Chapter 24: The contact person

“Is this enough? No, it’s not enough. There’s only 2,000 yuan in cash. I don’t think it’s enough. You have to take this card. There’s a lot of money in it. You can use it.” When it was time to say goodbye, Qin Huai’s reaction was not sad, but instead he kept stuffing money into my hands. He emptied his pockets and Uncle He’s pockets, but it wasn’t enough, so he insisted on stuffing the card into my hands.

Actually, I had money. I had earned some money during the preparation period. Except for the expenses of the trip, which I had given to Chengyuan to prepare, I had a lot left over. I just didn’t dare to use my bank card because I didn’t dare to guarantee that the organization was so powerful that they could detect any changes in the amount on my bank card.

I returned the card to Qin Huai and said, “Maybe I won’t be in the city for long, so it’s useless to have so much money. I have enough on hand. If it’s not enough, you and Su Rou will find a way to get me money with one phone call, right?”

“I’m afraid we’ll be under surveillance too, so it’s not that convenient.” Qin Huai lowered his head, and suddenly there was a hint of sadness in his eyes. This kid is worried about my situation, and the emotions of parting have finally welled up in my heart.

He had grown up and reached this age, and the constraints of all aspects of life meant that he could not act like a young man and fool around with me or take risks with me, even though he wanted to. Perhaps being able to wait until he married Ruoyue was already the greatest tolerance his family had shown him.

“Let’s talk about it then. If it really doesn’t work out, I’ll go find Jiang Yi. Give me a card so I can feel like I’m being supported. You’d better keep it.” I tried to joke around as easily as possible.

“The guy who shot you? Brother, if I have the chance in the future, I will definitely use him as a target to practice shooting, and I will also give him a taste of what it feels like to be shot without hitting the vital points.” Qin Huai said with clenched teeth.

Brother, I like the sound of those three words. I patted Qin Huai on the shoulder and said, “He might be doing this for my own good. You go back, don’t worry about me. There’s a lot of money, more than 2,000 yuan, enough for a family to eat for two months (2001). I’m leaving.”

After saying that, I opened the car door, jumped out of the car, and left without allowing Qin Huai to say anything.

There was no sound of an engine behind me for a long time, and in front of me was the dim sunlight behind the sunglasses. I was alone, carrying my luggage, walking in a completely unfamiliar city, on unfamiliar streets, surrounded by people speaking unfamiliar dialects…

Isn’t it all the same? My expression was calm, just like many years ago when I left Sichuan on a rainy morning, when I left Beijing on a snowy morning, when I left Uncle Wang in a noisy train compartment, just like that day when my master left, with tears shining in his eyes, I could no longer wait, and was forced to accept the separation.

I had to accept it all, and I had forgotten or dared not touch the dream I had always had, a beautiful place with mountains and rivers, a small courtyard, family, a master, and a happy life together like snow, with friends gathering together often, the most warm and human.

Feeling this kind of mood, I walked with long strides, just like many other times of parting. I was used to not looking back, and I was afraid to look back. I walked past a street corner without realizing it, and I believe Qinhuai could no longer see me. I stopped then, leaning against a wall with some fatigue, and I was stunned for a while.

After that, I didn’t know what I was going to do or where I was going. This was the first time I had been so lost in an unfamiliar city, but thinking that the department had said that someone would come to help me, I just let it go.

I walked aimlessly, eating whatever I could find on the street when I was hungry, and sitting for a while when I was tired. When evening came, I still hadn’t met anyone, and I had unconsciously walked halfway across the city. I couldn’t walk any further, so I found a small hotel that didn’t require me to register with my ID card and checked in.

I wanted to keep a good attitude, rather than sinking into the feeling of loneliness and wandering, so I went into the hotel, washed up a bit, and used meditation to empty my mind. Then I threw myself onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

I don’t have a habit of recognizing beds. Even in a small hotel with poor conditions, I sleep very well. Of course, it can also be said that I am numb. I don’t have a good mood until midnight, when I am awakened by a knock on the door.

