Chapter 207: Total Chaos: Silence

A Ning paused the TV screen, and on the black-and-white image, it froze on that face I knew all too well—disheveled and dirty, the face I saw every day: my own face. For the first time, it made me feel so horrified and uncanny that I didn't even dare to look at it.

After a long while, A Ning finally spoke, her voice soft: "This is exactly why I had to come find you."

I said nothing, not knowing what to say. My mind was a complete blank, and I had no idea how to react.

Fatty opened his mouth, let out a few inarticulate sounds, then finally managed to spit out the words: "Xiao Wu, is that you?"

I shook my head, feeling waves of dizziness. My brain simply couldn't think. I pinched my nose hard and waved at them, signaling them not to ask me anything, to let me calm down first.

They really did keep quiet. I took a few deep breaths, trying to steady my mind, and then asked A Ning: "Where was it sent from?"

"According to the records, it should have been sent from Golmud in Qinghai."

I took a deep breath. So it really was from the same place. Judging by the age of the tape, it was the same as those two tapes of Huo Ling—not from recent years. Then these two tapes and the two I received must be related. It couldn't be two separate incidents.

But I absolutely had no memory of wearing clothes like that, or of crawling through an old mansion. This was too incredible; I found it hard to believe the person on the screen was me. For a moment, I felt like this was some kind of conspiracy.

"Besides this, is there any other clue?" I asked her again. She shook her head. "The only clue is you, that's why I came to find you."

I picked up the remote, rewound it, and watched the process again. The remote made a cracking sound in my grip. When close-up of that moment came, even though I was mentally prepared, my heart still sank heavily.

The black-and-white screen was blurry, but the person in it was definitely me, no mistake.

Fatty was about to ask again, but A Ning stopped him. She walked out and said something to Wang Meng, who acknowledged and soon came back with a bottle of liquor. A Ning poured out my tea and gave me a glass of liquor instead.

I gave a grateful, bitter smile, took it, and took a big gulp. The pungent taste rushed into my windpipe, making me cough immediately. Fatty beside me said softly: "Calm down first, don't rush. This isn't that hard to explain. First, make sure—is that really not you?"

I shook my head: "That person definitely isn't me." "Then do you have any brothers who look just like you?" Fatty asked with a grin. "Your old man didn't have any—you know—outside, did he?"

Even I found it amusing. Wasn't this the kind of plot from some wuxia novel? How could it happen in real life? I gave a bitter smile, shook my head, and took another big gulp.

A Ning watched me for a long time, then said: "If it's not you, can you explain what's going on?"

I thought to myself, you ask me, who do I ask? My mind was already too chaotic to answer her. Things had completely left the realm of what I could understand, and for a moment I couldn't think rationally. On top of being completely at a loss, I also had a strange feeling inside, but I couldn't grasp any thread of it. That was driving me crazy.

Fatty piped up again: "Since it's not you, then that person must be wearing a mask of your face… Seems like someone is really satisfied with your looks—you should feel flattered. Think about it, could someone have made this tape just to mess with you?"

I cursed under my breath. A human-skin mask—that would be a good explanation. But to make a human-skin mask, it's easy to disguise as someone else, but to disguise as a specific person is extremely difficult—almost impossible. If someone wanted to make a mask of my face, they'd need to be very familiar with the structure of my face, and they'd need to know all my expressions. Otherwise, even if they made the mask, the moment the wearer smiled or opened his mouth, it would give it away.

There had to be something hidden in the footage. Even if someone was wearing a mask of my face, it would raise a host of questions: Who is this person? How did he know what I look like? What did he do with my "face"? How did he appear in the video? Where was the video taken? When was it shot? And how does it relate to Huo Ling's tape?

It's not that simple.

I even had the illusion—maybe it's not that person wearing a human-skin mask, but me who's wearing one? I touched my own face, trying to see if I was really Wu Xie. But when I pinched it, it hurt—clearly my face was real. I laughed at myself.

