Chapter 12

This face was exactly like her own face right now.

By rights a child's face should have bigger eyes, a smaller head, more baby fat…

But Zhi-Zhi's face was just like hers, as if she were looking in a mirror.

A grown adult's face on a tiny body, head large and body small…

It was deeply eerie.

Liu Zhiyi moved the watch away at once.

Just seeing Zhi-Zhi's face made her flesh crawl.

She'd guessed Zhi-Zhi might be her younger self, but she hadn't expected it to turn up in a form like this.

Even her actual childhood face would have been better, Liu Zhiyi thought, rubbing her temples, then rubbing at her arm.

But there wasn't much time to think just now; Liu Zhiyi noticed the "people" getting closer and closer.

They flickered on and off; Liu Zhiyi stared at the screen a good while before she realized it wasn't flickering — they moved so fast it only looked like a light blinking, except each blink they were somewhere new.

It scared her enough that she jostled Zhi-Zhi in her arms a few times.

"They're still getting closer!"

Zhi-Zhi: "Crying and keeping one eye open at the same time is so hard!"

Liu Zhiyi: "…"

She ran on with Zhi-Zhi tucked under one forearm, her hand feeling for and gripping Zhi-Zhi's face, turning it toward the blinking "people," while she raised her other hand to fix their positions with the watch.

They were really too fast.

In barely a blink the "people" were somewhere else.

Luckily the blinks ran in straight lines, so she could roughly predict the direction; Liu Zhiyi could only weave an S through the crowd of "people."

At that speed, Liu Zhiyi half-wondered whether that "mama" was going easy on her.

It was hard to fix the "people" with the watch, and often one would be suddenly face-to-face with her.

Being startled like that, over and over, was a trial for the heart, plain and simple.

Her heart rate now hovered steadily between 140 and 160.

Worse, Liu Zhiyi found her heart rate affected the "people's" speed.

They got faster and faster; sometimes she'd be staring right at one and then it was gone.

Zhi-Zhi: "Big sister, you've got a smell on you."

Liu Zhiyi started.

Her heart rate lurched past 160.

"The smell's stronger now," she heard Zhi-Zhi say.

Liu Zhiyi saw the "people's" faces all turn toward her, and some even lifted their heads, as if sniffing at something in the air.

Zhi-Zhi: "Are you very scared?"

Calm, calm.

Liu Zhiyi laid a hand on Zhi-Zhi's shoulder and began to slow her breathing.

She blinked — and in just that one blink, the watch screen was suddenly blocked.

A yellow floral-print skirt, to be exact.

The screen was small, and her shrunken body was short; she couldn't see the face, only the folds of the skirt, and an ashen hand hanging at one side.

The skirt was pretty, but Liu Zhiyi didn't dare move.

This "person" was right up against her hand.

Liu Zhiyi could feel it.

The back of her hand was pressed to a piece of soft fabric, and the fabric rose and fell, as if breathing.

Then she saw the floral fabric dent inward, and the ashen hand vanish.

The floral dress is bending down, reaching out, Liu Zhiyi thought.

She felt wind sweep over her head.

Silently Liu Zhiyi took hold of Zhi-Zhi's face and felt for a way to tip it up.

Zhi-Zhi's line of sight was blocked by the floral dress; Liu Zhiyi could hear breathing from all around, and with it a clicking sound, drawing closer and closer.

The "people" must have closed in all around, she feared.

Liu Zhiyi clutched Zhi-Zhi tight and quickly adjusted the angle of the watch.

"Zhi-Zhi, look up — look at the one in the floral dress."

She'd never reacted this fast in her life.

First the watch face up; after a hurried glance confirmed the floral dress's hand fixed in the air, she held her arm out and turned a half circle to take in her surroundings.

Legs flicked past on the screen, and faces up close.

Liu Zhiyi's heart thudded hard again, but she didn't dwell on it; once she'd made out a gap in the crowd of "people," she charged straight into it with Zhi-Zhi, without a second thought.

To keep from having a blind spot at her back, she kept it pressed as much as she could to the produce stands.

The whole time it felt like pushing through a packed bus — every so often she'd bump some unseen thing, or feel something brush past her.

But Liu Zhiyi didn't dare think about it, or look; head down, she ran for the red dot the watch marked.

"Do you smell that?"

The market suddenly turned noisy, and Liu Zhiyi heard many voices.

"Smells so good."

"Is that fresh meat?"

"Where? Where?"

"Where? Where?"

The waves of sound came one after another, rolling in and closing around her.

Liu Zhiyi swung her arm left and right; from every angle there were different "people's" faces, and limbs twisted and tangled across one another.

Liu Zhiyi ran on, not knowing what to do, or where to hide.

Luckily, the red dot was almost there.

She still remembered where it was — just ahead, past those few butcher's shops and she'd reach it.

Liu Zhiyi quickened her pace.

Through the watch she took a quick look ahead, and through the twisted, tangled figures could just make out a back turned to her, a cloth bag slung over its shoulder.

Strangely, even without seeing the front, Liu Zhiyi knew at a glance it was her mother's back.

It was a wholly unaccountable instinct, but she was utterly certain of it.

She thought of Zhi-Zhi's face, the same as her own.

So now not only was Zhi-Zhi a reflection of her younger self — even Zhi-Zhi's mama was a reflection of her own mother?

Then what did the red dot outside the market mean?

It was getting confusing.

Liu Zhiyi really couldn't make out now what this dungeon, spun from her own obsession, was even trying to say.

She ran into the aisle in front of the butcher's shops.

Almost the moment she stepped into the passage, the sounds that had been circling her all this time suddenly vanished.

This abnormal quiet…

Liu Zhiyi went on guard at once; the purple light spilling from the butcher's shops nearly filled the whole aisle.

She didn't much like that light, actually; she'd heard someone say once that a light this color made meat look fresher.

Don't think — Liu Zhiyi cut it off at once, not letting herself run with it any further.

Liu Zhiyi took the watch and looked around, and found the "people" all standing before the butcher's shops as if to shop — but their heads were all turned her way.

What were they doing?

Liu Zhiyi noticed one butcher's shop stood out, because it was the only one empty inside, with no owner.

She saw the shop's name: Lingling Pork Shop.

That seemed to be the shop her mother had liked best, back before the market was torn down, when she was alive.

Her mother had been closest with this shop's owner.

Come to think of it, hadn't there been a "woman" who crouched in front of her earlier?

"Zhi-Zhi, come, let auntie hold you."

Liu Zhiyi heard the voice again — that "woman's" voice.

She saw four furrows press into her forearm, as if something had grabbed hold of it.

"Hm? What's this?"

Liu Zhiyi's whole body floated up — picked up by a "person," to be exact.

She struggled, kicking her legs a few times, wanting to look with the watch, but her limbs wouldn't move — instead more fresh dents appeared on them.

—Huff.

She heard breathing again — a "person" drew a deep breath in over her head.

The "woman": "Such fresh meat."