Tales of the End of the Century

Bai Ye stood in Old Wei's cave, holding the reflecting mirror in his hands. The mirror was facing upwards, clean and tidy, with a burnt-out kerosene lamp placed in its center. Old Wei sat on the straw mat, his head slightly bowed, his hands folded on his knees. He himself radiated light—not from the disturbance of an activated energy field, but from the natural resonance emanating from within after his consciousness frequency stabilized at a certain critical point. Like a lamp resting on the straw mat.

"You said there were two more signals." Old Wei's voice was very soft, each word as if picked from ashes. "One was sent out by me. The other wasn't. The other one was here even before me."

Lan Susu placed the oscilloscope on the mine cart's table, screen facing upwards. Two signals rose and fell against the dark green background. Old Wei's signal was already very weak, but still present; the other was deeper and slower, as if seeping from deeper strata. She pointed the antenna deeper into the north-northeast direction of the mining area, and the waveform slowly unfolded on the screen.

“This signal didn’t appear after our last trip into the mine,” she said in a low voice. “It’s always been there. It’s just too deep, so deep that none of the antennas could pick it up before. When we first went into the mine, it was covered by Lao Wei’s sparks—not because of frequency overlap, but because the intensity difference was too great. Although Lao Wei’s signal was weak, it was always actively transmitting outwards; this signal was silent, like a mirror turned upside down on the ground, not emitting light, only reflecting.” She pulled up all the waveforms recorded during the last trip into the mine and compared them side by side. Rows of waveforms slowly scrolled from right to left on the screen. On the far left, she could find a small trace of the earliest captured sparks from Lao Wei; and within the same timeline, that extremely low-frequency band had only very faint noise. “Later, Lao Wei’s sparks started to be received—his signal strength got weaker day by day. The deeper he went, the less signal he emitted; the less signal he emitted, the clearer the covered signal became.” She pointed to the slow fluctuation on the screen, “It didn’t suddenly wake up. Lao Wei dimmed the lights so we could see it.”

Old Wei nodded slowly. "I know someone is deeper inside. Many years ago, when I first entered the mining area, I could still sense his frequency. Later, when my own fissure reached its seventh cycle, the reflection began to synchronize with me, and my signal became stronger. Since then, I've been unable to sense him anymore." He looked at the chalk writing he had left on the cave wall—the earliest line was dated before Project Aurora ended its fissure period, the latest line was crooked, leaning towards the crack in the door. "It's not that he's gone. It's that I'm too bright."

Bai Ye gently placed the reflecting mirror beside the haystack and walked to the northernmost wall of the cave. This wall had no chalk writing, no chisel marks, and was unlike the other three walls. He reached out and touched it; the cement spraying layer was very thin, so thin that he could feel the texture of the rock with his fingertips. He bent his knuckles and tapped the wall—it didn't produce a hollow sound. But the temperature of this wall was lower than the other three, so low that after stepping into the resonance realm, he could feel an extremely subtle and steady coolness seeping from the depths of the rock, like unmelted snow pressing under the surface of an ice-covered lake.

“There’s space behind the wall.” He placed his palm on the wall. “Not a cave, but a natural rock crevice. It’s narrow, but deep. Like a pipe, drawing air from deeper inside. The signal seeps up from there—not through the wall, but with the wind.”

Tie Niu took the axe from his waist and walked to the passage on the far right wall of the cave, sealed off by wooden planks. Last time, Bai Ye had pushed open that door from the ventilation alley side; this time, they stood inside the cave, the wooden planks sealing the door facing the opposite direction. The planks were nailed tightly shut, the nails rusted black, and the nail heads were covered with a thick layer of dust. He gripped the edges of the planks with both hands to test his strength, then turned to Bai Ye and said, "These planks weren't nailed by Lao Wei. The rust on the nail heads is at least several years older than the latest line of chalk writing on the wall. Someone sealed it off before Lao Wei found this cave. And Lao Wei didn't remove it—he only embedded an arrow in the plank, pointing deeper inside."

