Wei froze where he stood.
He had heard a voice he knew.
Not loud. Not soft.
With that faint, lazy drawl at the end.
He turned his head.
Chun was sitting quietly on the doorstep, just as she always did, smiling at him.
Red clothes.
Her hair lifted by the wind.
She was looking at him.
He opened his mouth.
But no sound came from his throat.
The fire in the stove suddenly spat a spark. Pop.
In the blink of an eye—
She was gone.
"Chun?"
Wei rose unsteadily, confusion flooding him.
Panic surged through his chest like a rising tide, squeezing the breath from him.
He tried to run outside, but his foot caught on the door plank. He stumbled and fell hard to the ground.
Outside....only blackness.
His feet crushed dry straw.
It rustled faintly beneath him.
"Chun!"
His voice cracked, the sound coming out more like the cry of a startled bird.
The empty night carried the echo away.
No other sound answered.
Before him lay only the silent dark.
Nothing.
He stood there, chest heaving.
He was certain of it.
He had seen Chun.
He had heard her voice.
Despair seeped into him, heavy and dull, leaving him unspeakably tired.
If his hearing had not been damaged, he might have caught the faint sounds drifting from the distant woods—branches scraping together, small stones rolling down a slope, the wind murmuring through the treetops.
In the deep stillness of night, every sound grew larger, each one like the step of someone drawing closer.
Yet even so, he felt it.
Someone.
Or something.
Watching him from the dark.
Slowly, he edged back into the house and did not step outside again.
His back to the darkness.
His face toward the fire.
He sat there for a long time.
The flames shrank lower and lower.
His eyelids grew heavy, blinking again and again.
Several times he nearly fell asleep—
Each time his own pounding heartbeat jolted him awake.
The night stretched endlessly, so long that time itself seemed to lose meaning.
At some point he could no longer tell whether he was dreaming.
He simply closed his eyes.
The warmth made him feel as though someone were still beside him.
The sensation grew strangely real.
So real that he could even smell it—
the sour odor of a body that hadn't been washed for days.
A body odor?
Suddenly, a rust-stained iron blade slid across his throat.
-----------------
"Well, isn't this a coincidence?"
A fat man and a thin one, two ragged bandits, had appeared behind Wei without his noticing.
Zhang San grinned broadly, revealing a row of yellow teeth, the smile slick with malice.
Li Si, however, stared at Wei with wide eyes, as if he had seen a ghost.
"You… you're not dead?!"
Wei blinked in confusion. He opened his mouth, pointed at his ear, then gestured awkwardly with his hands, shaking his head again and again.
Zhang San studied him for a moment, then snorted.
"So you're a deaf and dumb one."
Wei lowered his head at once.
His shoulders shrank inward, like a frightened little animal.
But in the instant his head dipped,
His eyes turned ice-cold.
Bandits.
Men from Two-Dragon Mountain.
A thought slowly took shape in his mind.
If Chun had truly been taken…
The most likely place was Two-Dragon Mountain.
In his current state, he could barely leave the valley.
Let alone search for someone.
But if he used their hands—
They would take him up the mountain.
After that, Zhang San lost interest in the mute boy entirely. He turned and began rummaging through the house like a greedy monkey, pawing through everything he could find.
Li Si searched the other side for food, stuffing dry rations into his mouth as he spoke with his cheeks full.
"So, big brother… what do we do next?"
Without looking up, Zhang San said, "What else? We can't go back home. We search this village, grab whatever valuables we can, then hide somewhere remote."
Li Si's face twisted. "This village looks poor as dirt. I doubt there's anything worth taking. Why don't we just stay here? I'm sick of running all over the place."
Zhang San paused. His expression tightened slightly.
"No." He lowered his voice. "Did you forget the boss's temper? If he finds out we ran off with loot, it won't be just a few lashes when he drags us back."
Li Si shrank a little. "Right… true enough."
After rummaging around for a while, Zhang San found only a few rough animal pelts. He wrapped them around himself and grinned with satisfaction.
Wei kept his head lowered.
As if he were too afraid to move.
But slowly, his gaze settled on a piece of charcoal on the ground.
He knew exactly what he had to do.
He had to make them take him willingly.
And there was only one thing that could move bandits.
—Money.
He shuffled toward the charcoal slowly, as if trembling.
Li Si noticed.
"Well, would you look at that. The kid can write."
Li Si blinked. "Big brother, come see what this mute's scribbling."
Zhang San wandered over, curious. "Let me see…"
Wei crouched down and slowly wrote a few characters on the ground with the charcoal.
—'Two-Dragon Mountain'
Zhang San glanced at it and immediately sneered.
"Playing tricks? We came from Two-Dragon Mountain ourselves."
Li Si snorted. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Wei didn't stop. He slowly wrote two more characters.
'Hidden treasure?'
His hand paused deliberately, as if hesitating.
But his mind was calm.
Greed.
As long as they were greedy—
They would go back.
And he would reach Two-Dragon Mountain.
Then he would know—
Where Chun truly was.
Zhang San's grin faltered slightly as he read the words aloud.
Li Si froze, then crouched to examine them more closely.
"Big brother… he's saying there's treasure in Two-Dragon Mountain?"
Zhang San narrowed his eyes.
"Of course there is. Our boss has been running that place for years...there's bound to be a stash. But who'd dare go back to take it?!"
Wei kept writing.
'Someone slaughtered the village'
The characters were crooked and clumsy, but the meaning was unmistakable.
Then Wei slowly added another line.
'How about stronghold?'
Zhang San stared at those words for a long moment.
Then suddenly he slapped his thigh.
"Of course!"
"If they could wipe out a whole village, how would they spare a big stronghold like Two-Dragon Mountain?!"
Greed flickered to life in his eyes.
Wei paused again, as if nervous. He glanced at the two men and added one more line.
'please let me go, I help you already.'
The room fell silent.
Zhang San and Li Si exchanged a glance.
They had fled Two-Dragon Mountain themselves. No one knew better than they did how much wealth had piled up there over the years.
If they could get their hands on it…
They would never need to be bandits again.
Li Si lowered his voice.
"Big brother… I say we do it."
Zhang San remained silent for a moment. His gaze slowly turned darker—and greedier.
"Fine."
"We'll go back and take a look."
Then he looked at Wei and grinned wide, ignored his last words directly.
"If we brothers really strike it rich—"
"You'll be our third brother."
Wei begged them to let him go.
His shoulders curled in, as if he were too scared to set foot on the mountain.
No one noticed the quick, excited flash in his eyes.
Two-Dragon Mountain.
I'm coming.
Chun.
You have to be there.