Ji Tan: “…” He was eavesdropping and couldn’t answer. And this damned phone couldn’t even send a text message to explain.
The emergency stairwell was still full of little “sob, sob” sounds and pained hissing. Ji Tan scratched his cheek, then his ear, and decided to swallow his pride and keep listening.
“I just checked. His sanity level is 53 now. Sob, sob.”
“The blank prescription causes gaps in memory. If he’s recovered that much, he’s forgotten that much, too. Sss, ahh.”
BOOM! A deafening explosion blasted into Ji Tan’s ear. He jumped, and the soles of his shoes squealed sharply against the plastic flooring.
“What was that?” The two in the stairwell instantly grew wary and hurried out to investigate. They were standing on the landing between the first and second floors; the noise had come from the second floor.
Little Zheng forgot all about the pain in his chest and charged up the stairs.
Ji Tan looked both ways. Long corridors stretched off in either direction, and he’d be spotted whichever way he ran. The emergency door opened inward, toward the stairs, so he couldn’t hold it shut from this side.
In the blink of an eye, the remarkably resilient man had reached the emergency door between one pained hiss and the next. Through its narrow observation window, he spotted a moving figure. Just as the people on either side were about to remove the barrier between them and face off, the door suddenly flew open with tremendous force. Dr. Zheng had only just touched the handle when the impact sent him tumbling backward in a somersault, straight toward Wanwan, who stood frozen on the landing.
Ji Tan shook out the leg he’d used to kick the door open and strode away.
“What’s happening over there?” Back at the edge of the pharmacy hall, Ji Tan could see his brother standing motionless beside a pillar in the distance. He hurriedly asked Xie Zhi what was going on.
“Nothing. Just taking care of a little problem.” Xie Zhi seemed to be running; the sound of wind came through the phone, but his voice remained steady. “You suspect those two adulterers are connected to Old Ji’s illness?”
“Why are you calling them adulterers? They were just talking normally,” Ji Tan corrected him. “But yes, I do suspect them, and I’ll look into it. What I wanted to ask is whether you know about that special medicine prescribed on a blank prescription. My brother’s already had one injection. Would another one be dangerous?”
Xie Zhi fell silent for a moment. Gunshots, curses, and something that sounded like a beast roaring came from his end. Then he asked, “What’s his sanity level now?”
“Fifty-three.” Ji Tan felt a little embarrassed. Xie Zhi sounded awfully busy, but his brother’s situation was urgent, so he could only be thick-skinned and keep asking. He reassured himself that Boss Xie was an adult. If he really couldn’t spare the time, he would hang up.
With one hand, Xie Zhi swung a huge red hammer and flattened the snarling, clawing thing in front of him. He raised his other hand to stop a silver-clad team member approaching with a report. Standing amid the ruins, he replied in a languid tone, “Don’t give him another injection yet. Buy him a portable sanity-level monitor. I’ll explain later. Don’t worry so much. It’s nothing serious.”
Hearing that unhurried answer, Ji Tan slowly exhaled.
He really had been wound too tight over his brother. Since they’d met again last night, he’d managed to recognize him, assess his condition, find a hospital, and get a prescription. He’d even uncovered a lead on the people who might have caused Ji Sinan to end up like this.
He hadn’t been this efficient even when preparing for his university entrance exams.
Besides, Ji Sinan had been living on his own in this world for a long time. He’d even managed to live reasonably well for several months with his sanity level so low.
“All right,” Ji Tan replied, and ended the call.
When the pharmacy salesperson heard that Ji Tan wanted a sanity-level monitor, they enthusiastically brought out an assortment of models.
“Continuous sanity-level monitoring, with a margin of error of no more than one percent. A must-have whether you’re at home or traveling.”
The device was similar to a continuous blood-glucose monitor. An electrode pad with a tiny needle had to be attached somewhere on the body, and a number would appear on its display. The reading updated in real time, showing every change immediately without needing any manual adjustment.
The display itself was a black strap. It could be worn around the wrist or fastened to a leg or neck.
“We have clasp-on models, too. Wear one around your neck, and you can hang a bell or chain from it!” The salesperson waggled their eyebrows and showed Ji Tan the shop’s latest designs.
Ji Tan rubbed his forehead. “Just the ordinary model, please.”
He picked up a wristband and fastened it around his brother’s wrist. Once switched on, its flexible-film screen displayed a vivid yellow number: 53. It wasn’t as precise as the hospital’s equipment and only showed whole numbers, but it was good enough.
“Aren’t you buying one for yourself? I’d recommend it. All Orderbearers are required to wear these, and we ordinary people ought to keep a closer eye on our own condition, too,” the shop assistant said quietly.
Ordinary people seemed not to dare discuss Orderbearers openly.
Ji Tan hesitated, then asked, “How much is one?”
“Ten thousand.”
“Not buying it.”
“The second one’s half price.”
“I’ll take it!”
Outside the pharmacy, Ji Tan stared at the green “97” glowing on his own wrist and sighed heavily. Why couldn’t he ever escape the evil spell of “half price for the second one”?
When they got home that afternoon, Ji Sinan insisted that Ji Tan take off his outer clothes and wash them. The hospital was full of germs, he said, and anyone who’d been there ought to disinfect themselves from head to toe.
But there was no washing machine in their impoverished home. An exhausted Ji Tan agreed aloud, tossed his clothes into the laundry basket, and planned to wash them after a nap.
Ji Sinan couldn’t wait another moment. He immediately picked up his brother’s clothes, carried them to the sink, rolled up his sleeves, and began washing.
