Chapter 31

Two Faces

The heat was fierce. Wan You plated the finished skewers, reached for the water bottle, and tipped his head back for a long swallow — then turned and saw Chao Musheng, and nearly choked.

One day had passed. Why was he back?

"Boss Wan — I've brought people to support your business." Chao Musheng didn't wait to be invited. He picked up the order sheet from the side of the stall and started looking for an empty table.

"These are all your friends?" Wan You swallowed, and let his gaze pass over Curly Hair. His brow drew together slightly.

Small. Curly hair.

He'd seen this woman somewhere before.

He caught it quickly — she was watching him too.

"The surname Wan is unusual." Curly Hair kept her eyes on the top of Wan You's head, where the purple marker appeared and disappeared in irregular intervals. "Somewhere I used to be, there was a person with that surname. Very popular."

The barbecue stall owner in front of her was both like and unlike the player she was thinking of.

She'd been in one instance with that player. He'd done nothing but trip over his own feet and cry, and NPCs had fallen over themselves to comfort him.

She looked at his arms. Lean — but there was a layer of muscle under the surface that hadn't been there before.

It couldn't be...

Then a server called the name: "Wan You — Table 3, twenty beef skewers, ten wings."

"Wan You?" The words left her before she could stop them. "Is it really you?"

She stared at this version of him — familiar and yet not — while her thoughts churned in complete disorder.

A player that the Main God's space had declared dead. Still alive. How?

"Do you two know each other?" Chao Musheng looked up and passed the order sheet to Sister Jia, studying them curiously.

"We've met. We weren't close." Wan You had already worked out who she was, and where he'd seen her before. He pulled his gaze back. "You ate here last night. Your stomach can handle this two days running?"

"Your cooking is too good — I couldn't wait to bring friends." Chao Musheng noticed Wan You was soaked in sweat, picked up the small handheld fan sitting nearby, and aimed it at him. "The plum drink you sent home with me — everyone loved it."

"That recipe I picked up at a part-time job." Wan You gave Curly Hair a loaded look. Friends.

Now that he'd left the infinite world behind, running into a player again didn't feel like meeting a fellow traveler. It felt like suspicion. She had arrived as Chao Musheng's friend — what was she trying to get from him?

"See what you'd like." Sister Jia had made her selections and passed the order sheet to Curly Hair.

Curly Hair had a hundred questions for Wan You and no opening for any of them. She ticked something at random and shoved the sheet at Ah Ze.

Ah Ze accepted it with great satisfaction. Finally, his turn.

"Xiao Chao, over here." A ponytailed girl led them to an empty table and brought over a pot of honeysuckle tea. "Wan You says honeysuckle clears heat — he wants you to have plenty."

"Thank you, Xiao Cai." Chao Musheng smiled. "Could you put in a word with the boss for me later? I'd like a bottle of plum drink to take home."

"I'll try." Xiao Cai — one of the four girls — had relaxed considerably around him since last night. "Though I'm not sure my say counts for as much as yours."

Curly Hair noted the green marker on top of this girl called Xiao Cai's head — flickering in and out, just like Wan You's, except with longer gaps between appearances.

Was she also a failed-mission player?

But how could a failed player be alive and stranded in an instance?

She'd never heard of this happening in all her time in the infinite world.

*

Sister Jia was in low spirits. When the food arrived, she ordered a few bottles of beer and downed most of the first one straight.

"Slow down, Sister Jia." Chao Musheng pressed a skewer into her hand. "Eat something first."

"It's fine — this is nothing." She poured the rest into a glass and dropped two ice cubes in. "The first two years after graduation, I used to drink until I was sick just to keep up at work. My tolerance is well-established."

All those years on her own in the city — sharing basement flats to save money, eating plain boiled noodles, scraping her way up to where she was now. And her parents' one thought was that she should come home.

"You and Xiao Chao are neighbors?" Ah Ze asked, his face bright with grease and genuine interest.

"Yes." She had little patience for the smooth, performative conversations of business circles, which made Ah Ze's unpolished directness oddly refreshing. "When I moved into the flat above his family, he was still in high school."

