The Courtyard House: The Little Red Devil Returning from the Peninsula

In the Taihang Mountains in the twelfth lunar month, the wind doesn't just blow, it cuts.

Zhao Weiguo shrank his neck further into the collar of his cotton-padded coat. The coat was grayish-black, the cuffs were worn shiny, and there were two old pieces of different colored cloth patched on the shoulders. From a distance, he looked like an old man fleeing famine, but upon closer inspection, one could see that his back was bent slightly by the wind, and he always had to test the hardness of the snow before stepping on it.

The black cloth shoes on his feet were already soaked.

With each step, snowmelt squeezed out from between the stitches, chilling his toes to the bone. Two days ago, his right knee had struck a stone ridge, tearing his trouser leg. Blood and mud had frozen into a hard shell, causing a sharp, stabbing pain as he walked. He didn't stop; stopping would only make it colder, and once he was completely chilled, he wouldn't be able to get up.

It has been more than half a year since I left Beiping.

It didn't head straight for Taihang.

In late July, when Han Fucheng delivered him to the outskirts of the southern city, the gunfire in Beiping had not yet completely subsided. The dilapidated truck weaved through the alleys in the night, the cargo bed crammed with wounded soldiers and dismantled gun bolts, tattered burlap sacks for camouflage hanging at the front, and two groups of Japanese motorcycles lurking behind. After leaving the city, he first hid in several places with old connections within the 29th Army for about ten days, before being sent to a covert operation along the Pinghan Railway.

After that, the road was cut off.

The Japanese army occupied Beiping and Tianjin, blocking sections of the Pinghan Railway. Three different couriers took turns carrying him, he was hidden in mule carts, in the bottom of boats, and even buried in haystacks overnight. The most dangerous time was when a puppet soldier's bayonet pierced through the grass, missing his ear by only half an inch. Zhao Weiguo didn't move, holding his breath. Only after the group had walked away, cursing, did he realize his right hand had been gripping his pistol the entire time, his knuckles white as dead bones.

He then spent several months hiding in an underground transportation station in the Laiyuan area.

During the day, he repaired guns, sharpened knives, and mended magazines for the guerrillas; at night, he listened for the wind, waiting for someone who could send him deep into the Jin-Cha-Ji region. Autumn turned into winter, and then an early snow fell. Old Fan said the Japanese had swept through the mountain supply lines twice; they couldn't rush things, or they'd be sending him to his grave.

Zhao Weiguo did not argue.

He knew that a road wasn't something you could simply draw on a map and follow. Transportation lines relied on lives, passwords, food, and the trial-and-error of finding a way through each section. From Beiping to Taihang, it seemed like just heading west, but in reality, there were blockhouses, blockade ditches, puppet army strongholds, Japanese patrols, and layers of relationships that dared not be written down.

It wasn't until after winter arrived that Old Fan handed him a crumpled route map.

"On the outskirts of Taihang Mountain, there's an abandoned charcoal kiln. When you get there, shout 'Jin-Cha' (晋察), and the person opposite you will reply 'Taihang' (太行), then follow them. If you can't match them, just run back, don't look back."

When Old Fan said this, he had a pipe in his mouth, the pipe had gone out but he didn't light it, and his eyelids were drooping, as if he was afraid that if he looked at him any longer, he would be reluctant to let him go.

Zhao Weiguo replied with only one word: "Okay."

Now, he stands on the scree slope halfway up the mountain.

The wind rushed up from the mountain ravine, stinging one's face. The road ahead grew narrower and narrower, the stone walls on both sides seeming to close in, leaving only a sliver of gray-white sky overhead. The snow covered the road completely, making it impossible to distinguish between the path and the potholes; one had to carefully navigate with their feet.

Zhao Weiguo stopped beside a protruding rock and leaned against the stone wall to catch his breath.

He still had half a sorghum cake left in his pocket, so hard it could crack a walnut. He broke off a piece, chewed it a couple of times, and his teeth ached; swallowing it felt like his throat was being rubbed with sandpaper. He did have a few pieces of compressed military rations and some fried noodles in his system space, but who knew if anyone was watching him along the way? He didn't dare to take anything out of thin air.

Save money wherever you can.

If you can tolerate it, then tolerate it.

