The night sea wind carried a bone-chilling cold.
Su Wan pulled her coat tighter and walked along the gravel path on the west side of the island toward the old lighthouse. This road had been abandoned for years, with shrubs growing wild on both sides, their branches reaching out like ghostly hands in the darkness. The moonlight was faint, barely illuminating the path beneath her feet. In the distance, the silhouette of the lighthouse loomed faintly in the night, like a silent sentinel.
She clutched Zhou Xiaoyu's note in her hand, her fingertips feeling the rough texture of the small dark red stain. Blood? Or something else?
When she was still a hundred meters from the lighthouse, she stopped. The tower's surface was mottled, large patches of paint peeling off, the windows of the lamp room at the top shattered into black holes. The entire tower showed not a trace of light, the silence unsettling.
The note had said "tomorrow night at ten." It was now nine fifty-five.
Su Wan took a deep breath and continued forward. The gravel crunched under her feet, each sound amplified in the silence. She reached the iron door at the base of the lighthouse. The door stood ajar, its rusted hinges moaning faintly in the wind.
She pushed the door open.
Darkness rushed toward her, carrying a heavy smell of mold and something else… medicinal? Like Chinese herbs, mixed with the salty smell of seawater. As her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, she saw a spiral staircase extending upward, disappearing into the blackness above.
"Zhou Xiaoyu?" she called softly.
No answer. Only the wind whistling through the broken windows.
Su Wan turned on her phone's flashlight, the beam piercing the darkness. Most of the wooden steps on the staircase had rotted, creaking as she stepped on them. She climbed carefully upward, counting the steps—thirty, fifty, eighty…
By the time she reached the lamp room, she was slightly out of breath. This circular space was more spacious than she had imagined. By the broken glass windows lay some debris: a few empty cans, some old clothes, a pile of yellowed books. In the center stood a small wooden table with a kerosene lamp on it, its flame flickering, casting light on a figure huddled in a chair.
It was a woman who looked much older than her actual age, her hair gray and disheveled, wrapped in an oversized men's coat. She hugged her knees, eyes staring straight at the kerosene lamp's flame, as if unaware that someone had entered.
"Zhou Xiaoyu?" Su Wan called again.
The woman slowly turned her head. Her face was gaunt, cheekbones prominent, but those eyes—though bloodshot and weary—remained clear, as if not completely eroded by time.
"You came." Her voice was hoarse. "Su Qing's sister."
"You know me?"
"You look a lot like her." Zhou Xiaoyu's gaze lingered on her face for a moment before returning to the kerosene lamp. "Especially the eyes. That look… like you must see the truth no matter what."
Su Wan moved closer and sat down in another chair. On the table, besides the kerosene lamp, was a thick notebook with a dark blue cover, its edges badly worn.
"You asked me to come. What do you want to tell me?"
Zhou Xiaoyu didn't answer directly. She reached out, her bony fingers gently stroking the notebook's cover. "Twenty years ago, the five of us were the best of friends. Su Qing, me, Lu Yu, Lin Hao, Chen Fan. The night before the festival, we secretly ran to Wanghai Cliff, bringing wine and snacks, saying we'd watch the first sunrise of the new year together."
Her voice was soft, as if recounting a distant dream. "Those were such good times. Su Qing and Lin Hao were in love, Lu Yu always quietly followed along, Chen Fan told jokes to make everyone laugh, and I… I just watched, thinking those days would continue forever."
"What happened then?" Su Wan asked softly.
Zhou Xiaoyu's breathing quickened. She hugged her arms tighter, her nails digging into the coat's fabric. "The ritual… The old clan leader said we needed to complete an ancient ritual for the sea god to bestow blessings. It required five young people, and there were exactly five of us."
"What ritual?"
"Drawing lots." Fear flashed in Zhou Xiaoyu's eyes. "Five sticks, four short, one long. The person who drew the long stick had to… had to go into the sea alone to 'deliver a message,' carrying the islanders' prayers to the sea god."
Su Wan's heart sank. "Chen Fan drew the long stick?"
Zhou Xiaoyu nodded, tears sliding silently down her face. "He didn't want to go. The wind and waves were strong that day—going into the sea at night was suicide. The rest of us objected too, but the old clan leader said it was tradition, and breaking tradition would bring disaster to the entire island. Lu Yu's father—who was the executor of the ritual at the time—held Chen Fan down and forced him into the ceremonial robe."
The kerosene lamp's flame jumped violently.
"Then what?"
"Then Lu Yu stepped forward." Zhou Xiaoyu's voice began to tremble. "He said he would go in Chen Fan's place. He was the best swimmer among us, and… and he said his father had made a mistake, and he would atone for it."
"Mistake? What mistake?"
Zhou Xiaoyu shook her head. "I don't know. Lu Yu's father's face turned very ugly, but the old clan leader agreed. Lu Yu put on the ceremonial robe and walked into the sea alone. The rest of us were required to wait on the shore and not watch."
She paused for a long time, so long that Su Wan thought she wouldn't continue.
