Three years after Xu Tuo's death, I moved to another city.
Three years after Xu Tuo's death, I moved to another city.
Moving is very simple for young people. They take their computers with them and sell other things as second-hand items. Then they can buy more at IKEA when they arrive at their local place.
I changed jobs, starting in R&D at a sports equipment company and then moving to the pharmaceutical market. I quit before moving and spent many days in my new apartment, watching nature channels and waiting for takeout. Soon, the local street office called to confirm my identity.
The reality of Xu Tuo's death hasn't fully sunk in yet. Sometimes I lie on the floor, like a corpse facing the ceiling. My neighbor is a hard-to-describe person. Every day, I can hear him playing popular online music from across the floor. I've spoken to him several times, and the last time, I just threw paint on his door.
The neighborhood committee came to mediate, and someone pulled the neighbor aside and whispered to him while looking at me warily.
The neighbors looked incredulous. I knew what they were talking about.
"He's right." I threw the paint can down the stairs, listening to it bounce. "My name is Dai Xueming. You can search for me in the news. If you can't find me, add "mass homicide" to the end."
After that, the neighbor's house was completely quiet.
I'm not much of a bully. After returning from Heilongjiang, I exhibited a dangerously violent streak for a while. If this neighbor had encountered me sooner, it might not have just been his door that turned red.
I went to the supermarket to buy a Coke and ran into my neighbor with his child. When he saw me, he quickly made his way to the farthest aisle. Perhaps because I was in a good mood that day, I went to the other end of the aisle to block him.
When we met, he froze and took a step back. I was about to compliment him on not disturbing others recently when my phone rang. It was a push notification for an email.
I glanced down, my fingers instinctively wanting to swipe the notification—but when I saw the text, it was like a bullet piercing my skull, leaving a hollow and shocking mark.
Mailbox-You have received new mail
[Suspected advertisement][Sent on time]
For decoration team, please contact: 130312...
2 painters, 3 electricians and 1 acceptance inspector.
I was staring at my phone, completely forgetting about my neighbor. He ran away with his daughter from the other end. A supermarket employee came over curiously and asked, "What's wrong?"
After a long moment of daze, I looked up and smiled at him. I rarely smiled since Xu Tuo died, so you can imagine how stiff this smile was.
"Yes." I put away my phone and walked towards him. "Do you sell standard maps here?"
I still harbor secrets.
One of the secrets is how one person can find the other safely if the other person flees for some reason.
Xu Tuo had already taught me how to decipher the code. The key word was "decoration team," the phone number was folded like a standard map, and the three single-digit numbers that followed served as reference lines for precise positioning. If the information in this email was correct, then it would lead me to his current hideout.
But so what?
After the initial excitement of getting the map, I collapsed onto the sofa again. This was a scheduled email, and there was a good chance I would just find an empty house if I followed the coordinates. It was highly likely that when Xu Tuo began his escape, he had scheduled it for a few years to arrive, just in case.
I could clearly hear the noise coming from the neighbor upstairs. He and his wife were arguing about whether to move out because they felt unsafe with the crazy man downstairs.
Sitting up from the sofa, I stuffed the map into my bag and hurriedly packed. The coordinates showed the Red Gauze Forest area in the northeast, along Xu Tuo's original escape route. What traces would he leave there? Memoirs? Recipes? It couldn't be a lottery ticket that didn't win, right?
Or maybe...
I stared blankly at the packed bag. It was full of winter clothes, so it easily filled up the travel bag. As my mind wandered, the clothes, which had been squashed together, fluffed up again and squeezed out of the backpack.
——Xu Tuo's body has not been found to this day.
After being shot and falling into a tributary of the Heilongjiang River, the body was not successfully searched for and salvaged.
The Hongsha Forest Area, sparsely populated in the western reaches of Heilongjiang, is practically inaccessible. I stood at the Qiqihar train station, squinting at the faint light, my eyes still swollen from the long train ride. The gauzy, northern light fell across the gray down jackets of the people, and everyone looked unhappy.
The closest route to my destination was the railway to Heihe, which would require me to disembark midway. That station was an industrial depot, where only industrial trucks would unload their cargo. This also meant there might be no accommodation or restaurants within a radius of dozens of miles, and there wouldn't even be any signal.
