Second type of death

Chapter 17

"Hmm." I glanced at my notebook, then at her. "You know what I'm thinking?"

"you say."

“Look,” I pointed to the words on the paper with my pen, “there are seven people in total, which seems like a lot—but if you look closely, the only real witnesses are the two of us and Li Yuntong. Ouyang and the owner of that book rental shop can only be counted as half a witness.”

“Yes, that’s how it is.” She waited for me to continue, but I suddenly stopped. A newly formed thought suddenly entered my mind, making me both excited and nervous—perhaps, things could be explained by a very simple reason. Before I could speak, Xu Xiaobing spoke again: “Why do you insist on conflating Li Yuntong with what happened to us?” She pointed at the paper: “Look, at least you and I experienced Mengling and Wangyue Elementary School at the same time; but the people Li Yuntong saw, only he saw,” she looked at me, “I think these things can be deleted; he must have a mental problem.”

I stared at her blankly.

"Speak." She gave him an impatient shove.

“You stole my line,” I said. “I was going to say that too.” The thought that Xu Xiaobing had spoken my idea first filled me with resentment. I had never looked at things this way before. Often, I doubted Li Yuntong's mental state, and often believed what he said was true. Only after creating this chart could I be almost certain that things were as Xu Xiaobing said—Li Yuntong had no other witnesses; he saw everything alone, and his mental state was definitely compromised. This definitive answer made me extremely sad.

“So,” Xu Xiaobing continued, “of the things you’ve recorded here, only items 1 and 7 actually need to be investigated, which makes things much simpler.”

"Hmm." I answered absentmindedly, vaguely feeling that there was something wrong with what she said, but I didn't have a better idea at the moment and couldn't refute her answer.

“But there seems to be nothing in common between item 1 and item 7…” Xu Xiaobing pondered, “How can I explain this?”

"I have an explanation." Various strange ideas swirled in my mind like a vortex, and I deliberately tried to lighten the mood with a joke. "Point 7 can also be deleted—because we were all far from that building at the time, and the weather wasn't very good, so it's possible that others didn't see it—and those ghost stories about old buildings are even less credible. Which old building doesn't have some ghost stories?"

“Yes, you’re right,” Xu Xiaobing said earnestly. I had only meant it as a joke, but seeing how serious she was, I was about to laugh at her when I froze—why not? Why must my explanation be a joke? In fact, my explanation just now was really reasonable, and I couldn’t help but believe it myself.

“But how do we explain Meng Ling’s situation?” Xu Xiaobing studied for a while, frowned, and looked at me with a pursed mouth. “Even if this is the only thing that needs to be explained, it’s still going to be tough.”

"If you think about it more broadly, Meng Ling's situation can be explained." Finding my joke surprisingly plausible, I became annoyed and started spouting nonsense, "Look, only the two of us witnessed Meng Ling's actions. Maybe we're both crazy!"

"What nonsense are you talking about?" Xu Xiaobing glared at me, annoyed. "Then how do you explain those documents?"

“It’s very simple,” I continued, spouting nonsense. “Maybe we’ve all been hypnotized, and everyone is deceiving us. In fact, everyone knows who Meng Ling is, but they’re all lying to us and saying they don’t know—only Ouyang and the owner of that book rental shop weren’t involved in this conspiracy!”

"You're crazy!" Xu Xiaobing shouted, then, as if remembering something, her body, which had been leaping upwards, suddenly slumped back down. Her eyes flickered uncertainly across my face, and finally, she asked hesitantly, "I know you're talking nonsense—but thinking about it carefully, only this explanation can account for everything..."

"Huh?" This time it was my turn to gasp. I stared at her in shock, unable to believe that these words had come from Xu Xiaobing's rigid mind.

"Don't look at me like that." She pushed me. "Do you remember what you said before?"

"What famous quotes have I said?" I looked at her blankly.

"You said before that since what happened clearly defies common sense, then the only way to explain it is with principles that defy common sense—don't you remember?"

“That’s right.” Her words gave me a jolt. Indeed, that was true. However, Xu Xiaobing seemed to have underestimated my definition of “principles beyond common sense.” Although her ramblings were absurd, they were still within the realm of common sense. But if something truly went beyond common sense, then it would be completely different… I couldn’t help but chuckle twice and stared at Xu Xiaobing, saying, “You said it—can you really accept any explanation?”