One night she'd negotiated hard on a big project and ended up vomiting blood from a stomach rupture. Chao Musheng had been coming home from evening study when he found her in the stairwell. He'd called the ambulance and stayed with her at the hospital.

After that, she'd become close with his whole family.

Ah Ze turned to look at Chao Musheng. He was probably popular in high school too.

"Curly, why have you been so quiet?" He nudged her. "Spaced out?"

"Eat your food." She surfaced, set down her skewer. "Xiao Chao, Sister Jia — I'll be back. There's something I want to talk to Wan You about."

Wan You — the barbecue owner?

Ah Ze was puzzled. Was Curly trying to get the recipes off him, to use in future instances? Was this what ambition and foresight looked like in a high-level player?

*

Fat dripped from the skewers and hissed. Wan You sensed Curly Hair's approach and shook some spring onion over the grill without looking up. "When did you come in?"

"Two days ago." She studied this version of him — so different from the one she'd known. "What instance did you clear to end up here?"

"What do you want to know?" He transferred finished skewers to a tray and waved Xiao Cai over to collect it, then bent back to the grill. "That world has nothing to do with me anymore. I can't help you."

"But you know Chao Musheng." She could tell he didn't trust her. She put her own cards on the table first. "My instance is set in a company. I'm interning at the same one as him. The main objective is to uncover Kunlun's secrets."

"Kunlun has been operating in this world for over a hundred years. They're involved in a huge number of industries." He brushed oil over the skewers. "Forget finding any secrets — if you and the other players can even map out where all their subsidiaries are and what they do, that's impressive enough."

If the Main God hadn't intervened and shoved them into this instance by force, could players like them actually get into Kunlun headquarters on their own merits?

Curly Hair caught the undertone in Wan You's voice — something protective of this world, turned subtly outward.

She looked at the purple marker above his head: almost permanent now, flickering only occasionally.

He had started to think of himself as belonging here. That was why, to a player's eye, he read more and more like an NPC.

"You—" She stopped herself. She'd been about to ask: are you all right with that?

Becoming an NPC in an instance. Running a barbecue stall every day, smelling of smoke and oil from morning to night. Was this really what he wanted?

"I'm auditing at Jinghua University." When he mentioned this, the energy in his movements sharpened. "If I pass all my evaluations with distinction within the year, I'll be granted full student status. And because I'm a hardship case, the school has waived my fees entirely."

"Jinghua — was that your failed instance?" Curly Hair turned it over. "Are the recent failed exploration instances all placed within this dimension?"

She noticed immediately that Wan You had shot her a look. He was clearly displeased.

He was, in fact, displeased. He had nothing useful to say to a player fresh into an instance.

He had told her he was a Jinghua student.

Had she understood? Jinghua.

Players like this, who'd just arrived — they never understood what Jinghua meant.

At this moment, Wan You felt a sudden, belated kinship with every senior student who had ever hosted visiting groups.

"Everyone over there thinks you're dead." She kept her eyes on his face, not missing any flicker. "How did you do it?"

Surviving when the system tried to eliminate you. Staying alive in an instance.

"I don't know." He met her gaze directly. "The system disappeared suddenly. Like something tore it off me by force. It never came back."

He was quiet for a moment, then: "Since we were once in the same world — a friendly word." He glanced briefly toward Chao Musheng and pulled his eyes away quickly. "This instance is unlike any instance you've been in before. Don't make the wrong choice."

Choice.

She turned it over. Her failed daily task today — had that been a right choice or a wrong one?

"Boss — check, please."

"Thank you for coming in — that's 143 yuan." Wan You gestured smoothly at the payment code, then pulled a small bottle of plum drink from the side rack and handed it to the customer. "It's hot tonight — something for the road. Come back again."

Curly Hair watched the smile on his face. In her memory, she had never once seen Wan You smile. He had always been tearful, fragile, perpetually on the edge of upset.

"Are you happy here?" she asked, before she'd decided to.

"It's good." He smiled — a proper one, with teeth. "I get to study. I have income. I have friends. And there's a good future ahead."

She could see he meant it. She curved her mouth. "Good."

