Lu Qinglian had never eaten Oreos, but she could tell Zhang Shutong was messing with her.
She frowned: "What I actually want to ask is, why do they need white stuff to stick them together, and do you need to separate them before eating?"
Zhang Shutong could somehow understand what she meant.
"They" probably referred to the black chocolate cookies on both sides;
And the white stuff... she must be talking about the cream filling in the middle.
But how could sandwich cookies stay together without cream filling? By the power of love?
Zhang Shutong also noticed something—every time Lu Qinglian frowned, it was a precursor to her "transformation."
But could she not use that mature and authoritative tone to ask such a common-sense question?
Zhang Shutong had no choice but to patiently explain:
"Just eat it however makes you happy."
Lu Qinglian replied seriously:
"I bought the same thing before, but there were only the black cookies inside."
"Uh... what do you mean?"
"I mean literally—there wasn't this layer of white stuff."
"Are you sure you bought Oreos?"
"Yeah, blue packaging."
"Where'd you buy it?"
"The small shop at the foot of the mountain."
"Oh, that place," Zhang Shutong nodded with sudden understanding, "no wonder, you probably bought Yueli-yue instead."
That shop at the foot of the mountain was notorious for ripping off tourists from out of town. A bottle of Ice Dew water cost 3 yuan. The expensive prices were bad enough, but they also sold fakes;
Once his dad had sent him out to buy cigarettes, and he happened to be playing nearby so he bought them there. His dad took one puff and spat it out.
From then on, Zhang Shutong had blacklisted that place.
But you're a local—how'd you get scammed too? Isn't the foot of the mountain your territory?
"You're saying what I bought before was fake?" Lu Qinglian wasn't stupid either, she immediately caught on.
"Yeah, don't go there anymore."
"So this white stuff is also edible?"
"Of course, that's cream." Zhang Shutong didn't know if he needed to explain what cream was, and this question was just too strange. "Why would you have that misconception... I mean, why would you think it's not edible?"
"I also bought a type of sausage from there once. It had chili sauce on it, but actually it was smeared on a layer of plastic wrap." She seemed quite hung up on it. "Can you understand what I'm describing?"
"I understand, I've been tricked too." Zhang Shutong suddenly didn't know what to say. "So you thought the cream in the middle of the cookie was the same as plastic wrap?"
"Yeah, I've only bought snacks those two times."
So in her mind, snacks were things that needed to be taken apart before eating.
"You should go to a bigger supermarket next time."
"It's fine, that was all a long time ago."
When she said this, Lu Qinglian was taking small bites of the cookie. Though she still didn't show much expression, she seemed to find the cookie delicious, as her brow smoothed out, and she didn't forget to comment:
"It's just too sweet."
"I told you to twist it open before eating."
"Is that what 'twist it' means?"
"What else?"
Zhang Shutong suddenly remembered an old joke about some country bumpkin who, eating Oreos for the first time, saw the advertising slogan on the cookie and twisted his butt while eating...
"You must have seen that TV commercial, it's a classic."
Lu Qinglian just nodded without speaking, as if completely immersed in the taste of the cookie.
No wonder she could be so focused drinking a perfectly ordinary box of strawberry milk. Though Zhang Shutong used to love drinking it too, looking at it now with his current perspective, the artificial flavoring was so strong it was practically nauseating.
But for Lu Qinglian, she'd barely eaten any snacks, and the only two times she had, she'd been scammed pretty badly—no wonder she was hung up on it;
Moreover, the island didn't grow strawberries, and there weren't any fresh fruit shops around at this time either. When people talked about eating fruit, they just went to the supermarket to buy some apples or oranges. Even those unappetizing Red Delicious apples only appeared during holidays. Maybe she'd always thought strawberries tasted like the student milk.
Zhang Shutong was usually quiet, but he knew when to speak up:
"Wait, I'll go ask Ruoping for some more."
Just as he was about to stand up, Lu Qinglian shook her head. She was quite easily satisfied:
"No need, one is enough."
Zhang Shutong nodded and said nothing more.
But his silence had nothing to do with Du Kang or Lu Qinglian—he was just naturally like this. When chatting with anyone, things easily went cold;
It wasn't that his mind was slow. For instance, he knew that saying "still on a diet?" right now would make a girl laugh, and there was a Lu Qinglian-specific version: "Oh, forgot you're an immortal cultivator." These remarks would count as interesting, but in his eyes, they weren't necessary to say.
In the silence, Lu Qinglian answered the earlier question:
"There's no TV at the temple, I don't know about the commercial you mentioned."
"You usually live at the temple?"
