They walked to the end of the pier. Luo Ji noted that the wind was favorable, so they could take the sailboat. The direction would change at night so they would be able to catch it again coming back. He took her by the hand to help her into the boat. It was the first time he had touched her, and her hands were exactly like the ones he had first clasped on that winter night in his imagination, so soft and cool. She was pleasantly surprised when he raised the white spinnaker. When the boat left the pier, she plunged a hand into the water.
“The lake water is very cold,” he said.
“But it’s so clean and clear!”
Like your eyes, he said to himself. “Why do you like snowcaps?”
“I like traditional painting.”
“What’s that got to do with snowcaps?”
“Mr. Luo, are you aware of the difference between traditional painting and oil painting? Oil paintings are brimming with rich colors. A master once said that in oil painting, white is as precious as gold. But it’s different with traditional painting. There’s lots and lots of blank space, and blank space forms the painting’s eyes. The scenery is just the border for that blank space. Look at that snowy peak. Doesn’t it look like the blank space in a traditional painting?”
This was the most she had ever said to him. She lectured the Wallfacer, pouring out words and turning him into an ignorant schoolboy, without any sense of being out of line.
You’re like the blank space in a traditional painting: pure, but to a mature appreciation, infinitely appealing, he thought as he looked at her.
The boat docked at a pier on the opposite shore, where an open-top Jeep was parked next to the trees. The driver who had parked it there was gone.
“Is this a military car? I saw troops around when I arrived, and had to go past three sentry points,” she said as they got into the car.
“That doesn’t matter. They won’t bother us,” he said, starting the engine.
The road passing through the forest was narrow and rough, but the car drove smoothly on it. In the forest, where the morning mist had not yet lifted, the sun penetrated the tall pines with shafts of light, and even through the engine sound they could hear the calls of birds in the trees. A sweet breeze whipped up Zhuang Yan’s hair and tossed it about on Luo Ji’s face, and the itching made him think of the winter road trip two years ago.
Everything about their surroundings was completely remote from Mount Taihang and the snowy northern China plains, but his dreams from that trip were so seamlessly connected to today’s reality that he found it hard to believe that it was actually happening to him.
He turned to look at Zhuang Yan and found her looking back at him. She had been for a long time, it seemed. The look in her eyes was one of slight curiosity mixed with goodwill and innocence. Sunbeams flickered over her face and body. When she saw Luo Ji looking at her, she did not turn away.
“Mr. Luo, do you really have the ability to defeat the aliens?” she asked.
He was completely overcome by her childlike nature. The question was one that no one but her would ever ask a Wallfacer, and they had known each other so briefly.
“Zhuang Yan, the core meaning of the Wallfacer Project is to encapsulate humanity’s real strategy in the mind of one person, the only place in the world that’s safe from sophon spying. They had to choose a few people, but that doesn’t mean those people are supermen. Superman doesn’t exist.”
“But why were you chosen?”
That question was even more abrupt and outrageous than the previous one, but it sounded natural coming from Zhuang Yan’s lips, because in her transparent heart, every sunbeam was transmitted and refracted with crystalline clarity.
Luo Ji slowed the car to a stop. She looked at him in surprise as he stared straight ahead at the patches of sun on the roadway.
“Wallfacers are the most untrustworthy people in history. The world’s greatest liars.”
“That’s your duty.”
He nodded. “But, Zhuang Yan, I’m going to tell you the truth. Please believe me.”
She nodded. “Mr. Luo, please continue. I believe you.”
He was silent for a long while, increasing the weight of the words he then uttered. “I don’t know why I was chosen.” He turned to her. “I’m just an ordinary man.”
She nodded again. “It must be very hard.”
Those words and Zhuang Yan’s look of innocence again brought tears to his eyes. It was the first time he had received such an acknowledgement since becoming a Wallfacer. The girl’s eyes were his paradise, and in that clear gaze he saw no trace of the expression that everyone else directed at the Wallfacers. Her smile was paradise for him, too. It wasn’t the Wallfacer smile, but a pure, innocent smile, like a sun-drenched dewdrop falling softly into the driest part of his soul.
“It’ll be hard, but I’d like to make it easier…. That’s all. Here endeth the truth. We now return to the Wallfacer state,” he said, as he restarted the engine.
They drove on in silence, until the trees grew sparse and the deep blue sky emerged overhead.
“Mr. Luo, look at that eagle!” Zhuang Yan shouted.
“And that over there looks like deer!” He pointed, fast enough to distract her attention, because he knew that the object in the sky wasn’t an eagle but a circling sentry drone. This reminded him of Shi Qiang. He took out his phone and dialed.
Shi Qiang answered. “Hey, brother Luo. So now you remember me, eh? First, tell me: How’s Yan Yan doing?”
“Fine. Excellent. Wonderful. Thank you!”
“That’s good. So it turns out I’ve completed my final mission.”
“Final mission? Where are you?”
“Back home. I’m getting ready for hibernation.”
“What?”
“I’ve got leukemia. I’m going to the future to cure it.”
Luo Ji slammed his foot down on the brakes and stopped short. Zhuang Yan yelped. He looked at her in concern, but, seeing that nothing was wrong, he resumed talking to Shi Qiang.
“Er… when did this happen?”
“I got irradiated on a previous mission and then got ill last year.”
“My god! I didn’t delay you, did I?”
“With this sort of thing, delay isn’t relevant. Who knows what medicine will be like in the future?”
“I’m truly sorry, Da Shi.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s all part of the job. I didn’t bother you about it because I figured we would be able to meet again sometime. But I’d like to tell you something in case we can’t.”
“Please.”
After a lengthy silence, Shi Qiang said, “‘Three things are unfilial, and having no issue is the greatest.’[12] Brother Luo, the lineage of the Shi family four hundred years from now is in your hands.”
The call disconnected. Luo Ji looked up at the sky, where the drone had disappeared. The empty blue wash of the sky was his heart.
“You were talking to Uncle Shi?” Zhuang Yan asked.
“Yes. Did you meet him?”
“I met him. He’s a nice man. The day I left he accidentally broke the skin on his hand and it wouldn’t stop bleeding. It was pretty scary.”
“Oh… Did he say anything to you?”
“He said you were doing the most important thing in the world, and he asked me to help you.”
Now the forest had entirely disappeared, leaving only grassland between them and the mountain. In silver and green, the composition of the world had turned simple and pure, and, to Luo Ji’s mind, more and more like the girl sitting beside him. He noticed a hint of melancholy in her eyes, and he became aware that she was sighing softly.
12