The jeep jolted along the rutted dirt road.
Inside, everything was quiet except for the roar of the engine.
Su Mingfeng concentrated on driving, his expression still icy. After an exhausting day and a terrible fright, Nuannuan had fallen fast asleep in his warm embrace, undried tear tracks still on her little face.
In the back seat, Su Mingzhe kept his head lowered, repeatedly examining the letter addressed to "Green Pine."
The envelope was ordinary yellowed kraft paper. The writing on it was in fountain pen, the strokes firm but deliberately disguised in places, revealing none of the writer's habits.
The recipient was "Green Pine," and the address was the Li Family Village committee office.
The return address was "Northwest Base 713."
Everything looked like an ordinary piece of official correspondence.
Yet Su Mingzhe kept feeling that something was wrong.
He held the envelope up to the light coming through the window and examined it carefully, trying to find some hidden information in the fibers of the paper.
But apart from ordinary mildew spots and water stains, there was nothing.
"What is it?" Su Mingfeng asked, noticing his third brother's grave expression in the rearview mirror.
"Brother, there's something wrong with this letter," Su Mingzhe said gravely. "Base 713 is a top-secret facility. All outgoing communications undergo strict screening. A letter like this, addressed to a specific recipient yet using a code name, could never have been sent through normal channels."
Su Mingfeng's gaze sharpened. "You mean this letter was sent in violation of regulations?"
"More than that." Su Mingzhe shook his head. "I suspect this is a special means of contact. Look, it was placed in the same mailbag as the letters our sister sent to Liu Guifang. That's strange in itself. A postman couldn't have made such an elementary mistake while sorting the mail."
Su Mingzhe's mind raced. "There's only one possibility. This mailbag was specially prepared from the start. Our sister's letters were camouflage, a cover. Delivering this letter to Green Pine was the postman's real mission."
Su Mingfeng's heart sank.
An ordinary postman had actually been carrying out a secret delivery mission?
What lay behind this was far more complicated than they had imagined.
Just then, Nuannuan suddenly stirred in her sleep, her little brows knitting together.
She seemed to be having a nightmare, indistinct murmurs slipping from her little mouth.
Su Mingzhe immediately fell silent, afraid of waking her.
Nuannuan did not wake. She merely rolled over, nuzzling her little head against Su Mingfeng's chest to find a more comfortable position.
Then her little mouth moved again, letting out several very faint squeaks.
The sound was so quiet it was almost inaudible, as though she were imitating some small animal.
Neither Su Mingfeng nor Su Mingzhe paid it any mind.
They thought it was merely a child's unconscious sleep talk.
Yet just after Nuannuan made those squeaks, Big Kitty, the snow leopard who had been lying like a statue in the jeep's rear cargo bed, suddenly raised his head.
His golden eyes swept warily over the surroundings, and a very low growl rumbled from his throat.
Zhang Li, the guard company commander riding in the truck at the rear, immediately reported over the radio, "Sir, the King of the Snowy Mountains is acting up! Should we stop and secure the area?"
"No. Keep moving," Su Mingfeng replied gravely.
He knew Big Kitty's reaction had to be connected to Nuannuan.
Looking down at the little figure in his arms, he suddenly had a thought.
He remembered how Nuannuan had directed the mice to find her mother's belongings at the Su Family Compound.
Lowering his voice, he said to Su Mingzhe in the back seat, "Third Brother, Nuannuan might have a way to answer those questions you had."
Su Mingzhe froze, then understood. "Brother, you mean..."
He glanced at his soundly sleeping little niece and hesitated. "But she's still so young..."
"She isn't that young anymore." A trace of barely perceptible pride colored Su Mingfeng's voice. "She's far more powerful than we imagine."
Su Mingzhe fell silent.
He looked at the letter, then at Nuannuan.
Perhaps his eldest brother was right.
Perhaps the key to unraveling this mystery really did lie with this five-year-old child.
The jeep drove on, and the convoy soon left the area around Li Family Village far behind.
Nuannuan slept deeply. Only after darkness had fully fallen, when the convoy stopped for a temporary rest at a guesthouse at the foot of a mountain, did she slowly wake.
"Uncle..." she called sleepily, rubbing her eyes.
