Wild Fire Bids Farewell To Summer Chapter 3

Spring Equinox

Mist rose from the Cheng River and settled onto the cinder track of Jiujiu Square. The cinders were boiler residue—glassy fragments with sharp edges and a vitreous luster. Morning dew pooled on these sharp blades, refracting the dawn light into scattered, starlike points.

Wei Zhiheng stood beneath the third branch of a camphor tree. The bark was cracked with deep longitudinal grooves that trapped last year’s withered leaves and scraped against his back. His shoulder blades and a tree burl formed two points of contact against the trunk. His school uniform jacket was damp from the mist, the fabric clinging to his back with added weight. Sweat mixed with the moisture, creating a layer of slime between cloth and skin.

His art box stood at his feet. The metal corners of the box’s base were wedged into the gaps between the cinders, creating an unstable support. Inside were a quarter-sized drawing board, a paint set, and a mineral water bottle filled with turpentine. The bottle was transparent, the pale yellow liquid filled to the one-third mark. Brown pigment residue sat at the bottom, settling whenever the bottle was still.

In his left hand, he held a piece of paper folded into quarters. It was pale yellow with a red header—a diagnostic certificate from the County People’s Hospital. The edges had been softened by the sweat from his palm, the fibers swelling and turning white where the folds had begun to break. The ink had bled into the word Anemia, a blue halo diffusing through the paper fibers.

The whistle for the run sounded.

The sound came from the command platform on the north side of Jiujiu Square. The PE teacher, Chen Gang, held a brass whistle shaped like a bullet. The brass had oxidized to a dark hue, and the mouthpiece was wrapped in black electrical tape with peeling edges. He blew hard, but the whistle leaked air, the pitch shifting into a hoarse scream that rose and cracked at the end.

The formation began to move. Twenty-three people in red athletic vests with bib numbers pinned to them; the metal pins flickered in the mist. The sound of footsteps erupted on the cinder track: the dull thud of forefeet landing, the crisp snap of heels lifting, and the rasp of steel spikes grinding against the cinders. The three sounds blended into a dense, dry, rhythmic beat.

Huang Jinye led the pack at the front. His stride was the longest, his arm swing exaggerated. On his right wrist, he wore a black digital watch; the rubber strap slapped against his wrist bone with a faint popping sound as he ran. His athletic vest was soaked through with sweat, turning from red to deep maroon as it clung to his chest, rising and falling with his breath.

Wei Zhiheng tucked the medical note under the leather strap of his art box. The edge of the paper curled up, trembling in the morning breeze. He leaned against the tree trunk, his left hand hanging at his side and his right hand pressed against his abdomen. His stomach was empty. Gastric acid secreted, irritating the mucosa and producing a burning sensation.

A hole appeared in his field of vision.

It started on the nasal side of his left eye—a black speck the size of a pinhead. It was fixed in place, not moving with his eyeball. Wei Zhiheng blinked, but the black spot didn’t move with his eyelid. It was a tear in the fundus of the eye, not dust on the surface. The black spot expanded, its edges sprouting dark, thread-like whiskers that swallowed half a finger’s width in an instant.

He turned his head toward the tree trunk. The texture of the bark seemed to float, rising three inches off the surface, the edges blurring and bleeding into the gray mist.

He reached out to steady himself, but his movements were a beat too slow. His palm brushed against the bark, failing to catch a groove, and his body tilted forward.

His right hand hovered ten centimeters in front of the trunk, fingers splayed and joints stiff. The art box slipped from his shoulder strap and hit the cinder ground with a dull thud, the turpentine bottle inside sloshing. As his body continued to pitch forward, just before his forehead hit the tree, his left hand instinctively shot out and gripped a burl on the trunk.

The surface of the burl was smooth, polished by the friction of countless hands. His fingernails dug into the crevices of the burl, the pressure transferring to the nail beds and producing a dull ache. He used this pain to confirm he was still connected to the material world, not yet swallowed by the void of low blood sugar.

His forehead pressed against the bark. The cold seeped through his skin, stimulating the blood vessels in his frontal lobe and causing a sharp, constricting pain. He closed his eyes. The blackness in his vision converged from the periphery toward the center. The roar of blood flow thundered in his ears—a rushing, low-frequency noise. His heart hammered to compensate for the low blood sugar, the blood flow creating turbulence in his carotid arteries that made his eardrums throb.

You on observation, get out of the way!

The voice exploded from his right. It was Chen Gang. He carried the scent of cigarettes and sweat, the brass whistle swaying on his chest. The tape-wrapped mouthpiece pointed toward Wei Zhiheng’s face. Wei Zhiheng did not look up. The muscles in his neck had lost their tension, his head hanging forward, its weight supported only by ligaments. A force grabbed his left arm and yanked him away from the tree. The hand was broad with protruding knuckles that pressed into his biceps, squeezing the capillaries until the muscle instinctively recoiled in pain.

