Chapter Eight: Secrets of the Archipelago (2)
The receiver fell silent. A few seconds later, it began repeating what it had just said. Nan Bei casually switched it off and glanced at Cheng Muyang. His condition really was bad. She had never been afraid of death. Sometimes, though, she was afraid of pain. People like Cheng Muyang and herself could enjoy a life others could never imagine, but there was inevitably a price to pay for it: they had to be prepared to lose their lives at any moment.
If this person called Ning Hao had never found a way to transmit the message, there was a good chance he would die here. So, had he really been entangled with her just now, intending to die?
She could not find the answer.
Her romantic history had been very simple. She had only ever been with Shen Jiaming. Back then, she had no one to rely on, while Shen Jiaming's life was going smoothly, and he was living the kind of life she had once longed for. So, to the her of that time, Shen Jiaming's attraction had been irresistible.
But Cheng Muyang was different. He had appeared from a completely unrelated world, yet crossed the gray area between them and walked straight into her world.
Without the slightest hesitation, and never giving her the chance to choose.
Nearly three hours passed like this before, at last, the lights of a rescue signal appeared out at sea.
Nan Bei patted Cheng Muyang and told him what she had just heard. From the waterproof bag that had held the in-ear radio receiver, Cheng Muyang found a signal pen and handed it to Nan Bei. “Take this and go up onto the rocks to use it. Someone's coming. Remember, speak to me in French.”
Nan Bei nodded. This was a sensitive period, with the entire area under lockdown. It was best for the two of them to avoid communicating in front of unrelated people.
She forced herself to endure the injury to her calf, stood up, and climbed onto the rocks.
By now, the wind and waves had weakened considerably. The rescue vessel did not risk coming directly ashore, instead lowering a small rescue boat.
Before the rescue boat arrived, Cheng Muyang had Nan Bei put on his own trousers. He then had her throw all the firearms, ammunition, and miniature bombs in the waterproof bag into the sea, keeping only the passports and an ordinary knife. At first, Nan Bei did not quite understand what he meant. It was only after two Filipinos came ashore that she understood. One of them pointed a gun at them while the other began searching them swiftly and thoroughly.
It seemed they suspected the two of them.
Cheng Muyang leaned against the rocks and cooperatively handed over the knife, briefly explaining the situation in Filipino. Although English was also one of the Philippines' main languages of communication, it was still the local language that truly made people feel a sense of familiarity.
Sure enough, the rescuers relaxed their guard somewhat, bending down to talk with him. Nan Bei followed beside them. She could not understand what the two were saying, and only smiled when the Filipino looked up to examine her.
There were two more people on the yacht. Seeing that Cheng Muyang's injuries were all clearly the result of natural causes, and that the two of them looked so miserable, they stopped suspecting them. They gestured twice with their guns and brought them aboard the rescue boat.
“What were you saying just now?” she asked him quietly in French.
Fortunately, both of them had lived in Belgium before, so they had a language suitable for communicating.
“I said I'm a French Chinese, and my wife is Burmese. We were on vacation, but unfortunately ran into a storm.”
The two Filipinos were still muttering something quietly. Nan Bei was uneasy and asked him again in a low voice, “What are they saying?”
He listened carefully for a couple of seconds. “Cursing. It's a typhoon, and they still have to come out to rescue foreigners.”
After they were brought aboard the larger vessel, the doctor on board specifically examined their injuries. Nan Bei's leg was only injured in that the wound was too long, but it was not deep. The same was true of Cheng Muyang's back. There was no great danger. The rescue doctor, however, was startled when he saw Cheng Muyang's hand, shaking his head repeatedly as he said something to him. Several times during this, he looked at Nan Bei. She could not understand him, but remained quietly seated beside Cheng Muyang, listening.
She seemed to have guessed something from the doctor's tone.
The arrangements aboard the rescue vessel were far from elaborate. There was hardly any furnishing to speak of. Even the place where the two of them sat had faint colored marks on the bedsheet. It was impossible to tell whether they were bloodstains that had not been washed out properly or simply some other kind of stain.
As night fell, his temperature rose again.
The doctor only brought him a bag of some unknown liquid and hung it on the stand beside the bed. Just as he was leaving, he finally remembered to ask for their identification. Cheng Muyang took out a passport from the black waterproof bag.