Huo Ling's tape and the tape with "me" in it—sent to me and A Ning under the names of Zhang Qiling and Wu Xie respectively. This kind of behavior had to mean something. All the inexplicable things suddenly enveloped me again, and that obsession I thought I'd finally shaken off—the truth behind Third Uncle's lies—suddenly sprang up in my heart again.

That evening, it was still at Louwailou. I treated Fatty to dinner at the same table as noon.

I had been silent the entire afternoon. A Ning finally couldn't wait any longer, left a phone number and address, and went back to her hotel. She told me to let her know if I had any ideas, and she'd come back tomorrow.

I figured I wouldn't come up with anything in just one night, so I just said a few perfunctory words and sent her off. Fatty had originally planned to go back tonight, but after this incident, he got interested too and decided to stay a few more days to see how things developed. I arranged his accommodation, and since we hadn't eaten much at noon, he stayed to continue freeloading off my meal.

The waitress saw me and Fatty coming again, but without that woman. She probably really thought we'd sold her, and her expression was weird the whole time. Normally I'd have teased her, but now I just wasn't in the mood.

As soon as A Ning left, Fatty asked me: "Xiao Wu, that chick's gone now. So what's really going on? You can tell me, can't you?"

I gave him a bitter smile and said I really didn't know—I wasn't playing dumb just because A Ning was here.

Fatty looked totally unconvinced. In his eyes, my Third Uncle was a big liar, and I was at least a little fox. The person in the tape must be me, and I must have some reason I couldn't tell.

I really didn't want to explain, so I casually swore a solemn oath, and only then did he half-believe me. By then the wine and food came, and Fatty took a drink and asked me again: "I tell you, Xiao Wu, I think this is no simple matter. You didn't say a word all afternoon—did you come up with anything? Don't you dare keep it from your Fatty."

I shook my head, frowning: "Honestly, I haven't figured anything out. How could I possibly understand this? I don't even know where to start thinking, damn it. The only thing I can think about now is who sent this tape."

I thought about it for a long time in the afternoon. What bothered me was: first, from the content of the tape, "I" was like Huo Ling—aware of the camera's presence but not resisting it.

Second, Huo Ling's tape was clearly shot very early—probably in the 1990s. If these two tapes were shot in the same era, then "I" on A Ning's tape should also have been living in the '90s. But at that time, I remembered perfectly clearly that I was still in middle school. Not only did I have no memory of making a film, but even my face was very different. I'm a conspiracy theorist, but if my childhood was also fake, then how do you explain all the photos from my childhood? What about my classmates and friends? As I see it now, what baffles me most is who sent this tape to A Ning, and what was their purpose? Did they just want to scare me? That's highly unlikely.

Fatty patted me, trying to comfort me, and muttered to himself: "Could it be that same young master who sent the thing to A Ning under your name?"

I sighed. Who knew? Thinking about A Ning's explanation of the package's signature, I had another doubt. If A Ning's package was sent under a pseudonym, could these two tapes I received also be under a pseudonym? Was the name Zhang Qiling used just so the tapes would reach me? Was the sender not him but someone else? After all, I felt he had no reason to send something like this. Videotapes really didn't fit him at all.

But if it wasn't him, who else could it be? The content was related to those people from Xisha. Could it be one of them? What was their purpose?

I asked Fatty: "Hey, Fatty, your brain works differently than others. Help me think about what could be going on—just go by your gut instinct."

"Gut instinct?" Fatty scratched his head. "Aren't you making things tough for your Fatty? I've never even had a wrong feeling, so how could I have any gut instinct?"

I thought to myself, that's true. Asking Fatty to think about this was indeed a bit unreliable, after all, he wasn't very familiar with Poker-face and didn't know much about what happened in Xisha, at least not as much as I did.

Speaking of Poker-face, did I really understand this person? I took a sip of alcohol and pondered.

