Jin Xueli's Blackmoor City Tourist Transport Map

"What I'm about to say may be hard to believe. I can hardly believe it myself.

"I'm still standing inside the chalk house. I have nowhere to go. I can't backtrack. I tried. There's a square behind me marked 'left hand,' two rows away. On my way here, I could use a utility pole to do a one-handed handstand, but going back, I can't reach that pole."

Holding a heavy backpack while balancing upside down on her weaker left hand was beyond Jin Xueli-hunters merely had a passage that let them enter nests. That did not transform them or grant them supernatural strength.

Besides, the resident's breathing kept hovering beside her ear; in the corner of her eye, there was always a face identical to her own, faintly distorted, like a reflection watching her from deep underwater.

She had been gripping her hunting knife again for some time.

Jin Xueli closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. On the road to her left, blade after blade of purple light still pierced and gutted the silence, like wet viscera exposed under an X-ray.

"There seems to be some kind of... cooperative relationship between hopscotch and the 'vulture' resident."

Jin Xueli spoke softly into her phone's voice recorder. "I can't think of a better explanation than that they're working together."

The "vulture" had tried to drive her into the chalk house, and the chalk house had returned the favor: once she was too far in to turn back, it had written the punishment "be copied" in all the squares ahead...

If she actually stepped on one, the resident following her would probably become a second Jin Xueli.

What would happen to her then?

The original was still alive, yet the "vulture" would already have become its target. She had never heard of anything like that.

"Maybe I'm overthinking it... The traffic light on the road hasn't changed for almost ten minutes. It's stayed purple, trapping me on the sidewalk. Could it be part of this setup too? I find that hard to imagine... Unlike residents, other things aren't intelligent. How could they join forces?"

Besides serving as information she could trade later, the messages she recorded had another purpose.

If she could never leave the nest and ultimately died here, she could still imagine that one day, some hunter would find her phone.

Who she was, where she had died, the final moments of her life... none of it would sink into the depths of the nest along with her.

Perhaps someone else in this world would hear the last few words of her life and know that there had once been a Jin Xueli. Even if, a second later, her name dispersed like windblown mist as that person's thoughts moved on.

Sometimes, when she thought about it, she found it strange herself: someone as full of desires and as fond of pleasure as she was nevertheless remained ready to die, anytime, anywhere.

Perhaps without that resolve, one could not become a False Image Hunter.

Putting away her phone, Jin Xueli checked the traffic light again.

She did not actually need to look up to know the purple light was still on, but what else could she do besides check it over and over?

The alcohol had mostly worn off, but her energy and stamina seemed to have slowly evaporated through her pores along with it, leaving her body slack and heavy. Her leg muscles trembled, as though they could no longer hold on to her bones.

The square said "exchange food for the right to stand." It said nothing about sitting, so Jin Xueli dared not sit down. Even her backpack, weighing over ten kilograms, rested only on the tops of her feet. She dared not let it touch the chalk drawing.

"Just wait," she told the resident beside her quietly. "I refuse to believe the purple light will stay on for seven whole days."

The resident did not respond. Perhaps it, too, knew Jin Xueli was only bluffing-even with food and water, standing for seven days straight without sleep could wear a person to death.

Sigh. This was why most hunters started applying to the major hunter houses after venturing into nests alone a few times... Even Jin Xueli, who so disliked following orders and hated being managed, could not help thinking how nice it would be to have a companion looking out for her right now.

She stood in one square of the chalk house as the night wind grew colder. The longer she stood there, the more foolish she felt-what was she doing?

Had she fallen from a great height just to stand here like an idiot, serving as a human pillar?

Jin Xueli racked her brains for a while, considering everything from climbing trees to tightrope walking. After reality rejected each idea, she even worked up the nerve to throw caution to the wind and call out "Someone, help!" twice-whether her luck was good or bad, nothing came out of that row of stone-brick houses in response.

