The next day, as soon as Xue Xiaolu pushed open the hospital room's door, she saw an empty room, without a shadow of a human figure. The curtain rustled, blown to one side by the breeze coming in through the open window. The covers were pushed aside and long cold.
Xue Xiaolu thought, That's done it! She turned and ran out to find Lu Qingbai.
Lu Qingbai was sitting in his office drinking tea. The unfortunate thing was, Hu Bugui was also there. Xue Xiaolu's expression immediately became visibly pained. She took a deep breath and quietly said, "Reporting—we've lost them."
Lu Qingbai picked up a folder and smacked her on the forehead. "What kind of report is that? Who's lost?"
Xue Xiaolu swallowed and looked cautiously at Hu Bugui. "Reporting to the captain—he...he's gone."
Listening to her evasive speech, Hu Bugui was at first frowning. At this point, he suddenly realized with a start who she was talking about. He pushed aside Lu Qingbai, who was in his way, and charged out.
Lu Qingbai nearly burned himself with the hot tea he was holding. "Hey! What are you doing?"
Then he turned to Xue Xiaolu. "Is he really gone?"
Xue Xiaolu gesticulated: "Really! The window guard rails were pulled into a hole this wide."
Lu Qingbai listened expressionlessly, feeling that his back molars were beginning to ache. Xue Xiaolu asked, "Dr. Lu, is there anything on him we can use to track him?"
Lu Qingbai's back molars ached even more. He sucked in a breath and shook his head. "The blocker self-destructed, the communicator was removed by that blue seal, and the shock ring broke when Teacher Cheng activated his second energy crystal. I said we should secretly plant something on him, and Chief Hu overheard—he looked like he wanted to eat me alive. Would you dare to bring that on yourself?"
Xue Xiaolu shook her head like a rattle-drum.
Lu Qingbai sighed. "Come, let's go look."
They went one after another towards the in-patient department. From far away, they saw Hu Bugui leaning on the doorframe of Su Qing's hospital room, standing there staring blankly.
Xue Xiaolu couldn't quite bear it. She whispered, "Look at Captain Hu's expression."
Lu Qingbai was in complete agreement: "As though his parents had died."
Xue Xiaolu shut her mouth, profoundly understanding that nothing good would come out of her superior's mouth.
She had heard others describe what had happened. With her powerful imagination, in her eyes, Hu Bugui simply became a wronged husband subjected to unspeakable suffering through the toying of the will of heaven, finally abandoned by the one he loved. He gave off an air of suffering like "contemplating the vastness of the universe, I weep in my lonely sorrow1"—he was so melancholy he could be turned into a song.
Lu Qingbai took a glance at her imbecilic features and knew that this young lady was having another attack. So he ignored her and walked right over to say to Hu Bugui, "What do we do? Send people to search?"
Hu Bugui nodded and looked at Lu Qingbai with a grave expression. "Remember that information about the double core must be kept strictly confidential. Nothing can leak out."
Lu Qingbai raised his eyebrows. "Captain Hu, that isn't what General Xiong said. The higher authorities are very concerned about this matter. From him, we're likely to be able to find a direction for human evolution, and also, given his physical condition, if he's well trained, he'll be a great help if he joins us. You don't know what kind of special abilities the double core system will give him. Also..."
"Enough," Hu Bugui interrupted him. "Seal the information, tell the searchers to be quiet about it, and when they find him...if he doesn't want to come back, then forget it. Don't disturb him."
"Captain Hu..." Lu Qingbai wanted to say something else, but he was again interrupted by Hu Bugui.
"I have the final say on this. If the higher authorities are dissatisfied, they can take disciplinary action against me."
Then he dejectedly turned and left. Lu Qingbai took a deep breath. "Bleh, Hu the stubborn donkey."
Meanwhile, that very night, Su Qing wrapped Tu Tutu tightly in the soldier's coat. The kid had tired himself out and lay in his arms dozing. At daybreak, he squeezed into a freight truck with the child—the rumor in the jianghu was that the country had a policy during this time that trucks that specialized in delivering vegetables wouldn't pay tolls, so the great working people had thought of a trick: openly carrying vegetables on the aboveboard path while secretly transporting big porkers on the underground.
Su Qing stealthily bent a metal cage's bars and squeezed into the "underground" along with Tu Tutu. Over their heads was a rag blocking out the sky, and in their noses were all kinds of strange smells. They were surrounded by several large pigs and leaning against onions, radishes, and spinach. It was very rustic.
Though their escape had been leisurely, they were currently in the condition of having nothing but the shirts on their backs, belonging to the absolute most unpropertied proletariat.
If Su Qing had gone on his own, everything would have been fine. He could easily have eaten for himself and kept from starving without spending. But he also had the little encumbrance of Tu Tutu. The little encumbrance had to eat, had to play, had to sleep for a long time every day, or else he wouldn't grow up tall. He also had to go to school and study, but without a residence registration booklet or an ID, what school would take him?
When Su Qing attempted to discuss this problem with Tu Tutu, Division Commander Tu was just teasing the pigs, squatting among them—for Su Qing, the space in the truck wasn't big enough to turn around in, but for Tu Tutu, it could just about amount to a little playground. He was indifferent; wrinkling his nose, he dusted his butt and stood up, smacked a pig on the nose, then said, "Go to school? You can go. I'm not going."
Su Qing said, "None of your nonsense. For me to go, they would have to want me."
Tu Tutu concentrated his gaze on his guardian and thought he was making a big deal out of nothing. Like a little grown-up, he said, "It costs lots of money to go to school. I don't have money. Do you have money?"
This sentence struck Su Qing in his weak spot. He was kept silent for a long moment. He reached out to pluck a vegetable leaf from Tu Tutu's hair and waved a hand, feigning carelessness. "There's no need for you to worry about that. I'll think of a way. Tell me, before you came, what grade were you in?"
