Chapter Twenty-Two: Hong Xiangcai

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Zheng Nanfang was roused from his sleep by a commotion. As he opened his eyes, he saw Tang Suan creeping into the tent, bent double.

“What’s going on out there?” Zheng Nanfang stretched lazily, still aching all over; clearly, he hadn’t slept long enough for his body to recover.

Tang Suan’s expression was hesitant. She shuffled closer to Zheng Nanfang and whispered, “Someone just came out of the black mist.”

“Hm?” Zheng Nanfang frowned slightly. Judging by Tang Suan’s manner, there was more to the story.

Tang Suan rubbed her hands together nervously, then stammered, “It’s… Sister Hong.”

“Forget it, I’ll go see for myself.” Zheng Nanfang shook his head, annoyed by this habit of half-speaking in riddles.

“Wait.” Tang Suan panicked, grabbing Zheng Nanfang’s hand, her delicate brows tightly knit. “Don’t go out yet… things are a bit chaotic.”

Although many of Zheng Nanfang’s actions seemed enigmatic to Tang Suan and her companions, in truth, Zheng Nanfang himself hated such cryptic exchanges most of all. Tang Suan’s attempt to stop him only piqued his curiosity further.

He lifted the tent flap and stepped outside. At the entrance stood Hu Bi, Sha Man, and Shu Onion, facing off against a group of gunmen from Deep Blue Infirmary. As soon as Zheng Nanfang appeared, all the gun barrels swung to point at him.

“Well now? What’s all this?” Zheng Nanfang asked in bewilderment, rubbing his nose. “Old Hu, what’s happening now?”

“Get back inside.” Hu Bi stood ready, twin pistols in hand, breathing so heavily his beard bristled and swayed. His voice was gruff: “This place is cursed.”

Hu Bi’s evasive reply left Zheng Nanfang more confused. He turned to Shu Onion. “Little Onion, what’s going on? Tang Suan said your Sister Hong came out of the mist?”

The former women’s brigade of Deep Blue Infirmary, now under Zheng Nanfang’s command, was already uneasy, standing armed against their former comrades. Being addressed so familiarly by Zheng Nanfang only unsettled them further.

“Boss, please, just go back inside… If Sister Hong sees you now, it’ll be bad.”

Tang Suan hurried after him, clutching his arm and refusing to let go, her face pale with anxiety.

Zheng Nanfang’s curiosity grew. How had a brief nap turned into a situation akin to desecrating Hong Xiangcai’s ancestral grave?

The standoff continued.

By rights, the heavily armed Deep Blue Infirmary could have ended things with a single barrage. But despite the tense face-off, it didn’t look as if anyone was about to open fire.

Zheng Nanfang, after repeated inquiries with no straight answers, grew impatient. He stepped forward, striding boldly toward Deep Blue Infirmary’s side.

To his surprise, the gunmen—despite their numbers and firepower—recoiled en masse, as if he were some kind of plague, unwilling to let him get close.

“What are you doing? If you want to fight, just say so!” Zheng Nanfang raised his empty hands high, indicating he was unarmed. “Where’s Hong Xiangcai? Didn’t she come back?”

A commotion arose at the rear tents. The gunmen parted, and Zheng Nanfang saw two of them supporting a thin, entirely bandaged figure—like a mummy.

Zheng Nanfang: ???

The gunmen’s faces were complicated. Someone fetched a folding chair, and several helped the mummy-like figure to sit. A young nurse gently parted the bandages at the mouth, exposing the lips.

Zheng Nanfang glanced back at Tang Suan and her companions. Their expressions were uneasy, eyes flickering with inner conflict.

“Hu Sentian, do you trust me, or do you trust him?”

A voice brimming with resentment rang out—it was Hong Xiangcai, the mummy.

Hu Bi gnawed his teeth, hesitating. “I don’t know what you saw in there, but this kid’s been with us the whole time. Ask your gunmen—I have no reason to lie to you.”

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“So you’re saying I’m lying?” Hong Xiangcai’s voice, muffled and hoarse through the bandages, betrayed an unfathomable trauma.

“Sister Hong, we know you’re not one to lie, but… it’s just impossible,” Tang Suan couldn’t help but interject. “You went ahead into the Dead City. We didn’t arrive until after midnight. How could he have attacked you in the mist?”

Zheng Nanfang listened for a while, then interrupted the quarrel. He addressed Hong Xiangcai directly, “What did you see?”

The mummy’s head turned slowly toward Zheng Nanfang; her eyes were covered with gauze—she was blind, relying solely on sound.

“What are you?” Hong Xiangcai ground out, her words biting.

Zheng Nanfang rolled his eyes. Was this the time for insults?

“I’ve been listening to you all for a while. Are you saying I attacked you?” Zheng Nanfang frowned, thinking carefully. “Or put another way: You encountered someone in the mist you thought was me, and they attacked you?”

At that, the murmuring crowd fell silent.

Tang Suan, quick-witted as ever, instantly grasped Zheng Nanfang’s meaning. Her face went from realization to a chill of dread.

