Chapter 97

Chapter 97

Late at night, Mount Miemeng seemed to have shut its eyes for the time being, slumbering quietly in the stillness.

Rong Feng rushed back without stopping for a moment, his breathing unusually ragged, his chest heaving hard. Carrying a large amount of sulfur, he lingered for a moment at the pitch-black cave entrance, trying to steady his breath.

Only after his heavy panting subsided did he pull himself together and step inside.

This saltpeter cave was extremely deep, and the path was narrow and confining. Walking through it, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, the walls echoed your own footsteps, and bats occasionally flew past—the experience was downright oppressive.

Rong Feng started out walking slowly, but before long he found himself running, afraid that even a moment's delay would keep Bian Hong waiting longer.

He didn't have time to light an oil lamp, and his eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness.

Rong Feng wasn't afraid of the dark—he had come from the deep, shadowy recesses of Mount Miemeng to that little village down below. His blue eyes instead shimmered with a faint luminescence in this kind of darkness.

But as he ran, he suddenly stopped in his tracks. The heavy bag of sulfur he was carrying fell to the ground. He blinked hard, and saw that in a crevice in the rock wall up ahead, someone seemed to be hiding.

That person pressed their thin frame tightly against the stone wall, almost completely motionless, so that you could hardly tell it was a human being at all. Yet Rong Feng recognized him at once—whether because of the faint outline or the familiar scent.

In any case, even through the rock wall, even through the darkness, he knew—it was Bian Hong.

He didn't dare sprint anymore. Instead, he approached slowly and gently. The figure still didn't move.

It wasn't until Rong Feng reached out and touched Bian Hong's trembling frame that the silent figure finally spoke—a hoarse whisper, as if seeking confirmation.

"Rong... Rong Feng?"

The moment Rong Feng heard Bian Hong's voice, he couldn't stop himself. He stepped forward and swiftly pulled the person pressed against the stone wall into his arms.

"It's me. I came back to get you."

Bian Hong, hearing Rong Feng's voice and feeling his warmth, finally snapped back to reality in the darkness.

"I thought... I was still in the mine. That escaping was just a dream I had while collapsing by the saltpeter pit."

As if the farming couple, Yuan Ding, Guan Bao—everyone he'd met—even Rong Feng himself—were all fake, all a beautiful dream while he was out cold.

So when he opened his eyes, he ran frantically toward the cave's exit. But the farther he ran, the more terrified he became. His nose caught the familiar smell of gunpowder. Before his eyes were countless black muzzles hidden in the shadows, just waiting for him to take another step before pulling the trigger.

The companions who had rushed out with him—one by one, half their skulls blown off before his eyes, their abdomens torn open, intestines and organs spilling across the ground—kept crawling desperately forward, dragging trails of blood behind them.

In the end, they all died. Only he remained, because his body was as thin as a sheet of paper, pressed tightly into a narrow crevice in the rock, surviving by sheer luck.

Then, when the mine was sealed and inspected, he could neither advance nor retreat. His throat burned with thirst, so he drank the filthy water dripping from cracks in the stone. Hunger gnawed at his stomach. To survive, he reached out with trembling hands toward the rotting corpses on the ground...

All of this seemed forgotten once he emerged from that deep tunnel. It all blurred together in his mind. Even when others asked him how exactly he'd escaped the coal mine, his mind went blank—he didn't know.

By the time he regained consciousness, he was already lying on the grassy slope outside the mine, secretly rescued by the locals, who had long been oppressed and abused. They arranged for him to be put on a ship smuggling him back home.

Now, on this equally winding and pitch-black stone path, as he ran forward alone—

It all came back to Bian Hong.

Only then did he realize that he had been trapped in that dark mine all along. What had run out back then was just a body that never looked back. Now, the soul left behind had finally awakened.

Even if that awakening was filled with unbearable pain and terror.

Rong Feng felt like his throat was closing up. At this moment, he couldn't find any pretty words of comfort. He just held Bian Hong tight and said one thing.

"We're not staying here. I'm getting you out of here."

In the darkness of the cave, Bian Hong couldn't see Rong Feng's face. He could only reach out with his ice-cold hand, gently tracing the contours of Rong Feng's cheeks with a trembling touch—bit by bit, from his brows to the corners of his lips.

To prove that this person was real, not something his crazed mind had made up.

Rong Feng couldn't help reaching out to touch Bian Hong's face as well, but his fingers met tears first. He had just wiped away a trail of tears when Bian Hong turned his face, opened his mouth, and bit down hard on his hand.

Accompanying the bite came Bian Hong's tears, bursting forth like a dam breaking.

They fell on Rong Feng's hand, burning his hand with their heat.

After so many years, the lost Bian Hong had finally been found, brought back, and tenderly guided—step by step—out of this lightless mine.

The night was tranquil. Moonlight and starlight spilled down through the slanting shadows of the trees, casting a gentle glow.

Rong Feng held Bian Hong in his arms, leaning against the small stone platform at the cave's mouth.

Bian Hong leaned against the man's body, looking up at the moon, unchanged for millennia, in the night sky. He seemed unwilling to remain silent any longer, so in the cool evening breeze of Mount Miemeng, he spoke in a soft voice.