"Yeah."
"..."
Alright, he figured he should say something more:
"A few of us played around in the mountains... isn't there a really big tree behind the temple?"
"A fringe tree. It only blooms in March next year. Lots of people come to see the flowers." The girl explained this way.
Actually, Zhang Shutong didn't know much about the temple itself. His family came from out of town. His parents could probably both be considered researchers, not particularly superstitious, with no habit of burning incense. Even during the high school entrance exam that year, they'd only eaten an extra youtiao;
He himself had never visited the temple. He'd originally wanted to chat about trying to climb the wall during the festival and ending up falling down the mountain, but that happened after graduation.
"I heard there's a rack where you can hang wish plaques?"
"There wasn't one in earlier years. It was originally a rack for hanging clothes to dry. One morning there were a few plaques on it, and then more and more appeared."
Zhang Shutong nodded:
"Probably became popular online. They're mostly young people and students, or tourists."
"Yeah, most of them write things like so-and-so and so-and-so wanting to be together forever. It's a bit boring."
Lu Qinglian also nodded slightly in agreement, though her expression remained minimal even when agreeing.
Zhang Shutong looked at her strangely: "You actually read people's wish plaques?"
To his surprise, her expression didn't change: "I'm the temple keeper."
No blush, no red ears, no shifting eyes.
Well, aren't you impressive. Zhang Shutong thought.
But that wasn't the point. The point was he remembered Du Kang had hung a wish plaque at the temple. Thinking of this, Zhang Shutong felt embarrassed for him.
After a while, he asked again:
"What's it like inside the temple?"
"One main hall, and three side halls."
"How is it?"
"Nothing much to see, no lights, very dark."
"Oh."
Their way of communicating was really strange. Both of them stared at the water in front of them. Zhang Shutong watched the ripples on the water, while Lu Qinglian watched the fish beneath the ripples;
When they thought of something, they'd casually ask a question. Most exchanges were single questions and answers—questions always got answered. Sometimes they couldn't even form complete sentences, just a few words, but they could understand each other; sometimes the conversation would just trail off with no follow-up, a carefree attitude.
Zhang Shutong didn't feel uncomfortable though:
"So what does your temple worship... sorry, what deity does it enshrine?"
He still wasn't clear on this point, didn't even have a concept of whether it leaned Daoist or Buddhist, but glancing at Lu Qinglian's silky long hair, it probably wasn't the latter:
"God of Wealth, Guan Yu, or some other deity?"
But only after speaking did he realize this question was a bit disrespectful. After all, she was a temple keeper. The position might not be high-ranking, but asking a temple keeper which great deity their temple enshrines—that was problematic.
Lu Qinglian didn't seem to care though:
"None of those. A green snake."
Zhang Shutong froze for a moment.
"Uh, green... snake?" He knew that temple was called Green Snake Temple, but just like how the main hall of White Horse Temple wouldn't actually enshrine a horse, he'd just assumed the temple name was related to its origins.
Lu Qinglian nodded in a calm tone:
"Just the kind of animal you're thinking of, a large green snake, though it's a sculpture."
"You're really a temple keeper?"
Zhang Shutong was a bit surprised now, thinking how could this temple keeper use even more casual terms than him, an outsider? In all honesty, he would never dare refer to the deity his family enshrined as "that kind of animal."
This time Lu Qinglian looked at him strangely, "Didn't I mention it before?"
"You did, but I figured it should at least be a Green Snake Deity or something."
"I'm currently outside the temple." She said casually.
...She really did treat herself as an employee.
"If you're curious, you can visit sometime." Lu Qinglian added.
Zhang Shutong thought he'd better pass. That place—even the mountain around the temple—had already been added to his lifetime "never visit" list. Though his fall from the mountain and gaining that strange ability might not actually be related to the mountain or temple, but when things like "regression" could happen, it was hard not to become a bit superstitious.
Though he could take this opportunity to ask Lu Qinglian about it:
"What does your deity govern?" Since Lu Qinglian herself was so casual about it, he could be casual too.
"Correction—it's not 'my' deity." She frowned slightly. "Birth, old age, illness, and death, marriage and children, everything you can see on the almanac calendar, they govern it all."
"Does it work?"
"Even outside the temple, I can't answer that kind of question."
Fair enough, you're quite conscientious after all.
"Last question—are there any legends about the mountain behind the temple, or was anything buried there?"
"Not behind the temple, but I know one legend about the whole mountain." Lu Qinglian paused, yet her tone remained flat: "Legend has it that long, long ago..." There was an indescribable sense of incongruity and practiced familiarity.