The system isn't a god, and the space isn't a warehouse where he can perform magic tricks in front of couriers, fellow villagers, and Eighth Route Army soldiers. The lessons learned from the journey to Beiping were enough; anything that can't be explained will become a thorn in someone's side.

He stuffed the remaining bread back into his pocket and looked up into the depths of the ravine.

Two roads branch off ahead.

To the left lies a half-collapsed charcoal kiln, its chimney leaning precariously like a drunken old man. To the right, winding around a mountain ridge, the outline of a distant valley can be vaguely seen. Old Fan's route map indicates that the meeting point is near the charcoal kiln.

But that picture was drawn in early autumn.

For two months in the mountains, every snowfall could seal off the gully entrance for the Japanese, and the guerrillas could move their rendezvous points. Maps could only give him a general direction; they couldn't save his life.

Zhao Weiguo squatted down and reached out to brush away the loose snow on the roadside.

There were footprints under the snow.

And it wasn't just one person.

Four or five people walked by, some in cloth shoes, some in straw sandals, but the most conspicuous was a rubber-soled shoe print. Rubber-soled shoes were uncommon in these mountains. The villagers couldn't afford them, and the guerrillas certainly couldn't. Pushing aside a couple more times, his fingertips touched a small clump of tobacco ash.

He rubbed it open and smelled it.

It wasn't the smell of tobacco leaves, but the burnt smell of cigarette paper.

Zhao Weiguo slowly stood up, took two steps back, and leaned into the shadow cast by the stone wall.

People in the base area couldn't get this.

The pistol was pressed against his waist, the butt slightly warm from his body heat. His right hand rested on it, but he didn't draw it. A gun is easy to draw, but difficult to put back. If he were to fire near the rendezvous point, the sound would alert half the village that something had happened.

The charcoal kiln area was eerily quiet.

A proper rendezvous point, even if disguised as an abandoned kiln, should have traces of human activity nearby: a well-trodden path, stubble from chopping wood, unburnt charcoal in the ashes, or at least one or two deliberately placed fake footprints. But all that was in front of us was snow and wind.

Zhao Weiguo did not approach from the front.

He circled the right-hand ridge, then climbed onto a protruding rock platform, crouching behind a rock to look down. The entire charcoal kiln lay beneath his feet. Several bundles of dry firewood were piled at the kiln entrance, the snow on them intact, untouched. There was a small window on the side, the snow beneath it worn into a small indentation, the footprints extending towards the back wall before being mostly covered by fresh snow.

Someone has entered and exited from the side.

They deliberately avoided using the main entrance.

Zhao Weiguo lay on the rock platform and waited.

The wind gradually drew away the heat from his body, and his fingers began to stiffen. He breathed shallowly, his eyes fixed on three points: the kiln door, the side window, and the back wall. About fifteen minutes later, the kiln door moved slightly.

Half a face peeked out from the crack in the door.

He wore a gray cotton-padded jacket, a gray felt hat, and had a stubble of beard around his chin. He looked to the left first, then to the right, his gaze sweeping over the direction of the ridge before quickly looking away.

A few minutes later, a figure emerged from the low wall behind the charcoal kiln. Crouching low, it crept along the stone wall towards the fork in the road. It clutched a wooden stick with a machete tied to the end, blade facing down, and moved silently.

They don't look like the Japanese devils.

The Japanese soldiers wouldn't sneak into the ravine alone, nor would they use a machete as a long weapon.

But we can't say they're necessarily one of our own.

In those days, traitors knew the mountain roads better than the Japanese soldiers.

Zhao Weiguo took a deep breath and straightened up halfway on the rock platform.

"Jin Cha."

The sound was kept very low, but it echoed in the ravine and rolled between the two stone walls before it still carried out.

The man below seemed to have been whipped, and he suddenly crouched behind the stone embankment by the roadside, holding his machete horizontally in front of his chest, the blade pointing in the direction from which the sound came.

Zhao Weiguo waited for two seconds.

The other party neither answered the password nor ran away.

"Mr. Zhang sent me," Zhao Weiguo added. "Old Fan from Laiyuan connected us."

There was a long silence below.

"Come down first," the man finally spoke, his voice hoarse and heavily accented with a Shanxi accent. "Don't talk while standing up there."

Zhao Weiguo did not act immediately.

He glanced first at the fork in the road to the east. A wisp of grayish-white smoke rose from behind the ridge, only to be swept away by the wind. It wasn't cooking smoke; it was too short and too low, like someone had extinguished a fire in a sheltered spot.