I had to be careful in finding out information - a young man with a southern accent who obviously did not do physical labor asked for directions to the Hongsha Forest Area and was willing to pay a high price at any cost, which would make any local suspicious.
Even after hearing my fabricated story, their suspicions wouldn't dissipate. I pretended to be a man traveling north for love, coming from the south to Qiqihar to find a token left behind by a female online friend. I said the girl was from Heihe and had promised to marry me if I could find the token she had hidden in the Hongsha Forest District.
The coal truck driver was a middle-aged man who had no interest in my story, whether true or not. He took 500 yuan and took me to an intersection 15 kilometers from the forest area, the nearest highway intersection.
"Keep going west," he said. "If you want to come back, you'll have to wait at this intersection. There's only about one bus passing by every day."
In the deserted northern snowfields, I quickly lost sight of the road behind me. The wind and snow whipped everything around me. After following the compass for about ten kilometers, I almost lost feeling in my left ear. I touched my earmuffs; they were frozen solid.
I wanted to stop and rest several times, but my mind told me that I must not stop. At least now I was following a clear direction. As long as I kept walking, I could reach the place marked on the map before dark.
I pulled the hood of my thermal jacket over my hat, which kept me warm but also created a significant problem. The hood instantly narrowed my field of vision, and I often stepped on the uneven branches and rocks beneath the snow, sinking halfway into it. My energy was draining at an alarming rate, and I couldn't find a nearby shelter to eat or rest.
At this moment, the strange dream in my head finally woke up - what on earth was I doing? Did I think I was a superhero?
Even the locals would not venture into this uninhabited area, but I came here in the winter with a snowstorm, carrying only a basic set of hiking equipment and three days of food. The only positioning equipment I had was a homemade protractor, a compass, and a supermarket map.
——This isn't a question of whether or not I can find Xu Tuo's trace. If I don't turn back, I'll die here.
But I kept going down.
My rational mind screamed, "Turn back! Turn back quickly!" But my legs kept moving forward, step by step. I didn't even feel the cold anymore, a sign of hypothermia. Instead, a sense of peace rose within me.
I'm going to die here, but that's okay.
If I can't find any trace of him, I'll die in the snow like him. Maybe he's waiting for me down there, because I can't tell my own name, and I can't communicate with the underworld.
I can go down and get his ID, proving he's Xu Tuo, whatever his name was before. Otherwise, he'll just be wandering around there, unable to go anywhere.
My mind wandered, and I found myself laughing. I laughed uncontrollably in the snow. My right foot missed again, but this time it wasn't just a matter of sinking into the snow—the slope beside me instantly collapsed in half, sending me tumbling down with it. My right ribs and leg collided with the rocks beneath the snow, so hard I couldn't stand up for a moment, and the pain was so intense my eyes went blank.
It took a full half hour to climb out of the snowdrift. I held onto the tree trunks and continued forward. The dense cluster of white-barked trees stood like ghosts. If they were ghosts, perhaps Xu Tuo was among them, watching me.
And Ajie. When he saw me fall just now, he must have rolled his eyes and said I was useless.
Feeling a little better, I leaned against the tree to rest, then slid down exhausted. I said, "Xu Tuo, are you this tree? If you were this tree, could you hold me?"
I miss him.
In the deserted woods, tears finally fell, followed by a burst of sobbing. I wept as I slowly walked forward—Xu Tuo wasn't this tree, and this tree wasn't anyone. I was the only one here. The person I once considered my entire world was gone, his remains buried beneath the glacier. No one knew his real name, nor did anyone know where he had gone.
Endless snow and endless tree shadows.
I don't know how many times we stopped along the way. After climbing over the snow slope one time, the flashlight illuminated the first building after entering the forest area.
It's just a very old wooden house.
It was dark, and there were no lights. But there was food stored in front of the door, indicating that at least someone was here. Cabbage and tofu were piled under the plastic sheet, and I even found frozen dumplings in a sack.
I no longer cared about trespassing into a private residence - this couldn't possibly be a private residence, only a ghost would live here, at most it was a lounge for forest rangers.
I tried to push the door open, but it was locked. After a few bangs, the old-fashioned lock was knocked open, and I fell into the room, leaving the wind and snow behind.
There was no electric light in the cabin, only an old-fashioned kerosene lamp, a kerosene stove, and tableware, many signs that someone lived here.