Zhang Shutong's eyelid twitched:
"Wait, is one of the temple keeper's duties also moonlighting as a tour guide?"
"Sometimes. Are you going to listen or not?"
Zhang Shutong gestured for her to continue.
After listening for quite a while and automatically filtering out some atmosphere-building phrases, what he got was a run-of-the-mill mythology story.
It basically explained the origin of that green snake in the temple, why it was called Green Snake Mountain, and why there was a Green Snake Temple, how it protected the island... the kind of legend every place had. Anyway, this snake was really impressive. Lu Qinglian told it quite seriously, so Zhang Shutong didn't have the heart to interrupt.
At this point, he'd said everything he wanted to say and habitually fell silent. Then he heard Lu Qinglian ask if they'd gone fishing yesterday. Zhang Shutong asked how did you know?
The girl said don't worry about that, I just know. Not only do I know you came fishing, I also know you got skunked because you lent me your gloves—of course, the term "skunked" was Zhang Shutong's own translation.
Looks like the temple keeper really had some tricks up her sleeve.
Zhang Shutong was puzzled and asked so what's your point?
Lu Qinglian said since you didn't catch anything yesterday, I might as well help you catch a few today as compensation. This is the important matter I mentioned after school. What do you think? As she spoke, she cast her line with a flourish.
"...That's not the version you told me earlier."
"You can understand it that way for now."
Zhang Shutong really wanted to ask how long "for now" would last, but then saw Lu Qinglian point at the bucket, where five large fish were swimming around happily, and asked if that was enough, or should she catch more.
Zhang Shutong pursed his lips and said go ahead and fish then, I'll see how many you can actually catch today. But as soon as he finished speaking, the bobber moved again;
This time when Lu Qinglian lifted the rod, it didn't budge. Looked like whatever took the bait was much larger than usual. The rod was bent into an arc, and the water surface splashed noisily, making such a commotion that the others were drawn over.
Zhang Shutong immediately reacted and was about to help, but heard Lu Qinglian suddenly ask:
"Will your fishing rod break?"
"It's carbon fiber, it's fine," but now wasn't the time to worry about the rod. Girls generally had less strength. "I mean be careful not to cut your hand..."
"As long as it won't break, we're good." The girl frowned and interrupted.
With that, she gripped the fishing rod with both hands, stepped back, raised her shoulders, twisted her waist—all in one fluid motion. It was as if the strength of her entire body suddenly exploded. A fish with a head this long traced a beautiful arc through the air and heavily slammed onto the grass behind her.
"Does this one count as compensation?" Lu Qinglian picked up the big fish but didn't even look at it, asking casually.
"It counts..."
Zhang Shutong came back to his senses, feeling a bit helpless.
He wiped the water droplets splashed on his face. Not just him, even his buddies standing nearby were shocked enough;
And who fishes like that? Normally you're supposed to let it tire itself out first. She probably just happened to apply the force at the right angle, otherwise the rod would have snapped long ago. Her luck was really something.
Zhang Shutong felt bad for his fishing rod and just wanted her to stop:
"I was joking earlier, don't take it seriously..."
But before he could finish, a clear, surprised voice came from behind:
"Whoa, a black carp."
"What?"
Both turned around at the same time.
But Qingyi ignored them, shining his flashlight only at the fish:
"This should be a black carp, right? It's my first time seeing one. How did you guys catch this? And do we even have this kind of fish around here, or is it actually a silver carp? Hold it for me, let me search..."
Zhang Shutong also moved closer for a look. "It does look like a black carp. Slender body, mouth positioned forward, short tail. Silver carp are fatter than this..."
But catching a black carp in winter was indeed strange. This type of fish shouldn't be very active when it got cold. Just as they were curiously about to examine it further, the fish was suddenly taken away by Lu Qinglian.
"Black carp?" she asked directly.
"Should be..."
Without another word, she cleanly removed the hook, threw it forward, and the fish happily flicked its tail, creating a splash. As the water surface gradually calmed, her flat voice rang out:
"I can't compensate you with a black carp."
Qingyi looked at Zhang Shutong in confusion. Zhang Shutong just spread his hands.
After that, Lu Qinglian stopped fishing too. She returned the rod to Zhang Shutong and sat there by herself, looking like she was cultivating immortality.
Zhang Shutong found it hard to have any fishing mood left either. He casually cast the hook and pressed the rod end under the bench, then stood up to walk around.
He'd originally planned to console Du Kang. Ruoping had just pulled him aside to make him reflect on himself, but it turned out the guy was happily digging for frogs by the shore.