If Zheng Nanfang’s guess was true, what did that imply?

Hu Bi frowned, recalling the red Bird car they had found outside the fishery.

“Xiangcai, where’s your car?” Hu Bi asked.

Hong Xiangcai paused, then countered, “What do you mean?”

“Put the guns down first,” Zheng Nanfang said, now certain of his suspicions. He strode toward Hong Xiangcai, his tone grave. “We’re all in this together. Any misfire is just mutual destruction.”

“Stay away from me.” Severely wounded and unable to move, Hong Xiangcai still had sharp hearing; sensing Zheng Nanfang’s approach, she shrank back.

Everyone present took note of this. What had she been through, to be so terrified of him?

“Listen to me. From now on, everyone must remember who’s next to them.” Zheng Nanfang cleared his throat—regardless of whether people listened, he began giving orders. “Use any method you like—code words, physical marks. Just make sure you can prove the person next to you is really who you remember.”

“Boss, is this really necessary?” Sha Man muttered, still confused. “We trust you…”

“Trust isn’t enough anymore,” Zheng Nanfang replied gravely. “It’s a pity Laili and the others are gone.”

“Why were you so keen on her, anyway?” Hu Bi flicked away his cigarette butt, grabbing Sha Man by the shoulder and sticking a hand into her collar.

“What are you doing!” Sha Man yelped, slapping his hand away in outrage. “Is this really the time?”

“Making a mark for you,” Hu Bi laughed, hauling her up like a chick. “Didn’t that kid say we each had to remember someone? I choose you.”

Sha Man fought back, but Hu Bi forced her collar open and bit a mark into her chest. Her eyes welled with tears—whether from pain or anger, it was hard to say. In retaliation, she raked three bloody scratches down Hu Bi’s neck.

Tang Suan and Shu Onion exchanged a shuddering glance, their opinion of the two summed up in a single word: perverts.

Hong Xiangcai gradually calmed, weighing her options and finally accepting Zheng Nanfang’s logic. She ordered her people to comply.

After Zheng Nanfang and Tang Suan marked each other, they helped Hu Bi carry Hong Xiangcai into the tent.

Tang Suan tactfully withdrew, leaving the three of them alone.

“What happened to you in there? What’s in the black mist?” Zheng Nanfang asked.

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Hong Xiangcai, tightly swathed in bandages, was silent for a while before rasping, “Nothing.”

“Be specific.” Zheng Nanfang gestured for Hu Bi not to interrupt and pressed on, “I need every detail.”

“What good will it do you?” Hong Xiangcai scoffed. Clearly, she hadn’t let go of her suspicion and resentment.

Without hesitation, Zheng Nanfang replied, “If you want to get out of here alive, you’d better cooperate. Otherwise, I can’t help you.”

“What’s the point of surviving, anyway?” Hong Xiangcai let out a bitter laugh, her stubbornness finally collapsing into sobs. “I’m finished. I’m ruined…”

Hu Bi, his expression complex, quietly lifted a bit of the bandage on her leg. A foul, black pus oozed out, the reddened flesh sticking to the cloth, yet Hong Xiangcai seemed to feel nothing.

Hu Bi glanced at Zheng Nanfang, wanting to speak but holding back.

Zheng Nanfang’s brow twitched—somehow, this scene felt eerily familiar.

“What’s wrong with you?” Hu Bi was surprised to see Zheng Nanfang’s hand trembling slightly.

Zheng Nanfang steadied himself, brushed the question aside, and continued, “What was in the mist?”

Hong Xiangcai wept for a while; her spirit seemed drained. She answered in a low voice, “I don’t know. I really don’t. I couldn’t see anything. There were lots of passageways, and things inside them.”

Both Zheng Nanfang and Hu Bi grew even more somber.

There was no reason for Hong Xiangcai to lie at this point, but her disjointed account gave them little clue about what lay within the mist.

The only thing they could be sure of was that the black fog concealed other passageways. Where they led, and what waited within, could only be discovered by venturing in themselves.

Zheng Nanfang was silent for a while. When Hong Xiangcai had calmed a bit, he asked, “So what about your claim I attacked you? Was that in the mist too?”

“No, not in the mist.” Hong Xiangcai’s body trembled as if reliving some horror. “It was a lake—not a lake… You tricked me. You told me to swim across… There was something wrong with the water…”

Zheng Nanfang was about to question further, but Hu Bi stopped him.

Hu Bi shook his head, a flash of pity in his eyes.

Respecting Hu Bi’s wishes, Zheng Nanfang asked Tang Suan to fetch other caregivers and returned to the tent with Hu Bi.

The night dragged on; dawn was nowhere in sight. Neither man could sleep, both weighed down with worry.

“Is it too late to leave?” Hu Bi asked.

“Don’t you want to go in?” Zheng Nanfang replied.

Hu Bi shook his head, his voice tinged with desolation. “I never thought it would come to this.”

Zheng Nanfang lit a cigarette and murmured, “Old Hu, to be honest, I can’t even be sure… if this Hong Xiangcai is really the same Hong Xiangcai who set out with us from Raw Meat Town.”