When she came back to the table, Ah Ze took one look at her expression and privately concluded she'd successfully extracted the secret recipes. Nothing else would explain the improvement in her mood.

*

By the end of the meal, three of the four were visibly drunk. Chao Musheng, as the designated driver, had not touched a drop.

He settled the bill and took the large bottle of plum drink Wan You handed over. Then he gestured at the three people slumped at the table, smiled apologetically, and said: "Boss Wan — a small favor."

Wan You took off his apron, and together they maneuvered all three into the car. He made a reluctant offer: "You going to be all right on your own? I could have Xiao Cai go with you."

"They all live near me. It's fine." Chao Musheng paused. "Also — I ran into a senior from your department at work and got some notes and materials related to your program. I don't know if they'll be useful. I'll send them to you tonight when I'm back."

"Thank you." Wan You buckled Ah Ze's seatbelt against his drowsy, fidgety resistance. The two women were clearer-headed and didn't need help.

"Watch yourself at the internship." Wan You lowered his eyes. "Don't trust everyone you meet. Human nature is hard to read. Some people look fine on the surface and are more frightening than anything else underneath."

"Thank you for the warning, Boss Wan." Chao Musheng smiled easily. "I'll be careful."

In the back seat, Curly Hair's eyelids shifted slightly. She didn't open them.

Wan You watched the car pull away and let out a quiet sound. You'll be careful. With three people in your car and two of them players.

With those odds, why not just buy a lottery ticket.

*

Of the four people in the car, three appeared to be drunk. In fact, three were fully alert.

The only person genuinely unconscious was Ah Ze, in the passenger seat, who had achieved a state of complete oblivion.

Sister Jia rolled down her window. Night air moved through the car, and something in her chest eased.

Perhaps it was having the CEO step in today that had given her solid ground to stand on. Or perhaps it was the girl beside her — so much younger, from what sounded like a similar home situation, and yet she had seen through it sooner and cut it loose more cleanly. That gave Sister Jia, in some way she couldn't articulate, the permission she'd needed.

If someone younger could do it — after everything she'd been through herself, why was she still tied up?

Some things, once you stopped holding them in your mind, stopped being ropes. They turned out to be one thin sheet of paper. One good pull and it came apart.

*

Xingfu Estate's underground car park matched the entrance: chaotic. Electric scooters parked at every angle, construction debris left without collection, a few large grey rats ambling past the bins with complete indifference to the incoming car.

"Sister Jia, wait here a moment. I'll get him upstairs." Chao Musheng opened the passenger door and helped Ah Ze out.

Curly Hair took Ah Ze's other arm. The three of them were nearly at the elevator when an old woman shuffled in behind them, dragging a sack full of plastic bottles that clattered with each step.

The old woman noticed Curly Hair's floor selection. Her tone was odd. "You're from out of town, aren't you."

"How did you know?" Curly Hair looked at the small, creased figure. "Is something wrong with the fourth floor?"

"Of course something's wrong." The old woman's missing teeth made the back of her throat visible when she spoke. "There was a big fire on the fourth floor not long ago. Made the news. Who local would live there?"

The elevator opened. Fourth floor.

Curly Hair felt her back go cold, her fingers finding the key in her bag, icy against her palm. She looked at the corridor — emergency light washing everything in green.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Water somewhere, echoing through the hallway from no clear source.

"Xingfu Estate residents really do whatever they please — putting AC units wherever they feel like it." Chao Musheng kicked aside a bin bag that had been left directly in the elevator doorway. A pair of flies escaped from it. "Which room?"

Drunk people were heavy.

He stamped his foot to trigger the motion sensor. Nothing. The light was broken too. He steadied Ah Ze with one hand, pulled out his phone with the other, and switched on the torch.

"BOO!"

A small child exploded out of a corner and threw itself at Chao Musheng.

They looked at each other. When Chao Musheng failed to be frightened, the child's lip wobbled with profound disappointment. He spun around, wrenched open his own front door, went inside, and slammed it behind him.

Through the door, Chao Musheng could still hear him swearing in a very small voice.

