Chapter 2

The bubble tea shop outside our middle school had closed too.

The internet café we used to visit near the university was now a shopping mall.

Once I ruled those out, I began considering places nearby where someone could “hide.”

An abandoned factory, unfinished buildings, a park on the outskirts…

Every possibility seemed plausible, and every one felt wrong.

I opened the map on my phone, zooming in and out without direction.

Then I saw the name of a village.

Dongmamiao.

D. M. M.

The same initials as duo mao mao—the Chinese name for hide-and-seek.

In that instant, an overwhelming instinct told me Lin Shu was there.

I hurriedly zoomed in and examined the map.

Dongmamiao was east of the city, an extremely remote mountain village wedged between two peaks. It did not even have a decent road.

It looked familiar.

That secluded terrain would also make it an ideal place to hide someone.

I looked away from the map.

I could not be completely certain that this was where Lin Shu’s message was pointing.

But even if there was only one chance in ten thousand, I had to try.

To avoid alerting the other side, I sent “Lin Shu” a message.

“Work has suddenly put me on a business trip for a few days. Let’s have dinner when I get back.”

She replied at once. “Sure, sure! Take care!”

As sweet as ever.

I packed my things, took a power bank and a flashlight, and drove onto the highway.

Dongmamiao was even more remote than I had imagined.

After the expressway came a national road, then a county road, then a village road. Eventually even the concrete disappeared, leaving loose stones and yellow earth.

After nearly four hours of driving, I finally saw the stone marker at the village entrance.

At that very moment, cold sweat soaked my back.

Because I had been here before.

Two years earlier, on a road trip with Lin Shu and Jiang Yue, the navigation system had sent us the wrong way. We had wandered into this village by accident.

Lin Shu had been in the passenger seat. Pointing out the window, she had said, “This would be a great place to shoot a ghost movie.”

If she really was here, and not of her own free will, then Jiang Yue had to be involved.

He had been the one driving us to Dongmamiao that day.

He had set the route. He had “accidentally” brought us into the village by “carelessly” taking a wrong turn.

From beginning to end, he was the one who knew this place.

I leaned against the seat, unable to collect myself for a long time.

Jiang Yue and Lin Shu had been together for three years. He had always treated her so well.

No matter how late she worked, he waited.

Whenever it rained, he was the first to arrive with an umbrella.

When she had her period, he brought brown-sugar water to her bedside.

They had even agreed to marry at the end of the year. Their wedding photos were booked for next month.

Why would he do this?

And what was his connection to the fake Lin Shu?

There was no time to dwell on it. Finding Lin Shu came first.

I forced myself to stay clearheaded, parked at the village entrance, and got out.

Several elderly people were sunning themselves outside their homes. Their eyes filled with suspicion as I approached.

I asked them one by one whether they had seen an unfamiliar man and woman in the village a week earlier.

But I could barely understand their dialect. After a long exchange of gestures and guesses, I still had nothing useful.

Not until the sun was about to set did a middle-aged man come over.

“Are you looking for a man with a very pretty woman?”

I looked up at once. “Yes! Have you seen them?”

I hurriedly found a photo of Lin Shu and Jiang Yue and showed him.

He squinted at it without speaking, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together.

I understood.

I took every banknote from my wallet—six or seven hundred yuan—and pressed it into his hand.

He weighed the money, but his gaze settled on my wrist.

I was wearing a gold bracelet my mother had bought me for my birthday. I never normally took it off.

Without hesitation, I removed it and handed it over too.

At last, he was satisfied.

He pointed. “They went up the mountain.”

According to him, an unfamiliar car had entered the village seven days earlier, just after the rain.

“The chassis was low. A car like that can’t handle these mountain roads. It stalled on a slope.”

“I helped the man push it. He gave me five hundred yuan to thank me.”

“There was a woman in the passenger seat…”

He paused.

“I didn’t get a good look at her face, but her hair and everything looked much like the woman in your photo.”

My heart sank. “Which way did they go?”

“That mountain.”

He jerked his chin east.

“Over it is the next county. There’s a forestry station on that side. The road is bad. Hardly anyone goes there.”

“Did you see them again?”

He shook his head.

“No. There isn’t even a signal up there. Who would go running into that?”

I stood and looked at the black mountain to the east, my heart pounding.

Darkness had fallen. I did not know the trails at all. Going up blindly would be too dangerous.

I returned to the car, reclined the seat, and made do for the night.

I hardly slept.

Lin Shu’s face filled my thoughts.

