They got off the helicopter and got into a military vehicle with their eyes still blindfolded. It had taken over an hour in all. Hu Bugui paid no attention to how the others were doing. He, at any rate, hadn’t let go of Su Qing. At first the car went smoothly, but as it went on, it began to shake. An officer in the passenger seat turned back and notified them in a flat voice: “The road up ahead isn’t very good. Everyone please fasten your seatbelts.” 

The people in the back were very unaware. If he hadn’t said this, none of them were in the habit of fastening their seatbelts—apart from Chang Dou, who was too nervous and had forgotten, the others were to varying extents accustomed to encountering emergencies, especially the field personnel. For the sake of a quick reaction, none of them fastened their seatbelts. 

Right after the officer spoke, the car shook, and everyone’s butts temporarily left their seats. Chang Dou’s balance wasn’t good, and he toppled sideways, his head colliding directly with Fang Xiu’s. There was a dull thump and two pained cries. 

Chang Dou covered his head, not knowing whom he had bumped. He looked panicked and stammered an apology. Fang Xiu didn’t feel like paying attention to him. He only grunted. Su Qing felt around beside him for the seatbelt with his free hand as he commented: “The watermelons sound ripe.” 

Lu Qingbai picked up: “Hey, the comrade driving this car, couldn’t we find a better road? Our brains are going to shake out of our heads.” 

The officer in the passenger seat laughed. “The base is in a somewhat remote location. Everyone will have to bear with it.” 

Fang Xiu heard their voices and knew that they were smoothing things over. Though he found Chang Dou displeasing in every way, he couldn’t very well embarrass the others, so he could only sit back down, grope around to buckle his seatbelt, and say nothing. 

Su Qing’s eyes were blindfolded. He couldn’t see anything. He felt around next to him and touched something very hard. He thought, why was the back of the seat so far forward? So he poked twice and unexpectedly had his fingers caught. Hu Bugui said, “Don’t move, I’ll find this end and give it to you.” 

When he spoke, the “back of the seat” undulated with the rise and fall of his breathing. Su Qing only then realized that he had just poked Hu Bugui’s chest muscles. With an evil smile, he poked two more times with a bit of malice and acutely heard Hu Bugui’s breathing pause unnaturally for a moment. Then his fingers were gripped tightly and rigidly held down. After a good while, Hu Bugui finally put the other end of the seatbelt into his hand. “Fasten it.” 

Su Qing laughed quietly and whispered, “Captain Hu, you have a good figure.” 

The car was driving on the road, and there was a lot of noise. This sentence of his was spoken almost into Hu Bugui’s ear, but that didn’t keep a pair of ears specially waiting there from hearing. Xue Xiaolu’s ears were usually very ordinary, but they could be selectively sensitive to certain comments. Deliberately or not, she asked from beside them: “Su Qing, you just said Captain Hu has a good what?” 

Su Qing twisted his head and smiled even more happily. Hu Bugui smacked him on the lower abdomen with the back of his hand and stiffly said, “You heard wrong.” 

Then, avoiding the subject, he raised his voice and asked the driver, “How much longer until we get there?” 

The answer from the front was: “Probably about two hours. Everyone can rest for now.” 

The inside of the car quickly fell silent. Ordinarily, this bit of road was nothing to these well-trained elites. With their eyes blindfolded, unable to even see the scenery, they ought to have been chatting freely, but Xu Ruchong was missing, Lu Qingbai and Fang Xiu were both suddenly unwilling to speak, Su Qing had a strong aversion to the experience of riding blindfolded in a car and didn’t feel like talking, Chang Dou didn’t dare to talk, Qin Luo and Hu Bugui rarely said much, and Xue Xiaolu couldn’t keep up a conversation on her own. So instead of seeming like a team that had worked together for many years, they were even more cheerless than a group of strangers temporarily brought together in a tour group. 

In the silence, they each closed their eyes. The driver and the officer in the passenger’s seat exchanged a look. They seemed to be used to this—not many people knew about the existence of the ST Training Course, and very few could say what the letters “ST” had stood for at the beginning. Though the popular story among internal personnel was that it was the “Special Touch” Training Course. Each team that had been “fortunate” enough to study this course had come to some degree of grief. 

