Fantasmas de la tumba antigua

Capítulo 5

The school's track and field team trains every morning at 6:30 on the school's covered sports field. There are also many other students doing their morning exercises there at the same time.

In order to get closer to He Jihong, Jiang Boyu had to give up his morning sleep. To better attract her attention, he even went to the street and spent 120 yuan to buy a snow-white "Adidas" counterfeit sportswear.

On the sports field, there are always more natural opportunities to get close and a more relaxed environment to communicate than in the classroom.

Often, just as dawn broke and the crescent moon still hung in the sky, Jiang Boyu would arrive at the covered sports field. His snow-white Adidas outfit was particularly eye-catching. He often felt the increasing number of girls turning their heads to look at him. To be fair, Jiang Boyu wasn't bad-looking; at least he had a very handsome and masculine appearance. If he were a boy born in a big city, his demeanor and style might be even more fashionable and outstanding.

However, now, because of this "Adidas" outfit and his athletic figure, he looks much more sunny and handsome, achieving a great "focus" effect. This is exactly what Jiang Boyu wanted.

To be precise, Jiang Boyu wasn't a playboy—he was just a kid from an ordinary working-class family. He simply wanted to get to know her, for no apparent reason! He didn't even have a clear idea of his purpose in doing so. He was only 18, still a very naive person.

For two weeks straight, Jiang Boyu, like the school's track and field team, went "rain or shine." To maintain his positive, sunny, and healthy image, he had to wash his Adidas clothes every two days at noon, let the afternoon sun dry them, and then wear them again the next day.

Because the dust on the playground was just too much. He didn't want to complete this painstaking and rather exciting plan "dusty and weary."

However, all of Jiang Boyu's good intentions seemed to have failed in front of He Jihong.

Many times, they passed each other on the track. To increase their chances of a "chance encounter," Jiang Boyu deliberately ran in the opposite direction from He Jihong. This way, they could bump into each other head-on, avoiding an awkward chase.

Every time Jiang Boyu ran towards He Jihong, he would deliberately glance at her. But He Jihong not only didn't react, she didn't even offer a smile or a greeting. She just ran on, her head slightly raised, her gaze firm and peaceful, her hair, tied up like a brush, rhythmically bouncing up and down behind her head.

Jiang Boyu had to admit that He Jihong was truly athletic. Her running was just like a fawn in the forest, a vibrant and energetic creature! Her posture was graceful and light, perfectly expressing the beauty of strength and speed.

Later, Jiang Boyu's expression while running could only be described as "lost and bewildered." "Even just a glance, even a smile, would be enough," Jiang Boyu thought to himself.

Jiang Boyu didn't dare to approach He Jihong or offer her any special treatment. He was still shaken by the scene of He Jihong's "heroic act" in the cafeteria. What if, what if she slapped him too? Then—his 120 yuan investment would not only fail to yield any material return, but he would also have no chance to recover his emotional loss.

Jiang Boyu's frustration was like a river of spring water flowing eastward.

When no one could ease his sorrows, he would write many red characters on a piece of paper. He would listen to his favorite song, "How Long Until Then." Whenever he heard the climax, "Without you, I cannot exist," he would shout it out loud along. Sometimes, his eyes would well up with tears.

What makes Jiang Boyu's sentimentality different from others is that he is sometimes deeply moved by his own actions and thoughts.

For a period of time, Jiang Boyu's eyes were always red.

Jiang Boyu, a football enthusiast and key player on the department team, rarely went to the covered sports field anymore, which prompted Shen Wei, the team captain, roommate, and best friend, to repeatedly curse him out. "Are you even a man? You're like a lost soul because you can't handle a woman!" Shen Wei also gave Jiang Boyu many terrible suggestions, such as "forceful pursuit" and "relentless pursuit," including harassing phone calls and passionate love letters. Jiang Boyu knew in his heart that these underhanded tactics were utterly useless against a girl like He Jihong. They might even backfire and ruin his reputation.

Later, it was Duan Youzhi, who was known as the "cunning strategist" in their dormitory, who saved Jiang Boyu with a single, quiet remark.

Duan Youzhi's adopted older sister at school happened to be in the same dormitory as He Jihong. Jiang Boyu indirectly obtained a lot of information about He Jihong from Duan Youzhi. In order to help Duan Youzhi with this favor, Jiang Boyu had helped that kid a lot by getting him water and breakfast.

Seeing that his charade of creating a chance encounter on the playground had run its course, Jiang Boyu dragged Duan Youzhi to a small restaurant and, at the cost of a pot of stewed beef with potatoes and a plate of spicy chicken, sought advice from the strategist.

Duan Youzhi's idea was just as apt as his name, "Youzhi" (meaning "wise" or "intelligent"). He only said one sentence to Jiang Boyu: "Excessive rigidity leads to breakage; one should overcome rigidity with gentleness."

