Ecuador (6)
After a full day of rushing about, Tan Guhong and Luo Jingming returned to the guesthouse in the village. They would spend the night here. It was neither peak travel season nor a popular destination, and over the course of the day they had not encountered many tourists. In this guesthouse, they were in fact the only two guests.
The place was run by an indigenous couple. The owner was taciturn and spoke little, while his wife was simple and kind, warmly hosting them. With yellow skin and black eyes, and the natural flush on her cheeks from living at high altitude, at first glance she looked very much like one of China’s ethnic minorities, evoking an immediate sense of familiarity.
Because they had arranged things in advance, by the time they returned, the landlady had already prepared dinner for them. It was a few simple traditional indigenous dishes, grilled fish, wild vegetable flatbreads and the like. The presentation was not particularly appealing, but the taste more than made up for it.
While they were eating, Tan Guhong suddenly felt something soft brush against her calf. She quickly pulled her chair back and looked under the table. She had thought it might be a cat or dog kept by the хозяева, but instead it turned out to be a child hiding underneath.
“What is it?”
Luo Jingming bent down as well. There, beneath the table, was a little girl of four or five, with a straight fringe haircut. Her chubby face was marked by two patches of highland red, and her large jet-black eyes darted about as she looked at them. Being discovered filled her with delight, and she giggled non-stop.
The two of them exchanged a glance, unable to suppress their amusement.
The landlady hurried over just in time, pulling her daughter out and repeatedly apologizing to the guests, scolding the child a few times. But the little girl seemed not to hear at all, her eyes fixed intently on the plate of fried potato cakes on the table.
Tan Guhong laughed. “Let her have some. We haven’t touched this.”
As she spoke, she picked up the small woven basket filled with fried potato strips and handed it to the little girl, bending down to pat her round little head. “Remember to wash your hands after eating.”
The little girl took the basket, then suddenly lifted her face and planted a loud kiss on Tan Guhong’s cheek, making a crisp “bo” sound. Then she turned and ran off in quick, thudding steps.
Tan Guhong wiped the saliva from her cheek, caught between laughter and exasperation. When she looked up again, she saw Luo Jingming watching her, his eyes smiling.
“You’re very popular with children.”
“It seems so. My cousin’s kids are about this age too. Every time I go home, they cling to me…” even competing over who would marry her when they grew up, “but actually, I’m not very good with children.”
Seeing the faint trouble in her expression, the smile at the corner of his lips deepened.
Children and animals alike are simple and clear-hearted by nature. They can judge good and evil by instinct. Whoever is upright and kind will naturally be drawn close to.
After dinner, the two of them went upstairs to rest.
In the narrow corridor on the second floor, every few steps along the wall hung a wooden mask in traditional indigenous style. The lines were rough and unrestrained, faintly suggesting the spirit of animals. They were painted in bright colors and adorned with vivid feathers, standing silently in the half-light and shadow, fierce and solemn.
Tan Guhong stopped, examining them one by one. Luo Jingming followed behind her.
“Do you think that when ancient people first created masks, it was to protect the face, or to imitate beasts for hunting?” she asked.
“Probably both. But there’s another purpose too, to hide oneself, and to intimidate the enemy.”
She smiled. “The way you put it reminds me of Prince of Lanling.”
In the chaotic era of the Northern and Southern dynasties, the young general born with strikingly beautiful features who had to wear a ferocious mask on the battlefield.
“Sometimes I think, he was born onto ancient battlefields, and to intimidate the enemy he had no choice but to do that. If he were born into the modern business world, to hide himself, he might still have to make some kind of ‘adjustment.’”
For instance, having perfectly normal eyesight, yet deliberately wearing a pair of plain glass spectacles.
She looked at him with a faintly teasing gaze.
He met her eyes calmly, not denying it.
Their gazes crossed, and for a moment neither spoke.
Suddenly, all the masks on the wall began to tremble slightly. The wood knocked softly against the stone wall, producing a series of clicking sounds. The mask closest to them, covered in red feathers, slipped silently from the wall. In the instant it hit the ground, in a flash like lightning and sparks, Tan Guhong saw her own startled face reflected in Luo Jingming’s pupils.
“It’s an earthquake!”
She immediately grabbed Luo Jingming’s arm and ran downstairs. He quickly kept pace, pulling his arm free only to wrap it around her shoulders protectively as they hurried down the stairs.
The house was small. In just a few seconds, they had reached the doorway. By then, the primary waves had already passed, and the surroundings were enveloped in an ominous, deathly stillness.
Just as they stepped outside, she suddenly realized something and sharply turned back, confirming what she had glimpsed out of the corner of her eye. In the small dining room, the landlady’s little daughter was still sitting under the table, unaware, eating her potato cakes.
“Wait!”
Tan Guhong flung off Luo Jingming’s hand and rushed back, pulling and dragging the little girl out from under the table. She scooped her up and ran for the door.
At that moment, the deadly secondary waves finally arrived. The ground began to shake violently. The entire house trembled, windows creaked, tables and chairs slid across the floor. All the masks on the second floor fell one after another and shattered. Cracks split open across the walls in an instant.
