Chapter 17: Strange things everywhere

At around 4 p.m., we finally entered this legendary town. If we hadn’t known about the legend beforehand, and if we hadn’t stood on the hillside and inexplicably felt the lifelessness of the entire town, we would have just walked in, thinking it was just an ordinary, run-down town.

Like the countless small towns that have existed and disappeared throughout Chinese history, no one can stop this kind of progress, except for the desolation it causes in people’s hearts.

In late autumn, the 4 p.m. sun is not warm enough, and in this town where the northwest wind blows from time to time, raising dust, the sun seems to be a little blurry.

There are not many traces of the times here. Everything appears before us like an old photograph, with typical 1950s and 1960s buildings, blurred slogans on the walls, and even slogans from the special period that are still in this town.

As the driver said, after walking around the town for more than ten minutes, we didn’t see many young people. Most of the people were old people walking slowly. Occasionally, there were a few children. In the afternoon, apart from a few small shops, there wasn’t even a restaurant open in the whole town.

“Where are we going to stay tonight?” Cheng Xin Ge didn’t hold out much hope for finding a hotel or something in this place.

“Let’s stay the night,” I said helplessly. I really wanted to see the shack where Lin Jianguo supposedly lived. He had done such mysterious things in it, and I really wanted to explore it to see if I could find any clues. Even though so much time had passed, it should still be… Unfortunately, although this town is not big, there are so many alleys that it is dizzying. I have no idea where Lin Jianguo’s shack is, so it is even more impossible to find it.

In fact, I don’t know if it still exists after so long. It was only when I saw how old the town was that I got this idea.

Since we had already decided to stay the night, we didn’t wander around the town anymore, but really wanted to find a family to stay with. However, we encountered unprecedented difficulties in finding a place to stay in this town, because no one was willing to let us stay, even if it was a big house with a yard.

The people in this town seem to be very cautious. Even an old man told us, “There are almost no outsiders in our town, and there is nothing to see. You’d better find a car and go somewhere else. There are almost no outsiders staying overnight here.”

We were embarrassed to be rebuffed, and we were even more puzzled. Even Brother Chengxin couldn’t help but scold, “Why are the people in this town so strange? Don’t they even have relatives in other places? What if a relative comes? Will they be chased away too?”

But he didn’t expect that this remark was heard by a not-so-old gentleman. He suddenly said, “What relatives? If there are relatives in other places, and if they can find a way to get out, they will all leave. Who will stay here? Farmers have at least a piece of land to live on, but what do they have here?”

This sentence reveals the sad truth about this town. In the past, it was supported by the timber distribution center, but now there are not many timber distribution centers in the whole of China, let alone here. This town has lost its biggest support, and it has not seen any other industries develop. Therefore, there is a reason for its defeat.

However, this gave me an excuse to strike up a conversation. From the way the old man took our words, I could tell that he was not as wary as the others in the town. So I said, “Old man, if you have money to make, why don’t you make it? How about letting us three stay for a night for 100 yuan?”

“Are you bad guys?” The old man looked at the three of us for a moment. Fortunately, the three of us looked human, at least not like bad guys.

And Ruyue said with a smile, “Do we look like it, sir?”

The old man didn’t know what to think, and after a moment of thought, he said, “Forget it. I’m just an old man with no children, no wealth, and no one to care about. You can’t get anything from me, and I can use the money to buy some wine. Come to my place.”

“Really? Thank you so much, sir.” Ru Yue was very happy to finally have a place to stay.

But I always feel that the people in this town have a decadent flavor to their speech, and they are very strange. They are very cautious, but that kind of caution is just that they don’t want you to get close to their lives, not that they are curious about what you are doing and who you are. They are indifferent, and they are even losing their curiosity about people.

How did the people here become like this? At least in the story, I think this is just an ordinary town, and the people here are also ordinary people, not existing in this state.

I was puzzled, but this kind of thing is not something that can be solved in a short time. At this moment, the old man who was walking in front of us suddenly turned around, looked at us suspiciously, and said, “Since you are going to live here, I can’t stop you. But I have to say that the nights here are different from other places. Don’t be surprised.”

“Ah?” Chengxin, who was walking next to me, was startled, not because the words were so scary, but because of the sudden turn of the old man and his mysterious expression.

But after the old man said that, he didn’t allow us to say much, or ask many questions. He walked straight ahead with his hands behind his back and his shoulders slightly slumped. The three of us could only look at each other helplessly and followed him.

After all, this old man was born and raised in the town, and he was extremely familiar with the town. The crooked and winding alleys were like they didn’t even exist in his eyes. We were so fast that we could barely keep up with him, and we had to make him stop and wait several times before we could catch up.

However, there was a small incident on the way. It seemed that the old man had met an acquaintance. When he saw us walking around the town with the three of us, his face immediately turned gloomy and he pulled the old man aside to talk.

The dialect here is very heavy. We basically use Mandarin to communicate with the locals, and they can also speak Mandarin with clear pronunciation, but once they use dialect to talk and avoid us, we can’t understand what they are saying at all.

I have traveled to many places, and although I can’t understand what they are saying, I can still understand a few words in their dialect. In addition, my hearing has always been good, so in this situation I was able to hear two vague sentences, and with my own brain-filling, I came up with this short dialogue.

“You’ll say yes to anything to make money.”

“I don’t have any children or relatives like you. What do I have to worry about as a lonely old man?”

“You’re heartless.”

“What’s unconscionable? I don’t take them in… they…”

I only heard a small part of the conversation, and I couldn’t hear the rest clearly. But the more I listened, the more confused I became. Was it really a mistake to take us in from the mouth of another old man?

They probably talked for five or six minutes, and I don’t know what the old man who agreed to let us stay did in the end. In any case, it seems that he persuaded the other old man, who looked at us with strange eyes and then walked away somewhat sullenly, without saying anything more.

The old man who had promised to let us stay looked at our expressions, made sure we didn’t understand the conversation between them, and then walked in front of us again after seeing that our expressions were normal.

Why is everything so strange here? In the story, this is clearly a normal town! Along the way, I didn’t have a chance to tell Chengxin and Ruyue about the conversation I had overheard. I could only wait until we settled down to see if I could find time to tell them.

In my rambling thoughts, the old man finally stopped walking. In front of a somewhat gray and dusty courtyard that looked like a junkyard, he turned to us and said, “This is it. My house is here. There are plenty of rooms. You can stay here as long as you like. There are two things you need to remember. The first is that it’s 100 yuan a day. The second is that no matter what happens at night, you shouldn’t be surprised and don’t cause me trouble.”

The old man repeated what he had said, which made us even more confused, but we didn’t say anything because we had seen so much.

And so began our first day in the small town.