Chapter 62: Bairren Rapids (Part 2)
Through casual conversation, they pieced together the family's story. They had rented a boat for a trip to Hainan when a sudden storm blew them off course, and they were captured aboard the ship shortly after. Old Master Ming Qiu had spent over two decades in the Navy's South Sea Fleet stationed on Hainan before transferring to civil affairs. His wife, Old Lady Li Mei, had been a leader at a trading company for many years—which explained her composed manner and diplomatic speech. Their perpetually silent son Ming Lang worked as a civil servant in the work-safety supervision department. None of them could make any sense of their ordeal.
"That Commissioner Xiao kept insisting this is Lingao County in 1628—what utter nonsense!" Li Mei said. "My husband served in the Hainan navy for twenty-two years. He's been to Lingao more times than I can count. And that Xiao looks like a proper young man—he doesn't seem mentally ill."
Same boat as us, Guo Yi thought. We're just as clueless. As they talked, the old man who had been wandering the riverbank examining the stone carvings suddenly returned. His face was ashen, his eyes vacant and unfocused.
Li Mei rushed to help him sit down. His expression sent a wave of panic through her—in all their years together, she had never seen him so lost, so utterly defeated. Could something have possessed him out here in this wilderness? Those bodies along the road earlier had been strange enough.
They pressed him repeatedly about what was wrong. Finally, Old Master Ming raised his head and spoke two words:
"It's over."
The whole family recoiled in alarm. The old man was notoriously stubborn, never one to admit defeat in anything—why would he suddenly say such a thing?
"Dad, don't scare us like this..." Ming Lang quickly steadied his father's shoulders.
"What happened? You're scaring me to death with all this cryptic talk!" Li Mei was practically hopping with anxiety.
"This really is Lingao."
"What?!" Four voices cried out in unison from those sitting on the rocks. The two ATF agents, having no concept of Lingao, could only stare in bewilderment.
"That's right." Old Master Ming pointed with a trembling finger at the boulder carved with "Bairren Rapids." "This is Lingao's Bairren Rapids." He pulled a yellowed photo album from inside his coat and opened it to reveal a collection of old photographs.
"Look at this one!" Everyone crowded close. In the photograph, a middle-aged Ming Qiu in his naval officer's uniform stood with his comrades beside an identical boulder—the same characters clearly carved into its face: "Bairren Rapids."
"So what," Ming Lang said hesitantly. "We just reached Bairren Rapids. That's all."
"Look at the background!" The old man's voice rose with agitation.
Everyone looked again. In the distance behind the figures in the photograph, a dam was clearly visible. But when they raised their eyes now, gazing past that same "Bairren Rapids" carving at the landscape beyond—there was no dam. Nothing but empty sky and wild terrain.
(Note: The Bairren Rapids stone carving is located between the hydroelectric dam and power station, so the photo could easily capture both.)
A chill crawled down every spine. Where is the dam? Mu Min spoke up: "They've been shutting down small hydroelectric plants lately—maybe it was demolished..."
"No. Impossible." The old man shook his head with stubborn certainty. "Bairren Rapids Power Station has always been Lingao's main power source. Why would they tear it down? My friends in Lingao never mentioned anything like that."
"Maybe he forgot to mention it."
"I came to Bairren Rapids just a few years ago. The surroundings were nothing like this! There should be a farm nearby." The old man's voice grew more insistent. "But the terrain—the terrain is exactly the same! The stones in the water, the carvings..." He flipped through more photos. "During my navy years, I came to Bairren Rapids at least ten times. I photographed every carving, every strange rock formation..."
His hands trembled as he continued. "Actually, ever since I approached these rapids, something felt wrong. The surroundings seemed too strange... I kept feeling I had been here before, like walking through a half-remembered dream."
Guo Yi grabbed the album and scrambled down to the riverbed to compare the photographs against reality. One by one, photo after photo, his heart beat faster with each comparison. Now he understood why the old man had been so shaken—it was uncanny beyond reason. Unless two identical terrains existed somewhere in the world, the scene before him defied all explanation. The carved stones in the photographs—the characters themselves, the shapes of the rocks, their positions in the water—no matter how many times he compared them, everything pointed to the same inescapable conclusion: This was the same place.
If there was any difference, it was this: here stood large rocks that didn't appear in the photographs. And things from the photographs were missing here—the vanished dam, and certain carvings. He studied them carefully for a long time, and then a terrifying realization struck him: All the surviving carvings were from before the Qing Dynasty. And the Ming-era carvings were the clearest, the least weathered by time. In Old Ming's photographs, one carving read "Linjiang Tianlai" with a large inscription above it. The upper line clearly stated: "Spring of the first year of Xuantong in the Qing Dynasty." Guo Yi found that same stone—its surface was completely blank. Still refusing to accept it, he called over Xue Ziliang, the self-proclaimed trace expert, and asked him to examine every stone that should have borne a carving, checking for any signs of grinding or chiseling. Xue Ziliang scraped away thick layers of moss and examined the surfaces for a long time before finally declaring that these stones had never been carved at all.
