by Xu, Lei
"Nice one!" he yelled. "I've wanted to smack that little bastard forever!"
I looked back. Yuan Xile and her men were all there. They were staring at me, their eyes wide and their mouths open. "My hand slipped!" I cried. "Come on! Don't just stand there. He's about to be swept away!
Wang Sichuan tossed me the rope. I fastened it around Little Einstein's body then tied it round my own. Then I hopped into the water and yelled for them to start moving. We all pulled ourselves along the wall, fighting the freezing current for every inch. After no more than a dozen paces, I heard an odd noise upriver. The sound was barely audible above the roar of the water, but I could tell it was coming terrifyingly fast. Suddenly, it dawned on me.
"Everyone look out!" I cried.
With a crash, an enormous tree trunk came into view, rocketing down the river. It sailed towards us, ricocheting from one side of the cave to the other. Then, in the blink of an eye, we were all knocked from the wall and rushed uncontrollably into the darkness.
By the time I got my head above the surface, I was already 30 yards downriver. I coughed water. The rope dragged me under. I unclipped it and floated back up. Wang Sichuan and several others were even farther downriver, holding onto the tree as it rushed along. Wang Sichuan waved for me to swim closer. I ignored him and turned to look for Yuan Xile. She was above water, albeit some distance downriver.
"What do we do now?" she called out to me.
Panting heavily, I spat out a lung-full of water. "Swim for the sides!" I knew there was wire netting hidden on the bottom of the river. The water was high enough that we probably wouldn't get stuck, but if we did, the consequences could be deadly.
Every second we were being washed deeper into the cave. Soon we'd reach the rock-strewn rapids. That was not something I was looking forward to. The experience, I imagined, would feel something like being run through a cheese grater. Maybe the water was high enough and some of us might escape with only slight injuries. Not everyone would be so lucky, though. I thought about climbing atop the tree trunk. We might be able to ride over some of these underwater dangers. And should the thing itself become stuck, we could wait on top for the flood to be over. But there was simply not enough room for all of us. Our weight would sink the tree. Even more than all this, though, I worried about the 30-foot waterfall somewhere up ahead. I had seen the iron wire strung all the way down its length. Get caught on that and the results would not be pretty. Even if we were lucky enough to get by, we'd still have a long drop ahead of us.
No matter what, we needed to stop ourselves before we hit the falls.
CHAPTER
57
Futility
You can never understand what we were up against. Our strength was no match for the current. We had to just save our energy and remain calm. I did my best to float toward the side of the cave and shone my flashlight downriver. Up ahead the river was turning, and at the turn the current seemed to slow, albeit slightly.
"Get to the wall!" I cried. "When we hit this turn everyone needs to be holding on!"
Everyone immediately began swimming hard for the side. I could see at once there were too many of them.
"All of you need to spread out!" I yelled. "Make sure you don't knock into the person in front of you!"
Yuan Xile suddenly cried out in alarm. Spinning around, I watched as she paused for a moment then all of a sudden disappeared beneath the water. She resurfaced a second later, still in the very spot she'd been before while I'd already been rushed past her. I cursed beneath my breath. She'd gotten herself caught on the iron wire.
I swam to the side at once, grabbed onto the rocks and, with all my strength, attempted to hold on. The wall was too slick. In a flash I was swept nearly 20 feet downriver, fingernails scraping rock the whole way. By the time I finally found a handhold, my nails were bloody and torn. The river kept rushing by, pulling my body horizontal. Pressing myself closer to the wall, I looked up to see Yuan Xile struggling vainly against the iron trap.
"Don't fight it!" I yelled to her. If she kept moving, she'd only become more tangled. I jammed the flashlight in my mouth and crawled towards her along the wall, my legs trailing uselessly behind me. By the time I reached her I was completely exhausted. She was pressed against the wall, her legs so tangled she could barely keep her head above the surface. The river was rising fast.
Panting heavily, I took the flashlight from my mouth. "I'm going to dive underwater and untangle you," I said. "While I'm doing that, you need to hold on tight. If you let go of the wall, you're going to be pulled under. Do you understand?"
She nodded, her face white with fear. I took a deep breath and dove, my arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Little by little, I climbed down her body. Her clothes were blown open in the current. As I felt her slender waist and smooth skin, memories of days gone by flooded my mind. Smiling grimly, I continued downward until I reached her calves. The iron wire was wound tightly around her pant leg. I tried to pull it loose, but army pants were damn strong. Reaching for her waist belt, I unsheathed her dagger and slashed open the fabric. The cut wasn't particularly large, but the force of the water immediately ripped it wide open. In the blink of an eye she was free and the two of us were being rushed downriver.
We held one another as the current swept us along, Yuan Xile in a panic and I doing everything in my power to keep us level and our heads above water. With one arm wrapped around her waist, I tossed away the dagger and tried to remain calm. The turn was just ahead and coming up fast. My heart skipped a beat. We needed to get to the side immediately, but Yuan Xile still hadn't come to her senses.
