504: Chapter 504 The Red Thread of Muchuan Town

The car interior was silent for two seconds.

Zhou Mingda's hands tightened on the steering wheel, then relaxed.

Tao Zhiyan sat up straight.

He turned his head and looked directly at Lin Que.

Half of the young man's face was illuminated by the light filtering in from the tunnel entrance, while the other half remained hidden in shadow.

His gaze remained fixed on the rock formations outside the window, as if that last sentence had just been spoken casually.

Tao Zhiyan could tell that the difficulty of that sentence did not lie in its rhetoric, but in how it captured that invisible boundary between Guanzhong and Southern Shaanxi at a glance.

"Under the same sky, once you pass through a tunnel, the weight changes."

This single sentence dragged the boundary between the north and south of the Qinling Mountains from the map and into people's hearts.

The sky over the plains is open.

The sky south of the Qinling Mountains is supported by mountain ridges and pressed down by water vapor.

After passing through a tunnel, while the car is still on the road, the map in one's heart has already changed color.

Tao Zhiyan withdrew his gaze and looked at the road ahead.

He recalled a group of writers who had gone into the mountains for research twenty years ago.

They wrote about the roads, the mountains, and the wind that suddenly turned damp at the tunnel entrance.

But it was truly rare for someone like Lin Que to extract the sense of demarcation in a single sentence.

"Xiao Zhou."

Tao Zhiyan spoke suddenly.

"Yes?"

"After we go back, write down that sentence Lin Que just said."

Zhou Mingda paused for half a second:

"Chairman Tao, what do you mean?"

There was a smile in Tao Zhiyan's tone, but his eyes were still fixed on the mountain road ahead.

"In the future, if anyone asks you what the difference between Guanzhong and Southern Shaanxi is, just throw this sentence at them."

Lin Que closed his notebook and did not respond.

When the vehicle drove out of the last long tunnel, the light suddenly dispersed.

The dry, bright light of Guanzhong was left behind, replaced outside the window by damp, white fog, and even the air inside the vehicle cooled down.

The Qinba Mountains unfolded before their eyes.

Everything was lush and green.

Mountain peaks layered upon one another; those nearby were deep green, those in the distance were grayish-green, and the furthest layer had already melted into the fog, making it impossible to distinguish where the mountains ended and the sky began.

The air suddenly became heavy and damp.

The car windows were closed, but that moist feeling still seeped in.

Zhou Mingda spoke up to warn them.

"The next section is a winding mountain road. The road is narrow, the curves are sharp, and it will be quite bumpy."

His tone was a shade tighter than before.

"Fasten your seatbelts."

No sooner had he finished speaking than the road began to bore into the mountains.

The asphalt surface became potholed.

The car swayed from side to side.

The steering wheel was constantly being adjusted in Zhou Mingda's hands; when encountering sharp turns, he would slow down in advance, and once the front of the car was aligned with the exit of the turn, he would slowly accelerate.

The mountain walls and deep valleys outside the window swung violently with the curves, and with every bump of the car, people's shoulders would slam against the seats.

On the left was a steep mountain wall.

Rocks were exposed, covered in a layer of moss and ferns, with water trickling down from the crevices, carving muddy streaks into the road shoulder.

On the right was a deep valley; the low guardrails were darkened by rainwater, and several concrete posts were already damaged.

When the car pressed over the edge of a turn, the sound of water from the valley floor surged up through the fog.

The car shook violently.

A case of mineral water slid back and forth in the trunk, making dull thuds.

Zhou Mingda had driven this road many times, but after turning for so long, his wrists gripping the steering wheel were still tense.

He switched hands, rested his left hand on his leg to flex his knuckles twice, and then quickly gripped the steering wheel again.

Tao Zhiyan held onto the grab handle, his body swaying with the car.

He turned his head to look at Lin Que.

The young man was leaning back in the rear seat, one hand pressing down on his notebook, the other holding the door handle.

His complexion was normal; he was neither pale nor sweating.

Tao Zhiyan spoke up.

"Do you want to stop for a bit?"

His voice was somewhat clipped by the bumps.

"There's another stretch of sharp turns ahead. If you can't take it, let's stop for five minutes now; don't push yourself."

Lin Que shook his head.

"No need."

Lin Que unscrewed the bottle cap and placed the water in the front cup holder.

"Teacher Zhou, let's wait until the road is straighter to drink."

Zhou Mingda looked at him through the rearview mirror.

"Student Lin is very thoughtful."

Lin Que's gaze turned back to the window.

"The barriers in water towns can still be crossed slowly by boat. The barriers here are curve after curve pressed under one's feet. When a road winds for too long, twists will also grow in people's hearts."

The car interior was silent for a few seconds.

Only the sound of the engine and the crunch of tires over gravel could be heard.

Tao Zhiyan let go of the grab handle and leaned back into his seat.

He pointed a finger out the window.

A row of low, flat houses flashed by the roadside, their roofs half-collapsed, with faded red characters remaining on the walls, ancient and leaving only the outlines of a few strokes.

"See that? Those houses were the employee cafeteria for the 132 Branch Factory in the eighties. At its peak, it served three thousand people a day."

Lin Que turned his head to look; that row of low houses had already swept past the rear window.

Tao Zhiyan pointed to the other side.

"See that cave entrance? It used to be a backup warehouse. When they relocated, it took three months to dismantle the equipment inside."

