Love on the Turquoise Land

Approaching midnight, a pale gray SUV slowly drove into the reed marshes of Dali Pit Township, Shihe County.

The headlights blazed bright, illuminating the swaying grass, taller than a man, topped with white tassels.

Slouched in the backseat was A Peng, reeking of alcohol. He had received Xiong Hei’s orders the day before—along with photos of the targets and their car—and was instructed to conduct a "meter-by-meter, carpet search" along the rural roads in this area.

A Peng loved jobs like this. He could claim overtime pay, and since the amount quoted to his superiors differed from what he told his subordinates, the difference all ended up in his own pocket.

So he was especially diligent, urging his men to be thorough and even offering double pay for any useful leads. After laying out the "mission" with meticulous detail, he left his underlings to scramble around while he played cards and drank—his usual display of what he called "leadership wisdom."

Tonight, he had drunk a bit too much. When the first few calls came in, he was too wasted to notice. By the time he sobered up and called back, he learned there was a development and hurriedly gathered his men to head over.

In the marshes, someone was already waiting, waving a flashlight to guide the car.

After a bumpy, uneven ride, the vehicle stopped in front of a few half-collapsed earthen huts.

As soon as A Peng stepped out, he asked Lao Si, who was in charge of this area, "Did you find them?"

The targets were two people and a car. This place didn’t seem capable of hiding a vehicle, so… were they buried?

Lao Si pointed at the huts first. "Brother Peng, we asked around. These huts were run-down before, but not like this. They were knocked over by a car."

So? A Peng didn’t get it.

Lao Si led him forward. "Brother Peng, over here. Take a look at this brick house."

Having grown up in the countryside, A Peng recognized it immediately—a pump house for a well.

Lao Si adjusted the flashlight to its brightest setting and handed it to A Peng. "Brother Peng, see for yourself. Shine it on the wall."

A Peng raised the flashlight as instructed.

The wall…

It looked ordinary enough, with the words "Water Conservancy" painted in red, though the paint had long since peeled and faded.

After a moment, A Peng noticed something unusual.

Bullet holes.

Some had pierced clean through the brick wall, while others hadn’t fully penetrated.

A Peng was stunned. "The hell… was there a shootout here?"

Lao Si nodded. "Those earthen huts must’ve been shot up too. We think someone cleaned up the scene—just drove straight into the walls to collapse them. Once they’re down, who’d notice?"

But brick walls couldn’t be knocked over so easily. Trying would risk wrecking the car or worse.

So the evidence here remained.

A Peng swallowed hard. "Find anything else?"

Lao Si guided him inside.

The moment A Peng entered, he spotted two piles of discarded wooden planks shoved aside in the corner, revealing a well between them.

He stepped up to the well’s mouth, instinctively leaning back while craning his neck forward—the usual cautious stance when peering into a deep hole, afraid of falling in but wanting a clear look.

Too deep. The opening was narrow, and up close, a faint musty odor wafted up.

A Peng waved a hand in front of his nose. "So?"

Lao Si said, "This well’s at least forty meters deep, Brother Peng. I can’t speak for others, but if I ever wanted to dispose of a body, this is where I’d dump it."It was true. Just thinking about it sent a shiver down A Peng's spine. He took a few steps back. "Did you manage to pull anything out?"

Old Fourth rolled his eyes. "Pull? Have you seen how deep that well is? Normally, you'd need professional well cleaners for this. Brother Peng, this is your call because we can't confirm if what happened here is related to the person we're looking for. At best, it's just suspicion. If you say dig, we'll rent the equipment and get to work, but this isn't a small job—it'll cost a pretty penny."

Cost a pretty penny? That meant they could apply for funding and skim a little off the top, right?

A Peng's eyes widened. "Dig, of course! The company's got deep pockets—what's a little money? You guys just focus on the work. I'll talk to Brother Xiong."

A Peng's late-night emergency call didn’t reach Xiong Hei immediately.

Because he was on the underground second floor of the farm. That was the downside of being underground—terrible signal.

And he wasn’t alone. Lin Xirou, Li Yueying, Feng Mi, and Yang Zheng were all there.

This room was the most important one on the underground second floor. Aside from being left open for a few days right after construction, it had remained tightly locked day and night, year-round. Anyone who didn’t know better might’ve mistaken it for some high-security vault.

But the room itself was actually quite crude, almost devoid of modern decor. It could easily pass for something from the '80s or '90s: a concrete floor with a large, perfectly circular patch of exposed raw soil in the center, topped by a small arched plastic greenhouse. Between the concrete and the greenhouse, red bricks formed winding pathways—none of them straight, each one twisting and curling like the fiery tendrils of the sun when viewed from above.

