In the remote village of Chongzuo, Guangxi, deep in the mountains at the very edge of civilization, the sun was setting, and the sky glowed with a warm golden hue.
Song Yu stood on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the golden hour of sunset to photograph the misty mountains in the distance.
The local guide trailing at the rear spotted her and whistled a reminder. “Hurry up—it’s getting dark.”
Guide Wang Shu was a villager from the foot-of-the-mountain settlement, a middle-aged man in his forties with skin bronzed from years of fieldwork, deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and across his forehead, and hands thick with calluses—a clear sign of a hardworking life.
For the past stretch, Wang Shu had been leading the expedition team into the mountains each day, handling all the dirty, grueling work without a single complaint.
Song Yu smiled at him, switched off her camera, quickened her pace, and caught up with the group descending the trail.
This time, the Sociology Research Institute’s expedition into the mountains was investigating a tribe that had remained hidden for many years. The tribe’s culture differed vastly from existing ethnic traditions, their way of life almost that of primitive people.
The project had drawn attention from all quarters, with even high-level confidential leaders embedded in the expedition team.
Song Yu soon caught up to the group ahead, encountering Zhao Xinxin, who was lugging the camera, and institute director Li Zhen.
Zhao Xinxin clutched a water cup, dry-heaving as he rinsed his mouth, his face ashen.
“Still not over it?” Song Yu stepped over the patch of ground he’d vomited on.
Zhao Xinxin waved a hand in agony.
During today’s tribal survey, they’d stumbled upon the indigenous people processing food—and not just any food, but rats.
Zhao Xinxin had been in charge of filming, capturing every frame. Now, just replaying those sounds and images in his mind, he couldn’t hold it together.
Li Zhen took one look at him and chuckled, patting his back as if it were nothing new.
“Don’t think of them as rats—think of them as regular meat,” Li Zhen consoled.
The word “rat” twice over made Zhao Xinxin’s scalp crawl. “Urp—”
“Don’t—don’t say that word.” His throat was raw from retching.
Song Yu stepped back discreetly. Seeing his cup was empty, she handed him the unopened bottle of mineral water from her pocket.
Li Zhen laughed even harder. “Hahaha, alright, alright—no more mentions. It’s normal not to be used to it at first.”
He turned to Song Yu. “You okay?”
Song Yu shook her head. “I’m alright. Maybe I’ve just seen too much.”
Back in the rainforest, she’d often watched Takwar and the others skin monkeys—the skinned monkeys looked eerily like human infants.
She hadn’t been used to it at first, but eventually she came to understand. What seemed horrifying and disgusting to her was just learned perception from her own society; to these indigenous people, it was simply survival food.
“Oh right, almost forgot—you spent time in the Amazon before.” Li Zhen recalled. “Too bad Professor Pei couldn’t make it back; he could’ve chatted with you more.”
This research project hadn’t originally been under Li Zhen’s lead. The designated team leader—a professor—was still unreachable in the Amazon Rainforest, so Li Zhen had stepped in temporarily.
Once Song Yu heard about it, she figured a disappearance was serious and offered to tap her local contacts there to help search. But Li Zhen stayed calm, explaining that anthropologists doing fieldwork often ventured into forests and wastelands—going off-grid was routine.
From Li Zhen’s demeanor, it was clear he had immense trust in the scholar’s capabilities and wasn’t overly concerned.
After two hours on the mountain trail—with Zhao Xinxin vomiting the whole way—they finally reached the village, where he started to recover.
The expedition team was billeted in the village, with the leaders staying in the Village Committee’s three-story earthen building.
Dinner was served al fresco on the open ground outside the Village Committee: two round tables, buffet-style, first-come-first-served for those who’d made it down the mountain.
Zhao Xinxin had no appetite and went straight to collect his phone from the staff.
With high-level confidential leaders on the expedition, all support staff had to surrender their phones. Each evening after work, there were five minutes to use one—for checking in with family.
Zhao Xinxin’s wife was four months pregnant, so he used every second of those five minutes calling her.
Song Yu was the only one who didn’t claim a phone or make a call. She had no one to check in with, and the one person she wanted to reach couldn’t pick up anyway.
She touched the Old Man Puppet in her pocket, planning to head back to the Brazil Amazon once she wrapped this film.
The village went dark by four or five in the evening, with no entertainment to speak of, making the nights feel endlessly long.
Empty houses were scarce, so the expedition team was scattered among villagers’ homes. Song Yu and Zhao Xinxin were staying with a solitary old man.