As if talking to himself, or maybe to Rong Feng.

He began with the bronze longevity lock around his neck, telling of how the orphanage director had found him at the front gate in the bitter cold of a winter month—wrapped in nothing but a thin blanket, with nothing to his name.

He spoke of his life at the orphanage, his friends, his teachers, the little secrets of his childhood that no one knew.

Gradually, as he talked, Bian Hong seemed to forget the hardships he had endured. What he remembered were only ordinary little things.

Or how Zheng Die had once gotten a bunch of peace amulets for him, and got swindled out of quite a bit of money by the Taoist priest next door.

Or the little stories Xu Lao Shi told him, where the main characters always had such good luck that every problem just melted away.

Or how he had been too silent and too stubborn to give in, and was returned by his adoptive family—but the couple still cried when they left. Little Bian Hong stood behind the foggy glass window of the orphanage, tilting his head, not understanding why.

And of course, the towering buildings, cars, airplanes—all the wonders of modern life.

He spoke and reminisced, and in the quiet night breeze, his heart grew calm as well.

Rong Feng listened silently throughout, neither asking questions nor interrupting—just taking it all in.

He'd always known Bian Hong was different.

Even back at Erlongkou, when his master had tested his skills in the woods, he'd marveled—where had this disciple of his, who lived deep in the mountains far from people, found a wife so perfectly suited to him?

And the National Preceptor had also pulled him aside on the night before his departure.

His shishu, who always seemed frail and scholarly but was actually the most decisive and resolute of them all, had hesitated, seeming to want to say something. In the end, he sighed and simply said that Bian Hong was special, extraordinary, and that Rong Feng needed to protect him well.

But he thought to himself—he had nothing. What could he possibly give Bian Hong?

Only a heart that would never waver, until death.

So when Bian Hong said he was tired and gradually fell asleep against his shoulder, he held Bian Hong tighter, shielding him from the wind and cold with his own body, and whispered softly.

"Don't be scared."

...

Before dawn, Bian Hong woke up again. After all, there were still things left to do.

This time, he and Rong Feng, with composed expressions, once again entered the depths of the saltpeter cave. After extracting the saltpeter crystals and gathering the auxiliary materials, they mixed all the components in proportion, scouted the gold mine for blasting points to set the explosives, and then trailed the remaining explosive powder all the way out.

Before blasting the mountain, Rong Feng also scouted the surrounding mountains multiple times to ensure that no animal communities were living in the rugged, rocky mountain, and to ensure that the direction in which the mountain might collapse after the explosion was safe.

Scaring off the animals wasn't hard for Rong Feng. Other folks might've had to light powder to make choking, dangerous smoke, but Rong Feng just had to let out a howling warning.

It wasn't until the man came back and stood beside Bian Hong again that Bian Hong pressed his lips together and asked.

"Ready?"

He was asking about the animals around the mountain and whether Rong Feng was set on blasting it. If that much explosive went off, the whole exposed gold-bearing mountain would collapse and bury itself.

Mining it with the tech these people had would've been next to impossible.

The man did not hesitate at all. He nodded, his gaze steady, "Ready."

Bian Hong stared into the pitch-black mouth of the gold mine for a long time. Scenes flashed through his mind one after another: the severely polluted forest and waterways near the black mine, and the local people who had once extended a helping hand to him, living a life that was precarious and stripped of dignity.

His eyes were pitch-black as ink, and he hurled the torch from his hand without hesitation.

The leaping flames from the torch caught with a crackle, burning and spreading.

Bian Hong stood in the twilight, watching the burning line of fire gleam with the brilliance of modern civilization as it crept into the pitch-black cave mouth.

Soon, a thunderous roar.

Like the wrath of the gods, the entire mountain collapsed and sank, with rocks cascading down. Any trace of gold or jade treasure was buried and wiped out completely.

Bian Hong had explained things to Rong Feng beforehand, so he was mentally ready, but he was still startled by the earth-shaking sound and the shockwave after the explosion. Instinctively, he lunged sideways at Bian Hong, dropped to his knees, and yanked him tight into his arms, shielding him with his body.

Bian Hong knew full well there was no danger at this distance, so he wrapped his arms around the man's waist, his eyes fixed unblinkingly ahead through Rong Feng's broad and safe shoulders.

It seemed that what he had blasted was not only the exposed gold mine on the surface, but also the endless dark mine shaft that had always trapped him.

Collapsing, toppling, crumbling apart.

And behind the flying dust and smoke, the scenery of Miemeng Mountain remained unchanged, but through the vibrant forest before him, Bian Hong perhaps also saw, on that small piece of foreign land, forests regrowing lush and animals gaining new life.

All settled into place.

Under the gentle morning breeze of Miemeng Mountain, as the rosy mist swelled half-hidden, Bian Hong tilted his ear and fixed his gaze. He seemed to hear the heartbeat of the mountain.

With every inhale and exhale, across every peak and gorge, "thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump."

Like the deep drumbeats echoing from the earth.

Awakening the sun, summoning forth the summer days.

Green peaks cast their shadows, and the sky rolls with clouds.