“Brother, leave them. I’ll wash them myself.” Ji Tan lay on the sofa, lazily tipping his head back to watch his brother upside down as Ji Sinan crouched on the doorstep with a washbasin.
The house was cramped, and the only relatively spacious, well-lit spot was just outside the door. Ji Sinan had dragged out a hose connected to the tap so he could wash the clothes on the steps. He tied on an apron with practiced ease and began emptying the pockets, fishing a few coins and a small card out of Ji Tan’s clothes.
The coins were the change Ji Tan had specifically obtained for the morning bus rides. The card was the one Sister Xu had pressed into his hand.
Ji Tan sprang to his feet and covered the face of the card, refusing to let Ji Sinan examine it. Something that uncanny might make his brother’s sanity level drop.
But Ji Sinan had already seen it. He adjusted his newly fitted glasses. “That eye is drawn incorrectly.”
Ji Tan’s breath caught. He slowly moved his hand away, exposing the eye without eyelashes, and glanced at the number on his brother’s wrist. Fifty-three. Unchanged. He ventured, “That drawing of an eye in the drawer. Did you draw it?”
“Mm. That one’s right. Argus’s eye isn’t a human eye. The two sides should be symmetrical.” Ji Sinan dipped a finger in water and drew an eyelash-free eye on the concrete step, its two pointed ends curving in exactly the same way.
Ji Tan’s lips trembled. Trying to remain calm, he asked, “How do you know what Argus’s eye looks like?”
Ji Sinan paused, then slowly shook his head. “I don’t know. I just know.”
Ji Tan gazed at the eye on the ground and felt that its lines held a power capable of seizing his very soul. The green “97” on his wrist began to flicker. He hurriedly scooped up some water and smeared the symmetrical eye away.
Perhaps his brother’s loss of sanity wasn’t connected only to those two people at the hospital. It might also have something to do with this neighborhood.
He tightened his grip on the card and decided to visit the old warehouse that evening.
Night arrived on schedule.
Alley 36 on Broken-Wire Street sank once more into its noisy tranquility.
Ji Tan put on a dark-colored outdoor jacket. He’d discovered several pieces of fairly good-quality clothing in the original body’s wardrobe, probably bought after his brother had begun earning a high salary at Clearbright Life Center.
He tucked the proposal into the enormous inner pocket of his jacket. Promotional card in hand, he nimbly skirted the mud and hopped across broken bricks and stones toward the old warehouse at the end of the alley.
It was a spacious building enclosed by sheets of metal, with old timber and broken furniture piled inside. Supposedly it belonged to the owner of a furniture store on the next street. The owner had died several years earlier, leaving the warehouse unused, and his family had hardly bothered with it since.
There were no electric lights in the warehouse. A group had gathered in the middle, with candles arranged in a ring. Dim yellow flames illuminated faces of every age, men and women alike. As the candlelight wavered, their expressions appeared and disappeared in mottled patches.
“We gather here to listen to the great existence within the darkness.” Their leader was an old man in a black hooded robe. His face was hidden, and his voice sounded aged and hoarse.
Everyone raised their hands with him. “Listen!”
Only then did Ji Tan notice a platform in the center of the gathering, built from broken wooden planks and roughly half a person’s height. A human-shaped object and a jumble of other things lay on top.
“That being is the god Argus’s most faithful vassal, the immortal king within the darkness! We worship and humbly serve that being, and they shall grant us the power of eternal life!”
The hooded figure took something from the rough wooden platform, raised it high overhead, and shouted, “Fuer-Zas-Os! Keh-keh-keh!”¹
Elio’s Note ¹: The original “桀桀桀” represents a stereotypically sinister, villainous cackle in Chinese fiction. The English “Keh-keh-keh” preserves the repeated sound, which is important to the chapter’s final joke.
Everyone threw up their hands and repeated, “Fuer-Zas-Os! Keh-keh-keh!”
Chanting, they slowly circled the candlelight.
Ji Tan narrowed his eyes. His mild nearsightedness made it hard to see clearly, so he took out his phone, turned on the camera, and zoomed in to use it as a magnifying glass.
The instant Ji Tan saw what that object was, he went rigid.
It was a section of a human leg bone, rotting and discolored.
Ji Tan was about to gasp when a large, warm, dry hand covered his mouth. His eyes widened in terror, and he heard Xie Zhi’s infuriating voice whisper beside his ear: “What did I warn you? Don’t get involved with cults.”
Drenched in cold sweat from the fright, Ji Tan elbowed the person behind him.
Suddenly, the chanting stopped. The people circling the candles stood still and turned as one toward the old oil drum behind which the two of them were crouching. Young and old, men and women, their gazes were hollow and frightening. Among them was Sister Xu, whom Ji Tan had spoken to only that morning.
Ji Tan swallowed, sprang to his feet, and abruptly threw both hands in the air. “Fuer-Zas-Os! Keh-keh-keh!”
Then he kicked Xie Zhi, who was still crouching.
Xie Zhi got up with a reluctant look, raised both fists, and joined in. “Fuer-Zas-Os! Keh-keh-keh!”
Only then were the others satisfied. Their leader said, “Welcome to the fold. And what about you?”
At those words, everyone who’d been staring at Ji Tan and Xie Zhi turned in unison toward the entrance, where Ji Sinan stood wearing his little-bear apron and brandishing a spatula.
Ji Tan was dumbstruck. He’d clearly coaxed his brother to sleep before leaving. Why had the man gotten up in the middle of the night to cook? Ji Tan frantically gestured at him. Copy what they’re saying! Hurry up and say it!
Ji Sinan raised his spatula. “Keh-keh-keh! Keh-keh-keh! Keh-keh-keh!”