Night in Blackmoor City was also night in the Nest.
Wind tumbled down through the rift between heaven and earth, scattering her bangs. If she narrowed her eyes and peered hazily through the shadows of her lashes, Jin Xueli could hardly tell whether this was the Nest or Blackmoor City.
A deserted, abandoned Blackmoor City, with twisted shadows and details that grew more alarming the deeper she looked-the green light at the intersection ahead went out, and a purple one blinked on and off; the purple light clenched the surface of the empty road, released it, clenched it, released it.
Only sound told the truth: she heard no car engines, no rolling tires, no honking horns; no human conversation, no barking dogs, no video streamers filming themselves as they talked... At this very moment, the only sound Jin Xueli heard was footsteps, one after another.
A soft tap came as her left foot touched the ground; before she could lift her right, she heard another tap.
The footsteps behind her had been following her for several minutes.
Whoever it was did not seem much like a hunter; hunters who encountered each other in the Nest generally kept their distance, sizing each other up with caution and reserve-the extreme danger that could arrive at any moment kept everyone's nerves taut, and no one wanted extra trouble.
If it was not a hunter, it was a resident.
Should I pretend I don't know?
Jin Xueli opened her phone's camera, held it against her front, and slipped it slightly over her shoulder to take a quick, discreet photo.
She quickened her pace to put some distance between them and glanced swiftly at the screen.
In the photo, Jin Xueli's own distorted, smiling face looked back at her.
Its teeth were white and large, densely packed into a mouth whose lips could barely contain them. She seemed to be resting her face on someone's shoulder, even making a peace sign.
Jin Xueli recognized that shoulder at once. It was her own.
What rotten luck.
"Get lost!" Jin Xueli snarled under her breath without looking back. She slashed behind her with the hunting knife already gripped in her hand, trying to force the thing back a few steps. "Who do you think you're looking down on? You think I won't live much longer?"
Not a sound came from behind her. After a few seconds of silence, she heard her own voice give a quiet giggle.
... Apparently, it was not willing to leave on its own.
Unpleasant as this was, her luck was not all that bad. The thing that had latched onto her was not terribly dangerous.
Residents of this kind were common in the Nest. When they took a fancy to someone, they twisted their faces into that person's likeness, though the result was always somewhat off-an extra eyeball in the right eye, a single black hole beneath the tip of the nose for a nostril, or, as in this case, more teeth than the mouth could hold.
They followed their targets around wearing their likenesses, but apart from being unnervingly unpleasant, they posed no immediate harm.
Only after their target died in danger would these residents pounce, writhing and sucking over the corpse. When they lifted their faces, their appearance would be utterly indistinguishable from the original owner's. Some said perhaps they longed to return to the human world, which was why they wanted to disguise themselves as humans and return to Blackmoor City in the original owners' place-but that was only a rumor, not something to take seriously.
In other words, they were like vultures in the desert, always circling above dying animals.
This resident had probably smelled the alcohol on Jin Xueli and noticed the lingering, slight unsteadiness in her steps, and thought she would not last much longer.
Its technique fell short of its peers, though. Usually, when a "vulture" followed a hunter, the hunter would never even notice; this one's big feet kept slapping away.
Still, however harmless it was, knowing that this thing's face was constantly hovering over her shoulder was annoying enough.
She listened closely, gauging the distance between the footsteps and considering whether she could create an opportunity to shake it off-when a thought abruptly burst into her mind: No, something's wrong.
Jin Xueli jolted and stopped dead. Without waiting to make out the pavement ahead, she darted to the side of the road, her back striking a railing with a clang.
Who knew whether that sound would draw more residents...
But now was not the time to worry about what came next-she had almost fallen for the "vulture" resident's trick.
"Jin Xueli" still stood a step or two away, watching her, the lower half of its face all smiles and teeth. Its eyes, however, grew deeper and darker, increasingly like two holes poked into dough by a child's fingers.
Jin Xueli tried not to look at it and glanced at the ground she had nearly stepped onto.
A long house drawn in chalk stretched beyond sight, covering the entire sidewalk.
The chalk had faded, submerged in the dim yellow streetlights and the shadows of the roadside trees. Without looking carefully, it was extremely hard to notice.
The first row had four squares. The first three were blank; only the last square, at the edge, had "right foot" written in it.
"Fuck you. So this was what you had waiting for me."
Jin Xueli wiped the cold sweat from her neck with her sleeve and cursed quietly at her other self. "No wonder your footsteps were so clear. You even deliberately stepped between mine, just to make sure I heard..."
It had done it on purpose.
It wanted Jin Xueli to focus all her attention behind her, to occupy her thoughts with the question of "how to shake off a vulture"-there were only so many ways to lose someone following close behind, and whichever she chose, she would step onto the chalk house as she sped up into a run.
If she did not land her right foot in the square marked "right foot," she would be in serious trouble.
"November 17. The Nest, Colorado Avenue. A chalk hopscotch grid has appeared here."
