Chapter 21: Golden Pear—After Life and Death

They say that when a person is dying, their life flashes before their eyes like a carousel; Jin Xueli now knows that this is neither entirely correct nor entirely wrong.

She lay on the cold floor of the exhibition hall, yet she felt like a small boat, the ropes of life that once tethered her having slipped away, leaving her to drift gradually toward a river shrouded in mist.

Sometimes the mist would part, revealing scenes from when she first arrived in Blackmoor City. Back then, she shared a semi-basement apartment, peering out from the living room window at the shoes and trouser cuffs passing by on the street.

At other times, she would see her first client, holding an artifact under the desk lamp, examining it over and over. The light would catch in his eyes, and his pupils, along with his suspicion, would appear translucent.

Experiences closer to the present—opening the passage, provoking a stalker, being murdered—felt like events happening to someone else, flat and pallid narratives invisible within the mist. Conversely, moments from long ago felt far more vivid: serving her mother’s leek and meat pie, or visiting a classmate in the seventh grade. If she could just open that door and walk through, she could go home.

Guided by these distant memories, Jin Xueli drifted further away; the desperate, gurgling sounds of her own injured throat became faint.

Her head was submerged in a pool of blood, a river Styx flowing out from her.

"Die," a voice hovered above, hissing like escaping air.

Yet, this farewell pulled Jin Xueli back just a fraction.

...How could it have come to this?

She had called a taxi, paid the fare, and followed the instructions strictly, not daring to overstep; her neck had ached by the time she got out. She had pretended not to see the female resident crawling out of the elevator on the right, finally entered the basement exhibition hall, and held her breath, poised for action...

She had done everything, exhausted every possibility, only to end up like this. The resentment was unbearable.

A dark shadow loomed over her, seemingly kneeling on the ground, studying her.

Jin Xueli could no longer make out the details; only dim silhouettes remained in her vision: a rounder shape was a head, attached to a section that was a neck. Protruding from that neck was a dark shadow—the hunting knife she had plunged into the other's throat.

As the shadow spoke, the hunting knife, buried deep in its neck, trembled up and down. The blade had sliced through its windpipe, and between the words, air hissed out: "...I really should thank you. I just remembered—what I forgot was my hiking backpack."

Even if Jin Xueli still had thoughts, they were no longer visible from the outside. Blood stained her neck a dark crimson, as if her throat had been erased, and her body fell into a deathly, motionless silence.

When she had jumped into that first taxi, she must have accidentally stepped onto a "Replication" square.

She remembered that as soon as she lifted her foot, her hiking backpack was jerked back, nearly causing her to fall backward. When Jin Xueli steadied herself and looked back, she saw her own face—no strange deformities, just a clean, smooth complexion, exactly like looking into a mirror.

She froze.

"When did you replicate into me?" that other "Jin Xueli" glared at her, speaking first. It seemed to want to push her, but hesitated to make contact, shouting, "Get lost!"

So, the "Replication" written on the square truly meant she would simply be copied?

That made sense; replicating an object didn't necessarily mean the original would be damaged...

Apart from the existence of a duplicate, Jin Xueli felt nothing was wrong with her; the most distressing part was that the other "Jin Xueli" seemed to have inherited both her body and her will, fully convinced that it was the original.

...But how could she be certain she wasn't the resident? She, too, firmly believed she was the real Jin Xueli.

No, that couldn't be; the one before her was the resident, and it was about to go to the Museum of Modern Art in her place.

There was one key piece of evidence proving she was the real Jin Xueli: the backpack, the hunting knife, and the phone remained with her, not replicated; the other was empty-handed.

"At that time, I was so focused on how to jump into the taxi that I forgot to take my hiking backpack. I had been standing on the square, and it was too heavy, so I had set it down at my feet..."

The dark shadow with the human face, hovering before her, hissed as it spoke: "What happened later that caused me to miss the backpack, I forgot, because I handed that memory over to the driver."

"Jin Xueli" seemed, even at this point, not to consider itself a resident.

It paused there, as if recalling something: "I was actually going to ask you, regarding the fourth rule of the taxi ride: is it true that you can lift your head once the fare is paid? But you're a resident, so what consequences could there be for you ignoring the rules... Never mind, it doesn't matter, I got out of the taxi just fine. I didn't expect you to bring me my things."

...It was so frustrating.

At that time, she hadn't dared to continue fighting the "Jin Xueli," fearing she might step into another penalty square. She had called another taxi, paid the fare with memories, and followed behind "Jin Xueli" with her head hung low, getting off at the Museum of Modern Art.

Along the way, she mimicked everything it did, finally following it into the basement exhibition hall, where she seized the opportunity to plunge the hunting knife deep into its throat.

Jin Xueli had heard that residents could not be killed. Even if they died, they could regenerate elsewhere.

But residents were subject to rules beyond life and death, so attacks still had some effect—she just hadn't expected that a knife in a resident's throat would only result in a leaky windpipe.

She had stood there, stunned, letting go of the knife and watching "Jin Xueli."

When it spat, nothing came out of its dry, hole-like mouth; now, with the knife in its throat, it only hissed, no blood flowing.