Right, he'd been rejected more than once or twice anyway. Without a strong psychological adjustment ability, how could he cope? Or maybe he'd always had a big heart. Wasn't there an old saying: How to resolve your worries? He could do it himself.
Besides, getting rejected after confessing at graduation hadn't stopped him from liking Lu Qinglian for another eight years.
Zhang Shutong decided not to bother with him, to avoid more questions.
Looking at his phone, the time was now 7:15. Before he knew it, almost an hour had passed.
Looking left and right—Qingyi was fishing intently, and Ruoping had somehow sidled up next to Lu Qinglian, the two quietly chatting.
"Let's leave at 7:30, don't drag it too late."
Zhang Shutong called out to them, not caring whether they responded.
The sky had completely darkened. Tonight's moonlight was dim, the night thick.
This kind of place didn't have streetlights either. Without the flashlights, you literally couldn't see your hand in front of your face, making Zhang Shutong think of the zombie movies he'd watched as a kid. Maybe some ancient corpse would suddenly jump out from the reeds.
Soon the wind picked up. Faint ripples appeared on the lake surface. When the flashlight beam shone over, bits of dust danced in the light column;
Pitch darkness surrounded them, with only the water surface illuminated in a pale white circle. Within the circle, you could see some grass stems drifting with the wind. Good thing it was just grass stems—if it were a dead fish, combined with this dark atmosphere, it would be pretty creepy.
He wandered casually along the lake, his mind getting a bit messy now that he was idle. He plucked a reed and waved it around randomly, sometimes looking at the ground, sometimes gazing across the lake—
This place and the "Forbidden Zone" were positioned roughly like "1 o'clock" and "3 o'clock" on a clock face, but unfortunately it was too dark to see anything.
He wondered how his "trap" was doing, and thought about how if he successfully caught the culprit, the island's historical trajectory might also change.
—There was something he forgot to mention. After Gu Qiumian died, all construction on the island came to a complete halt. With his daughter murdered, Father Gu probably didn't care about profit and loss anymore, and directly left this place of sadness.
Eight years later when he returned to the island, he'd seen a sizeable unfinished building from the bus—it should be the shopping mall currently under construction.
This was also why he transferred away after graduating middle school—if Father Gu's project were still progressing, his parents would have stayed on the island, and he probably would have gone to the city's high school with his friends instead of returning to the neighboring provincial capital.
His family was originally from the provincial capital anyway.
Thinking about it this way, maybe even his own life would change because of this.
But thinking about all this was a bit premature. Better to confirm the culprit's whereabouts first—Zhang Shutong planned to bike over and check first thing tomorrow morning before school.
When he came back to himself, the reed in his hand had nearly been stripped bare.
About a few more minutes passed. Zhang Shutong walked back to his fishing rod, thinking that given Lu Qinglian's catch rate earlier, there should definitely be some action by now.
Or were these fish not giving him face?
He shone his flashlight over—looked like they really weren't.
Feeling dejected, he picked up the fishing rod and sat properly on the bench. Next to him, Ruoping and Lu Qinglian were chatting animatedly—more accurately, only Ruoping was actually chatting.
"I'm really sorry about earlier. It's not entirely Du Kang's fault, I was the one who egged him on. Don't be mad..."
At times like this, she really was like everyone's big sister, not forgetting to explain things for Du Kang, taking all the blame onto herself.
Lu Qinglian shook her head, saying it was nothing. Ruoping confirmed a few more times, making sure she wasn't just putting on a cold face, before relaxing and smilingly chatting about other things.
Sometimes female friendships were just this strange. After chatting for just a few minutes, Ruoping seemed ready to treat her as a good sister, and of course good sisters had to share Oreos—though that last part was his own guess. Lu Qinglian didn't take any, maybe she was shy.
Zhang Shutong looked at the still bobber, then thought about how Ruoping was also the type who responded better to gentleness than force. Otherwise she wouldn't have always found Gu Qiumian disagreeable. If the two of them faced off someday, both glaring at each other, just thinking about it would be exciting enough.
He heard Ruoping saying nearby:
"...Then let's head out in a bit. You can come directly anytime you want in the future. Let me check—it's already 7:27. I'll call them over."
Then she stood up, dropping her gentle tone entirely, and called out with her hands on her hips:
"Let's go, let's go! Are you guys planning to live here? Qingyi, if you keep pretending you can't hear me, I'll throw your earmuffs in the water." Then she looked at him fiercely, "Shutong, what are you still sitting there for?"
"I didn't catch a single fish today either." Zhang Shutong sighed.
