The evening sun sank in the west, casting a golden hue across the land. The turbulent current took a sharp turn beneath a low slope, flowing toward the distant, gilded horizon.
Along the shore lay a grove of pomelo trees; the massive fruits hung heavy upon the branches, emanating a fresh, woody fragrance.
A palm, caked in mud and covered in scratches, gripped a pomelo and tugged downward. It did not budge. Immediately, a pair of sturdy arms reached up, encircling the fruit and giving it a violent yank, pulling it down into his embrace.
The man was tall and robust of stature, yet his silhouette appeared weary and hunched; his clothes were tattered and stained deep with blood. He harvested two sizeable pomelos and stumbled along the riverbank for a distance. Catching an accidental glimpse of his own reflection in the water, he came to a halt.
He crouched by the river and scooped up water, scrubbing his head vigorously for a while to wash away the filthy mud, revealing a face with spirited eyes, rugged features, and a potent masculine charm. His chin was covered in stubble, and beneath the corner of his left eye lay a long, hideous old scar, giving him an exceptionally fierce and untamed appearance.
He soaked his blood-stained arms in the river to wash them as well, then selectively picked a sharp piece of stone and tucked it into his trouser pocket. Clutching a large pomelo in each hand, he swayed unsteadily as he continued forward. Crossing a patch of farmland, he arrived before a deserted small log cabin. Pushing open the dilapidated wooden door draped in cobwebs, he took a few steps and sat down wearily upon a filthy wooden bed layered with a sparse amount of straw.
Another person lay curled upon the wooden bed, offering no reaction to his arrival, remaining as motionless as a corpse. He ignored this person as well, busying himself by using the sharp stone to peel the pomelo skin. He dug out the fragrant pulp and buried his face in it, devouring it ravenously.
Only after bolting down more than half the pomelo did he finally recover his strength. He lifted an arm and gave the person beside him a slap on the buttocks.
“Hey? Are you dead yet? Get up and eat something.”
“……”
“Hey.”
“……”
Receiving no response, he lacked even the strength to shake the person awake. He reached out to feel beneath her nose; sensing she was still breathing, he climbed onto the bed, nudged her to one side, closed his eyes, and fell fast asleep.
……
Xiao Ma had struggled beneath the cliffs for two days while carrying Jade Guanyin before finding this shelter. This sleep was heavy and fitful; he slept from sunset until sunrise, not waking until noon the following day when he was moved by the need to urinate. He climbed out of bed, feeling light-headed, and pushed the door open to step outside, where he proceeded to “fertilize” a small tree head-to-toe. Swaying back into the house, he saw that Jade Guanyin remained curled in the corner of the bed, motionless.
He stepped forward and flipped Jade Guanyin over. He checked her breathing, then felt her head and face, discovering that she had burned into a glowing coal of fever.
He hurried to strip the clothes from Jade Guanyin. The garments had been soaked through by blood, mud, and sweat in turn, and had dried in turn, almost solidifying into a paste. He tore them away haphazardly and tossed them aside. After clattering around the room in search for a while, he found a chipped earthenware jar. He carried it to the river to bring back a jar of water and tore a cleaner piece of cloth from the clothing to wipe down Jade Guanyin. Several wounds on her body had begun to infect and ooze pus. Under the scorching sun, flies and mosquitoes crawled in from every crack of the broken house, buzzing and dancing around them.
He used pomelo peels to loosely cover her wounds, then used straw to conceal her naked body. Finally, he cleared out the blood-stained clothing and all the filth washed from her. After pacing irritably outside the house for two rounds, he spat out a curse and departed in a hurry.
……
Xiao Ma, covered in soot and grime, scaled courtyard walls and crawled through dog holes, entering three nearby farmhouses in succession. Finding neither money nor medicine, he stole several sets of clean clothes, a thin blanket, and made off with an old hen that was currently laying eggs. He wrapped the clothes around his waist, muzzled the hen, and bundled it in the thin blanket to carry on his back. Poking his head about, he moved toward a courtyard at the edge of the village that featured a three-story small building—seemingly the home of a wealthy family.
