Faceless Woman

The two of them headed toward the river's source. The teardrop-shaped earthen houses along the banks grew fewer and fewer, and there were barely any residents left in sight.

When they reached the estuary, Jiang Xueming and Bu Liuxing saw what this "Dream Sea" looked like.

The sweet sea breeze rushed toward them. As far as the eye could see, the horizon seemed to blur into the sky, both nothing more than vast stretches of gray.

Waves rolled onto the pebble beach one after another. Farther away, enormous shadows lay sprawled in the depths of the gray sea, dotted with crimson flames—the signs of volcanic activity.

It was as though some immeasurable colossal thing lurked beneath the rocky foundation of a bottomless trench.

The lava erupting from the craters was the ten thousand eyes on its back. The rising and falling waves were its slow, heavy breathing.

Bu Liuxing felt his breathing quicken. Before this mysterious, bizarre ocean, he could barely catch his breath.

Xue Ming, meanwhile, walked straight toward the Western-style building from his dream, following the direction he remembered into the fog.

The drizzle and mist soaked their clothes. In the sweet air, they talked.

"Ming Ge, seeing this sea makes me feel really bad."

A Xing stumbled across the rocky shore, one foot deep, one foot shallow. He could hear his own heart pounding from within his eardrums.

It was as if the supernatural Inspiration inside him was acting up. Facing this ocean, he could sense some inexplicably great existence within it.

That intangible pressure, and the nearly maddening terror, threatened to crush him.

He was like an ant that had seen a human shoe.

His face was deathly pale, sweat pouring down like rain.

He had to say something. He had to talk to Jiang Xueming. The immense pressure inside him had driven him into a detached state.

He knew that if he went through a security check now, his madness index would definitely be terrifyingly high.

There was something in this sea—

—although that thing had never cared about Bu Liuxing. No communication or connection had ever formed between them, and they had never crossed paths.

Yet Bu Liuxing was still affected by the thing in the ocean. The pressure was practically driving him mad.

Every hormonal gland in his body was working frantically, while his brain's bioelectric system fell out of balance in an instant.

The synapses in his brain inevitably began sending chaotic signals, making his thoughts run wild.

His throat was dry. Like a laborer who had worked without sleep for days and nights, he asked almost pleadingly, "Ming Ge. Ming Ge, aren't you afraid? Did you hear it? Did you see the thing in the sea? You..."

Jiang Xueming grabbed Bu Liuxing's arm.

"A Xing, don't be afraid. I'm holding you. I can support you."

Bu Liuxing felt dizzy and disoriented. In the thick fog, he seemed unable to see the end, and his neurasthenic symptoms only worsened.

At first, the sound of their feet crunching on sand and gravel became piercing.

Later, Bu Liuxing felt that the noise could tug at his heartbeat, causing waves of twisting pain in his chest.

The mere few hundred meters felt like walking through hell to A Xing. Every step was agony.

"Ming Ge, you really aren't afraid at all, are you?"

"I don't know where your fear is coming from, A Xing," Xue Ming admitted. "Is it that sea on our right?"

"Yes. Can't you feel it, Ming Ge?"

"I can."

"Then both our Inspirations are working. It's warning us to leave this place and not go any farther toward the sea."

"We have no plans to go into the water, A Xing. The Western-style building is only five or six hundred meters away. Can you hold on?"

"I can. I think I can."

"Looking at you now, can you make it back alone?"

"I don't know."

"I thought so. If I leave you here, in your current condition, you probably can't return to the supply station by yourself, right?"

"Ming Ge. Have you always been like this?"

"Always been like this? What do you mean?"

Bu Liuxing felt strength return to his limbs, and his head no longer felt as muddled as before.

He could feel Jiang Xueming gripping his arm tightly, as if an endless stream of strength was flowing from that arm.

His heart rate slowed, and color returned to his face. But whenever he glanced toward the sea, that soul-shaking terror would surge back up—so he turned his head away and never looked in the ocean's direction again.

A Xing caught his breath, then continued explaining and asking.

"Sorry, my brain wasn't working just now. What I meant was, have you always been this calm? When I faced that sea just now, I couldn't even stand steady."

Jiang Xueming said, "Mm."

"Mm?" Bu Liuxing turned his head in disbelief and looked at Jiang Xueming—at his profile, at the man's completely unchanged expression.

A Xing found it hard to understand, so he hurriedly added.

"I used to do extreme sports. Skydiving, rock climbing, surfing, skiing—I was never scared of any of it. I'm seriously brave. But before this sea, I feel like I'm trapped in intrusive thoughts. I feel like it could destroy me at any moment, drag me in, press me into the deep sea ten thousand meters below, squeeze every bit of air out of my body, and flatten me into a cracker."

