Tales of the End of the Century

Just as dawn was breaking, Bai Ye was awakened by the cold.

It wasn't the cold, but the dampness seeping from the slag heaped, seeping into his bones through his sleeping bag. He climbed out of the back seat of the jeep, pushed open the canvas door, and his breath lingered in the morning light for a long time. Daylight came early in the mining area; before the sun had even risen over the tailings heap to the east, the ridgeline was already edged with a cold, white light. A very faint smell of sulfur lingered in the air, mixed with the rust and damp lime, astringent and bitter when inhaled, like holding a mouthful of rusty water.

Tie Niu was already up. He had started a small fire under the derrick, with an enamel mug beside it, the water inside just beginning to steam. The fire wasn't big; a few pieces of dry firewood chopped from discarded railway sleepers were piled together, the flames licking the bottom of the mug and giving the faded peony flower on the enamel surface a slight shine. Tie Niu squatted beside the fire, poking at the firewood with the tip of his dagger, sparks flying up and landing on his leather gloves, which he casually flicked away.

"The signal's still there." Lan Susu sat on the hood of the Jeep, an oscilloscope resting on her lap, the external antenna pointed towards north-northeast. The waveform on the screen had been fluctuating steadily since last night, the frequency and amplitude unchanged, like a heart beating extremely slowly. She tilted the antenna eastward; the waveform weakened. She tilted it westward; it weakened again. Only when pointed towards north-northeast was the waveform cleanest and the amplitude largest. "The direction is the same as yesterday, but the distance is about a few hundred meters closer than last night. The signal source hasn't moved."

Bai Ye took the jar from Tie Niu and drank a mouthful. The hot water scalded his tongue, making it numb. He held it in his mouth for a while before swallowing, then stood up and walked to the mine shaft, looking at the mining area before him. When he arrived here yesterday evening, it was already dark. He could only see a few dark piles of waste rock and the outline of rusted red mine shafts, like a group of giant beasts crouching in the twilight. Now it was dawn, and the entire mining area revealed its true face in the morning light—much larger than he had imagined. There were four or five main mine shafts alone, their rusted red steel beams piercing the air. The tallest one had several operating platforms on top, half of which had collapsed. The crossbars of the iron ladders were rusted and broken, swaying gently in the wind. There were even more inclined shaft entrances, lined up along the hillside, the openings blocked by rubble and withered grass, leaving only a narrow crack, like a row of half-closed eyes. The ore rails were rusted and broken, the sleepers were so rotten they would crumble underfoot, and several mine cars lay overturned at the end of the tracks, their wheels rusted so badly that the spokes were no longer visible. The signal tower leaned precariously in mid-air, its lampshade long gone, leaving only a bare lightning rod with a piece of kite string tangled around its tip, drifting silently in the wind.

"Most of these shafts are interconnected." Tie Niu walked around the nearest inclined shaft entrance, squatting down to examine the color and moisture of the rubble at the entrance. He had patrolled several abandoned mines while working as a security guard on the periphery of Project Aurora and was very familiar with the mine structure. The main tunnel was wide enough for small transport vehicles to pass through, the walls were sprayed with cement, and there were ventilation pipes on the ceiling. The side tunnels were narrow, only allowing one person to pass sideways. There were many forks in the road, and it was easy to get lost if you didn't remember the way. Collapse was the biggest danger—in old mines abandoned for more than ten years, the supporting timbers were rotten, and the roof could collapse at any time. He stood up and pointed to the still swaying iron ladder rung above the shaft, saying that judging from the state of the mine, there was probably a collapse section inside. Once inside, you must stick close to him, don't touch the supporting timbers on the walls, and follow the footprints of the person in front of you.

Lan Susu packed the oscilloscope into her waterproof backpack, along with several spare cassette tapes, two boxes of batteries, and a bundle of spare antennas. She took a metal first-aid kit from the trunk and placed it under the derrick, saying they could easily retrieve it if needed. She also stuffed a roll of medical tape and a small bottle of iodine into her canvas bag. Tie Niu gave everyone's headlamps a final check—the miners' lamps were secondhand items he'd specifically found at a hardware store in town when he was in Yushugou; the lamp heads were brass, and the light strips were adjustable canvas hoops, heavier than the newer plastic headlamps but with a longer battery life. He wrapped the spare bulbs in a soft cloth and gave two to each person, then pulled three rolls of reflective rope from the trunk.

