave Luo Ren a sheepish smile. “People really can scare themselves, huh.”

Luo Ren grunted in acknowledgment, glanced at the wrought-iron clock behind the bar, and said, “It’s about time. I’ll take Pingting home first.”

He turned to leave. After only two steps, Huo Zihong called out to him.

He looked back.

“Luo Ren, you’re really not nervous at all?”

She sifted through all her impressions of him over the years. He had gotten angry, even sharp with words. But honestly, no matter what happened, she had never once seen him panic.

You’re really not nervous at all?

Luo Ren replied, “Would panicking help?”

—

Mudi hung up the phone in a daze and started walking aimlessly, not even knowing where she was going.

It felt like she was simply following people. Pick someone at random, trail behind, lose them, then latch onto another. Just moving for the sake of moving.

AIDS. She’d heard the word many times before but never paid much attention—just knew it was the “disease of the century,” spread through promiscuity, blood, or mother-to-child transmission.

Starting over had been so hard. Mustering courage, rekindling hope—so hard. But to have it all snuffed out was frighteningly easy.

Tears slid down her cheeks. She wiped them against the wind, thinking: Please, don’t let me be sick. Please.

Then she thought—this wasn’t something she could control. Grudges could be resolved. But something cold and merciless was invading her body? That was a fight she couldn’t win.

She took deep, deliberate breaths, reminding herself to stay calm.

It was just an old woman’s words. Nothing was confirmed yet. She should probably get tested at a hospital first. Maybe she wasn’t infected at all.

And if she was…

Strangely, her mood actually steadied.

If she were infected, then maybe her life’s end was near. But that didn’t seem so terrifying. Wenwen had been gone for eight years already. She had lived so many more years than her.

Hands sliding into her pockets, she thought of cemeteries she had seen before—rows of identical headstones, each with just a name and dates carved in.

What if there had to be a short biography?

Abandoned by her mother in childhood. A mistake in youth. Lost her dearest friend. Struggled with her mental state. Practiced martial arts for eight years. Loved one person.

A gust of wind blew, lifting her hair across her eyes.

Damn it, what a thin, meager life. No achievements. No contributions. What was the point of coming into this world at all?

She kicked a dirt clod viciously.

It broke apart mid-air, scattering dust. The person walking ahead glanced back nervously, then sped up.

What? Did he think she was going to mug him?

She looked back. The lights of the town were already far behind her. She didn’t even know who she had been following or how she’d ended up on the outskirts.

Ahead was darkness dotted with scattered little houses. To her right, rice paddies. The wind swept across the stalks, rippling them with a soft shhh-shhh sound.

It felt like a scene straight out of a horror or crime movie.

Mudi stopped, brushed the hair from her face. The figure ahead quickened his pace, then suddenly darted down into the fields, rushing through the rice stalks.

What the hell? Off to meet someone?

She peered after him. Something jutted up oddly in the distance, shaped like a rearing horse.

A horse in the middle of a rice field? She figured she must have been seeing things. She decided to head down from her side of the field toward it.

As she got closer, she realized it really was.

A big, round cement platform stood there, topped with a horse-shaped sculpture. The head looked a little strange. The person from before was kneeling at the base, flashlight trembling as he scribbled something. Hearing her, he shrieked and swung the beam toward her. “Who’s there?!”

The light stabbed her eyes. Mudi raised a hand to shield them.

Then the boy went, “Huh? Aren’t you that… waitress?”

She dropped her hand and walked closer.

Right, she remembered now—it was the chubby kid from yesterday, the one the buzz-cut guy had smacked, yelling, “Are you even a man?”

He sighed in relief. “Jeez, why are you following me? Scared the hell out of me.”

His tone, though, was clearly lighter. In pitch darkness, having a familiar face around felt like company.

He knelt back down, shook the bottle of white-out in his hand, and began writing on the cement platform again.

Mudi leaned in and saw that the surface was layered with graffiti upon graffiti, words scrawled everywhere. The chubby boy was squeezing his message into a tiny open space.

Zhang Tong was here.

So his name was Zhang Tong.

In the end, it was all just about proving he had guts, that he was a “man.”

“You could’ve come in the daytime to do this,” Mudi said.

Zhang Tong snorted through his nose. “You think they’re all stupid? They saw me head this way. When I get back, they’ll check to make sure I really did it.”

Mudi sighed. Just like with Zheng Li, she felt there was a generational gap. She couldn’t understand this kind of thing.

Once he finished, Zhang Tong tilted his head, pressing an ear against the cement.

He was clearly glad Mudi was there. If he’d been alone, who knows how scared he’d have gotten.

“What are you listening for?” she asked.

“Shh.” Zhang Tong hushed her. “The heartbeat.”

A heartbeat? From a cement platform?

Mudi almost laughed. She could tell Zhang Tong was just spooked earlier. Since they had to head back anyway, she might as well walk with him.

Still, she copied him, pressing her ear to the cold concrete.

A heartbeat? Impossible.

Suddenly, a strange gust swept the back of her neck.

Her whole body tensed. She couldn’t explain why, but she knew—the wind wasn’t supposed to blow like that.

Her body reacted before her mind did. She spun around, arm snapping up in a sharp block—

And rose to her feet in the same motion.