I sat up in bed, and my first reaction was to calm down and feel if I was in danger. Then I smiled wryly. In this kind of wandering, the only thing I could rely on was my intuition.

Fortunately, my mind was calm and I didn’t have any bad feelings, so I got up and opened the door for the person who was knocking.

Standing at the door was a man who looked like a migrant worker from the countryside. Seeing my honest smile, he said to me in heavily accented Mandarin, “There are no beds in the dormitory, so you can stay in this triple room for a cheaper price.

I let him in silently. This is how it is in small hotels that don’t require ID cards. Often, the rooms are mixed. In fact, I wanted to have a single room, but there were none left, so I had to make do with what I had.

The man was not a talkative person. After entering the room, he chatted with me for a while. Seeing that I was sleepy, he went to wash himself and then went to bed.

During the night, his snoring was loud, and after I tossed and turned for a while, I finally got used to it and fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke up at 7:00 a.m. It seemed that the man in the next bed had already left, but when I turned over and got up, I found a note next to my pillow.

I picked up the note and looked at it. It only had a simple and unfamiliar address written on it, and there was no extra nonsense.

I held the note in my hand for a moment, and although my expression was calm, my mood was turbulent. I never would have thought that the man from yesterday was actually my contact person. The department had done such a good job of keeping things secret, but what did it mean?

Feeling a bit irritated, I lit a cigarette and burned the note in my hand, washed it away with water, opened the curtains in my room, and found that it was another gloomy day, so late autumn is a season I can’t love.

Can’t it be sunny or rainy? Why is it always so gloomy?

With this kind of inexplicable complaint in my heart, I packed up and left the hotel, found a place to have breakfast, and asked the locals about the address on the note.

The address was in the city, but it was a bit out of the way. I asked a lot of locals, and they all had a general idea of the general direction, but they couldn’t give me a specific address. I asked a dozen people before I finally found the address on the note.

Looking at the old apartment building in front of me, I was relieved. Although the process was a bit complicated, the address on the note was real, and it finally gave me a sense of relief.

The address on the note was on the third floor of Unit 2 of this old apartment building. Because it was in a relatively remote area, there were no pedestrians around. I looked around and saw no suspicious characters, so I quickly entered Unit 2 and went straight to the third floor.

There were only two households on the third floor of the old apartment building. The other household was obviously uninhabited, and the household listed on the address also seemed uninhabited. I tried knocking on the door, but there was no response for a long time.

I kept knocking for a long time, and just when I was about to lose patience, there was finally some movement inside the door. Then the door opened, and a middle-aged man looked at me for a moment, didn’t say anything, and let me into the house.

The house was old, but it was clean and tidy, except for the few human head models that made people feel awkward.

The middle-aged man was very quiet, and I was also a bit at a loss in the room, not knowing what to say or ask.

“Sit down,” the middle-aged man said simply, pointing to a bench in front of the coffee table.

I sat down as instructed, and my heart finally relaxed a little. I tried to ask something a few times, but the middle-aged man kept walking around the room with something in his hand, so I didn’t have much of a chance.

With a ‘pop’, a razor was thrown in front of me. I was stunned, and then with another ‘pop’, a mirror was thrown in front of me.

“Shave your beard, or I won’t be able to do it,” the middle-aged man said to me.

“Ah?” I was a little stunned and didn’t understand what he meant by “it’s not easy for me to do it.”

“You forgot that you met me yesterday?” The middle-aged man suddenly smiled at me.

I tried to remember, but I couldn’t think of where I had seen him. To be honest, in this strange city, there are many strangers who pass by me.

“In the room, you forgot,” the middle-aged man suddenly spoke in a different voice. The tone of his voice was very heavy in the dialect of Mandarin, and when I heard this, I suddenly remembered that this middle-aged man was the man who was looking for a room in the hotel yesterday.

Thinking about this, I froze. I stared at his face, and the man who looked like a country bumpkin, where was the resemblance?