Stand up straight! Why are you leaning on the tree?

Wei Zhiheng’s knees went soft, and his body sank. Chen Gang’s hand let go. His left foot slid forward, treading on the cinders. The granules rolled under his sole, and he lost his balance. His body lunged forward, his right hand instinctively reaching for the ground. His palm slammed into the cinder layer, the black granules embedding themselves into his skin. The sharp edges cut into his palm, forming a dense network of fine scratches.

The surface of the cinders was cold, but the interior held heat. His palm throbbed. The gaps between the granules were filled with sweat, forming a paste. Black powder mixed with his palm lines, filling every crease.

There was a foreign object in his palm. A larger fragment of cinder, the size of a soybean, porous and glassy with sharp edges, was pressing into the thenar eminence. The pressure caused local ischemia, turning the skin white, while a purple-red ring formed around it—blood seeping from the capillaries, blooming beneath the skin.

Low blood sugar? Chen Gang’s voice dropped an octave, but it remained piercing, the end of the sentence rising.

Wei Zhiheng could not answer. His tongue had become a slab of lead lying at the bottom of his mouth, impossible to lift. Saliva production had stopped, leaving his oral mucosa dry and astringent. He tried to nod, but his neck muscles only managed a tiny tremor. His vision became a tunnel, surrounded by a black ring with a circular bright zone in the center. The images within that bright zone were distorted, their edges blurred.

Chen Gang walked away, his footsteps making a crunching sound on the cinders as they receded. Wei Zhiheng knelt alone on the track, leaning forward with both hands on the ground. His kneecaps pressed into the cinders, the sharp angles of the granules pushing through the fabric of his school pants and into the skin over his patellas, creating a fine, stinging pain. The tunnel in his vision continued to narrow, the diameter of the central bright zone shrinking until it was no larger than the mouth of a bowl. Within this narrow field, he saw the cinder ground—black granules, irregular shapes, reflecting light.

Every cinder had its own unique angles, fracture planes formed by countless footsteps. Some were shell-like, the cross-sections of crushed internal pores; others were blade-like, fragments of a glassy shell. Morning dew condensed on the surfaces, forming hemispherical droplets, each one reflecting the grayish-white sky—inverted, shrunken, and distorted.

His breathing was rapid. Each inhalation stripped heat from his mouth, and his exhaled breath formed a white mist in the cold air, mixing indistinguishably with the morning fog. Sweat seeped from his forehead and slid down the bridge of his nose, dripping onto the cinders to form dark spots that were absorbed by the black granules and vanished.

Footsteps returned. The crunching was denser and faster than before—a trot. The sound stopped in front of him, kicking up cinders that splashed against his shins. Someone knelt down. A face appeared in the tunnel of his vision, soaked in sweat, pores dilated, breathing heavily with the scent of eucalyptus.

Hold this in your mouth.

It was Huang Jinye’s voice. It wasn’t a question; it was a command, though the tone was kept extremely low. His fingers entered the tunnel of vision, pinching something wrapped in foil with green stripes and gear-shaped indentations. A eucalyptus candy.

Fingers peeled back the foil. The movement was rough, the foil making a tearing sound. The candy was exposed—amber-colored, translucent, with fine crystals on the surface. Huang Jinye held the candy between his thumb and index finger and moved it toward Wei Zhiheng’s lips.

Wei Zhiheng’s lips were chapped, with a crack in the center of the lower lip caused by last night’s dehydration. It stung when touched. Huang Jinye’s fingertips first brushed the vermilion border of the lower lip—dry skin and peeling flakes—and then the candy was pushed into his mouth. The moment it touched his tongue, the pungent eucalyptus menthol stimulated his taste buds.

Tears welled up. They weren’t emotional tears, but a physiological reflex to the intense stimulation of the trigeminal nerve. The tears blurred his already narrow vision, turning Huang Jinye’s face into a halo of light. He closed his mouth and bit down on the candy. It was hard and angular, scraping against his oral mucosa and causing a stinging pain. His tongue pushed the candy against his palate. First came the cooling, stinging spice of the eucalyptus, followed by the sweetness of the sucrose.

The candy dissolved, and the sugar entered his bloodstream directly through the sublingual veins. A wave of warmth spread from his mouth to his limbs. The black tunnel in his vision began to recede, the gray mist at the edges gradually dissipating as the central bright zone expanded.

Huang Jinye did not withdraw his hand. His fingers stayed beneath Wei Zhiheng’s chin, propping up his jaw to force his head to stay tilted upward. The skin on his fingers was rough, with calluses from gripping barbells and throwing shot puts. They were coarse and grainy, high in temperature as they rubbed against his skin.

