The Son In-law They Mocked Found The Lost Vault

CHAPTER 33: TWO ROADS

Helen did not drop the phone. She did not scream. She did not fall down.

She just stood there in Uncle Su's small stone yard, under the bent old tree, with the phone against her ear. Her face had gone completely white. And she did not move at all. Not even to breathe.

On the other end, her mother was still crying.

"Mother," Helen said at last. Her voice was very calm. Too calm. Adrian had heard that voice before, on the night of the banquet, when Madam Feng threw divorce papers at him in front of two hundred people. It was the voice Helen used when she was holding something inside her so tightly that it might break her in half. "Mother, listen to me. Did he take the car?"

A sound on the phone. Yes.

"Which way did he go?"

Another sound. I do not know. I do not know.

"Is Chen there?"

Yes.

"Put Chen on the phone."

There was a pause. Then a deep, rough voice. Adrian could hear it from where he stood.

"Miss Feng."

"Chen. Where is my father?"

"I do not know yet. I am sorry. I was in the garden. My arm..." The guard's voice was full of shame. "He took the old blue car. He was gone before anyone saw him. I have called every friend I have in the city. Nobody has seen him."

"He went to Victor."

"Yes."

"Then he went to the Han Tower. Or to the Han house on the river. Or to one of their offices." Helen closed her eyes. "Find him, Chen. Please. Do whatever you have to do. I am coming home."

"Miss Feng, your mother said..."

"I know what my mother said. I am coming home anyway."

She ended the call. Then she stood there for another long moment, looking down at the black screen.

Adrian walked over to her. He did not touch her. He was afraid she would shatter if he did.

"Helen," he said softly.

She lifted her face. Her eyes were dry. Hard. Like two black stones.

"I have to go," she said.

"I know."

"He is sick. His heart. Mrs. Chen said if he gets another shock..." Her voice cracked, just a little, then went hard again. "He is walking into Victor's house alone, with a weak heart and nothing in his hands. Because of the shop. Because of me. Because he thinks he failed us."

"It is not your fault."

"I do not care whose fault it is." She looked at him. "I am going home, Adrian. Today. Now."

He knew she was right. And he knew what it meant.

The temple under Willow Lake was three hours west. The city was eight hours east. Two roads, going in two different directions, as far apart as the sun and the moon.

And Victor had both halves of the jade. He had Marcus's knowledge from all those nights of reading. He had divers, and boats, and money, and men. If he had not already found the temple, he would find it soon. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow.

If Adrian went with Helen, Victor would reach the temple first. And whatever was sleeping there would be gone forever.

If Adrian went to the lake, Helen would go home alone.

He stood in the small stone yard and felt himself being pulled in half.

"Go to the lake," Helen said.

He looked at her.

"I can see it on your face," she said. "You are trying to decide. So I am deciding for you." She stepped closer. "My father is my fight, Adrian. Not yours. I know that city better than anyone. I know every bank manager, every lawyer, every friend my grandfather had. I know where the Hans keep their offices and their secrets." She lifted her chin. "And I have Chen. He has one arm, and he is still worth ten of Victor's men."

"Helen..."

"And you have the feather. And the river. And the song your grandfather taught you." Her voice softened. "If Victor gets to that temple first, everything your grandfather suffered for is gone. Everything you suffered for. I will not let that happen. Not because of me."

Adrian looked at her for a long time.

Two years ago, he had married a woman who would not look at him across the breakfast table. A cold, proud, perfect stranger in silk. And now she was standing in a dirty yard in a mountain village, with smoke still in her hair and blood still under her fingernails, telling him to go and fight for his grandfather.

He did not know when it had happened. He did not know how. But he knew, standing there, that he would walk through fire for this woman. He already had.

"Alright," he said quietly. "Alright."

Mei Lan drove Helen to the crossroads.

It was a small, dusty place at the bottom of the valley, where the mountain road met the big highway. There was nothing there. Just a wooden bus shelter with a tin roof, a broken bench, and a faded sign that said City and pointed east.

The bus would come in twenty minutes.

Mei Lan stayed in the truck. Adrian got out with Helen. They stood together in the shade of the tin roof, not speaking.

Marcus was still at Uncle Su's house, too weak to move. The old doctor had promised to watch over him like a son. Adrian had called the farmer's sister in Bell Stone Town, and she said Old Lu was sitting up now and drinking soup and shouting at everyone to let him go, so he must be feeling better.

Everyone was safe. For now.

Everyone except Mr. Feng, walking into the lion's mouth.

"Chen will meet you at the bus station," Adrian said. "Do not go anywhere without him."

"I know."

"And do not go to the Han Tower alone. Promise me."

"I will not promise things I do not know yet."

He almost smiled. "You sound like me."

"I learned from the best." She almost smiled back.

The wind blew dust across the empty road. Somewhere far away, a bird was calling. The same two notes, again and again.

Helen put her hand flat against her shirt, over her heart. Adrian had seen her do that many times in the last day. He did not know why. He thought maybe her chest hurt from the smoke.

