Once Upon in Nanjing-Chapter 17 - 4 Nanjing Library and the Doomsday Temple

Last night there was torrential rain all night long, and when Ban Xia woke from her bed, the sound of pouring rain came from outside the window.

The rain in Nanjing arrives abruptly and violently; at first, you hear a pattering, one beat per second, upon the window lattice. Within half a minute, the frequency dramatically increases, and in an instant it's coming down in buckets. Eventually, you can no longer hear the individual droplets, but feel as if a high-pressure water tap has been opened in the sky.

Normally, this kind of weather is not suitable for going out, but today she needs to go to the Nanjing Library.

Ban Xia carries two white plastic buckets downstairs, places them at the entrance of the apartment building in the heavy rain, and inverts two opened black broken umbrellas over the openings of the buckets. With today's precipitation, the two buckets would be full by the time she returns.

Ban Xia's daily water comes like this. Rainwater is cleaner than lake water, but still needs to be purified; she commonly just adds some alum to the buckets.

Next, she packs her bag, puts on a raincoat, switches to sandals, takes her umbrella, and pushes her bicycle to set off.

"Drenched deep in love amidst the misty rain, how many pavilions disappear within the smoky drizzle!"

"Remember the old days when we were dearly in love, with cars flowing like water and horses like dragons!"

You need to switch songs on rainy days, depending on the weather.

Ban Xia sings loudly, turning what should be a sorrowful, gentle love song into a soul-stirring ballad.

You must sing; if you don't give voice to song, this world will drown it out. The teacher once said everyone has an AT force field—although Ban Xia doesn't understand what an AT force field is, she took it to mean vital energy. Everyone has vital energy, some have strong vital energy while others are weak. Those who are strong are unafraid of evil spirits' encroachments.

For a while, Ban Xia believed in this and sought out food that would strengthen her vitality.

The torrential rain brings out a white mist; walking down Muxuyuan Street and looking into the distance, the high-rise buildings stand under the dark rain clouds, devoid of any lit windows, as if overnight all people have disappeared, yet the city remains.

"Drenched deep in love amidst the misty rain, the world exists only in your eyes..."

Ban Xia gradually finds herself unable to keep singing, as walking becomes increasingly difficult.

The city will quickly flood, water accumulates ankle-deep on the road surface, muddied water streams noisily across the street. The girl steps into the water in her sandals, the silt-laden flow scrubbing her toes, causing her to stop and shake her shoes clean after each stretch of walking.

Once the wind picks up, the umbrella becomes useless. Thus, Ban Xia folds her umbrella, tucking it onto the bicycle rack, and relies on her plastic raincoat to withstand the onslaught of the rain. The raincoat provides limited protection, soon soaking through and sticking to her arms and thighs. Lucky she had put on a short-sleeved shirt and shorts before leaving; she was anticipating this situation.

Actually, it's better to run naked in heavy rain.

Ban Xia silently thinks.

Heading out stark naked means not worrying about clothes getting soaked by the rain.

She even seriously considers the feasibility of stripping down right now. Wrapping her clothes in waterproof plastic and stuffing them into her backpack would mean she wouldn't have to fear the rain anymore.

As long as I'm not wearing clothes, I wouldn't have to worry about getting wet. I could even lie down on the road surface and swim!

Better not, that's absurd.

The girl shakes her head.

From the Nanjing Library to Meihua Villa is roughly five kilometers, an hour's walk, but bad weather means this could take twice as long.

The teacher had said, minimize going out in bad weather, don't go out if it's not necessary. Catching a cold leads to fever, serious fever can cause pneumonia, and pneumonia, if not well treated—ouch!

Suddenly, Ban Xia's foot catches on nothing.

Before realizing what happened, her body lurches sideways and sinks sharply, her previous step was on solid ground, but the next plunged into the bottomless water. An unreleased scream gets trapped in her throat as her waist slams hard against the solid edge of a well, a severe pain radiates from the point of impact, leaving her involuntarily whimpering and curling up.

Painful!

But before a groan could escape her, muddy water surged into her mouth and nose, and with a "thud," half her body plunged into the water. She swallows several big gulps of dirty water before realizing she has stepped into a manhole.

The heavy rain carries away the manhole cover, and murky accumulated water on the road conceals the open hole, turning the well below into a watery grave.

Ban Xia almost drowns in this well, instinctively grabbing onto the edge and desperately climbing out, collapsing onto the road while coughing violently.

Now she's drenched, covered in muddy water, bag and all.

Ban Xia holds her waist with a pained smile, her expression twisted by the pain, while rainwater streams down her face.

She sits defeated in the pouring rain for a while, then gets up to retrieve her bicycle, only to discover the umbrella is gone.

"Where's the umbrella? Where's my umbrella?"

Ban Xia pauses in bewilderment.

Could it have fallen into a well?

She bent down and peered into the well, which was dark as pitch and bottomless.

Just then, a noisy "squeak squeak" came from above. Ban Xia looked up and, lo and behold, the lush branches of the French sycamores were teeming with monkeys!

A large troop of monkeys was taking shelter from the rain under the tree canopy, snatching a blue folding umbrella from one another.

"Give me back my umbrella!"

Ban Xia bellowed, bow at the ready.

"Don't tear it! Don't bite! Don't bite—!"

The umbrella was passed around, and Ban Xia, unsure which monkey to aim at, eventually saw a grey little monkey playing with the ribs of the umbrella, folding it this way and that. A sharp arrow struck the tree trunk right beneath the monkey's bottom.

This terrified the monkeys; the umbrella fell from their grasp and landed in the green belt.

Ban Xia went to pick it up, looking desolately at what had become tattered cloth.

The monkeys darted about overhead, chattering and making faces at the girl down below, but Ban Xia couldn't understand a word they said.

The joys and sorrows of people and monkeys do not resonate with each other; I only feel the world's clamor.

So be it.

She couldn't be bothered to get angry with a bunch of monkeys. The girl quietly picked up her bike, clamped the broken umbrella onto it, shouldered her soaked backpack, and with mud all over her, she walked away in the pouring rain.

Nanjing Library at number 189 Zhongshan East Road is one of the largest libraries in the country. Its main body is a seven-story glass curtain wall building, which, if placed in some religious Otherworld that worships knowledge, would be a veritable temple.

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Ban Xia pushed her bicycle across the plaza in front of the temple, finding huge marble slabs under the library steps, with gold-letters engraved on them, left uncleaned, with all dried bird droppings.

The girl looked up at the deep blue glass wall, ascending the steps one by one, like the last pilgrim to visit the temple.

The library's main doors were still open, the revolving doors smashed, but the side door allowed free access. The last person who left evidently had no heart to lock it up tight. Ban Xia passed through the glass doors into the lobby only to find that this once magnificent hall of books was now empty, nothing left but trash scattered everywhere.

On the third floor, south side of the library was the newspaper section, but Ban Xia couldn't find anything. She moved through the dimly lit hall all alone, leaving a trail of drips, with the bookshelves covered in dust, finding only scrap paper.

The literature archives spanned the sixth and seventh floors, still empty.

Ban Xia spent three hours searching the building, eventually concluding that it was a wasted trip.

The library had been emptied, in the most tumultuous years, books, newspapers, and magazines had all been fuel, carted off in bundles and burned, nothing remained.

The girl stopped in front of a bookshelf. The last bit of luck in the vast library lead her to two forgotten books in a corner. Standing on tiptoe, she took them down and dusted off the thick layer of ash to barely make out the covers.

"Dying on... Mars?"

"Titan no man... sound."

Ban Xia had no idea why they had survived, perhaps because these two books were incombustible trash.

She silently descended, lit a fire in the resting area using the two books she had just found as kindling, stripped off all her clothes soaked in mud water, and hung them over the adjacent chairs to air dry.

The girl sat naked by the fire, the flames crackling on the floor, with the torrential downpour visible through the transparent glass curtain wall. Listening to the rain, she buried her head in her knees, and mud-stained water dripped from her wet hair.

A profound fatigue welled up from within.

Ban Xia was exhausted.

Too tired to say a word.

(Author's casual remarks: Didn't make it to Nanjing Library.)