The overall feeling I had about Poker-face was that this person wasn't like a person; he was more like a very simple symbol. In my mind, aside from the few times he saved me, it seemed that every other time I saw him, he was sleeping. I didn't even have the slightest clue to infer his personality.

If he were an ordinary person, you could judge his character from his tone of voice or small gestures, but he spoke pathetically little and had no small gestures. He was simply a person who never did anything superfluous. Whenever he made a move, something was bound to happen. That's also why, several times when his expression changed, everyone started sweating.

After thinking it over, I said to Fatty, "Then forget about intuition. Just tell me, what do you feel about this matter? Is there anything off? Even a little bit. Give me some support."

Fatty sighed and said to me, "Dammit, you really bring shame to our proletariat. I don't have any feelings, but there really is one thing that's off. When you were talking just now, I noticed a detail. I wonder if you noticed it?"

"What detail?" I asked him.

"Didn't you say that the kid sent you two videotapes? One of them had that woman combing her hair, and the other was blank, nothing at all."

I nodded. That was indeed the case.

Fatty said, "That's wrong, dammit. If it's blank, why would he send it to you? Doesn't that make no sense? Why didn't he just send the first tape? Why bother to make it two tapes?"

I sighed. I had considered this question at first too, but because the whole thing was so bizarre, I didn't have the energy to think carefully about these small illogical aspects. At the time, I felt that the other party must have had a purpose, I just didn't know what it was.

Fatty shook his head and said, "No. If you think about it that way, there's no clue at all. We live in the real world. This isn't a suspense novel. There shouldn't be such inexplicable things happening. I think we might be overcomplicating things. Maybe the person who sent these videotapes had a very simple reason."

My mind was a bit resistant to thinking; I didn't want to think, so I let him tell me his thoughts.

Fatty said, "It's not really a thought, just a feeling that your way of thinking about the problem is off. It seems like you've been confused. Let's think directly: the other party sent you two tapes, one with content and one without. That means one of them could have been completely unnecessary to send, but they still sent it, right?"

I nodded. Fatty said, "There you go. In this matter, it's normal because the person who sent the tapes seems bizarre, so we subjectively think that everything he does might have deep meaning. But dammit, if we don't think that way, assume the guy who sent it is an ordinary person—do you think an ordinary person would do this in such a situation? I think not. If I were sending you a tape, why would I also include a blank one? Isn't that crazy? I feel there must be something to it. Think again, doesn't it make sense?"

I nodded. Fatty always surprises people. Indeed, I hadn't thought this question through so deeply. I leaned back in the chair, thinking about Fatty's words, and fell into deep thought.

Under what circumstances would an ordinary person send things in this manner? One videotape with content plus one without—what was the purpose of such a combination?

Don't complicate the problem, I warned myself. Use intuition. Think back to times when you borrowed videotapes. Under what circumstances would you do something like this? As I thought, I actually remembered something from before. My heart jumped. I felt that there was indeed a time when I had done the same thing.

The Fatty beside me was eating Dongpo pork. Seeing my expression, he asked, "What? Did you think of something?"

I tilted my head and told him to be quiet. I savored what I had just thought of in my mind. As I thought, memories from the past emerged. I let out a thoughtful sound and suddenly realized what was going on. I stood up abruptly and said to Fatty, "Holy shit, it's that simple! Stop eating! We need to go back right now!" With that, I ran outside.

Fatty had eaten half the meat and almost spat it out. He shouted, "Not eating again? We didn't even have lunch! Is this how you treat someone to a meal, dammit?"

I was in a hurry to go back and verify my idea, so I turned back and said to him, "Then finish eating and come over."

Fatty spun around in place, unable to do anything about me, and had to follow. As he left, he yelled at the waitress, "Don't clear this table! Fatty will be back to finish eating. Dammit, keep an eye on it. If even a single scallion is missing, I'll come back and tear down your sign!" With that, he followed me out the door.