Volume 7 Chapter 4: Complete Chaos

The three of us were quiet for more than ten minutes, in a complete silence. During that time, the fat man kept looking at me, but no one said a word.

The TV screen was paused by Ning. The black and white picture was a still of that face that was so familiar to me. Under the unkempt hair, it was the face that I saw every day—my own face. For the first time, it made me feel so horrified and strange that I didn’t dare to look at it.

After a long time, Ning finally spoke. She whispered, “This is why I had to come to you.”

I didn’t say anything, I didn’t know what to say, my mind was blank, I didn’t know how to react.

The fat man opened his mouth and made a few inarticulate sounds before he finally said, “Xiao Wu, is this you?”

I shook my head, feeling dizzy and unable to think. I pinched my nose and waved my hands at them, telling them to leave me alone and let me calm down.

They really didn’t say anything. I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm down before asking Aning, “Where was it sent from?”

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

I took a deep breath. It really was sent from the same place. Judging from the age of the tape, it was the same as the two tapes that were taken of Huo Ling, so it couldn’t have been taken recently. Then what was the relationship between these two tapes and the two I received? It could be ruled out that they were two separate events.

But I definitely had no experience of wearing clothes like that and crawling around in an ancient house. It was too incredible. I had a hard time believing that the person on the screen was me. I felt like this was a 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 see you.”

I picked up the remote control and rewound it to watch the process again. The remote control was so tightly squeezed that it made a “cracking” sound. When I saw the close-up of that moment, although I was mentally prepared, my heart still sank.

Although the black and white screen was blurry, the person in it was definitely me.

The fat guy wanted to ask, but Ning stopped him. She walked out and said something to Wang Meng, who nodded and soon returned with a bottle of wine. Ning poured my tea and poured me a glass of wine.

I smiled wryly in gratitude, took it, took a big sip, and the spicy flavor filled my trachea. I coughed immediately. The fat guy on the side whispered to me, “Calm down first, don’t worry. This is not difficult to explain. First, make sure that this person is really not you?”

I shook my head: “This person is definitely not me.”

“Do you have any brothers who look like you?” The fat man asked me with a grin. “Will your father not be outside and have that thing…”

I felt funny myself. Isn’t this the plot of some martial arts novel? How could it happen in reality? I shook my head and took another sip.

A-Ning looked at me and looked at me for a long time before saying to me, “If it’s not you, can you explain what’s going on?”

I thought to myself, “Who else can I ask if it’s not you?” I was already so confused that I didn’t want to answer her. The whole thing was completely beyond my understanding, and I couldn’t think rationally for a while. The main thing was that while I couldn’t figure it out, I also had a strange feeling in my heart, but I couldn’t grasp any thread of this feeling. This made me very crazy.

The fat guy on the other side said, “Since it’s not either of them, then this person must be wearing a mask that looks like you… It seems that someone is very satisfied with your looks, so you should be happy. Do you think someone might have made this tape to play a joke on you?”

I cursed in my heart. A human skin mask is a good explanation, but it’s easy to disguise as someone else, but it’s quite difficult to disguise as a specific person. It’s almost impossible. If someone were to make a mask of my face, they would have to be very familiar with the structure of my face and know all my expressions. Otherwise, even if they made the mask, as soon as the wearer smiled or opened their mouth, the mask would be revealed.

There must be something hidden in the video. Even if someone really was wearing a mask of my face, there would be a lot of questions: Who is this person? Where did he learn my face? What did he do with my “face”? How did he appear in the video? Where was the video taken? When was it taken? What is the connection with Huo Ling’s video?

Things are not that simple.

I even had the illusion that maybe it wasn’t this person wearing the mask, but I was the one wearing the mask.

I touched my face and wanted to see if I was Wu Xie, but it hurt when I pinched it, so obviously my face was real.

