Volume One: Scroll of New Rain Chapter Four: Terror in the Woods

Ye Mingke parted the foliage and caught sight of the girl.

His intuition had not failed him; it was indeed a girl’s voice.

“What’s wrong?” Mingke crouched before Qiao Qiao, who sat hugging her knees and weeping softly. Not long ago, she had been a pristine little paper doll, but now she was disheveled, looking like a soiled rag doll.

Bai Qiao Qiao lifted her head. Several pale yellow leaves were tangled in her dark hair, and her small face was streaked with dirt and crisscrossed with smudges. Her eyes were still misty, but this time the haze was not from fog, but from tears.

“I can’t finish the academy’s entrance test. I’ve hurt my foot. I don’t know the way.” Her voice was hoarse and choked with sobs. “I’ve never been up the mountain before. I can’t get over it.”

“Don’t be afraid, and don’t cry. My Aunt Long always says, girls who cry too much will become ugly.”

Mingke moved closer, gently wiping away the tears and smudges from her face. He bared his teeth, made a funny face, then grinned and stood up, stretching out his hand to her.

“Come on, get up.”

Bai Qiao Qiao looked up into the boy’s clear, bright eyes and, almost without thinking, reached out her hand. Ye Mingke grasped it and helped her to her feet. Then he knelt down, lightly touching her right foot, which was clearly just resting on the ground. The foot trembled a little, timid from the pain.

“Did you fall from up there?” Mingke asked, a pang of concern in his voice.

“Yes.” Qiao Qiao nodded.

“It looks like you’ve twisted it a bit. Best not to walk for now.” Ye Mingke rose, dusting off his hands, then turned and bent down with his back to her.

“Come on, I’ll carry you.” Mingke’s voice was cheerful.

Bai Qiao Qiao tilted her head, gazing at the boy in a daze, as if pondering something, and said nothing.

“Don’t worry, I can handle it. I’ve carried loads of firewood much heavier than you. Haha, you don’t believe me, do you?” Mingke laughed.

“I believe you,” Qiao Qiao replied softly. “I’ve seen you carry firewood many, many times.”

Mingke didn’t know that, for as long as she could remember, he had always been a miraculous sight in the girl’s eyes.

Confined to bed by her frail health, she would watch, again and again, as a boy as thin and slight as herself passed outside her window in the twilight or the dawn, carrying wood piled high as a hill.

She always wondered how someone so slight could be so strong, how a boy who worked so hard could wear such a clean, radiant smile.

He had something she longed for, something she lacked.

She lay gently across the boy’s thin, bony back. Mingke lifted her carefully.

She was so light. Mingke smiled. Compared to the firewood he usually carried, she felt like a wisp of paper, or a rag doll, or perhaps… a dream. He thought of the words she’d spoken to Qingxi when they first met, and of her perpetual mist-veiled eyes. Suddenly, his smile faded, and a strange tightness filled his chest.

He gripped her legs more firmly, driving away the odd feeling that had crept into his heart.

The mountain path was treacherous, and Mingke found it difficult to walk with Qiao Qiao on his back and no free hands. So he found a vine and tied the two of them securely together, freeing his arms.

With his hands free, Ye Mingke became once again as nimble as a monkey of the forest. Even in the mist-shrouded mountains, he could find and use every foothold. Sometimes he swung up a slope with the vine, sometimes darted down an earthen embankment, sometimes landed square on a stone in the grass at a critical moment to take the weight off his limbs, climbing and leaping through the dense woods where no path could be seen.

Qiao Qiao clung to his back, amazed as the scenery swept past. Her foggy eyes now opened wide with wonder.

So this was his world. Lying in her little room scented with herbs, she had often watched the boy returning with firewood and imagined what his life must be like. It must be a magical life, full of energy and sunlight.

It truly was magical, she mused, resting her head to the side on Mingke’s back. He really was a wondrous boy.

Mingke stopped for the third time, his mouth half open, breathing rapidly and rhythmically through both mouth and nose.

He was indeed growing tired, but perhaps because breakfast had included an egg, or perhaps because the friend on his back was someone new, he didn’t feel as exhausted as usual and didn’t need to rest.

