As Bo Jue and the others rolled up their sleeves and walked back, they were startled at first glance by Huo Ren holding a long snake.
The banyan snake was already dead, lying limply in Huo Ren’s hands, looking like a belt at first glance.
Holding the trophy, Huo Ren shook it twice: “Do you guys know how to cook this?”
Xie Lianyun, carrying a crude fish basket at the end of the team, raised his voice: “I heard this thing has a lot of parasites, right?”
“Roast it first,” Long Jia decisively said: “Roast it once, then boil it into soup, hit it with a double whammy.”
Huo Ren nodded neatly: “Indeed, it’s Brother Long who knows how to eat.”
Dinner was three grilled fish and a large pot of snake soup, with a handful of wild chives picked into the pot, quite fresh.
The snake skin and meat, having been roasted to a crisp fragrance and then simmered on low heat, gave the soup a milky white color, smelling delicious.
Six people eating this little meat was actually not enough, but the white rice was still divided up clean and tidy.
There was still time before bedtime, and no one wanted to light a bonfire to attract mosquitoes, so they simply arranged the three tents in a triangle, placing the dim distance lamp in the middle gap, starting the first round of Crown Ghost Story Tour.
Long Jia and Huo Ren, both daring, would make noises through the tents for sound effects, scaring Chi Ji to the point of pinching Xie Lianyun and howling loudly, creating a very chaotic scene.
When it was Xie Lianyun’s turn, he thought for a while and slowly began: “Once there was a little fool, his brother went far away for an exam, and he also ran to play in another school.”
“A teacher then brought the exam papers to this little fool, asking him to grade his brother’s papers.”
Mei Shengyao murmured softly: “This doesn’t sound like a ghost story.”
“Then the fool looked left and right, and gave a thirty percent,” Xie Lianyun said meaningfully: “His brother dropped from first to second place.”
“What, change it,” Mei Shengyao was not satisfied and suddenly found silence around: “Eh, why are you all quiet?”
“Actually,” Bo Jue said cautiously: “Xie Lianyun is talking about you.”
Mei Shengyao was confused, tilting his head left and right trying to get some hints, then suddenly shivered.
“Could it be—” his voice suddenly rose: “The one Uncle Jiang brought to the set before?”
Xie Lianyun holding his face amused: “Hmm?”
“The one I scored low?!”
“Hmm?”
Mei Shengyao let out a sob and hugged Huo Ren, rubbing against him: “Brother Ren, I’m sorry TAT—”
Huo Ren tried to soothe: “It’s just a show, it’s okay.”
“This ghost story is too scary, Uncle Jiang is inhuman—”
Huo Ren soothing his brother got a headache: “Brother Yun, help me!”
Xie Lianyun fanned the flames through the tent: “This is also promoting team spirit.”
On the third day, they got up early, ready to move with their equipment.
Chi Ji, while dismantling the tent, went to check the traps and came back with a pink and white rabbit with red eyes.
“Look! New provisions!”
Mei Shengyao came over to touch the rabbit’s little face: “Doesn’t seem to have much meat.”
He found a string to tie around the rabbit’s neck, wrapped it around three times to bundle the rabbit’s limbs together, signaling Chi Ji to take this reserve food along later.
“Put it in the car pocket or bag, just remember to leave two air holes.”
There had been followers lingering at varying distances for the past two days, although the yellow light had flashed a few times, it was observable that the other party did not know their location, just circling in a large area.
Huo Ren recorded the frequency of the yellow light’s flashing, combining the suburban map and traffic lines to roughly deduce the patrol car’s position.
He didn’t bring a notebook outdoors, often making decisions directly, explaining the specifics afterwards.
Fortunately, his companions trusted him very firmly, none of them considered taking command to seek presence.
The weather forecast mentioned it might start raining the day after tomorrow, so they planned to move closer to the nearest car’s hiding spot, ready to evacuate the mountain area and return to the city at any moment.
