Since we’re already talking about that rainy day ten years ago, we must explain exactly what happened that day.
Ten years ago, on August 30th, a massive downpour struck the small town.
Whoosh—
Through the curtain of rain, a bicycle shot out, its wheels grinding along the narrow lane and kicking up a spray of mud.
Meng Bai pedaled furiously through the storm.
At seventeen, she was still so young and inexperienced, her fair face streaked with rainwater, her slim figure drenched. Her white T-shirt was soaked through, the fabric clinging to her back and faintly revealing the delicate line of her spine.
Rain like this didn’t come often.
Home. Get home fast.
That single thought consumed Meng Bai’s mind.
Maybe she was rushing too hard, or perhaps there was another reason.
Either way, at the bend in the narrow path, she lost her balance. As she turned, the bicycle’s center of gravity shifted, tipping wildly out of control to one side.
The next second—
Bang!
Meng Bai crashed straight into the mud.
She lifted her head and realized she’d fallen right at the entrance to the Old Courtyard. The place was ancient, arguably the most historic building in town. Rain streamed down from the eaves, tracing the ridges of the tiles onto the stone steps. Over the years, it had worn several brownish-black depressions into the stone.
Her gaze traveled up the steps to an imposing iron gate.
Rust bloomed in patches across its surface, and a quiet, eerie chill seemed to emanate from it, making Meng Bai’s heart thud heavily.
Of all places, she’d ended up here.
This was the Lunatic’s House.
Of course, at the time, Meng Bai had no idea the so-called Lunatic was Miao Bai. She only knew her by that nickname: the Lunatic.
Yes, ten years ago, everyone in town called Miao Bai the Lunatic.
They said she was some seventy- or eighty-year-old crone with a vicious temper who lashed out and hit people over nothing.
Meng Bai had believed it completely back then. She really thought Miao Bai was a lunatic, really thought she was a little old lady.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing standing at the Lunatic’s front door?!!!”
Meng Bai startled and whipped around. Zhou An was hurrying over, holding an umbrella.
The two of them were just sixteen or seventeen back then, a pair of pretty young girls. Zhou An had come to bring Meng Bai an umbrella and, seeing her sprawled in the mud, rushed to help upright the bicycle.
“How’d you manage to crash right at the Lunatic’s gate?” Zhou An repeated, unable to help herself.
Meng Bai snapped back to reality. “What else? Rode too fast and wiped out.”
“I’ve been searching all over for you!” Zhou An thrust the umbrella into Meng Bai’s hands and helped lift the bike. “Don’t fall here, okay? That Lunatic might come out swinging any second!”
Everyone said the Lunatic went around hitting people, her weapon of choice the walnuts from the tree in her courtyard.
It sounded ridiculous, even absurd.
“Does she really hit people?” Meng Bai asked dubiously. They pushed the bicycle together, huddled close under the umbrella as they hurried forward.
“What do you think?” Zhou An sneaked another glance back at the courtyard and whispered, “Last September, my brother walked by and saw her yanking walnuts in the yard. He got curious and went closer for a look. Never saw her face, but bam—a walnut to the head gave him a huge lump!”
“That does sound weird—” A smile flickered in Meng Bai’s eyes, though her tone stayed uncertain. “Isn’t she supposed to be some old hag? Could she even take down a young guy?”
“Why are you laughing? I’m serious, don’t brush it off!” Zhou An went on, still caught up in the story. “She might look old, but when she snaps, watch out! One toss of a walnut and your skull cracks open!”
“Have you ever actually seen her?” Meng Bai’s amusement faded as realization dawned. “I’ve only caught glimpses a few times, and she’s always got that face mask on, all secretive.”
Zhou An shook her head. “Maybe two or three times for me. My dad’s generation knew her better. She’s old now, doesn’t go out much. And we never take this lousy little path anyway.”
She remembered the rain that day pouring relentlessly, drenching the world, filling the air with its scent.
They didn’t linger on the topic of the Lunatic. Zhou An walked Meng Bai all the way to her front door.
“Come find me tonight for homework!!”
Meng Bai nodded. She wheeled her bicycle under the eaves and watched Zhou An go.
Zhou An’s slender figure merged with the ashen sky, walking steadily onward until she vanished from sight…
~~~
They’d made plans to study together, so after dinner, Meng Bai set out for Zhou An’s house.
Life in the small town always felt slow back then, most days drifting by without aim.
Rainy days made time crawl even more, as if it had frozen.
Autumn nights fell early, nothing like the city where lights burned bright year-round.
That evening, Meng Bai sloshed through the mud, the post-rain chill hanging in the air, the sky a vast expanse of inky blue.
The town had no streetlights at night.
But the tungsten bulbs glowing from neighbors’ doorways cast enough warm light to brighten the muddy lanes.
The golden glow mingled with the gray sludge, evoking memories of the malt candy from childhood.
The town was so small that every house sat close to the next.
It wasn’t long before Meng Bai reached Zhou An’s home—a simple earthen house with the main room still lit up.
She stepped closer, raising her hand to knock, when a piercing tirade burst from inside:
“You goddamn Zhou, did a donkey kick your brain? Three thousand yuan! Three thousand just pissed away! You take me for an idiot?!”