Duan Youzhi's bedside table was always piled with books. They weren't novels or textbooks, but rather selections, biographies, historical materials, poems, and so on, all about Mao Zedong. He had practically devoured all four volumes of Mao's Selected Works. He said that even West Point Military Academy studied Mao Zedong's "On Protracted War" and "On Guerrilla Warfare," so how could Chinese university students fall behind? Another piece of irrefutable evidence of his admiration for Mao Zedong was his ability to recite the "Three Old Articles" fluently. "Time waits for no one. If I had been born fifty years earlier, I could have become a great military strategist!" Duan Youzhi often sighed and pondered while reading in his dormitory.

Seeing that Jiang Boyu didn't quite understand the principle of "overcoming strength with gentleness," Duan Youzhi explained in more detail that a girl like He Jihong couldn't be won over by force or by cleverness. She wasn't cunning, but she was certainly very wary. He suggested using the "bitter flesh ruse" from the Thirty-Six Stratagems. At the same time, he also told Jiang Boyu to prepare for a protracted struggle.

Finally, he adjusted his glasses, which showed a prescription of 700 degrees, blinked, and said, "Look at the love lives of great men; love is like a battlefield!"

Jiang Boyu suddenly felt enlightened.

The so-called "bitter trick" was carried out on an ordinary Friday morning. The timing was carefully arranged by Jiang Boyu and his "strategist" after much deliberation. Jiang Boyu thought that if the plan went smoothly and achieved the desired effect, he could then press his advantage on the remaining Saturday and Sunday.

Jiang Boyu made a firm decision: to use gentleness to overcome strength, and vowed not to return until he conquered Loulan. In addition, for various reasons, he made an exception that morning and did not wear his snow-white Adidas suit.

The morning mist was hazy, and the air was filled with the refreshing scent of earth. Jiang Boyu's mood, however, was not so relaxed. His tension and anticipation were obvious, and his face was full of unease, as if he were crying "stop thief!"

As is customary, after spotting He Jihong, Jiang Boyu began running in the opposite direction from her.

On the first lap, he brushed past He Jihong, and unusually, he didn't cast a lingering glance at her. He Jihong, as usual, didn't even look at him directly.

In the second lap, he continued his steady and methodical approach. Duan Youzhi explained that before employing the feigned injury strategy, it was necessary to mislead the enemy and lower their guard.

On the third lap, he ran with a nervous urge. After the second bend, the distance between him and He Jihong gradually closed. 100 meters, 60 meters, 30 meters, 15 meters, his blood was boiling, his vision was blurred, and his mind was filled with her leaping figure.

Then, at the distance and position he had planned beforehand, Jiang Boyu crashed to the ground. He had even thought about how to fall in a way that would be most dramatic. Jiang Boyu played soccer frequently, and being tackled or falling during scrambles was commonplace for him. He had fractured bones three times since childhood, the most serious being a comminuted fracture of his left tibia in the second year of junior high school. However, this time he didn't want to get too carried away; after all, it was supposed to be a real performance!

The running track in the covered sports field was still covered with cinders, and there were many small, sharp stones. Jiang Boyu instinctively took protective measures the moment he fell. Nevertheless, this technical fall achieved the desired effect.

At that moment, He Jihong was less than ten meters away from him.

At that moment, Jiang Boyu felt a surge of exhilarating pain and excitement.

A trickle of blood was seeping from the edge of his palm. Jiang Boyu, who had fallen forward due to inertia, certainly wouldn't stay on the ground. However, in that instant of struggling to get up, his angel had already stood at his feet. Jiang Boyu's head was bowed, and the pain on his face was at least partly genuine. Unfortunately, he didn't dare look at He Jihong's expression at that moment. But He Jihong really did bend down, support his right upper arm, and slowly pull him up.

All of this happened exactly as the plot was designed by the "dog-headed strategist".

Seeing that Jiang Boyu was bleeding and his clothes were torn at the elbows and knees, He Jihong frowned and said, "Sigh, let's go, let's rest for a while." Jiang Boyu hurriedly whispered, "Thank you, thank you, I'm fine." But he obediently followed her, limping, to the stands by the track.

The straight-line distance from the innermost track to the stands is only 15 meters. It took only two minutes from helping Jiang Boyu up to walking to the steps and sitting down. But Jiang Boyu experienced the greatest happiness in the shortest distance and the shortest time.

Throughout the entire ordeal, He Jihong supported Jiang Boyu. Even after Jiang Boyu sat down, He Jihong lifted his hand to examine it and said, "It needs some treatment. I'll go get some medicine. You wait here." He Jihong's tone left no room for negotiation.