The six people rode and stopped for a while, and Long Jia, who was leading, suddenly stopped.
“There’s smoke.”
Huo Ren reflexively looked at the lamp hanging next to the car cage, looked up for a long time, and said, “Looks like cooking smoke?”
“The lamp isn’t lit; it shouldn’t be them setting a trap to lure us over, right?”
Long Jia signaled them to wait on the spot and pedaled quickly over the hill to scout.
About fifteen minutes later, he rode back like a whirlwind: “It’s a farmhouse, there’s just one old man inside, with several fields nearby, all apparently tilled by him.”
Huo Ren nodded, turned to see what the others thought: “Shall we go take a look?”
Being away from society for three days felt like traveling to a parallel world; they were actually not quite used to it.
Passing through a forest of paulownia trees and marigolds, a large expanse of fields came into view, with a farmhouse lying on a gentle slope nearby, surrounded by cooking smoke and occasional chicken clucks.
They parked their bikes not too far away and went together to visit this household living deep in the mountains.
The wooden gate was knocked a few times, and a robust male voice responded from inside: “Coming! Someone’s here!”
An old man with a beard came quickly to open the gate, visible through the fence wearing a light brown bomber jacket and a pair of AJ sneakers, dressed in a very street style.
Huo Ren was vaguely puzzled but still greeted politely.
“Are you the young ones filming the show?”
The cameraman uncle silently nodded.
“Yes, may I ask who you are…”
“Don’t worry, this mountain is all mine.” The old man pocketed his retro flip phone, flicked his head to signal them to follow inside: “Now that you’re here, how about a meal before you go?”
“This, isn’t that a bit too much?”
“I think it’s fine,” the old man pointed to the lush bok choy and radish sprouts in the garden: “Help me harvest the vegetables, and I’ll cook a few dishes for you?”
Huo Ren: …?
They actually went into the fields to help harvest vegetables and pull up radishes.
Farming is mechanical work, prone to causing back and waist pain if done for too long.
Long Jia opted for a squatting position to pull radishes, exercising while harvesting vegetables and casually flicking a grasshopper off Huo Ren’s hair.
It didn’t take long for six people to finish harvesting two acres of fields. As they worked around the mountain-enclosed fields, the old man clanged away cooking, the fragrance of frying wafting from afar.
Half-covered in mud, the idols carried baskets of vegetables back, with Long Jia whispering to Huo Ren again.
“This old man, I felt he looked familiar at first glance.”
“Seen him before?”
“Seen, but he had a beard back then.” Long Jia took a long look from a distance, continuing to whisper: “I think I had dinner at their house when I was a child—if his surname is Gong, then he’s the Wall Street tycoon from twenty or thirty years ago, a formidable figure who could call the wind and summon the rain.”
Huo Ren was surprised: “A financier? He’s here farming now??”
Seeing the old man starting to bring dishes to the small bamboo table, Long Jia called out: “Uncle Gong, let me help!”
“Alright, go wash your face.”
Xie Lianyun looked conflicted: “You have another friend here?”
Long Jia quickly waved his hand: “A senior, he’s a senior.”
Seven people cooked five dishes and one soup, all from self-produced vegetables from the mountains.
There was only one meat dish, chili fried pork, and the big pot of radish and tofu soup had three or four slices of pork belly, fried beforehand to extract some oil.
The big white radishes were newly grown this year, pairing refreshingly smooth with tofu, and a few sips of soup felt like cleansing the soul.
After forcibly surviving in the wilderness for three days, it was rare for them to eat fresh vegetables and fruit, and drinking a bowl of tofu soup was satisfying to the point of tears.
“This is definitely… the sweetest radish I’ve ever eaten in my life.”
“I’ve never had such good soup before, Uncle Gong, your cooking skills are amazing!”
During the meal, the group casually chatted, and Long Jia didn’t hide anything, answering whatever Uncle Gong asked.
