Tales of the End of the Century

Lan Susu's office is in an old building deep inside the campus. The building was built in the 1950s, and its gray brick walls are covered with ivy. In winter, the leaves fall off, leaving only withered vines clinging to the walls like veins. The hallway is dimly lit, with several broken lamps that haven't been replaced, making it intermittently bright and dark, like walking through a broken tunnel.

The office was at the far end of the third floor. The sign on the door read "Department of Cognitive Psychology," but half of the paint had chipped off. Lan Susu took out her keys and opened the door. The room smelled of old books and dust. Three of the four walls were lined with bookshelves, and the remaining wall was a window. Outside the window was the campus boiler room, where a red brick chimney was emitting grayish-white smoke.

"Sit wherever you like." Lan Susu tossed her canvas bag onto the table and opened her laptop. The machine started up like an old-fashioned tractor, humming for a while before finally booting up.

Bai Ye didn't sit down. He stood by the window, staring blankly at the chimney. The image he had just seen on the bus was still replaying in his mind—a black sedan, a military green leather suitcase, and a man in a dark coat bending down to stuff things into the trunk.

That leather suitcase. It's exactly the same as the one in Jubaozhai.

He recalled what Lan Susu had said before: "You sensed it, and it sensed you too." At the time, he thought those words were mystical, but now, thinking about them sent a chill down his spine.

"Found it." Lan Susu's voice brought him back to reality.

Bai Ye leaned closer. On the computer screen was a scanned Russian document, the paper yellowed and creased at the edges. Lan Susu scrolled the mouse down, revealing a black and white photograph.

The photo shows a middle-aged man in a white lab coat standing next to a piece of equipment. The equipment is cylindrical and almost identical to the one drawn on the blueprint.

Bai Ye's fingers clenched tightly.

"It's him."

"Who?"

"The one I saw. He has a scar above his left eyebrow." Bai Ye pointed to the photo. "That's him."

Lan Susu zoomed in on the photo. Indeed, there was a faint scar above the man's left eyebrow, barely noticeable unless you looked closely. She went back to the beginning of the document, quickly skimming through a few paragraphs, her expression growing increasingly serious.

"What does it say?" Bai Ye asked.

"This man's name is Sergei. Viktorovich. Sergei." Lan Susu read line by line, "PhD in Physiology, specializing in the field of 'consciousness frequency induction'. He joined the research project codenamed 'Aurora' in 1979 as the deputy chief engineer. In 1983, the project was suddenly terminated, and Sergei himself disappeared after that."

"Missing?"

"The official statement is that he was 'transferred to another position,' but there are no follow-up records." Lan Susu turned to the last page of the document. "There is a handwritten note here, which was added later. 'In February 1984, an accident occurred at the Siberian Research Institute No. 17. Details were not released. Sergei is suspected to have been involved in the accident—'"

The last few words were crossed out, leaving only a black mess.

Bai Ye stared at the darkness, the scene from yesterday flashing through his mind. The basement. The iron bed. The bound man. Sergei turned around, his face contorted, his mouth opening and closing.

What is he saying?

"You said before that what I saw was something that actually happened and was recorded by the box," Bai Ye said. "Then, was the Sergei I saw alive or dead?"

Lan Susu remained silent for a while.

"It's hard to say. The residual information only records the state at the time of the event. He might have been alive then, or he might have—" She didn't finish her sentence.

Footsteps suddenly came from outside the door.

It wasn't just one person, at least two or three. The leather shoes stomped heavily on the terrazzo floor, the sound rapid and rhythmic. Lan Susu's expression changed; she closed her laptop, grabbed her canvas bag, and pulled Bai Ye along.

"back door."

The old building had two staircases. One was directly opposite the main entrance, and the other was at the other end of the corridor, leading towards the boiler room. Lan Susu was clearly familiar with this route. She led Bai Ye through a fire door at the end of the corridor, outside which was an iron ladder, covered in rust, creaking as it was stepped on.

The two went down to the first floor. Behind the boiler room was a narrow alley, piled with coal ash and abandoned desks and chairs. At the end of the alley was a low wall, with broken glass stuck in the top.

"Turn over," Lan Susu said.

Bai Ye flipped over first, cutting her palm on a shard of glass, but didn't pay attention. Lan Susu followed, twisting her ankle as she landed, gritting her teeth and remaining silent.

