"Boss."
Song Sisi walked into the clinic, carrying stead buns.
Li Xu had told her yesterday that he would be going out today.
But Song Sisi was bored at the apartnt.
She had already morized the acupuncture points.
She wanted to check them against the human ridian model in the clinic to reinforce her knowledge.
So, she was minding the clinic today.
"You hold down the fort, but rember, don't treat any patients,"
Li Xu instructed.
Song Sisi was in the middle of eating a stead bun, and she mumbled, "Even if I wanted to treat patients, I wouldn't know how."
"I'm off. I might not be back today."
...
Bailingyu Village was to the west of Feng City.
Jing County was to the southeast of Feng City.
Li Xu had to go southeast first, then cut due west.
After a series of rides, he arrived in Jing County.
Just then, a light rain began to fall.
The autumn rain wasn't heavy, but it carried a chill and was ceaseless.
Li Xu was wearing a windbreaker, and raindrops trickled down from the brim of his hood.
He gazed at the distant mountain range, which was wreathed in clouds and mist.
The Qinxi ntioned in his intel was hidden within those dark, bluish-green mountains.
He tightened the straps of his backpack, which held a foldable fishing net, a thermos, and a few simple tools. He had co fully prepared to catch the legendary Qin Fish.
"Excuse , sir, how do I get to Qinxi?" Li Xu asked, stopping a local man on a motorcycle.
"Qinxi?" The man wiped the rain from his face. "Going there in this weather? The road's no good. Are you headed for the Qin Gao Platform area?"
Li Xu nodded. "I hear there's a special kind of fish there."
The man gave him a strange look. "The Qin Fish? No one's seen those in years. Head east for twenty li, and ask again when you get to Qinxi Village." With that, he started his motorcycle and vanished into the rain.
An hour later, Li Xu arrived at Qinxi Village by taxi.
The rain was still falling.
Mist shrouded the mountain village in a hazy veil, with wisps of cooking smoke curling up from the chimneys of a few houses.
He knocked on the door of a small convenience store, where he bought a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of water.
"Uncle, could you tell how to get to Hidden Rain Rock?" Li Xu asked, offering the shopkeeper a cigarette.
The shopkeeper was a wiry old man in his sixties. He took the cigarette, sniffed it under his nose, and asked, "You're not from around here, are you? What are you going to Hidden Rain Rock for?"
"I heard the scenery there is beautiful." Li Xu didn't ntion the Qin Fish.
The old man narrowed his eyes. "This ti of year, a section of the path to Hidden Rain Rock was washed out by a mudslide a few days ago. It's a tough walk."
He pointed to the west. "Follow the creek upstream. When you see a rock that looks like an eagle's beak, turn right and go another two li. Want to be your guide? It's not expensive. I'll take you for 200 yuan."
Li Xu declined the old man's offer.
It wasn't that he was unwilling to part with 200 yuan.
It was because he didn't want anyone else to know the location of the Qin Fish.
His intel indicated that the location was extrely well-hidden.
Li Xu planned to leave so of the Qin Fish behind this ti.
He would let them continue to reproduce.
That way, he could co back to catch them every year, and no one else would know about the spot.
After leaving the village, the mountain path grew more and more rugged.
The rain had washed the rocks, making them exceptionally slippery, and Li Xu had to slow his pace.
The "rock that looks like an eagle's beak" that the old man had ntioned was nowhere to be found.
By the ti he realized he might be lost, he was already deep in an unfamiliar bamboo forest.
Li Xu pulled out his phone. The signal was very weak.
But the compass app still worked.
It was just past noon, so there was still plenty of ti before dark.
'If I head back the way I ca, I should be able to get out.'
Li Xu took so bread, a trail mix pack, and so ham from his bag, ate his lunch, chose a direction, and continued onward.
Half an hour later, he heard the faint sound of water—not the sound of falling rain, but the gurgle of a flowing stream.
Following the sound of the water, Li Xu passed through the bamboo forest, and the view suddenly opened up before him.
A crystal-clear creek glimred in the dim light, its water washing over smooth pebbles with a pleasant sound.
'This must be Qinxi!'
His shoes were already soaked through as he headed upstream along the creek, but he paid it no mind.
'The Hidden Rain Rock from my intel should be sowhere nearby.'
Suddenly, he noticed a few small fish swimming in the water.
Before Li Xu could get a clear look at what kind of fish they were, they abruptly darted into a crevice between the rocks and vanished.
'Those probably aren't Qin Fish.'
Li Xu recalled the pictures of Qin Fish he had looked at.
He pressed on and, after rounding a bend, finally saw the scene described in his intel:
A massive rock stood on the right side of the creek, shaped like a slanted roof, its face covered in moss and ferns.
'This must be Hidden Rain Rock!'
There was indeed a dark cave entrance beneath the rock, with the creek flowing past one side of it.
Li Xu turned on his flashlight, shining the beam into the cave entrance.
It was more spacious inside than he had imagined. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, and the ground was wet and slippery.
He didn't go in.
'There's no way there are any Qin Fish in here. This place isn't hidden at all. If there were any, the locals would have caught them all by now.'
Following the directions from his intel, he walked about twenty ters to the left, and the path began to narrow.
A tangle of trees and vines made the going extrely difficult.
This area was very remote and rarely visited.
Li Xu struggled forward for another seven or eight ters.
He discovered a fissure in the ground—this was the "crack in the ground" ntioned in his intel!
The flashlight beam illuminated the cavern below. It wasn't very deep, maybe a little over three ters high.
At the bottom was a body of water of unknown depth.
Li Xu looked around, then took a rope from his bag.
He tied it to a large tree nearby.
He fastened the other end around his waist.
Then he took out a dicinal shovel and slowly dug away at the entrance of the fissure.
...until it was just wide enough for him to fit through.
He took a deep breath,
and slowly squeezed inside.
The rock walls were cold and slick, scraping against his shoulders.
After squeezing through the narrowest part, the space suddenly opened up.
Li Xu rappelled slowly down the rope.
With a gentle swing, he landed on a clear patch of ground beside a pool of water.
"This is the place!" Li Xu murmured to himself.
The pool was only two or three ters wide, but it seed bottomless.
He held his breath and aid his flashlight beam at the water's surface.
At first, there was nothing.
Just as he was about to adjust the angle, a small, silver fish suddenly swam through the beam, followed by a second, then a third... In the blink of an eye, dozens of Qin Fish were swimming in the pool!
They were even plumper than the ones Li Xu had seen in pictures, their silvery-white scales shimring with a pearlescent luster under the flashlight's beam.
Li Xu hurriedly dropped his backpack and took out his foldable fishing net.
It was a fine-shed triangular net he had bought specifically for catching this type of small fish.
But when he dipped the net into the water, the Qin Fish scattered with surprising agility.
'I have to find a way...' Li Xu observed the school's swimming patterns and noticed they liked to gather near a protruding rock on the left side of the pool.
He quietly shifted his position, slowly sank the net into the water, and held it still in the fish's path.
The wait was agonizing.
The cave was so quiet he could hear his own heartbeat, and the frigid air gradually numbed his fingers.
Finally, a few Qin Fish swam into the net. He lifted it quickly—the beautiful fish struggled in the sh, but it was no use.
"Got 'em!"
Li Xu grinned.
He repeated the process.
An hour later, he had caught over fifty Qin Fish.
'That's enough.'
Li Xu put the Qin Fish into a simple, plastic fish tank.
He would leave the rest to recover and multiply, and he would co back next year.
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