"You say it." Her lips were tightly pressed together, like a screw turned to its limit, her expression one of suppressed anger and indifference.

I looked down at my notebook, tilting my head, twirling my pen in my hand, and thinking quickly as I read—if we are willing to accept all impossible realities, then what kind of principle is needed to explain all of this? I thought for a long time, and Xu Xiaobing never disturbed me. She studied the few lines on the paper with me, and seemed to be pondering something as well.

“First of all, we should change our perspective.” I said slowly as I pondered, “You see, our analysis just now was all based on the observer’s perspective—that is to say, we first analyzed whether what we saw was real, right?”

"Hmm." Xu Xiaobing listened to me with unprecedented patience.

“From this perspective, we only have one thing left that is true, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” she shifted in her chair, her brow furrowing quickly, “you don’t have to keep asking me, just tell me everything at once.”

“Okay,” I quickly organized my thoughts, “Even in the remaining section—the one about Meng Ling—we’re still approaching it from the observer’s perspective, that is, finding a reasonable explanation for the observers—that is, the two of us—for seeing these strange phenomena. Our analysis doesn’t discuss what Meng Ling herself is like, but rather why we ourselves would see such things. From this perspective, the most reasonable explanation we’re looking for seems to be the one I just mentioned, right?” I couldn’t help but ask again.

“Yes,” she rolled her eyes, “now you want to change your perspective? From the perspective of the person being observed?”

"Yes." I nodded.

She thought about it seriously for a while, then hesitated and said, "In that case, we would have to assume that everything is true... Isn't that too far-fetched?"

"You said that since things are beyond common sense, the only way to explain them is with principles that are beyond common sense," I said with a smile.

She nodded: "Go ahead and tell me—it's free if you're wrong anyway. I knew you liked to talk nonsense, and now it's perfect for you." Her words, though unpleasant to hear, were quite true; at that moment, I was exactly looking to spout some nonsense. I chuckled, coughed, and looked around, deciding that before uttering such absurdities, I should find a gavel to bang on—it would be more fitting. Of course, I didn't have a givel, so a teacup became the unwitting victim, and I grabbed it and smacked it. Xu Xiaobing jumped in surprise, then laughed, giving me a sidelong glance.

“Now that we’ve established the premise—that those things are true—we don’t need to consider the observer’s perspective anymore. From the perspective of the observed objects—we can remove Li Yuntong from these categories—leaving six observed objects. We should be able to summarize some patterns.” As before, I hadn’t thought about what I was going to say before speaking, but as I spoke, I felt that what I was saying made a lot of sense, so I believed it and became serious. “Look,” I said, pointing to the words on the paper, “have you found any patterns in these six groups of observed objects?”

"What?" Xu Xiaobing seemed to find it amusing, and only responded to me out of politeness.

“Look,” I was completely absorbed by the train of thought in my head, and I couldn’t wait to continue, without pausing, “Among these six groups, apart from Meng Ling, the other five groups share the same characteristics: they can be seen by some people, but most people can’t see them; no one knows who they are; judging from the cases of Gu Quan and the woman from Liufang Lake, they don’t have their own identities in the world. Meng Ling’s situation is more special; there is evidence of her existence in every place, but very few people have seen her, and currently, only Ouyang knows her. In this respect, she seems different from the other five groups, but there is one thing in common: these six groups are all a part of the world that is unknown to most people.” I said so much in one breath, and surprisingly, Xu Xiaobing didn’t interrupt. I paused to catch my breath and continued, “So I have an idea.” Before saying this, I carefully looked at Xu Xiaobing’s expression. So far, she didn’t seem to think I was talking nonsense; her face… My expression was very serious. Thinking about how absurd what I was about to say would seem to her, I felt a pang of guilt, but more than that, I was curious. Plus, what I was about to say seemed unbelievable even to myself, so I spoke much faster: "Since we can assume everything is true, we can also assume everything is for the same reason—I don't think we're that unlucky as to encounter two strange things for such different reasons in such a short time—given this premise, the analysis is simpler—chronologically, apart from the Wangyue Elementary School incident, the other events all occurred later than Meng Ling's incident. We haven't figured out the Wangyue Elementary School incident yet, so let's leave it aside for now. Arrange the remaining five in chronological order: Meng Ling—the woman from Liufang Lake—the child in the hospital—the person injured by Li Yuntong's car—Gu Quan. Then," I quickly wrote a few lines on the paper, "arrange these people in reverse order."

