Chapter 25: Golden Pear—A Choice at the Crossroads

For the first few seconds, Jin Xueli stared from a distance at her own back as she tended to the fire. Her mind felt like a battlefield in the aftermath of a nuclear detonation. Fragmented thoughts drifted like radioactive dust, scattering in the air, unable to coalesce.

Why were there two timelines in her mind?

In the first, on the night she encountered the stalker Anthony, there was no car accident at the back door of the bar. Since she hadn't mentioned her hunting knife, Anthony never "borrowed" it. She had entered the Nest, intending to retrieve something that could deal with him, but things went awry at the Chalk House, where a Resident replicated her form. That Resident firmly believed it was the true Jin Xueli. It even concocted an explanation for its lack of a backpack, phone, and knife: it had been so hurried to get into the car after their scuffle that it had forgotten them.

The truly thorny part was this: if the Resident was so convinced it was the real Jin Xueli, then she could no longer rule out the possibility that she was the Resident herself. She had originally assumed that because she had the phone and the knife, she was the genuine article. But what if she had simply forgotten the moment she snatched them from the original? After getting into the taxi, hadn't a segment of her memory been wiped? If that segment happened to be the moment she stole those items from the real Jin Xueli after transforming, then she had no evidence left to comfort herself.

Who was the Resident: the one lying on the floor, or the one sitting before the candle?

No... this question was a bottomless rabbit hole. If she fell in, she would never climb out. She had to set it aside for now. She would treat herself as the true Jin Xueli and trace the timeline forward.

After the Resident left, she had called a second car, strictly followed the taxi regulations, and tracked the Resident to the Museum of Modern Art. In the basement, she seized an opportunity and plunged her knife into the Resident’s neck.

Nothing she expected happened. The Resident stood still, hands pressed over the wound. She caught a glimpse of it, though she didn't notice if it bled—she had no chance to look closely because the Resident soon looked at her and smiled, revealing a familiar set of teeth.

"Since you’ve replicated my form, your neck should be slashed as well."

The first timeline ended with her own neck suddenly splitting open, blood splattering everywhere, as she collapsed like a shattered stone statue.

Jin Xueli knew she had died.

Yet, death was not the end. After death, she entered the second timeline. On that night with Anthony, a black SUV had charged straight at her; after she narrowly dodged it, it crashed into the back door. The driver was a bodyguard, and in their conversation, she mentioned she had a hunting knife, which Anthony later demanded from her. When she entered the Nest, she had cursed under her breath—being down a weapon left her feeling vulnerable.

The rest of the second timeline was identical to the first: she listened to the broadcast, stepped onto the Chalk House, hailed a taxi, and was replicated by the Resident. The only difference was that when this timeline terminated, she had opened her eyes on the floor.

Staring at the back turned toward the candle, Jin Xueli rose from the floor as silently as possible. The tiles were clean and cold, unstained by blood. The second timeline had replaced the first, becoming the true, latest version of history. Thus, she hadn't stabbed the Resident, and she hadn't been throat-slashed by a single sentence.

She didn't dare stand up straight for fear of being discovered. She retreated on hands and knees toward a pillar, holding her breath so tightly that her chest began to ache. She had to suppress it; she was terrified she might accidentally sob.

...How could a person be killed by a single sentence?

Compared to having a mouth open in one’s own neck, she wasn't sure which terrified her more: being killed again in some inexplicable way, or discovering she wasn't truly human and would be forced to wander the Nest as a Resident forever.

If she wasn't a Resident, why had her neck so faithfully replicated the other's wound?

Jin Xueli couldn't answer these questions. Pressing her back against the pillar, she squeezed her eyes shut and covered her mouth, wishing she could curl into a ball so tight that the Nest would never notice her again.

No, think calmly...

There was circumstantial evidence that the other was a Resident: first, it lacked the phone, knife, and backpack; second, according to the first timeline, it hadn't followed the taxi rules but had still managed to exit the vehicle safely.

Third—and this was the strongest evidence—the skin of the neck was but a thin layer covering arteries, nerves, blood vessels, the trachea, and the esophagus. Could a living person, after having their neck stabbed, really treat their own wound and act as if nothing had happened?