Comparatively speaking, this team wasn’t so bad. The atmosphere was gloomy, but at least no one had come to blows yet. 

Su Qing didn’t sleep. In unknown surroundings, his mind was always tense—though the warmth coming from Hu Bugui’s palm made him feel a little better, with so much unfamiliar breathing and so many unfamiliar heartbeats next to him, it was still hard for him to close his eyes. He could only sit there and endure as time crawled by. 

After a long time, the car finally stopped. As soon as he heard someone say “Everyone can get out of the car and move around, and take off your blindfolds,” he impatiently tore the blindfold away and breathed a huge sigh of relief. 

Hu Bugui also pulled off his own blindfold and turned his head to look at him. Quietly, he said, “Are you all right now?” 

Su Qing closed his eyes. “Back to life again.” Then he let go of Hu Bugui’s hand. He felt that there was a faint trace of sweat where their hands had been pressed together, so he lowered his voice and said into Hu Bugui’s ear, “Captain Hu is so considerate. How about I repay you with my body?” 

Hu Bugui froze. Before he could respond, Su Qing laughed lightly, pushed awake Xue Xiaolu and Lu Qingbai beside him, who were slightly dazed, and got out of the car. 

The sun was already sinking into the west. They didn’t know where the ST Training Course’s car had taken them. Wherever they looked, there were mountains all around. There was only a little road of piled rocks in front of them. Further on, it narrowed even more. The car wouldn’t be able to get through. Su Qing had heard that the armed forces sometimes made soldiers go through the mountains carrying heavy loads on their backs, but he hadn’t expected it to happen to him. But he glanced around, his eyes moving over the shoes they were all wearing, and felt that this was wrong—no one had said there would be stamina training, and they had been told to dress in casual clothes; there was everything from leather shoes to tennis shoes among them, and the shoes on Xue Xiaolu’s feet were even high heels. 

Just as he was feeling misgivings, he heard a shout from far away. Su Qing narrowed his eyes and looked over. He saw an old man driving an oxcart, coming towards them. 

His eyes opened wide—in this era where science and technology had engulfed the whole globe, this was his very first time seeing an animal pulling a cart. For a moment he felt that he had time-traveled. 

Chang Dou pushed up his glasses. Dumbfounded, he said, “A-a hoofed animal!” 

The big ox mooed, drawing a clear line between itself and pigs. 

Lu Qingbai stared at the line of dung openly left on the road behind the ox’s butt. His facial muscles began to experience unnatural distortions. 

The two officers who had brought them stood sharply at attention and saluted. “Reporting to Captain Hu, our mission has been completed. Following the training course lasting one week, we will be waiting here to be responsible for taking you all home.” 

The oxcart had already rolled up and stopped in front of them. The ox pulling the cart gave another “moo.” Its big, wide open, limpid-eyes met the eyes of Qin Luo, who was nearest to it. Xue Xiaolu couldn’t resist pointing to it and asking, “Are we going to travel in that?” 

The answer was definite. Five minutes later, the RZ Unit’s core members, each with a peculiar expression, got into the oxcart, and, listening to the old fellow driving the cart crying out, swaying left and right amid the sound of rolling, they got under way. 

The old man driving the cart gave a “hey,” readied his throat, and began to sing a very rustic folk song wildly off-key: “Here I’m driving my big cart—yi-hey-yo! The mountain sun is burning me—yi-hey-yo! Old ox, old ox, hurry up—yi-hey-yo! Take me to my father-in-law—yi-hey-yo! Pretty as a flower is my wife—yi-hey-yo! Her father says that I'm too poor—yi-hey-yo! Pulling my cart full of yams—yi-hey-yo! Roly-poly and golden..." 

Each of the roly-poly and golden yams sitting in the cart behind him wore a peculiar expression. 

Su Qing crawled to the front and patted the man on the shoulder, interrupting his impromptu performance: “Uncle, uncle!” 