As a little girl, she had worn two braids. When she smiled, two small canine teeth showed.

In middle school she had cut her hair short. Our homeroom teacher mistook her for a boy, and she sulked for days.

At university, she fell in love and had her heart broken. I walked thirty laps around the sports field with her while she cried and swore she would never trust men again.

Then she met Jiang Yue, and trusted again.

She said he was different. He really cared about her.

I buried my face in my arms, tears slipping down in silence.

Jiang Yue, what have you done to Lin Shu?

I woke at first light.

This time I did not return to Dongmamiao. I drove straight to the nearest police station.

“I want to make a report.”

“My best friend and I got separated in the mountains. She still hasn’t come down.”

I lied. It was the only way they would help me look for her.

Sure enough, the officer on duty immediately reported a person missing in the mountains.

Within half an hour, six officers and two police dogs had been dispatched.

The leader was an experienced officer in his forties, surnamed Sun, his skin darkened by the sun.

The dogs were skilled too. As soon as we entered the mountains, they began barking fiercely and plunged into the forest.

The deeper we went, the heavier my heart grew.

If Lin Shu really was here, was she still alive?

Suddenly both dogs barked and rushed forward together.

I was slower and fell behind.

By the time I pushed through the last thicket into a clearing, I heard an officer shout.

“We’ve found a body!”

A corpse lay in the middle of the clearing, dug up by stray dogs.

It scarcely looked human anymore.

Advanced decay had turned the skin purplish black. The body was swollen and distorted.

The features were no longer recognizable. Maggots crawled in the eye sockets and at the corners of the mouth. A heavy stench filled the air.

But I still knew it was my Shushu.

She wore the hoodie I had custom-made for her.

On her wrist was the bracelet I had prayed so earnestly to obtain.

Three years earlier, as I put it on her, I had said, “I hope you stay safe and live to a hundred.”

But my Shushu was only twenty-seven.

She had cared so much about looking pretty.

Every morning she spent an hour and a half on her makeup. Before going out, she had to turn three times in front of the mirror.

Now she lay in filthy mud, covered in maggots.

I dropped to my knees, sobbing so hard my whole body shook.

Officer Sun came over and patted my shoulder.

“Let’s go back to the station first.”

Dazed, I followed him.

Lin Shu’s body was brought back too.

He said they needed an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

I do not know how I got through that day.

I only remember Officer Sun taking me into an inner room afterward.

“We found something inside the deceased’s body that she left for you.”

I stared.

Inside her body?

Officer Sun connected a chip to the computer.

Soon, sound filled the room.

At first there was rustling, as though something were crawling through undergrowth, or hiding from something.

Breathing, heavy and rapid.

Then Lin Shu’s voice.

“Xiaoyu, if you’re hearing this recording, it means something has happened to me.”

“There’s a very important secret I need to tell you.”

The recording continued.

Her voice came in broken bursts, as though she were running.

“Xiaoyu… if one day you find someone has become me… you must be careful…”

Rustling mingled with the static.

“Jiang Yue, he…”

A dull thud interrupted her, as though she had tripped over something.

Then hurried footsteps, as if someone were chasing her.

“Shushu!”

I shouted instinctively, as though she could hear.

In the recording, Lin Shu said nothing more.

Only harsh panting, branches scraping against clothes, and footsteps drawing closer and closer.

Then a violent scraping sound, as though something had fallen into the undergrowth.

At last her voice became very faint, almost inaudible.

“Xiaoyu, you know what matters most to me… you know!”

The recording stopped abruptly.

A frightening silence filled the room.

Officer Sun pressed pause and looked at me.

“This chip was recovered from the deceased’s stomach contents. It appears to be the core component of a voice recorder.”

“Before she died… she broke the recorder and swallowed the chip.”

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood.

Swallowed it.

She had known she was going to die. Known she could not escape.

So she had swallowed the recorder.

Because she knew that as long as her body remained, as long as someone found her, the recording would not disappear.

She had used her own life to preserve those words for me.

“Miss Song.” Officer Sun handed me a cup of water. “Are you all right?”

My hands shook so badly that half the water spilled onto the table.

“When she said ‘what matters most,’ do you know what she meant?”

I did not answer.

I was trying to work it out too.

It was the second clue she had left me.

“Hide-and-seek” was the first.

“What matters most” was the second.

I closed my eyes and tried with all my strength to remember.

What had Lin Shu treasured most?

She had said it so many times.

Me. The friend who had been beside her for twenty-seven years.