On the walls hung two tattered paintings.

One was a black-and-white New Year’s print: carp leaping toward the "Farm Gate," with several large fish emerging from white waves. Above them, clusters of white clouds surrounded towering buildings, the lintel inscribed with the words "Dragon Gate" in bold characters.

The other depicted Kuafu chasing the sun, rendered in the color palette of ancient times—a fiery red orb in the sky, with a long-haired, bearded giant raising his arms as if to seize the sun and pull it into his embrace.

Normally, that mini plastic greenhouse was sealed tight, as if afraid some underground draft might give its delicate contents a headache. But now, the greenhouse and its frame lay overturned to the side.

In the damp soil, something squirmed.

At first glance, it resembled a human figure, but its naked body was mottled—some patches normal skin tone, others dark brown. And it was "uneven," with skin bulging and sinking in a deeply unsettling way.

Where its "head" should have been had already begun to shrivel, making its eyes appear disproportionately large. The whites were slowly filling with blood, the crimson deepening until it nearly matched the color of the pupils.

But it was still breathing—gasping heavily, in fact.

Lin Xirou stared at it expressionlessly for a long moment before sweeping her gaze over the others present. Suddenly, she let out a nervous laugh. "Well, everyone, what do you think happened?"

No one answered.

Lin Xirou’s face darkened. "Cat got your tongues? Speak! Xiong Hei, you first!"

Xiong Hei cursed his luck. Good things never came his way—only the messy stuff.

He forced himself to speak. "Logically... this shouldn’t have happened. We’ve had good control over the last few attempts. Maybe there was some oversight, a detail we missed."

Lin Xirou turned to Li Yueying. "Sister Li, what do you think?"Li Yueying had been holding a handkerchief over her nose and mouth, as if unable to bear the stifling air in the room. "I can't explain it. I've never handled this procedure before. It just didn't work out—bad luck, I suppose."

Feng Mi shot her a sidelong glance, curling her lips in disdain.

Lin Xirou sneered, "Bad luck? No. 018 was supposed to be Gou Ya. That useless dog ruined himself. I thought it didn’t matter—we’d just replace him with a new one. This one had been doing fine until the very last moment, and then it turned into this mess!"

She gritted her teeth. "Is No. 018 cursed? One fails, then another fails too?"

Yang Zheng sighed. "Sister Lin, no one wanted this to happen. Our success rate isn’t high to begin with—only about two-thirds..."

Lin Xirou cut him off. "Exactly. Out of the first eighteen, six failed. If fate doesn’t favor us, we can’t fight against it. But this time, we can’t blame fate. Xiong Hei, turn it over."

Xiong Hei, accustomed to following Lin Xirou’s orders without question, strode forward without hesitation and gripped No. 018’s shoulders to flip it over. Feng Mi and Yang Zheng, sensing something amiss in her words, exchanged puzzled glances.

Li Yueying lowered her eyes, coughing lightly behind her handkerchief.

Once the body was turned face-down, its back was exposed, revealing countless faint brown dots densely scattered across the skin. But among them were a few anomalies—not dots, but thin, drooping strands resembling corn silk, also pale brown in color.

Lin Xirou looked at Yang Zheng. "If I recall correctly, you worked with flowers in Kunming?"

Yang Zheng nodded. "I’m not the brightest, so I could only manage manual labor. Kunming is a major flower-producing region, with plenty of horticulture work. I found a job at a flower farm, tending to plants."

Lin Xirou asked, "Then tell me—what happens when a plant’s roots are damaged?"

Yang Zheng tensed. "The roots are the source, nourishing the stems, leaves, and flowers. If the roots are hurt, the plant above withers."

Lin Xirou pressed, "What if only part of the roots are damaged?"

Yang Zheng hesitated. "It depends. Sometimes, certain roots correspond to specific parts of the plant. The plant might die partially while the rest survives."

Lin Xirou mused, "Yes, if part of the roots are damaged, the plant might live half-dead. But humans aren’t like that. Have you ever heard of a person being half-dead, half-alive? Humans are fragile. Sometimes, losing just one or two organs means the end of a life."

"Sister Li may not have handled this procedure, but I have. I’ve overseen every single one from No. 1 to No. 18. No one understands the process better than I do."

As she spoke, she walked along the nearest red-brick path to No. 018’s side, pointing at the faint brown dots on its back.

"This is called 'root detachment'—when the roots separate cleanly and smoothly. The severed roots, carrying the last of their nutrients, retract perfectly into the body, healing without even a scar. Given time, it’ll look just like normal skin."

