Chinese New Year

Chapter 5

When the dozen or so uniformed men in peaked caps came out of the patrol boat, the man finally realized there was no way out this time. His voice lowered, but he was still muttering something to himself.

Xiao Zhang got angry and said, "Hurry up! What are you saying?!"

Provoked by Xiao Zhang, the man rolled his eyes and said, "You only dare to pick on the weak! There's another boat here, why don't you go..."

At this point, the man suddenly stopped talking. I noticed his wife secretly tugging at his clothes from behind.

Xiao Zhang said, "Where else are there boats? You're the only one here."

The man remained silent.

Xiao Zhang snorted and raised his voice an octave higher, saying, "No matter whose boat it is, if it doesn't have a license, even the King of Heaven will take it."

I inwardly cursed. This Zhang looked like he was new to the job, speaking so bluntly. But then I thought, how powerful could someone living on a ship like this be? Even if they were in the underworld, they'd only be a tiny, insignificant figure. He could say whatever he wanted.

The man, unable to resist the provocation, gestured with his hand and said, "It's a little smaller than this one, and the cabin is covered with a black cloth. It appears every day after midnight for the past two days. Go ahead and collect it."

These words caused an uproar among the surrounding crowd. Many people showed expressions of shock, while others turned and left without even watching the commotion.

Xiao Zhang said, "After midnight, who knows if what you're saying is true?"

The man turned to the onlookers and asked, "Is it true? What do you think? Is it true?"

Those people all nodded in agreement.

A child, unaware of what was going on, asked his mother, "What kind of boat is it?"

The woman's face turned pale, and she said, "It's nothing, let's go back."

Xiao Zhang was taken aback for a moment, then said, "Okay, I'll come again tonight. If this boat doesn't have a license, I'll tow it away anyway."

The man's brow twitched, and he said, "You said it yourself."

Xiao Zhang waved his hand and said, "Alright, are you all ready? We need to tug the boat."

He then turned to me and said, "Teacher, are you coming tonight?"

I thought about it for a while, and felt a little uneasy, but I also thought the subject matter was very good, so I nodded.

Just as the patrol boat was about to leave, I jumped ashore, wanting to ask about the boat in detail. To my surprise, the people who had just nodded were now unable to give me a clear answer.

When asked the fourth person, an elderly woman in her sixties, she simply said, "Be careful, that's a ghost ship," and walked away without looking back.

I wanted to remind Xiao Zhang to be more careful tonight and to have more people around to make more preparations, but I thought that saying such a thing would make me, the "teacher," seem a bit timid, so I finally didn't say it.

At midnight, I sat in a taxi heading to Pudong. The price on the meter kept going up, and I smiled bitterly to myself. The round-trip taxi fare would probably be more than my writing fees.

When we arrived at the place where we boarded the ship this morning, as soon as we got out of the taxi, we heard the engine of the patrol boat chugging along. Xiao Zhang had already arrived.

I jumped onto the boat, only to find that there were only two people on board, Xiao Zhang and I.

I ran to the driver's seat and asked, "Is it just the two of us?"

Xiao Zhang said, "Yes, it's so late, I feel bad calling anyone else, two people are enough."

Enough? I had a big question mark in my mind, but I didn't say much.

The patrol boat sped forward. The river was narrow, and the water on both banks surged up with the boat before slowly receding. There was no other sound around.

When I reached the section of the river where the man had been during the day, I strained my eyes to look around, but I couldn't see a single boat.

That guy was bragging, and thinking that actually made me feel relieved.

The boat sailed forward a little further, but still found nothing. Xiao Zhang cursed under his breath and had no choice but to turn around and go back.

Just as I was secretly protesting the injustice done to this late-night interview, something I shouldn't have seen suddenly appeared in my field of vision.

On our way back, in the very section of the river where the "ghost ship" is said to be, a boat was quietly moored.

We had just passed by here less than five minutes ago, and there was nothing here then.

