Volume One: New Rain Chapter Twelve: The Riddle Solver

Tao Yao had left, and Aunt Long returned to her own house to cook dinner.

Inside and outside the house, only the monotonous sound of Uncle Jian hammering iron remained, each strike echoing with a steady rhythm, as if each blow landed on Ming Ke’s heart.

Ming Ke pushed open the half-closed door of the neighboring room and walked in, silently curling up with his knees to his chest in the darkness by the door, watching his uncle at the hearth forging iron.

The fire in the furnace blazed brightly, casting even deeper shadows in the corners. His uncle sat in a wheelchair, seemingly unaware of Ming Ke’s arrival, continuing to wield the heavy hammer with his one remaining hand, striking the iron block before him again and again.

Each blow rang with the same strength, the same tone, the same interval.

It seemed that in these ten years, his uncle had not changed in the slightest.

Ming Ke hugged his knees tighter, burying his head deep between them.

“Uncle, your hammering is getting on my nerves,” he muttered gloomily.

“It’s your own nerves, not my hammering,” Uncle Jian replied, eyes fixed unwaveringly on the iron block as he continued to strike.

“Yes, it’s my own nerves. But the truth is, it’s not the teacher who won’t let me go to school, it’s you, isn’t it?” Ming Ke raised his head and asked his uncle.

He did not blame him, for he was the one Ming Ke trusted most. If even he could not be trusted, then who else was left? He only wanted an answer—he was tired of days spent in confusion and ignorance, not knowing where he came from or where he stood, or when it would all end.

“Yes,” Uncle Jian replied, his voice as flat as the ringing of the hammer.

“Why?” Ming Ke asked.

“You nearly died.”

A harsh, grating sound split the air as Uncle Jian’s hammer for the first time missed its mark, striking sparks from the iron with a screech.

“Heh, I nearly died,” Ming Ke let out a cold, bitter laugh amid the jarring sound.

“According to you all, wasn’t it an accident? The fog rose in the forest, and I, showing off and stubborn, carried Qiao Qiao on my back, slipped and fell into the mountain stream, and was swept into the forbidden sacred mountain by the river. It wasn’t until the night of my fifteenth birthday that the teacher found and brought us back.”

“As for the tiger I spoke of, the dried corpse Qiao Qiao mentioned, the monster bird—it was all just two feverish, frightened children scaring themselves after being soaked in the water for so long.”

“Isn’t that what you say? If it was all just an accident, why shouldn’t I go back to school?”

“That’s what they say, not what I say,” Uncle Jian replied after a pause, then resumed his hammering, the steady rhythm returning.

“Uncle, someone really tried to kill me,” Ming Ke said earnestly, his eyes fixed on his uncle.

“That day, I really did encounter a white tiger, and it was far too strange. The moment it entered the river, it seemed to melt away as if it had never existed. I doubt it was ever a real tiger from the forest.”

“And while everyone else just got lost in a simple maze, Qiao Qiao and I found ourselves trapped in a terrifying illusion. Something is very wrong.”

“Uncle.”

“I know,” Uncle Jian replied, just as monotonously as his hammering.

Ming Ke realized that all his agitation and earnest words had been answered with only those three calm syllables. Suddenly, he did not know if anything he said mattered.

He fell silent.

Once more, only the unchanging rhythm of iron striking iron filled the house.

Strike after strike.

“Uncle, you know everything, so why do you tell me nothing?” Ming Ke buried his head in his arms again, his voice muffled, as if drawn from a soul long suppressed.

“I could choose to tell you, but I don’t want to lie. If you want, I can give you a comforting lie, one that would put your mind at ease.”

“That’s how most people in this town live. Their lives are simpler—they come up with their own lies.”

To Ming Ke’s surprise, Uncle Jian stopped hammering. He turned to look at him, a strange light flickering in his dark, calm eyes that Ming Ke could not understand.

“Then why not tell me the truth?” Ming Ke lifted his head, gazing seriously at his uncle.

“The time’s not right. And it’s not up to me, but up to you.”

“You aren’t yet ready, in heart or mind, to bear the truth,” Uncle Jian said.

“Then what must I do to earn the right to know?” Ming Ke’s eyes shone brightly. All these years, though his uncle had never lied to him, he had always kept silent. This was the first time he sensed his uncle’s willingness to reveal the secrets that had tormented him for so long.

“Prove yourself. I will give you a few targets, and methods to train for each. If you achieve them, I will tell you whatever answer you wish to know.”

“But you must understand—training will be harder than you imagine.”

“And the secrets that have been sealed away often carry pain too great to bear.”