“Wait a minute,” Xu Xiaobing finally interrupted me, “Why do we need to arrange them in reverse order?”

“That’s the key,” I said. “Under normal circumstances, if something strange happens to someone, we can investigate that person’s past behavior and chronologically arrange those behaviors to find out the process and cause of the strange event—but not this time. In this case, all the main characters are untraceable. We don’t even know who they are, what happened to them, or when the events started or what stages they went through. In fact, in this incident, the events that happened to individual people don’t form an investigable sequence, so we can’t investigate the events based on a normal chronological order… Do you understand what I mean?” This explanation made me sweat a lot, but I still couldn’t quite express myself clearly. Xu Xiaobing looked confused. Wang, her brows furrowing even deeper, said hesitantly, "Continue..." I swallowed hard, and before the string in my mind snapped, I quickly continued, "What I mean is, although there isn't a sequence of events that can be investigated in an individual, if all the events are caused by the same reason, then in so many people, there is actually a sequence of events that can be referenced..." Without realizing it, my wording started to sound like a business proposal. I paused slightly, glancing at Xu Xiaobing. She didn't seem to have any difficulty understanding, which reassured me a lot. "You see, the events that happened in each of the six groups of people I've noted down have similarities, but they are also different. If all these events originate from the same source—caused by the same reason—then, can we see the different characteristics of each group of events as different stages of this event?"

Similarities, yet differences: if all these events are of the same origin—caused by the same reason—then can we view the different characteristics of each group of events as different manifestations of this thing at different stages? Xu Xiaobing's bewildered expression veiled her entire face. I knew I had to explain more clearly. "Well, things didn't just happen all at once. Meng Ling has been in this room for a long time, and the incident at Wangyue Elementary School has been going on for over half a year. These events all have a certain process, a progressive one, like pouring water into a cup. The water goes from nothing to half full, to a full cup, and finally overflows. The things we encounter should also have such a process. As I said before, if we could fully understand Meng Ling, or Gu Quan, or any of them, then we could know the whole process of what happened. But we can't do that now, so we can only infer the whole process from the fragments that happened to different people. The strange phenomena that happen to each person are different. If we string these strange points together, perhaps we can find a complete chain of events..."

I was speaking until my throat was dry, and I felt I was getting more and more incoherent, when Xu Xiaobing suddenly opened her eyes wide. It was as if a light flashed across her face, and the veil of confusion vanished in an instant. She stood up abruptly and excitedly interrupted me: "I understand!"

"Huh?" Caught off guard, I swallowed back all the words I was about to say and stared at her in surprise.

“I know what you mean,” she said, her face beaming. I had never seen her with such a light and almost transparent expression, which made her look much younger all of a sudden. “Why make it sound so complicated?”

"ah?"

“What you’re saying is,” Xu Xiaobing said confidently, pursing her lips. The fleeting transparency had vanished, replaced by a capable expression. “Although we can’t see the whole process of events through a single person, all the people we’ve discovered, because they were discovered at different times, experienced their strange occurrences at different times (as she said this, I vaguely felt something was amiss, but the feeling was fleeting). Therefore, they are each at different stages of the events. So,” she paused to catch her breath after saying so many “so”s, “if we put together what happened to them, it would be a fairly complete picture of the events. So you would have to arrange these people in reverse chronological order of when we discovered them, because the earlier someone was discovered, the earlier the event happened to them, and therefore, the later they are at the stage of the events—is that what you mean?”

"Yes." I nodded. I have to admit, she explained it more clearly than I did this time.

“Then your analogy is incorrect,” she began to adopt a typical manager’s tone, even wagging her index finger at me. “You shouldn’t use a water glass as an analogy.”

"Then what should we use?"

“Pupa,” she said. “A caterpillar’s life cycle consists of several stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult, before finally emerging as a butterfly. If we were to represent these people we’ve discovered using the stages of an insect, then, chronologically, Gu Quan would be the egg, while Meng Ling would be the pupa or butterfly… What’s with that expression?” She abruptly stopped, staring at me with displeasure. When I heard her say “pupa,” my heart skipped a beat. As she continued, my mouth involuntarily widened. Xu Xiaobing was clearly annoyed by my expression, waving a hand in front of my face. I shoved her hand away and exhaled a long breath: “I’m impressed!”

"What do you admire?" she asked, looking at me suspiciously.