"But Chen Fan secretly followed." Zhou Xiaoyu finally went on. "He said he couldn't let Lu Yu risk it alone. Lin Hao, Su Qing, and I waited on the shore. We waited a long time, then suddenly heard shouting. When we ran over, we saw… "
Her breathing became ragged. "We saw Lu Yu dragging someone out of the sea. It was Chen Fan. Blood was flowing from the back of Chen Fan's head, and Lu Yu's arm was injured too. Lu Yu said Chen Fan had accidentally slipped, hit the rocks, and fallen into the sea. He tried to save him, but it was too late."
"Did you believe him?"
Zhou Xiaoyu raised her tearful eyes. "I believed him at the time. Everyone believed him. Until three days later, when I found this on the beach."
She opened the dark blue notebook and turned to a middle page. On the page was a small plastic bag containing a piece of torn fabric—dark blue cotton cloth with torn edges and dark brown stains.
"This was torn from what Chen Fan was wearing that day." Zhou Xiaoyu said. "I found it far from where the incident happened. The cloth has two blood types on it—Chen Fan's, and someone else's."
Su Wan took the notebook and examined it closely by the kerosene lamp's light. The edges of the torn fabric indeed showed signs of being forcibly ripped. The stains had turned black, but you could tell they had once been bright red.
"You tested the blood types?"
"My father was the island's pharmacist." Zhou Xiaoyu said quietly. "I secretly used his equipment to test it. Chen Fan was type O. The cloth also had type AB blood on it."
Su Wan felt a chill crawl up her spine. What was Lu Yu's blood type? She didn't know. But if it was AB…
"Why didn't you tell the police?"
"I tried." Zhou Xiaoyu smiled bitterly. "But the old clan leader had a talk with my father, and after that, my father locked me in the house, saying I was talking nonsense. By the time I was let out, Chen Fan had already been buried and the case closed as an accident. And Lu Yu…" She closed her eyes. "Lu Yu became silent, hardly speaking to any of us. Not long after, his father left the island and never came back."
"So for these twenty years, you've kept this evidence?"
"I promised Chen Fan's mother." Zhou Xiaoyu's voice choked. "Before she died, she grabbed my hand and said, 'Xiaoyu, if someday someone is willing to listen, please tell them the truth.' I've waited twenty years."
She turned to the last page of the notebook, where another note was tucked. The familiar elegant handwriting—it was her sister Su Qing's.
"A month ago, Su Qing found me." Zhou Xiaoyu said. "She was also investigating what happened twenty years ago. I showed her this, and she cried for a long time, saying she would bring the truth to light. Then… then she had her accident."
Su Wan looked at her sister's handwriting: "If the truth will hurt innocent people, what should I do?—Su Qing, three days before the festival."
"What did she find out?" Su Wan asked. "Besides this evidence, what else did she discover?"
Zhou Xiaoyu was about to speak when urgent footsteps suddenly came from downstairs.
Both women froze. The footsteps were heavy, more than one person, rapidly ascending the spiral staircase.
Zhou Xiaoyu's face turned deathly pale. "They found me." She jumped up and shoved the notebook into Su Wan's arms. "Go! Use the rope by the window to climb down!"
"Come with me!"
"I can't leave." Zhou Xiaoyu shook her head, tears streaming down. "I promised to guard the lighthouse until… Go now!"
The footsteps on the stairs grew louder. Su Wan clutched the notebook and rushed to the window—there was indeed a thick hemp rope tied to the window frame, the other end hanging down into the dark ground below.
She looked back. Zhou Xiaoyu stood by the kerosene lamp, gave her a desolate smile, then blew out the lamp.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Su Wan gritted her teeth, grabbed the rope, and climbed out the window. The rough hemp rope burned her palms as she slowly descended. Above, she heard the door being smashed open, men's angry shouts, Zhou Xiaoyu's scream—
Then everything suddenly went quiet.
When Su Wan hit the ground, she fell, her knee striking the gravel. The pain made her gasp. She struggled to her feet, clutching the notebook, and ran into the bushes without looking back.
After running far, she dared to look back. The lighthouse had lit up again with a faint glow, flickering alone in the night like a weeping eye.
She hid behind the rocks, trembling as she opened her phone and used the screen's light to flip through the notebook. Besides the torn fabric and her sister's note, there were dozens more pages—Zhou Xiaoyu's intermittent records over twenty years, about every detail of that night, about the changes in each person, about the pain she had nowhere to express.
She turned to the last page and stopped.
There was a photo pasted there, another group shot of five people, with the lighthouse in the background. On the back of the photo was a line of text:
"We swear, no matter what happens, to protect each other. 7.15.2004.—The forever five."
And below the photo, Zhou Xiaoyu had added a line in red pen, the handwriting messy, as if written recently:
"But when oaths are broken, someone must pay the price. Who will be next?"
The sea wind blew past, and Su Wan shivered. She hugged the notebook tightly, looking at the lighthouse's distant light, suddenly realizing—
Zhou Xiaoyu might never walk out of that lighthouse again.
And this diary in her hands might be the final truth, exchanged for Zhou Xiaoyu's freedom.