The old man lived with his grandson and turned in early. Zhao Xinxin had roped some other team members into cards, grabbing a deck and flashlight before heading next door. With the team off tomorrow—no mountain trek—they could play late.
Around nine, a rain started.
Mountain rain wasn’t like city downpours from clouds; it was more like moisture condensing in the air until it burst forth—heavy, sudden, and quick to pass.
The wind flung open the wooden window, letting rain splatter in. The weathered, peeling wooden table was soaked over half its surface.
Song Yu slept fitfully and bolted awake at a loud “clang.”
She reached for the bedside lamp cord. The bare white bulb overhead flickered on, bathing the room in a dim yellow glow.
The sudden light made her squint. Her eyes darted toward the sound: the Old Man Puppet, once on the table, had been knocked over by the wind and rolled onto the cement floor.
She threw off the covers, padded barefoot across the room, scooped it up, and inspected it over and over.
The cement was unyielding, the aged wood soft and brittle—a corner of the puppet had chipped, dented inward.
Song Yu ran her fingertip over the spot, then found she couldn’t sleep anymore.
The rain outside had stopped ages ago, leaving the night air cooler, laced with chill gusts.
Village houses huddled close; she could still hear the rowdy card game next door. Clutching the puppet, Song Yu shrugged on her jacket, rolled up the script she’d revised countless times, tucked it in her pocket, and stepped out.
By moonlight, she wandered aimlessly, eventually drifting to the Village Committee’s building—the only one with lights blazing at the entrance.
In the yard stood a square bamboo table for four, set with a complete tea service of exquisite celadon porcelain. A charcoal brazier warmed a pot of water, bubbling steadily.
Song Yu glanced around—no one in sight. She figured some leader must’ve had a sudden whim for tea and stepped away mid-brew.
The team’s schedule hadn’t overlapped much with the leaders’. The expedition focused on fieldwork deep in the tribal mountains, while the Village Committee residents spent their days in meetings with the village head and locals, hashing out poverty alleviation plans.
Only Li Zhen swung by each evening for a debrief.
So while Song Yu knew heavy hitters were quartered there, she’d barely glimpsed them. She hesitated, not wanting to intrude, and turned to leave.
“Why come all this way just to turn around?” came an elderly yet hearty voice.
Song Yu froze, then looked up toward the sound. A figure was descending from the second-floor corridor.
The man wore a crisp Zhongshan suit in the old-fashioned style, his hair gray and thinning but impeccably groomed.
His posture was ramrod straight, his build well-maintained—no paunch, no frailty of age. On the contrary, he was spry and alert. Though wrinkles lined his face, it was easy to imagine he’d been strikingly handsome in his youth.
Spotting Song Yu, his expression turned kindly and approachable, utterly devoid of menace.
Pei Zhenshan’s gaze drifted downward to the puppet in her hand; a faint glint flickered in his otherwise inscrutable eyes.
“Come, have a cup of tea,” he said.
“…” For reasons she couldn’t pinpoint, Song Yu obeyed the elegant elder’s subconscious pull, stepping forward to sit at the bamboo table.
Pei Zhenshan lifted the steaming kettle and began brewing tea at an unhurried pace, every gesture radiating the poise of time-tempered maturity.
He poured a cup for Song Yu.
She murmured her thanks, feeling a touch constrained amid his effortless composure.
She set the puppet on the table, cradled the teacup in both hands, and took a small sip.
The second steeping was mellow—not too strong, with an initial astringent bitterness that bloomed into subtle sweetness.
Pei Zhenshan eyed the puppet. “May I take a look?”
Song Yu nodded.
He picked it up, gazing into the old man’s hollow eyes, his expression softening.
He turned it over, noting the dent on the foot. “When did this happen?”
“Tonight—the wind knocked it off the table onto the floor.”
Pei Zhenshan smiled. “No wonder. I’d wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before.”
Song Yu blinked in surprise, tilting her head. “You’ve seen this puppet before?”
Pei Zhenshan set it back in front of her. “This Little Old Man used to live in my home.”
His phrasing was distinctive—not that the puppet belonged to him, but that it had resided there, as if he’d merely provided lodging for a living being.
Song Yu stared at the elder in astonishment, quickly piecing together his identity. She hadn’t expected to encounter Mr. Pei here.
She scratched her head sheepishly. “Sorry, I didn’t take good care of it.”
Pei Zhenshan refilled her teacup. “Do you know the legend of the Little Old Man Puppet?”