"This is the return rope. There are many forks in the mine, so if you get lost, you can use this rope to find your way back. Everyone should carry one roll, and put it down as you go, don't be stingy. When you see a fork in the road, tie the rope to the most conspicuous place—don't tie it to the support timber, tie it to the iron pipe. The support timber will rot, the iron pipe will rot more slowly." He tied one end of the rope to the steel beam of the main shaft, pulled it twice to make sure it wasn't loose, then tucked the axe behind his waist and switched the glove to his left hand. The leather glove on his right hand was worn shiny, and the leather at the knuckles was wrinkled into several deep lines. He took it off, rolled it up, and stuffed it into his back pocket. He pushed open the rusty iron gate at the entrance of the inclined shaft and was the first to go in.

The air inside the mine was much colder than outside. Not the dry cold of winter, but a damp cold; moisture seeped from the walls, mixed with the pungent smell of rust and wet lime, sticking stickily to the skin. The headlamp beam could only illuminate seven or eight meters ahead; beyond that was a thick darkness, so heavy it felt like it weighed down on my eyes. The ground beneath my feet was a gravel surface, crunching underfoot, each sound bouncing several times in the narrow tunnel before dissipating—first carrying forward into the darkness, then bouncing back from the walls, and finally echoing back from the depths of the mine behind me, becoming a thin echo superimposed on my footsteps, as if someone was following behind, stepping on the stones I had just trod.

Every so often, a section of rusted cable hung from the ceiling along the cave wall, its outer sheath peeling away to reveal the blackened copper core beneath. Tie Niu walked slowly, stopping every few steps to listen—a habit he'd developed while working as a security guard on Project Aurora. He wasn't listening for anyone, but for the sound of water seeping from the ceiling. Seepage meant the rock strata were loosening, and if they loosened enough, they would collapse. His steps were steady, his boots firmly planted on the loose rocks, each step deliberate, like a precise seismograph slowly advancing in the darkness.

Bai Ye followed behind him. The beam of his headlamp shone on Tie Niu's broad back, the backpack strap digging into his left shoulder, and the axe handle protruding diagonally from his waist, swaying gently with the rhythm of his steps. Bai Ye focused his attention back on his breathing, letting his senses probe forward. After entering the resonant realm, his range of perception was much wider than before, but in the mine, this breadth became a burden—the cave walls bounced all the signals back and forth, the sound of flowing water echoed in the rock strata, and there was an extremely faint residual current vibration in the abandoned cables, with a very low frequency, almost overlapping with that slow signal. What was more troublesome was that the mine tunnel itself was also "breathing"—the wind seeped in from some unseen fissure, passing through the rusted pipes, emitting extremely fine and light whistles in the cracks of the cave walls, like a person slowly exhaling with their lips pressed against an iron plate. These sounds mixed with his senses, like a tangled ball of hemp thread, and it took him a while to suppress the background noise layer by layer, leaving a blank space at the very front.

Then that spark rose from the void. It was deep beneath the slag heap, compacted tightly. It was still burning, unhurriedly, just glowing. A little brighter than in Elm Tree Gully, not a scorching glow—it was the glow of a smoldering ember beneath the ashes, gently stirred by the wind, suddenly tinged with a dark red from the greyish-black. He told Tie Niu about this feeling. Tie Niu didn't turn around, just nodded, and continued walking.

"The further in we go, the clearer the signal becomes." Lan Susu followed behind him, checking the signal strength on the oscilloscope every few dozen steps, then turning the screen brightness down to the lowest setting before turning it off—to save power. Her voice was drawn out in the mine tunnel, the last syllable bouncing a few times on the tunnel walls before fading away. "The direction hasn't changed. The distance is decreasing. The signal source hasn't moved."