After trying several ideas, she returned to her old occupation of being a human pillar.

If only the broadcast had given her a warning. Had she known, she would never have taken this lousy road.

That said, Jin Xueli knew it was far too unrealistic.

If the "Virtual Guide to the Infinite Illusion" described the conditions on every road in the nest, by the time its broadcast finished, she would be due back in Blackmoor City without having done anything.

Thinking of the broadcast reminded her of the map she had covered in annotations-wait, what if those notes could help?

Jin Xueli glanced at "Jin Xueli."

It still stood two steps away, but its appearance was growing increasingly repulsive-as she turned her eyes, it imitated her, rolling its dark eyes to the right until the whites faced forward, then failing to roll them back for ages.

That was her own face. She now had enough nightmare material for the next week.

Jin Xueli slipped her hunting knife back into the sheath at her waist, took the map from her backpack, and shook it open. By the flashing purple light and a pool of dim yellow streetlight, she carefully studied her notes.

A few minutes later, she raised her head from the map and swore at the resident beside her in a bright, clear voice. "Fuck your mother!"

Unaware it had been insulted, "Jin Xueli" stared at Jin Xueli in rapt fascination. Its lower lip suddenly drooped crookedly, as though it were trying to imitate the shape of her mouth.

"Come here!" Having found no solution on the map, Jin Xueli was furious. "They all say residents can't be killed, so you won't mind if I stab you a few times, right? Come here!"

"Jin Xueli" simply would not come over.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she grew. She pressed her lips together and worked her tongue around until she had gathered a large mouthful of saliva, then spat it all onto the chalk square beneath "Jin Xueli's" feet-whatever punishment her spit received after leaving her mouth had nothing to do with her.

Unfortunately, the square could not simply be washed away with spit-if only it could. The wet patch of whitish foam dried in an instant, as though the paving stones had absorbed it, revealing the chalk drawing completely unchanged.

Then "Jin Xueli" imitated her, pressing its lips together, its tongue apparently beginning to churn as well.

"Oh, shit."

Finally a little panicked, Jin Xueli hurriedly raised her backpack, ready to use it to block the resident's spit-but fortunately, its internal physiology seemed different. When it opened its mouth, there was only a dark, dried-out hole, and nothing came out.

With that little episode over, she was still at a loss.

Jin Xueli stared at the words "Blackmoor City Tourist Transport Map," not knowing what to do. Though her gaze lingered on the map, her thoughts drifted away, wandering somewhere she could not name.

By the time she came to her senses, she realized she had been staring for several minutes at the rows of fine print in the bottom-right corner on the back of the map.

Jin Xueli slowly narrowed her eyes.

The tourist transport map included plenty of additional information, such as the country's emergency medical number, police number, tourist information websites, and an introduction to travel insurance... Among those rows of fine print, one detail had hooked her gaze.

Blackmoor City's taxi service hotline.

Of course, this was a phone number from the human world.

Right now, she was in a delusional, nightmarish mirror world, without so much as a phone signal...

A mirror world...

Would the yellow taxis, one of Blackmoor City's classic symbols, the yellow taxis that appeared in countless films and television shows, also cast their reflections into the nest?

The thought was like a hand resting against the back of her head, almost impossible to ignore.

Even as Jin Xueli silently mocked her own overactive imagination and the wishful thinking her predicament had driven her to, she involuntarily took out her phone again-of course, the upper-right corner read "No signal."

Hesitating, she finally entered the hotline number digit by digit and pressed call.

Trying would not hurt. Even if it failed, surely she was not afraid of being laughed at by the "Jin Xueli" beside her?

As she waited in tense anticipation, a ringing tone sounded beneath the night sky sliced apart by black and purple. "Brr... brr..."

"Hello," a female voice said. "Do you require taxi service?"

Her mouth hung half-open. She sat speechless, stunned. Was she hallucinating?