He looked up at Ming Ke, only to find the boy sitting there, stunned. His eyes gleamed in the reflection of the fire, but he did not move.

He thought Ming Ke was hesitating. After all, who would willingly seek out secrets destined to bring pain?

But perhaps that was for the best. When the truth was revealed, the sudden pain would be brief—he might become extreme for a time, but in this world, perhaps a simpler life would follow.

Even so, he could not help but feel a little disappointed.

“Lunch is ready!” Aunt Long’s voice called from the courtyard, breaking the silence.

“Once the training begins, you cannot stop until you reach your goals. Think it over today,” Uncle Jian said, slowly wheeling himself toward the door.

“Alright,” Ming Ke replied, lowering his head as he rose, moving behind his uncle’s wheelchair to push him into the courtyard.

He was the first to finish lunch, and after telling Uncle Long and Aunt Long that he was heading out, he slipped out of the courtyard.

He ran along the stone-paved street of the small town, his steps light as the wind.

Inside him surged a mixture of emotions he could not quite name—excitement, anxiety, a faint fear, and a wild, inexplicable yearning.

A longing that made him want to run and chase after it with all his might.

But there was no trace of hesitation—none of the doubt Uncle Jian had imagined. Strangely enough, even Ming Ke did not quite understand it himself, but the moment he heard his uncle’s words, he knew he would choose to set out on the path to unravel the mystery.

Though that path made him uneasy and afraid, he was still thrilled, eager, and full of hope.

Like a moth destined for the flame.

He ran until he stopped, feeling as if his heart was overflowing with words that needed to be spoken.

Then he thought of that girl, tilting her head earnestly in the firelight, quietly listening to him.

Qiao Qiao.

He turned and ran in another direction.

It was his third day back in town.

That so-called “accident” that still left him uneasy whenever he recalled it had, on the surface, left him unchanged and unscathed.

Just like the peaceful little town at that moment—outwardly calm and harmonious as ever. But in truth, two families had disappeared without a trace.

And though he appeared unharmed, the reckless way he had treated the strange illness he’d had since childhood had only made it worse and more dangerous.

When he ran now, he could feel himself faster and stronger than before.

This was the gift—and curse—left by that mysterious illness.

But there were other changes too: in the two days since he woke, he had felt a constant, burning heat in his body, and a hunger like a black hole gnawing at his gut.

At lunch with Aunt Long, he had barely dared to eat anything.

For three days, he had waited for the feverish restlessness to subside, learning to adapt to the new, smaller amounts of food, and the sharper, more terrible hunger. But what about her? What had she been doing?

Why hadn’t she come to see him? Not even a message.

He ran to the dye works on the edge of the village, but when he reached the vermilion-painted gates, he hesitated, unable to summon the courage to knock.

The dye works was the largest house in the town, aside from the village chief’s house and the school. It had the highest walls, the heaviest doors, and the least presence.

The vermilion doors were always shut tight day and night, except for the rare moments someone came or went, sealing off all prying eyes.

Most people in town only knew that three lived inside: a woman, a middle-aged man, and a little girl.

Neighbors sometimes heard faint quarrels through the thick doors, but it seemed that family kept everything—good and bad—locked away.

Ming Ke lingered before the door, unable to summon the courage to knock. The heavy door felt like a boundary, shutting out all contact and dividing the world inside from the world outside.

It was as if knocking on that door might disturb another world—a world hostile and wary of outsiders.

Just as Ming Ke hesitated, considering whether he should go find Tao Yao instead, the heavy door creaked open a crack.

A middle-aged woman in plain clothes, face sallow and drawn, stepped out sideways, cradling a bundle from which bright scraps of dyed cloth peeked.

She looked up and was startled to see Ming Ke standing at her door, her dull, lifeless eyes flickering briefly, her sallow face betraying coldness and indifference.

“Whose child are you? What are you doing here?”

Ming Ke was startled by her sudden appearance, and her cold, distant manner made him stammer nervously.

“Aun…Auntie, hello, I’m here to see Qiao Qiao.”

The woman looked him up and down, her gaze cold and expressionless. “You’re Ming Ke?”

“Yes…yes, Auntie, you know me?” Ming Ke asked in surprise, not expecting the reclusive family of the dye works to know his name.

“Heh, she only knows you, that’s all.”

“Come in.”

Her face was cold, with a hint of loathing, but she pushed the door further open, motioning Ming Ke inside.

“That jinxed brat has been crying for days to see you, driving us all mad. See her and make it quick.”

Her sallow face wore an open, unkind impatience.