Chapter 2: Narrow Escape (2)
The heavy chain fell away. Cry set it down on the ground without a sound.
I wiped the rain from my face and whispered, "Where'd you get the key?"
Cry laughed—a silent breath of laughter against my ear, the first time I'd ever heard her make even that much sound.
"Stole it from Fat Ruan a while back. I've been wanting to let you go for a long time—but I was afraid you wouldn't know how to run."
She touched my face, then pressed a bundle into my arms.
"Take this path up the mountain. Keep heading east, walk a day and a night, and you'll reach the river."
"Remember—follow the river, and it'll take you back to your country!"
"Don't go to the villages. Don't trust anyone—they'll only sell you back!"
Cry shoved me hard.
"Go!"
I touched her head, clutched the bundle tight, turned, and walked. At the end of the path, the scent of mountain earth and rain hit my face. I looked back once more—through the black curtain of rain, Cry had already vanished.
Under wan starlight, I planted my foot in the mud and started up the mountain.
3.
I'd escaped, but the hardest part was just beginning.
Rain. Darkness. Forest. A broken, fever-ravaged body. Any one of these alone would have been a death sentence—combined, they were nearly insurmountable. I stumbled through the mountainside, rain driving into my eyes, vision so poor I could barely see at all, just plunging headlong into the brush.
To keep branches from stabbing my eyes, I'd wrapped the long towel around my head, but it didn't help—twigs still lashed my face like whips.
In the dark, a person loses all sense of direction. I had no idea how long I'd been blundering through the forest, thinking I'd put distance between myself and Little Golden Port—only to look up and see the settlement's dim lights still not far away.
Cry had told me to go east, but I couldn't tell east from west. I just fled in whichever direction was opposite the compound, driven by pure instinct.
It seemed I'd been running for a long time.
The rain started to ease, and I'd just exhaled in relief—when the sound of motorcycle engines shattered the night, along with shouting voices, flashlight beams sweeping back and forth, and the vicious baying of dogs.
They'd found me. They were catching up!
My heart hammered. My mind went blank.
Almost simultaneously, a flashlight beam swept toward my position. I dropped flat on the ground, using the vegetation as cover, and began to crawl through the mud.
How far away were they?
Two hundred meters? Maybe three hundred...
Terror propelling me, heedless of plant leaves cutting my skin, stones tearing my palms, I scrambled desperately in one direction.
No! I will not be taken back! I'd rather die on this mountain, rather be buried in this forest, than go back!
Tears streamed down my face and mixed with the rain, running into my mouth.
I crawled faster and faster—then my foot found empty air.
The world spun as I tumbled dozens of meters downhill. My head struck the ground, struck trees, leaving me dizzy and disoriented. But the sheer terror in my chest kept me conscious.
Bruised and battered, I sat up and spotted it through layers of undergrowth—a hidden hollow among tangled roots.
I couldn't run anymore. If I kept going, I might fall to my death, or blunder right back into the pursuers' path.
Gritting my teeth, I dragged my aching limbs into the hollow. Luck was on my side—the rain had turned the ground to mud, washing away my tracks almost instantly. I grabbed fistfuls of wet earth and packed them into the root gaps, sealing the narrow entrance as best I could.
The space was tiny. I pressed myself deeper inside, breathing as shallowly as I could while my heart hammered.
Soon, men with dogs ran past nearby. They didn't find me!
Their chaotic footsteps passed directly overhead at one point, then gradually receded.
Dimly, I thought I heard someone screaming, and several gunshots echoing across the mountain.
I don't know how long I drifted in and out, but the rain continued. Eventually, exhaustion won, and I fell into a fitful sleep.
A strange itching stirred inside my clothes. I jolted awake and reached instinctively for my chest—in the dim light, I pulled out a many-legged insect, thrashing wildly!
The creature bit me—sharp, burning pain—and I flung it away, slapping frantically at my body. Dead, or burrowed into the ground—I couldn't tell, and didn't care to check.
The bite on my left hand throbbed, and several welts had risen on my stomach. A centipede? I frantically patted myself down, terrified of finding another one.
The rain had stopped. Outside, only insects and birdsong—no human sounds.
I listened carefully for several minutes before I was sure. Slowly, I pushed away the mud sealing my exit, wriggled through the roots, and emerged into daylight.
Sunlight filtered through gaps in the canopy, glistening on leaves still wet from the night's rain.
I checked my bundle—the pressed cake was still there, slightly squashed, and Cry's package remained intact.
Judging by the sun's position, it was around eight or nine in the morning.
Orienting myself, I realized I'd veered off course in the night. I was now northeast of Little Golden Port, deep in an almost uninhabited forest.
Examining the insect bites in the sunlight—two puncture marks on the web of my hand, swollen but not deep—I pressed my mouth to the wounds, sucked out the blood, and spat.
Mouth stinging, I walked on, choosing paths through sparser vegetation to avoid snakes.
After about twenty minutes of heading deeper into the forest, the trees grew taller and more ancient. Rounding a thicket of overgrown bushes, I froze—on the green leaves, I was almost certain I saw large bloodstains.
I dropped flat instantly, but after waiting, there were no human sounds. Unnamed birds sang cheerfully from the treetops.
Carefully, I stood, hunching, and began to skirt the area. A dozen meters on, in the deep shade of an ancient tree, I stopped dead.
A figure hung impaled on a dead branch—like a broken rag doll.
It was Sylvie.
4.
Fear seized my throat. My foot caught on a branch, snapping it with a crack. The sound seemed to rouse her—the young woman twitched, then let out a long, desolate sigh.
She lifted her head with visible effort, and through her disheveled curtain of dark hair, her dying eyes met mine.
"Ha..."
Her dress had been torn off and thrown aside. Her beautiful body hung impaled through the chest on a thick dead branch about two meters off the ground. Dark wood protruded from her pale flesh, streaked with torn tissue and bone fragments—a sight of horrifying violence.
Sylvie hung there, light as a rag, head tilted to one side, blood frothing continuously from her small nose and mouth. Based on my limited medical knowledge, her heart and lungs must have been catastrophically damaged—she was beyond saving.
She coughed blood, then managed a faint smile.
"I knew it—you were faking the madness, weren't you? I never... misjudged you."
I steadied myself and walked closer—it was the first time in so long that I'd spoken to her with a clear mind.
"Did you come to catch me? Alone?"
Sylvie tried to laugh, but the pain was too much. She merely twitched her lips and said, "Look at me. Do you think I could catch anyone right now?"
I didn't answer, realizing I'd asked something foolish.
"The truth is, I only just found out you'd escaped too."
Too? I caught the word immediately.
Someone else had escaped last night? Had Sylvie come to hunt them down?
Who...
"All the piglets in the compound escaped last night..." Sylvie gasped, her voice growing fainter.
"Not like you—Mongo and Ahab let them go."
"Mongo betrayed me."
Thinking of that hulking, vicious youth and the greedy looks he occasionally cast at Sylvie, I wasn't surprised.
A brutal, bloodthirsty, deeply jealous brute.
Only someone nearly two meters tall could have lifted a living woman and impaled her on a tree.
"What about Wu Xiaochuan?" I asked.
Sylvie looked at me, that faint smile still on her lips.
"Him? He's..." She didn't finish. Instead—
"Ahab released the captives, then recaptured some. He egged Mongo on... After I die, Mongo will run, and all the blame can fall on me. Little Golden Port goes back to Ahab."
Clever, I had to admit.
With a trace of regret, Sylvie gently closed her eyes.