Xu Lei - Search for the Buried Bomber

In an instant, the cold sweat had soaked through my clothes. I hurriedly stepped back. The deputy squad leader and the rest of the soldiers had all been sleeping lightly. As soon as they heard our cry, they rushed from their bags. Seeing our expressions, they turned to where we were facing, gasped in surprise, and loaded their weapons. Quick as could be, five rifles were aimed across the way.

“Who’s there?” shouted the deputy squad leader.

The other did not respond, just stood rigidly in place, not moving at all.

We gulped. Wang Sichuan was the bravest among us. “Pei Qing,” he called out, “your flashlight—shine it over there.”

Pei Qing cautiously raised his flashlight. As the light illuminated the figure, we were all taken aback. Somehow, the uniform matched ours exactly, even down to the Sam Browne belt across the chest. It was the military dress of the PLA, but every inch of clothing was soaked with blood. Though it was hidden beneath a helmet, we could discern a bloody sheen coating the stranger’s face as well.

I felt the blood rush from my face. Who could this be? My body had turned ice-cold, as if I had fallen through a hole in a frozen pond.

Wang Sichuan began to curse in Mongolian. Then one of the soldiers cried out, “It’s Big Beard! Big Beard’s not dead!” Saying this, he made to drop his weapon and climb over to where the stranger stood.

“Stay where you are!” yelled the deputy squad leader, his eyes bloodshot. “Can’t you see what he looks like? Look closely now!”

All of us understood what he meant. Had Big Beard truly not died, he would have called over to us as soon as we were in sight. Instead he stood there motionless, stiffly watching us like some reanimated corpse. The soldier lacked the courage to move any closer, and we remained deadlocked. A blue vein bulged across the deputy squad leader’s forehead. Clearly, there was no good way to resolve this standoff.

Pei Qing had also hoisted a rifle. Swallowing deeply, he looked straight at me and asked, “What do we do now?”

If you’re asking me, I thought, then who am I going to ask? If this person really was the martyred young soldier, then we were all finished. This morning we’d given him his funeral rites, his death already a certainty. Was it possible that the dead could walk? In my mind I rapidly rifled through a number of different solutions, until at last I spied the large metal basin. Picking it up, I handed it to Pei Qing. “Throw this over there and let’s see what he does,” I said.

Pei Qing replied that his aim was poor. Wang Sichuan should throw instead. As an ethnic Mongolian, Wang Sichuan had been throwing the bulu— a lead-tipped throwing stick used for hunting—since he was a kid. While we’d been stationed at the main 723 Project campsite, he’d knocked a wild ring-necked pheasant out of the air. I looked around for Wang Sichuan. He was nowhere to be seen. Looking again, I couldn’t believe my eyes: at some point, unbeknownst to the rest of us, he had climbed over to the rock the stranger stood on and was now preparing to pounce. I opened my mouth to try to stop him, but it was already too late. I could only watch as Wang Sichuan bent over, then launched himself forward, grabbing the stranger in a bear hug. A startled cry rang out and several of us gasped. The voice was not Wang Sichuan’s—it was a woman’s.

Wang Sichuan attempted to force the stranger down, but his opponent was far from a pushover. As their bodies twisted around, the two of them tumbled to the ground and rolled off the side of the rock into the water below. The deputy squad leader dropped his weapon, tore off his clothing, and rushed in to help. The water beneath the boulders was still very deep. If one were to get caught in the crevices under the rocks, there would be no way to come up for air. The rest of us followed after him, first pulling Wang Sichuan from the water, then dragging the stranger out.

The stranger’s helmet had fallen off, revealing hair cut in a short bob and a face that had been rinsed clean of some of the blood. Her clothes were soaked through and stuck tightly to her frame, revealing a body of generous curves. We all blushed. Wang Sichuan spit out a mouthful of water, shivered once from the cold, then quickly tore off his clothing and laid it by the fire to dry. He came back and asked if she was dead or not. I moved her hair aside and checked her pulse. Seeing her face up close, I gave a sudden start. I recognized her. Kneeling by my side, Pei Qing saw it too. “My God,” he cried out, “is that Yuan Xile?”

You, reader, may feel baffled at this point. In fact, that’s just how I felt. If this were a novel it might seem absurd. After all, novels are plotted, with a beginning, middle, and end that are supposed to make sense. But my story is simply a record of the facts. I found Yuan Xile down there. That is a fact. I never would have expected to find her in that cave, but that’s where she appeared. At first I couldn’t believe it, but taking a closer look, I knew it had to be her. My heart raced with the shock of it. How could she be down here?

Yuan Xile was a prospector herself. Although we were more or less the same age, her qualifications were superior to any of ours. She had studied abroad in the Soviet Union and was given preferential treatment when she returned. She had been second-in-command of several of the prospecting teams I’d served on. She was very serious, and people called her the Soviet Witch. Because of my carelessness, I was regularly made to suffer her criticisms, but in private she was a frank and honest woman and we got along rather well. She had led teams all across the country, so Pei Qing’s reason for recognizing her was likely similar to my own.

But there hadn’t been any women among the twenty-four of us who’d been stationed at 723. And from the wounds that covered her face and body, it was clear that something terrible had occurred. Her body temperature was extremely low. There was no time for us to discuss why or how she got down here. We cast lots and Wang Sichuan was made to remove her clothes. Most of her body was covered in cuts and scrapes, her skin bruised dark blue from internal bleeding. It was a terrifying thing to see. Her hands and knees were a bloody mess. If it weren’t for the stones and iron netting that lay all around us, one would certainly have thought that she’d suffered some cruel torture. None of this was fatal, though. The most serious problem was her body temperature. Her clothes had been soaked even before Wang Sichuan knocked her into the water. Her temperature had likely been low for some time. Her lips were already colored deep purple.

Trembling, Wang Sichuan wiped her body dry and wrapped her in a sleeping bag. He heated water for her to drink, then used the fire to help steam her face, continuing to care for her until the small hours of the night. At last, her temperature began to rise, but she remained unconscious and could not be awoken. Still, our voices lost much of their tension. As Pei Qing stood by her side and watched her sleep peacefully, he spoke his thoughts aloud: “How could she have gotten here?”

Once again I thought of what Old Cat had said to me the night before we set out: “Something about this isn’t right.” More and more, everything seemed like it was going to hell. “We shouldn’t keep going,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” asked Wang Sichuan.

“It’s starting to look like we weren’t the first ones here,” I said. “There’s something going on, and that colonel wasn’t honest with us.”