He’d stopped because the mountain mist had grown thicker. Trees that had been indistinct a few dozen yards away were now completely lost in the vast sea of fog, leaving only the closest trunks visible.

Qiao Qiao, snapped out of her reverie by Mingke’s pause, realized how dense the fog had become and how strangely quiet the forest was. No, not quiet—she listened carefully and heard unsettling, furtive rustlings all around.

“Mingke.” For the first time, Qiao Qiao called his name, her voice trembling with worry and fear.

Ye Mingke heard the disturbing sounds as well.

He was afraid too. The unknown was always the most terrifying.

“Don’t be scared, it’s just the wind,” he said, masking his fear with a lighthearted smile.

“So, it’s just the wind.” Qiao Qiao repeated softly on his back. She was still scared, but she didn’t want to pass her fear to the boy who was already working so hard.

But was it really the wind?

The mist thickened, and the strange noises—rising and falling with the swirling haze—drew nearer and grew louder.

Ye Mingke wanted to hurry away, but his sight was so limited that it slowed him down.

Was it really the wind?

There was no sense of air moving.

And those sounds reminded Mingke of the time he’d dozed off in the mountains, half-awake, feeling a cold touch on his neck and hearing a faint hissing in his ear.

He’d muttered irritably, grabbing at whatever was on his neck and flinging it away. When he awoke with a start, he saw, not far off, a venomous snake staring straight at him.

That experience had left a deep scar on Mingke’s mind; after that, he never dared nap in the forest again.

Now, the whole forest was filled with that same hissing sound…

Bai Qiao Qiao, clinging to Mingke’s back, could hear his heavy breathing and the pounding of his heart in his thin chest. She could even feel his body trembling.

He must be scared too. Bai Qiao Qiao lifted her slender, pale hand and watched it shake violently. If it were her, would she be too afraid to move at all?

But even though the boy was so afraid, his breathing remained steady and rhythmic, and his steps never faltered.

Yes, Ye Mingke was scared. He feared pain, hunger, darkness, being hated, being called a monster.

He was still just a child, yet because of a strange illness, he was so different from the others, forced to bear so much suffering and fear. He had once given up gathering firewood, curling into a corner of his little hut to cry through the night.

Uncle Jian had not comforted him softly, nor had Aunt Long been allowed to come near, though she loved him dearly.

He simply sat in his wheelchair, in front of the blazing hearth, forging iron all night with his one remaining hand.

“Which one is you?” Amid the steady, monotonous hammering, he asked, “Which one is you?”

“Are you the one who wants to live, to be well? Or the one who fears hardship, fears snakes and insects?”

“Are you the one seen through the eyes of those who love you? Or the one seen through the eyes of those who hate you?”

Ye Mingke had never understood Uncle Jian. He loved the man he’d lived with all his life, yet sometimes he hated his cruelty.

He never treated him like a child. He never lied, forced, or coddled him—only, when fate knocked at the door and all other paths were closed, did he calmly, almost coldly, point out the only road left.

Mingke once thought he could never walk that road. Yet, miraculously, year by year, he grew up.

He learned endurance battling hunger. In the wild forest, he gained courage and strength beyond his years. In his loneliness, shunned by others his age, he would recall Uncle Jian’s words again and again, asking himself: What do I want? Which one is truly me?

And so, in this nameless little town, there came to be a boy who climbed mountains with the brightest eyes and the purest smile.

Mingke breathed deeply, again and again. It’s all an illusion, he told himself over and over. It must all be false.

But the sounds around them grew clearer. Mingke could almost trace in his mind the path of snakes slithering through leaves, just out of sight in the fog. He couldn’t stop himself from imagining the woods, only a few paces away, crawling with his most dreaded creatures.

It must be an illusion—he’d never encountered so many of them in this forest before, had he? Don’t be afraid, just don’t be afraid. And… if I become too scared to keep going, what will happen to her?

The girl’s hand unconsciously clenched his shirt tightly, though she did not cry out. Even as her grip trembled violently, she did not weep.

She was trying to be brave too. Ye Mingke squeezed his sweaty palms, grasped the mountain grass ahead, and climbed upward, one step at a time.