Mud beads

The elderly in Qing'ao Village said that before a typhoon arrives, the smell of the sea will first cross the ridge to the east.

By the end of November, Chang'an was parched and cracked, but the walls in the southern village were still damp. Yu Zhu's research group had been living in the village for a week; the ancestral hall courtyard was paved with blue bricks, and a layer of water always shimmered in the cracks between the bricks.

Yu Zhu squatted backstage at the old stage and held the recording pen close to Granny Lin's mouth.

The old woman is ninety years old, with only a few teeth left, and speaks with a lisp, but she can still enunciate clearly when singing the Bamboo Horse Opera. When she was young, she played a young female role in the village's opera troupe. Later, the troupe disbanded, the costumes were burned, and only a songbook was left.

The songbook, bound with blue thread, had been worn grayish-yellow by decades of hand sweat; the pages were soft and brittle, with small holes from wormholes at the edges. The old man took it out of his apron, placed it in Yu Zhu's hand, and pressed it down firmly with his palm.

"My mother copied it," she said. "You can take it and print it, but you must return it to me after you've finished."

Yu Zhu caught it with both hands: "Don't worry, Grandma, we will definitely repay you."

"Don't let the water get drunk."

"I've got it."

Yu Zhu carefully put the songbook into a file bag and wrote the number and owner's name on the label. The sky hung low over the village houses, the clouds so thick that no patterns could be seen. In the distance, the leaves of the longan trees drooped, and the ditches were filled with withered leaves and rotten fruit peels. When the wind blew, the sweet and sour smell of decay mixed with the salty smell of the sea seeped into the ancestral hall through the open doors and windows.

The students in our group stood under the courtyard, looking at the weather warning on their phones, their eyes filled with the excitement typical of northerners: "A typhoon coming at the end of November?"

The village official in charge of reception glanced up and said, "Typhoons are rare tonight, but they're not nonexistent. The worst thing is when they encounter cold air from the north; then the rain will be torrential."

Yu Zhu looked up at the sky, then carried the document bag to the conference room in the old building renovation project and locked the documents in the low cabinet.

They were originally scheduled to leave the village the next morning.

During the night, the typhoon suddenly turned northwest, and the county issued two warnings. Return flights were canceled, and buses to the county seat were also suspended, forcing Yu Zhu's research group to remain in the village once again.

After daybreak, the typhoon officially made landfall.

Everything salvageable in the village had been collected last night; motorcycles were pushed into the main room, and chicken coops were moved into the woodshed. Only a tightly covered pile of firewood remained beside the threshing ground, a blue tarpaulin bound four times with nylon rope, the wind seeping in through the gaps, yet the tarpaulin still billowed high. The drainpipes along the wall had broken free of their clips, whipping back and forth against the eaves pillars.

Teacher Zhou, who was leading the group, urged the students to pack up their equipment: cameras into waterproof cases and notebooks into sealed bags. The village committee's loudspeaker, crackling with static, repeatedly notified those living in lower-lying areas to seek refuge at the village primary school on the mountain.

Yu Zhu followed the crowd up the mountain, raindrops warm and large on her face. When she reached the halfway point, the rain began to rage, and a fishy wind carrying water swept across the alleyway. Her raincoat tightened around her body, her hat brim was pulled back, and she could barely open her eyes.

The village primary school has been vacant since its closure and merger. It is usually managed by the village and used as a temporary shelter for villagers during floods. Villagers pushed tables and chairs against the wall, and the elderly and children huddled on spread-out cardboard boxes. Soaked raincoats hung in a row along the corridor, and water dripped onto the ground, creating round mirrors of varying sizes.

The school lost power at 4:30 p.m.

The generator only powered the radio and two lights. The rain outside pounded incessantly on the tin awning, making conversations difficult to hear unless you held your ear very close. The students, who had initially been excited, had lost their curiosity about the unknown weather and now huddled together, looking at each other with long faces and nothing more than their cell phones that only had emergency calls on them.

The town's rescue team arrived two hours later.

A high-chassis rescue vehicle drove into the village, its body painted a muddy yellow. Villagers trapped in the classroom, seeing the rescue team's orange uniforms, scrambled to their feet and pushed their way forward. Teacher Zhou and her students stood at the back, waiting for them to transfer the sick, children, and elderly first.

Yu Zhu stood at the end of the line counting the documents in the waterproof box. When she got to the last one, she suddenly stopped.

The bag containing the bamboo horse performance wasn't inside.

The evacuation was rushed, and the student in charge of collecting the materials only took the items from the table and the floor, without checking the copies in the cabinet.

Yu Zhu closed the box and glanced around at the chaotic crowd.

Grandma Lin stood at the front of the line, her head wrapped in a towel, cradling an orange cat in her arms. Noticing Yu Zhu's gaze, she looked up, smiled at her, and revealed her bare gums.

There are many people trapped, and it will take a while to transport them all. The school is only two alleys away from the ancestral hall, and it takes less than three minutes to walk there.