Suddenly, several flashlight beams hit us from downriver. I heard someone call out, "Over here!"
"Little Einstein!" I yelled. I raised Yuan Xile out of the water and pushed her as hard as I could toward the side.
In a flash, Little Einstein leapt off the rock and grabbed her arm, his other hand gripping a leather strap held by the men on the wall behind him. With a roar, he pulled her towards him as the current tried to force them both downriver. The strap held, and a moment later they were dragged back to the wall.
That little son of a gun proved useful after all, I thought. Before I could catch my breath, I was swept abruptly around the turn. Using my final bit of strength, I reached frantically for the wall, managing at last to grab a protruding rock with the tips of my fingers. The current blasted against me, threatening to tear my arm from my body and hurl me into the darkness. I howled and held fast. The pressure decreased and I was able to steady myself, both hands on the wall and my legs once more beneath me.
Nice work, I thought, panting heavily. Suddenly I heard a strange sound coming from upriver. In an instant our flashlights all swiveled to the sound. I could hear my heart heaving in my chest.
"Everyone! Get underwater and hold on tight!" Wang Sichuan yelled.
A 12-foot high wall of water tumbled toward us, huge and inescapable, filling the narrow channel. There must have been a collapse somewhere upriver. I plastered myself to the wall and dove underwater. Even then I knew nothing I did would be of any use. In a flash the wave was on top of me, tearing me from the wall and hurtling me downriver. It felt like getting hit with a fire hose blast at close range. The last thing I saw was Wang Sichuan and Yuan Xile being ripped from the wall and flung into the wild, white-capped current.
***
When I finally staggered from the water onto relatively dry land, I found that I had run aground on a rocky shoal. Although my flashlight was long gone, I saw a beam nearby, illuminating a small patch of ground. Wiping the water from my face, I walked over. Wang Sichuan was laying face down, his flashlight tightly in hand. I rolled him over. His skin was pale and he wasn't breathing. I immediately began pumping hard on his belly, trying to force the water from his lungs. Then I rolled him over so there was a rock beneath his stomach and clapped him several times on the back. In a fit of coughing he came to. I went to look for other survivors, but there was no one el
se.
Just downriver was the water dungeon. My earlier prediction had been pretty spot-on, but the river was much higher than I'd imagined. The shoal was now mostly covered by churning rapids. We sat on an island-like strip in the middle of the river. Yuan Xile and her men must have been swept much deeper into the cave.
I pulled Wang Sichuan all the way out of the water. Then I sat and considered our predicament. We didn't have many choices left. Large, jagged rocks awaited us if we headed deeper into the cave. Our missing comrades probably wouldn't be able to stop until they reached the cement platform where we'd found the sinkhole. Not only was it built high enough to avoid the flood, it was also where we, as the second team, would later find the first team's tents and equipment. There seemed no way for us to get there. Still, I couldn't help but wonder whether the river just might be navigable. I strolled to the edge and tested the current.
Just as I placed my foot in the water, I heard Wang Sichuan call out behind me, "Give it up, man!"
I turned.
He climbed to his feet, coughed several times, then continued. "You won't be able to change anything! Their fate has already been decided. There's nothing you can do."
I was well aware that if I continued I was essentially signing my own death warrant. I just didn't want to believe it. "We must be able to do something," I persisted.
"These people are already history—our history. If you change a part of that, then something with us has to change as well. But nothing has changed. If you jump in the river, you'll just die here. You'll disappear without having accomplished a thing."
"But—!"
"To us they're already dead!" he cried. "If we are to arrive here later, then all of this must happen. There's nothing we can do."
As I stared at the dark and rushing river, I couldn't deny that he was right.
"If you leave things as they are, then Yuan Xile will not die here and you may see her again someday. But if you jump into that river, then you will never have another chance."
I sat down beside the water and stared off into the darkness, feeling utterly dejected. Gradually, listening to the roar of the river, I lost consciousness.
CHAPTER
58
What Will Be Will Be
Wang Sichuan was right. Yuan Xile and her men had gone to meet their fate. Although for them the future was a mystery, we knew exactly what was going to happen, and knew, moreover, that it had to happen this way. Yet my heart still couldn’t bear the thought of Yuan Xile stumbling alone through that pitch-black cave. Going after her would be an all-or-nothing gamble. We'd won the first round. If we continued to play, we might win far more, but we could just as easily lose it all.
By the time the water level finally began to drop, 24 hours had passed. Anguished and not knowing what else to do, I walked a short ways downriver. There was nothing to see—no corpses, no people, not even the smallest sign of anyone having passed through. The water cavity emptied rapidly. Before long the river was so low we'd need to scale the walls if we wanted to continue on. Taking my arm, Wang Sichuan motioned that it was time for us to go. At last I relented. Even if I was able to climb to the next cave, who knew what would be waiting for me on the other side?