"Adrian," she said. "There is something I need to tell you."

"You said that before. In the house. And on the roof."

"I know." She looked down at the dusty ground. "And both times, something happened. A gunshot. A phone call. Like the whole world does not want me to say it."

"Then say it now. Before the bus comes."

She looked up at him. Her eyes were very dark and very wet. Her lips opened.

And then she stopped.

He watched her stop. He watched something move behind her eyes, some kind of fight. She was thinking. Hard. The way he thought, standing still in a room full of shouting.

If I tell him now, he will not go to the lake.

That was what she was thinking. He did not know it, but that was it. If I tell him his grandfather might be alive, he will not care about any temple. He will not care about any feather. He will turn around and run to Crane Mountain with his burned feet and his bleeding hands, and Victor's men will follow him, and he will die. And everything will be lost.

When he comes back. When the temple is done. I will tell him then. I will tell him everything.

"Helen?" Adrian said.

She took her hand away from her heart.

"When you come back," she said quietly. "I will tell you then. It is too big for a bus stop."

He did not understand. But he nodded.

"Then I have something to tell you too," he said. "When you come back."

"What?"

"It is too big for a bus stop."

She laughed. A short, wet laugh. And then, before he could think, she stepped forward and put her hand on his face. Her fingers were cold. She held them there against his cheek for a long moment, looking into his eyes, as if she was trying to remember exactly what he looked like.

He put his bandaged hand on top of hers.

Neither of them said anything else. They did not need to. They both knew what the other one was not saying. It was there between them, in the wind, in the dust, in the two notes of the bird far away.

Then the bus came around the corner, old and noisy and covered in mud.

Helen took her hand away. She picked up her small bag. She climbed the steps of the bus without looking back.

But when she sat down by the window, she turned her head and looked at him through the dirty glass. She pressed her palm flat against it.

He lifted his hand.

The bus pulled away. He stood in the road and watched it go until it was only a small dot in the east, and then it was gone.

"Well," Mei Lan said from the truck. "That was very touching."

Adrian did not turn around. "Do not."

"I mean it." Her voice was quieter than usual. "Truly. I have never had anyone look at me like that through a bus window." She started the engine. "Get in, West. We have a lake to find."

They drove west for three hours.

The road climbed into the mountains, then came down again, then climbed again. The truck groaned on every hill. Mei Lan did not talk much. Neither did Adrian. He sat with the bronze feather in one hand and his drawing of the river in the other, and he looked out of the window at the passing trees.

In the back of the truck, under a canvas sheet, there were things that clanked every time they hit a bump. Mei Lan had shown them to him before they left. Two old metal tanks for breathing underwater. Two black rubber suits. Masks. Flashlights. Ropes. A long knife.

"I told you," she had said, when he stared at it all. "I find things in the dirt. Sometimes the dirt is under water."

The sun was going down when they came over the last hill.

And there it was. Willow Lake.

It was beautiful. More beautiful than anything Adrian had seen in his life. A long, narrow lake between two green mountains, so still that it looked like glass. The setting sun turned the water to gold and pink and orange. Willow trees grew all along the shore, their long thin branches hanging down to touch the surface. At the far end of the valley, a great gray wall of concrete stood across the water like a sleeping giant. The dam.

And somewhere under all that gold, fifty years deep, was a temple. Sleeping.

Mei Lan stopped the truck at the top of the hill. She got out. Adrian got out too. They stood together and looked down.

"Do you see it?" Mei Lan said quietly.

"See what?"

She pointed. "There. Near the middle."

Adrian looked. And at first, he did not understand what he was seeing. Little white shapes on the water. Dozens of them. Floating very still on the golden surface, catching the last light of the sun like small silver coins.

Then the wind turned, and he smelled it. A bad smell. A sick smell.

"Fish," he said. "Dead fish."

"Hundreds of them," Mei Lan said. Her voice was cold now. "Fish do not die like that by themselves. Not all at once. Not in a clean lake."

"Then what killed them?"

She did not answer. She only pointed again. Further out. Past the dead fish. Toward the very middle of the lake, where the water was deepest and darkest.

There was a boat there.

A big white boat, sitting very still on the water, with its engine off. Its lights were just starting to come on in the evening dark. On its side, painted in black, was a picture. Small, but Adrian could see it even from the top of the hill.

A black hawk with spread wings. Inside a perfect circle.

And around the boat, in the dark gold water, the surface was bubbling. Small circles of white bubbles, rising up from the deep, one after another after another. Breaking. Rising. Breaking.

Then a head came up out of the water near the side of the boat. A man in a black rubber suit and a mask. He lifted one hand and waved to someone on deck. Then he took a long breath from the tube in his mouth and went back down.

Another head came up a little farther away. Then went down.

"Divers," Mei Lan whispered.

Adrian's blood turned to ice.

Victor was already here. He had not just found the lake. He was already in it. His men were already down there in the dark, swimming through the drowned streets of a dead village, looking for the temple that sleeps.

Looking for the second feather.

And they had been there long enough to kill every fish in the lake.