"Then I'll give you three more minutes. If you don't catch anything, too bad." After saying this, she yelled at Du Kang again, "Especially you! What did I just tell you? Don't you have something to say to Qinglian? Hurry up and get over here!"
Wait, when did it become "Qinglian"?
Then he saw Du Kang say "oh" and walk over with his head hunched. Zhang Shutong listened for a bit—turned out he wanted to apologize, but Du Kang couldn't think of this kind of thing himself. Ruoping probably helped smooth things over.
Right now Zhang Shutong only cared about the bobber in the water.
Three more minutes—he didn't believe he couldn't catch a single fish.
Staring at the rippling water surface, he heard the others' conversation in his ears.
"I'll definitely be more careful about boundaries in the future..." This was Du Kang, his attitude sincere.
"I already said, you don't need to do this." But Lu Qinglian's voice carried a hint of helplessness.
"So this matter is settled. See, Qinglian isn't the kind of person who's hard to talk to, got it?" This was Ruoping's frantic hinting.
Zhang Shutong suddenly saw the bobber in the water twitch.
"Got it, got it. Oh right, Classmate Lu, do you like frogs? I saw one earlier. You can take it home and keep it somewhere warm..."
Zhang Shutong kinda wanted to facepalm, but what he should be doing right now was staring intently at the water surface, holding his breath, counting to three, then yanking up the rod sharply.
"Get lost!"
One.
"What now?"
"I really... why don't you just give her a toad while you're at it?"
Two.
"Actually, I really did hear a toad croaking, when I went back to move the chairs earlier..."
"You really heard a toad croaking? Where would toads come from in this weather?" Qingyi joined the fray.
Three!
Zhang Shutong pulled hard, water splashing everywhere. He immediately looked toward the end of the rod, but what appeared in his line of sight was... a wrapper?
His face instantly darkened. They say more depressing than getting skunked is catching trash, which perfectly described his current mood.
How did I manage to catch a wrapper?
Honestly, this thing was even rarer than fish, because the few of them never littered after eating. This water area was quite clean. Thinking about it, it could only have drifted over from the opposite shore.
Please, have some public consciousness... but he still had to remove it from the hook.
While sighing, he shone his flashlight on it and blinked.
It looked like a snack wrapper, red on top and bottom with a transparent middle, with the words "Want Want Breakfast Sausage" written on it. Looking closer, he could even see the chili oil floating in the transparent part.
At this point, Zhang Shutong didn't know what expression to make.
Should he say it was too much of a coincidence?
He didn't know if it was the same kind Lu Qinglian had bought, but he was quite tempted to show it to her, wondering if she could still stay calm, or if she'd furrow her brow and go full power. But the conversation over there hadn't finished yet, so forget it.
"It's definitely a toad, I heard it very clearly..."
"What is all this nonsense," even Ruoping was going crazy, "how did you go from apologizing to frogs to toads? If you want to go look, go now. Stay out catching them all night and don't come back. Then Qinglian doesn't want them, I'll take them!"
Zhang Shutong really wanted to ask besides frogs and toads, do you guys want to see a breakfast sausage wrapper? I've really got one... but for the sake of his hairstyle, better not tempt fate.
So he put away his things, stretched lazily, and stood to the side waiting for them to finish talking;
He'd definitely have to ask Ruoping for a trash bag later—Zhang Shutong wasn't a germaphobe, but holding a breakfast sausage wrapper was really kind of disgusting, and who knew if they'd eaten it straight from the package. Plus his hand was all greasy...
He frowned and raised his right hand, discovering the chili oil had leaked out from inside.
Chili oil...
Leaked...
His movements suddenly froze.
"I'm telling you the truth, it's right around here. Walk up along the dirt road for five minutes and you'll get there. If you don't believe me, I'll take you to see later..."
"Who's going with you to catch toads!"
Zhang Shutong moved his flashlight directly above the plastic wrapper.
"I was really planning to go, but just as I was about to head over, I saw someone coming. I thought the police were here and got scared, so I ran right back..."
"Police? Why didn't you say so earlier?"
Right above was a string of numbers—
"..."
"Because it wasn't the police. I even hid and watched for a bit. Just some guy, headed west. I was wondering what he was doing wandering around at night. Didn't smell like alcohol either, acting like something was wrong with him..."
Zhang Shutong's head snapped up:
"You said he went where?"
"Uh..."
Before he could finish, footsteps sounded in the distance.
The sound of shoe soles scraping against the dirt and stone road surface.
The few of them instinctively turned their heads.
At the edge of their vision, a beam of white light from a flashlight cut straight through the entire dirt path.