On this side of the wall was a small street. Across the street was a bustling vegetable market, crowded and noisy. The two mingled into the crowd and stopped in front of a stall selling condiments. Bai Ye then looked down at his hand; there was a cut on his palm, the blood already congealed.

"How did those people find us?" he asked in a low voice.

"I don't know. Maybe it came all the way from the antique market, or maybe there's something in my office—" Lan Susu suddenly stopped, as if she remembered something. She took out the drawing she found in the lining of her suitcase from her bag, turned it over, and stared at the scrawled English annotation on the back for a few seconds.

"What's wrong?"

"It doesn't just say 'Subject Number 7' on this." Lan Susu pointed to the bottom of the back of the drawing, where there were several letters, half-covered by a scratch. "Look here."

Bai Ye leaned closer. Beneath the scratches, a few handwritten Russian letters could be faintly discerned. They weren't printed; they were handwritten, and very hastily.

"What did you write?"

"An address. Or rather, a coordinate." Lan Susu looked up. "Siberia. Research Institute No. 17."

Bai Ye felt a chill run down her spine.

Research Institute No. 17. The place mentioned in the crossed-out note at the end of the document. Sergei disappeared there. Those "subjects" lost consciousness there. And that address was handwritten on the back of the drawing and then crossed out, as if the writer hesitated about leaving that information.

“If those people are also looking for this blueprint,” Bai Ye said, “they’ll go there next.”

Lan Susu nodded.

"Then we have to get there before them."

Bai Ye looked at her, wondering if this girl had gone mad. The two of them, a secondhand shop apprentice and a university lecturer, were going to Siberia? To find an abandoned research institute, whose contents were unknown? With just a blueprint and a few tarot cards?

"I know what you're thinking," Lan Susu said. "You think I'm crazy."

"I didn't—"

"But have you considered that they've already come knocking on your door? They can track me to my office today, they can track me to your hometown tomorrow. You think you can hide from them?"

Bai Ye remained silent. The market was a cacophony of voices: the vegetable vendors yelled their wares, and the butcher chopped meat, snapping bones with a single cut. The cacophony of sounds made it all seem unreal to him. It was as if the people chasing them, the blueprint, and the missing scientist named Sergei all belonged to another world.

But the wound on my hand hurt. The pain felt very real.

"Even if we're going," Bai Ye said, "we need to go back to the shop first. Old Hu—"

Before he could finish speaking, his phone rang.

Bai Ye's phone was an old Nokia, with a blue screen, the kind you could crack walnuts with. He took it out and saw it was Lao Hu's number.

"Old Hu?"

It wasn't Lao Hu's voice on the other end of the phone.

It was a man's voice, deep and with a slight northern accent.

"Are you Bai Ye?"

Bai Ye tightened his grip on his phone.

"Who are you?"

"Your friend is with me," the voice said. "Jubaozhai. Half an hour. Take that woman and the things in the box. Don't call the police. Calling the police won't do any good."

The phone hangs up.

Bai Ye held his phone, the call timer still ticking on the screen. Lan Susu looked at him, her expression changing.

"Old Hu?"

Bai Ye nodded.

The two remained silent for three seconds.

"I can't go," Lan Susu said.

"Old Hu is in their hands."

"Going there means delivering the blueprints to them. And they won't let Lao Hu go. Once they get their hands on the stuff, all three of you will be—"

"What should we do then? Call the police?"

Lan Susu didn't answer. She knew Bai Ye was right; calling the police would be useless. The fact that those people dared to chase her into the university in broad daylight and dared to kidnap her and make phone calls showed that they didn't care at all.

"Let's go back and check first," Bai Ye said. "We'll see how things develop."

The two exited from another exit of the market and hailed a minivan. Bai Ye gave the driver the address, and the driver glanced at them in the rearview mirror, probably noticing that the couple looked a little off, but didn't ask any further questions.

The car drove for twenty minutes before stopping a street away from Jubaozhai. Bai Ye asked the driver to pull over, paid the fare, and got out of the car.

The street was quieter than usual. Not the normal kind of quiet, but the kind where everyone was still there, but all were hushed. The old lady selling pancakes was still making them, but her eyes kept drifting towards Jubaozhai. The old man repairing bicycles sat on a small stool, holding a wrench in his hand for a long time without moving it.

The roller shutter door of Jubaozhai was half-drawn.

