Chapter 7: Golden Pear - The Hunter's Trade Is a Hard Path

The night in Blackmoor City is also the night of the Nest.

Wind spills from the fissures between heaven and earth, tousling her bangs. If she squints, peering out through the shadows of her lashes, Jin Xueli can barely distinguish whether this is the Nest or Blackmoor City.

It is a Blackmoor City abandoned and desolate, where shadows twist and the deeper one looks into the details, the more chilling they become. At the intersection ahead, the traffic light has lost its green; instead, a purple light flickers on and off. The surface of the empty road is gripped by the violet glow, then released, then gripped again, then released.

Only sound remains honest. She hears no car engines, no grinding tires, no blaring horns. There is no human chatter, no barking dogs, no vloggers introducing the scenery while filming themselves. At this moment, the only sound Jin Xueli hears is the rhythmic beat of footsteps.

*Tap.* A soft sound as her left foot lands. Before her right foot can even lift, she hears another *tap*.

The footsteps behind her have been following for several minutes.

The pursuer does not seem like a hunter. Hunters encountered in the Nest usually maintain a distance, eyeing one another with a cautious, aloof wariness. The constant threat of high danger keeps everyone’s nerves taut; no one wants to invite unnecessary trouble.

If not a hunter, then it is a Denizen.

Should she pretend not to notice?

Jin Xueli opens her phone camera, holds it close to her body, and tilts it slightly over her shoulder, snapping a photo with a swift, hidden motion. She quickens her pace to gain distance and glances at the screen.

In the photo, Jin Xueli’s own distorted, smiling face is looking back at her.

A mouth packed so full of white, oversized teeth that the lips seem too small to contain them. She appears to be resting her chin on someone’s shoulder, flashing a "peace" sign.

Jin Xueli recognizes it instantly: that shoulder is her own.

How ominous.

"Get lost!" Jin Xueli growls lowly without looking back, swiping the hunting knife she had already readied behind her to force the thing back. "Who do you think you're looking down on? Do you think I won't last long?"

There is no sound from behind. After a few seconds of silence, she hears her own voice let out a low, mocking chuckle: "Hee hee."

...It seems it has no intention of leaving on its own.

Though ominous, her luck is not entirely bad; the thing latched onto her is not overly dangerous.

This type of Denizen is common in the Nest. They choose a target and twist their faces into the likeness of that person, though the features are always slightly grotesque—an extra pupil in the right eye, a black hole for a nostril, or, as in this case, a mouth overflowing with teeth.

They trail behind their targets in that borrowed visage. Aside from being creepily unsettling, they pose no immediate danger.

Only when the target meets disaster and dies do these Denizens pounce, twisting and sucking on the corpse. Once they lift their faces, they have fully transformed into the exact likeness of the original owner. Some say they do this because they long to return to the world of the living, masquerading as humans to sneak back into Blackmoor City—but these are mere rumors, not to be taken seriously.

In other words, they are like vultures in the desert, circling above animals on the brink of death.

This particular Denizen likely smelled the alcohol on Jin Xueli and, noting her slightly unsteady gait, assumed she wouldn't last much longer. Its technique is inferior to its peers; usually, when a "vulture" follows, a hunter wouldn't even notice. This one, however, is stomping about with heavy, clumsy steps.

Still, regardless of how harmless it is, knowing that a distorted version of her own face is hovering over her shoulder is infuriating.

She tilts her head to listen, gauging the distance of the footsteps with her focus, calculating whether she can create an opening to shake it off—when a thought suddenly strikes her: *No, something is wrong.*

Jin Xueli shudders, stops dead in her tracks, and without waiting to inspect the road ahead, she darts to the side, her back slamming against a fence with a metallic *clang*.

***

That sound might draw other Denizens, but now is not the time to worry about the future. She had almost fallen for the "vulture" Denizen's trick.

"Jin Xueli" still stands a step or two away, watching her, its lower face nothing but teeth and grins. Its eyes, however, grow deeper and darker, resembling nothing so much as holes poked into dough by a child’s finger.

Jin Xueli tries her best not to look at it, sweeping her gaze over the ground she had almost stepped onto.

A hopscotch court drawn in chalk stretches out, long and endless, covering the entire sidewalk.

The chalk has faded, submerged in the dim yellow glow of the streetlights and the shadows cast by the roadside trees. Without careful scrutiny, it is nearly impossible to detect.

In the first row, four squares are drawn. The first three are empty; only the last one, near the edge, is marked with the words "Right Foot."

"Damn it, waiting for me here, are you?"

Jin Xueli wipes the cold sweat from her neck with her sleeve, cursing the other version of herself under her breath. "No wonder your footsteps were so clear, and why you intentionally stepped in the gaps between my strides—just so I would hear you..."