Jiang Boyu watched intently as she crossed the entire playground, her figure light and agile.

Jiang Boyu wished the wait could last longer, much longer. Only when he saw her running back with the track and field team's spare first-aid kit did he lower his head in embarrassment.

He Jihong applied iodine to Jiang Boyu's injured hand, then carefully wrapped it with gauze and taped it in place. Finally, she let out a soft sigh and said, "You'd better go to the school hospital this morning to get a tetanus shot. It would be troublesome if you got an infection!" Jiang Boyu hummed in agreement, muttering to himself, "I was running too fast and accidentally tripped over a pebble."

He Jihong smiled slightly. This was the first time Jiang Boyu had ever seen him smile. But the smile was fleeting. She said, "Okay, I still have training to do, I'm leaving now. You rest for a while." With that, she grabbed her first-aid kit and ran off.

Jiang Boyu didn't ask her name, even though he knew it was He Jihong. But he felt it was better not to ask now; this fall had already provided ample justification for his actions.

Sitting on the steps, Jiang Boyu simply continued watching He Jihong run. Each time she passed by him, she would briefly cast a concerned glance at him. Although it was only for a moment, 18-year-old Jiang Boyu already felt that victory was in sight.

He glanced at his torn clothes and smugly thought that his decision not to wear that tracksuit was absolutely right. Compared to this great victory, what was a little physical pain!

On Saturday morning, Jiang Boyu got the phone number of his god-sister's dormitory from Duan Youzhi. Then he went to a public phone booth by himself.

Almost without thinking, he dialed He Jihong's dorm room directly. He Jihong didn't answer. Jiang Boyu deliberately said, "I'm looking for that classmate who practices hurdles on the school track and field team. Is she in?"

The person on the other end of the phone said briskly, "Okay, I got it." After a series of shouts and hurried footsteps, Jiang Boyu heard a clear voice say, "Hello? Who is it?"

"Oh, I'm the classmate you met on the playground last time." Jiang Boyu was a little nervous, and his voice trembled slightly, but he was convinced that He Jihong should remember him, after all, she had helped him up and applied medicine to his wounds!

"Hey classmate? When is it? What's up?" The person on the other end of the phone bombarded Jiang Boyu with three questions in quick succession. The tone was lukewarm and clearly not very enthusiastic.

"Oh, it was yesterday. I fell down and you helped me up and applied medicine for me. Thank you so much." Jiang Boyu's voice was strained, and he even began to wonder if he had dialed the wrong number.

But a soft laugh came from the receiver. "I know, don't mention it. Did you get your tetanus shot?" It was indeed He Jihong herself.

"I went to get the shot, and the doctor said it's nothing!" To avoid disappointing He Jihong's concern, Jiang Boyu had no choice but to lie. A tetanus vaccine costs over eighty yuan; he couldn't bear to spend that money.

"That's good, I'll hang up now. Be careful next time!" His tone returned to its usual indifferent tone.

"Oh, may I ask your name?" Jiang Boyu asked anxiously, almost shouting it out. He knew her name, but it would be a completely different story if she told him herself.

But the phone rang and then went dead.

Jiang Boyu's heart sank. All the initial excitement vanished instantly.

"An inauspicious start," Jiang Boyu muttered to himself.

In the afternoon, despite his still-aching leg and hand, Jiang Boyu went to the playground to play soccer with Shen Wei and his friends. Before going, he put on his snow-white Adidas shirt.

Jiang Boyu used to play as a defensive midfielder, but this time he insisted on playing as a striker. He ran wildly all over the field, shouting loudly for every goal. His eyes were red as he tackled, charged, and rolled. His hand was still wrapped in the bandage He Jihong had put on him the morning before; the white bandage and his snow-white shirt had long since turned black.

After the first half ended, Shen Wei ran over to him and said, "You lunatic, are you fucking venting?" Jiang Boyu just opened his mouth wide and gasped for breath, gulping down mineral water, without saying a word.

After the game, the team went out for dinner. Jiang Boyu drank beer like crazy. He drank until his eyes were bloodshot, then hugged Shen Wei and burst into tears for no apparent reason.

Heart Dust, Part Two

Yan Hao hadn't seen Xiao Hui'er for a long time, only occasionally exchanging a few greeting text messages in the evening.

He felt as if he had been forgotten by love in this dull and gloomy campus.

Isn't that so? Aside from attending classes, eating, and sleeping, he could hardly find a more meaningful way to pass the time. Instead, he spent a lot of time pondering that cryptic third ironclad rule.

He also texted his girlfriend and many of his high school classmates, asking, "Do you believe in the existence of the soul?"

The 50/50 split between those who believed and those who didn't was clearly not a satisfactory answer for Yan Hao. Xiao Hui'er, on the other hand, was on the side of disbelief.

