Love on the Turquoise Land

In the afternoon, Nie Jiuluo waited for the car that was supposed to pick her up, but she didn’t get to see the conclusion of the rural love scandal—it had taken another unexpected turn.

It was said that the husband had gathered some people and tracked down the adulterer. After a round of punches and kicks, the man knelt on the ground, begging for mercy, and wailed out another twist in the story: that night, the two had indeed arranged to meet in secret, but he waited and waited, and the woman never showed up. He tried calling her, but she didn’t answer. He didn’t think much of it at the time, assuming she had something come up at home and changed her mind.

In short, the love scandal was now trending toward a missing person case.

As for where the missing person case would lead, Nie Jiuluo didn’t follow up. Her curiosity about people and events was always "moderate and measured." If an exciting novel or a good movie was placed in front of her, she’d watch it, but if it suddenly stopped halfway through, she wouldn’t dwell on it.

The new driver sent to pick her up was Lao Qian, a man in his forties. On the way back, he repeatedly apologized on behalf of the travel agency.

This was Sun Zhou’s personal behavior, and Nie Jiuluo had no intention of taking it out on unrelated people. “That Sun Zhou—has he been contacted yet?”

Lao Qian looked embarrassed. “Not yet. His phone’s on, but he’s not answering.”

He muttered that it was strange how a sturdy young man could be scared into such a cowardly state.

The so-called "zombies," "monsters," and "psychopathic killers" were all just speculative jokes—the odds of that were low. After some thought, it seemed more likely that it was either revenge from an enemy or debt collectors from a gambling den.

Nie Jiuluo asked, “Did he offend someone or owe money?”

Lao Qian answered cautiously, “That’s hard to say.”

Fair enough. They were just ordinary coworkers—how would he know about someone else’s private life?

Originally, Sun Zhou was supposed to stay at the hotel with Nie Jiuluo, but Lao Qian had been dispatched by the travel agency as a "local" replacement. He was from the area and had a place to stay in the county, so after dropping Nie Jiuluo off at the hotel, he left, saying that if Sun Zhou still couldn’t be reached by evening, he would take over the rest of the itinerary.

It was still early, so Nie Jiuluo returned to her room, took out her pen and sketchbook, and quickly immersed herself in work.

Her next project was a sculpture of a witch. She had already drafted several sketches, but all were abandoned halfway. The reason was always the same: beautiful, yes, but lacking in demonic essence.

This time was no different. She had barely outlined the face before she was dissatisfied. After scrutinizing it for a while, she tossed the pen aside and leaned back in her chair, lost in thought.

A moment later, she suddenly remembered something and quickly sat up, importing the photos she had taken of the dilapidated temple in Xingba Village into her computer. She enlarged them one by one, flipping through them.

Her original intention was to draw inspiration from another source, but as she looked, her mind began to wander.

In Chinese temples and halls, the statues occupying the main or revered positions were usually dignified and benevolent, with the occasional wrathful visage meant to ward off evil spirits—very few enshrined seductive or demonic figures.

Moreover, the figures enshrined had to have some significance—deities like the Supreme Elderly Lord, the Mysterious Lady of the Ninth Heaven, Lü Dongbin, or Erlang Shen. But this statue in the ruined temple—despite her extensive knowledge—she couldn’t identify. Could it be some local, indigenous mountain spirit or wild ghost?

As she pondered, her phone buzzed with an incoming message.

Nie Jiuluo tapped into a "burn-after-reading" app, where a new message had arrived in the form of an envelope. The sender’s nickname was "Natou."Double-clicking the envelope revealed the message: "Day Seven, Safe." At the same time, a ten-second self-destruct countdown appeared at the end of the line.

Once the ten seconds elapsed, a sudden burst of flames engulfed the words. After the text vanished, a faint haze of smoke slowly dissipated.

Apps these days are so sophisticated, Nie Jiuluo mused. She was about to put her phone down but hesitated. After a pause, she sent over the license plate number of the white SUV, adding, "Check if the owner has any prior offenses, like gambling or loan sharking. Just email me the details."

If Sun Zhou remained missing, the police would inevitably get involved and come to question her. Her gut told her that the owner of the little yellow duck car was at least somewhat suspicious, if not outright shady.