After walking for about half an hour, the mine tunnel began to steepen. The surface was no longer gravel, but a series of downward-sloping concrete ramps, the surface riddled with cracks, each filled with fine rock fragments. Tie Niu crouched down at the entrance of the ramp, his headlamp illuminating the ground. There were ruts on the concrete slope—not tire tracks, but the tracks made by the iron wheels of narrow-gauge mine cars, two parallel shallow grooves running from the top to the bottom of the slope, their edges worn smooth. He said these ruts were left later; many years after the mine ceased production, people were still using mine cars to haul things in.

Further on, the main tunnel suddenly narrowed, forking into three side paths at the end. The two on the left were blocked by collapsed rubble, with several rotten, dark brown supporting timbers stuck diagonally on top of the rubble, their stumps jutting out into the air, the gaps filled with fine rock fragments and dried dung from some unknown animal. The one on the right was so narrow that only one person could pass sideways, its walls marked with deep chisel marks—not rough chisels left during mining, but marks from someone spending a long time, chiseling away, widening the tunnel walls to both sides. The chisel marks descended diagonally, each evenly spaced, like an open Braille book slowly turning the pages of the tunnel wall.

Tie Niu stopped at the fork in the road, switched the axe to his left hand, and squeezed sideways into the narrow alley. The stone walls were cold and rough, and even through his coat, he could feel the dampness emanating from deeper within. Bai Ye followed, squeezing in sideways, his shoulder blades rubbing against the rock wall, the coarse quartz grains causing a slight soreness through his coat. The beam of his headlamp was compressed into a flat white band of light in the narrow space, illuminating less than two meters of the rock wall ahead. Every so often, someone had written a blurry number in chalk on the cave wall; it was no longer legible, but the number kept decreasing as you counted.

Halfway through the narrow alley, it suddenly widened, revealing a man-made, excavated cavern. The beam of my headlamp swept across it—the space wasn't large, but the ceiling was very high, easily over three meters. Chisel marks remained on the walls. Several moldy quilts lay on the floor, covered in a layer of grayish-white mold. In the corner sat empty cans and a case of bottled water, the production date on the case nearly ten years past. Against the wall rested an enamel mug, its bottom still bearing a layer of dried, dark brown tea stains, the cracks resembling a miniature riverbed.

The cave walls were covered in chalk writing. The handwriting was messy but still legible, mostly in Russian, with some Chinese. The top line was the date, the year illegible, only the month and day were recognizable. Below, densely packed were records of each day's practice—"Today I used my left hand to hold the cup. The reflection hesitated." "I put sesame oil in the cucumber. It doesn't like sesame oil." "I said the name three times. When I said it the third time, I suddenly couldn't remember who named it." The handwriting on the last line suddenly changed, no longer neat, as if the hand was trembling so badly that it couldn't even hold the pen steadily—"I forgot to do the practice yesterday. It didn't move."

Bai Ye stood before that wall for a long time. He recognized the handwriting. Sergei's test subject file contained the same recording format, but earlier than Sergei's—Sergei only started writing on the wall in the later stages of the rift, using his own exercise books and notebooks. This person started writing in the early stages of the rift, without paper, without a pen, only a piece of chalk and a cave wall. He recorded the daily changes on the wall, not for others to see, but to confirm that he was still there—the writing was still there, the hand was still there, he was still there.

He picked up the enamel mug and turned it over. There were chalk marks on the inside of the bottom, written repeatedly, each time on top of the previous one, the writing overlapping into a blurry white mass. He didn't bother to decipher what the topmost writing was; he'd seen it in many places before. He put the mug back and stood up. At the other end of the cave, Tie Niu discovered a pried-open iron door, a faint warmth emanating from the crack. The bolt had been smashed open from the ground, yet remained in the pried-open position. Tie Niu shone his headlamp into the crack, then turned to look at Bai Ye.

"It's still deeper. Behind this door is a downward-sloping ventilation shaft. The signal source—is at the end of the ventilation shaft."

Bai Ye bent down and picked up the piece of chalk that had fallen in the corner, placing it next to the enamel mug. It was similar in size and color to the piece of chalk he had found in the air-raid shelter, the kind only sold at supply and marketing cooperatives. He stood up, walked to the iron gate, and placed his hand on the door panel. The metal was cold, but the light seeping through the cracks in the door fell warmly on his fingers.