Jiang Xueming said, "Mm."

"So, Ming Ge." Bu Liuxing stubbornly pressed on. "At first, I thought your Inspiration wasn't strong enough, that you couldn't sense what I was feeling. But you can feel it, right?"

"Yes." Jiang Xueming answered without hesitation. "I can feel it. The step counter on my phone navigation shows that as we walked here, our legs seemed to stop obeying us and kept veering inland. Our bodies are rejecting this ocean."

"Then that's right. Looks like you really can feel it." Bu Liuxing nodded seriously. "So, you really aren't afraid at all?"

"Not afraid." Jiang Xueming instead looked puzzled. "If I had to name something I was afraid of..."

Xue Ming thought it over and described the terrifying monsters that could be found everywhere in daily life to A Xing.

"If my braised food business fails, I want to deliver takeout. But there'll probably be a long gap after I quit, maybe one or two months with no income at all—that means taking out high-interest loans. I've dealt with people from several lending companies before. None of them were good people. They promised to give me a loan, but the price would very likely be my little sister."

"When they talked about Bailu, it was like they had already drafted the way she would repay the debt. Which nightclub she'd be sent to, who she'd accompany, even what makeup or perfume she'd use—they'd thought it all out."

"That scares me. A fear that cuts to the bone. That's why I made up my mind to learn some self-defense skills. Before the worst happens, I can take my sister and run from the debt collectors."

The two of them had arrived in front of the Western-style building.

Past the mysterious thick fog stood the bench from the dream.

That mysterious woman leaned against its backrest, facing away from the two passengers.

Jiang Xueming disengaged the safety on his pistol and said with serious determination.

"Bu Liuxing, let me repeat myself. I'm not some monster without fear. I can feel my body, including the Inspiration you mentioned. They're all rejecting this sea. But there are many, many terrors like this in my life. Thirteen households in the walled city use drugs. Eight elderly people practice feudal superstitions and worship Buddha statues of unknown origin in their homes. Last month, they said they wanted to eat baby umbilical cords to ward off evil. Who knows whether next month they'll cut off young women's ears or noses to bring themselves good fortune?"

"Six fire exits are blocked, piled full of clutter and shoe cabinets."

"The wires leading into people's homes run right beside the clotheslines. On stormy days, you can hear them crackling."

"When planes land at the airport next door, at their lowest point they're only one hundred and fifty meters from the walled city rooftops. They're like roaring dragons passing overhead. I hear them roar every day, and all I can do is pray that they choose the right place to land every time."

"Every day, I feel like I live at the bottom of a chaotic abyss. As long as I see that my sister is safe, I feel like life can go on."

A Xing asked in surprise, "Have you never thought about moving, Ming Ge? Changing environments?"

"Where would I move to?" Jiang Xueming remembered his hometown, the missing-person notices that looked like wanted posters. He also remembered the liveliness Bailu showed when she came out of the subway station with her classmates after school—she had finally found a school here. She didn't want to go back, and she couldn't go back.

Bu Liuxing froze. At that moment, he really had no right to ask anyone else to do anything. After all, not everyone was like A Xing, with a mother who treated him so, so well. Not everyone could leave home and see Victoria Harbour across the sea.

"What can it do to me?" Jiang Xueming pointed at the sea. "Will a monster jump out of it? Bite my head off? And—"

He pointed at the woman on the bench.

"—what will she do? Put some inexplicable curse on me? Tear out my hair? Dig out my eyeballs? Can she make me wish I were dead? If that information can get me a bottle of Universal Elixir from the BOSS, then I'd really thank heaven and earth."

"Ming Ge." Bu Liuxing was moved by pity. "My family has money. How about we fix things up and open a coffee shop outside Moon Lane? You're such a dependable everyday guy, and I'm such a cheerful fun guy. One of us brings in customers, the other does the work. We'd be the perfect team. I think it could work."

"Please, when you said that just now, you looked exactly like an old general in an opera, with flags stuck all over your back." Jiang Xueming tossed him two magazines and gave a brief command. "Check the chamber."

A Xing did not waste words. He drew his gun, racked the slide, and checked its condition again.

Xue Ming said, "Chamber a round."

A Xing did as instructed and inserted the magazine.

Xue Ming said, "Safety off. Point the gun at the ground. Crouch halfway and follow behind the right side of my arm."

A Xing obediently followed behind Xue Ming without saying a word.

Xue Ming moved in a semicircular route, raised his gun, and came before the woman, aiming the muzzle at the mysterious woman's head.