Setting her phone aside, she busied herself with other tasks until hunger finally forced her to order takeout—cutting it close at 9:25 p.m., just five minutes before the restaurant closed.

Around ten o'clock, the food arrived: a large container of stone pot fish and a side of handmade noodles. Nie Jiuluo cleared a spot on the counter and was about to dig in when guilt struck her. Noodles were fattening, and the fish was oily and spicy. How could she eat something so heavy this late at night?

She poured herself a glass of water and dunked each bite of food in it to remove excess oil. Naturally, this ruined the original flavor, but she took pride in the sacrifice—compared to maintaining a good figure, taste was secondary.

Once she was about 70% full, Nie Jiuluo stopped eating. Though the container was large, most of it was broth, and she had fished out most of the solid ingredients. It wasn’t a wasteful meal. Just as she was about to clean up, a loud thud echoed from the wall in front of her.

The sound was solid, suggesting the person next door had collided with the wall with considerable force.

A thought flickered in her mind: the room next door was the last one—Sun Zhou’s. During the trip, all rooms had been booked and paid for in advance. The hotel couldn’t have resold it to another guest.

So… had Sun Zhou returned?

Just like that? Without even a word to her? And what about the travel agency? If they’d contacted Sun Zhou, shouldn’t they have called her with an update?

So much for "customer first." She’d already lost her temper once, yet they were still slacking off. Clearly, they didn’t realize this particular customer had a tenacious streak.

The takeout smelled strongly, so after cleaning up, Nie Jiuluo tied the bag tightly and left it outside her door. As she turned back inside, she glanced at the neighboring door and hesitated before knocking.

Sun Zhou had been injured—bloodied, no less. Common courtesy dictated she check on him.

After a long pause, the door finally opened.

It was indeed Sun Zhou. He wore the hotel’s bathrobe and slippers, his head, face, shoulders, and arms wrapped in bandages. His injuries seemed to have left him listless, his gaze dull. He stared at Nie Jiuluo for a while before finally saying, "Oh, Miss Nie."

His expression suggested he’d only just remembered her existence.

"Miss Nie, how did you get back? Did you call a Didi?"

From his question, it seemed he hadn’t been in touch with the travel agency. And here he was, asking how she had returned—how touching.

"Didn’t the travel agency call you?"

Sun Zhou’s eyes bulged like a dead fish’s. After a second or two of thought, he replied, "Left my phone in the car. Forgot to bring it up.""Then go get it quickly. The travel agency has been looking for you and might have even contacted your family. If you stay out of touch like this, they might end up calling the police."

Sun Zhou thought for a moment, as if just realizing the seriousness of the situation: "Right, I’ll go get it as soon as possible."

Though he said "as soon as possible," his speech was anything but quick—slow and sluggish, his reactions delayed, almost dull, like the infuriatingly slow sloth from the movie Zootopia : where others would react instantly, he’d pause for two or three seconds.

Sun Zhou wasn’t like this before. Had he been scared into PTSD?

Nie Jiuluo couldn’t help but ask a few more questions: "What exactly happened? How did you get these injuries? Where did you drive off to afterward?"

Sun Zhou said, "The injuries…"

Still speaking slowly, he reached up to touch the bandage on his forehead, moving so sluggishly that Nie Jiuluo almost wanted to reach out and do it for him. She wasn’t usually impatient, but Sun Zhou’s snail-like pace was downright maddening.

"Wild dogs… bit and scratched me… I went to the hospital to get treated. Later… I was too tired, so I slept… in the car."

Nie Jiuluo was speechless. Listening to him talk was enough to drain all her patience. And he even "slept in the car"? His heart was bigger than his face—had he completely forgotten that he’d lost his passenger and nearly run them over?

She ended the conversation: "Then contact your family as soon as possible and get some rest."

Back inside, Nie Jiuluo sat back down at the table, still at a loss for words.

She had a gut feeling that Sun Zhou was acting strange, but she wasn’t particularly concerned about it. After all, theirs was just a temporary and loose employer-employee relationship. As long as he was back safely, that was enough. Whatever had happened and the fallout afterward could be left to the people around him to figure out.