The other stood there too, its eyes rolling down to look at the hunting knife, then up to look at her.

For a second or two, neither moved.

"Jin Xueli" slowly bared a familiar set of teeth at her. She had brushed every one of them countless times, studied their shape and color in the mirror, and could recognize them instantly—yet now they were in someone else's mouth.

...It was disgusting.

"My neck has been stabbed," the resident said matter-of-factly after those few seconds. "Since you replicated into my form, your neck should be stabbed, too."

As soon as the words fell, Jin Xueli's neck split open.

...Why? How could this happen?

It was so cold outside the body; once the blood vessels and muscles were torn, it felt as if ice water were being poured into the wound, and the pain was only felt in delayed realization.

The sudden chill at her neck was quickly washed away by a hot spray of blood, splattering dots of red onto the face of the "self" opposite her. Jin Xueli clutched her torn neck with one hand, instinctively trying to seal the wound, but blood still bubbled through her fingers.

In her dying, fragmented consciousness, she collapsed to the floor.

Her eyelids grew heavy and fixed, half-open, as her soul drifted into the deep, thick mist.

****

Jin Xueli suppressed the shivering fear and disgust, pressing one hand tightly against her neck while gripping the knife handle with the other.

Her palms were slick with cold sweat, her legs too weak to stand, so she slid down to the floor. A few steps away, the corpse that looked exactly like her lay on the ground, the eyes beneath half-closed lids now resembling those of a dead fish.

"Jin Xueli" hadn't stabbed very deeply, missing the vital areas—perhaps the only stroke of luck in this disaster.

She knew well that when a blade is embedded in the body, pulling it out only causes a deeper wound and massive hemorrhaging. The first rule of first aid is "never remove an object from a wound." Sometimes, the blade itself acts as a plug, reducing blood loss.

The reason "Jin Xueli" had died from the same injury while she remained alive was likely due to that key difference—the knife acting as a plug. Residents weren't unkillable; at least, the "Vultures" could be killed.

It was just that the logic of killing it was convoluted: you had to make it replicate into a second version of yourself, and after you sustained a fatal wound, remind it to replicate that wound away; only then would it die.

Even if it only looked like a fatal wound, it would suffice.

Although she knew she wouldn't die, having a knife in her throat was torture for her nerves. Besides, she couldn't call an ambulance in the Nest, couldn't go to the ER, and certainly couldn't climb high buildings or jump off them with a knife in her throat to get medical treatment back in Blackmoor City...

She had to do it herself.

She took a spare T-shirt from her backpack and wrapped it tightly around her neck, over the knife, so tight she gasped for air, seeing stars. She gently felt for the tip of the blade beneath her skin to locate it, her fingertips ready—the moment the knife was withdrawn, she would have to press down on the wound immediately to avoid the risk of hemorrhaging.

Jin Xueli knew the Nest was unsafe, and she likely had to perform self-first aid more often than not. But even with her basic training and a well-stocked bag, this injury was beyond her imagination.

It was a miracle that she managed to stop the bleeding and clumsily stitch the wound shut.

Despite the successful "surgery," Jin Xueli couldn't hold on and drifted into unconsciousness for a while.

When she awoke, the basement exhibition hall was still silent. She and her own stiffened corpse lay sprawled beside a giant candle; listening closely, it felt like a tomb.

Jin Xueli rested for a long time before slowly climbing to her feet.

The severe injury, the lingering fear, and the exhaustion made her long to go home, to curl up in her sheets, smelling the familiar scent of jasmine laundry detergent and falling into a long, sweet slumber.

But it wasn't time yet.

Jin Xueli was secretly amazed; she hadn't realized she possessed such non-human resilience in the face of an artifact. How could an ordinary person survive a knife wound to the throat?

She walked step by step toward the candle and, hesitating, placed her hand upon it.

A line of small text appeared beside her palm: 2009.4.22.

...Does this mean the history at this location occurred on April 22, 2009?

She was currently standing several meters away from the top of the candle. Why would this point represent that specific date?

Jin Xueli thought for a moment, walked to the very top of the candle, and touched it. Sure enough, she saw her birthday: 1998.9.29.

So that was it... Her gaze traced the candle.

The timeline encased in the candle started from her birth and continued until the present day; there was no future in the candle.

Perhaps the future was chaotic and unformed, making it impossible to foresee?

Although she felt a flicker of disappointment that her greed to see the future had been thwarted, from another perspective, it was a strange comfort: since fate was not already set in stone, she still had choices about what to do and where to go. A human was not a small insect trapped in a transparent cage with every path already mapped out.

In this world that caught one off guard and left one feeling lost, a person still retained this tiny bit of control over themselves.

Of course, Jin Xueli wasn't arrogant enough to think the Nest had tailor-made an artifact for her—whoever touched the candle would likely see history beginning from their own birth.

After walking a bit further, she guessed it was about right and placed her hand on the candle again, searching.

2026.5.2. She successfully found the point in time when she first encountered the stalker, Anthony.

Jin Xueli had an idea.

She crouched down, found an ignition switch beneath the metal groove, and with a "snap," a flame ignited at the base of the candle.

She wanted to see if she could snuff out that event from the very beginning.