Tales of the End of the Century

The day Mr. Chen arrived happened to be the Mid-Autumn Festival.

He set off from that old outpost before dawn. He walked for an entire summer, traversing birch forests, following the chalk arrows left by the grey-clad men on the wall of the transfer station, step by step, until he reached Elm Gully. He carried a faded military satchel containing an enamel mug, a worn-out mirror, and a package of mooncakes wrapped in several layers of oil paper. The mooncakes were given to him by someone sent by Bai Ge when he passed the last supply point; seven characters were written in pencil on the outside of the oil paper—"Under the jujube tree, not enough mooncakes."

Bai Ye took the jar at the courtyard gate. There were chalk marks on the bottom, blurred into a white blob, but the strokes were still discernible—the same horizontal line that Old Master Chen had scratched with his fingernail on the filing cabinet of the second backup unit of Project Aurora. This was the last one. Of all the subjects transferred from Project Aurora, only Old Master Chen remained scattered outside. The others had gradually arrived at Elm Tree Gully; some had written on the bottom of their jars, while others no longer needed to write anything.

"A few years late." Old Master Chen stood on the threshold, placing his satchel at his feet. "I should have come with them. I took a detour to visit the second backup site for Project Aurora—that place had long since collapsed, the filing cabinets were rusted into a pile, but the mark I carved on the inside of the cabinet doors was still there. Then I walked back, south, and there I saw your light."

"It's not too late." Bai Ye ushered Old Master Chen into the courtyard. "The dates are just right."

When Old Master Chen entered the courtyard, the man in gray was squatting under the jujube tree, sharpening his knife. He looked up, and their eyes met briefly across the stone table. They had met at the overseas transit station. Back then, Old Master Chen had just come out of the sentry post, and the man in gray and Vasily had helped him up from under the jujube tree wall. The man in gray hadn't said anything, only given him half a jug of water, stuffed a packet of compressed biscuits into his satchel, and tied a knot on the roadside pointing south. After Old Master Chen left, the man in gray squatted by the roadside for a while. Vasily went over and offered him a cigarette, but the man in gray didn't take it, only saying, "He's the second Korsak—no, he's the first Chen."

As Old Master Chen passed the man in gray, he stopped and stuffed the oil paper package into his hand. "Mooncakes. You get some too. White Dove said everyone gets some, but I counted, and he gave me enough for everyone in the entire mining area—he never writes names on the supply list, he only counts the jars."

Lan Susu placed the oscilloscope on the stone table. On the screen, Grandpa Chen's signal was no longer wandering alone in the outermost quadrant. It slowly embedded itself into the long-intertwined frequency network above Yushugou—Old Wei's furnace, Zhao Zhiyuan's fluctuations, the resonance of the three people in the old industrial area, the layers of echoes brought back from abroad by Vasily in gray, and the faint signals further away that, though not yet arrived, were no longer hiding. She registered Grandpa Chen's name on the last page of the subject roster, then closed the notebook and placed it next to the oscilloscope.

Tie Niu took the bundle of spare reflective ropes from inside the house and placed it on the table. He said that Old Master Chen's batch was the last one—those marked as "transferred" by Project Aurora, and now they had all been contacted. The last one was Old Master Chen. But the number of test subjects left behind by Project Aurora was far more than this batch. There were also people who had been stationed at various overseas infiltration sites even earlier than the start of Project Aurora. Those people had not passed through the mining area's shelters, nor had they contacted any liaisons; the furthest batch, according to the records checked by the Gray Men near the fence of the overseas farm, was still lying dormant near the old geological exploration line not marked on the map, only occasionally recorded as "direction unknown" on White Dove's supply list.

Lan Susu unfolded the hand-drawn map again and drew a tiny dotted circle on the geological survey line behind the mountains, west of the old outpost abroad. Next to the circle, she added a line of pencil writing: "Very weak frequency, direction unknown, number of people unknown."

Bai Ye placed the enamel mug on the stone and looked at the people in the courtyard. The man in gray was sharpening his knife under the jujube tree, Vasily was peeling garlic on the doorstep, and Zhao Zhiyuan and the three from the old industrial area were turning over the soil by the vegetable patch. Everyone was doing what they were doing, but everyone knew what day it was.

Old Hu brought out the largest enamel basin from the kitchen, half-filled with freshly picked dates, each one perfectly red. He placed the basin on the stone table, then went inside and brought out a stack of enamel mugs, placing them beside the basin. The mugs were new, each carefully washed, the bottoms spotless. "There are many people today. One mug isn't enough, everyone pour their own." He glanced at Old Master Chen, "You're one of us too."

Old Master Chen picked up the jar and examined it, then took out his old jar and placed it next to the basin. The two jars were roughly the same size, and it was easy to tell which was newer. He placed the new jar on the stone table, holding the old one in his hands. A small piece of porcelain was chipped off the rim, and the chipped edge had been worn smooth enough not to cut his hand. He suddenly smiled. In all his years in the mining area, he had never seen himself in a mirror on a Mid-Autumn Festival. In the past, every Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone in the mining area would clean their enamel jars and write a character in chalk on the bottom. The character was the same, but everyone wrote it with slightly different strokes. After writing, they would place it on a canvas for later generations to see. Those who came later would see the writing and know that they were not the first, nor would they be the last. He himself was the last person to return the mirror, but he was not the last person to write on the bottom of the jar—among those signals still dormant near the exploration line, perhaps some hadn't even received their jars yet.

Bai Ye distributed mooncakes to everyone. As the oil paper was peeled off, crumbs scattered across the table, and the shadow of the jujube tree fell onto the edge of the enamel basin, mingling with the mooncake crumbs. Old Master Chen continued his story—the first person in the mining area to flip the reflecting mirror over was Old Wei. After flipping it over, he didn't flip it back; instead, he placed it on a low table, back up, with a kerosene lamp beside it. From then on, every fissure-stage test subject who entered the mining area sat in front of this mirror. Some sat for a long time, while others knew what to do after just one glance. That mirror is no longer at the bottom of the mine tunnel; it was brought out and is now placed at the very bottom of the toolbox in the east wing.

Bai Ye sat on the stone bench, picked up his own mooncake, and took a bite. The jujube paste filling was still warm, and it was a little sticky when he chewed it. He glanced at the distant sky through the leaves of the jujube tree. The people on the other side of the old geological exploration line probably hadn't tasted this mooncake yet, but one day—he had already put that pencil ring into his canvas satchel.

Later, the moon rose. Two kerosene lamps hung among the branches of the jujube tree, their wicks dimmed just enough to illuminate the faces of those in the courtyard. Old Master Chen sat on a stone bench, holding a now-cooled enamel mug, gently swirling the water's surface every now and then; his reflection always moved in sync with him. He knew that compared to those still near the survey line, those who didn't yet own their own mugs, he was no longer at the forefront. On the stone table lay the old mug Old Master Chen had brought, the chalk writing on its bottom bathed in the warm white light of the moon. Bai Ye ajar the courtyard gate closed, placing the last new pebble on the inside of the threshold. He didn't go inside, but stood under the jujube tree, gazing for a moment through the increasingly full moonlight towards the direction beyond, where those hadn't yet received their mooncakes.