She clicked open her screen, and a new email popped up.

It was from "Natou," likely containing the information on the owner of the white SUV. But since Sun Zhou had been bitten by wild dogs, the man’s suspicion was essentially cleared.

Nie Jiuluo casually opened it.

The face matched—it was indeed that man. His name was Yan Tuo, from Xi’an, born in 1993, unmarried, law-abiding with no prior offenses. He had numerous properties registered under his name, including an entire row of street-facing shops in the downtown area.

Nie Jiuluo thought to herself, if he’d built this from scratch, he was quite capable.

Reading further, she realized it was mostly due to having a wealthy father. Yan Tuo’s father, Yan Huanshan, had gone into business in the early 1990s, running coal mines and working as a contractor. He’d invested in stocks when they were first introduced and hoarded properties when they were dirt cheap—a true winner in life, except for dying too young. He passed away before even turning forty.

Yan Tuo’s mother, Lin Xirou, had been involved in an accident in the late 1990s at one of Yan Huanshan’s construction sites. A falling concrete slab left her paralyzed, with severe brain damage and no cognitive function. She had been bedridden ever since.

By the end, Nie Jiuluo felt a pang of sympathy. Piecing together the timeline, Yan Tuo had effectively "lost" his mother as a child, then lost his father a few years later. As a young boy, left with a fortune many would covet, who knew how he’d managed to endure it all? No wonder his expression seemed so rarely cheerful—wasn’t there a saying? The fortunate are healed by their childhoods; the unfortunate spend their lives healing from them.

But the affairs of strangers were best left to pass by.Nie Jiuluo closed her email and attempted the line art once more. This time, whether it was due to feeling energized after eating or drawing inspiration from the photos, the process went surprisingly smoothly. With each stroke—curving, erasing, lifting, and drawing—the emerging sketch gradually captured the essence she was aiming for.

Just as she was hitting her stride, a heavy, dull thud echoed from the wall her desk leaned against. This time, it definitely wasn’t caused by someone bumping into it. Nie Jiuluo instinctively knew it was the kind of sound only a heavy object slamming into the wall could produce, and faintly, there was also the sound of shattering glass.

Distracted, her hand slipped, turning the witch’s elegantly curved neckline into a stiff, slanted line.

What was going on? Was Sun Zhou tearing the place apart?

Nie Jiuluo sat for a moment, growing increasingly uneasy. She stood up and walked toward the door. Perhaps sensing something ominous, her steps slowed the closer she got. By the time she reached the door, her hand hovered over the handle before withdrawing. Then, cautiously, she leaned in to peer through the peephole.

Compared to a normal view, the peephole’s image was slightly distorted, but the hallway outside was quiet and brightly lit.

Nie Jiuluo exhaled in relief and was about to look away when a man stepped into the peephole’s field of view.

He was in his twenties or thirties, with a buzz cut, short stature, and an extremely burly build. In his hand, he carried a heavy canvas bag. He seemed highly alert, glancing around as he walked. At one point, his face turned directly toward Nie Jiuluo’s door.

There was no way to describe his appearance in detail—he was just ugly. Not ordinary ugly, but the kind of congenital, pathological, disfigured ugly.

He moved quickly, disappearing from the peephole’s view in less than two seconds.

Nie Jiuluo’s heartbeat gradually quickened. The man had come from the left side—the end room. The door across the hall had never opened, so that meant… he had come from Sun Zhou’s room?

Considering the earlier thud and the sound of breaking glass, she doubted this man was Sun Zhou’s friend.

Assuming the man had likely walked far enough away, Nie Jiuluo carefully opened her door.

The hallway was empty. From next door came a repetitive "beep-beep" sound—the warning tone of an unlatched door.

Nie Jiuluo hurried over and, out of courtesy, knocked first. "Sun Zhou? I’m coming in?"

No answer.

She pushed the door open.

As she had expected, the room was in disarray. The coffee table lay tilted against the wall, its glass surface shattered across the floor. A hotel cloth slipper was strewn haphazardly nearby.

Sun Zhou was nowhere to be found—not in the bedroom, not in the bathroom.

In a flash, her mind recalled the heavy canvas bag the buzz-cut man had been carrying.