I lit the heater, and my frozen body finally felt a glimmer of warmth. After consuming some of the energy bars in my bag, a deep drowsiness enveloped me. The howling snow outside made the room seem unusually warm. The heater was pushed to the side of my bed, and I curled up in it, taking one last look at the map—the coordinates were nearby. Could this be the small house? Who lived here? Where should I even begin? ...
Thinking aimlessly, the irresistible sleepiness soon overwhelmed my consciousness.
I don't know how long I slept, but I felt something pushing me.
...Someone is back?
My first reaction was the forest ranger—I woke with a start, my body nearly falling apart. He was wrapped in a cold-weather jacket, his face completely obscured by a brown mask and goggles. It was the handle of his hatchet that jostled me awake.
After a long silence, I thought of a set of words, but this person spoke first.
The mask made his voice sound muffled, but there was still a hint of smile in it.
"Are you playing Snow White, little Xueming?"
The sound of the wind and snow, the crackling of the coal stove, the thump of my heartbeat… everything faded. I stared at the man, reaching for his mask. The leather mask was difficult to remove. I pulled at it for a long time, but he finally took it off himself.
"You…you…"
"No more talking, let me hug you first." He hugged me tightly, the weight of the thermal suit making it hard for me to breathe. This hug lasted for a long time, and I pulled off his thermal suit and wrapped my arms around him.
He had lost a lot of weight, and his skin was cracked in many places by the frostbite, forming red frostbite scars. Xu Tuo smiled bitterly and rubbed my head, letting me bury my head in his shoulder.
"You're here, Xueming."
After falling into the river, he was washed to the bank of a fast-flowing river.
The bulletproof vest prevented fatal injuries, and the gunshot wounds on the limbs prevented blood loss due to the low temperature... It took Xu Tuo a long time to reach this prepared wooden house.
There are enough food in the cellar for several years, and when there is no snowstorm, you can use traps to catch rabbits and birds. There is no signal or electricity here, and heating requires coal and firewood.
"It's a great place to spend the rest of your life."
"Are you planning to spend the rest of your life here?"
"Not entirely."
We snuggled in bed, my fingers tracing the scars on his body. He took my hand and said, "I know the automated email will be sent soon. So I'll wait here for you."
"What if I don't come?"
"You'll come. Once you're here, I'll decide the next step."
Like kids discussing a secret plan, he covered our heads with the quilt. In the small space, Xu Tuo's voice rang in my ears.
"Xueming, are you coming with me?" he asked. "To Russia."
Without any hesitation, I nodded: "I'll go with you."
His eyes were serious: "Then we really are going together this time."
"I always thought it was true." I glared at him coldly.
He put his arm around me, his fingers caressing the scar on my throat. "It's true. The snow will stop next week, and we'll leave then."
We spent a week together in the cabin. I counted the scars on his body and liked to run my fingers over them one by one when I took a shower.
Often at this time, Xu Tuo would hug me tightly and ask, "What on earth are you looking for here?"
"I don't know, if you die, what will be left here?"
"Then you should find a note."
The note Xu Tuo was talking about was the one left on his cradle when his biological parents abandoned him decades ago. It said that they were unable to raise the child and so on. It only said that the child's surname was Yan, and there was no other information.
This is his only connection with the real world. Xu Tuo left the note under the floor of the cabin. If he dies, I will only find that piece of paper.
Before leaving, he said he would give me a note.
"What do I need this for?"
"Save it for me."
"It's not a passbook."
"This is more valuable to me than my bankbook. I don't have many valuable things, so I like to keep them all together."
A week later, we left the cabin and set off on the route he had planned, walking on the newly fallen snow. He had kept two fake identities in Russia, but it was just a backup. At that time, he didn't know me and never thought that he would escape with another person in the future.
After leaving the country, I held his hand. It was an instinct, reaching out to the one you depend on, and he reached back and held mine.
"The mark on the neck is very faint." He said suddenly.
I realized that Xu Tuo was referring to the marks on my neck.
"Hmm, it seems like it's suddenly... not that important anymore." His fingers touched the old scar, feeling the vibration of his throat as he spoke. "I thought, if I couldn't find any trace of you, I'd die in the snow."
He stopped, lowered his head, and gently kissed the scar on my throat.
"I think the same as you. If I can't wait for you..." He chuckled bitterly, "Heh... Let's go, Xueming."
We still have a long way to go.