MLV Ch 20

“How did you get here?” Jiang Ye’s brows knitted tightly together.

“Because you came here,” Jin Feize said with a smile. 

“Have you forgotten? We’re a couple. Couples should be inseparable.”

“I’m asking how you knew I was here.” Jiang Ye discreetly felt his pockets and collar, checking for any tracking devices this guy might have planted.

“Was it that hard to guess? Shen Duo is missing, the police have sealed your mother’s case file, and no one can help you find your mom, so you have to do it yourself. Poor little tadpole, have you found your mommy yet?”

“How did you contact Jiji Wa’er?”

Jin Feize blinked and smiled. 

“Jiji Wa’er is the most famous old hunter in Mojiang Village; it wasn’t hard to find out. Little Ye, if you had just told me you were going to Taisui Village, why go through all the trouble of asking around alone? You even changed your SIM card just to avoid me. But what’s the use? I can find you wherever you go.”

Bai Nianci walked over and asked curiously, “You two know each other?”

Jin Feize entered the stilt house and greeted him with a smile. 

“We’re boyfr—”

Jiang Ye reacted instantly, clamping a hand over his mouth before he could spout any more nonsense. He said calmly, “Classmates. We’re classmates.”

“You all should rest.” The old hunter walked into the house, sat by the fire pit, and lit an old-fashioned pipe. 

“We head into the mountains first thing tomorrow morning. It’s a full day’s walk. Sleep well tonight. I’m setting out the moment the sun rises, and I won’t wait for anyone.” His murky, sharp eyes turned to Jiang Ye. 

“That kid, are you also going to Taisui Village?”

Jiang Ye nodded. 

“Sorry to trouble you.”

He studied Jiang Ye’s face across the dim yellow light. The boy’s handsome features were sharply defined, and he had an air of cool indifference. The boy’s profile stirred a thread of memory, slowly awakening something that had long been dormant in his mind.

After looking for a long while, he said, “Why do I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before?”

“Seen him?” Bai Nianci said. 

“Old sir, this is his first time here. When could you have seen him?”

Jiji Wa’er pondered for a long moment before asking Jiang Ye, “Do you have a relative who’s been to Taisui Village? I think I’ve seen someone who looks a lot like you.”

“Yes,” Jiang Ye said. 

“Were you their guide as well?”

“That was me,” the old hunter said, a look of reminiscence on his face. 

“That was over ten years ago. Since you have a relative who’s been there, you should know what kind of place Taisui Village is. People still lived there over a decade ago. But after your relative visited, everyone in there died. Of all the people who have gone in since, I’ve never seen any come out.”

“Do you know what happened to her in there?”

“How would I know? I’ve never spent a night in Taisui Village. I only take people to a spot two hundred meters away. The rest of the way, you walk on your own.” The old hunter continued, “Since I was a child, my father taught me that it’s a place with an evil aura. When I followed my father to deliver goods to Taisui Village as a boy, the people living there were all strange, worshiping some invisible things every day. My father said that once you spend the first night there, you can never leave. At least, I’ve never seen anyone from Taisui Village ever leave it. Did your relative not come back?”

Jiang Ye realized that his mother might have been the first person to walk out of Taisui Village in decades. Although she had now gone back, and all news of her had since vanished.

The old hunter took a puff of his pipe and delivered a cruel verdict: “If you people go, none of you will escape.”

At his words, Huo Ang and Yilale exchanged a look. Bai Nianci’s expression was grave, lost in thought. Jin Feize stood on the veranda teasing a bird in a cage, as if he hadn’t heard the conversation inside at all. Jiang Ye lowered his head, unconsciously rubbing his knuckles. When ordinary people heard such an incredible story, they would either be terrified or doubtful, yet no one present reacted in that way. As expected, Bai Nianci and the two mercenaries already knew something about the strangeness of Taisui Village. He couldn’t help but wonder what his mother had discussed in her thesis that had caused it to be officially suppressed. The answer to that question was perhaps only known to the people at the Academy.

“What about the residents who used to live there?” Huo Ang interjected. 

“Didn’t you just say people used to live there?”

“All dead. The village has long been deserted,” the old hunter said, blowing out a smoke ring.

Yilale wanted to ask more, but the old hunter said he was going to bed. He had arranged rooms for them on the third floor, charging seven hundred yuan per room. When Jiang Ye went in, he found the room was shabby and small, with mildew spots on the bedsheets. There were only two vacant rooms in total, and they weren’t soundproof. Even though they knew the old hunter was ripping them off, they had no choice but to make do.

