Tales of the End of the Century

The footsteps paused for three seconds beside the poplar stump. Bai Ye was squatting under the jujube tree, moving the pebble brought by the young man surnamed Ji closer to the edge of the pebble pile. The pebble was quite ordinary—gray, flat and round, its edges smoothed by the river, unlike the angular pebbles found in Yushugou. The young man surnamed Ji said he had picked it up from the riverbank back home and kept it in his pocket for several years, never knowing why he couldn't bear to throw it away.

Footsteps sounded outside the door again. It wasn't the man in gray or Vasily—the man in gray walked with his toes landing first, Vasily's stride was half an inch shorter, and Bai Ye could discern their rhythms in advance. It wasn't Bai Ge—Bai Ge never hesitated when walking, her leather shoes clicking precisely on the dirt road. This time, the person was wearing cloth shoes, old and thin, her heel landing first—a habit from walking long distances and having her arches collapsed.

Tie Niu stood up from under the jujube tree, placed the axe beside the doorframe, and kept his gloves on. Bai Ye placed the enamel mug on a stone, stood up, and walked to the courtyard gate. A man in his forties stood outside, wearing a faded blue work uniform with frayed cuffs, and a bulging woven bag slung over his shoulder. He had a thin face, high cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and chapped lips, as if he had walked a long way without drinking much water. Seeing Bai Ye, he didn't speak immediately but first took something out of his work uniform pocket and placed it on the threshold. It was an enamel mug. There were chalk marks on the bottom, blurred into a white blob, the strokes no longer legible.

Bai Ye looked down at the jar. He had seen dozens of these jars deep in the mine tunnels—each one meticulously cleaned, with chalk writing on the bottom, the characters repeatedly traced over, forming a blurred white mass. But this one hadn't been brought out of the mine. This jar had been used for a long time; a piece of porcelain was chipped off the rim, the chipped edge was old and worn smooth, and there were still watermarks on the body, not completely dry from being used to drink from the water.

"My name is Zhao Zhiyuan," the man said, his voice hoarse like sandpaper scraping against sheet metal. "I came from the north. I've been walking for over ten days. I've been looking for someone who can help me stop my reflection—then I met two people walking south, one wearing a gray coat and the other with a toothbrush in his pocket. They said to go this way, there's a jujube tree in the yard."

Bai Ye withdrew his hand from the threshold. The man in gray and Vasily. They had met this man on the way north while checking the list; they hadn't taken him with them, but had simply pointed him in a direction. They knew he could walk there himself—a man who had survived the Rift Period didn't need help; he only needed to know where the door was.

"Come in." Bai Ye picked up the jar from the threshold and handed it back to him, then stepped aside to let him in.

When Zhao Zhiyuan stepped into the courtyard, Tie Niu was standing next to the jujube tree. His gaze fell on the two parallel scars on the inside of Zhao Zhiyuan's left wrist—not accidental injuries, but marks repeatedly etched, one deep and one shallow, re-carved after stopping. He himself had seen subjects at Research Institute No. 17 carve the same marks on an iron door frame with their fingernails, knowing that this person had survived the most difficult stage of the rift period alone.

Lan Susu emerged from the east wing, holding an oscilloscope. A new signal had appeared on the screen—its frequency was still unstable, fluctuating in strength, like a newly lit, damp tinderbox, the flame not yet firmly established, but no longer a cold, lifeless mass in the darkness. She turned the screen to show Bai Ye, explaining that this person hadn't fully emerged from the deep fluctuations of the rift period, but his consciousness frequency was resonating with all the existing signals in Yushugou. He was unaware that he had been supported by the signals of many people.

Bai Ye placed the enamel mug on the stone, gesturing for Zhao Zhiyuan to put his mug down as well. The two mugs were placed side by side, both with chalk writing on the bottom, blurred into a white blob.

"How long did you walk on the road?"

"The rift started seven years ago." Zhao Zhiyuan squatted under the jujube tree, looking at his enamel mug. "At the time, I was working on a border farm overseas, and one day I suddenly couldn't see myself in the mirror. Not that I disappeared—the reflection was still there, but it didn't look like me at all. Later, the reflection started to fight me. When I raised my left hand, it raised its right hand; when I walked, it stopped behind me. Later, it stopped fighting me, it just followed me. Wherever I went, it followed. I tried to shake it off, I ran to many places, but it was always there. Later I realized that it wasn't chasing me—it was waiting. Waiting for me to stop on my own."

He turned the jar over and pointed to the blurry white patch at the bottom. "This is what I wrote while waiting for dawn near the mine entrance—before I finished writing, I heard someone tapping on the rock wall deeper inside. I don't know who those people were, or why they didn't come outside. But I heard them tap three times, pause for a long time, and then tap three more times. The rhythm was the same as the one I had etched on my wrist."

Bai Ye looked down at his enamel mug resting on the rock. There were no words on the bottom. He picked up the mug, took a sip of water, and slowly swallowed. "Those people in the mine, it's not that they can't get out. It's that they don't want to leave. They're deeper inside, warming up the darkest part of the path before they're willing to retreat."

Zhao Zhiyuan remained silent for a long time. He turned his enamel mug upside down and slowly rubbed his thumb across the blurry writing. Then he stood up, walked to the jujube tree, and reached out to touch the various 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 withdrew his hand from the trunk, bent down to pick up a pebble at his feet, and placed it on top of the pile of pebbles next to the base of the jujube tree.

"I've been walking in the north for many years. I never knew there were so many people all heading in the same direction. I'm not going anymore." He placed the enamel mug next to the jujube tree root, close to the pile of pebbles. "This tree is still missing a pebble."

Old Hu brought out a bowl of freshly mixed cucumbers from the kitchen and placed it on the stone table. The aroma of sesame oil and minced garlic wafted through the air. Zhao Zhiyuan looked down at the cucumbers covered in garlic in the bowl and suddenly asked if he wanted sugar added to the chopped chili peppers. Old Hu hesitated for a moment and said, "Of course not. We've tried sweet ones, but none of them are as spicy as this." Bai Ye moved the enamel mug off the stone table to make room for Old Hu's bowl, and then pushed the newly placed mug half an inch closer to the side of the bowl.

Lan Susu opened her notebook and wrote Zhao Zhiyuan's name on the last page. The handwriting was the same pencil she used when registering the young man surnamed Ji at the supply and marketing cooperative, except that next to this line was a waveform drawn from an oscilloscope, and the frequency was much more stable than when she first entered. Tie Niu put his gloves back on and went to the wall to start chopping the firewood he hadn't finished that day. Zhao Zhiyuan put his woven bag on the ground and took out a hand-drawn map from it, placing it on the stone table. The route on the map was broken, ending at the border, but half of the route had been filled in with blue ink on the back of the map—the handwriting was exactly the same as the old man deep in the mine who handed the reflecting mirror to Bai Ye. He pushed the map to Bai Ye. "Without this, I wouldn't be able to find the entrance to the mine." Bai Ye put the map in the east wing, next to the drawer of Sergei's manuscript, and then returned to the stone table, placing his enamel mug next to Zhao Zhiyuan's mug. The chalk dust at the bottom of the mug wasn't completely dry yet, so he took some chalk and wrote a word on the bottom of the mug as well.