Huo Ling’s video and the video with “me” in it were sent to me and Ning in the names of Zhang Qiling and Wu Xie respectively. This behavior must have some significance. All the incredible things suddenly came back, and the obsession I had finally gotten rid of with the truth behind Uncle San’s lies suddenly popped up in my heart.

That night, I took Fatso to Lou Wai Lou for dinner, at the same table as before.

I was silent all afternoon. Ning couldn’t wait any longer and left a phone number and address and went back to her hotel. She told me to let her know if I had any thoughts and that she would come back tomorrow.

I didn’t think I would have any thoughts in just one night, so I just sent her off after a few perfunctory responses. Fat Boy was planning to go back that night, but after this incident, he was also interested and decided to stay for a few more days to see how things developed. I had arranged for him to stay at my place, and he didn’t eat much at noon, so he stayed to eat my cheap food.

The waiter saw that me and Fatso were back, but the woman wasn’t there. Maybe she really thought we had sold her, because her face was weird the whole time. Normally I would have made fun of her, but I really wasn’t in the mood.

Fatso asked me, “Wu, the woman isn’t here anymore. What happened? Can you tell me?”

I smiled wryly at him and said that I really didn’t know, and I wasn’t pretending to be confused because Ning was there.

Fatty didn’t believe me. In his opinion, my third uncle was very dishonest, and I was at least a little fox. The person in the video must be me, and I must have some reason I can’t say.

I really didn’t want to explain, and I casually made a vow, and he was only half-believing. At this point, the food and wine came up, and the fat man took a sip of wine and asked me again, “I said, little Wu, I don’t think this is simple. You haven’t spoken all afternoon. What have you thought about? You can’t hide it from the fat man.”

I shook my head and frowned at him and said, “I really didn’t think of anything. How could I possibly understand this? I don’t even know where to start thinking. The only thing I can think of now is who sent this tape.”

I thought about it for a long time that afternoon. What concerned me was that, firstly, judging from the content of the tape, “I” knew about the existence of the camera just like Huo Ling, and obviously, “I” did not resist it.

Secondly, the time when Huo Ling shot the tape was obviously very early, probably in the 1990s. If the two tapes were shot in the same era, then “I” in the tape that Ning had should also have lived in the 1990s. At that time, I clearly remember that I was still in middle school, not to mention the fact that I don’t have any memories of filming, even my appearance was very different. I am a conspiracy theorist, but if my childhood is also fake, how do I explain the photos of my family from childhood to adulthood? How do I explain my classmates and friends?

Now, what I can’t figure out is who sent this tape to A-Ning and what his purpose was. Could it be that he just wanted to scare me? It’s really not very likely.

Fatso patted me on the back as a form of comfort, and then said to himself, “Could it be that the person who sent the tape to Ning was the same person who sent the fake package to me?”

I sighed and thought to myself, “Who knows?” I thought of Ning’s explanation of the signature on the package, and I had another question in my heart. If Ning’s package was sent under a pseudonym, could it be that the two tapes in my hands were also sent under a pseudonym? Was the signature of Zhang Qiling used so that the tapes could reach my hands? The person who sent the tapes was not him, but someone else?

After all, I don’t think there’s any reason for him to send this kind of thing. The tapes really don’t fit him.

But if it wasn’t him, then who else could it be? The content is related to the people in Xisha. Could it be one of the people in Xisha? What is their purpose?

I asked Fat Boy, “Right, Fat Boy, your mind is different from others. Help me think about what this thing might be about. Rely on your intuition.”

“Intuition?” The fat guy scratched his head and said, “Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve never had any delusions, so what intuition could I possibly have?”

I thought to myself, it’s true that it’s a bit unreasonable to ask the fat guy to think about this. After all, he’s not very familiar with Mian Youbing, and he doesn’t know much about Xisha, at least not as much as I do.

Speaking of Mian Youbing, do I really know this person? I drank some wine and thought about it.