A metal rack piled with decorations in the corner suddenly toppled from behind and to the right, crashing hard onto Tan Guhong’s leg. Her right leg gave way and she dropped to one knee, a muffled groan forced down her throat.
Ignoring the injury, she gritted her teeth and got back up, half crawling, half stumbling toward the door. Luo Jingming caught her, along with the child in her arms, pulling them outside. At last, they escaped the house.
They stood in the open courtyard, watching helplessly as the small guesthouse building was crushed as easily as a child’s toy by an invisible hand. The scattered lights both near and far, together with the countless stars in the pitch-black sky, all trembled incessantly in their vision.
After an unknown length of time, the shaking finally stopped. All was still. Silence stretched across the land.
Then, immediately, came the screams. Shouts. Cries. The voices of men and women, and the wailing of livestock, all tangled together in the darkness.
At that moment, the хозяюшка returned from outside the courtyard. Seeing the half-collapsed house, she let out a scream, dropped the half-sack of corn in her hands, and stumbled forward.
“Here!”
Tan Guhong called out to her. The хозяюшка hurried over and took her sobbing daughter from her arms. Without even pausing to thank them, she rushed to the half-collapsed house, fell to her knees, and shouted her husband’s name, trying to find any trace of him.
Tan Guhong and Luo Jingming exchanged a glance, hearts still pounding, emotions in turmoil.
“Your leg—”
He crouched down to check her injury. Only then did her awareness fully return, and she felt the tearing, agonizing pain in her calf. Looking down, she saw a long gash along the outer back of her right leg, a large patch of blood spreading across her light-colored jeans.
“Ah… this might be troublesome.” Her face was pale as she gave a wry smile. “Not sure if the bone’s injured.”
“To the hospital.”
But this indigenous village lay deep in the mountains. There was no hospital at all, only an old practitioner somewhere between a pharmacist and a shaman, with very limited medical skill. At this moment, his courtyard was already crowded with injured villagers, some with broken limbs, others bleeding from the head. He was completely overwhelmed.
Following directions from the villagers, Tan Guhong was helped by Luo Jingming to the old man’s house. After standing outside the courtyard and observing for a while, she came to a conclusion.
“No point relying on him. I suspect his wound treatment might not even be as good as mine. Let’s go to a hospital in a nearby town.”
“Alright.”
“Wait, I don’t mean now.” She grabbed him. “We leave at dawn. There’s just been an earthquake. The roads aren’t safe. Besides, Ecuador doesn’t have the best public security. Traveling at night, we could run into robbers.”
Luo Jingming refused outright. “No. The rack that hit you just now was covered in rust. You need a tetanus shot immediately.”
“That's only a what-if. Which matters more? There's no need for us to take that risk.”
Luo Jingming smiled faintly, not quite a smile. “You should have thought of that when you rushed in to save someone just now.”
Tan Guhong gave a helpless look. “What could I do? I'm PLA.”
When saving a life was that simple, how could she possibly stand by and do nothing?
“OK, Comrade PLA, then right now I think your injury matters more. We have to take that risk.”
Luo Jingming didn’t give her a chance to refuse again. Half dragging, half carrying, he forcibly took her away.
The small family who ran the guesthouse had, in a single night, been thrown into complete upheaval. Their home had collapsed, the male owner was buried in the rubble, his fate unknown. The woman was organizing neighbors to try and rescue him. After asking her clearly for the direction of the nearest town, Tan Guhong said her goodbyes. Before leaving, she hugged the little girl standing blankly in the courtyard, at a loss, and quietly slipped a stack of US dollars into her pocket.
“Don’t be afraid. Be good. Your parents will be alright.”
Next door was another guesthouse, where a Korean couple was staying. Fortunately, they were uninjured. At this moment they were flustered and unsure what to do. Seeing fellow Asians, they came over to speak. When they learned Tan Guhong and Luo Jingming planned to leave overnight, they hesitated. The man wanted to go with them, but the woman firmly refused. In the end, they chose to stay in the village and decide what to do the next day.
The jeep parked in the courtyard had, fortunately, not been affected by the earthquake. Tan Guhong was helped into the back seat by Luo Jingming. She lowered her head, glanced at her injured leg, then took off her shirt, intending to bandage the wound.
Luo Jingming stood outside the car door. She wore only a close-fitting black athletic tank top. Her slender neck, delicate collarbones, and the soft curve of her chest were all exposed. She bit into the fabric to tear it open, then pulled hard with both hands, ripping the shirt apart. The muscles along her lean arms were smooth and well-defined, her movements clean and efficient.
His breathing faltered for a moment. He lowered his gaze, concealing the faint ripple in his eyes.
“I’ll do it.”
As Tan Guhong lowered her head, she felt a jacket, still warm with body heat, draped over her shoulders. Luo Jingming took the half-torn shirt from her hands, crouched halfway down, pulled her injured leg closer, and carefully rolled up the fabric of her pants. Using the half bottle of mineral water left in the car, he cleaned around the wound, then tore her shirt into strips and meticulously bandaged it.