Climbing a tree to scale the courtyard wall, he looked around the yard but found no one. He then crept into the building, searching from the first floor to the second, and then the second to the third. He stuffed numerous small bottles and jars beneath the hen’s backside and grabbed a handful of gold and silver jewelry to shove into his waistband. Finally, he unearthed a medicine chest from a cabinet on the third floor. He opened it to look—it was all in Thai, and he did not recognize a single word.
He was frowning as he picked through the items when he suddenly heard a noise behind him. Subconsciously turning around, he came face-to-face with an old lady sitting in a wheelchair by the window, soaking up the sun…
The old lady was so aged she resembled withered wood; her hollow eyes stared at this ragged, wild man with hair like tangled grass and a face full of beard. Her skeletal hands trembled, and a segment of pomelo fell from her grip with a plop onto her knees. A middle-aged maid emerged from the adjacent room, and upon seeing this sight, she let out a piercing wail! “Ahh——!!!”
Xiao Ma was also startled into a cry of alarm. He grabbed the medicine chest and bolted outside! The maid brandished a broom and chased after him, calling out loudly as she ran. Several young men and women emerged from various parts of the building—God knows where they had been hiding—and joined forces to begin a manhunt for Xiao Ma. It was no longer possible for him to circle to the back and scale the wall, so he could only steel himself and charge toward the front gate. He hoisted up a young boy swinging a wooden stick in his path, carefully tossed him aside, crashed through the courtyard gate, and sprinted out. In the houses facing the street, women were sitting at their doorways chatting while spreading out pomelo peels to dry. Xiao Ma swept past them like a gale; by the time they regained their senses, more than half of the pomelo peels before them had vanished!
The peaceful village erupted into a boiling frenzy. Upon the river path, one could see a robust man clutching dried pomelo peels, an earthenware jar tucked under his arm, and an old hen strapped to his back, running for his life. Behind him followed a grand procession of dozens of villagers—all the women, children, and elderly left at home during the day—sturdy women and children at that, brandishing farm tools, shouting and cursing in hot pursuit. Amidst the jolting, the old hen broke free from her muzzle and stretched her neck to provide a soundtrack to this grand chase: “Cluck, cluck, cluck! Cluck-cluck-cluck! Cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck!”
Xiao Ma was pursued to the point of misery. He grabbed the gold and silver jewelry wrapped around his waist and threw them backward like “heavenly flowers scattered from above”. While they stopped to pick them up, he hurriedly jumped into the fields. Relying on his long stature and legs, he waded across the small river and plunged into the pomelo grove, vanishing from sight in the blink of an eye.
……
At dusk, the young men returning from farming held shovels, hoes, and torches, searching the entire village in a group. Finally, they aggressively kicked open the abandoned log cabin. They found only an empty medicine chest and a floor covered in bloody chicken feathers; the person had gone, and the house was cold.
……
Jade Guanyin woke to the mouth-watering aroma of chicken soup. Xiao Ma, crouching by the campfire, was frowning as he sniffed through a pile of small bottles and jars, trying to distinguish which one was salt. She failed to recognize this filthy, bearded man for a moment, and feeling dizzy, she closed her eyes and drifted off again.
Before long, she was gathered into someone’s arms and rudely shaken awake. A familiar male voice cursed in Cantonese, “Wake up! Stop acting like a corpse!”
She forced her eyes open to see a pile of medicine bottles spread before her. “Look! Which medicine can you take?”
Dazed, she gave no reaction. The man could only shove the medicine boxes one by one against her face. “Is it this one? How about this one?”
She finally lifted a finger toward one of the bottles. The man unscrewed the cap, poured out a few pills, and stuffed them into her mouth. He then fed her a mouthful of warm chicken soup mouth-to-mouth to help her swallow. She was so groggy she wanted to sleep again, but he shook her vigorously, forcing down more chicken soup and several pieces of chicken meat simmered to a soft pulp, as well as a boiled egg broken into pieces.