"I only believe that the starry sky above and the love in my heart are eternal," Xiao Hui'er texted him back. Such a beautiful and romantic sentence, but Yan Hao had no heart to appreciate it. In his view, romance was one thing, and life was another. The cruelty of reality didn't change according to one's will, and because of his recent experiences, he had lost much of his interest in romantic love.

Ever since his last visit to the specimen preparation room, Yan Hao had become withdrawn and lazy. One morning, after getting up, Shen Zihan forced him to shave under the tap. While supervising him as he haphazardly applied Gillette shaving foam to his face, Shen Zihan stood there scolding him for pretending to be weathered, saying that his increasingly long goatee had become the most eye-catching sight in the classroom.

"Hey, Haozi, if you keep this up, Miss Ren will be bewitched by some alien. These days, pretty boys and urban heartthrobs like Takuya Kimura are all the rage. Young girls aren't buying your act of being mature anymore." Shen Zihan's sarcastic remarks had become increasingly refined.

Li Yuanbin was the leader of their internship group, while Ren Xuefei was the class monitor. One was handsome and the other was beautiful; like lightning striking, they became inseparable, which didn't surprise Yan Hao much.

So his response to Shen Zihan was also indifferent. "Right? I understand." And then there was nothing more to say. He just mechanically shaved, his face in the mirror looking haggard and melancholy.

"Haozi, did you see something in the specimen preparation room that day?" After a long while, Shen Zihan suddenly asked.

Yan Hao's hand holding the razor stiffened for a moment. "Let's not talk about it. We've already gone."

“I also felt something was off that day. The door opened by itself. Then it felt like someone bumped into me. I even took a step back, and then you took another step back.”

Yan Hao's face suddenly stung with pain, and beads of blood appeared. "Hey, you can't even shave properly. You can't be shameless and alienate yourself from the people, can you?" Shen Zihan's loud shouting only made Yan Hao more nervous, and he became flustered.

The bleeding seemed unstoppable. The cut was near the corner of my mouth, not very big, but even after using three tissues, the blood kept seeping out. Later, it wasn't just seeping out, it was practically gushing out.

Liao Guangzhi and Alien Boy had already run to the classroom for early self-study. Shen Zihan rushed to another dormitory, grabbed a small bottle of Yunnan Baiyao, poured the powder into his palm, and pressed it onto Yan Hao's face.

The blood had stained the water in the bathroom sink a deep crimson.

Shen Zihan's face turned pale with fright. He pressed the medicine powder on his hand and said, "If... if it doesn't work, let's go to the hospital!"

Yan Hao covered his face tightly and shook his head, saying, "No need, the book says that the face has the most blood vessels. It will stop in a little while."

Whether it was due to excessive blood loss or a feeling of unease, Yan Hao suddenly felt dizzy standing in front of the bathroom mirror. Looking down, he saw a basin of bloody water in front of him. The water was bright red and shimmering, swirling before his eyes. For a moment, even he couldn't tell whether it was the water spinning or himself.

He vaguely saw that, besides the bright sunlight, there were other things floating in the water.

There was clearly a face in the water. It was blurry, and it was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman. Yan Hao thought it was his own reflection, so he opened his eyes wide to look again, but the face's eyes were closed.

"That's not his face!" he yelled. He grabbed the mirror and nearly slipped and fell.

Yan Hao's hands, face, bathroom mirror, sink, and floor were covered in blood!

His hand slid limply off the mirror, leaving five gruesome bloodstains on it.

Shen Zihan stood fearfully behind Yan Hao. He too saw Yan Hao's face in the mirror, distorted and fragmented amidst five bloody streaks. "That's not you, it's not!" Shen Zihan murmured. At that moment, he was truly terrified. "Was that Yan Hao? What did he see? And what did I see?!"

Shen Zihan retreated, retreated, until he reached the balcony outside. An unprecedented sense of unfamiliarity rose from the soles of his feet, like a chill running through his entire body, and layers of cold sweat had already soaked through his underwear.

The bleeding eventually stopped. A purplish-black scab clung to Yan Hao's lips, looking like a disgusting giant fly. Shen Zihan pretended nothing was wrong and said, "What the hell! I've never seen a cut bleed this much. Is your kid's skin made of tofu dregs?"

The first class this morning was the newly started "Physiology." Apparently, it was the head of the teaching and research office—the "old maid" who's ranked first among the "Four Great Detectives"—who was going to cause trouble, as Wang Yanyan mentioned. Given that, to paraphrase Da Sha, we should at least give the teacher some face and not be late or skip class, or we'll be in deep trouble.

After Yan Hao finished getting ready, the two of them realized that it was only seven or eight minutes before eight o'clock, so they hurriedly grabbed their textbooks and rushed to the teaching building.