"I've been thinking about how to tell you my thoughts, but I didn't expect you to say it yourself."

"What?" She still didn't understand.

“Chrysalis,” I said, “you’re right, that’s exactly what I think.”

"Huh?" Xu Xiaobing let out a strange cry, like she was hiccuping.

I nodded. "Look at these people," I rearranged them, pointing to Gu Quan, who was first in line. "You see, judging from the timeline, Gu Quan appeared the latest, which means that what happened to him is still in its early stages. The others," I pointed down, "are arranged in reverse chronological order of their appearance, showing the stages they were in during the events—what do you notice?"

Xu Xiaobing stared intently for a long time before raising her head and shaking it blankly.

“Look, in reverse chronological order, Gu Quan, only Li Yuntong could see him. If I’m not mistaken, everyone else walked around him, which means no one could touch him. Next is this person, he was hit by the taxi Li Yuntong was in. Did you notice that this time Li Yuntong not only saw him, but was also hit by the car, and Li Yuntong even bumped into him? The third is the child in the hospital… On the surface, this child seems no different from the previous one, but I just thought about it carefully. Li Yuntong once said that after that child disappeared, there were still bloodstains on the bed sheets in the hospital. The fourth is the woman from Liufang Lake. This time, only Li Yuntong could see her, but everyone else could see her body… Did you notice the pattern?” I stopped and waited for Xu Xiaobing’s answer.

She nodded slowly: "I understand a little, please continue."

“Next is Meng Ling—we’ll only consider the time when we found her, and ignore the rest for now,” I said with a purpose. Xu Xiaobing didn’t understand and thought it was unnecessary, so she clicked her tongue impatiently. I picked up my pen and wrote under Meng Ling’s name as I spoke, “When we first found Meng Ling, only some superfluous things appeared. No one could see Meng Ling, right?”

"yes."

"Then, at Grandma Li's house, we found Meng Ling's name. Subsequent investigations revealed more information about her. Shortly after, a bookstore owner saw Meng Ling, and just now, Ouyang even said he knows Meng Ling—have you discovered anything?"

"you say."

“Meng Ling herself went through these processes: unknown to anyone (this is her state before you found her) -- known to people, but not seen by anyone -- evidence about her identity appeared -- seen by some people -- recognized by some people…” I was interrupted by Xu Xiaobing as soon as I got to this point.

“No,” she said. “The evidence of Meng Ling’s identity should have appeared long before I discovered her, judging from the dates.”

I laughed: "That's why I said we only need to consider the time when Meng Ling was found, and we don't need to consider anything else -- yes, the time shown in the data does look like what you said, but that's just how it looks. Think about it, why didn't you find any information about her before this? Why didn't the other groups have any information about their identities?"

"What do you want to say?" Xu Xiaobing asked, puzzled.

“What I’m trying to say is that, whether we look at Meng Ling herself or the sequence others have arranged, this whole thing happened in this order: nobody knew her – traces of her existence became apparent – she was seen by some people – evidence of her existence became apparent – she became known by some people… Most people are in the first two stages, and if Meng Ling continues to develop like this, I guess what will happen next is that we will all accept her existence and believe that she has existed from the beginning – and the others will also develop to this point one by one. As for those people at Wangyue Elementary School, who knows if they have already established their own identities within a certain scope?” I finally said what I wanted to say, and then quietly and somewhat guiltily waited for Xu Xiaobing’s reaction.

Xu Xiaobing looked like her mind had frozen, and said very slowly, "You mean... they just gradually appeared around us and were then accepted by us?"

I nodded: "Yes, what I mean is, they didn't exist originally, but they gradually came to exist, just like people who were originally transparent slowly became like normal people... Do you understand?"

She shook her head and then nodded: "I understand what you mean, but if that's the case, what were they originally?"

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. Actually, I didn’t even really believe what I was thinking—but I couldn’t help but believe it; everything seemed to indicate that’s how it was, didn’t it?

However, something always made me uneasy. At first, I thought this unease came from my own assumptions. If these assumptions were true, then Meng Ling and the others' identities and their purposes would be very worrying. More importantly, we didn't know how many such people would appear around us, or how many such people had already appeared. In other words, we couldn't completely trust anyone around us—this situation felt fraught with danger. But since it was still just an assumption, this danger was merely an assumption. It wasn't enough to make me so uneasy. That unease in my heart was faint, fleeting, and elusive. Sometimes it seemed nonexistent, yet it was always swaying in my mind. Its slight swaying had a tremendous power. When it reached the outside world, I felt that the world I depended on was also swaying, and I didn't know when it would collapse and shatter like a spinning egg... But I could never describe this feeling.