"Let's go." He picked his way along the sticky corridor. Curly Hair had gone still. "Come on — open the door. He's heavy."

"Right." She shook herself, found Room 404 in the corner, and unlocked it. They got Ah Ze onto the sofa in the living room.

Chao Musheng rolled his shoulder and surveyed the corridor from the doorway. Broken odds and ends piled in the corners. A shoe rack outside the opposite flat. He could smell it from inside 404.

"Xiao Chao." Curly Hair's voice was careful. "The fire that happened here — could it have been in our room? This room?"

System, you useless thing. When it comes to things that actually affect people, you won't lift a finger.

"Don't read too much into it." Chao Musheng closed the door behind him. "There was a fire — but the fire brigade arrived quickly. No casualties."

The one significant side effect had been a quietly difficult period for electronic lock vendors in several surrounding streets.

"The older residents love making small things sound like ghost stories. Take it with appropriate skepticism." He moved toward the bathroom — out of consideration for Curly Hair being a girl, he'd handle the room check himself. He tested the window latches, then the door again. "This is an old complex with a lot of short-term tenants though, and the population is mixed. Try not to walk back alone at night."

In the bathroom: a cracked mirror, giving off a faint wrongness in the dark.

He pushed the door open and turned on the light. "The mirror has some rust discoloration at the base, and the reflection is a bit murky. The landlord probably didn't replace it after the fire — cost-cutting."

"Everything else looks fine." He turned on the tap. It gave one muffled clunk and produced clear, clean water.

Curly Hair's expression was complicated. When she'd turned this tap on last night, it had run rust-brown. Same this morning.

And now it was clear the moment Chao Musheng touched it.

Even the pipes had two faces?

"Get some sleep." He headed back to the door. "If anything comes up tonight, call me. I'm close."

"Thank you, Xiao Chao."

*

She went back to the bathroom after he left. Turned the tap on again.

Rust water. Of course.

She picked up a small wooden stool from the floor and gave the tap two sharp knocks.

Now there was no rust water. There was no water at all.

She photographed the tap, expression neutral, and sent it to Chao Musheng.

[Curly Hair: Thanks Xiao Chao. Water's been normal ever since you came over.]

The message sent. A moment passed.

Then a surge of clear water poured out of the tap, strong and forceful, splashing over the rim of the basin and soaking the tops of her feet.

Curly Hair stared at it.

She started laughing despite herself, the kind that comes from being too tired to be angry.

*

Over the following days, a pattern established itself: Chao Musheng would step out of his estate every morning and find Curly Hair and Ah Ze already there to meet him. They came to find him at lunch. But they never pressed past what was natural, never interrupted work or life, never overstayed.

By Friday, Chao Musheng had helped Game Team Three crack their biggest outstanding problem. He waited for the cheering to subside and prepared to leave on time.

He hadn't made it out the door before a formal transfer proposal arrived from HR: senior management wanted to move him to the Kunlun Software Development team.

"Xiao Chao — you haven't signed it." Secretary Liu was in the corridor, looking at the unsigned form in Chao Musheng's hand, with the tone of someone who found this baffling but was trying to be diplomatic. "Software development aligns better with your actual field. With your ability, we could consider cycling you through a different department each week — a full-spectrum training track."

The original plan had been to put Chao Musheng in the software group from the start. The project team lead had been resistant on the grounds that Chao Musheng was only a second-year undergraduate and would probably just be in the way. Today, having heard that Chao Musheng had solved a week-long problem in his first week in the games team, the project lead had gone to the CEO personally to ask for him.

"Brother Liu — software development handles confidential material. Would it even be appropriate for me to be there?"

"Appropriate? You're someone both the CEO and I have personally vouched for." Secretary Liu had absolute faith in his employer. "The boss rarely praises anyone. But when he does, they never disappoint."

Chao Musheng wasn't sure whether Mr. Xu had ever been wrong about a person. He could see clearly, though, that Secretary Liu worshipped the man.

"Am I right, sir?" Secretary Liu looked past Chao Musheng's shoulder, the smile on his face acquiring the particular, involuntary warmth of an employee who has just realized their boss is standing behind them.