Tales of the End of the Century

Bai Ye stepped across the threshold and walked deeper into the sloping alley. This path was shorter than any of the previous ones, so short that before he could even count his steps, he was already standing before the last door. It wasn't an iron door, nor a sealed door, but a low door made of wooden planks, the same one Old Wei had used when he sealed himself inside—the same thickness of planks, the same rusty nails. The door had no lock, no bolt, and a very faint light shone through the crack. It wasn't the warm yellow of a kerosene lamp, but a softer, thinner silver-white, like moonlight leaking through gaps in the clouds and falling on the threshold.

He reached out and pushed the door open. The wooden planks sprang open gently, the hinges making a very subtle scraping sound, like someone slowly exhaling a breath held for a long time. Behind the door was a tiny cavern, smaller than any he had seen before—so small that only one person could sit with their legs curled up, so small that the rock walls were almost touching the body, forcing one to maintain only one posture: facing the wall, back to the doorway. There were no chalk marks, no fingernail scratches, no chisel marks on the cavern walls. Only light. A very thin, soft, silvery-white layer seeped from deep within the walls, unevenly distributed across the entire rock face, as if someone had crushed a whole piece of moonlight and embedded it into the stone. Bai Ye walked over and reached out to touch it. His fingertips didn't touch the cold, rough texture of the rock, but rather warmth. Not the kind of warmth that comes from body heat, but a warmth emanating from within the stone itself—extremely low, but continuous, like a stone that had been warmed for many years, making the warmth that warmed it a part of itself.

In the corner of the cave, a man sat with his back to the door. His hair was completely white, so white it was almost transparent in the silver light, the edges of each strand blending into the halo of the rock wall, making it impossible to distinguish between hair and stone. His work clothes were washed so much that their original color was unrecognizable, the cuffs frayed, and the collar rolled up, revealing a small patch of pale skin below his collarbone. His hands rested on his knees, his fingers slightly spread, as if waiting for someone to place something in his palms. He didn't turn around. But he knew someone had come.

"You've come." His voice was soft, as if it came from within stone, each word enveloped in a thin layer of silver light. "I've waited many years. You weren't the only one to find this place all these years. I know there were others—old, young, transferred, or who escaped on their own—they took their reflections with them. You are the last."

Bai Ye took half a step forward and stopped. "You knew we were coming."

"It's not that I knew. It's that I was waiting." The man tilted his head slightly, as if listening to a distant yet familiar voice. "With each door that was pushed open, the light on my side would brighten a little. When you came in through the well, the light was still dim, like a candle being blown by the wind. When you walked past the fingernail marks Old Wei left on the door frame, the light shone on the entire rock wall. By the time you found the jar, I could already see my own hands."

Bai Ye looked down at his hands. Since entering the Resonance Realm, his perception of temperature had become much more refined. Now he could feel a thin ring of warmth around his fingertips—not emanating from within himself, but seeping from the silvery light on the cave walls, penetrating his skin, flowing from his fingers into his palms, wrists, forearms, and chest, like waves lapping over his ankles at night. When he first sensed that pulsation deep in the mine, he thought it was the brightest of all. Now he knew it was never the brightest—it was the longest-lasting. Not the longest-shining, but the longest-extinguishing. From the beginning of its long period of stagnation, it shrank into a tiny, dim ember beneath the ashes, waiting for each door to open, waiting for each brought-in subject to finish writing the words on the bottom of their vessel, waiting for each kerosene lamp to be lit and extinguished, waiting for all the lamps to be extinguished before it slowly began to emanate. Not to light the way for those who came later—they would walk on their own. It was to accompany those who hadn't yet finished their journey. Those who sat in front of the cave wall, scratching their fingernails one by one; those who held chalk but dared not write that word on the bottom of the jar.

Bai Ye withdrew his hand from the light. "Old Wei—he led us into the first cave and shoved the enamel mugs into our hands. He didn't come in himself; he stayed outside with these people for many years, until each of them pushed open that door and walked out."

The man's shoulder twitched slightly, as if he were smiling. "Old Wei is still outside. He's always outside—he puts himself by the door not because he's afraid to come in, but because he's afraid that no one will answer when someone knocks."

"How many years did he guard it?"

"Starting from when Project Aurora transferred the first batch of test subjects." He slowly raised his head, but didn't turn around. He simply rested the back of his head gently against the rock wall, letting the silver light shine on his closed eyes. "He gave his bedding to the newcomers and slept on the stone slab outside the door. He said it was too bright inside and he wouldn't be able to sleep. Actually, he was afraid of being too bright—but he didn't dare admit it."

Bai Ye had seen the same warm yellow light in every cave he'd sat in before: Old Wei's low table, the rows of jars, and this oxy-acetylene torch. He pulled the torch from his waist, placed it on the ground beside the wooden door, and glanced at the silvery light in the cave. "Those people left their kerosene lamps in the cave, wrote on the bottoms of their jars, and then pushed open that sealed door and went deeper inside. Where did they go?"

The man finally turned around. His face was old, older than anyone Bai Ye had ever seen, but his eyes were bright, as if he had just woken from darkness. "Not going anywhere. Going back. Back to the path they were supposed to have walked before they were brought out, back to the part where Project Aurora forcibly pulled them out of the normal rift transformation process. To reunite with their earlier companions and continue moving forward."

Bai Ye looked down at his outstretched palm. Since entering the realm of resonance, his perception had been slowly expanding, but this expansion wasn't from himself outwards; rather, it was the pulsation within the silver light of the walls receding and shrinking into an extremely small, dense point. He remembered the look in Old Wei's eyes when he turned to speak to him in that jar-like cave, remembered him wiping the kerosene lamp clean and placing it on the reflecting mirror, remembered him saying, "You shouldn't bear everyone's name alone." He reached into his pocket and touched the small round mirror. The outline of a bird on the tin back pressed against his fingertips, wings folded, head tilted. He took the mirror out and turned it over—the crack cut his face in two, its reflection watching him in the mirror, synchronously, without delay. The chalk line he had been drawing since the millennium on the mirror's surface was now reflected white by the silver light of the cave walls.

The man reached out and took the mirror, his touch as light as picking a dried leaf from a baby's palm. He ran his thumb slowly along the crack, then returned the mirror to Bai Ye. "No need to look in it anymore," he said. "You are already someone else's mirror."

Bai Ye flipped the mirror over, back side up, and placed it on the ground next to the wooden door, near the oxy-acetylene torch. Then he stood up, watching the slowly receding silvery-white light on the rock wall. The light was dimmer than before—not extinguished, but receding, like a person slowly closing their long-open palm, reserving the last bit of warmth for themselves. He knew this cave didn't need another lamp. Several new pebbles had already been placed on the pile of stones under the jujube tree in Elm Gully, and the Aurora Project's relocated test subjects had found their misplaced markers on the crevice path one by one. Old Wei no longer needed to keep this passage so bright. He also knew that Old Wei, waiting outside, leaning against the doorframe, would watch this lamp slowly fade into the last faint red glow of ashes. That was the light he had guarded for so many years; now he didn't need to guard it anymore.

He lowered his hands to his sides, nodded slightly to the rock wall and the figure who had sat with his back to the door for many years, then turned and walked out of the cave. The wooden door closed slightly behind him, and the last ray of silver light shining through the crack shrank to the size of a pinhead in the darkness, no longer spreading, but just continuing.