Chapter 16: The Town

“Is there really such a town?” I couldn’t help but sigh, wondering why the picture in the story kept appearing in my mind. The yellow sand was everywhere, the setting sun was like blood, and Lin Jianguo was walking alone in the deserted town. This should be a side effect of reading too many martial arts novels, but it’s always wonderful to be able to go to the places in the story.

“Yes, there is that town. It hasn’t suffered any disaster. Does that count as telling you the ending of the story? Simply going to that town won’t get you any clues. You have to find a person. His name is Liu Weijun. He is the source of my information. Unfortunately, I haven’t personally met him. He is very cautious. I always feel that there are more secrets about him.” Grandpa Ge said to us.

“Liu Weijun?” I said to myself, and then thought of someone sensitive, looking up at Mr. Ge.

Mr. Ge nodded to me and said, “Yes, this Liu Weijun is the younger son of the second master Liu in the story. I searched for clues and found that the only person who knew about the whole incident was his younger son. His other family members didn’t know about this, and… it seems that his younger son is not doing well. I don’t know how bad it is, but you have to go there yourself.”

“Master Ge, won’t you accompany us on our journey?” Chengxin leaned against the edge of the cabin and looked out the window at the autumn rain that seemed to never stop.

I understand what Brother Chengxin means. Perhaps we have not yet recovered from the heartbreak of losing Uncle Johnny, and we always feel that we need an older relative by our side to feel at ease.

But Mr. Ge shook his head and said, “You know, you may seem free, but there are always people watching you. I’ve come to your boat, and it’s probably no secret by now. Next, there will definitely be a lot of people looking for me, or investigating what information I gave you based on some clues from my previous trip! To avoid these troubles, I have to continue to ‘disappear’. Just wait a moment. Find a place, even if it’s in the middle of nowhere, and put me ashore. I’ll naturally find a way to solve it. I will only appear when you have really found Guida Bay.

“If we can’t find Gui Ta Wan, won’t you be missing forever?” Cheng Qing, who was standing by, finally said something out of concern.

“Hahaha… Do you know? I always miss the old Jiang when he was young. It seems that nothing in this world can bother him or make him sad. There is no better man than this! It is hard for people to not believe in such a person… Similarly, I also believe that you little guys won’t let me disappear for too long.” When Mr. Ge said this, he laughed so happily, as if he really remembered some of the years he spent with my master. He didn’t have any worries or burdens, and he gave us great trust.

We couldn’t possibly leave Master Ge in the middle of nowhere, so we found a relatively remote place not far from a few small villages and put Master Ge off the boat.

When we waved goodbye, Mr. Ge walked away very gracefully, but after walking more than ten meters, he suddenly turned around and ran a few steps towards us, looking at me standing on the deck and said, “Chengyi, remember to bring that guy Lao Jiang back.”

I don’t know why, but when I heard this, my heart suddenly felt a little sour. Looking at Master Ge’s hopeful eyes, I nodded solemnly.

Master, did you really suffer in Guidaowan?

The autumn rain was falling, and Ge’s back was already fading away. The Dream was restarted and continued to drift on a certain section of the Yellow River. This time, it had a specific destination. Before getting off the boat, Ge told us the specific location of the town. From the map, it was possible to go there by water.

After all, compared to land travel, the terrain determines that there is much less monitoring on the waterway. Although it cannot be completely avoided, at least in terms of the time it takes for news to spread, we can gain a certain time difference.

More than ten days later, the Dream finally docked at a small port that looked somewhat run-down. There were also a few small cargo ships and wooden fishing boats scattered about, giving the entire port an inexplicably desolate feel.

Normally, a port should be bustling with activity, but this rundown port was really rare.

After dealing with some of the trivialities of the boat, Ru Yue, I, and Cheng Xin Ge got off the boat first. After a while, the others also got off the boat one after another, choosing to travel in groups of two or three and move freely.

The first reason for this is that Mr. Ge told us that Liu Weijun is very cautious. I think if we go to see him in a group, we won’t even get the chance to talk to him. We don’t have Mr. Ge’s ability, but even if we don’t meet him, we can still get some information from other places.

As for the second point, if the personnel are scattered, it will have a certain cover for our actions. At least the people who get the news to monitor it will not be able to find the focus for a while.

The port is located in a small county, and I found it to be very poor. It may be the poorest of all the more than 2,000 county-level administrative divisions in China. The entire county is not as good as some of the larger towns I have seen. No wonder the port here has a desolate and dilapidated feel.

The town that Mr. Ge told us about belongs to this county, and I can roughly outline what kind of town it is.

The transportation in the county town is not very developed. Although it was in the morning, we were unable to buy a ticket to the town, and could only hire a very old minibus to go to the town at a high price.

Although the road conditions were not good and the dilapidated bus was about to fall apart, I, who had lived on the water for so long, still felt very comfortable. After all, people are creatures that are suitable for living on land. If you leave for too long, you will miss the land from the core of your bones.

Looking out the window, the scenery here is already typical of the Northwest, with a yellowish tint that gives it an indescribable sense of vicissitudes. Although it lacks the beauty of green, it is still equally moving.

After spending some time in the Northwest, I have always believed that a man must go to the Northwest at least once in his life, because the vicissitudes and heaviness, including the endless wind and sand, should all be part of the scenery in a man’s eyes… Even if it is barren, it also has its own heaviness, which is the quality that a man should appreciate from the scenery of the Northwest.

Don’t lose the true nature of a man for the sake of so-called power and wealth.

There were too many chaotic thoughts, and the car actually bumped all the way to the destination, a full two hours… When Ruoyue got off the bus, she had been so shaken up that she couldn’t spit anything out.

“The road ahead is not easy to travel. It has been said that it will take more than half a year to repair it. Even if you take a bus, you can only get to this place. But it’s not far. If you follow this road for another half hour, you will see the town. There are not many people in the town. The ones who are left are all old people. The young people have all gone out to work. Are you here for tourism? Why did you pick this town? There is nothing scenic.” The driver was very enthusiastic. While counting the money we gave him, he briefly introduced the town. There were no unnecessary adjectives, but I could feel the sadness of the town’s decline and twilight.

I looked up and could also feel the remoteness of this town. It is surrounded by undulating yellow earthen slopes. If it weren’t for the main road of the Yellow River flowing through here, I think it would be difficult to form a town here.

After bidding farewell to the enthusiastic driver, we had no choice but to walk along this dilapidated road. After walking for a short while, we felt that our saliva was filled with fine dust. Fortunately, after turning a bend in the mountains, we saw the town at the foot of the mountain and also saw the Yellow River rushing past the town.

Exploring the source of this dead air, I immediately saw a large arc-shaped area of land at the edge of the town, the color of which could only be described as simple grayish yellow.

“How can a town have such a dead atmosphere? And be affected to such an extent?” I frowned and thought to myself that it would be nice if Chengzhen were here. After all, with my shallow knowledge of feng shui, I couldn’t see anything, but I always knew that a place, including a village, town, county, or city, had its own feng shui. If the feng shui was in decline, the place would also decline sooner or later.

Thinking about what the driver said, I thought that the impact of this broken feng shui was also one of them.

“This town gives off a bad vibe.” Looking at the houses below, even Lian Yue realized it.

I didn’t say anything, but Chengxin brother put his glasses back on and said, “Forget it, let’s not go into this too deeply. Let’s go down first.”