Calming down slightly, Jin Xueli peeked out. The Resident was still sitting before the candle, repeatedly adjusting the flame, looking impatient for the wax to melt. The softening candle formed a pool of nearly transparent tears in the air. From a distance, Jin Xueli could faintly hear a voice within the melting wax calling, "Mr. Wei."

The candle must be the key to her resurrection and the formation of the two timelines. The broadcast had called it a powerful artifact; it seemed the description was not exaggerated—to be able to drag a human life back from the dead was truly shocking.

Why, then, was the Resident so obsessed with it?

Jin Xueli scanned the room and noticed a long description on the wall opposite the exhibition. Usually, Nest artifacts were accompanied by some form of "item description." That must be it. However, it was across the exhibition hall. If she wanted to read it, she would have to pass behind the Resident.

No matter how she looked at it, she had to get rid of the Resident first.

Regardless of whether she was the true Jin Xueli, if the "Jin Xueli" by the candle died, she would naturally become the "true" one—right?

Facing the brink of her own existence, it seemed that even fundamental, principled things could be blurred. Before today, Jin Xueli never imagined she would harbor such thoughts. But if the Resident could kill her with a single sentence, how was she supposed to kill a Resident?

Jin Xueli’s gaze swept the room and found her off-road backpack slumped on the floor nearby. The bag was open, revealing a rolled-up towel and other sundries.

"Where did it go?" the Resident murmured in the distance, eyes fixed on the melting wax, sounding impatient. "He said something very important just now... didn't he? Where did he say it..."

While its attention was on the candle, Jin Xueli quickly kicked off her shoes and, with her sock-covered feet, crept toward the backpack, moving without a sound.

As she passed the bag, she reached in, hooked a long towel, and retreated quickly to the other side of the hall. She didn't dare stand in the open to look at the plaque; she slipped behind another exhibit at the end of the hall. It was a spiral of bundled wood, beautiful in its own way, though its purpose was unclear. At least it provided cover for a crouching woman.

The Resident would eventually notice she had vanished from the floor. Even if it was distracted by the candle for now, it would soon realize its neck was intact and its previous wound had been erased. This was her only chance to strike first. But how should she use it?

Should she use this moment to read the candle’s description, or strike the Resident? If she struck first, could the candle become the Resident's trump card? Did the throat-slashing she suffered earlier have anything to do with the candle?

Unfortunately, in the first timeline, when she followed the Resident down, she hadn't had the chance to look at the description. When people make choices at crossroads, they cannot foresee the domino effect that follows. Just as Jin Xueli never expected that entering the Nest to deal with Anthony would lead to news of an artifact, or that seeking the artifact would lead to being replicated by a Resident.

Which path to choose?

After a moment of hesitation, driven by an impulse she couldn't name, she pulled out her phone, silenced the shutter, zoomed in on the plaque on the wall, and took several photos.

Before she could enlarge the photos to read the text, the Resident stood up. Jin Xueli’s entire body tightened; she shrank, staring through the gaps in the wooden sculpture at the Resident’s back.

It hadn't sensed anything wrong. Dissatisfied with the candle, it placed a hand over it, moved a few steps as if searching for something, and crouched down again. With a *snap*, it opened the fire slot.

The flame flickered like seaweed, illuminated by the air, casting light onto the face that was her own.

Jin Xueli let out a small breath and enlarged the first photo, reading quickly. The first photo was the closest; though the text was blurred, she could grasp the gist. By the time she finished, her mouth was dry. No wonder she had been pulled from the death in the first timeline—the Resident had inadvertently changed history. She had never imagined such an inconceivable thing existed in the Nest.

If only she could bring it back to Blackmoor City...

She opened the second photo, but because the angle and distance were worse, the text was hard to make out.

Forget it. The most important thing was clear: although the candle was powerful enough to reverse history, it could not be used as a weapon.

Then, follow the original plan.

Jin Xueli made up her mind and tapped her phone to lock the screen.

On the suddenly darkened screen, her second face was reflected back at her.