It was deliberate.

It wanted to force Jin Xueli to focus on what was behind her, to keep her mind occupied with the problem of "how to shake off the vulture." There are only so many ways to shake off a tail, and no matter which one she chose, she would have stepped into that chalk court while accelerating.

If she hadn't landed with her right foot on the square marked "Right Foot," she would be in serious trouble.

"November 16th, the Nest, Colorado Boulevard. Chalk hopscotch has appeared here."

Jin Xueli opens her voice memo app, describes the scene, and adds: "Although the 'vulture' did not directly harm me, it showed signs of luring me into a trap. This is a new behavioral pattern that requires attention."

She does not belong to any Hunter Guild, so her collection and updates of intelligence regarding the Nest are naturally less systematic than those of organized guild hunters.

But she has her own way of surviving: she takes the valuable information she gathers to the "Backlight Bar," where the owner—who looks like a Shar-Pei—exchanges it for other pieces of intelligence. He is like a human information exchange board, a primitive version of LinkedIn.

She tucks her phone away and looks around, feeling a sigh coming on.

To her right is a row of brick houses; short staircases lead up to their front doors. The spaces between the staircases are separated by patches of shrubbery. The fence she bumped into is just outside one of these patches.

Never mind the Modern Art Museum—even if she weren't headed there, she absolutely must not wander into any houses in the Nest.

The road to her left is empty. If she just stepped off the sidewalk and walked along the street, she could avoid the chalk court. Under normal circumstances, she could—but not now, because the traffic light is still purple.

"If it weren't for this junk, fifteen kilometers wouldn't take two days to walk..."

Jin Xueli mutters, secures her knife and phone, adjusts her off-road backpack to tighten it around her waist, and steps her right foot into the square.

She stands on one leg, the lingering effects of the alcohol making her ankle wobble like a wave. Covered in cold sweat and swaying, she steadies herself with one hand on the fence.

The square only says "Right Foot," so she must never impulsively add her left foot.

The smile on "Jin Xueli" remains frozen, then begins to warp starting from the cheekbone. One side of the cheekbone pushes outward, while the other begins to sag.

Is it giving up because it sees she hasn't fallen for it?

Generally, when a vulture sees that "replacement" is hopeless, it abandons the target's image, either turning into someone else or retreating into the shadows.

Other hunters say that watching your own features and appearance melt off another face like a summer popsicle is an unexpectedly sickening experience.

"Get lost, or I'll kill you," Jin Xueli says, casting a hollow threat. She turns back, switches to her left foot, and hops to the next center square. As her foot lands, her heavy backpack shifts, feeling as if someone had just jumped onto her back.

She windmills her arms a few times and finally steadies herself, having already killed the harasser, Anthony, ten times over in her mind—all this bad luck was definitely his fault.

But if this trip results in something good, like obtaining a precious artifact, then that will certainly be thanks to her.

As soon as the purple light on the traffic light dies out, she will look for a chance to hop off the sidewalk.

The first four or five squares were reasonable. Even with a dozen kilograms of gear on her back and the lingering haze of alcohol, hopping forward on one foot is exhausting, but it is at least possible.

From some point on, however, the text in the squares stopped being just "Left Foot" or "Right Foot."

"Left Hand," one square reads.

The squares on either side of it list punishments: "Coma," "Loss of red blood cells produced in the last year," "Visit No. 87 Colorado Boulevard."

Fortunately, there is a utility pole next to that square.

Jin Xueli struggles to hold her backpack with one arm, wraps both legs around the pole to go upside down, and presses her left hand onto the square. She feels like an acrobat, stretching out one leg to reach the next square, her entire body a trembling, lopsided "Y."

"Exchange food for the right to stand," another square reads.

That is nothing; she has plenty of food in her pack, all of it delicious.

She stands in the spot she bought with beef sausages, resting for a moment with shaking limbs. When she looks up again, she freezes.

Every square within her field of vision is densely packed with the same three words:

*Replicated. Replicated. Replicated. Replicated. Replicated.*

...Are they all punishments?

*Replicated?* What happens if she steps on it?

Jin Xueli feels a jolt of alarm. She slowly turns her head and sees a side profile with full, bulging cheeks resting on her shoulder.

At some point, it had silently caught up to her again.

She is only about a hundred meters from the traffic light. The purple light is still flickering, showing no signs of leaving.

The journey to the Modern Art Museum has hit a dead end just as it has begun.

Jin Xueli thinks of the "No. 1 Trending Song in the Nest."

Truth be told, that is the only "song" that can express her current mood. If she were to sing it, it would be nothing but a long, human howl.