Chapter 11 11

Barbara led Joe out of the pothole and up the prairie slope to the north, to within twenty yards of the scorched maples. "Somewhere around here, if I remember correctly," she said, "but what does it matter?" When Barbara first arrived on the prairie the day after the crash, debris from the airliner was strewn about, with only two things immediately recognizable: part of an engine, and groups of three passenger seats. "Three seats, connected together?" "yes" "Upright?" "Yes, what's the point of your question?" "Can you identify which part of the plane this set of seats belongs to?"

"Joe—" "What part of the fuselage?" he asked again patiently. "It will not belong to the first class, nor will it belong to the business class. Because the chairs there are all in groups of two. And the central seat in the economy class is in groups of four. So it should belong to the economy class or so Seats on either side." "Is there any damage?" "certainly." "Very serious?" "It's not as serious as you expected." "Is it burned?" "Not all burned." "It's still burning after all?"

"As far as I remember... there are a few traces of being attacked by fire, but they are all small areas." "Is there blood on the chair cover?" "I do not remember." "Is there a body on the seat?" "No." "Not even some body parts?" "No. "The seat belt is still buckled?" "I don't remember, it should be." 'If the seat belt is still buckled—" "No, it would be ridiculous to think that—" "Michelle and the kids are in economy class," Joe said. Barbara bit her lower lip, turned her face away, and watched the approaching storm. "Joe, your family isn't in the chair."

"I know," he said solemnly to her, "I know." But how much he wished otherwise. "They're dead, I don't deny that, Barbara." "So you should go back to Douros." "If I could find out where she was sitting on the plane, and if it was on the left or right side of the economy class — then at least a little bit more evidence." "What evidence?" "The story she told." "Strong evidence?" Barbara couldn't believe it. "She's really the only survivor." Barbara shook her head. "You haven't seen Rose," he said. "She's not a liar. I don't believe she's lying. She has a... unspeakable power."

Barbara said in a sullen tone, "They fell straight down four miles, and the whole plane shattered—" "I understand that." "God knows, I didn't mean to hurt you cruelly, Joe. But do you really understand? After you've heard all these things, do you really understand? There was a huge explosion surrounding this Rose, and the impact was huge. enough to smash rocks, all passengers and crew... In most cases, the flesh is immediately separated from the bones, stripped clean, as if boiled in water, and the bones are smashed into crumbs Same. Immediately after that, there was a big fire from the explosion, raging flames everywhere. Dulos won't be like the fluffy seeds of a dandelion floating around in the wind. She has already entered the purgatory on the eighteenth floor."

Jo looked up at the sky, and down at the ground, and at her feet.The earth is brighter than the sky. “There was a movie recently about a small town that was hit by a tornado and everything was flattened. But right in the middle of the disaster, there was one house that was pretty much unscathed.” "It's a phenomenon of the weather. You know that the wind is fickle, but what you see here is the simplest common sense of physics. It is a law of matter and motion, and physical phenomena are not fickle. If the whole town had fallen from the sky that day, the remaining hut would have been reduced to rubble."

"Some of the families of the victims ... Rose showed them something that really encouraged them." "what?" "I don't know, Barbara, I'd like to know too, and ask her to show it to me. But the point is—they all believed her when she said she was on that plane. That's not just believing," he thought of Dai Jiaoqin's excited eyes. "That's a deep belief." "Then she is really a great liar like no other in the world." Joe shrugged and made no reply. "For several reasons," said Barbara, "you don't seem like a religious believer."

"I'm not. Michelle goes to Sunday school with the kids and goes to church every week, but I never go, and that's the only thing I don't share with them." "You are against religion?" "No, I just lacked the passion, the will. I was never as interested in God as he was in me. After the crash... I took the first step away from the 'spiritual journey', from Disinterest becomes disbelief. When what happened to everyone on the plane...and us widows who will remember them for the rest of their lives, you told me how to get closer to God. " "How can an atheist like you believe so firmly in this miracle?"

"I'm not saying that Sheloth's life is a miracle." "My God, I can't see what that could be. Unless God himself, or an angelic rescue team, can bring her out of danger," Barbara said sarcastically. "It's not a miracle. There should be another explanation. Although it's unbelievable, it's logical." "Impossible." She said stubbornly. "Impossible? That's right, everything that happened to Captain Bai Dizhi is also impossible." She stared at Jo, mentally rummaging through the old files to see if she could find an answer, but couldn't find one.