The doctor then pointed at Nan Bei.
Cheng Muyang explained a couple of things. After all, it was a natural disaster. They could say whatever they wanted.
Late into the night, someone came to complete the routine registration for Cheng Muyang and, in passing, told him that the typhoon was simply too strong, so they had temporarily docked near an island. They would leave once the wind died down.
That person also returned the passports to him.
Only after the person had completely left did she finally reach out to feel his temperature.
He still had a low fever.
“Are you used to it?” With his left hand, he drew her head toward his shoulder.
Nan Bei was truly exhausted. Following the movement of his hand, she leaned against him very comfortably.
“Do you think I've always been pampered?” She gave a soft yawn. “Actually, when I was little, I followed my Xiao Gege around. We lived everywhere. I was a wild child.”
“I know,” he teased her in an almost-whisper. “I saw it on the island just now.”
Her face flushed slightly, and she pushed away his unruly hand.
At last, the atmosphere allowed them to catch their breath.
Nan Bei finally had a chance to care about him while pretending it was nothing. “How is your hand?”
“Not very good.” Cheng Muyang thought about it. “Even with proper rehabilitation, I should have difficulty using a spoon or chopsticks in the future. Fortunately, my left hand is as capable as my right, so it won't have too much of an impact.”
She gave a quiet “oh.”
After a while, she asked him again, “Can you get dressed?”
Cheng Muyang could not help laughing. “Yes. I can still take care of myself. It's just that my ability to defend myself has declined slightly.”
Her gaze fell on his carefully bandaged right hand. “Maybe Buddha thinks you've taken too many lives and wants you to lay down the butcher's knife and attain Buddhahood.”
“The butcher's knife isn't really a ‘knife,’” Cheng Muyang continued along with her words. “It's delusion, confusion, or attachment. Once you have those, you have evil thoughts, evil words, and even evil deeds.”
Nan Bei rubbed her head against his shoulder, finding a comfortable position. “That's such a long explanation. Put it simply.”
“Refusing to see reason,” he said with a smile, his voice languid with weariness. “That is the root of it. Whether it is status, position, wealth, or a beauty, you always have to pay some price. Like this hand.”
He said it calmly.
Nan Bei gently placed her hand over his. “How did it get injured this badly?”
“There wasn't time to use a tool.” Cheng Muyang's voice lowered. “One second slower and we would have been blown to pieces. One hand in exchange for two lives. It's a good deal.”
She raised her eyes and studied the person lying beside her, saying nothing.
After a while, she curled herself up and burrowed into his arms.
Cheng Muyang soon fell asleep.
She turned off the light. Only moonlight filtered in through the skylight. Cheng Muyang lay beside her, holding her in his arms. When Nan Bei drifted between sleep and wakefulness, she could always feel him occasionally move his fingers, gently rubbing her arm for a moment before settling back to sleep.
The movement seemed unconscious.
She leaned against him. They were both wearing the cotton clothes and trousers provided by the Filipinos, their colors on the darker side, almost like matching couple's outfits. Although she had used hot water to wipe the grime from both their bodies before they changed, neither of them had been thoroughly washed, and some of the smells were not particularly pleasant.
She sniffed and felt envious of how soundly he could sleep.
Seeing that the bag of IV fluid was nearly empty, she gently pressed down on his left hand and pulled out the needle.
After returning to her country, she had spent a long period of time in Myanmar. Whether they were working or simply in the farming off-season, people there liked to wear slippers. There were always people who said it was because of the hot weather, the abundance of rain, or simply because they were too poor.
Actually, it was just to make worshipping Buddha more convenient.
Just as monks would shave their heads and go barefoot, what believers of Buddhism sought was to be able to know what was above and understand what was below, to be honest with Buddha about what was in their hearts. Outside the Buddhist halls, the tiled floors were often scorching beneath the blazing sun, so hot that one could barely set foot on them, yet no one violated this custom.
This was their faith.
And there, she had never worshipped any Buddha.
It was not because she did not believe, but because she believed too deeply. The first time she met Wu Chengpin, she had told him that even if both hands were stained with blood, there still had to be a bottom line. She had also told him not to look down on Myanmar as a country. The Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon had stood there for more than two thousand years, and surely it would watch over its own people.