Yu Zhu found a roll of wide tape and a new waterproof bag, and moved past the people in front of her to Teacher Zhou: "There are some documents still in the ancestral hall meeting room. I'll go get them now."

Just as Teacher Zhou was about to ask her what materials she needed, the student next to her suddenly bent over and vomited. She quickly reached out to help the student. Yu Zhu stood there for a few seconds, then fastened her rain hat and went out the back door along the wall.

The water was up to my ankles, and it was warm.

The wind swept through the narrow alley, swirling fallen leaves and plastic wrappings around people's legs. Yu Zhu walked forward, supporting herself against the wall, trying not to look at the muddy water flowing at her feet, but staring at the two red-painted pillars in the twilight.

The ancestral hall gate was being pushed back and forth against the wall by the wind.

A layer of water had accumulated in the courtyard, and the prayer cushions in front of the altar floated below the steps. Yu Zhu ran to the meeting room, opened the cabinet door, and a blue-edged document bag lay securely on the second shelf, with two handwritten documents underneath.

She breathed a sigh of relief, took out all the papers from the drawer, put them into a new waterproof bag, sealed the bag, and wrapped it with several layers of tape.

Finally, she wrapped it around her chest with tape and tucked it inside her raincoat.

A bolt of lightning rolled past the roof of the ancestral hall, causing the window frames to tremble.

The sound of rain outside the eaves suddenly changed.

The rain poured down, and the water in the courtyard boiled. Just as Yu Zhu ran out of the meeting room, a loud crash of rolling bricks and stones came from the entrance of the ancestral hall.

The gateposts, along with half of the old wall, collapsed. Yellow water, carrying broken bamboo, styrofoam boxes, and half a tree trunk, rushed into the alley. The two iron gates were knocked off their hinges and lay askew among the broken bricks. Outside the gate, the churning muddy water quickly submerged the fallen gate panels.

The path she used to come in was blocked.

Yu Zhu paused for half a second, then turned and ran towards the back hall.

There was a small door in the back room that connected to the back street, which was also used for people to come and go. She grabbed the copy in her raincoat and ran there, splashing water as she stepped into the calf-deep puddles.

Two closed wooden doors were right in front of her. Yu Zhu unlatched them and reached out to push them open.

The door was blocked by water and remained completely still.

She bumped into him with her shoulder.

A dull pain shot through my shoulder, and only a few streams of water mixed with mud and sand squeezed in through the crack in the door.

Yu Zhu glanced down. The water, which had been down to her calves, was now above her knees, with incense ash, leaves, and a few dead flying insects floating on the surface.

She loosened the latch and turned back into the courtyard.

The muddy water had already swallowed the first step beneath the offering table. Across the courtyard, the abandoned stage still rose above the water. Four red-lacquered pillars stood in the dim light, and half a faded embroidered curtain hung from the stage entrance, constantly billowing in the wind.

That was the only high place in the ancestral hall where one could still find a foothold.

Yu Zhu hugged the folder of documents to her chest and waded back into the water.

The water flowed even faster than before.

She reached out and grabbed the stone railing by the courtyard, waiting for her feet to settle before continuing to move forward. The muddy water was up to her knees, and there was nothing she could see inside.

Yu Zhu used both hands and feet to climb the steps. The water had temporarily receded to her feet.

She lay on the countertop, catching her breath. Her raincoat was no longer enough to keep out the rain; her wet clothes clung to her back, heavy and sagging. She reached up and touched the file folder wrapped around her chest; the plastic seal was still tight.

Yu Zhu took out her phone from under her raincoat.

There is no signal on the screen.

"Is anyone there?"

She called out to the outside.

The sound was scattered by the wind and rain as soon as it left the stage. Outside the ancestral hall, the muffled thuds of bricks and wood colliding continued, but no one responded.

The water level below is still rising.

The first step disappeared, followed by the second. A plastic chair floated in through the doorway, crashed into the platform, flipped over, and its four legs emerged from the water. The red silk in front of the offering table was torn down by the water, one end wrapped around the table leg, the other end floating with the current.

The last light in the village went out.

Darkness pressed down on the ancestral hall, leaving only blurry outlines of the faded deities on the stage's lintel. Another gust of wind swept in, causing the entire stage to creak with a low, resonant sound.

Grandma Lin said, "Don't let the water get drunk."

The stack of papers on her chest was so light that it was almost weightless.

Few in the village remember what the lonely woman sang in her youth, or how she grew old. Only these words, soaked in sweat and gnawed by insects, are the traces of her existence.

Yu Zhu looked at the water below the stage, which had overflowed another stone step, and a ridiculous smile suddenly arose in her heart.

Now she's going to be swallowed by water too.

Moth

The last group of people to be evacuated arrived at the town's middle school gymnasium at 8:40 p.m.

Teacher Zhou counted the students from the list. The soaked paper crumpled under her fingers, the ink spreading along the names. She counted from beginning to end, then counted again.

"Where is Yu Zhu?"

Several students looked up.

Some said she wasn't on the second bus, while others remembered her standing at the back of the line. The village official in charge of guarding the primary school thought for a long time and said that there seemed to be a young female student in the first batch.