My overall impression of Mian Youbing is that he is not like a person, he is more like a very simple symbol. In my mind, except for the few times he saved me, it seems that the other times I saw him was sleeping. I don’t even have the slightest clue to deduce his personality.

If he were an ordinary person, I could tell his character from the tone of his voice or some small movements, but he never said much and didn’t do anything. He was a man who did nothing extra, and whenever he did something, something was bound to happen. That’s why whenever his face changed, everyone’s head would start sweating.

After thinking about it, I said to the fat man, “Then don’t use your intuition. Just tell me how you feel about this and what’s wrong with it. Even if it’s just a little, give me some support.“

The fat guy sighed and said to me, ‘Damn it, you’re really embarrassing us proletarians. I don’t think so, but there is something wrong. When you were talking, I noticed a detail. I don’t know if you noticed it.’

”What detail?“ I asked him.

”Didn’t you say that the little brother sent you two tapes? One of them had the woman combing her hair, and the other was blank, with nothing on it.”

I nodded, that’s true.

The fat guy said, “This is fucking wrong. If it’s blank, why did he send it to you? Doesn’t that make sense? Why didn’t he just send the first tape? Why did he have to send both tapes?”

I sighed. I had considered this question at the time, but because the whole thing was so bizarre, I didn’t have the energy to think about the small inconsistencies. At the time, I felt that the other party must have ulterior motives, but I just didn’t know what they were.

The fat guy shook his head and said, “If you think about it like that, then it’s too unfocused. We live in the real world, not a mystery novel, so there shouldn’t be such a mindless thing happening. I think we might be thinking about it too complicatedly. Maybe the other person sent the tapes for a very simple reason.”

My mind was a little resistant to thinking, and I didn’t want to think about it, so I let him talk about his thoughts.

The fat guy said, “It’s not an idea, but I just feel that you’re thinking about it in the wrong way. It seems that you’re being confused. Let’s think about it more directly. The other person sent you two tapes, one with content and one without. In other words, one of the tapes was completely unnecessary, but the other person still sent it, right?”

I nodded. The fat guy said, “That’s it. This is very normal in this matter, because the person who sent the tape makes people feel unbelievable. We subjectively think that whatever he does may have a deep meaning. But, damn it, if you don’t think that way, suppose the guy who sent the tapes was an ordinary person, do you think that an ordinary person would do that in this situation? I don’t think so. If I were to send you a tape, why would I send you a blank one as well? Isn’t that a bit strange? I feel that there must be something going on here. Think about it again. Does it make sense?

I nodded. The fat guy always surprises people. I really hadn’t thought about it that deeply. I leaned back in my chair, thinking about what the fat guy had said, and I fell into deep thought.

Under what circumstances would an ordinary person send something like this? A tape with content and a tape without content. What is the purpose of this combination?

Don’t complicate the problem, I told myself, use intuition to think about it, think about when you borrowed a video tape before, under what circumstances would you do this kind of thing?

I really thought of something from the past, my heart jumped, and I felt that there was indeed a period of time when I did the same thing.

The fat guy on the other side was eating Dongpo pork. He looked at me and asked, “What? What are you thinking about?”

I tilted my head and told him to be quiet. I was thinking about what I had just thought about, and as I thought about it, memories of the past emerged. I sighed and suddenly realized what was going on. I stood up abruptly and said to the fat guy, “Fuck, it’s so simple! Don’t eat! We’re going back right now!” And I ran out.

The fat guy had almost spit out the half-eaten pork and yelled, “Not eating again? You didn’t even eat at noon! Is this how you treat your guests?”

I was anxious to go back and verify my thoughts, and turned to him and said, ‘Then come back after you finish eating.’

The fat man turned around in place, and there was nothing he could do about me, so he had to follow me. Before leaving, he yelled at the waiter, ‘Don’t charge this table! When I come back, I’ll have to keep eating. Watch out, if there’s even one less onion, I’ll tear down your sign when I come back!’ Then he followed me out the door.