A Xing remained half-crouched.

They saw that the woman's clothes were indeed exactly the same as those of the woman in the dream.

Bare feet. A thick blue gauze dress.

The rain had soaked it through, revealing the graceful curves of her body.

But beneath that head of long black hair, her face had no features—

—where her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth should have been, there was only a layer of bluish-black skin.

Jiang Xueming immediately said, "Take a picture, A Xing. No flash and no shutter sound. Tell me when you're done."

"Okay." Bu Liuxing held his gun in one hand and did as told. "Done."

"Back up. Back up slowly. Get ready to search the house." Jiang Xueming was exceedingly cautious as he retreated step by step toward the Western-style building.

A Xing felt that eerie pressure return. His scalp tingled, and his eyes could not leave the woman's face. It was as though his eyeballs no longer obeyed him and his thoughts had fallen into it.

"Okay, okay."

The Western-style building stood extremely close to the shoreline.

Many waves still washed against the stone piles supporting the building's foundation.

As they drew closer and closer to the sea, that hazy, malicious madness assailed them again.

A Xing's arm began to tremble. He could barely hold his gun.

He saw the woman's face changing.

Beneath the bluish-black dead skin where her features should have been, it seemed as though worms were crawling. In the span of a breath, it became a sweetly beautiful face.

That person.

Bu Liuxing seemed to know her, yet he racked his brains and still could not remember who she was.

After all, his heart had shattered into many pieces, given to many different girls.

He could not describe that feeling of familiarity and strangeness. It was as if his ex-girlfriends were long-dead pieces of corpses, and some skilled forensic doctor had fused all their faces together into the face before him.

He felt as though someone had seized his throat. Faintly, he could hear voices calling.

"Come here."

"Come here."

"Bu Liuxing."

"Darling."

Bang!

The sudden gunshot made a layer of cold sweat break out on A Xing's forehead.

Jiang Xueming's gun pointed toward the sky, smoke rising from its barrel.

"Were you thinking about women, A Xing?"

Though somewhat embarrassed, A Xing had indeed just seen the lovers he had once longed for day and night. "I was."

"I saw it too." Xue Ming gritted his teeth as he stared at the phantom. "I saw my little sister sitting there, so I fired a shot to warn her. She didn't move, but this hallucination is affecting us."

"What do we do now?" A Xing asked anxiously. "Keep searching?"

Jiang Xueming reminded him, "What we see may be different, but the camera won't lie. Take another picture of her. Don't care what's in the picture, then we go inside."

Bu Liuxing did as instructed, but when he took the photo, he could not help looking at the phone screen a second longer—

—he felt his mind drifting into that illusion.

On the phone, he could see the woman in blue gradually rising to her feet, reaching toward him, murmuring softly in a gentle voice and calling to him with tender coquettishness.

Another sudden gunshot jolted him awake.

Jiang Xueming's shoulders and neck trembled. Flames burst from the gun in his hand, and a string of exploding shots echoed along the beach.

Fragments of sand and gravel beneath the bench flew everywhere from the bullets. Only the last bullet struck the strange woman's knee, knocking her off balance and sending her collapsing back onto the bench.

Jiang Xueming shouted, "I've emptied my magazine. I'm reloading! Keep an eye on her! If she moves again, keep shooting her legs. If she still struggles, shoot her in the head. I brought containers—we can collect some body parts to take back!"

Bu Liuxing no longer dared to look directly at the woman's face. He only stared at that mangled leg.

The wound on it was horrific. The pistol round had left an open crater in her flesh. An endless stream of blue blood poured out.

He could hear deep, resentful wails, as though his lovers were begging him for help and crying out in pain.

But the wound was healing at a rate visible to the naked eye. Bone and flesh fused, blood vessels reformed, as though jelly-like gelatin were rapidly returning to its original shape under the pressure of a mold.

Bu Liuxing asked nervously, "Hey! Ming Ge, if bullets can't deal with her and she starts moving again..."

Jiang Xueming finished reloading. "Then we run. Run back to the supply station."

Bu Liuxing said, "What if she follows us?"

"Then even better. We can hit her with the Volga and use Car Iaijutsu on her." Jiang Xueming answered without hesitation. "We'll definitely be able to collect biological tissue and trade it for Universal Elixir."

Bu Liuxing immediately asked, "What if the car can't kill her either?"

"Then we switch cars." Jiang Xueming did not care. "The station is still under construction. We can find a dump truck and use Dump Truck Iaijutsu on her."

After the two of them discussed it like that.

They looked again at the mysterious woman in blue.

She had originally wanted to stand up, but now she plopped back down.

She did not move at all.