Tales of the End of the Century

The next morning, the courtyard gate was pushed open from the outside. It wasn't the man in gray or Vasily—Bai Ye could now distinguish everyone's footsteps. The man in gray walked with his feet landing on the balls of his feet first, Vasily's stride was half an inch shorter, and Old Hu's cloth shoes had worn thin soles, making a rustling sound as they rubbed against the dirt road. This time, the footsteps were from leather shoes, hard-soled, each step precise, neither too fast nor too slow, like someone walking with a rhythm in their mind.

Bai Ye sat under the jujube tree, holding an enamel mug in his hand, without standing up.

A man in a faded gray jacket stood in the doorway. His hair was longer than before, tied into a small braid at the back of his head, with a few white strands at his temples. He had a thin face, high cheekbones, and small eyes with slightly downturned corners, making him appear to be smiling.

Old Hu poked his head out of the kitchen, still clutching a handful of unpeeled garlic. He saw the person at the door, paused for a moment, then put the garlic on the windowsill and came out, wiping his hands on his apron.

"White dove".

Bai Ge laughed. "Old Hu, you still haven't replaced that enamel mug."

"Why change it? I'm used to it." Old Hu squatted on the doorstep, took out a cigarette and lit it. "How many years has it been?"

"Ten years. Your hair has turned quite a bit whiter." White Dove entered the courtyard, not immediately sitting down, but first walking around the jujube tree. She looked down at the small pile of pebbles beneath the tree, then looked up at the various axe marks on the trunk. The deepest mark was driven in by Tie Niu with his left hand; the bark was peeled back and had already scabbed over. The shallower marks nearby were left by the man in gray and Vasily during their practice. "This tree is older than the one in Panjiayuan."

Bai Ye stood up. "You two know each other?"

"I guess so." Bai Ge sat down on a stone under the jujube tree, placing her hands on her knees. "I used to run a small antique shop across from Panjiayuan Street, specializing in dealing in old items that had come from overseas. It was next to Lao Hu's stall; he sold old books and newspapers, and I sold bottles and jars. Later, the shop was shut down."

"It's sealed off?" Lan Susu walked out of the east wing.

"They said the goods were of dubious origin. They weren't wrong. Half of the items I sold came from overseas—old military uniforms, old maps, unopened Russian documents, and a few photos of test subjects." Bai Ge placed her hands on her knees, palms up. "Those photos were later confiscated. I spent a few days in jail, and when I came out, the shop was empty, except for a sign and a broken broom. That's how I started doing this."

Which line?

"Selling information." White Dove took out an oiled paper package from her bosom and placed it on the stone. "Some things are too late to save, so write them down. As you write down more information, people will eventually be willing to pay for it."

Lan Susu placed the oscilloscope on the stone. On the screen, the waveform of Bai Ye's resonant realm was fluctuating slowly and steadily, the frequency more uniform than yesterday, the amplitude unchanged, but the waveform wider than before. Next to it was an extremely faint signal, the one that had appeared last night, the gaze that Bai Ye had sensed after his breakthrough.

White Dove glanced down at the screen. "Your frequency is changing faster than expected. Someone has already noticed."

"You mean that gaze?" Bai Ye asked.

"Gazing." White Dove repeated the word, a slight smirk playing on her lips. "You call it gazing. Very well. In the monitoring terminology of many organizations, it's called 'remote consciousness locking.' It's not some mysterious thing—at least they don't find it mysterious. They think they can capture, analyze, and reverse engineer it with instruments. They've been working on it for years with little progress. Because your frequency is something machines can't simulate."

Tie Niu stood up from under the jujube tree and placed the axe beside the doorframe. "Who are they?"

"There's too much." White Dove opened the oil paper package and placed it on the stone. "Several overseas organizations are tracking the consciousness frequency signals left behind by Project Aurora. Some are looking for test subjects, some are looking for resonator blueprints, and some are looking for Sergei—or anything he left behind. Your frequency is very close to Sergei's records from the last few years, so close that their algorithms once thought Sergei hadn't died and was continuing to emit signals in a different body."

He unfolded the oil paper package. Inside was a black and white photograph, its edges worn. The photograph showed a wooden door with a rusted door knocker, a sliver of light shining through the crack in the door, and a stone slab embedded in the wall beside the door, engraved with three characters. Lan Susu glanced down at it; it was Yunlong Temple.

Bai Ye took the photo and turned it over. There was a line of pencil writing on the back; the handwriting was old, but still legible.

"Autumn 1980. Sergei came here," White Dove said. "He went there to borrow something—a handwritten booklet with four characters written on the cover. He took the booklet back to Project Aurora and locked it in his filing cabinet. After the project was disbanded, his assistant took the booklet out and put it in the same suitcase as the resonator blueprints. Later, the suitcase changed hands several times, and the booklet ended up on a secondhand stall overseas. Three months ago, an old lady bought it—she herself came from Yunlong Temple and was said to have been a Taoist nun in her youth. She didn't use any location tracking methods; she found the booklet just by sensing it. She said this thing had been circulating outside for too long and had to wait for someone destined to retrieve it. She also said that you would probably need a few more days to prepare, and she could wait."

Bai Ye placed the photo on the stone. "How did she find us?"

Bai Ge thought for a moment. "She said she saw it the moment you broke through. Not just heard about it, she saw it. From a great distance, on a level of consciousness, there was a very bright light. She said it was the door opening." He stood up and dusted off his pants. "The photos are delivered, the message is delivered. Believe it or not, it's up to you."

Old Hu stubbed out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe and stood up. "You're leaving already? You haven't eaten yet."

Bai Ge glanced back at him. "I haven't forgotten. Like I said, save me a basket when the dates are ripe." He walked to the courtyard gate, his leather shoes clicking on the dirt road, step by step, neither fast nor slow, and disappeared around the poplar stump.

The courtyard was quiet for a while. Old Hu picked up his enamel mug, took a sip of water, swallowed slowly, stood up, walked to the kitchen door, picked up the unpeeled garlic clove from the windowsill, and sat on the threshold to peel it slowly. Tie Niu walked to the jujube tree, reached out and touched the axe marks on the trunk, then turned and glanced at Bai Ye.

Bai Ye folded the oil paper again and placed it under the stones. "Bai Ge never lies. But he also never tells the whole truth—he only tells the part he needs to know, and the rest he fills in himself."

Lan Susu turned the oscilloscope back on and looked at the unfamiliar slow signal on the screen. The signal was still there, the frequency was stable, and the direction hadn't changed. She spread the map on the stone and carefully compared it with the direction displayed on the screen. The circle left by the white dove and the location of the signal almost completely overlapped.

"This place is deep in the Yanshan Mountains," she said.

Bai Ye placed the enamel mug on the stone, stood up, walked to the jujube tree, and reached out to touch the axe marks on the trunk. The one Tie Niu had cleaved with his left hand was the deepest, the bark peeling back and already scabbed over. The last few marks left by the gray-clad man and Vasily before they left were still shallow, the edges not yet curled. He remembered the last few seconds of Sergei's tape—Sergei's voice was calm before the door was forced open. He had done everything he could. He left behind notes, tapes, a mirror, a list of test subjects, and stage divisions repeatedly red and blue ink for those who came after him. He opened the door to the widest he could bear, then placed the key under the threshold.

"Let's go to Yunlong Temple first." Bai Ye turned around. "The old lady is still waiting."