Carpenter Zhou fired right back, undaunted: “Yell louder! Go on, louder! The whole damn neighborhood’s gonna hear you anyway!”
Carpenter Zhou, Zhou An’s father, was a hopeless gambler. He’d clearly run up another debt—and a big one, three thousand yuan at that.
In an age when incomes were meager, three thousand was no trifling amount.
Zhou An’s mother, Zhang Caiyun, wasn’t much better. She was hooked on cards and had a domineering streak. In some twisted way, they were perfect for each other.
When they fought, they held nothing back, determined to prove who was right.
It was a contest of who could shout loudest, hurl more pots and pans—neither ever backing down. Things got ugly enough sometimes that fists flew.
Zhou An, poor girl, always suffered the fallout.
“You’re no Zhou—you’re a walking Disaster! A jinx! Every day with you is one big streak of bad luck! The worst!!!”
“Say it again. Say it again and I’ll beat you to death—”
Zhang Caiyun: “Do it then! Hit me! I dare you! I’ll drag every one of your filthy secrets into the open—see who ends up regretting it!!”
The words worked like a spell. Silence fell over the house in an instant.
The abrupt quiet left Meng Bai feeling strangely unsettled.
She walked up to the door and pressed her ear against it, straining to catch their conversation. But all she could hear from inside were muffled grunts—short, fragmented murmurs that buzzed indistinctly.
For the next few minutes, Meng Bai felt an overwhelming anxiety gnawing at her.
After a fierce internal struggle, she raised her hand and knocked on the door.
“Uncle Zhou! Uncle Zhou!!!”
The man inside let out an irritated tsk. “Who the hell is it? Do you know what time it is? What’s with all the knocking?!”
His tone was far from friendly, and Meng Bai felt her face heat up with embarrassment. Still, she pressed on. “It’s Meng Bai. I’m here to do homework with Zhou An.”
“What homework? She’s not home!”
Meng Bai paused, then took a few uncertain steps back. From there, she could see the window to Zhou An’s bedroom—and it was pitch black inside.
“Not home? Then where is she?”
Carpenter Zhou’s voice boomed from within. “How should I know? Ask someone who does. She went out this afternoon and hasn’t come back since!”
“I saw her come home this afternoon.” Meng Bai refused to believe it and pounded on the door again. “Uncle Zhou! Aunt Zhang! Open up!”
“I told you, she’s not here! Why are you being such a pain?”
The footsteps inside thudded roughly, radiating irritation even through the wood.
Moments later, the door swung open. Carpenter Zhou wasn’t tall, but his upper body—clad in a dingy white tank top—was powerfully built, his arms thick and sturdy from years of hard labor.
He squinted at Meng Bai. “I already told you, she’s not home.”
“But didn’t she come straight back this afternoon?”
“You saw her come back?” Carpenter Zhou rapped lightly on the doorframe and gave a mocking smirk. “Did you actually see her walk through this door?”
Meng Bai had never been a good liar. She hesitated for a split second.
And in that instant, Carpenter Zhou burst into laughter. “You didn’t see a damn thing! Like I said, she went out this afternoon and hasn’t been back!”
Meng Bai’s heart sank. Her eyes locked onto Carpenter Zhou’s. “If she didn’t come home, then where the hell is she?”
Carpenter Zhou waved a meaty hand dismissively. “Who knows? Maybe off looking for her cousin!”
“That’s impossible. This afternoon—”
Bang! Carpenter Zhou slammed the door in her face.
Meng Bai coughed on a cloud of dust, standing there in stunned silence.
Her cousin? No way. Zhou An was never one to ghost anyone, and she rarely went out at night anyway.
Meng Bai turned away, her mind racing with possibilities of where Zhou An could be. Absentmindedly, she glanced up at the sky. The moon that night was unnaturally pale, its faint glow sending a chill down her spine.
Something wasn’t right.
She spun back around and stared at the dark window of Zhou An’s room. “Zhou An! Zhou An—”
~~~
The night market buzzed with life, steam rising in thick clouds from the rice noodle stall. The warm glow of food stall lights bathed the rickety tables and chairs tucked into the street corner.
Even now, a decade later, Meng Bai could recount every tiny detail of that night. The panic and terror were etched into her memory for life.
“That night, your dad kept insisting you weren’t home.”
Zhou An wrinkled her nose. “Don’t say that. He’s not my dad.”
Meng Bai nodded. “Fair enough. These days, he’s just a convict rotting away in a labor camp.”
Zhou An shrugged it off with perfect indifference, as if the man had never been any kind of father to her.
Of course, after what he’d done, it was probably best to disown him.
Zhou An slurped up a mouthful of rice noodles and mumbled around it, “Anyway, you still haven’t told me what happened next. The next day, when I went missing—what did you do on your own?”
“Well…” A mist gathered in Meng Bai’s eyes. “Back then, all I could think about was finding you and bringing you home. I searched all day and came up empty. Couldn’t sleep that night, so I went out looking again. And then—”
“And then?”
“I almost got in serious trouble.” Meng Bai’s gaze flickered. “But thank goodness… that same night, I met Miao Bai for the first time.”
“You mean the thing with Zhang Zhou?”
“Yeah. The Zhang Zhou thing.”
Zhou An set down her chopsticks, her expression turning earnest. “I want all the details. Spill it.”
