Xu Lei - Search for the Buried Bomber

Old Cat, Pei Qing, and the rest of them had obviously had it much easier than I. This made me rather resentful. We’d entered the sinkhole on the basis of a note. If it was one of them who’d given it to me, then some irresponsible person had pushed us into a situation of considerable danger. Of course, falling into that enormous underground river had been mostly our fault. Had that not happened, who knows how things might have gone?

Wang Sichuan had long since related our experiences to those present, even going so far as to tell them that, most likely, there was an enemy spy on the team. Old Cat’s expression showed considerable displeasure. The list of dead was getting too long.

Telegraph room: three dead.

The generator in the sinkhole: one dead.

Workshop and warehouse: one dead and Su Zhenhua crazy.

Adding to this the madwoman Yuan Xile, then we’d already found seven of the first team, five of them dead—their deaths all abnormal—while those who’d survived had both gone crazy.

I told Old Cat that by now there were probably some things he should tell us. At the very least, I said, we need to know just how many people were on the first team. Pei Qing chimed in as soon as I said this, as did Wang Sichuan, Ma Zaihai, and the deputy squad leader. Pei Qing was quite agitated. His argument with Old Cat had gotten serious, and now he couldn’t hold himself back.

Old Cat and Old Tang were both silent. For a moment, both sides were deadlocked, no one saying a word. At last Old Cat abruptly relaxed, sighed, and then spoke. “All right. But I can only tell you this one thing and you must not ask me again. There is no benefit in you knowing too much—not for me, nor for all of you either.”

Go on and say it, I thought to myself. We understand. After we leave this place, no one will bring it up again.

Old Cat gave a rather strange laugh and said, “The first team entered here half a month ago. Nine people in total—four experts, four corpsmen, one specially appointed supervisor.”

“Nine people?” Ma Zaihai gulped. “Then there are still two people we haven’t found yet?”

Old Cat shook his head. “No,” he said, “just one.”

Ma Zaihai counted it out on his fingers, then counted again. Something was wrong.

“There was one person,” said Old Cat, “who came out alive.”

We stared at him in surprise. “Who was it?” asked Ma Zaihai.

Narrowing his eyes, Old Cat pointed at himself. “Me.”

It was a long time before I could finally react. The others were no different. At last Wang Sichuan asked, “You mean to say you’ve already been here?”

Old Cat fished out a cigarette, lit it, then nodded.

Everything had been turned upside down. Quite a few people’s faces had gone white. We looked at each other in blank dismay. My mind remained in chaos, but then, as I thought about it once more, I wanted to laugh. It all made sense, I realized. Back when we first arrived, Old Cat had known the colonel and the rest of that gang had already long since discovered this cave. I thought this was the slyness of Old Cat reading the military, but if he’d already been down here, well, of course he would have known. And when the underground river rose, he was able to both appear just in the nick of time and know that the way forward was at the very top of the cavern. At the time, I had once more believed this was merely due to his wealth of experience. How had we been so naive?

For a short while everyone was silent. Pei Qing was the first to respond. “Mao Wuyue,” he said coldly, “I’ve known something was up with you for a long time, but I didn’t think you were involved this deeply. What exactly is going on here? Tell us, or don’t blame us if there’s no love lost.”

Old Cat leisurely shook his head. “I just told you that was all I could say. Our superiors have their own considerations. Anyway, it’s better for you all that I not say anything.”

“Goddamn it,” yelled Wang Sichuan. “What the fuck kind of leader are you supposed to be?” Jumping to his feet, he charged at Old Cat. Old Tang rushed in between them, grabbed Wang Sichuan, and twisted him into a pretzel. Old Tang was very agile, and the hulking Wang Sichuan was subdued in a moment. He wasn’t about to give up, though. As soon as Old Tang turned his back, Wang Sichuan seized him and flipped him onto the ground. The two of them twisted together. Pei Qing rushed over. My heart leaped in fear. Was this about to turn into a free-for-all? But Pei Qing meant only to mediate. He pulled the two of them apart.

Pointing at Wang Sichuan, Old Tang swore, “Are you a soldier or what? You think you’re some kind of intellectual, don’t you? Didn’t Old Cat just say he’s under orders? You’re a goddamn nobody. Are we supposed to listen to you or to headquarters?”

This might seem like no more than angry bluster, but Old Tang had raised two important points: First, it’s not that they weren’t saying it, it’s that they couldn’t say it. And second, the orders came from headquarters. This was a hint for us to ask no further. I knew Old Cat would die before he said anything he was sworn to conceal, even if it was as simple as the new location of the engineering brigade headquarters. Wang Sichuan was the kind of guy brave enough to hit a political commissar if his blood rose. I was afraid that if he did anything else he’d give someone reason to call him a counterrevolutionary, and then he’d really be done for. I ran over, grabbed him tight, and made him shut up.

Seeing how tense the atmosphere was, Ma Zaihai attempted to change the subject. “Leaders,” he said, “let’s not waste any more time. If there’s only one person left, could this be the same individual who just tried to kill Engineer Wu?”

The others hadn’t heard this part yet. A surprised look flashed across Old Cat’s face. “What do you mean, tried to kill him?” he asked. I told them how, just now, I was nearly buried alive in an ice pit.

Old Cat’s brows wrinkled as I finished my story. “Should we send someone to go look?” asked Old Tang.

Old Cat immediately waved his hand. “No need,” he said. “This thing’s not right!”

“What do you mean?” I asked. Old Cat replied that the first prospecting team had nine people in total, three of them women. The remaining survivor should be a woman, but based on my description, my attacker had been a powerful man.

“When you were attacked,” asked Wang Sichuan, “could you tell if it was a man or a woman?” I thought about it, then firmly stated how big he was. Back when I was a kid, I used to fight all the time in my village. Whenever I was hit I could always tell whether it was a boy or girl who was throwing the punches. If the person who attacked me was a man, then he wasn’t part of the first exploration team. Who was he? Why had another man appeared? Was it possible there really were Japanese soldiers down here?

Everyone began to talk at once. We went over it again and again, but couldn’t think of another possibility. Then Pei Qing quieted everyone down with a click of his tongue. With a dark look on his face he said, “Could it be Chen Luohu? He’s the only one missing.”

Wang Sichuan shook his head. “Impossible,” he said. “Chen Luohu’s too much of a coward to ever hit anyone.”

“You can’t just go by appearances,” Pei Qing said. “The more unimpressive someone looks, the more likely it’s just an act. I think he seemed a little over the top.”