I Am Your Natural Enemy

Looking up again toward the front, on the wall by the dirt road there was a line of very new, half-finished slogan.

”Implement it through action”

The other half was just whitewashed, not yet written.

Following that wall forward, he could still see some other big-character slogans.

”Prepare for war, prepare for famine, for the people.”

”Never forget class struggle.”

Wen Yan walked along the road; by the roadside he could see piles of cow dung and little pellets of sheep droppings.

He had only gone a few steps when he saw a man carrying a shoulder pole come out from a nearby alley.

The man saw Wen Yan, his steps paused, and he turned around to leave.

A thought flashed through Wen Yan’s mind, and he switched to the local dialect.

”Uncle, how do I get to Old Wang’s Home, you know the way?”

When the man heard this, he stopped, sized Wen Yan up and down, a trace of wariness in his eyes.

”Which Old Wang? Where are you from?”

”My old home’s in Camp Village.”

”Which Old Wang are you looking for, there’s a hell of a lot of folks surnamed Wang here, which work unit are you with?”

”The Folk Culture and Archaeology Action Team. I heard there’s an Old Wang in your village who’s quite capable, I’ve come to pay him a visit.”

Wen Yan rummaged over himself and couldn’t find any kind of ID, so he directly took out his bar-style cellphone and pulled up a photo.

The old farmer took one look, couldn’t understand it, but was greatly shocked.

The old farmer’s attitude improved a lot; he couldn’t make sense of it and had never heard of such a thing, but seeing how aboveboard Wen Yan was, he figured he definitely wasn’t some kind of spy.

”What are you here for?”

”Not enough grain at home for the family to eat, I came to buy some.” Wen Yan lowered his voice.

”How many kids you got at home?”

”Eight or nine mouths to feed at home.”

The old farmer understood in a second. Lots of people didn’t have that many grain coupons, but had many mouths at home, so they would quietly walk dozens of li to some other place to buy a bit of grain.

Especially some workers without land, they would all secretly do this.

If you knew someone, quietly going to a village to buy was best; aside from seed grain, the villagers would generally try to keep as much food as they could.

The old farmer no longer suspected much, mainly because Wen Yan’s full-on local dialect clearly wasn’t something just recently learned.

The old farmer lowered his voice and said,

”Soon as I heard, I knew who you’re looking for. You’d best not go. That guy’s always messing with feudal superstitious stuff. You got a job in the city, don’t get mixed up with him.”

”I’ll just buy some grain and leave before dawn.”

Wen Yan felt around in his pocket and handed the old farmer a cigarette.

The old farmer saw it was even a filtered cigarette; he couldn’t bear to smoke it. He sniffed it, then stuck it behind his ear, and pointed in a direction.

”If you’re going, then hurry up and go. He definitely has extra grain at home.”

”Alright, thanks, Uncle, I’ll hurry over then.”

Wen Yan took his leave of the old farmer and quickly headed off in another direction.

Just now on the wall, he had seen that one of the slogans even had a date noted beneath it—about more than forty years ago, roughly matching the result he’d already estimated.

When Wen Yan was a kid, several families next door were from Central Plains County; it was said they had fled famine to Guanzhong County.

Back then, when the old men had nothing better to do, they’d lecture their descendants and talk about how hard things used to be. Wen Yan had just treated it as entertainment, but without realizing it he’d taken in a bit, so he knew a little about Central Plains County in that era.

He still remembered, when that old neighbor talked about fleeing famine, Wen Yan asked a really dumbass question: when disaster struck and there was no grain, wasn’t there the river, so why not eat fish—was it because there wasn’t enough oil back then so fish didn’t taste good?

Then the old man said, believe your damn nonsense, we’d eaten tree bark already, there wasn’t even water, what fish was there to eat.

Wen Yan had been so embarrassed his face turned bright red; that was the first time he personally felt how scary it was to be ignorant.

Another thing he remembered was that the old man was very kind and made great stewed noodles; every time he cooked them he’d bring over a bowl.

Later, when he got a bit older, he actually quite liked listening to old folks tell stories. As they talked, they’d start complaining that young people’s physical fitness nowadays was no good—back in his day he’d carry dozens of jin on his shoulders and walk dozens of li and wouldn’t feel a thing.

He hadn’t expected that the stuff he listened to back then for fun would come in handy now.

He’d said he came to buy grain, and the old farmer here immediately stopped doubting him.

Walking on the village’s dirt road, he made a mental note of the person who had tricked him into coming here in order to stop him from going to Wangjia Valley.

This incident served as a wake-up call for Wen Yan: from now on he couldn’t rely too much on his ability.

Nevermore Lost indeed hadn’t led him astray; his target had been set as the village of Wangjia Valley.

And now he had indeed come to Wangjia Valley—just not the Wangjia Valley that Wang Jianjun had gone back to, but Wangjia Valley from several decades ago.

That feeling of desolate years washing over him was all too familiar to Wen Yan.

He was certain he hadn’t time-traveled; something like traveling back several decades wouldn’t happen in such a casual way.

This place was eight or nine parts likely just somewhere set up to temporarily trap him, to stall for time.

Still, that worked out just right—he could first go take a look at Wang Jianjun’s grandfather.

He had just asked that old farmer, and from the old farmer’s words he could tell that the Old Wang he was looking for was still alive at this time.

Following the old farmer’s directions, he made his way to the edge on the other side of the village. There, at a glance, he saw a mud house on a small slope, its outer walls built of mud bricks mixed with tiles.

Outside he could still see a small vegetable patch, mostly planted with string beans and green onions.

At this hour, smoke was already coming out of the chimney; a fire had been lit in the kitchen.

Wen Yan came to the door and knocked.

”Who is it?”

”Me.”

”Who are you?”

”Uncle, here to buy some grain.”

Only after hearing this did he hear movement in the yard. The door bolt was drawn, and an old man in a padded coat slowly opened the door a crack, sizing up Wen Yan outside.

The instant Wen Yan saw the old man, his eyelids twitched slightly.

Because he saw the prompt.

”Sacrifice (Great Sacrifice)”

”After the Spiritual Qi Resurgence, the fastest to awaken as a Sacrifice, and also the only Great Sacrifice.”