Hand, Huang Jinye said.

Wei Zhiheng’s right hand was still braced on the cinders, his fingers sunk between the granules, the sharp edges pressing into his palm. He tried to lift it, but his muscles were weak and his fingers trembled, refusing to obey. He used his left hand instead, pulling it from his pocket and holding it palm-up in front of Huang Jinye.

The morning light hit the skin, revealing an abnormal transparency. The subcutaneous veins were blue-purple, bulging and branching into a network beneath the pale surface. In the thenar eminence of his palm, there were scattered petechiae—pinhead-sized purple-red spots that were flat and did not blanch under pressure. At the base of his thumb was a larger patch of purpura, its edges irregular, the color fading from a deep purple center to a pink periphery.

Huang Jinye extended his right index finger. His nail was trimmed very short, with white marks at the edges from a habit of biting them. He pressed the pad of his index finger against the bruise, the pressure gradually increasing from the surface to the deeper layers.

Wei Zhiheng felt a dull, diffuse, deep-seated pain radiating from his skin to the bone. His body flinched, his arm recoiling, but Huang Jinye’s finger followed, increasing the pressure until his nail almost sank into the skin.

Don’t move, Huang Jinye said, his voice urgent and breathless.

He was using too much force. The bruise deformed under the pressure, but the color did not fade; instead, it deepened from the extra stress, turning from purple-red to a dark, blackened violet. A muffled sound escaped Wei Zhiheng’s throat, air squeezing through his constricted glottis in a weak, intermittent hiss. Huang Jinye’s fingers suddenly twitched. Feeling the burning, stinging heat of the skin, he realized he was pressing too hard and hurriedly withdrew his hand, wiping his fingertips on his shorts.

Then he leaned closer to Wei Zhiheng’s face, his breath hot and rapid against Wei Zhiheng’s forehead. He used his thumb and index finger to pry open Wei Zhiheng’s left eyelid. The movement was clumsy, his finger pads pressing against the orbital bone. He stared at the inner lining of the eyelid as the eyeball rolled and lashes brushed against his fingers. The mucosa inside the eyelid was pale, lacking color, and there were tiny red pinpoints of hemorrhage on the conjunctiva of the lower lid.

Huang Jinye frowned, his breathing heavy. He used his other hand to pinch Wei Zhiheng’s jaw, forcing his mouth open. His fingers reached inside, touching the moist tongue and teeth. He leaned even closer, almost touching Wei Zhiheng’s lips, smelling the mixture of blood and eucalyptus. The upper gums were swollen and dark red, with signs of localized bleeding. The saliva had become thick and pale pink.

Huang Jinye pulled the crumpled foil wrapper of the eucalyptus candy from his vest pocket. He unfolded the foil and smoothed out the creases. The paper was shriveled, the green stripes broken to reveal the aluminum foil beneath. He folded the foil in half, then in half again, forming a small square with aligned edges, and tucked it back into his athletic vest pocket.

Then he pulled off his red vest, revealing a black T-shirt underneath. He used the fabric of the vest to wipe the cinders and sweat from Wei Zhiheng’s palm. The fabric was coarse, and as it rubbed against the skin, the cinder granules rolled under the pressure, causing a stinging pain. He wiped forcefully, trying to rub away the purpura, but the bruise was beneath the skin. The cloth could only remove the surface grime; the bruise remained clear, even deepening in color from the friction until it was a dark, blackened purple.

It won’t come off, Huang Jinye muttered, his voice so low it was barely audible.

He balled up the vest and stuffed it back into his pocket, then pulled out the candy foil once more. This time, he spread the foil flat on his own knee, using his index and middle fingers to smooth out every single crease with slow, obsessive precision. The foil reflected the sunlight, the aluminum side silver-white and the green printed side showing the gear pattern.

He folded the foil, aligning the edges, and then used his fingernail to press the fold into a sharp crease. He folded it again into a smaller square. He placed this foil square into Wei Zhiheng’s palm, directly over the purpura.

Hold it, he said.

Wei Zhiheng gripped the foil square. The texture of the aluminum was cold and smooth, contrasting with the roughness of the cinders. The edges of the foil were sharp, cutting into the soft muscle of his palm and causing a sting. Huang Jinye did not move his hand; instead, he used his index finger to press down on the foil square, pushing the edges deeper as if trying to press the metal into the skin to merge it with the purpura. Wei Zhiheng’s fingers spasmed from the pain, but Huang Jinye continued to apply pressure until the foil left a white indentation in the palm, the edges nearly breaking the skin.

Huang Jinye noticed that when Wei Zhiheng clenched his fist, his fingernails left five crescent-shaped marks on the foil, the cracks in the aluminum running parallel to the boundaries of the purpura.