The man turned his head towards him, beaming. Qin Luo, sitting in the front, automatically gave up her place to this imperial diplomat, so Su Qing plopped right down and began to ask, “Uncle, are you with the ST Training Course, too?” 

The man waved a hand. “No, no, I’m not part of your ‘Easy’ Training Course, I’m the one they hire to pick people up.” 

Su Qing asked, “How many people come in all?” 

The uncle was choked for a moment. He waved his hand. “Hey, this thing can’t be said, it can’t be said. You’re with the liberation army, aren’t you? The liberation army has discipline, and I have discipline, too. I can’t speak indiscreetly.” 

Su Qing gave an “oh” and turned his head to look at Hu Bugui. Hu Bugui nodded, indicating for him to continue the conversation—strictly speaking, the RZ Unit had separated from the military long ago. It didn’t matter to them whether it had discipline or not. 

Su Qing continued to ask: “Uncle, do you come to pick them up alone every time?” 

The old man gave an “ah” and rather contentedly said, “But of course! I’m an old hand. I have a steady hand driving a cart!” 

He had hardly finished speaking when the whole oxcart jolted violently. Qin Luo’s head bumped into Lu Qingbai’s back. Lu Qingbai raised an arm to keep his balance and swiped Fang Xiu on the chin. 

Su Qing gave a dry laugh and grabbed the cart’s wooden edge. Shakily, he asked, “So…is there money in picking people up?” 

The man grinned and said, “I would pick up the liberation army’s people even if they didn’t pay me—but there is a bit of a subsidy, this much for each round trip.” 

He stuck up four fingers. Su Qing deliberately asked, “Forty?” 

The man gave a “hey,” then quietly boasted: “Over four-hundred for each round trip, and I get free meals when I get there.” 

Su Qing’s eyes spun, and he began to chit-chat at random with him. Every line out of his mouth that could trick a dead man began and ended with “uncle this, uncle that.” He said whatever the fellow wanted to hear, entertaining the old man driving the cart until he was grinning from ear to ear. In no time at all, he had handed over where he lived, how many acres and family members he had, how many daughters, how many were married and unmarried. Then he looked Su Qing up and down. “Young fellow, are you single? My second girl is about the same age as you…” 

Hu Bugui gave a heavy dry cough from the back, and Su Qing quickly interrupted, asking, “Is your family’s economic situation good?” 

“Yes, of course it’s good!” The man’s thoughts were still in picking out a son-in-law mode. He followed along with his subject, talking all about how much money the children working away from home sent back every year, how much money he got from farming, how much he got from driving the cart, and finally, he added in some self-satisfaction, “Never mind the rest, each year, just from driving you people, I make two or three thousand.” 

Su Qing nodded to Hu Bugui—so each year about five to eight teams came to the ST Training Course. There were so many military areas and armed services in the country. Even if this wasn’t the only training base, it seemed that this honor was scarce. 

There were other considerations on Hu Bugui’s mind. Before leaving, General Xiong had said “Sharpening the axe won’t interfere with chopping the firewood.” What did that mean? 

There was in fact some turbulence among the RZ Unit’s core members, but they hadn’t reached the stage of being unable to act in coordination. Why had General Xiong been in such a hurry to send them into exile? 

What great firewood was there to be chopped? 

The warning Xu Ruchong had given him suddenly surfaced. Hu Bugui frowned, feeling a sense of great events to come. 

When Su Qing had chatted with the cart driver for over an hour, they finally reached their destination—the ST Training Course base. It was already dark. Someone came to receive them. After quickly eating and regrouping, they were informed that the training formally began today, and the first contents of the training were sleep. 

Apart from the two female members, who received preferential treatment—a curtain was drawn for them, creating a separate room smaller than a chicken coop—the others all stood helplessly facing a big multi-person bed. 

After a long moment, Lu Qingbai said, “I…I have this feeling of having worked hard for decades and then in one day suddenly being transported back to the times before the liberation…” 

That night, more than one person lost sleep.