Fang Runing followed He Yuanxia through the entrance and back into the thick darkness.
The girl ahead walked too fast. The hem of her blue dress swayed twice like a fish's tail, then melted into the corridor's depths. Fang Runing didn't hurry after her. She knew she couldn't keep up, and there was no need. If the girl wanted to lead her somewhere, she would make sure she could follow. If she didn't, chasing her would be useless.
Her eyes gradually adjusted. The corridor's outline returned, no different from her first visit: white tiles, closed doors, fluorescent tubes overhead buzzing as though caught on the verge of death. But the temperature of the red thread around her wrist had changed. Its steady warmth now swung between hot and cold, as though something was interfering with its signal.
Fang Runing raised her wrist and used its faint glow to find her way. The light was dim, barely illuminating a patch of floor beside her feet. She saw her muddy footprints stretching in from outside. They were a size larger than her feet, their shape slightly different, as though someone were wearing her feet to walk.
Without betraying a reaction, she stepped into her own prints and continued.
He Yuanxia waited at the end of the corridor, standing before a door unlike any of the others. Gray-white soft leather padded its surface. Dozens of nail scratches overlapped densely, forming some eerie pattern. Warm yellow light shone beneath it.
“Here,” He Yuanxia said, her voice light and sweet. “She's waiting inside.”
Fang Runing approached. Rather than pushing at once, she first studied the girl's face. It held neither malice nor kindness, only a child's excessive concentration on a game of hide-and-seek. As though she had hidden a little sister and now brought someone else to find her.
“Who's inside?” Fang Runing asked.
“Aren't you looking for my sister?” He Yuanxia tilted her head. “She's in there. But she doesn't know she is. She might not hear you if you call.”
Fang Runing pressed a hand against the door. It wasn't locked; the pressure of her palm opened a crack. Warm yellow light poured through, carrying a faint smell like an old quilt aired in the sun. It was too ordinary—so ordinary that it clashed with everything rotten, bloody, and stale in this building. Rather than reassuring her, it tightened the tension inside her another notch.
She pushed the door open.
The room was bright with evening light. Outside the window lay a great expanse of clouds stained orange-red by sunset. Soft light spread in, falling on a narrow iron bed beside the window. Someone sat on it.
A woman with short hair, wearing a clean white T-shirt and dark trousers. Her back was to the door, her face toward the window. An open book rested on her knees, but she wasn't reading. She slowly stroked its cover, as though caressing a memory she had revisited over and over.
Fang Runing stopped dead in the doorway.
Not because that back was so familiar. Quite the opposite. She didn't recognize it. He Yuanqiu was taller than she was, stood straighter, walked briskly, and always sat propped against the hospital bed's headboard playing with her phone. This woman rounded her shoulders and folded slightly inward. A fine golden edge of sunset outlined her, making her look light and thin enough for the wind to scatter.
But Fang Runing knew it was her.
She couldn't explain why. Perhaps because the red thread had suddenly settled, neither hot nor cold, as though it had finally found its anchor. Perhaps because the little girl at the door had abruptly stopped, unwilling to take another step, and stood outside the threshold watching the person inside with a quiet gaze that had waited too long.
Fang Runing entered.
Her feet made no sound, as though she had stepped into a dream that must not be disturbed. The woman on the bed stirred and raised her head, seeming to hear something. Then she slowly turned.
It was the same face. He Yuanqiu's face. The eyebrows, eyes, bridge of her nose, the tiny mole by her mouth. But she was far thinner. The line of her jaw protruded sharply, her eyes deep-set, as though she had been ill for a long time. She looked at Fang Runing, sunset reflected in her eyes. Very bright, and very empty.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Her voice was soft and calm, without hostility, as though sincerely addressing someone she had never met.
Fang Runing parted her lips. She had imagined many possibilities. He Yuanqiu recognizing her, scolding her, asking why she'd taken so long, or laughing and patting her shoulder as usual: “Fang Runing, could you stop looking like someone died?” But she had never imagined this.
“Fang Runing,” she said. Her voice scraped out from deep in her throat, dry as sandpaper over wood.
He Yuanqiu looked at her. For an instant, something flickered in her eyes, like a pebble dropped onto still water. Then it was gone. She smiled faintly, barely curving her lips.
“Runing.” She repeated it, as though tasting the sound. “Pretty. Do we know each other?”