Tu Tutu followed suit, also waving a hand with sophisticated self-importance. "There's no need for you to worry about that."
Steam nearly came out of Su Qing's head from anger. Then Tu Tutu suddenly put one hand on his waist and pinched the other hand's fingers in a delicate gesture. Pointing to the pig in front of him, which was about the same height he was, he put on a sharp voice and said in an affected, babyish way, "You little money-burning whelp. Tell me how it is. Your old mother gives you food and drink, and keeps on good terms with your teachers to the tune of four or five hundred yuan each time. I take you to make-up classes, and I find you tutors. So you don't get tired of your tutors, I get you three, one each for language, math, and English. And you test last in your class. What does your old mother owe you from a past lifetime, you little money sink?"
Su Qing was simply dumbfounded. Tu Tutu turned, raising his bowl cut head, and blinked his big eyes at Su Qing. "See, that's what my mom said."
Su Qing gave a dry cough and warned himself to be sure to speak and act cautiously. This little thing's imitation skills were appalling.
Tu Tutu seriously said, "Uncle Annoying, as far as going to school is concerned, I know a song."
Su Qing dully asked, "What song?"
Tu Tutu sang: "The sun is shining brightly, the flowers are smiling at me. The little bird says, So early, so early, why is there a pack of dynamite on your back? I'm going to blow up my school...2"
The pigs next to him began to grunt as though providing musical accompaniment.
Su Qing was utterly speechless. He felt that his heart was full of bitter tears. It was really inexpressible.
Just then, the truck stopped. Su Qing made a shushing gesture towards Tu Tutu and pulled the child over. He squatted down himself, hiding behind a pig. Another pig shuffled its head over and opened its two black bean-like little eyes wide, looking curiously at the two people. But it was still shuffling forward, so Su Qing had to free up a hand to block the pig's nose in order to maintain a certain distance from this warm-hearted beast.
There were voices outside. Su Qing's excellent hearing let him understand in a moment—this old smuggler turned out to be a hothead. His first time on the road, and never mind plain smuggling, he was brazenly smuggling living things. Was he totally senseless?
Su Qing heard the inspector outside shouting angrily: "Vegetables? Bullshit! I heard something calling from inside. Are you transporting ginseng? Does it have legs? Can it grunt? How stupid do you think I am?"
As he spoke, he tore away a corner of the cloth outside. Su Qing held Tu Tutu's head down—the pigs had been revealed; better for the people not to be revealed, too.
The inspector stuck his hand into the cage, bristling with rage. He grabbed a pig's ear and began to roar: "Is this a vegetable?"
Su Qing drew his neck in at the howling. Just then, a low, deep masculine voice sounded in his ear: "Su Qing, it's me, I think you can hear me."
Su Qing, who had been laughing into his sleeve while cheerfully watching the fun, froze. He slowly freed up one hand and touched his sole remaining earring... It turned out that Captain Hu had at some point switched out that last one, as well. This was a communicator. It had a locating function that could even break through Utopia's protective net. No matter where he went, this magical item could follow his tracks...
Su Qing felt as if his heart had been lowered into icy water. He immediately reached out to remove the false earring. As if he knew something, Hu Bugui quickly said, "No, don't throw it away, listen to me. This one is different from the one you had before. It doesn't have a locating function, or a projection function, or a detection function. I can only use it to talk to you. If you don't press the little button on it, I won't even be able to hear you. It...it really is just an ordinary communicator."
Su Qing was silent. He could hear Hu Bugui's slightly agitated breathing. After a long moment, Hu Bugui said, "Just...trust me this once."
As he said this, his tone was unusually soft, almost entreating. It even made you think there was a hidden frailty in his words.
Hu Bugui continued: "I put it on you in secret, the others don't know. Don't take it off. In case...in case anything happens later, if you need me, I'll always be here."
Su Qing watched out of the corner of his eye as the unlucky idiot driver was hauled off to be fined by the enraged inspector. In trepidation, he thought, "How could I possibly dare to trouble you? You're a great personage, protecting our homes and defending our country. Why would you be looking after the trifles of a little commoner like me every day?"
He carefully lifted aside a bit of the rag covering the cage. He gestured at Tu Tutu, found the place where he had bent the bars to squeeze in, and hopped off their free ride. Upon seeing this, the pigs fell over each other to imitate them, all of them squeezing towards the opening. Sadly, the first one was too stout in figure and got stuck there, forming a natural barrier. The ones after it naturally also came to grief.
There was silence from Hu Bugui. Su Qing didn't know what he was thinking, but in the end he didn't throw the communicator away. He took Tu Tutu to a highway, tossed aside the coat smelling of decaying vegetables, made up a story that was full of holes that went "I took my son back to my home town and the child's mother got in an accident first thing this morning, so I ran out in a panic without having time to take anything." Relying on his own attractive and harmless looks and the tears he pinched out of Tu Tutu, he bluffed his way from one hitched ride to another, arriving in B City. On the way he acquired cookies, drinks, and a big bun from a compassionate lady, as well as three red Grandpa Maos from a kind couple taking a self-guided tour.
B City was his home—his true home, with the house he had lived in as a child, and his dad.
Translator's Note
1From 登幽州台歌/"Song of Climbing the You Zhou Building" by Tang Dynasty poet Chen Zi'ang 陈子昂. Original text: 念天地之悠悠，独怆然而涕下.
2A very common corruption of a going to school song (it's originally a backpack on the singer's back, but you know kids...). Lyrics: 太阳当空照 / 花儿对我笑 /小鸟说早早早 /你为什么背上炸药包 / 我去上学校.