Bai Ye and Lan Susu exchanged a glance, then bent down and crawled inside.

The lights were off in the shop. Winter afternoons are already dim, and with the roller shutter half-blocking the light, the room was gloomy. Old Hu's usual rattan chair was empty; the teacup on the table was still there, but the tea had gone cold.

"Old Hu?" Bai Ye called out.

A noise came from the inner room. A person came out from the back room; it wasn't Old Hu. It was a burly man, wearing a dark coat, with short hair and a blank expression. He glanced at Bai Ye, then at Lan Susu.

Did you bring the things?

Bai Ye reached into his pocket and touched the folded blueprint. He didn't take it out.

Where is Lao Hu?

The man didn't answer, but tilted his head. Another person came out from the back room, pushing Old Hu. Old Hu's mouth was taped shut, and his hands were tied behind his back. When he saw Bai Ye, his eyes widened, and then he shook his head—meaning, "Leave me alone, let's go."

Bai Ye didn't leave.

"Here are the blueprints. Release them," he said.

The man reached out his hand.

Just then, a muffled thud came from outside the door. It sounded like something heavy had hit the roller shutter.

The person pushing Lao Hu glanced instinctively towards the door. In that instant, Lao Hu jerked away, falling to the side and crashing to the ground along with his chair. The person who pushed him stumbled.

Then, a figure rushed out from the back room.

Bai Ye didn't see how he got in. He only saw a gray shadow flash out from between the shelves in the back room and punch the man who had pushed Lao Hu in the lower back. The man groaned, bent over, and then received an elbow to the back of his neck, falling to the ground motionless.

The man in the dark coat in front reacted quickly, turning around to throw a punch. The gray figure dodged to the side, grabbed his wrist, and twisted it outwards. The man's arm was twisted to an impossible angle, and he screamed in pain, kneeling on one knee.

The gray figure kicked him in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

The entire process takes no more than five seconds.

The room fell silent. Old Hu groaned on the floor. Bai Ye and Lan Susu stood at the door, still not having reacted.

The gray figure turned around.

He was a man in his thirties, not particularly tall, but with broad shoulders, standing there like a wall. He had a buzz cut and an old scar on his face, running from his left cheekbone down to his chin. His eyes weren't big, and he looked at people as if he were appraising merchandise.

He bent down to help Lao Hu up and tore off the tape.

Old Hu took a breath and looked at him: "Why are you so late?"

"Traffic jam," the man said.

Old Hu turned to Bai Ye and Lan Susu, pointing to the man: "Tie Niu. I've known him for almost ten years. You can trust him."

Tie Niu didn't say anything, but squatted down and rummaged through the pockets of the two people on the ground. He found a wallet with an ID card inside, glanced at it, and tossed it to Bai Ye.

There was a line of Russian text printed on the document, which Bai Ye couldn't recognize.

But he recognized the logo next to the photo.

It's the same as the one on the suitcase.

"The people from the north," Tie Niu stood up, "came for that box."

"How did you know?" Bai Ye asked.

Tie Niu glanced at him.

"Because I've been looking for it too. I've been looking for it for six years."

The room fell silent again. Old Hu sat on the floor rubbing his wrists, Lan Susu leaned against the bookshelf, and Bai Ye still clutched the blueprint in his hand. Tie Niu stood in the middle of the room, like a stake driven into the ground.

"Who exactly are you?" Bai Ye asked.

Tie Niu remained silent for a while.

"I used to be the gatekeeper for Project Aurora," he said. "Research Institute No. 17. Security team. In 1983, the project was halted. The higher-ups said it was an accident and sealed off the research institute. But I knew it wasn't an accident."

"What is it?"

"Someone opened a door that shouldn't have been opened," Tie Niu said, looking at Bai Ye. "Something came out from behind the door. Those people in white coats tried to close it with a machine, but they couldn't. In the end, the entire research institute was sealed off from the outside. I stayed inside for three days before I escaped. I was the only one."

Bai Ye felt her throat was dry.

"What's inside?"

Tie Niu didn't answer. He walked to the window and glanced out through the crack in the roller shutter. It was getting dark, and the streetlights came on, casting an orange glow on the empty road.

"We can't stay here," he said. "There are more than just these two."

"Where to?" Lan Susu asked.

Tie Niu turned around.

"Aren't you going to Research Institute No. 17? I'll lead the way."