"You're awake? Are you hungry?" Su Mingfeng's voice instantly softened.
The guards had already prepared steaming hot food: white rice and a fragrant bowl of steamed egg custard.
Nuannuan's eyes lit up at the sight of that golden, quivering bowl of egg custard.
She carefully picked up a spoon, scooped out a small mouthful, and put it in her mouth.
It was fragrant and silky, with a hint of sweetness.
So yummy.
A hundred times better than the boiled eggs at Liu Guifang's house.
Watching her eat with such relish, Su Mingfeng and Su Mingzhe exchanged a glance, both feeling relieved.
Only after Nuannuan had eaten more than half the bowl of egg custard did Su Mingzhe place the letter on the table.
"Nuannuan," he began gently, "your third uncle has run into a problem. Could you help me?"
Nuannuan raised her head, looked at Su Mingzhe, and nodded hard. "Yes!"
"Look at this letter." Su Mingzhe pointed at the envelope. "I want to know what happened between the person who wrote this letter and the person receiving it. But I can't open the envelope, and it's really troubling me."
He spoke as though telling a story, trying to guide Nuannuan.
Nuannuan blinked her big eyes as she studied the letter.
She leaned her little nose toward it and sniffed.
It smelled of the postman, and... a very, very faint scent of paper and ink.
Tilting her little head, she thought for a moment, then said softly, "Third Uncle, you can ask the local bosses."
"The local bosses?" Su Mingzhe did not follow.
Nuannuan pointed at the corner. "Them. They live in that mean granny's house. They know everything."
Su Mingzhe followed her finger with his gaze, but the corner was empty. There was nothing there.
Yet he understood at once.
By "local bosses," she meant the mice.
Suppressing his shock, he followed her lead and asked, "Then... could you help me ask them, Nuannuan?"
"Yes!"
Nuannuan slid off her chair, ran to the corner, and crouched down.
She took half a biscuit from her pocket, which she had been too reluctant to eat during the day, broke it into several small pieces, and put them on the floor.
Then those faint squeaks came from her little mouth again.
Something miraculous happened.
In less than half a minute, a dusty gray mouse poked its head out of a crack in the corner. It looked around warily, then, finding no danger, darted out, grabbed a small piece of biscuit in its mouth, and retreated.
Soon, another two or three mice ran out and swept up all the biscuit pieces on the floor.
They did not leave immediately. Instead, they gathered around Nuannuan's feet, looking up at her with their little black-bead eyes and squeaking.
Nuannuan remained crouched there too, her ear tilted as though listening intently.
Su Mingzhe and Su Mingfeng held their breath, not daring to breathe heavily.
The scene before them was completely beyond their understanding.
After about two or three minutes, Nuannuan stood and ran back to Su Mingzhe.
"Third Uncle, the little mice told me."
"What did they say?" Su Mingzhe asked eagerly.
Nuannuan held out a little finger and pointed at the letter, repeating their words in her childish voice:
"The little mice said that the uncle in green clothes-the postman-was hit on the head with a hoe by the mean granny's man that day. He bled a lot."
"When he fell to the ground, he didn't die right away. He tried desperately to stuff this piece of paper into his mouth. He wanted to eat it."
"But he had no strength left. The mean granny's man hit him again, and he never moved after that."
Boom!
It was as though something had exploded in Su Mingzhe's mind.
Before dying, the postman had tried to swallow the letter!
What did that mean?
It meant this letter was even more important than his life!
"What else?" Su Mingfeng pressed, his voice already somewhat hoarse.
"And..." Nuannuan tried hard to recall the mice's overlapping chatter. "The little mice said that after the uncle in green clothes died, an uncle wearing glasses would come almost every month and wander around under the big pagoda tree at the village entrance."
"He wore a very clean Zhongshan suit, and he had a strange smell."
"He seemed to be waiting for something. Every time, he waited until dark before leaving."
A man wearing glasses?
A Zhongshan suit?
Waiting for a letter at the village entrance every month?
One clue after another rapidly connected in Su Mingzhe's mind.
He sprang to his feet, his expression turning exceedingly grave.
"Brother, I understand now!"
"That Green Pine isn't a single person at all!"