Jin Xueli opened her voice recorder, briefly described what had just happened, and said, "Although the 'vulture' did not act to harm anyone directly, it showed signs of luring someone into a trap... This is a new behavior and requires attention."
She had not joined a Hunter Faction, so naturally, she could not match organized faction hunters with their systematic plans when it came to gathering and updating intelligence on the Nest.
But she had her own way of surviving: she took the valuable information she collected to the Between the Backlight bar, where the owner, whose face resembled a shar-pei's, would reward her with another set of information-he was like a human information exchange board, or a primitive version of LinkedIn.
Putting away her phone, she looked around and felt like sighing.
To her right was a row of stone-brick houses; short flights of stairs climbed up to their doors. Patches of shrubbery separated the stairways, and the railing she had just struck stood outside the bushes.
Never mind that she was headed for the Museum of Modern Art-even if she were not, she absolutely could not enter a house in the Nest on a whim.
The road on her left was empty. All she had to do was step off the sidewalk and follow the road to avoid the chalk house-ordinarily, that would indeed work, but not now, because the traffic light was still purple.
"If it weren't for this damn crap, fifteen kilometers wouldn't take two days..."
Muttering, Jin Xueli secured both her knife and her phone, adjusted her hiking backpack, fastened it tightly around her waist, and stepped into the square with her right foot.
She stood in the square on one leg, the alcohol that had yet to wear off completely pushing and rocking her ankle like waves. Cold sweat covered Jin Xueli's forehead as she swayed, one hand braced on the railing.
The square only said right foot, so she absolutely could not add a left foot of her own accord.
"Jin Xueli's" smile remained frozen on its face, which slowly began to distort from the cheekbones outward. One cheekbone protruded farther and farther, while the other gradually slid down.
Was it about to give up because I didn't fall for it?
Generally, once a vulture saw no hope of "taking someone's place," it abandoned its target's appearance, either turning into someone else or retreating into the shadows and vanishing.
According to other hunters, watching your own features, your own appearance, warp and melt off another face like ice cream in summer was unexpectedly distressing.
"Hurry up and get lost, and I won't kill you."
Jin Xueli tossed out an empty threat, turned back around, and switched to her left foot, hopping into the middle square of the next row. The moment her foot landed, the hiking backpack dragged heavily downward, almost as though someone had jumped onto her back.
She windmilled both arms several times before finally steadying herself, having already killed Anthony the harasser ten times over in her head-anything bad was his fault, of course.
But if something good happened on this trip, such as obtaining a precious simulacrum, that would definitely be thanks to her.
As soon as the purple light on the road went out, she would look for a chance to hop off the sidewalk.
The first four or five rows of squares were fairly reasonable: hopping forward on one foot with a backpack weighing over ten kilograms, while still tipsy, was exhausting, but at least it was not beyond her.
At some point, the words in the squares stopped being just left foot and right foot.
"Left hand," one square read.
The squares on either side all contained punishments-"unconsciousness," "lose all red blood cells produced within the past year," "visit No. 87 Colorado Avenue."
Fortunately, there was a utility pole beside that square.
With great difficulty, Jin Xueli hugged her backpack with one arm, braced both feet against the utility pole, and turned upside down, pressing her left hand into the square-she felt like an acrobat as she stretched one foot far out, her whole body forming a trembling, crooked Y, before finally managing to step into the next square.
"Exchange food for the right to stand," another square said.
That was not much of a problem; Jin Xueli had plenty of food in her bag, and it was all tasty.
Standing in the spot she had traded a beef sausage for, she rested a while with her hands and feet trembling. When she looked up again, she froze.
Every square within sight ahead was densely covered with the same three characters.
Be copied be copied be copied be copied be copied be copied
... All punishments?
Be copied? What would happen if I stepped on one-
Jin Xueli shuddered. Slowly, she turned her head and saw a face in profile above her shoulder, its cheeks plump and swollen.
At some point, it had silently followed her again.
She was only about a hundred meters from the traffic light. The purple light still blinked on and off, as though it had no intention of going away.
Her journey to the Museum of Modern Art had barely begun, and it had already ground to a halt.
Jin Xueli thought of "The Nest's Latest Hit Song No. 1."
Really, only that one "song" could express and hold what she felt at that moment; sung aloud, it would be one long human howl after another.
Only six days of updates, and I've already shown my true colors. I can't keep up the 10:15 posting time anymore... Anyway, I posted today! What are you gonna do about it!
I finished writing with my head hanging down, and now my neck really hurts. (At home, my computer sits on a stand, right at eye level, so it doesn't strain my neck.)
I barely have any neck to begin with. What if I wear the rest of it away?
I'm feeling a bit unpleasantly dizzy. Let me go eat something first, and I'll sort out the list of all you grannies when I get back...
(When do you think would be a good time to tell my mom she's acquired a whole lot of moms?)
(End of chapter)
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