The old man remained unmoved and turned to keep walking. Faced with someone so unwilling to be interviewed, I had no choice but to use my trump card and said, “The Village Chief, even if you refuse us today, more media will come to interview you tomorrow or in the future. Since you don’t want to be interviewed, we’ll just stay one night and leave first thing in the morning. We promise not to tell anyone we were here. Is that acceptable?”

The subtle threat seemed to work. The old man turned around, his pale eyes sweeping over us, and finally said to us expressionlessly, “Come in.”

I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but when he said this, I saw a hint of mockery at the corner of his mouth.

Chapter 11 Eye (3)

The house was filled with a faint earthy smell, the kind only found in homes that haven’t been lived in for a long time. Although it was so dark I couldn’t see anything, I could imagine there must be plenty of cobwebs on the ceiling and probably lots of cockroaches and rats inside.

Big Lee asked, “Sir, where’s the light switch?”

The Village Chief found a place to sit down. “We don’t have electricity here.”

I was speechless. It was hard to imagine that in this day and age, there were still such closed-off and backward villages.

“Then do you have any candles?” Big Lee said, and with a “click,” lit his lighter, a bright flame leaping out.

“Stop!” The Village Chief suddenly grabbed something nearby and hurled it at Big Lee, shouting emotionally, “Put that thing away!”

The object grazed Big Lee’s ear and hit the ground with a crisp sound—it was a large enamel mug, its surface porcelain all chipped off, looking quite old.

We were all stunned. Just for a lighter, he’d throw something at someone? Big Lee snapped the lighter shut and muttered under his breath, still shaken, “What the hell is wrong with him?”

I didn’t know if the old man had some strange quirk, so I asked if we could use a flashlight. This time, he didn’t object.

By the light of the flashlight, I could roughly make out the layout of the room. The only things in decent condition were the stove and the dining table with chairs. There was a pile of stuff in the corner, and a door on each side. I touched the table—there was a thick layer of dust on it.

This place was very strange. I really didn’t want to wait until morning, so I tried to get The Village Chief to talk. “Sir, I heard that people in our village all have really good eyesight?”

“Nonsense!” The Village Chief said. “Take me, for example—I’ve had cataracts for years, I can barely see anymore.”

Before I could say anything else, he stood up and said, “There’s a bed in the room on the right. You can stay here for the night.” The Village Chief stood up and walked into the room on the left, pausing at the door to emphasize, “Leave first thing in the morning.”

The room on the right had only a large kang bed with two quilts on it. Who knows how long the sheets and quilts had been there—when I touched them, they felt sticky and greasy, and there were even lots of tangled cobwebs.

Staring at the bed for a while, Big Lee blurted out, “Is this place for people or for ghosts?”

We moved the quilts aside, wiped the dust off the kang, and huddled in the corner without taking off our clothes.

“What do you think?” Big Lee asked. “Are we really leaving first thing in the morning?”

I shook my head. “This village is too strange. The Village Chief is so secretive—he’s definitely hiding something. Tomorrow morning, let’s ask someone else.”

Big Lee nodded. “I think so too. Damn, when I get back tomorrow, my son will definitely be mad at me again. If I don’t get some good material, it’ll be a huge loss.”

Nights in the mountains are pretty chilly, but the fatigue from the long trip soon had us falling asleep.

I dreamed again that someone was putting eye drops in my eyes.

“Drip!”

The medicine landed on my eyelid.

“Drip!”

The medicine landed on my hand.

My eyes itched like crazy, but as if to mess with me, the eye drops just wouldn’t go into my eyes.

I started to panic, feeling like my eyes were about to explode from the itch, and I was so angry I almost wanted to scream.

“Drip!”

The sensation was so real that I suddenly woke up. At the same time, a huge drop of water hit my face.

It was raining outside, the crisp sound of rain coming from the window. Several places in the house were leaking, rainwater pattering onto the floor, which was already covered with a layer of water. The dust on the kang had mixed with the raindrops to form mud.

“What the hell?” Big Lee woke up too. “How are we supposed to stay in this house?”

The rain outside was getting heavier, thunder and lightning roaring outside the house. The roof was like a broken umbrella full of holes, and the leaking rain had formed straight streams.

I sighed. “Forget it, let’s go sleep in the car. I’ll go tell The Village Chief.” With that, I jumped off the kang, shielding my head from the dripping rain, and pushed open the door to The Village Chief’s room.

The half-rotten door creaked loudly. I could vaguely see someone lying on the kang inside.

“The Village Chief? The Village Chief?”

I called out a few times, but there was no response, so I quietly walked up to his bed. The leaking in this room was no better than ours—the water on the kang was already flowing down, but the person on the bed didn’t move at all.

How could anyone sleep through this? I thought, a bit impressed.