There are two laps left on the track, Huang Jinye said. I’ll come back when I’m done.

He turned and ran back toward the track. His pace shifted from a walk to a run, cinders flying under his feet with a crunching sound. Wei Zhiheng watched his back as the red vest grew smaller and paler in the mist, eventually merging into the gray fog at the end of the track.

Wei Zhiheng slid down to sit on the ground, his back against the slanted tree trunk. He placed the art box on his knees, opened the lid, and took out the bottle of turpentine. The liquid sloshed inside. He unscrewed the cap, and the scent rushed out—a citrus fragrance mixed with the pungent sting of resin.

He didn’t drink it. He tightened the cap and then pressed the bottle against his lips. The bottle was plastic and cold; it stung as it touched his chapped lips. He rolled the bottle along his lips from left to right, the friction between plastic and skin making a faint sound. The scent of turpentine seeped through the gaps in the cap, irritating his nasal cavity and triggering a series of sneezes.

He set the bottle down and took a rag from the side pocket of the art box. The rag was gray cotton, stiffened by old paint stains. He poured turpentine onto the rag, the liquid soaking into the fabric to form a dark circular spot. He used the wet cloth to wipe his palm. The cinder granules were dissolved by the turpentine, and black stains spread across his skin, mixing with the purple-red of the purpura to form a muddy, dull brownish-purple.

He clenched his right hand tight. The cinder granules in his palm embedded themselves further under the pressure, creating a double sting alongside the aching purpura. The sharp edges cut the epidermis, and beads of blood seeped from the scratches, stinging as they met the mixture of turpentine and cinder dust.

In the distance, the Tunbang Tianchuang appeared faintly through the mist. It was a vertical shaft on Lucen Mountain, thirty meters in diameter and bottomless. In the morning fog, the outline of the karst window was oval, its edges blurred and merging with the grayish-white sky. An underground river flowed at the bottom, the sound of the water a low, rhythmic roar—about sixty beats per minute, synchronized with a heartbeat, but slower.

Wei Zhiheng stared at the silhouette. The retinal hemorrhaging was worsening. More black spots appeared in his vision, the dark shadows spreading and merging, their boundaries blurring. The edges of the Tunbang Tianchuang deformed in his eyes, appearing jagged and irregular with missing pieces, overlapping with the black shadows on his retina. He blinked, but the spots did not disappear; they only increased. They were not external objects but shadows of the bleeding in his fundus, projected onto the retina and drifting as his eyes moved.

The Tunbang Tianchuang seemed to have a hole in it to his eyes, the black shadows gnawing inward from the edges. He couldn’t tell if it was the mist surging or his eyes tearing apart.

He closed his eyes and heard the sound of footsteps approaching on the track—crunch, crunch, crunch. The footsteps stopped in front of him.

Huang Jinye’s breathing was heavy, carrying a blood-flecked tremor from congested vocal cords. He squatted down, his kneecaps making a faint grinding sound as they pushed aside the cinders to form two circular depressions. His spiked shoes stepped on the cinders Wei Zhiheng had just wiped with turpentine; the cinders and turpentine mixed, sticking to his soles in black clumps.

Let’s go, Huang Jinye said. To the infirmary.

Wei Zhiheng shook his head. He held up his right hand, showing his palm. The mixture of cinders and turpentine had formed a gray sludge covering the purpura, but the color of the bruise still seeped through—purple-red and steady. He closed his fingers, gripping the sludge and the foil together in his palm. The granules embedded themselves further as he made a fist, the sting sharp, his palm muscles spasming.

Huang Jinye watched his movements but did not insist. He sat down beside Wei Zhiheng, shoulder to shoulder with a fifteen-centimeter gap between them. Their clothes did not touch, but their body temperatures exchanged in the air—Wei Zhiheng cold, Huang Jinye burning. Huang Jinye’s sweat dripped onto the cinders, mixing with Wei Zhiheng’s sweat, absorbed by the same granules.

They watched the mist-covered track. The group was dispersing, figures moving toward the cafeteria, the sound of footsteps gradually thinning. Chen Gang stood on the command platform, the brass whistle swaying on his chest, its tape-wrapped mouthpiece pointing toward the sky.

A water droplet fell from the camphor tree, hitting the leather surface of the art box with a tick. It was synchronized with the distant bell of the infirmary. Wei Zhiheng’s breathing gradually steadied. His heart rate dropped from its frantic pace to eighty beats per minute. The turbulent roar of his blood weakened, the frequency lowering until it sank into an inaudible silence.

In the deepest part of the mist, the silhouette of the Tunbang Tianchuang vanished completely. All that remained was a mass of grayish-white, merging indistinguishably with the bleeding spots on his retina.