Ling Yue walked along the narrow dirt path between the fields with her father, feeling a loneliness deeper than she had ever known in her life.
“Yueyue, look,” her father said softly, pointing at the farmers working in the distance. “Your dad was the child of farmers. I’ve been a farmer’s child my whole life, and you are a farmer’s granddaughter. A person must never forget where they come from.”
It was the beginning of summer vacation. The children, completely untouched by the natural disasters, ran happily across the ridges between the fields, flying kites as their laughter echoed through the farmland.
“And another thing—what matters most in being a person is…” Her father clasped his hands behind his back and launched into a long, earnest lecture.
“Enough already!” Ling Yue stomped her foot. “I’m not a little kid anymore!”
She cut him off impatiently, interrupting the lengthy sermon she could already recite by heart.
He smiled at her with gentle affection. “But in your dad’s eyes, you’ll always be a child.”
Along this long journey, he talked and taught her the whole way. By the time the sun was nearly setting, she finally returned to the temporary tent. Someone had already fetched mountain spring water for her so she could wipe herself down.
Ling Yue let out a tired sigh, wondering when she would ever be able to leave this godforsaken place.
She carefully wiped her body with the cool mountain spring water. Droplets slid over her skin, slightly reddened from the sun, temporarily washing away the day’s heat and stickiness.The tent was very quiet—only the sound of running water and her own breathing could be heard.
Suddenly, an intense sense of discomfort crept up her spine.
She froze, instinctively clutching the towel to her chest, and turned her head warily toward the canvas wall of the tent.
Behind the tent, near the ground, an extremely faint shadow shifted slightly.
Her heart clenched.
It didn’t look like the tent swaying in the wind. It looked more like… the silhouette of someone pressed tightly against the tent, holding their breath.
The only sound left in the air was her rapidly pounding heartbeat, thudding against her eardrums. She stared fixedly at that spot, her blood seeming to turn cold.“Wang Feilong! Where the hell did you go?!”
“Huh? Miss?” the bodyguard, Brother Long, replied immediately. “I’ve been outside the whole time.”
“There seems to be someone outside.”
Brother Long quickly circled the tent again but didn’t see anyone. “There’s no one out here. Don’t worry—go ahead and wash.”
A false alarm.
The tension in Ling Yue’s body finally eased. She re-wet the towel and wiped away the remaining heat and unease.
The coolness of the mountain spring water completely overwhelmed the day’s exhaustion. After changing into clean sleepwear, drowsiness surged over her like a tide. The simple cot inside the tent was hard, but at that moment it felt like salvation.
Scenes from the day—the rust-red mountains, the patchwork fields, her father’s nagging profile, the children running—intertwined chaotically in her mind before sinking into pitch-black sleep.
She slept deeply, but restlessly.
She had a chaotic dream.
In the dream, she was running alone through those brownish-red mountains. The scorched earth beneath her feet was soft and sticky, as if it were trying to swallow her whole.
From far away came her father’s voice calling her name, drifting in and out, sometimes near, sometimes distant.
She tried desperately to respond, but her throat felt blocked, and no sound would come out.
Then she felt a gaze—clammy and icy—pressed tightly against her back.
She spun around abruptly, and behind her was a vague, human-shaped shadow…!
Ling Yue jolted awake.
Her chest heaved violently, cold sweat soaking her temples. The tent was pitch-black, with only a sliver of moonlight seeping through the seams. She quickly sat up and glanced around the tent, seeing that no one was there.
She collapsed back onto the cot.
It was deep into the night. Everything was silent, even the insects chirping far less than before.
Exhausted, she closed her eyes again.
Then, in the darkness behind her—where there should have been nothing at all—a pair of eyes silently opened.
Those eyes were extremely close to her. Sticky and cold, their gaze slowly traced over her neck and shoulder line exposed beyond her sleepwear, finally locking firmly onto her profile.
It was Jiang Muchen.
She was too tired to notice that someone was pressed tightly against her back.