"Do you require it or not?" The woman did not sound impatient, merely matter-of-fact, like a robot.

"Y-yes!" The moment Jin Xueli spoke, a belated fear struck her. "Wait, what are the conditions for calling a taxi? What do I pay with? I do have to pay, right?"

"Of course. Please note the following passenger instructions," the woman said flatly. "One, tell the driver your destination address; two, do not scrutinize the driver; three, sit in the back seat; four, lower your head and extend it between the driver's seat and the front passenger seat; five, recall a recent experience; six, do not panic when the driver collects the fare."

"...Recall?" Though Jin Xueli had visited nests plenty of times, their strangeness still sometimes left her stunned.

"Yes. Please note the following fare requirements. One, the memory must concern an experience from within the past month; two, the scenes and events in the memory must be continuous; three, the experience recalled must have lasted at least three minutes when it occurred; four, the driver will accept only the first experience that spontaneously enters your mind, not a consciously selected memory."

"What else? Just a memory, nothing more? I can safely reach wherever I want to go, and get out safely too?" Afraid the other party might play word games, she closed every loophole she could think of.

"Yes."

"That works perfectly," Jin Xueli said, exhaling at length. "Send a car right away!"

Never mind the past month-even in the past ten years, she had no memory she would rather die than lose. Besides, it was only three minutes.

"I'm on Colorado Avenue." She gave her address, then suddenly remembered something and hurriedly asked, "Can you have the driver open the door for me when they stop?"

She looked at the square beneath her feet and the road beside her, measuring the distance with her eyes. She could throw herself across that gap.

However, the "landing" would be far more difficult than an ordinary landing. She could touch down on neither the sidewalk nor the road-as for exactly how she would do it, that could wait until the car arrived.

Almost dreamily smoothly, the woman answered, "Yes."

Abruptly delivered from her predicament, Jin Xueli felt her heartbeat grow so light it might fly away. She hung up, and the screen reflected half a face pressed close to her own.

Seeing the prey almost in its mouth about to escape, it must have been getting anxious too.

"Get lost."

Using the same method as before, Jin Xueli swung her hunting knife hard a few times, forcing the resident several steps back-by the time she came to her senses, she was sitting in the back seat of a taxi.

...Huh?

Gradually accelerating, the taxi passed steadily through the purple traffic light. The numbers on the meter did not move. A human-shaped figure sat with its back to her in the driver's seat, a leather glove covering the hand on the steering wheel.

"...Where are we going?"

After asking, Jin Xueli realized she was breathing hard, her heart pounding, as though she had just undergone intense physical exertion.

"The Museum of Modern Art." It was presumably the driver answering, but however she listened, the voice seemed to come from beneath her feet.

Jin Xueli decided not to look down.

Though she did not remember how she had gotten into the car, it was not difficult to work backward. The first experience to spring to mind had apparently been what had just happened as she got in-the process of giving the driver her destination and having her memory taken had already been handed over as the fare.

Wonderful. This counted as a blessing in disguise: she could ride all the way to the Museum of Modern Art in one go.

She turned to look at the other "Jin Xueli," which she was steadily leaving far behind.

Even at that distance, she could tell the resident was utterly furious. Like one of those long inflatable figures flailing outside car dealerships, it swung its arms wildly, occasionally tipping its head back to howl-another new behavior.

Hopscotch, the resident, the taxi... everything she had encountered tonight was new intelligence.

The nest seemed to have changed. She simply did not know whether those changes were still within the normal range.

For the moment, however, Jin Xueli could not summon the energy to record the information. She merely slumped in her seat and let out a long breath.

Before the next crisis began tormenting her, she just wanted a proper breather.

I'm dying. Suddenly going back to writing every day is a bit more than I can take... After all, I spent three months writing my one-week backlog.

With how little I update, I might really not fit in the male-oriented category. Is there a disability-friendly category? I'll go there.

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(End of chapter)