Chapter 4
Grain Rain season, dusk settling in, the evening air was cool and silky.
Farther east of the industrial park on Heliang’s eastern outskirts lay scattered farmland that had gone undeveloped for a decade. It was the tail end of the urban expansion wave—like rolling tides crashing onshore, the surge had lost momentum by the time it reached here. People from both city and countryside mingled in this region, officially designated the Xinliang Subdistrict.
Now, the green farmland had been peeled back, revealing raw yellow-brown earth below. At the Wanhui City construction site, the exposed soil was neatly partitioned along compass lines, with the southwest corner as a coordinate origin. Each test unit measured five meters by five, and one-meter balks were left in between on the east and north edges. All around, faint yet orderly noises of digging and brushing rose from the trenches.
A breeze, freed from the cramped city streets, paused as if startled by the rouge-tinted horizon out here in the open outskirts, then dispersed gently across the fields. Along the fringes of the site, half-cleared weeds trembled softly, while evening primroses unfurled their petals in silence.
In Trench T7, Professor Li was drawing the cross-sectional profile of its walls. He was nearly two meters below ground level, and as twilight deepened, the light grew too dim for precision. Rubbing his eyes, he tucked his board and pencils into a plastic pouch, planning to climb out. Only then did he notice his healing shoulder itch again—fresh scabs reminding him of the injury. Resisting the urge to scratch, he hauled himself up. His phone buzzed in his pocket—a message.
It was from Guo Jinni, who hadn’t messaged him in ages. Curious, Li opened it.
She sent a photo of Yao Jiang wearing a pair of yellow tiger-ear headbands, giving the camera a forced smile. He looked a bit resigned. Li’s expression lowered. Three text messages followed in quick succession:
Danni: “Mr. Yao said he knows you.”
Danni: “He even looked you up.”
Danni: “Watch yourself. These big bosses…”
Li switched chats, found Yao Jiang in his contacts, and typed a note: “Miss Guo is straightforward, but she has no sense of boundaries or caution. Mr. Yao, I ask for your patience.”
Only then did he reply to her: “You took him to the zoo again?”
She had a whole philosophy of testing potential suitors by meeting them at a zoo—something about seeing their ‘attitude and moral compass.’ Li thought the attitude part was fair enough, though he wasn’t sure about the moral philosophy.
Danni: “I’m Ni—Mother of Dragons! All these critters are my Sphinxes!”
He chuckled. She was mixing Western fantasy with Greek myth. Because her name had that ancient beast character “ni”, she liked to show it off, tying it to her personal “zoo” theories.
Xing: “So what riddle did your Sphinx unravel this time?”
Danni: “[Voice Message 47 seconds].”
Li tapped to play.
“Sigh, he’s really meticulous and considerate. Took everything seriously, even checked if one of the tigers at Tiger Mountain was showing stereotypic behavior—then he wanted to talk with the zoo staff about it... But I get the feeling he’s doing his job, you know?”
Li couldn’t help laughing. Though he didn’t know Yao Jiang well, it sounded exactly like him. Her description was strikingly vivid.
Danni: “These big bosses...”
She repeated the phrase.
Danni: “I wonder how they act when they actually fall for someone—anyway, it’s not me.”
Danni: “Oh, by the way, he’s heading back to Heliang. I asked him to bring something for you.”
Xing: “Something?”
Danni: “You’ll see.”
Meanwhile, Li finally got a response from Yao Jiang: “No worries. She asked me to bring you something. Professor Li, will you be around the next couple of days?”
A seasoned observer like Yao Jiang could surely tell that Li’s main point wasn’t “no sense of boundaries” but rather “no sense of caution”—an oblique heads-up, hinting that Guo Jinni, with her sheltered background, might need sincere kindness. Still, from what she’d said, it sounded like she wasn’t interested in Yao Jiang anyway. Possibly they’d both been roped in as a favor.
Xing: “I’ll be here. I can swing by M&C, or if one of your assistants drops by the site, that works too.”
Li hated inconveniencing people he wasn’t close with.
Yao Jiang replied: “If you accept the task, you carry it out.”
So he meant to bring it himself. Li sighed at how naturally Guo Jinni recruited people to run errands right from day one.
Suddenly, a commotion rang out from a neighboring trench. He looked up to see Li Ru scrambling to grab her straw hat after nearly slipping. One pant leg was smeared with dirt.
“Take it slow, Xiao Ru,” Li called. “You hurt? There’s a first-aid kit in the storage container.”
“I’m fine—just dusty,” she replied, slapping at her pants and clambering up.
Li cast a glance at the sun, now nearly vanished below the horizon, and felt a mild pang of puzzlement.
The next afternoon, Yao Jiang drove over to deliver what Guo Jinni had sent. She’d given them two parcels: some skincare products for Li Ru, and a neatly wrapped gift box for Li, tied up with bright ribbons.
He set them on a folding table on the edge of the site. The colorful packaging drew some curious looks from passing students and workers. Li felt awkward—he’d assumed it would be a book or something equally unremarkable. So he tore it open on the spot.
When he pulled out an old nylon kit from inside, his embarrassment vanished.
“I’d thought this set was gone ages ago,” he said with a soft laugh, though his tone carried a hint of sadness. “After that, I kept using replacements that never felt quite right… Didn’t think she’d track it down.”
It was the toolkit he’d put together while studying: wooden and bamboo picks of varying sizes, a small Burmese knife, several one-piece hand trowels, a long-handled spoon, bristle brushes, a level tied with string—an evolving set he’d refined piece by piece throughout grad school. When he’d parted ways with Professor Guo Shu, he hadn’t brought any of it along. It had been nearly ten years.
“Thank you, Mr. Yao,” Li said after a moment, raising his head. “Shall we have a simple meal together?”
Yao Jiang thought that if anyone was benefitting from good fortune here, it was him—he wasn’t the one who’d done anything. But he did have business to discuss, so he said, “I still owe you a meal.”
“Let’s save the two of us for another time. How about joining our whole team? We just launched the archaeological work for the Xinliang Site, and we haven’t had a proper get-together yet.” Li’s tone was cordial, inviting him along.
Yao Jiang nodded, then got straight to the point: “Professor Li, some of my media contacts heard about the relics here and asked me whether they could do an interview. Possibly film a short feature. Would you be open to that?”
In the digital era, the site had long since gone semi-viral with passersby posting photos and videos. Some aggregator accounts had reposted the content, but no one had done an official visit yet.
“I personally think that publicity can be risky,” Li said candidly. “There’ve been cases of overexposure leading to relic thieves swarming in. People had to build fences or hire police to stand guard day and night. There’s no strict ban on coverage, though. The young kids in my group like that sort of thing. I’ll ask everyone for their thoughts at dinner.”
Yao Jiang had his own reasons for acting as a go-between—he had a good relationship with this media outlet, and publicity for the Xinliang Site could also help create buzz for Wanhui City. Hearing Li’s caution put him a bit on edge. Still, Li was only five years younger than him, yet referred to his grad students as “the young kids,” which faintly amused Yao Jiang.
“All right. Let’s see what everyone thinks,” he agreed.