Old Tian had been among those swept away. I wasn't concerned that his past and future selves might accidentally meet. It hadn't happened before, so it shouldn't happen this time through either. Most likely he had simply drowned and would never be discovered. There was nothing left for us to do. So Wang Sichuan and I locked arms and slowly made our way back to the surface. I had been utterly defeated.
***
When at last we were topside once more, Wang Sichuan quickly organized our food and water. He said we needed to get a move on. I stared into the silent mouth of the cave, my mind on Yuan Xile. I knew that to leave here was equivalent to leaving her, and that once I was gone I would most likely never see her again. It was unbearable. I decided then that I had to stay and help her, even if it meant my death. My head kept trying to talk me out of this, but my heart was a weight pulling my body into the cave and I could not hold it back.
Wang Sichuan did all he could to change my mind, but finally, his preparations complete, he strapped on his bag and stood before me. I knew this was my last chance. He was fundamentally opposed to staying here and dying alongside me. If I wanted us to remain together, I had but one choice.
Seeing that I was beginning to waver, Wang Sichuan let out a deep breath. "What will be will be," he said. "You cannot change fate."
Sighing, I nodded my head. Then I suddenly realized something was amiss. "What did you just say?" I asked him.
"What will be will be," he said, looking at me strangely.
A chill ran down my spine.
"What is it?" he asked.
"How did you know this sentence? Where did you see it?"
"I never saw it anywhere. I just made it up. Why? What's wrong?"
What will be will be. I remembered the safe room, how Yuan Xile had shown me a single sentence carved on one of the walls within. An impossible idea occurred to me. Why had she needed to show me that strange sentence? For what reason had it been carved there? Who had done the carving? I remembered what the fake He Ruping had said when he heard my voice: "How can it be you again?" He had fairly screamed it at me, his face frozen in pain. At the time his reaction felt extremely strange, but then what if...?
It all suddenly made sense. By the time I was able to respond my whole body was soaked with sweat and my hands were shaking.
"What the hell is going on?" asked Wang Sichuan.
Taking a deep breath, I replied, "I have to go back into the cave."
I was a part of Yuan Xile's history. I knew that now. My fate had been decreed. The reason the fake He Ruping was so frightened of me was because we'd met before. And Yuan Xile had undoubtedly shown the mysterious sentence to me as a kind of clue, a clue that I myself had planted so that as soon as I heard Wang Sichuan speak those five words, I would instantly understand what I had to do. This was my way of telling myself that this thing was not over for me, that I needed to go back underground and find Yuan Xile.
From the moment we'd first entered the cave, it had seemed as if some force was pushing us along, making sure things happened a certain way. More than a few times I'd found myself gazing off into the darkness, convinced someone was looking back at me. Someone had placed those two notes in my pocket. Someone had lowered the caisson when we were all inside. Someone had even loosened the air vent in the projection room, allowing us to escape to the sealed tunnel where the grate had also been loosened. What if Yuan Xile wasn't really crazy? What if, knowing everything that was going to happen, she'd merely acted that way? Could this be why she'd behaved so affectionately towards me, why she'd curled up on my chest?
I could wait no longer. Enough time had been wasted. I needed to get going now. It might already be too late. I told Wang Sichuan what I was thinking.
He shook his head. "That's impossible," he said. "It's probably just a coincidence."
No way, I thought, my mind flashing back to the five words carved into the wall. "It's all right," I said, "you should go. This is just something I have to do. Some risks you have no choice but to take." If my theory was right and I didn't go, then I couldn't even begin to imagine what might happen to Wang Sichuan and I. It was truly ironic. The very reason that had stopped me from interfering now compelled me to involve myself. I couldn't help but laugh.
"It's too dangerous for you to head down there alone," said Wang Sichuan. "I'll go with you. It's clear Tengri has destined that we do this thing together."
I thought about it for a moment, but then shook my head. "There's no reason for you to go back inside. And I never saw any sign that you did." If Yuan Xile and I had planned this whole thing out, we must have done it in private. "No, this is my thing."
He didn't argue. I didn't blame him. Were it not for Yuan Xile, I wouldn't have even wanted to stand near that black hole. As soo
n as I was out I would have kept on going and never looked back. "All of this was already decided," I said to him, strapping on my pack. "What will be will be. There's nothing else I can do."
Our eyes met for a moment, then Wang Sichuan sighed and patted me on the shoulder. "Take care of yourself in there," he said.
My heart filled and trembled. Over the past few months I'd learned Wang Sichuan was truly a man you could trust. If I somehow lived to see him again, I knew we'd be friends for life. Then Wang Sichuan turned and headed south. I reentered the cave. My mind was unusually calm. When you know what you must do, there's really nothing else to think about.
I carefully navigated the steep descent and dropped to the cave floor. The water level was already at its lowest point. I thought back on the previous two times I'd been here and how I was now all alone. Each time I'd left the cave I'd sworn never to return, and yet I was always forced back under increasingly dangerous circumstances. This was fate. As I walked through the blackness, I remembered how Ivan had said Fate sometimes felt so near you could almost reach out and touch it.