The patrol boat's searchlight shone in that direction. Indeed, the hull was completely covered in black canvas, resembling a traditional covered boat, quietly bobbing up and down with the river.

"When did this ship appear?" I asked.

Xiao Zhang shook his head and said, "Let's get closer and talk about it."

With a muffled thud, the two boats came together. I suddenly realized that this boat was not a cement boat, but a wooden boat.

Xiao Zhang secured the two boats with ropes, and I noticed his hands were trembling slightly, but there was no fear on his face. Instead, a look that shouldn't have appeared at this time and place flashed across his face. If I wasn't mistaken, it seemed to be a kind of anticipation.

I couldn't help but admire Xiao Zhang's courage. I took a deep breath and jumped onto the ghost ship that had suddenly appeared.

The deck swayed slightly, and Xiao Zhang jumped aboard.

When I looked into the cabin, I was stunned.

The cabin wasn't open; instead, it had two wooden doors that were tightly closed and appeared to be sealed.

Not a ray of light shone through the cracks in the two doors.

"Is anyone inside?" I shouted.

There was complete silence inside.

I was about to step forward and pull the latch when Xiao Zhang waved his hand and said, "Forget it, let's just tow this boat away."

The patrol boat towed the wooden boat to the designated disposal site and dumped it there. That completed tonight's mission. For me, there was almost nothing gained tonight, and I didn't mention it when I wrote the report the next day.

This matter should have ended there.

A few days later, the report was published in the newspaper, prominently displayed. I felt I should send a copy to the Pudong Urban Management Enforcement Team, but I didn't know their address, so I called Xiao Zhang to ask.

Unexpectedly, the reply was that Xiao Zhang had already resigned.

I was surprised and asked him when it happened. He gave me a date, which was the day after I went to interview him.

How could someone who was working overtime until midnight the night before quit their job?

Although I was puzzled, I wasn't really familiar with Xiao Zhang, so I didn't plan to ask any further questions. But then Xiao Zhang said, "He was probably afraid of being punished. The next day, I only saw a resignation letter, and then he disappeared."

I asked, "Disciplinary action?"

“He took the patrol boat out at night without permission and didn’t bring it back, leaving it unattended in the river. This could be a big or small matter.”

My head went blank. So he had acted on his own that day. No wonder he was alone.

“When I interviewed him during the day, he mentioned that he was going to tow a boat at night. Could it be…” I asked tentatively.

"Impossible, where would he tow the boat to?"

"Don't you have a place for centralized destruction?"

"We haven't seen any extra boats. We register them one by one as they come. Who knows what he's doing at night?"

I was puzzled. I clearly remembered towing the boat to the place of destruction, but I couldn't remember how to get there. I asked for the exact location again, intending to go and take a look.

After hanging up the phone, the more I thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed. It all appeared to be related to that ship. A very eerie thought suddenly occurred to me: Xiao Zhang had only joined the inspection team six months ago, and immediately resigned after the ghost ship incident. Perhaps Xiao Zhang was after that ship. But if that were the case, why did he call me along that night?

If that ship hasn't been destroyed yet, I definitely want to go inside and take a look.

On a tributary of an unnamed small river in Pudong, dozens of boats awaiting destruction were lined up in a long queue. I walked along the riverbank, but I couldn't see the boat. To be honest, I had no recollection of this place; after all, it was nighttime when I came, and I couldn't see anything clearly.

At the end of the long line, several workers were using a crane with a huge iron hammer to smash a ship, and the smashed ship would be buried nearby.

“No, there has never been a ship like that. We have people on duty at night. No new ship came here on the night you mentioned,” a worker told me.

A chill ran down my spine. I tried to recall the events of that night when we towed the boat over, but I couldn't remember any details.

how so?

I feel like I've fallen into a huge mystery, and my mind is a complete mess.

That was definitely not an ordinary ship; perhaps it really was a "ghost ship."

