Chapter 61: Bairren Rapids (Part 1)

"Xue, I've got a terrible feeling about all this." Guo Yi laid out everything he'd discovered. "I can't explain any of it. If this is staged, it's Oscar-worthy."

"You're right. If they wanted us dead, this would be an absurd way to go about it. And if they just wanted to put on a convincing show, the cost is far too high."

Rain hammered down outside. The two men sat in silence, watching rivulets stream down the waterproof sheets and pool among the rocks at their feet. Neither knew what to say. A profound sense of abandonment had settled over them—as if they were the last people left in the world. Too much inexplicable had happened in the past twenty-four hours.

"It wasn't staged." Salina, who had seemed asleep, spoke up. She was awake now, sitting propped against the stone wall.

"You should rest." Xue Ziliang's tone immediately turned gentlemanly. "Your organs took quite a shock. You need more time to recover."

"I'm fine..." Salina's Chinese was somewhat clunky but fluent enough. "Guo, your suspicions make sense." She paused to catch her breath. "When you examined the bodies—did any of them have underwear?"

Guo Yi thought: I'm not a pervert—why would I strip men's pants off in broad daylight?

"Ancient people didn't have underwear, Guo." Salina still sounded weak. "Especially the poor."

"That can't be reliable, can it?" Guo Yi remained deeply skeptical. Thinking back, he hadn't noticed any undergarments while searching the corpses—but as for underwear specifically, he honestly didn't know.

"If they were modern people in costume, even the most meticulous planners wouldn't have thought about the underwear issue." She paused briefly, then turned to Xue Ziliang. "When the rain stops, let's go back and examine the bodies."

"No," Xue Ziliang said firmly. "If the enemy returns, we don't have strength for another fight. I'll go carry one back."

"I'll come with you."

"No—you stay here. Salina can't defend herself right now." Xue Ziliang waved his hand. "I'll be right back." He wrapped himself in waterproof fabric and crawled out into the downpour.

Suddenly Guo Yi found himself alone with Salina. This was his first time in such close quarters with a Western woman—strong perfume mingled with dried blood, plus some other scent, something almost animal... the combination made him uncomfortable. Up close, white women like Salina weren't conventionally pretty—rough skin with some blemishes—but that full, curvaceous figure, those watery blue eyes, those long dark lashes... still made his heart race. Under normal circumstances, he would never have dared approach her—as an ordinary, non-leadership security officer, his sensitive work forbade close friendships with foreigners unless it was an assignment. But now, stranded in this impossible situation, his organizational discipline was beginning to crumble. He wanted to chat her up...

"Guo, could you get me a backpack to lean on?" Salina spoke first. "I'm exhausted."

"Oh—" Xiao Guo started. "Sure." He dragged over a backpack and helped her settle against it, taking the opportunity to brush her shoulder—so smooth and round...

"Thank you." Salina closed her eyes briefly. "Guo, you're very dependable..."

Guo Yi actually blushed. "Dependable"—quite a word for circumstances like these.

"If Ziliang hadn't saved me today, I would've been beaten to death." He quickly displayed that traditional Chinese virtue—modesty.

"And if Vinnie hadn't saved you, none of us could've escaped either." Vinnie was Xue Ziliang's English name. Salina drew another breath. "The current situation is very bad. Very bad..."

As they talked, Xue Ziliang returned with a corpse and laid it out on the stones. The rain had stopped. Salina forced herself upright with a walking stick and came out to examine the body with them.

It was a young man—killed by gunshot. Seeing someone he'd personally killed laid out before him made Guo Yi uncomfortable. Death had distorted the features, but the face was clearly typical southern Han Chinese. Xue Ziliang dug out a pack of latex gloves from his backpack and handed a pair to each of them. Salina drew a dagger from her waist to serve as a makeshift dissection tool.

The deceased's hands were covered in calluses, his upper arms well-muscled—clearly the result of long-term manual labor. He wore straw sandals; removed, his soles showed thick calluses from habitual barefoot walking. The skin bore many parasitic bite marks and signs of scabies infection. Salina pried open the corpse's mouth and had Xue Ziliang shine a flashlight inside. The teeth were white but severely worn—from years of consuming grain mixed with grit and impurities.

Cutting open the clothes revealed no undergarments whatsoever. The fabric was coarse cotton, very roughly woven, dyed a blackish-blue. Xue Ziliang rubbed it between his fingers for a while and concluded it was probably plant-dyed—the coloring uneven, the fading severe. It couldn't possibly be factory-made.

Examination complete, Xue Ziliang threw the body into the river. Salina removed her gloves, her complexion even paler than before.

"I'm starting to believe what they told us," she ventured. "This man absolutely does not look like someone who lived in modern society."

"Could they be some primitive tribe?"

