Tales of the End of the Century

The descent was faster than the ascent. The pebbles on the scree slope were scorching hot from the afternoon sun, no longer slippery underfoot. Tie Niu walked in front, his backpack strap tucked into his left shoulder, his right hand free—the axe tucked behind his waist, his leather gloves already removed, rolled up, and stuffed into his back pocket. Bai Ye followed behind him, clutching the booklet he'd brought back from Yunlong Temple. Lan Susu brought up the rear, her canvas bag slung across her shoulder, the oscilloscope wrapped in her trench coat, screen facing inward.

They didn't speak. Ever since they got up from under the old locust tree, the three of them had barely uttered a word. It wasn't that they didn't want to speak; it was that the words were still swirling in their hearts, like tea leaves sinking to the bottom of a vat, never fully steeped.

When they reached the bottom of the scree slope, Tie Niu stopped to drink some water and handed the water bottle to Bai Ye. Bai Ye took it and gulped down a mouthful; it was cold, the chill running from his throat all the way to his stomach. He returned the water bottle to Tie Niu and suddenly said, "After Sergei chopped that axe, he took the same path down the mountain."

Tie Niu didn't answer, looking down at the rubble beneath his feet. He knew Bai Ye wasn't asking him, but himself. Sergei had walked the path he could, leaving behind everything that should be left behind. Now it was their turn to continue.

Bai Ye put the booklet in his pocket, bent down to pick up a pebble and put it in his pocket, then opened the jeep door and sat in the passenger seat.

It was already evening the next day when they returned to Yushugou. As the car turned past Yangshuzhuang, Bai Ye saw a new pebble on the stone by the courtyard gate—flat and round, its edges smoothed by the rain. It was the one the man in gray had picked up before he left; he remembered. On the day he left, he had placed it next to the pencil case, but sometime later, Lao Hu had moved it to the courtyard gate. Underneath the pebble was a note with Lao Hu's handwriting on it, crooked and illegible, written in pencil: "The vegetable patch is turned over, the chili seeds have been sown, come back and water them."

Lan Susu turned the note over. There was another line of writing on the back, with very faint creases, as if someone who had already gone far away had asked Lao Hu to write it for him—"Fellow travelers, wait for the dates to ripen."

Bai Ye pressed the note under a pebble and walked into the courtyard. The jujube tree's leaves were denser than before he left, and there were a few more pebbles on the pile next to the tree's roots—Old Hu added one every day, just like he always did. He placed the pebble he had picked up from the foot of the mountain on the top of the pile, and put the small pebble he had brought back from Yunlong Temple next to it. The two pebbles weren't touching; there was a gap between them, just enough to fit a new pebble.

Lan Susu sat under the jujube tree and began copying her notes. She placed the manuscript that Sergei had brought back from Yunlong Temple on a stone, comparing it page by page with the backup the old lady had left at the temple, filling in the missing parts. Tie Niu took out Lu Ban's plane and leaned it against the root of the jujube tree, saying nothing. Bai Ye placed the enamel mug on the stone and filled it with water. A tiny patch of chili oil floated on the surface—Old Hu had added it when he mixed cucumbers that morning, and it had now dispersed into a pale red layer.

After returning from Yunlong Temple, Bai Ye felt there was a light in his heart, not lit by him, but left by Sergei. It was in the last few pages of the backup archive, in the painting under the old locust tree, and in the cup of tea the old lady handed him. He didn't yet know how this light shone outwards. But the light was on, and Sergei's door was not closed.

The next morning, he got up early and chopped firewood all morning, switching hands as his left got tired, then his right, and vice versa. As he placed the axe beside the doorframe, he suddenly paused—Sergei had returned the axe to his master the day he left, saying he wouldn't need it anymore. Not that he wouldn't need to chop wood anymore, but that he wouldn't need to use the axe to fight anything anymore. He picked up the axe, twirled it in his hand, then put it back. He walked to the jujube tree and touched the deepest axe mark he'd made with his left hand on the trunk. Most of the bark had grown back, the edges curled up in a grayish-brown scar, smoother than the other marks.