Fang Runing neither moved nor spoke. Something split open at the very bottom of her chest. It wasn't pain, but something deeper and colder, as though someone had gripped her heart and was slowly dragging it downward. She searched He Yuanqiu's eyes for any hint of a joke.
There was none. Those eyes were too clear, as though everything about her had been wiped away.
Outside, He Yuanxia gave a soft laugh, thin as broken glass falling to the floor.
“I told you. She doesn't know she's in here.” The girl poked her head around the doorframe, braids hanging beside her cheeks, eyes curving into narrow slits. “If you want to take her out, you have to make her remember first. Otherwise, she'll sit here forever, waiting for someone who doesn't exist.”
Fang Runing didn't turn. Staring at He Yuanqiu, she forced the words out one by one. “I'm Fang Runing. Your junior from university. You took a knife for me. You lay in a hospital bed, and I visited every week. I sat beside you without knowing what to say.”
He Yuanqiu listened quietly, her brow creasing a little, as though hearing someone else's story and refraining from interrupting out of politeness.
“You told me not to come down. To go up.” Fang Runing took one step forward, then another, until she was half an arm's length from the bed. She could see the pale blue veins on the back of He Yuanqiu's hand, the worn threads at her collar, and her own reflection in those eyes: face covered in dirt, eyes red, like someone who had crawled out of hell.
“Do you remember?” she asked.
He Yuanqiu looked up, lips slightly parted as though to speak, but no sound came. Very slowly, she raised a hand, as if checking whether the person before her was real. Her fingertips stopped beside Fang Runing's cheek without touching it. Warm, but not touching.
“I'm sorry,” He Yuanqiu said, more softly still. “I... don't remember.”
Fang Runing closed her eyes.
Many sounds filled her mind. The beeping of the hospital monitor. Her Go academy teacher tapping the board. Her mother's voice saying, “Better to let her go than keep tormenting her.” And the words He Yuanqiu had shaped with her lips when she took the knife. They tangled together like a scrambled game record, every move played in the wrong place.
Then she heard something else. More distant, heavier, coming from deep in the corridor outside. Metal scraping the floor. Wheels. Not just one set. Many, converging on this room from every direction.
He Yuanxia suddenly straightened and looked down the corridor. When she turned back, her smile had vanished, replaced by an almost frightened seriousness.
“They're coming to take the room back,” she said. “You have to leave. Now.”
“What about her?” Fang Runing asked.
“She can't leave,” He Yuanxia said. “She hasn't remembered. People who haven't remembered can't be taken out of this room. The door will eat her.”
Far outside, the metallic scraping drew closer, like an entire formation marching through the dark. Something swung from the rails of the birthing beds, striking the walls over and over. Clang, clang, clang.
Fang Runing didn't leave.
She looked at He Yuanqiu, the woman who shared the same red thread with her. Then she did something very stupid.
She reached out and lifted He Yuanqiu from the bed.
He Yuanqiu was light, too light for an adult. She didn't even struggle, only tipped her head back slightly and looked at Fang Runing's chin, as though startled—or as though she had long been waiting for someone she didn't know to take her away.
“We're leaving,” Fang Runing said, turning toward the door.
He Yuanxia stared wide-eyed from beside it, as though looking at a lunatic. She didn't stop her, merely stepped back against the wall and whispered, “It's no use. Someone she can't remember will fall apart outside that door.”
Ignoring her, Fang Runing carried He Yuanqiu through the frame and into the corridor.
The door silently closed behind them. Warm yellow light leaked through the crack, then went out abruptly, like a power cut.
Countless birthing beds emerged from the darkness, one after another, blocking the corridor completely. Behind each stood a figure in a nurse's uniform, cap pulled low to hide its face. They didn't charge, merely pushed the beds forward in slow, orderly ranks, advancing like a moving wall.
Fang Runing glanced down at He Yuanqiu in her arms. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow, as though she slept. Her body was growing lighter—so light Fang Runing began to fear that in the next instant she would turn to ash and sift through her arms.
The red thread lit between them, brighter and brighter, as though someone were continually increasing the voltage through a filament. Agony tore through Fang Runing's chest. Her leg gave way, dropping her to one knee. The woman in her arms still didn't wake.
She clenched her teeth and inched forward.
Clang. Clang. Clang. The bed rails struck faster, like a bell counting down to death.
She raised her head and looked one last time into the darkness at the corridor's end. When she spoke, her voice was soft, but every word rang distinctly through the constricted space.
“He Yuanqiu. You owe me more than a life.”
Something shattered in the darkness in answer.