"If you don't believe anything, what do you expect Rose to tell you? You said they were 'inspired' by what she told them, don't you think that's something spiritual? " "Not necessarily." "What would that be?" "I have no idea." Barbara repeated what Joe had just said in an exasperated tone. "It's unbelievable, but logical." He moved his eyes to the surrounding bushes. Among the aspen bushes that had been burned by the flames, Joe found that the only surviving tree was now Yebo Jimi, but the smooth and pale trunk was now scorched and scorched. bark.But when the leaves turn yellow in fall, it's sure to be a stark contrast.

"It's unbelievable, but logical," he agreed. The lightning came closer and closer, and the thunder rumbled. "Let's go," said Barbara. "There's nothing to see here." Joe followed her downhill, but at the edge of the pothole he stopped again. In the few Care and Compassion gatherings he's attended, Joe has heard other grieving parents talk about Zero Point. "Zero point" means that from the moment the child dies, all future events must be recalculated.What is lost at that moment means that your inner world is completely reset to zero.At that moment, it was like pouring all the paper boxes full of ideals and hopes into the deep pit, leaving you with only empty expectations.The clock is still ticking, but the future is no longer a world full of surprises and expectations, but only heavy shackles, and only the past is left to survive. He has lived in "Zero Point" for more than a year. Time is like a candle burning at both ends. He belongs neither to the future nor to the past.It's like a frozen man suspended and sleeping in liquid nitrogen. Now he stands on the brink of another physical "zero point," where his wife and daughter died.A longing for their return tormented Jo like a vulture's talons tearing at her entrails.And he only wanted one thing in the end, and that was to seek justice for them.Although this was meaningless to the deceased, it was extremely important to him. He must find a way to get up from the frozen bed, shake off the ice debris, and never fall down again until the buried truth is unearthed.For the sake of his lost wife and daughter, even if it means burning down the palace, overthrowing the empire, and ravaging the world, he would not hesitate, as long as the truth can be made public. Now he knows the difference between justice and vengeance: true justice brings no relief to his pain, no joy of victory.It can only let him step out of the "zero point", and end with a smile after he's done. Just as he and Barbara reached the Ford parked at the end of the lawn, a heavy rain poured down, and the strong wind howled through the pine forest, blowing their hair to one side, and the raindrops beaded their faces. They hadn't encountered anything that had startled the deer away, but Joe was pretty sure at the moment that the suspects were other animals scurrying about for shelter from the rain.He felt that only wild animals could hibernate for such a long time, not people who wanted their lives. Even so, the dense pine forest provides an excellent assassination environment, and the hidden tree is a good place to ambush. All the while, Joe nervously waited for a bullet as Barbara started the car and drove the way they had come. When the car drove on the gravel road, Qiao said: "In the cockpit tape, Bai Dizhi mentioned the names of two people..." "Dr. Bao and Dr. Lan." "Have you ever tried to find out who they were?" "When I was investigating Bai Diluo in San Francisco, I tried to look for any personal issues that might have contributed to his mental instability. I asked his family and friends if they had heard of either name. None of them had. .” "Have you checked Bai Diluo's private diary, appointment calendar or his checkbook?" "Yes, but nothing, and Bai Diluo's family physician said that he has never provided professional physicians with these two names to his patients. In the San Francisco area, there is no doctor, psychiatrist, or psychologist named These two names. This is the information I have obtained so far. Then, in the hotel room, I was woken up by those two villains, pointed a gun at my face, and told me to mind my own business." At the end of the gravel road to turn onto the asphalt road, the drizzle foamed the pavement.Barbara frowned and fell into a troubled silence, but Jo didn't think it was the bad atmosphere that compelled her to drive so intently. Joe listened to the monotonous sound of wipers and the rush of rain on the windshield.At first glance, it seems like a meaningless sound.But gradually, Joe felt that he had discovered a hidden pattern, that even the sound of rain had its rhythm. Maybe Baser didn't find a pattern, but something suspicious that she had overlooked earlier. "I thought of something very special, but..."' Joe waited. "...But I don't want to encourage your paranormal delusions." "Delusion?" She glanced at Joe, "Just the idea that there might be survivors." He said: "Encourage me! I haven't been encouraged in a year." After hesitating for a long time, she sighed and said, "There is a farmer who lives not far from here. On the day Flight 353 crashed, he was already asleep. People like them who work in the fields usually sleep very fast." It was very early. He was woken up by the explosion and then someone ran to his door." "who?" "The next day, he called the sheriff, and the sheriff's office referred