The campfire for the soup was extinguished, and the dried pomelo peels used to repel insects were lit. The cave was filled with the fragrance of pomelo. Suddenly, she struggled unconsciously, letting out a groan of agony—Xiao Ma was using a red-hot stone shard to cut away the necrotic flesh from her wounds to disinfect them. After this bout of pain that was worse than death, she fell back into a heavy sleep.
……
When she woke again, a light rain had just passed outside the cave; the entrance was still dripping with a drip-drop, drip-drop sound. The tiny sound of water accompanied the faint rustle of the wind in the forest. At this moment, she felt a tranquility and peace she had never known in her entire life.
A bearded wild man sat beside her, using his thigh as a pillow for her. He had his head tilted to one side, snoring like thunder, still clutching a rag used to cool her forehead and reduce her fever.
She reached into the wild man’s trousers and felt around, identifying him as Xiao Ma by his size and shape. Xiao Ma, who was dreaming of roaming the brothels of Portland Street with his Big Boss and Lady Boss, suddenly felt his “bird” being grabbed in the middle of the street in his dream, and he woke up in a fright.
Under his glaring gaze, Jade Guanyin withdrew her hand as if nothing had happened.
Xiao Ma said crossly, “Are you hungry?”
“Hungry.”
Xiao Ma scrambled up, reheated the chicken soup in the broken jar, and poured it into a small bottle that had previously held spices, placing it on the ground before her. Jade Guanyin struggled to sit up and, without a word, picked it up to eat and drink. Xiao Ma fished a chicken leg out of the jar for her; she grabbed it with her greasy hands and devoured it ravenously.
Xiao Ma knew her life was both “cheap and tough”, so he didn’t bother spending extra time waiting on her. Without a word, he left the cave. An hour later, he returned with two fish caught from the river and a bundle of firewood, only to find that Jade Guanyin had finished off the remaining half jar of soup and meat, leaving not a single drop.
Xiao Ma stared at her in disbelief for several moments—finally realizing that she was “half a man”.
“Do you want more?” He held up the fish.
Jade Guanyin nodded while clutching her stomach.
Xiao Ma skewered the fish and roasted them over the fire, picking out a few spices from the jars stolen from the kitchen to rub onto them. Jade Guanyin, wrapped in clothes, leaned crookedly against the stone wall, her eyes fixed upon him.
“What are you looking at?” Xiao Ma was annoyed.
“You’ve turned dark.”
Of course he was fucking dark! He had been running around under the scorching sun all day stealing things, catching fish, and gathering firewood! Xiao Ma opened his mouth to curse her, but there were too many things to curse her for; everything flooded his mind at once, and he truly didn’t know where to start.
He finally just glared at Jade Guanyin, turned his face away, and continued roasting the fish.
The wind poured in from the cave entrance, making the campfire flicker. Jade Guanyin felt a bit cold and curled up, hugging her knees. Xiao Ma glanced at her, stood up with a dark face, and covered her with the stolen waistcoat he was wearing. Jade Guanyin took the opportunity to grab his arm.
“What is it?” Xiao Ma frowned.
Jade Guanyin looked up at him and spoke with sincere humility, “I plotted against Xia Liu Yi. I am sorry.”
The thought of this filled Xiao Ma with a surge of fury; he reached out and throttled her throat! After squeezing for a moment, he felt it was pointless and released her, even patting the back of the coughing Jade Guanyin to help her catch her breath.
“Forget it, I’m the one who’s pathetic,” he admitted. “You fucking ruined my Boss and me, yet I still can’t bring myself to kill you.”
—On the way he had carried Jade Guanyin out of the forest, he had thought countless times of abandoning her in the jungle, or strangling her on the spot and picking up a stone to smash her head into a pulp. Countless times, yet not once did he act upon it. These past few days, he was frequently consumed with rage—not hating Jade Guanyin, but hating his own pathetic nature!
“You win,” he said to Jade Guanyin. “When your wounds are healed, get lost. I don’t want to see you again in this lifetime.”
Hearing these words, a momentary flash of shock appeared on Jade Guanyin’s face, but she immediately smiled as if nothing were wrong. “Fine, as you wish.”
Futile Devices Scans 
Leave a comment