He memorized the location before sliding down the side of the platform. Gravel and snow tumbled down together, and his left leg buckled when he landed, his knee hurt so much that his vision blurred, but he didn't let himself kneel.

The man in the gray cotton-padded jacket stood up from behind the stone embankment. The moment he saw Zhao Weiguo clearly, the wariness on his face didn't dissipate; instead, an inexplicable confusion appeared.

He stared at Zhao Weiguo for a full five seconds.

"Are you alone?"

"Just me."

"Is no one following behind?"

"I bypassed two checkpoints and shook off a group of puppet soldiers. I can't guarantee whether anyone has followed me more than two miles away."

The eyelid of the man in the gray cotton-padded jacket twitched.

This answer may not be the most flattering, but it's more reliable than empty promises.

"How old are you? You still look like a baby."

"twelve."

"Twelve years old, crossing Baishi Mountain alone?"

"No one can escort you on the road ahead; you'll have to walk it yourself."

He stood with his gray cotton-padded jacket planted on the ground with his machete, his other hand on his hip. He was short, with broad shoulders, short, thick fingers, and black grime stuck under his fingernails, looking like someone who spent years digging or blacksmithing.

His gaze swept from Zhao Weiguo's tattered cotton-padded coat to his soaked cloth shoes, and finally stopped at the bulge at his waist.

"What's in your waist?"

"gun."

"Take it out. Slowly."

Zhao Weiguo did not move.

The man in the gray cotton-padded jacket's eyes darkened, and he raised his wood-chopping knife half an inch higher.

"What, you're scared?"

"If the password doesn't match, the gun can't be let go." Zhao Weiguo looked at him, his voice low but firm. "If you want to see, I can unload the gun for you. If you want to take it, give me the password first."

The man in the gray cotton-padded jacket paused for a moment.

It was as if he hadn't expected this teenager to dare to talk back to him about rules.

He stared at Zhao Weiguo for a few seconds, his Adam's apple bobbing, but he didn't reach out any further.

Zhao Weiguo slowly drew his Mauser pistol, muzzle down, finger off the trigger. The magazine was partially ejected, revealing its full load of bullets, which he then pushed back in. The gun remained in his hand; he did not hand it over.

The man in the gray cotton-padded jacket moved his gaze from the gun to his face, and then to the old scar visible on his collar.

The scar ran diagonally across the collarbone, and after healing, it left a whitish ridge of flesh. It wasn't a fresh wound, but it wasn't the kind of injury a child could get from a fight.

The woman in the gray cotton-padded jacket squatted down to look him in the eye.

"Where did this injury come from? Don't try to fool me with wrestling."

"Wanping," Zhao Weiguo said, "When people were evacuating through the breach in the city wall, one of them was scratched by a falling brick."

The man in the gray cotton-padded jacket didn't say anything.

These days, the name Wanping isn't something you can just boast about. To exaggerate it too much will only reveal your ignorance.

"Do you have anything on you that can prove where you came from? If so, show it to me. Don't make me guess."

Zhao Weiguo thought for a moment, then took out a neatly folded piece of paper from his inner pocket.

It wasn't the scroll with "Jin Cha" written on it. That thing was sewn into my sleeve; I'd take it when I met the person in charge.

He drew this himself.

He took the gray cotton-padded coat and unfolded it.

The paper contained a topographical sketch of the outer Taihang Mountains. Mountain passes, valleys, charcoal kilns, forks in the road, three possible blockade points, two alternative routes into the mountains, and a suspicious sentry post that Zhao Weiguo identified based on footprints and tobacco ash along the way were all marked two miles east of where they were standing.

The woman in the gray cotton-padded jacket stopped pointing.

He looked up, and the way he looked at Zhao Weiguo changed.

This is not something a refugee doll could draw.

"Who exactly are you?" the man in the gray cotton-padded jacket asked in a low voice. "A twelve-year-old refugee couldn't draw this kind of picture."

The wind, carrying snowflakes, rushed into the ravine and lashed at their faces. Zhao Weiguo's eyelashes were covered in ice crystals; his lips moved, but no sound came out.

Behind the distant mountain ridge, a wisp of grayish-white smoke began to rise again.

Closer than before.

"Someone is coming this way."