A new signal appeared on the oscilloscope in the afternoon.

Lan Susu was the first to notice the change. During a routine scan, she noticed a faint frequency coming from the northeast of Yushugou, unlike any residue she had detected near the yard before. She said it wasn't Sergei's trace; it was too new—as new as if it had just come from someone not yet on any list.

Bai Ye came out of the house, placed the enamel mug on the stone, and closed his eyes. He focused his attention on his breathing, letting his awareness expand outward. Then he sensed it. It wasn't someone he knew, not a signal characteristic of any known gap-phase subjects, not even a remnant of Project Aurora—but it was very faint, very uncertain, like a newly discovered light that hadn't yet found its lampshade.

He opened his eyes and looked at Lan Susu, saying, "We need to go to town."

A man in his thirties, dressed in gray overalls with faded cuffs, sat on a bench in front of the supply and marketing cooperative. He had a worn-out canvas bag on his lap. When he saw Bai Ye approaching, he didn't stand up; instead, he moved the bag aside to make room for Bai Ye on the bench.

"The same to you?"

The man paused for a moment. "Also?"

"How many days did you wait at the supply and marketing cooperative?"

The man unzipped the canvas bag. Inside was a palm-sized round mirror, almost identical to the one in Bai Ye's pocket. On the back of the metal sheet was a bird with its head tilted—not glued on, but pressed out of the metal sheet, its edges already blurred, as if it had been touched many times.

He said he bought the mirror at a secondhand stall, and after buying it, he started having strange dreams. In the dream, a person with a scar on their left eyebrow stood in front of a wooden door writing. After finishing, the person turned around and glanced at him, saying nothing, but the line of text remained on the door for a long time. He didn't know Russian, but for some reason, he could recognize all the characters in that line. Then he started seeing himself blinking in the mirror. Not in sync, a beat behind. He thought it was because he hadn't slept well, but later realized that wasn't it. Later, that slow-moving reflection started to move its pen before he wrote, and reach out its hand before he drank water. He didn't know what to do, so he searched online and found a very old message in a corner of a long-abandoned BBS, pointing to the supply and marketing cooperative in Yushugou.

Bai Ye handed him the enamel mug. The man took it, took a sip, and frowned. "Did you put chili in it?"

Bai Ye smiled slightly and said that what this place has no shortage of is people who put chili peppers in the water. He pulled the man up from the bench, handed him the canvas bag, and said, "Come back with us." The man stood there, looked at the dim light bulb under the porch of the supply and marketing cooperative, lowered his head, picked up the canvas bag, slung it over his shoulder, and followed Bai Ye.

That evening, Lan Susu turned on the oscilloscope and marked a new waveform for his signal. It was different from Sergei's residual frequency and also different from Bai Ye's resonant waveform—closer to how Bai Ye had looked two years ago when he first entered the Condensed Realm. She wrote this waveform on the page with the newly added test subject list, her handwriting very light. She asked his name. He said his surname was Ji.

That evening, Bai Ye sat under the jujube tree for a long time. He looked down at the pile of pebbles on the rock—old, new, round, flat, some gleaming from the rain, others still carrying dust from the gravel slope of Yunlong Temple. He placed the small pebbles he had picked up from under the supply and marketing cooperative's bench on top, then took out a small round mirror and turned it right side up. The crack cut his face in two, and his reflection looked at him in the mirror—synchronously, without delay. He raised his right hand, and the mirror reflected a raised right hand as well. He turned the mirror over, back side up, and placed it next to the enamel mug. The tin bird folded its wings and tilted its head. It was no longer listening to anything; it simply stayed there.

A breeze picked up at night. The jujube tree branch swayed gently outside the window, causing the shadow on the wall to move. The new pebble didn't glow, but Bai Ye knew very well—another lamp was already on.