Jiang Ye wanted to share a room with Bai Nianci. Bai Nianci took off his glasses to wipe them and said with a smile, “Ah, Little Ye, look at your classmate. He clearly wants to share a room with you.”

Jiang Ye turned his head and met Jin Feize’s resentful gaze.

Jiang Ye: “…”

“Did you two have a fight? You’re classmates, you should get along. No matter how big the conflict was before, look, didn’t he come all this way to find you?” Bai Nianci patted his shoulder. 

“Your Uncle Huo, Uncle Yilale, and I will squeeze in together. We need to discuss tomorrow’s plan anyway. You kids go get some sleep.”

Jiang Ye pressed his lips together and looked at Jin Feize. Despite his extreme reluctance, he had no choice but to share a room with him.

The old hunter held out his hand to them. 

“Pay first, then you can stay. Since we’re fated to meet, I’ll give you a discount. Six hundred and fifty. This old man doesn’t use Alipay, give me cash.”

Jin Feize said, “I’ll pay.”

He took out the money. The old hunter licked his index finger and counted the bills. The amount was correct, not a cent short, and his attitude immediately improved. Jiang Ye silently logged into Alipay and transferred the money to Jin Feize. He refused to stay in a room paid for by Jin Feize.

“A word of friendly advice, don’t go looking for trouble,” the old hunter urged earnestly. 

“Young people these days love thrills, going wherever it’s dangerous. At your age, you two should be studying hard.”

Jiang Ye asked, “Grandpa, my mother came here again last month. You must have met, right? Did she say anything to you?”

“Your mother?”

“The relative who looks a lot like me. She’s not actually a relative, she’s my mother.”

“No, no,” the old hunter shook his head quickly. 

“You’re mistaken. The person I’m talking about was a man.”

“A man?” Jiang Ye frowned. 

“What was his name?”

“His name was…” The old hunter was stumped. 

“Ah, it’s been too long, I can’t remember.”

“Jiang Ran?” Jin Feize said suddenly.

The old hunter shook his head. 

“I don’t know if that was his name. I had completely forgotten about this person until I saw this kid just now.”

Jiang Ye clenched his fists, his thoughts surging like a tide. The man who looked so much like him—could it be Jiang Ran?

If Jiji Wa’er had seen “Jiang Ran,” it meant that “Jiang Ran” was a real person, not a hallucination born from his mother’s anxiety. Capital University had no record of a “Jiang Ran,” perhaps because the identity this person gave his mother was fake. Jiang Ye thought it through carefully and came up with a hypothesis. Perhaps a group of people, led by Jiang Ran, had impersonated the military and professors from Capital University’s Special Biological Research Academy, deceived his mother, and led her deep into the jungle. At the time, his mother was a renowned rising star in academia; it was very likely they wanted to use her knowledge to complete some mission. Perhaps there was some mystery in Taisui Village that could only be solved with her help.

But why would this person look like him? A completely outrageous guess rose in Jiang Ye’s mind. Could Jiang Ran be his biological father?

“Are there any photos?” Jiang Ye asked again.

The old hunter said no.

Jiang Ye asked a few more questions, but the old hunter just shook his head in response to all of them. He was old, after all, and couldn’t remember many details, only that Jiang Ran had come with a large group of people. This also confirmed Jiang Ye’s speculation that this team had impersonated the military to enter Taisui Village. Of course, there was another possibility: that they were indeed a platoon from Army Unit 608, but their names and numbers had been erased from the organization’s records, disappearing from the files forever. Jiang Ran had lost his legal identity and become a wandering ghost.

The old hunter left. The moment Jiang Ye entered the room, he was slammed against the wooden wall by Jin Feize.

Jiang Ye knew he was going to lose it and was already prepared. He pulled a folding knife he had bought from a street stall out of his pocket and said coldly, “You’d better not go crazy.”

He smiled wickedly and, completely disregarding the danger, pressed his waist directly against the sharp blade, leaning closer to Jiang Ye. The blade cut through his jacket. If Jiang Ye hadn’t pulled back quickly, the knife would have already pierced his kidney.

This lunatic! Jiang Ye’s expression was grim, a chill rising in his heart.

“Aren’t you going to stab me?” Jin Feize laughed by Jiang Ye’s ear. 

“I knew it. You’re too soft-hearted. You can’t bear to see me bleed.”