"If so, only isolated tribes in the Southeast Asian mountains still exist anywhere in the Asian region—but the location and racial characteristics don't match." Salina shook her head. "Those tribes can't weave, let alone dye fabric. Anyone capable of both is no primitive tribe."

"Could it really be 1628?"

They debated for a while without reaching any conclusion. That they had somehow arrived in ancient China—no one could bring themselves to believe it. The only option was to keep moving, to walk until they found inhabited areas. The truth would reveal itself then.

The fight had made them pessimistic about the road ahead. Guo Yi had lost his Type-64 pistol in the struggle and couldn't find it—and even if he did, he had no bullets. The ATF agents' weapons had all been confiscated by customs upon entry. Now they had nothing but three military daggers. The ambush had been lucky—their attackers only carried wooden poles. Had they wielded iron spears or more swords, today would have ended far worse.

Guo Yi sharpened all three wooden poles to points and built a fire, slowly toasting the tips until they were dry and hardened. He'd learned this technique from Revolutionary Struggle History of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet Area—supposedly, soaking them in manure vats for a few days made them even more formidable.

Xue Ziliang was tending to Salina, who had grown feverish, so they walked slower—giving the aching Guo Yi a chance to catch his breath. The farther they traveled, the louder the water grew. The terrain steepened; rocky slopes appeared with increasing frequency. The group alternated between walking and climbing, and when they rounded a bend, a vast stone beach spread before them. River water cascaded down nine rocky levels, thundering with such force it seemed to shake the air itself. Boulders lay scattered across the riverbed like discarded toys of giants. In the middle of the river, a cluster of rock stacks more than ten meters in diameter rose from the current, their cracked tops shaped like petals, pinkish in hue—resembling lotus flowers blooming on the water. Some formations looked like old men hunched over chess games; others like patient anglers. A few, hollowed by centuries of water erosion, held loose stones that spun and clacked endlessly in their bowls.

(Note: These scenes are excerpted from historical descriptions of Bairren Rapids. In modern times, many of the famous historical stones have disappeared.)

"Beautiful..." After their life-or-death struggle, the trio's spirits had lifted somewhat. As they walked, they suddenly spotted four luggage-laden figures standing on the stone beach ahead—the Ming family.

While the agents had rested, the family behind them had overtaken their position. Seeing them approach, the two women wore wary, frightened expressions. Guo Yi figured they'd probably passed the bodies on the road.

The hot-tempered old man didn't even glance their way. He squatted alone beneath a large boulder on the beach, head in hands, apparently lost in troubled thought.

Guo Yi looked over to see what held his attention. The stone bore only three palm-sized characters carved into its face: "Bairren Rapids." What was there to study?

Seeing Xue Ziliang approach, the policewoman suddenly stepped back, her posture defensive. Xue Ziliang was baffled.

The old lady held her daughter-in-law's hand and eyed their sharpened wooden poles. She forced a thin smile:

"It's nothing, nothing—as long as we're seeing familiar faces..."

Guo Yi hurried forward and honestly described everything that had happened on the road. When he mentioned the attack by a dozen men, their faces showed clear disbelief. Only when he produced his credentials did their suspicion begin to fade. The pretty policewoman named Mu Min examined his documents for a long time before returning them.

"Don't take it personally—fake police credentials are everywhere these days." She plopped down on a rock and gestured at the stone beside her. Her staring husband quickly sat down.

Damn—so obedient. Before Guo Yi could properly despise the husband, Mu Min began discussing internal system matters. Both worked in the same system—different departments, but enough common ground to trade shop talk. Through their conversation, he learned this woman was impressive: three years in Public Order, five in Criminal Investigation, one in Political Affairs—a capable all-rounder. As they talked, Guo Yi noticed her wariness steadily diminishing. He suddenly realized what was happening: This woman is vetting my "background"—even with one hundred percent authentic credentials, only a true insider would know the system's internal workings.

Formidable! Guo Yi felt secretly ashamed. How could the gap between people be so vast?

With both having laid their cards on the table, the wariness between them faded. Li Mei—the old lady—grew considerably warmer. Seeing that Salina was unwell and feverish, she dug through her luggage and produced medicine, plus preserved plums, ham sausages, crackers—all sorts of provisions—to share. The agent trio hadn't eaten since morning and had exerted themselves tremendously—their stomachs were growling. Xue Ziliang, while wolfing down ham sausage, quietly informed Guo Yi that these products probably contained excess preservatives and were essentially just oil and starch—extremely unhealthy...

"You're so damn picky! If you're that afraid of dying, don't eat!" Guo Yi was deeply annoyed with this ABC—not because the bastard kept acting like America was the greatest country on earth, but because he kept monopolizing the job of supporting Salina, and it was subtly throwing off his equilibrium.

(End of Chapter)