She had always believed in what was known as cause and effect, the consequences of one's actions.
And she could tell that this was also what Cheng Muyang had meant by what he had just said.
Except that he was talking about himself.
Cheng Muyang slept for more than two hours before waking. He thought she was asleep. He had not expected that when he tried to shift his body, Nan Bei suddenly opened her eyes.
“Awake?”
“You weren't asleep?”
“You're sleeping. How could I dare sleep?” She covered her mouth, unable to suppress a soft yawn. “I'm afraid something might happen. In any case, this is a sensitive period. Anything could happen.”
She still remembered how fierce the standoff between the anti-government forces and government troops had been in Myanmar.
It had been no less intense than localized wars in Africa.
Back then, whenever she and her older brother talked about these things, they would always sigh. When one's own people fought and killed one another, it was a tragedy in any nation. Kidnapping, beheading, negotiations, in the end, the outcome was always for the interests of a small number of people.
“When those people are fighting among themselves, the ones they hate most are actually the foreigners who interfere.” Nan Huai had squatted in front of her, using a knife to peel sugarcane for her to eat. The sugarcane he had just cut was dripping with thick, sweet juice. “If you ever encounter something like this in the future, whatever happens, don't get involved.”
She opened her mouth and spat out the chewed sugarcane pulp, obediently giving a soft “mm.”
“If you accidentally get caught up in a local war outside the reach of our forces, whatever happens, you must not let anyone know who you are.” Back then, Nan Huai had simply continued feeding her another piece of sugarcane he had peeled. “I'm not afraid of spending money to get you back, and I'm not afraid of doing it myself. What I'm afraid of is that no matter how much money I spend or how much blood is shed, I still won't be able to bring you back.”
At the time, Nan Huai's words had truly stayed in her heart.
Yet she had never imagined that she would actually encounter something like this in a foreign country.
No matter how meticulously Cheng Muyang had calculated everything, he could never have anticipated that the Philippines would suddenly fall into civil war.
So before entering the French consulate, they had both been in danger.
“We're on a government rescue vessel right now. The danger will be much lower.” Cheng Muyang braced himself with his arm and sat up in bed. “Besides, they've already been in contact with the consulate and guaranteed that they'll get us there safely.”
Although the two of them communicated in French, they were, after all, aboard a Philippine rescue vessel. It was still better to be careful.
At daybreak, the rescuer who had gotten along best with Cheng Muyang came in and gave them a few instructions. They were about to reach shore. The two of them had nothing with them, not even their clothes, which had been kindly provided by the rescuers, so there was nothing to prepare. They only needed to wait to disembark.
When the man returned Cheng Muyang's passport, he said that Cheng Muyang's information was still being verified with the French consulate. They needed to land temporarily on a nearby island and stay there for a few days. Cheng Muyang smiled, patted the man's shoulder, and said in Filipino, “No problem.”
The typhoon finally moved out of the area, leaving clear skies and gentle weather.
The two of them stepped onto the deck, and Nan Bei took a light breath. Suddenly, with a muffled sound, the Filipino beside them who had been lowering his head to light a cigarette abruptly went limp and collapsed onto the ground. The sight before them was something no one had expected.
Cheng Muyang said softly, “Don't move. There's a sniper.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he stepped half a pace past Nan Bei, shielding her from the sniper's line of fire.
Two young men stood on the beach. One remained in a shooting stance, while the other removed his scope and said something to the people behind him. More than forty Filipinos immediately emerged from the bushes nearby. Small-caliber rifles camouflaged with spray paint, jungle camouflage, standard combat equipment.
“Professionals?” The upper half of the speaker's face was wrapped in white bandages, covering his right eye. Yet he could actually understand the language they were speaking quietly. “There are four snipers around here. Your odds aren't good.”
He gestured for them to put their hands on their heads and come off the boat.
Cheng Muyang did not answer. He used his foot to turn over the Filipino's body and examined his neck.
At the same time, Nan Bei also noticed something strange about the man's neck. The wound was not from a bullet, but a thin needle that glimmered faintly in the sunlight.
“An anesthetic dart,” said the man holding the gun. His voice, surprisingly, was clear and clean. He spoke in English with a Filipino accent. “The effect lasts three hours.”
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