“But,” Xu Xiaobing spoke again after a long silence, “how do you know your hypothesis is definitely correct? We haven’t investigated the others, have we? How do you know there aren’t other possibilities? How can you be sure that the others are definitely in the first two stages as you say? How can you be sure that things only have these few stages? How can you say that Meng Ling was definitely the first one to appear…” She bombarded me with a barrage of questions, leaving me speechless. After she finished asking all the questions, I said, “So we need to investigate—isn’t it said to make bold assumptions and carefully verify them?”

“I think your assumption is a bit too bold,” she said.

Actually, I think so too, but for now, this is the only hypothesis I can find.

We discussed for a long time, and then, simultaneously, our stomachs growled. We realized we hadn't eaten dinner yet, so we put the problem aside for the moment and rushed to the kitchen, bustling around for a quick bite. We watched some TV, secretly hoping something would happen, yet also afraid something would, but nothing did. The night passed quietly. Lying in bed, I tossed and turned, thinking about all this, listening intently to any sound in the room, but hearing nothing. Perhaps Meng Ling really wouldn't come back. Perhaps she had already obtained the necessary identity in the world, and this place was no longer relevant to her, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis… I felt like I was lying in a giant, abandoned chrysalis. This feeling sent chills down my spine, and I couldn't help but curse Xu Xiaobing inwardly for being a pervert, for coming up with such a metaphor.

Before leaving home this morning, I discussed with Xu Xiaobing that she would call me after she finished work, and we would go to see Mengling's mother together. Because I had a series of bizarre dreams last night, I woke up late, quickly washed up, and headed out the door, each of us walking in opposite directions. Influenced by yesterday's assumptions, everyone seemed suspicious along the way. I gradually began to doubt whether the people around me had truly existed, and even the scenery around me, and the car that was taking me to the company, became questionable.

After walking in the rain for a long time, the rain suddenly stopped when I got off the bus. Everyone looked up at the sky, and some people reached out to check if it was still drizzling. People kept passing by me, hurrying along, their quick steps bringing a sharp gust of wind—everything seemed somewhat unreal until I reached the company building and saw the faint mark I had once carved on its exterior wall. Only then did it feel real again.

As I entered the company, I couldn't wait to ask Ouyang about Meng Ling, but his seat was empty. Aunt Xu said he had just taken a phone call and gone out. I handed the yarn to Aunt Xu, who took it and thanked me repeatedly. She admired the yarn as she walked out, intending to go downstairs to the restaurant for breakfast. I was about to go with her when I heard Li Yuntong call my name. I turned around and saw him wink at me, signaling me to stay.

"Bring me a cup of soy milk and a piece of bread!" I said to Aunt Xu as I sat down.

"Okay!" Aunt Xu went out, and after the other colleagues clocked in, they also went downstairs in twos and threes to have breakfast. Xiao Geng invited me to eat with him, but I shook my head and turned on my computer.

Only Li Yuntong and I were left in the office. Just as I was about to ask him what was wrong, he walked up to me, holding a CD in his hand. He put it into my CD drive, and without saying a word, he clicked the mouse on the screen a few times. The CD started running, making a slight hissing sound in the CD drive.

"What is this?" I asked before the image appeared.

"You take a look first." He looked somewhat nervous. "I've already shown it to them."

The scene has unfolded, first showing our office, which is empty. When the camera pans to the doorway, a tall, thin man gives a sad smile to the camera.

Li Yuntong clicked the mouse, and the screen paused.

"Do you see him?" he asked, pointing at the man.

I nodded.

"Do you know him?" he asked.

I shook my head.

“He is Gu Quan,” Li Yuntong said.

I was taken aback and quickly sat up straight, leaning closer to the screen to take a closer look—Gu Quan on the screen was tall and thin, with dark skin and a sorrowful expression, as if he had many sad things hidden in his heart. His eyes and brows conveyed a sense of suffering and hardship, even carrying a deep sense of fear and despair. I clicked the mouse, and Gu Quan said something on the screen before turning and leaving.

"What did he say?" I asked eagerly.

“He said, ‘It’s no use at all,’” Li Yuntong said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.