the call to the investigative command center, but nothing seemed to happen." "Who came to his door in the middle of the night?" "A witness," said Barbara. "Witnessed the crash?" "should be." She glanced at Joe, but quickly turned back to the rainy road. So far as Jo had told her, the recall seemed to trouble Barbara quite a bit.She squinted, as if not looking ahead through the heavy rain.Instead, I want to see the dusty past.She pursed her lips tightly, as if she was struggling with whether she should reveal more. "A witness to the crash." Joe said suddenly. "I can't remember why she came to this farm or what she wanted." "she?" "A woman who claims she saw a plane crash." "There must be something else," said Joe. "Yes, I remember . . . she was a black woman." Joe paused to listen, and asked, "Did she tell the farmer what her name was?" "I have no idea." "If she did, I doubt he would remember." Turn off the state road and reach the entrance of the ranch. There are two white pillars on each side, supporting a sign with green characters on a white background: "Freedom Exchange Ranch", with smaller cursive writing at the bottom: "Jeff and Yin Meixi".The door is wide open. Barbara said: "I didn't come here last year, but one of my men gave me a report, and now that I think about it...it's a horse ranch, and they keep racehorses and show Arabians." The grass in the pasture was blown to the ground by the wind and rain, there was no sign of the horse, and the fence was empty. The door of the stable was open, and the horse watched the wind and rain outside from the inside.Barbara parked the car in the driveway, and the two of them walked through the porch against the wind and rain.A man in his sixties, in a black raincoat, stood waiting for them.His sun-wrinkled skin and tanned face were like an aged saddlebag, and his piercing blue eyes were as friendly as his smile.He raised his voice above the drumbeat of the rain on the roof, "Morning, it's a nice day for the ducks." "Are you Mr. Yin?" Barbara asked. "That must be me." Another man in a black raincoat appeared at the door. He was six inches taller than the previous one and twenty years younger.However, due to years of life on horseback, the skin has already lost its luster, but it gives people a weather-beaten, simple and wise feeling. After introducing herself together with Barbara and Joe, she said that she still serves on the safety committee, and Joe is her assistant. "It's been a year, are you still in charge of this matter?" "We haven't found out why," Barbara said. "Until we find out the truth, we can't close the case. And we're here to ask you some questions about the woman who knocked on your door that night. " "Oh, I still remember." "Can you describe her a little bit?" asked Jo. "A petite lady, about forty, very pretty." "Negro?" "Yes, black, but there seems to be some other blood, maybe Mexican. But more like Oriental." Joe thought of Dorothy's eyes, which indeed had Asian qualities. "Did she tell you what her name is?" "Maybe," Yin said, "but I don't remember." "How long after the crash did she show up at your door?" Barbara asked. "It shouldn't be too long." He held a leather bag that looked like a doctor's visit in his right hand, and now he took it with his left hand. "Maisie and I were woken up by the sound of the plane just before it hit the ground. It was louder than any plane in the area, but we knew what was going on. Maisie and I got up and turned on the lights, and we I heard an earth-shattering explosion in the distance, shaking even the house." The older one at the side paced impatiently by the side. Jeff Yin said, "How is she now, Ned?" "Not good," Ned said. "Not at all." Jeff Yin looked at the long driveway in the heavy rain and said, "Where did that ghost Dr. Healy go?" Barbara said, "If we come at the wrong time—" "One of our horses is sick, but I can give you a little time." Jeff said, going back to the night of the crash. "Messie called Pablo County Emergency Services and I immediately got dressed and ran out to drive my pickup truck. I kept thinking about the possible crash site and how I could help. When approaching the accident site, the sheriff's car was blocked at the intersection, and another crane was behind me. They were setting up roadblocks and waiting for the rescue team to arrive. They made it clear that it was not untrained and well-intentioned people who could help so I'm going home." "How long have you been away?" asked Joe. "Not more than forty-five minutes. Then Mei Qian and I stayed in the kitchen for about half an hour, drinking coffee and listening to the news on the radio. Then we heard a knock on the door." "So she showed up at your door an hour and fifteen minutes after the crash," Joe said. "almost." The sound of wind and rain drowned out the sound of the engine, and a jeep drove all the way to the side at this time before they caught their attention.When it made a U-turn in the return lane in front of the house, the dazzling headlights were like two silver swords, cutting off every chain of rain. "Thank God!" Ned cried, pulling up the hood of his raincoat and running out. "Doctor Healy is here," Yin Jiefu said, "I have to help him. Maisie knows that woman has more things to do than me. You can talk to her." Meixi Yin was busy baking snacks, she pointed her hand twice on the apron, and then insisted that Sabara and Joe sit at the kitchen table and entertain