Song Yu shook her head.
“In Native American mythology, he’s a god who descended to the mortal world. While wandering among humans, he suffered abuse at their hands, so he unleashed punishment upon humanity. Only the one family that offered him shelter escaped the catastrophe.”
“…” After Pei Zhenshan finished the tale, Song Yu felt even more embarrassed. Hadn’t she mistreated the Little Old Man Puppet? She’d even knocked its foot clean off. Her fingertip rubbed absently against the white jade teacup, her small fidgeting betraying a twinge of guilt and unease.
Pei Zhenshan caught the complicated look on the young woman’s face and chuckled softly. “Just teasing you. Don’t take it to heart.”
“I heard the Little Old Man Puppet fetched a high price at a charity gala,” he added. “The proceeds went to help a lot of down-and-out old folks, so I doubt the god holds it against you.” Pei Zhenshan spoke with refined poise, his words easy and pleasant on the ear.
Song Yu gradually relaxed, a smile breaking through. “That’s a relief.”
They shared two more cups of tea before Pei Zhenshan glanced at his watch. “It’s late. What brings you out here?”
Song Yu fished the script from her pocket. “I wanted a quiet spot to revise this. Am I disturbing your rest? I can head out if you like.”
Pei Zhenshan waved it off. “Not at all. Make yourself at home.”
Song Yu’s script was a loose stack of printed A4 pages, unbound and shuffled.
Pei Zhenshan gave her a questioning look—may I?—polite as ever.
She shrugged to show it was fine.
And so they worked: she annotated a page and set it aside; he read a page.
Song Yu had pored over the script so many times that she flew through it. Pei Zhenshan kept pace, skimming ten lines at a glance.
He slipped a pair of gold-rimmed glasses from the breast pocket of his Zhongshan suit and settled them on his nose, peering intently.
Song Yu glimpsed him from the corner of her eye and froze. For some reason, his profile evoked the image of someone else entirely.
She stared blankly for a long moment before shaking it off.
Song Yu gazed at the blocky characters on the white paper, then shook her head in helpless resignation.
When she reached the final page, she eyed the original ending: the protagonist from an ancient tribe, battered by clashes with the civilized world, ultimately chooses to remain.
She circled it with a black marker and slashed a bold X through the block. Handwriting such a major rewrite was too slow; she’d type it up on the computer later.
Pei Zhenshan reached the end as well. “The original ending was solid. Why change it?”
Song Yu picked up the wooden doll and toyed with it in her hands. “Maybe because I want to cross to the other side myself.” Her own desires had seeped into the character’s choices.
Pei Zhenshan regarded the young woman across from him, his gaze lingering a few seconds longer.
The kettle bubbled as fresh water came to a boil.
He pulled his eyes away and lifted it from the flame.
“People always dream of escape when life deals them setbacks,” he said. “But when things go smoothly, they cling to the status quo.”
He paused. “Truth is, more often than not, you don’t get to pick a side just because you want to.”
His voice was low and deliberate, like fine vintage wine distilled from years of hard-earned wisdom.
Song Yu had little experience with elders; her family bonds were thin and distant. This was the first time she’d heard life lessons from someone older.
Not stern lecturing, but gentle sharing drawn from lived experience—wisdom tempered by time.
The mountains were bitterly cold, but the bamboo table, crackling stove fire, and steaming tea wrapped them in cozy warmth.
That night, despite the generational gap, they talked late into the hours.
The next day, when Song Yu sought out Pei Zhenshan to share her revisions, staff at the Village Committee told her he’d departed in a hurry due to unforeseen circumstances.
She later pieced it together from the sidelines: Pei Zhenshan had come to Guangxi at the invitation of some leaders to study the region’s indigenous cultures. Li Zhen’s daily briefings at the Village Committee had been meant mainly for his ears.
Half a month later, the fieldwork wrapped up. Everyone reclaimed their phones and piled into vans to leave the village.
The van twisted along the serpentine mountain roads, cell signal flickering in and out.
Carsickness gripped Song Yu. Slumped in the back seat, she drifted in a hazy half-sleep, her mind drifting back to that vast green expanse of rainforest, the setting sun bleeding crimson across the sky.
Suddenly, Li Zhen—who never cursed—muttered, “Holy shit.”
“What’s wrong?” someone asked.
He straightened in the passenger seat, face grim as he read the news headline on his phone:
“Amazon Rainforest Devastated by Once-in-a-Century Fire, Over 800,000 Hectares Ablaze.”