Lin Que took out his notebook, opened a new page, and wrote down two lines.

Seeing him taking notes, Tao Zhiyan began to talk more.

He spoke from the branch factory cafeteria to the staff housing, from the housing to the only road, and from the road to the old transformer in town that would lose power every time it rained.

Tao Zhiyan did not speak in a rush, as if he were flipping through an old ledger that no one wanted to open again.

Every entry was incomplete, yet all were stained with the dust of Muchuan Town.

Lin Que listened while taking notes.

Occasionally he interjected with a question, always about extremely minute details.

"Did the cafeteria burn coal or firewood back then?"

"Did the factory boilers provide heating in the winter, or did each family light their own stoves?"

"When the first road to the town was built, how many households were still in the factory?"

Tao Zhiyan answered readily.

The mountains outside the car window became increasingly dense.

At some point, the fog turned into a misty rain.

Fine water droplets clung to the car window, dragged into short lines by the speed of the wind.

The smell in the air was also changing.

The first to emerge was a damp coal smell.

Following that, rust.

The smell of rust was heavy, as if old steel frames had been soaked in the rain for many years, with rust water seeping into the mud layer by layer.

Smelling deeper, there was also a dry, bitter undertone.

The three scents mixed together, drilling in through the gaps in the car windows.

Lin Que stopped writing.

He tilted his head slightly toward the window and his nostrils twitched gently.

"This smell is not original to the mountains."

Tao Zhiyan turned his head.

Lin Que looked at the valley shrouded in misty rain outside the window, his pen tip resting on the notebook, unmoving.

"The mountain soil shouldn't be this grayish-blue color either."

Lin Que looked at the slopes in the rain.

"This bitter taste is also pressed too deep; we must ask clearly what they used to burn and what they used to discharge at the factory."

The vehicle wound through the mountain road for another twenty minutes.

The misty rain grew thicker.

The headlights shone ahead, the beams cut short by the water vapor, only able to illuminate a dozen meters.

Then, the car drove past a large mountain col.

The view suddenly opened up.

On the other side of the col, a long, narrow river valley extended along the foot of the mountain.

The terrain at the valley floor was slightly flatter, with a cluster of grayish-white buildings scattered on both sides of the river valley.

Muchuan Town.

Lin Que pressed his face close to the car window.

In the misty rain, the first thing he saw clearly was the chimneys.

Built of red brick, they poked high into the valley.

The brick surfaces were blackened by smoke, the thickest one missing a corner at the top, with steel bars protruding from the break, rusted to a deep brown.

Beneath the chimneys were rows of old factory buildings.

The entire town was pressed down by the misty rain; the grayish-white buildings, blackened chimneys, and old factory buildings were squeezed into the river valley, like a page of archives that hadn't been flipped through in a long time.

Lin Que's gaze crossed over those dilapidated factory buildings, over the staff housing, over the overgrown vacant lots, and looked straight into the depths of the factory area.

There was an area there that was different from the rest.

The wall was very high.

It was built of concrete, with barbed wire stretched across the top.

Water droplets hung on the barbed wire, flashing with a faint metallic luster in the grayish-white daylight.

Outside the wall stood several red and white warning posts.

Ropes were stretched between the posts, and every two meters on the ropes hung a yellow warning sign.

It was too far away to see the words on the signs clearly.

But that strict method of isolation was glaringly conspicuous in this desolate old factory area.

Lin Que withdrew his gaze from that wall.

He turned his head.

Tao Zhiyan was sitting in the passenger seat, his gaze also fixed ahead.

Lin Que looked at his profile, his tone very flat, his voice not loud.

"Chairman Tao."

Tao Zhiyan turned his head.

Lin Que's eyes met his steadily.

"What exactly is hidden inside that red line?"

The air in the car suddenly froze.

Zhou Mingda did not respond, only slowly tapped the brakes twice to reduce the speed.

The tires rolled over a puddle, muddy water splashed onto the car body, making a dull sound.

The car slowly came to a stop.

The engine was still running quietly.

The windshield wipers scraped against the glass one by one.

Tao Zhiyan did not answer immediately.

The cheerfulness, boldness, and casualness he had shown along the way were all withdrawn at this moment.

The smile on his face disappeared.

He looked at Lin Que, his gaze deep, carrying a weight of scrutiny.

The wipers scraped across the windshield, leaving a clear water streak.

They scraped again.

Outside the car, the outline of Muchuan Town was faintly visible in the misty rain.

Those abandoned red brick chimneys stood silently under the grayish-white sky.

Tao Zhiyan shifted his gaze from Lin Que's face to the area ahead surrounded by high walls and barbed wire.

He stared at the wall for a long time, as if weighing where to begin.

Zhou Mingda's hands were still on the steering wheel, his knuckles unconsciously tightening.

A dozen seconds later, Tao Zhiyan finally spoke.

His voice was somewhat low, pressed down by the sound of the rain and the engine.

"That question."

He paused.

"When we get to town, you will meet Old Zhao."

Tao Zhiyan lowered his voice.

"He was the last head of security at the factory, and he is the one guarding that line now."

He turned his head back, looking at the wet mountain road ahead.

"Some things are too light to be said while sitting in a car.

You have to stand in front of that wall, smell that rust, and then listen to Old Zhao read out the names of the people who stayed at the factory back then, one by one."

He tapped his finger on the armrest.

"Only then will it have the right weight."