Chapter 18: Bairen Tan (Part 2)

As they talked, Guo Yi learned that the Ming family had chartered a boat for a trip to Hainan, been caught in a sudden storm, and then captured and brought aboard the ship. The old man, Ming Qiu, had served for many years in the South Sea Fleet, stationed in Hainan. After his military service, he had worked in the civil affairs department. The old lady, Li Mei, had been a manager in a trading company—no wonder she carried herself with such calm and spoke so appropriately. Their son, Ming Lang, was a civil servant in the safety production supervision department. The family was as clueless about their situation as Guo Yi’s group.

“That committee member, Xiao, he keeps saying this is Lingao County in 1628,” Li Mei said, shaking her head. “It’s nonsense, isn’t it? My husband was in the navy here for twenty-two years. He’s been to Lingao countless times. The young man seems decent enough, not like a lunatic.”

So they were in the same boat, Guo Yi thought, equally in the dark. As they were speaking, the old man, who had been wandering the riverbank, staring at the stone carvings, returned. His face was ashen, his eyes dull.

Li Mei rushed to his side. “What is it?” she asked, her voice trembling. “What’s wrong?” She had never seen him so defeated. Had he seen a ghost in the wilderness? The bodies they had encountered on the road were certainly unsettling enough.

She questioned him for a long time before he finally raised his head and uttered two words:

“It’s over.”

The words sent a jolt of fear through the family. The old man was stubborn, a fighter. He never admitted defeat.

“Dad, don’t scare us,” Ming Lang pleaded, supporting his father.

“What is it? You’re scaring me to death!” Li Mei cried, her voice rising in panic.

“This place… it really is Lingao.”

A collective gasp went through the group. The two ATF agents, for whom Lingao was just a name, looked on in confusion.

“That’s right,” Ming Qiu said, his finger trembling as he pointed to the rock engraved with the three large characters, “Bairen Tan.” “This is Bairen Tan in Lingao.” He fumbled in his pocket and produced a small, yellowed photo album.

“Look at this,” he said, his voice hoarse. Everyone crowded around. In the photo, a middle-aged Ming Qiu, in his naval officer’s uniform, stood beside an identical rock, a comrade-in-arms at his side. The rock was engraved with the same three characters: “Bairen Tan.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Ming Lang said hesitantly. “We’re at Bairen Tan.”

“Look behind the rock!” the old man insisted.

They looked again. In the background of the photo, a dam was clearly visible. But when they looked up at the real Bairen Tan, there was no dam.

[Note: The Bairen Tan carved stone is located between the dam of the hydroelectric power station and the power plant, so both can be captured in a single photo.]

A chill ran down their spines. “They’re renovating small hydropower stations all the time,” Mu Min said, her voice uncertain. “Maybe it was demolished.”

“Impossible,” the old man said, shaking his head. “The Bairen Tan hydropower station is the main power station in Lingao. They wouldn’t demolish it. My comrades in Lingao would have mentioned it.”

“Maybe he forgot.”

“I was here a few years ago,” the old man pressed on. “The area around Bairen Tan was different. There was a farm nearby. But the terrain… the terrain is exactly the same. The rocks in the water, the stone carvings…” He flipped through the photos. “I came here at least ten times when I was in the service. I’ve photographed all the carvings, all the strange rocks.”

“I’ve been suspicious since we reached the beach,” he continued, his hands trembling. “The environment is too strange. I felt like I’d been here before, like in a dream.”

Guo Yi snatched the photo album and scrambled down to the riverbank. He compared the photos to the landscape, a growing sense of dread coiling in his stomach. The old man’s despair was infectious. It was too bizarre. Unless there was an identical Bairen Tan somewhere else in the world, there was no other explanation. The carvings, the font, the shape of the stones, their position in the water—it was all the same.

And yet, there were differences. A few particularly large rocks in the river were not in the photos. And some things from the photos were missing: the dam, and some of the stone carvings. He looked closer and made a terrible discovery: all the remaining carvings were from before the Qing Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty carvings were the clearest, with little sign of weathering. One of Ming Qiu’s photos showed a carving that read “Linjiang Tianlai,” with an inscription above it: “First year of the Xuantong reign of the Qing Dynasty, spring.” Guo Yi found the rock, but it was bare. He called over Xue Ziliang, the self-proclaimed traceology expert, and had him examine all the rocks that should have had carvings. After scraping away the moss and examining them closely, Xue Ziliang declared that the rocks had never been carved.

[Note: The stone carvings mentioned can still be seen at Bairen Tan today. Most are from the Qing Dynasty, with a few from the Ming. County annals contain records of many more.]

The look on Guo Yi’s face when he returned was all the confirmation they needed. One by one, the other members of the Ming family went down to the riverbank to see for themselves. The two ATF agents, who had been watching in confusion, now looked grim.

They were caught between a rock and a hard place. No one wanted to believe they were in ancient China, but the evidence was overwhelming. Should they continue upriver or return to the coast? No one knew what to do.

If they went forward, who knew what dangers they would face? They didn’t even know who had attacked them or why. But they were only four or five kilometers from Lingao County. It seemed foolish to turn back now. And the injured needed a hospital. If Lingao had no hospital, only a county yamen, then they would have to return to Bopu. At least the strange people there didn’t seem to want to kill them. And there had been a Red Cross flag flying over the camp.

They decided to split up. Ming Qiu, Guo Yi, and Xue Ziliang would scout ahead to Lingao, while the others would wait. The terrain around Bairen Tan was complex; it would be easy to hide. Guo Yi objected, saying Ming Qiu was too old for such a long journey, but the old man insisted he knew the terrain better than anyone. Xue Ziliang was worried about leaving the women behind, but Ming Qiu assured him they would be fine. His son and daughter-in-law were both fighters. His daughter-in-law was a police officer, and his son, he claimed, had been a master of street fighting in his youth, with a wealth of experience in brawls—a claim that Guo Yi found highly dubious.

The newly formed Lingao reconnaissance team left their luggage behind, taking only their wooden staves, daggers, and a small amount of food. “If we’re not back in two hours, go back to the coast,” Ming Qiu told his wife. The parting was somber. The old lady’s eyes were teary as she urged him to be careful. Her pleas probably wounded his pride, because he snorted, turned, and walked away without another word.

Guo Yi and Xue Ziliang hurried to catch up. Their journey was uneventful. Along the way, Ming Qiu pointed out more and more familiar landmarks. When the outline of Lingao County finally appeared, he stood speechless, staring at a city wall that had never existed in his memory. When they saw the camp being built outside the city gates, the laborers crawling over it like ants, the three of them turned pale. Xue Ziliang sank to the ground, holding his head in his hands and muttering in English.

Such a terrifyingly small probability, Guo Yi thought, no, an impossibility. How could this happen to me? Why couldn’t I have won the lottery instead? He felt as if he’d been pierced by ten thousand arrows.

After a long, stunned silence, there was nothing left to discuss. They would return to Bopu. At least there, they would be among people from their own time. And more importantly, they were all Chinese. Xue Ziliang, deeply shaken, muttered to himself in English all the way back.

At 1:20 PM, the Bopu-Bairen Tan highway survey team reported seeing several bodies floating down the Wenlan River, all appearing to be local natives.

At 2:36 PM, the reconnaissance team near Lingao City reported a small group of local braves entering the city.

At 3:02 PM, the survey team reported that the two groups from the morning had returned, looking ragged and dispirited, and were demanding to see the leader.

“Well, Little Yu,” Xiao Zishan said to Yu E’shui, his voice a mixture of admiration and concern, “it seems your plan worked.”

“Lion’s shit is better than bear’s piss,” Little Yu replied calmly. “I imagine they had a rough time of it.”

“Committee Member Xiao, should we see them?” Li Yuanyuan asked.

“No,” Xiao Zishan said gruffly. “You go and receive them. Get them settled. And notify Ran Yao to issue them temporary ID cards.”

“Temporary ID cards?” Li Yuanyuan echoed, confused. She had been handling documents for the Executive Committee for nearly a year and had never heard of such a thing.

“Yes, temporary. Ran Yao will know what to do. They are not yet official transmigrators.”