I thought of that old lady in her sixties; she must have seen the ghost ship, and perhaps most of the residents there had seen it too.

That afternoon, after a lot of effort, I finally found the place. I was determined to get to the bottom of this; I didn't like being kept in the dark.

“The ship hasn’t been seen at night for the past few days,” a robust man in his thirties told me. “Maybe it went somewhere else.”

"Why do you call it the ghost ship?" I asked.

The man looked up at me and slowly said, "If a ship disappears just when you want to dock with it, what do you think it is?"

I opened my mouth wide, but no sound came out.

The man gave a bitter laugh: "I didn't believe in this superstition at first, but one night, I mustered up the courage to bring the boat close to it. When I was about three or four meters away from the boat, I could see the wooden door on it clearly. In the blink of an eye, the boat disappeared without even splashing a drop of water."

"real?"

"Of course it's true. Countless people have tried, and not a single one has been able to get close."

Originally intending to get to the bottom of things, we received even more bizarre news. If no one could get close before, why were we able to go up that night? Was it because of Xiao Zhang?

All I know is that his surname is Zhang, but I don't even know his given name. Now, I'm completely lost.

Since I couldn't solve it or figure it out, I decided to forget about it. I went home and slept soundly until the sun was high in the sky the next day.

For me, it's easy to forget something. I'm so busy with work, constantly running around doing interviews, and it's not like this is the first time I've experienced something strange, so I gradually stopped thinking about it.

Nearly half a year later, as the weather gradually turned cooler, I was invited to a press conference. It was held by an unknown small winery to announce the launch of a new wine.

I only learned from their press release that this new wine is actually closely related to the ancient wine unearthed in the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River.

This small factory somehow managed to obtain a few grams of the liquor from that bottle. They isolated a unique microbial community from those few grams of liquor, which is different from the microbial community in any other liquor. This new liquor is based on these unique microbial communities and is brewed according to ancient methods. It is said to be exactly the same as the ancient liquor in that bottle, with an incomparably mellow and fragrant taste.

Although I wasn't entirely convinced, I developed a great interest in this wine. The organizers were very thoughtful; after the press conference, there was a wine tasting event, allowing us media reporters to sample it first.

A dozen or so large round tables were arranged, each set with exquisite wine utensils. The aroma of wine filled the entire hall, intoxicatingly fragrant. Anyone with even a little knowledge of wine would know that this must be fine wine.

After a lengthy speech by the distillery chairman, the moment to raise a glass and drink finally arrived. I took a small sip, just a light touch on my tongue, and a captivating aroma filled my throat and teeth. I couldn't resist any longer, so I tilted my head back and downed the glass in one gulp.

As soon as the wine went down my throat, my chest felt warm, then it burned after a few moments, and I felt invigorated and indescribably happy.

My glass was immediately refilled, and seeing me down it in one gulp with great flair, someone came over to offer me a toast. I didn't stand on ceremony and downed another glass.

Strangely enough, a surge of heat rose from my chest, making my face feel hot. I couldn't help but think to myself, "This liquor is really strong."

Despite its strong flavor, it tasted better than anything I'd ever experienced before. This ancient wine, with its thousand-year history, truly lives up to its reputation.

I picked up a few bites of food, grabbed a wine glass filled with wine, and was about to take a few more sips when suddenly my mind went blank, leaving me frozen in place.

The heat of the liquor churned in my mind, involuntarily bringing back fragments of my memories. It was as if I were reliving the past twenty-odd years in a flash, and previously blurry memories suddenly became crystal clear. Without warning, a hidden door to my memories suddenly opened.

This traditionally made wine, aged for a thousand years, has allowed the bacteria and yeast within it to slowly change over time. Surprisingly, it can restore forgotten memories. Later, I asked several journalists who drank with me, but none of them experienced anything unusual. It seems that perhaps this wine only works in cases like mine where memories have been forcibly sealed away.

In any case, by then, I already knew the truth.