Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The old woman led us to the only empty room. I set down my backpack, took off my windbreaker, and slapped my hair a few times with my hand. A layer of dust immediately puffed into the air.

Hua Yuling coughed as it choked her.

“Cough, cough. Qiao Moyu, you’re filthy. Stay away from me.”

“I haven’t even started on you yet, and you’ve got the nerve to talk? You still haven’t cleaned that clump of bird crap off your braid.”

Seeing the two of us bicker, the old woman smiled, then suddenly asked, “Would you like to take a bath first?”

“A bath?” I was a little surprised. “There’s enough water to bathe here?”

The area we’d come to was pretty much the most water-starved part of Gansu. It might not rain even once in an entire year, and droughts lasting two or three years in a row were common.

Villages without irrigation projects were basically abandoned. Aside from a few elderly people who stayed behind, all the young people had left.

The water vat in the kitchen earlier had nearly bottomed out. The old man had to tilt the vat before he could scoop out two ladles of water for us. How could there still be water for bathing?

The old woman nodded firmly.

“There is. Toward the back mountain, there’s a deep pool. Our village gets all its water from there.”

“There’s an underground river beneath it, so the water flows all year round. It’s just that the terrain is steep, so getting down to the pool isn’t very convenient. The two of us are old now, and our legs aren’t nimble. Back when there were young people in the village, they often bathed by the pool.”

When the old woman put it that way, we were instantly tempted.

During the half month we’d spent in the northwest, never mind taking a bath-even properly washing our faces had been a luxury. My clothes and hair were full of fine sand, and my whole body itched every day. Whenever I saw a tree, I’d go rub my back against it like a bear, and Hua Yuling had mocked me plenty along the way for it.

The old woman pointed out the window.

“The water there is clear and cool. If you rinse off, it’ll wash all the surface dust right off you. Very comfortable.”

“Are you going? It isn’t completely dark yet. If you are, I’ll tell you the way.”

After she said that, I felt my back start itching again.

Clear, cool spring water soaking through my body, lathering up with soap, washing myself three times from head to toe-just imagining it felt amazing.

The old woman said the spring was easy to find.

Follow the yellow dirt road behind the village for a little over twenty minutes, and we’d see a patch of dead jujube trees. Go through the grove, find the tallest, biggest jujube tree, turn there, then follow the slope down for a few hundred meters. Climb down through a pile of loose rocks, and we’d be there.

The pile of rocks stood at the outermost edge of the cliff wall. It must have once been one massive slab of stone, but after being weathered over time, the edges would crumble like powder underfoot.

The few of us moved like we were rock climbing, slowly pressing close to the cliff wall as we made our way down. Once we reached the bottom of the valley and walked a few dozen steps, a black, deep pool appeared ahead of us.

All around it was scorched, yellow sand. That black pool appeared there so abruptly, like an eye growing out of the earth. It looked incredibly strange.

Jiang Haoyan walked to the edge of the pool and scooped up a handful of water. The water was clear; the lines on his palm were plainly visible.

Jiang Haoyan exclaimed, “This water is really clear. Why does it look black?”

“You don’t even know that? Ignorance really is terrifying.” Hua Yuling let out a disdainful snort. “Green water means depth. Blue water means breadth. Black water means an abyss.”

“With water this black, it means there’s an abyss below. Young people who don’t know a thing shouldn’t just get in the water, or they won’t even know how they died.” As Hua Yuling spoke, she crouched down, soaked both hands in the pool, and tilted her head back in contentment. “So nice-”

In the next instant, however, her eyes suddenly flew wide open. Her entire body leaned backward, her feet braced hard against the ground, and then she thrust both hands forward and plunged headfirst into the water.

It looked as if she’d been dragged down by some tremendous force. Hua Yuling’s resistance hadn’t even lasted a second.

The water erupted in a burst of spray, then quickly calmed again.

Everything happened too fast. Jiang Haoyan had been crouching beside Hua Yuling and hadn’t seen her expression, so he thought she’d jumped in on her own.

“We just said the water was deep. You’re way too reckless. Qiao Moyu, don’t you copy her-”

“Move!”

I threw off my backpack and leaped into the water in one stride.