Then she nudged one of the corn-silk-like strands with her toe. "This isn’t root detachment. This was forcibly torn, so it couldn’t retract. It just hangs here, dead. Not many people can enter this room. Whoever did this, step forward now and save yourself some dignity."

Feng Mi was stunned, her gaze involuntarily flicking toward Li Yueying.

And not just Feng Mi—gradually, Xiong Hei and Yang Zheng also turned to look at her.If it had been just one person looking at her, Li Yueying might have been able to ignore it. But with so many eyes on her, she couldn’t stay silent.

She raised her gaze, coldly meeting each stare in turn. “What’s the meaning of this? All of you looking at me—do you suspect it was me? Just because she had bad luck, stuck with a useless blood sac, and now her second generation has no hope left, so she’s twisted inside and can’t stand to see others do well, is that it?”

Lin Xirou smiled faintly and turned to face her. “Sister Li, have you ever entered this room privately?”

Li Yueying replied flatly, “No. I’ve only been here when we were all together.”

Lin Xirou said, “Sister Li, you should know—there are surveillance cameras on this underground second floor.”

Li Yueying scoffed dismissively. “Then go check them. To catch a thief, you need evidence. You can’t just accuse someone without proof.”

Xiong Hei grew impatient and strode toward the door. “I’ll go check.”

Just as he reached the exit, Lin Xirou called out to him. “Xiong Hei, Sister Li seems so confident—maybe she really didn’t do it. I hope that’s the case. But it’s also possible she tampered with the surveillance. After all, she knows where the monitoring room is. So I suggest you don’t go there.”

Xiong Hei acknowledged her and hurried out.

Li Yueying frowned in confusion, glancing at the door. Feng Mi also looked puzzled. “Aunt Lin, what do you mean? If not the monitoring room, where else would you check?”

Lin Xirou smiled at Feng Mi. “Most people, to clear themselves, would immediately tamper with the surveillance—either deleting footage, removing the storage card, or even destroying it outright. But this underground second floor is too important. From the start, we prepared a backup. Even if the monitoring room were burned down, it wouldn’t matter. There’s another copy elsewhere.”

Then, she turned back to Li Yueying, her voice gentle. “But if you really didn’t do it, then you have nothing to worry about, right?”

…

Xiong Hei wound his way through the corridors until he reached the archives room, where the farm’s various receipts and contract documents were stored. He turned on a computer in the corner and clicked into the storage folder on the desktop.

Rows upon rows of surveillance footage, neatly organized by date.

Xiong Hei dragged over a chair and sat down. This was going to take a while.

He clicked on one at random.

Time passed minute by minute, and beads of sweat gradually formed on Li Yueying’s forehead.

Feng Mi had been staring at her the whole time and finally couldn’t hold back. “Aunt Li, if this really gets exposed by the surveillance, it’ll be so humiliating. I mean, I wouldn’t dare do something like this—we all saw what happened to Gou Ya. But you would, wouldn’t you? Whether you do it or not, you’re dead either way. With only a few years left, might as well drag someone down with you, right?”

Li Yueying’s eyelid twitched violently, and she snapped without thinking, “Shut your mouth.”

Feng Mi let out a soft, mocking hum. “Getting defensive, aren’t we?”

Yang Zheng looked at Li Yueying. Though seeing was believing, the expression on her face made it impossible not to doubt her. “Sister Li, surely you wouldn’t go that far? What happened to you—we all feel for you, but there was nothing anyone could do…”

Li Yueying lifted her head to meet his gaze, but before she could speak, she was seized by a violent coughing fit, gasping so hard she nearly choked on her own breath. It felt as if her lungs might tear out of her chest.

Panting heavily, she let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob and muttered under her breath, “Why should I…?”Lin Xirou's eyes reddened at her words. She glared at Li Yueying fiercely, "Why? I know you've always resented me, thinking I ruined you. But did I want this? It's my first time in this world too—learning words one by one, figuring things out bit by bit. I lacked experience with your situation and didn't do well, but at least you're still alive, aren't you? What about my man? He was Number 001. The first one I helped sever roots, and the first to die!"

The room fell into deathly silence.

Number 018, writhing in the soil, finally exhaled its last breath and moved no more.

...

Xiong Hei's voice came from outside the door, "Sister Lin, could you come out for a moment?"

Lin Xirou closed her eyes briefly before reopening them. "Found something? Just say it."

Xiong Hei hesitated for a few seconds. "No, Sister Lin... come out. There's... another situation."