"Grandpa, I'm an outdoor enthusiast — a hiker, part-time live-streamer." Chen Ge was afraid the old man wouldn't believe him, so he took out his phone and opened his profile page on a short-video platform. "I'm pretty well-known online. You can look me up."
His barrage of jargon left the old man bewildered — none of it was the sort of thing a rural elder would readily understand. "A donkey-what streamer?"
Both hands clamped tight on his hoe, the old man eyed Chen Ge with undisguised wariness.
"In simple terms, I'm a fairly famous outdoor travel and exploration enthusiast." Chen Ge rattled on, not bothering to verify whether the old man followed a single word. He reached straight into his pocket and produced a hundred-yuan bill. "I got lost in these mountains and walked a long, long way before I finally ran into a person. Please, could you tell me how to get back to Jiujiang?"
The old man didn't touch the money. His gaze remained locked on Chen Ge, plainly unconvinced.
The two stood at an impasse in the peach grove. The weather in the mountains was fickle; a cold wind carried a damp chill, and before long a fine drizzle began drifting from the sky.
"Is it raining?" Chen Ge held out his hand, letting the drops spatter across his palm. If the rain picked up, navigating the mountain terrain would only grow harder — bad news for him.
"I don't know where you came from, but this place is called Linguan Village, between Linjiang County and Jiujiang — far from the city, no cars around. Getting back to Jiujiang won't be easy." The old man leaned on his hoe. Chen Ge's sudden appearance behind him had rattled his legs badly enough; who would expect someone to materialize out of the darkness in the dead of night?
"What am I supposed to do, then?" Chen Ge's expression twisted with worry, as though he were genuinely troubled.
"I could walk you out past the mountain, but we'd probably be at it until well past midnight." The old man took a steadying breath. "Oh, and — there's a village at the foot of the mountain. After I get you out, don't go wandering into it. Just stay on the main road and keep walking."
"Why can't I go into the village? If there's a farmhouse inn, I could crash there for the night."
"I told you not to go in, so don't go in! Stop asking so many questions!" The old man's voice turned sharp, as though this point were of critical importance.
"But you just said there are no cars out here. Even if I make it out of the mountains, I still can't reach Jiujiang. It's about to rain — I need somewhere to shelter."
Chen Ge was telling the truth, and the old man couldn't find a reason to argue. He glared at Chen Ge, and silence settled between them once more.
The rain grew heavier. The old man had no way to dislodge him, and his heart was soft by nature. "If it rains tonight, there'll be fog come morning. If you don't mind the trouble, you can rough it at my place for the night."
He unhooked a lamp and a water bottle from a tree branch, dragged his hoe along, and stopped a couple of meters from Chen Ge. "You really are from outside?"
"Would I make that up?" Chen Ge wasn't frightened by the approaching old man. In one hand he held his phone; the other hand rested casually on the hammer handle behind his back. "Go online and search — you'll find my info and my live-stream videos. See? This right here is me."
He showed the old man a clip from one of his live streams — before the encounter with the psychiatric patients in the Third Ward, if he could find it — the only reasonably normal fragment of footage available.
"You've been on television?"
"Something like that. I'm fairly well-known in Jiujiang."
Watching the video on the phone screen and the long scroll of comments beneath it, the old man finally nodded. "Well, that explains it. No ordinary person would come out here in the middle of the night."
After speaking, he seemed to catch himself — as though he'd let something slip. He shouldered his hoe and turned away. "Follow me."
Chen Ge and the old man crossed the peach grove. After several minutes' walk, four wooden cabins came into view.
"You'll sleep in the first one. Once I turn off the lights, stay inside and don't come out, no matter what you hear." The old man produced a key and unlocked the first cabin's door, but he kept the key for himself.
"You're making it sound pretty terrifying. We don't have wolves out here, do we?" Chen Ge improvised on the spot. "I've heard that deep in the mountains, old wolves whose strength is fading learn to mimic human voices to lure people in…"