The driver seemed to have completely relaxed. He hummed leisurely as he drove onward.
There was nothing I could do. The suffocating frustration left me on edge.
I couldn't stop this guy, save Ding Hua, or help Ye Qing.
Thinking about Ye Qing's condition only made me more anxious.
"We're here. This'll do." The driver stopped the car, then dutifully used his turn signal and pulled over.
Ding Hua got out of the car in a daze and walked along the sidewalk. He didn't cross the road. When he reached an intersection, he turned right. After walking a while, he came to the river.
The foul-smelling river gave off such a stench that it made my head spin.
Maybe that was why there wasn't another soul in sight once he got there.
Ding Hua walked onto the bridge and looked down at the black, filthy water. It was as if his senses suddenly returned. His body swayed, and he staggered sideways against the stone railing. Still unable to steady himself, he toppled over it.
The instant he fell into the water—or rather, the mud beneath the bridge—the scene before my eyes changed.
I seemed to see a winding road. Everything around it was pitch-black. Only two circles of light from the headlights illuminated the road ahead and the white lines on it.
I could tell the road was winding because the white lines curved. It was as if the workers who painted them had been drunk, drawing them in a crooked, jagged mess. I could also feel it myself. The car rocked gently, and the steering wheel turned left, then right. The movements weren't large, but they were constant, like a child pretending to drive and turning the wheel for show.
The stretch of dark road and the pitch-black surroundings