Section 22 It seemed as if the voice of the girl named Ling Yu echoed in my ear. I looked down, and a pair of clear eyes were staring up from under the tree, her fair little hands occasionally shielding the bits and sunlight filtering through the leaves. She was wearing a small floral dress, jumping and anxiously calling out. “Brother, come down quickly, brother, come down quickly, brother, come down quickly, brother……” I looked up at Ling Zhijie. He had already climbed up the spiral branch, the highest point we had ever reached. Above that was the treetop. The leaves there were already withered, and the branches had begun to rot, but at the very top of the rotting branch was a tiny wooden house, very, very small, smaller than a doghouse, maybe a bird's nest, but no bird would make a nest like a human's house. Hearing Ling Yu's shouting, Ling Zhijie became irritated. He stopped and yelled down: “Xiao Yu, don't shout. If you call ‘brother' again, I won't play with you!” Ling Yu immediately started crying: “Wuwah… wuwah… brother… wuwah… come down… Xiao Yu is scared… wuwah… come down… come down now…” I too felt annoyed by Ling Yu's crying. I said to Ling Zhijie above: “Let's take Xiao Yu back home first. If she keeps crying, the adults will be here soon.” Ling Zhijie looked at me, then up at the little wooden house, and said: “I've already climbed up here… how about this: you go down first and take her home, then I'll come over.” “Why should I go back? She's your sister, not mine. You should take her yourself if you want to,” I replied, not wanting him to reach the little wooden house first. Ling Zhijie looked at the teary-eyed Ling Yu below, then reluctantly at the small house above, sighed, and decided to climb down the spiral branch. As he climbed down, he said: “A Ning, don't climb up first. Wait for me to come up with you!” I watched Ling Zhijie climb back to my side, quickly moved aside, and started climbing up a few more steps until I reached the spiral branch. Date: 2010-05-24 13:11:00 Ling Zhijie shouted from below: “Don't climb! Just wait for me there!” I didn't respond. Taking advantage of the moment, I climbed a little higher. I looked up, and the little wooden house was now within reach.I stretched out my arm, but still couldn't reach it, feeling a bit anxious, while Ling Zhijie seemed even more desperate, starting to roar wildly below, shouting and climbing up at the same time. I looked around and noticed that a branch not far to my left was closer to the small wooden cabin. If I jumped onto that branch, I could definitely reach it. So I slowly stood up from my current position, grabbed a thin branch overhead, and lifted my right foot toward that branch.
I could reach it, so I leaned my weight forward. While pressing my right foot onto that branch, I heard a 'crack' sound, and my body suddenly dropped. I knew something was wrong—the branch had split from the root. I hurriedly shifted my weight to my left leg, intending to pull back my right foot, but realized I had stretched too far and couldn't retract in that position.
I looked up at the thin branch I was gripping, and with a sudden effort, tried to use my arms and waist to spring myself back to the original branch, but the branch above couldn't support my sudden force and snapped with a 'crack'. Before I could figure out what to do, I fell headfirst downward...
Falling just a short distance, my leg landed on a branch, flipping me over and slightly slowing my descent. Panicking, I tried to grab the branch that had held me for a moment, but my falling speed was still too fast, and I couldn't hold on, slipping off the branch again...
At this point, I thought I was done for, closed my eyes, and instinctively started shouting. Suddenly, I felt my collar tighten, something hooked onto it. A second later, I opened my eyes, twisted my neck upward, and discovered that what had caught my collar were two hands. Ling Zhijie's face was behind them. He clenched his teeth tightly and squeezed four words through them: 'Give me your hand!'
I summoned all my strength in my body, raised my right hand, and reached up...
Date: 2010-5-25 12:36:00
Back then, Ling Zhijie pulled me back from the edge of death, while now, Ling Zhijie pushed me into the abyss of death. His hands were no longer pressing my head but grabbing both my arms, pulling me forward and letting my whole body slide into that pit.Water... water all around... In a daze, I found some strength and started to swing my arms. After a few strokes, there was a splash by my ear, and I felt myself break through the surface of the water again, a beam from a flashlight shining from the side. I didn't immediately understand how this sudden flashlight appeared, but then I heard a familiar and anxious voice asking, “An Ning! How are you? Xin Jie?” Ling Zhijie grabbed one of my arms, dragging me out of the pit while urgently asking. For a moment, I didn't know what to say and could only lie on the cold ground, feeling as if I had jumped from one death into another. My mind was filled with countless huge question marks: How could this happen? Ling Zhijie was just hitting me, and it seemed like he had already killed me? Why am I alive? And why does he seem like two different people? This... is simply incredible... just like the night I saw several Xinjies... I hammered my head hard, trying to confirm whether I was really dead or having some severe hallucination. “An Ning, where are your clothes?” Ling Zhijie's words instantly brought me back to reality, and I realized I was naked, shivering all over. “What's wrong with you? You're covered in wounds?” Ling Zhijie continued. I looked down at myself in the flashlight's beam; the prominent redness and blood stains were still there, and the intensifying pain constantly reminded me that what just happened was definitely not a hallucination. But if it wasn't a hallucination, how could I explain the scene in front of me? Two Ling Zhijies? Two different Ling Zhijies? The one who hit me just now—was he the real one, or is the one in front of me real? Date: 2010-5-25 14:08:00 I looked up, wanting to get a closer look at the 'Ling Zhijie' in front of me, but the flashlight was in his hand, and I couldn't see his expression. He then shone the flashlight back and forth over my face and body and kept asking about my wounds and what was under the water. Judging by his tone, he seemed more shocked than I was, more eager to know what had actually happened.After I caught my breath, I opened my mouth, intending to make a sound, but there was still intense pain in my throat, and I still couldn't speak. So I pointed to my neck at Ling Zhijie and made a gesture indicating I couldn't talk.
This time, Ling Zhijie's reaction seemed even more surprised. His whole face leaned close, almost touching mine, and he raised two fingers, looking over my eyelids for a while, then glanced at my throat and said, "Were you hit underwater? Did someone strangle you?"
I nodded.
"Impossible... You were only under for a short time. How could someone beat you like this? And this pit is so small; I saw you didn't go deep when you dived. It's doubtful two people could even fit here. Where did all these injuries come from? Are you really unable to speak?"
I noticed he was talking about the diving time, so I raised my hand, grabbed his wrist, pointed to his watch, and made a gesture, asking him exactly how long I had been underwater.
"How long you were underwater? Don't you know yourself? At most, 40 seconds!"
Hearing Ling Zhijie's answer, my mind went numb. The more I thought about it, the less I could understand. If this time was correct, then the period when I was beaten by that 'Ling Zhijie' seemed to have disappeared into thin air, as if it had never happened. But the problem was that the results of the beating were still affecting me!
What on earth was going on? This forced me to consider the most improbable possibility:
