Tales of the End of the Century

The next morning, Bai Ye was woken up by noise. The soundproofing in the tenement building was practically nonexistent. The couple next door were arguing again; the woman was berating the man for being never home, while the man was cursing the woman for being long-haired but clueless and only knowing how to rummage through his pockets. Bai Ye rolled over and covered his head with a pillow, but it didn't help.

He sat up and glanced out the window. The sky was overcast, like an old rag that had been washed countless times.

Last night's incident is still replaying in my mind. The blizzard. The barbed wire. The white coat. That distorted face. And the shape of those lips—not screaming, but speaking.

Bai Ye rubbed his face, put on his clothes, and went out.

The hallway reeked of a coal stove. He knocked on Lan Susu's door, but no one answered. He knocked twice more, and the door opened a crack. Lan Susu peeked out; her hair was still wet, clearly she had just washed it.

"So early?"

"Didn't you say you were going to look at that box today?"

Lan Susu glanced at him and nodded: "Wait for me for five minutes."

Five minutes later she came out. She had changed into a dark gray wool coat, her hair was tied in a ponytail, and she had a canvas bag slung over her shoulder, the bag bulging with something inside.

The two went downstairs. A row of bicycles was parked in front of the tenement building. Bai Ye found his own old-fashioned bicycle and patted the back seat.

"Sit here?"

Lan Susu didn't stand on ceremony and sat down sideways.

In the ancient city during the morning rush hour, bicycles are faster than cars. Bai Ye rode for about ten minutes and arrived at the antique market. At this time, not all the vendors had set up their stalls yet, and there weren't many people on the street. The shutter door of Jubaozhai was only half-closed, and Old Hu was squatting at the door, holding a jar of strong tea, chatting idly with Old Wang, who sold calligraphy and paintings next door.

"Hey, Xiao Bai's here." Old Hu saw Bai Ye, then glanced at Lan Susu behind him, his eyes flickering. "He's brought a girl with him."

"She came to see the box," Bai Ye said.

Old Hu didn't ask any more questions, stood up and pushed the roller shutter door up. The shop smelled of old books and old wood, which Bai Ye was used to, but Lan Susu wrinkled her nose.

The box was still under Lao Hu's table. Bai Ye dragged it out and placed it in a better-lit spot.

Lan Susu squatted down, not rushing to do anything, but first circling the box to examine it. It had brass corner protectors, a military green finish, and a line of almost worn-off Russian letters printed on the bottom. She reached out and touched the surface of the box, her finger lingering on the Russian inscription.

"Can you recognize it?" Bai Ye asked.

"I can only recognize a few letters," Lan Susu said. "It's the serial number of a military factory in the north. I've seen similar ones in documents before."

She withdrew her hand and took a small cloth bag from the canvas bag. Opening it, she found several candles, a palm-sized copper plate, and a small bottle containing something she couldn't identify.

Old Hu peeked out, said nothing, and walked away with his teacup.

Lan Susu placed the copper plate next to the box and lit two candles. These were not ordinary candles; the wax was dark brown, and when they burned, they had an indescribable smell, like sandalwood but not quite.

"You stand on the other side," she said.

Do it day and night.

Lan Susu closed her eyes and mumbled something in a low voice that Bai Ye couldn't hear. Then she opened her eyes and looked at Bai Ye.

"Put your hand on it."

Bai Ye placed his hand on the lid of the box. The cool brass clasp touched his palm, but there was no reaction.

"Close your eyes. Think about the scene you saw yesterday."

White night, eyes closed. Blizzard. Barbed wire. White coat. That face—

coming.

This time it was even faster than last night. The image was suddenly thrust in front of him. The middle-aged man in the white coat had a scar above his left eyebrow, and his mouth was opening and closing. Bai Ye tried to see what he was saying, but the image was shaking too violently, like an old television with a bad signal.

Then, the scene changed.

It was no longer a basement. It was a dimly lit corridor with old-fashioned green half-wall paint on the walls. Someone was running. Footsteps, panting. Something was chasing behind—not a person, but a sense of oppression, like something enormous was approaching.

At the end of the corridor was a door. It was metal with a round handle.

Reach for the handle—

Bai Ye suddenly opened his eyes, panting heavily. His back was soaked with sweat again.

Lan Susu was staring at him.

"What did you see?"

Bai Ye recounted the corridor, the door, and the sense of chase from earlier. Lan Susu listened in silence for a few seconds.

“It’s not the same scene,” she said. “Yesterday it was the lab, today it’s the hallway. The timeline might be reversed—what you just saw should have happened before the lab. He was being chased and trying to escape through a door.”

"who is he?"

Lan Susu didn't answer. She took out a notebook and a pen from her bag and handed them to Bai Ye: "Draw the door you saw. What kind of handle it is, how many panels are on the door, what's around it, draw as much as you can remember."

Bai Ye took the pen, thought for a moment, and began to draw. He had never studied drawing, so his drawing was quite ugly, but the general idea came through: a metal door with a round handle, and a rectangular glass window on the door. The glass was frosted, allowing light to pass through but not to be transparent.

Lan Susu looked at it, tore off the paper, and put it into her notebook.

"If this door really exists, it will lead you to that place," she said. "And look at this."

She turned the box over and pointed to the bottom near the edge. Bai Ye leaned closer to look and discovered a very fine crack in the leather there, almost invisible unless you looked very closely.

"A mezzanine?" he said.

Lan Susu nodded. She took out a small utility knife from her bag and carefully cut along the crack. Underneath the leather was indeed not wood, but a thin layer of oiled paper.

She peeled off the oil paper.

Inside was a folded piece of paper, very thin and slightly yellowed. Lan Susu pulled it out and unfolded it.

It's a blueprint.

The lines were very fine, like a blueprint for some kind of machine. In the center was a cylindrical device, surrounded by dense Russian text and numbers. Bai Ye couldn't understand it, but Lan Susu's expression changed.

"You recognize this?" Bai Ye asked.

"I don't recognize it," Lan Susu said, her eyes never leaving the drawing. "But look here."

She pointed to a line of small print in the lower right corner of the drawing. Bai Ye leaned closer to look; it wasn't Russian, but handwritten English, the handwriting messy, as if it had been written in a hurry.

"Resonator. Prototype. Number 7."

Bai Ye raised his head.

"A resonator? What's it used for?"

Lan Susu didn't answer. She turned the drawing over. There were words on the back, also handwritten in English, even more illegible than on the front, with some parts crossed out and rewritten. She read a few lines, her expression growing increasingly grim.

"What exactly is written?" Bai Ye couldn't help but ask again.

Lan Susu looked up at him.

"It says that this device can 'induce the human brain into a hypersensitive state.' Simply put, it turns people into people like you—people who can see those things."

Bai Ye was stunned.

"They want to create...people like me?"

"Yes. But the experiment failed." Lan Susu flipped to the last line of annotation and read it aloud, "'Subject number 7. Day 14. Perceptual threshold breached. Day 19. Consciousness collapse.'"

What is meant by a breakdown of consciousness?

Lan Susu remained silent for a while.

"They've gone mad. Or died. Or worse than dead." She looked at Bai Ye. "Do you remember what I told you yesterday? This ability is a double-edged sword. They used the machine to force open doors that shouldn't have been opened, and something came in from behind them. The subjects couldn't take it, and their consciousness shattered."

Bai Ye felt a dryness in her throat.

"Then let's—"

Before he could finish speaking, Old Hu suddenly walked in from the front room, his expression different from usual. It wasn't the lazy, shrewd kind, but rather wary.

"Xiaobai, don't make a sound yet." He lowered his voice. "There are people outside. Two of them. They've been standing across the street for a while. They've been watching our shop entrance."

Bai Ye and Lan Susu exchanged a glance.

"Who is it?" Bai Ye asked.

"I don't know. But he doesn't look like a nice guy." Old Hu paused for a moment. "He's quite big. Northern accent."

Bai Ye's heart sank suddenly.

Northern accent. From the same place as that box.

"Go through the back door," Old Hu said. "There's an alley behind it; go through it and you'll find another street."

Lan Susu quickly folded the blueprints and stuffed them back into her bag, while Bai Ye closed the suitcase. Old Hu led them through the back room, which was filled with clutter, and pushed open a rusty iron door. Outside was a narrow alley, piled with broken cardboard boxes and discarded furniture.

"Don't go back to your room tonight," Lao Hu said to Bai Ye. "Find somewhere to stay. Don't answer the phone."

"Old Hu—"

"Walk."

Bai Ye and Lan Susu slipped into the alley. When they reached the alley entrance, Bai Ye couldn't help but glance back. Through the narrow gap at the alley entrance, he saw two men standing across the street. They wore dark coats and were burly; one was lighting a cigarette, while the other's gaze was sweeping towards Jubaozhai.

Then the person seemed to realize something and tilted their head towards the alley entrance.

Bai Ye didn't look again, and pulled Lan Susu into another street.

The two walked three blocks in one breath before stopping at a bus stop. Lan Susu leaned against the bus stop sign, panting, while Bai Ye was bent over, his hands supporting his knees. The morning rush hour was over, and only the two of them and an old lady carrying a shopping basket were on the platform.

"Who exactly is it?" Bai Ye asked, his voice very low.

"I don't know. But it's definitely related to that box." Lan Susu took the blueprint out of her bag and glanced at it again. "This thing is much more important than we thought. They've probably been looking for it all along."

"What do we do now?"

Lan Susu thought for a moment.

"Let's go back to the school first. I have some documents in my office about scientific research projects in the north during that period. If we can find clues about the 'Aurora Project' or the 'Resonator,' we'll know what this thing is and why those people are chasing it."

"and then?"

Lan Susu glanced at him but didn't say anything.

The bus arrived. The two boarded and sat in the last row. The bus swayed and rattled along, the streets, pedestrians, bicycles, and dusty roadside trees outside the window receding one by one. Bai Ye leaned against the window, her mind a jumbled mess.

Yesterday he was an apprentice at a secondhand shop, his biggest worry being not being able to pay rent at the end of the month. Today, he's clutching a secret blueprint that somehow leaked from an abandoned laboratory, and he's being watched by two burly men from the north of unknown origin, with a university lecturer sitting next to him who knows how to set up candle arrays and draw tarot cards.

I can't live like this anymore.

The bus was waiting at a red light at an intersection. Bai Ye looked out the window and saw a black sedan parked across the street. The window was rolled up, so he couldn't see inside.

But he suddenly had a feeling.

Someone was watching him from inside that car.

The red light turned green. The bus started moving, and the black sedan drove off in the opposite direction.

Bai Ye stared at the car disappearing into the traffic, his palms sweating profusely.

"What's wrong with you?" Lan Susu asked.

"It's alright," Bai Ye said.

He didn't tell Lan Susu that he had "seen" it again just a moment ago.

It wasn't a blizzard, it wasn't a basement, it wasn't a corridor.

is a person.

The back of a man in a dark coat is bent over as he stuffs a military green leather suitcase into the trunk of a black sedan.

The suitcase is exactly the same as the one in Jubaozhai.