“Not bad,” she said, forcing a smile through the pain.
“Practice makes skill,” he replied.
He looked up and smiled as well. A few loose strands of hair fell across his forehead, his cheek smeared with a streak of dust and grime, his clothes wrinkled and disheveled. He looked battered, yet his expression remained calm.
They had just survived disaster, yet both of them remained unexpectedly at ease. That in itself was rare.
He took out a few mint candies from his pocket, placed them in his palm, and held them out to her.
“Want one?”
She laughed. “You really like mint candy, don’t you?”
She had already seen him eat it several times.
He neither confirmed nor denied.
She almost said, do you think I’m a three-year-old? But the pain in her leg had her breaking out in sweat, and a distraction wouldn’t hurt.
She picked one, tore open the clear wrapper, and placed the ice-blue, translucent candy into her mouth. There was none of the sweetness she had expected. The sharp, cooling sting of mint shot straight to her head, followed by the bitter saltiness of sea salt. Completely unprepared, she nearly choked up tears, coughing a few times as she asked, baffled,
“How do you even like this?”
And eat it so calmly, so persistently?
But the sharp pain in her leg did ease somewhat.
“Clears the head.”
He smiled, popped one into his own mouth, shut the car door, and got into the driver’s seat. Starting the engine, he reminded her,
“Sit tight. Don’t hit your leg.”
After the earthquake, all network signals had collapsed. They had no idea about the details of the quake or the extent of the disaster. Information was completely cut off. And in this country, one could not expect military or police rescue teams to mobilize quickly. They could only rely on themselves.
The houses in the village were closely packed, and the population dense, so the damage was severe. Once outside the village, however, the road was not too badly damaged. There were occasional fallen power lines and rocks that had rolled down from the mountains, but they did not encounter any large-scale landslides along the way.
The nearest town was only about half an hour away, but the route was desolate. Unlike the road they had taken earlier, there were no farmlands or houses in sight, and not a single other car appeared ahead or behind.
Along the way, Luo Jingming drove at high speed. When a road sign indicated that the town was eight kilometers away, a row of makeshift barricades suddenly appeared across the road ahead.
Tan Guhong’s heart tightened. This was common in Ecuador, in remote mountain areas. Bandits would hide nearby, set up roadblocks to stop passing vehicles, then surround and rob them.
She spoke quickly, “Local bandits don’t usually kill. They just want money. Take out all the cash. I’ll talk to them. Give them whatever they want.”
Luo Jingming did not respond. He only said lightly,
“Hold on.”
As soon as the words fell, instead of slowing down, the car accelerated. His hand shifted gears, his foot slammed down on the accelerator, and he drove straight at the barricade at full speed.
The barricade was only made of wood, not particularly sturdy. The mountain jeep had a solid frame. With a loud crash, the barrier was smashed aside, and they broke through.
But the bandits had a backup plan. Beyond the barricade, the road was scattered with triangular tire spikes. The tires were punctured and burst instantly. The car shuddered violently.
Tan Guhong gripped the handle tightly, while Luo Jingming held the steering wheel firm and slammed the brakes. Barely managing to keep the vehicle from flipping, the car spun across the road two and a half full turns before crashing into the guardrail and finally coming to a stop. The shrill screech of braking echoed for a long time in the silent night.
Tan Guhong was protected by the seatbelt and the deployed airbag and was unharmed. She shook her head hard, breathing rapidly to steady herself. When she looked up, she saw the bandits who had been lying in ambush by the roadside emerge, climbing over the barrier and gathering toward them.
One, two, three, four. Four in total. Likely realizing they had encountered tough opponents, they all drew knives, and one of them held a spear.
She knew this would not end peacefully. Just as she was about to speak, Luo Jingming had already opened the car door and stepped out, leaving behind only one sentence.
“Stay in the car.”
Her heart tightened. She could tell he had skills, but one against many was still a disadvantage, especially when the other side had weapons. A direct fight was not wise. She did not believe he had the odds in his favor.
The four men saw him step out and began closing in toward the driver’s side.
“Wait!”
Tan Guhong shouted loudly in Spanish, struggling to open the car door and get out. Enduring the sharp pain in her leg, she moved around the front of the car.
This process took no more than ten seconds.
Within those ten seconds, four gunshots rang out in succession. Front, back, left, right, each shot grazed past the bandits’ heads and clothing. Not a single one hit, yet all four men had just brushed past death.
Tan Guhong stopped in her tracks, standing before the car, staring in disbelief at the scene.
Under the streetlight, Luo Jingming held a gun aimed directly at the forehead of the bandit holding the spear. He wore only a thin T-shirt, casual as if he had just returned from a walk. The dim light outlined the sharp contours of his face, and his gold-rimmed glasses reflected a pale gleam.
Yet his expression was not cold or severe. It was as gentle and refined as ever, a faint smile even lingering at the corner of his lips.
He spoke, his tone indifferent:
“Fuck off.”
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