them with coffee and freshly baked snacks. The back door was half-closed, and the rain outside became muffled here, like the bongos of a funeral procession passing by. The warm air smells of oatmeal mush, chocolate and toasted walnuts.A calendar with Christianity-themed illustrations hangs on the wall. The August illustration shows Jesus preaching to two fishermen by the sea. Peter and Andrew finally dropped their nets and followed Jesus to save the world. Joe felt as if he had suddenly fallen from the way he had lived for the past year into a completely different reality.Get away from a grim and strange place and into a normal world where you can work happily day after day and have renewed faith in the justice of the world. Maisie recalled the night of the crash, "No, her name isn't Rose. Her name is Lin Ruijuan (Rachel). " The two names have the same radical, which Joe can understand.When Rose walked out of the crash site, she must have wondered why the plane crashed?Just because she was on a plane?Perhaps she was anxious to convince her enemies that she was dead, so she used a name with the same radical for easy memory. "She was driving from Fountain, Colorado, to Pablo, and she saw the plane drop right above her head," Maisie said. Fortunately, those seat belts were fastened, and after the car ran off the side of the road, it fell directly into the ditch." Barbara said, "Is she hurt?" "No, and she's unharmed, but she's been shaking. Rui Juan's clothes are covered in dirt and grass. But she's fine, she's just shaking, but she's fine. She's very sweet, and I'm so sorry for her It looks very sad." To Jo, it was Barbara's next question that made sense when she said: "Then she claims to be an eyewitness." "She was definitely an eyewitness, otherwise she wouldn't be babbling like that about what she saw," Mefo said. "Did she come here for help that night?" Barbara asked. "She wanted to call a taxi, but I told her they wouldn't come to this place even if they waited 10,000 years." "Didn't she call a crane to tow her car?" asked Jo. "She thinks it's so late, she shouldn't be able to call. She hopes to bring the crane driver to come the next day." Barbara said, "What did she do when you told her there was no way to hail a taxi?" "Oh, I'll drive her to Pablo." "All the way to Pablo?" Barbara asked. "Well, Jeff has to get up earlier than I do, and Rachel won't spend the night here, and I'll be in Pablo in less than an hour as long as I keep my foot on the gas." "You're so kind," said Jo. "Really? Not really. God wants us to be Samaritans, and that's why we live here. When you see people dying, you have to help them, if it's still such a beautiful lady. Along the way, she kept going. Talking about the poor people on the plane. She almost collapsed, as if it was all her fault, and she just witnessed the tragedy in the seconds before the crash. Anyway, going to Pablo is not What a big deal... The return journey that night was really fatal. Because a lot of cars were crowded towards the scene of the accident, there were police cars, ambulances, fire engines, and a large group of onlookers parked their cars on the road Aside. I guess they want to see blood, it makes me sick. Tragedy shows the good and the bad in humanity." "On the way to Pablo, did she show you where she rolled over?" Joe asked. "She was terrified, there was no way to find the exact spot in the dark. And we couldn't stop every half mile to see if it was the spot. Otherwise, we couldn't send the poor girl home to sleep. gone." The timer rang, and Maisie put on her gloves and opened the oven door. "She can barely keep her eyes open. She doesn't bother with the crane. She just wants to go home and sleep." Joe was sure there was no such thing as a rollover, and Rose walked out of the burning prairie and into the woods.Suddenly out of the blinding firelight into the darkness, blinding her, all she wanted was to get out before anyone found out she was alive.What is certain is that the crash of 747 must be more or less related to her.Witnessing this tragedy made her panic with fear.Better risk getting lost in the wilderness and freezing to death than being discovered by a rescue team or falling into the hands of nefarious enemies.Fortunately, she soon reached Bobian, and through the woods, she saw the lights of "Free Exchange Ranch" in the distance. Barbara put the empty coffee grove aside and said, "Maisie, do you remember where this woman got off?" Maisie pulled out half of the baking tray to check the baking status of the snacks. "She didn't give me the address at all, she just told me how to walk down that street until we got to her place." There was no doubt that it must have been a random room Rose had pointed to, since she didn't seem to know anyone in Pablo. "Did you see her come into the house?" asked Jo. "I waited there until she opened the door and walked in. But she thanked me, God bless me, and said I could go back." "Can you still find that place?" Barbara asked. After confirming that the dim sum would be baked for a few more minutes, Maisie pushed the baking tray back into the oven, took off her gloves and said, "Of course, that's a very beautiful big house with a very nice surrounding environment. But it's not Rui Ju's house, it's She's a partner in the medicine business. Did I tell you, is she a doctor practicing in Pablo?" "But you didn't actually see her come into the house, did you?" asked