The first batch of names arrived quickly.

There is no Yu Zhu above.

Looking at the list, Teacher Zhou's mind flashed to a face hidden by a rain hat. Yu Zhu pushed through the crowd and walked up to her, saying she needed to go back to the ancestral hall to retrieve some documents. Just as she was about to stop her, a student next to her bent over and vomited. She turned back to help the student, but when she turned back again, Yu Zhu was gone.

Teacher Zhou rushed into the temporary command room with the list in hand: "One student is missing!"

Everyone in the room looked up at the same time.

"She's from the Literature Department, her name is Yu Zhu." She took a breath, "and finally went to the ancestral hall."

Not long after he finished speaking, two large lights came on outside the stadium.

A high-chassis rescue vehicle parked by the awning roared and suddenly reversed out of its parking space. The tires sank into the mud and water, the rear of the vehicle swung to the side, but it quickly straightened itself.

Someone heard the commotion and chased after them to the door.

The red taillights had already disappeared into the rain.

Moth

Yu Zhu didn't know how much time had passed.

The sound of rain pressed in from above, below the stage, and behind the four walls, washing away all the marks of time.

At first, she was still staring at the steps of the stage to judge the water level, but later she sat down with her knees drawn up to her chest and cleared her mind.

It felt like she had returned to that classroom that was locked from the outside.

The only difference was that the sound pouring into her ears was no longer the repetitive English listening exercises, but an endless thunderstorm. She sat in the darkness like that then, waiting for the listening exercise to finish, and then starting the cycle again.

Being alone with her is always easier than being in a noisy place.

When she was little, she would carry a bamboo basket taller than herself up the mountain to cut pig feed. Someone passing by took pity on her and casually gave her a bottle of mineral water. The water was warm from the sun, and she couldn't bear to drink it all at once. She tightened the cap and hid it at the bottom of the basket.

Actually, those days weren't that hard to get through.

She went out before dawn. Dew clung to the grass, soaking her trousers after just a few steps. Sunlight gradually peeked through from behind the opposite ridge, first illuminating the treetops at the highest point, then trickling down the slope. As the mist dissipated, the water droplets clinging to the spiderwebs would glow like stars in the night sky.

She would stop to watch as she wielded her sickle to cut the grass.

Watch the ants dismantle a dead dragonfly, splitting it into several groups and carrying it back to their burrow. Watch the gecko cling to a sun-warmed rock, its tail broken off, but a small piece of new flesh of a different color has grown back. In a shady crack in the rock, tiny white flowers, no one knows their name; they shatter after a rain, only to grow back in the same spot the following year.

Every day in the mountains, things are born, and every day things die. A litter of newly hatched field mice will be snatched away by a snake, and new buds will sprout from beneath a broken branch. Wildflowers bloom for a season, unseen and unmourned.

But once it's been driven, it's been driven.

A muffled thud came from below the stage.

Yu Zhu returned from the distant mountains and looked up.

The water had already climbed up the second-to-last stone step, leaving only a narrow strip of ground between it and the edge of the stage. A gust of wind blew into her soaked collar, causing her to shiver slightly, and the file folder pressed against her chest rustled softly.

She cannot be swallowed by water yet. At least not now.

She hadn't finished reading the book, nor had she finished organizing the research group's data, and she and Liang Dong had even made plans to meet during the winter break.

The sky will rise as usual, and the longan trees will sprout again next year. Grandma Lin might sit at the entrance of the ancestral hall and ask if her stories from her youth have been printed into a brand new booklet.

The name Yu Zhu is so faint in this storm that it is almost inaudible, but the thin stack of papers on her chest tells the story of two women's lives.

Don't let the water get drunk.

Yu Zhu supported herself on her knees as she stood up.

"Is anyone there—" she called out again, looking at the dark, puddled water, "There's still someone here!"

From the darkness came a series of crashing sounds.

Plastic chairs, broken pieces of wood, and styrofoam boxes piled up under the stage, constantly being pushed against the stage base by the water. The red silk that was wrapped around the offering table was finally torn off, drifting away on the water's surface and quickly disappearing near the doorway.

The top step is also gone.

Water began to splash against the edge of the stage.

A loud bang suddenly came from the back room.

Yu Zhu jerked violently, lunged to the railing of the stage, and looked back.

The sound came from the small door that had been blocked by water.

The second impact was even harder. The door split in the middle, the cracking sound mingling with the thunder, and wind and water rushed in through the breach at the same time.

In the darkness, someone pushed through the water and moved forward.

one more time.

A bolt of lightning flashed across the clouds, its pale light piercing through the courtyard and illuminating half of the ancestral hall in minute detail.

Koshima Toru stood in chest-deep water, his hair disheveled and plastered to his forehead, rainwater streaming down his distinct brow bone and bridge of his nose.

He looked up at the stage, his pale face flashing in the lightning, his eyes fixed on her through the wind and rain of the entire ancestral hall.

He called out to her, his voice drowning out the thunder and rain.

"Yu Zhu".