Initially, Huo Ren thought the old man might have come here to live in seclusion due to some emotional hurt, but later found out the old man was here to experience life, free to leave whenever he wished.
“When I was young, I always aimed for the peak.” The old man, holding a clay bowl of soup, wearing a rare Rolex, said, “Seeing others driving luxury cars and living in large apartments, I envied them…”
“What happened later?”
“There wasn’t much of a ‘later’. Struggling back and forth, plus a bit of right timing,” Gong Hu looked at him: “I reached the peak.”
Having everything one could wish for, living a life most people envy.
Huo Ren’s heart skipped a beat, listening to the cuckoos outside the window and continued to ask: “How did you feel at that time?”
“To be honest?”
“Please be honest.”
“Empty.” The old man said with a light smile: “For that career, I only briefly visited when my wife was giving birth to our second child, and I couldn’t even remember whether my daughter was in middle or high school.”
“So, the peak… wasn’t that good?”
“It was good, and it wasn’t.” Gong Hu patted his shoulder, slowly finishing the tofu soup in his bowl: “In a lifetime, it’s inevitable to be greedy.”
“Wanting to embrace everything, unwilling to miss out on anything.”
“Once you miss out, it will haunt you for a lifetime. That’s destiny.”
“So, we’ll always miss out on something?”
“Always. To possess a jade, one incurs jealousy.” The old man laughed: “To move forward with peace of mind, one must learn to accept these.”
“People must always keep moving forward.”
Huo Ren felt like he understood, yet it seemed the old man was speaking of clichés that had been overdone.
He sincerely thanked him and drank another big bowl of hot tofu soup.
The rain quietly spread from the western mountains starting at nine o’clock, like a pearl curtain dropped and spread by the sky, forming wave-like outlines in the long wind.
Uncle Gong sent them near their hiding spot, humming a tune and drove away with a cigarette in his mouth.
The second off-road vehicle was hidden not far from the foot of the mountain, previously covered with camouflage cloth and dried vines, thickly dusted with a few passersby’s fingerprints on it, fortunately not taken away.
They started the car amidst the fine rain, pulling off the camouflage, and just as they drove back to the deserted highway from the mountain road, thunder roared behind them, sounding like it was about to cause a mudslide.
The lights on the suburban national road were not clear in the torrential rain, with Long Jia driving and Bo Jue navigating, seriously communicating only the road conditions ahead and behind.
There were occasional sharp turns and sudden appearances of large trucks, but fortunately, drivers were cautious in the rain, so there were no major problems.
They had taken a long detour to avoid police cars at first, and now it would take even longer to get back.
The patter of rain on the windshield was like scenes of gunfire and bullets.
There were blurred car lights casting patchy shadows ahead and behind, the long wind carrying the sudden rain nonstop, truly giving them a sense of fleeing to the ends of the earth.
Mei Shengyao had played with the farm’s dogs and chickens during the day and was now dirty, curling up and sleeping in Xie Lianyun’s arms.
Huo Ren held a lamp and looked out the window, with Chi Ji leaning against him in a daze.
“Is Uncle Jiang taking care of Snowball?”
“It’s Assistant Xiao Tian taking care of it.” Huo Ren explained: “Uncle Jiang is busy with the concert, if we win the crown next year, we might not release a new album and just start a world tour.”
Chi Ji nodded, slowly saying as he slept by his leg: “I miss it.”
The heavy rain showed no sign of slowing down. After getting on the highway, they slowed down again, with Bo Jue and Long Jia taking turns driving.
Huo Ren, sitting in the middle row, suddenly felt that the years had gone by so fast.
It was now May 2016, as if looking back, it was still 2009, the day he first entered the audition hall.
He looked dazedly at the backs of his two older brothers, the half-asleep Chi Ji, and Xie Lianyun, who was helping to cover someone with a blanket.
“I love you guys.”
Everyone couldn’t help but laugh.
“Love you too, baby.”
“Captain, muah!”
“Why so sentimental all of a sudden… love you, love you.”