(Note: The above carvings can still be seen at modern Bairren Rapids, mostly from the Qing Dynasty; Ming-era ones are rare now but were recorded in the county annals.)
The expression on Guo Yi's face when he climbed back up made everyone's panic deepen. All three of the Ming family members rushed down to the riverbed to see for themselves. Even the two bewildered ATF agents, who had no stake in this discovery, went pale.
Their situation now perfectly embodied the phrase "neither advance nor retreat." No one wanted to believe they were in ancient China, but the evidence was becoming overwhelming—no alternative hypothesis could explain it away. Should they continue upstream or immediately return to the estuary? Everyone had lost their bearings, feeling hollowed out and adrift.
Going forward meant facing the unknown. One attack had already happened; there would surely be another. They didn't even know who had attacked them or why. After a tense discussion, they reached a decision: having come this far to Bairren Rapids, the county seat was only four or five kilometers away. Better to go take a look. If nothing else, these wounded needed a People's Hospital. And if Lingao had no People's Hospital—only a county yamen—they would have to return to Bopu. At least those seemingly unhinged people at the beach camp hadn't appeared murderous, and there had been a Red Cross flag flying over their encampment.
They split into two groups. Old Master Ming, Guo Yi, and Xue Ziliang would scout ahead to Lingao together while the others remained behind—Bairren Rapids' complex terrain offered plenty of places to hide. Guo Yi objected that the old man's age made such a long trek too taxing, but Ming Qiu insisted he knew the area intimately. One glance would tell him whether this was truly Lingao, which would save them from stumbling around blindly. Xue Ziliang expressed concern that the remaining group was mostly women, making them too vulnerable. Ming Qiu dismissed this worry: his son and daughter-in-law were both capable fighters. Besides the policewoman, his son had regularly gotten into knife fights during middle school, acquiring rich street-brawling experience—a claim Guo Yi deeply doubted.
The newly formed Lingao scout team left their luggage behind, taking only poles, daggers, and minimal provisions. Ming Qiu told his wife, "If we're not back in two hours, head back immediately." The family's parting was emotional. The old lady's eyes brimmed with tears as she warned him not to overexert himself, then repeatedly entrusted the two gentlemen to look after her husband. This apparently wounded the old man's pride—he snorted, stood abruptly, and walked off without another word.
Guo Yi and Xue Ziliang hurried to catch up. The three of them set off toward the county seat.
Their expedition went smoothly at first. Along the way, Old Master Ming recognized more and more familiar landmarks. But when Lingao County's outline finally appeared on the horizon—when Ming Qiu saw city walls that had never existed in any of his memories—he could not speak for a long time. When they saw the stockade being constructed outside the gate and the ant-like swarms of laborers in ancient dress climbing up and down its scaffolding, all three faces went white as bone. Xue Ziliang sat down heavily on the ground, head buried in his hands, muttering to himself in English.
Such impossibly low probability—no, something that shouldn't even be possible—why did it have to happen to me? Why couldn't I have just won twenty million in the lottery instead?! Guo Yi felt as though a thousand arrows had pierced his heart.
After standing there dumbstruck for what felt like an eternity, there was nothing left to discuss. Get back to Bopu—fast. At least there was a group of twenty-first-century people there, and more importantly, they were all Chinese. Xue Ziliang, still deeply shaken, muttered in English the entire way back, never once falling silent.
D+1, 13:20 — The Bopu-Bairren Rapids highway survey team radioed in: multiple bodies floating downriver on the Wenlan flats—apparently all local natives.
D+1, 14:36 — The reconnaissance squad below Lingao City reported: someone had led a small group of militia into the town.
D+1, 15:02 — The Bopu-Bairren Rapids highway survey team reported: the two groups who had departed that morning had returned, battered and shell-shocked, repeatedly demanding to see leadership.
"Little Yu, it seems your plan worked," Xiao Zishan said to Yu Eshui, his tone hovering somewhere between compliment and concern.
"A lion's dung surpasses bear manure." Little Yu remained unruffled. "They apparently had a rough time on the road."
"Commissioner Xiao, will you see them?" Li Yuanyuan asked.
"No," Xiao Zishan said gruffly. "You receive them. Get them settled first. Oh—tell Ran Yao to issue each one a temporary ID."
"Temporary ID?" Li Yuanyuan paused. She had handled Committee paperwork for nearly a year and had never heard of such a thing.
"Yes, temporary. Ran Yao knows what I mean. They're not official transmigrators yet."
(End of Chapter)