Bai Ye walked back and looked down at the arrow. It was tiny, etched into the wood grain with a fingernail, almost invisible unless you looked closely. The arrow wasn't pointing outwards, but inwards—towards the extremely fine and deep crevice behind the wall. He understood; Old Wei knew from the beginning that he wasn't alone in the mining area. He left chalk writing and bedding cans in the first resting chamber, and in the second chamber, he sealed the door with wooden strips but left the arrow. He wasn't sealing the door to lock people out; he was protecting those outside from barging in before they were ready. He himself was too bright, completely obscuring the dimmer light deeper inside, so he didn't go looking for him. He waited—waited until his own light gradually dimmed, waited for the later person to come from Elm Gully, and then let that later person knock on the door that shouldn't have been knocked on by him.

Tie Niu pulled the crowbar from the side pocket of his backpack and wedged it into the gap between the wooden planks and the rock wall. "We'll knock on the door that he shouldn't have knocked on."

The planks cracked dryly as they were pried off, the echo reverberating through the alleyway for a long time. Behind the wooden planks sealing the door was a natural crevice in the rock wall, about waist-high, allowing only one person to squeeze in sideways. The crevice was deep; the light from his headlamp didn't reach the bottom, only a very light and slow airflow seeped out from its depths, carrying the damp, cold air unique to the deep rock strata. Bai Ye squeezed in sideways, the quartz particles on the rock walls rubbing against his coat with a soft rustling sound. Tie Niu followed behind him, his axe held horizontally in front of him, probing the ceiling ahead for loose rocks with each step. The crevice narrowed as it went deeper, at one point requiring almost crawling, but the airflow never stopped.

At the end of the crevice was an iron door. Unlike the one in Old Wei's cave, this one was smaller and shorter, the door panel hand-welded with uneven welds, but without rust. There was no bolt or lock on the door. With a gentle push from the iron ox, the door opened.

Behind the door was a tiny cavern, even smaller than Old Wei's, so small that only one person could sit with their legs curled up. A cracked sheepskin rug lay on the floor, and in the corner sat an enamel mug and a small piece of chalk. There were no words or chisel marks on the cave walls, only a few very faint fingernail marks—not for dates, but for directions, each pointing in one direction. Bai Ye looked down at the marks, all pointing to the natural crack in the rock wall. He no longer needed to look—he had sensed it the moment he stepped into the cavern. Not sparks, not light, but ashes. Not the kind chilled by the wind, but the kind carefully warmed by someone, warmed for many years, still retaining a faint, dark red hue. Someone had lived here for a long time, longer than Old Wei, quieter than Old Wei. He never wrote on the walls, never sent signals, only stirred the ashes each day, warming that tiny, dark red spot. Then he left. Before leaving, I left the door ajar, placed the enamel mug in the corner, and put the last piece of chalk next to it. There was no note, no chalk writing. A faint trace of warmth lingered at the end of the engraved mark, flowing along the crack in the rock deeper and darker.

Tie Niu lowered his head. He looked at the carvings on the cave wall pointing towards the crevices in the rock, and remembered the wooden strips Old Wei had used to seal the entrance. One person had used wooden strips to seal the entrance on this side, while the other had held the only warmth in their palms on the other side. They never spoke, but their doors both faced the same direction.

Lan Susu leaned against the iron gate frame, putting the oscilloscope into her backpack. "He's gone further. Not away, he's going further in. They're both going further in—the one left behind isn't waiting for us, it's waiting for them." She looked up at Bai Ye. "They've been gone for so many years, and we've only just found them."

Bai Ye picked up the chalk stub and put it in his pocket. Through the layer of ash, he could feel a pulse coming from a darkness deeper than the ash. He pulled his hand back from the ground and looked up at the crevice in the rock that continued to extend northward—it wasn't dead; the other end was still holding someone's hand.

"He's still alive." He turned to look at Tie Niu and Lan Susu, the beam of his headlamp trembling slightly in the darkness. "Let's go. Let's bring him back."