Jo.He guessed that Rose must have left the house after Maisie was far away, and found other means of transportation out of town. Maisie's face was red from the oven, and she was sweating profusely.She tore off two tissues from the paper roll, wiped the sweat from her brows, and said, "No, as I said just now, I let them out of the car at the door and watched them walk on the sidewalk." "they?" "You didn't see that poor tired little thing, so cute. She's the daughter of Ruijuan's partner." Barbara glanced at Joe, leaned over to Maisie and said, "Is there another child?" "Like a little angel, although very sleepy, but not sloppy at all." Jo suddenly recalled what Maisie said earlier about "those seat belts", she used the plural.He suddenly felt the importance of the choice of words. "You mean Rose...Rui Juan has a child with her?" "Yeah, didn't I say that?" She threw the wet tissue into the trash can with a confused look. "We never knew there was a baby," Barbara said. "I told you," she said, also confused by their bewilderment. "There was a lad from the committee, and I told him all about Rachel and the baby, and about Rachel being an eyewitness." Barbara looked at Jo and said, "I don't remember it happening, and I believe I've been careful enough to even remember this place." Joe's heart was churning, like a wheel that had stopped for a long time and suddenly started spinning again on its rusty axle. Maisie still didn't know how much her words had affected Joe.She opened the oven door and checked the baked pastry again. "How old is that little girl?" asked Jo. "Oh, about four or five years old." Mei Qian said. "Can you...can you describe her a little bit." "She's so small and cute as a button--aren't they all cute at their age?" said Maisie. Barbara looked at Joe with pity in her eyes, "Joe, it won't be what you hoped it would be." Joe asked, "What color is her hair?" "A little golden yellow." Joe rose automatically and moved around the table.Mei Qian transferred the snacks from the two baking trays to a larger one. Joe came to her side. "Maisie, what color is that little girl's eyes?" "I dare not say I remember." "Try it." "I guess it's blue." "you guess?" "Well, she's blonde." Jo snatched the spatula from her hand and set it on the table, which startled Maisie. "Look at me, Meishou. This matter is very important." Barbara warned him across the table, "Joe. Take it easy." Joe knew he had to accept her warning, but indifference was his only defense.Indifference was his friend, his consolation. "Maisie," he said, "not all blond people have blue eyes. Do they?" Looking face to face with him, Maisie said, "Well... I guess not all of them." "Some have green eyes, don't they?" "yes. "If you think back, I daresay you've even seen brown-eyed ones." "Not many." "But there are." He said, "This little girl, are you sure she has blue eyes?" "No, not sure." "Could it be possible that her eyes were gray?" "I have no idea." "Think about it, try to recall it." Hai Qian's eyes gradually dimmed, as if following the memory back to the past.After a while, she shook her head and said, "I can't tell if they're gray or not." "Look me in the eyes, Maisie." She looked at Joe. "They're gray," he said. "Ok." "An unusual gray." "right" "This little girl... Maisie, does her eyes look like mine?" She was beginning to understand what the answer he wanted to hear, and even if she didn't know why, she certainly wanted Jo to be happy, as a good woman is.But she said: "I really don't know, I'm not sure what." It is conceivable that all his excited emotions fell to the bottom at once, but his heart was still surging. "Think of that girl's face," said Jo, in the calmest tone possible, and laid his hands on Maisie's shoulders. "Close your eyes and try to look at her again." Maisie closed her eyes. "On her left cheek," said Jo, "near the lobe of the ear, there is a little spot." Maisie's eyeballs rolled under her eyelids, as if she was trying hard to remember. "It's more of a beauty spot," Joe said, "smooth and not raised, sort of like a crescent." After hesitating for a while, she said, "She may have such a spot, but I really don't remember it." "When she smiled, the corners of her mouth were slightly curved and turned to the left." "She didn't smile, I don't remember that. She was very sleepy... kind of dazed. It looks sweet, but it's exhausting. " Jo could think of no other recognizable feature to call Maisie's memory.Of course he could spend hours telling her, but no matter how detailed he described it, he couldn't lead Maisie to the answer he wanted. Jo removed her hands from her shoulders, and Maisie opened her eyes too. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's okay, I just hope..." Joe couldn't do self-deception, even when he lied to Maisie, he was facing himself naked.He's ready to start searching again, but this time it's not chasing someone into a convenience store, or stalking an imaginary Michelle in a department store, or rushing to the school playground fence to get a better look. A girl he thought was Chrissy. That enigmatic girl was the same age and hair color as his lost daughter, how could this not make him fall into the frantic pursuit of false hopes again. Maisie felt his depression. "Her eyes, her illness, and her smile don't recall my memory. But I remember Ruiju calling her Nina." Barbara, who was sitting behind Joe, stood up so suddenly that her chair fell over.