Chapter 2

☆2. My Other Self Is a Man

【3】

Improvise…?

Before Lin Xi had time to understand what those words meant, she saw the man wave his hand and pull a massive scythe out of thin air. He raised it and brought it down, casually lopping off the killer’s head as if he were chopping a radish. She watched with her own eyes as that living head rolled onto the ground, blood spraying from the neck and splattering everywhere.

Lin Xi’s eyes went wide. She clamped both hands over her mouth, but she still couldn’t suppress the shrill sound of terror that escaped her throat. What shocked her even more was that the corpse’s entire body suddenly began emitting a faint crimson light. It grew denser and denser, wrapping around the corpse and slowly lifting it into the air. With a “bang,” like fireworks blooming, it vanished brilliantly into the air.

Van… vanished? The corpse had disappeared into thin air!

The man waved his arm, and the massive scythe immediately disappeared. He turned his head and stared quietly at Lin Xi. Lin Xi had been so frightened out of her wits by this supernatural scene that she stood motionless, letting the man examine her.

“Tch.” After a long moment, the man made a sound of disgust. “Get up.”

Lin Xi didn’t move.

The man, out of patience, bent down and grabbed Lin Xi by the collar, hauling her up as roughly as if he were handling livestock. This finally let Lin Xi get a clear look at him—a handsome, sharp-featured face. But at this moment, even if a Bodhisattva were placed before Lin Xi, she’d have no heart to appreciate it. Her face was drained white, her whole body cold, like a schoolkid cornered by thugs demanding money on the way home. Her eyes stared blankly at the man in black, utterly at a loss.

The man squinted at her for a long while, then suddenly said in a low voice: “Why didn’t you run just now?”

Lin Xi didn’t know what he meant by the question, so she could only answer honestly: “My legs… my legs went weak.”

The man wore that contemptuous expression again: “Your legs go weak even when you’re about to be killed?”

Lin Xi’s face crumpled: “But… there was nothing I could do about it…”

“Tch, useless.”

Lin Xi thought: I’ve witnessed him kill someone, and this man is so disgusted with me—in a bit, when he’s annoyed, he’ll definitely cut me up like a radish… She felt certain she was going to die today. Her mouth turned down, and she could no longer hold back the fear and panic in her heart. Tears burst from her eyes: “I’m… I’m sorry. I’m sorry for living so uselessly! But—but even if I’m this eyesore, could you at least let me live a little longer… let me call my mom and dad, just one phone call, boo hoo…”

“Tch, what are you crying for!”

The slight sharpness in his tone only made Lin Xi wail harder. She covered her face, crouched down, and cried uncontrollably, thinking that since she was about to die anyway, she might as well let it all out once before the end, and not become a bitter ghost.

The man took a deep breath and nudged Lin Xi’s foot with his toe: “Stop crying. Get up.”

Lin Xi didn’t move. She cried bitterly on her own for a good while, and then noticed how strangely quiet everything had gotten around her. She gradually stopped crying and spread the fingers covering her face, revealing a pair of bright, glistening eyes—and happened to see the man crouching right in front of her, his handsome, rugged face covered in a pitiful mess of snot and tears.

Lin Xi was startled. She saw the man staring at her with a look of disgust, his brows tightly furrowed, his expression completely at odds with the snot and tears all over his face. Lin Xi hiccuped: “You… what are you crying for?”

“Because you’re crying.” The man raised a hand and pointed at Lin Xi. “Because I share the same life as you. You and I are the same person.”

Lin Xi’s jaw dropped, and snot ran down the curve of her face into her mouth. She stared with a bizarre expression at the man who had said this with such a straight face, and was deeply convinced that she must have run into a lunatic…

【4】

The late-summer night breeze dried the snot and tears on both their faces, leaving their skin feeling tight. Lin Xi wiped her tears and said weakly to the man: “But… from what I’ve observed, you should have male characteristics…”

The man raised an eyebrow slightly: “Of course I do.”

Lin Xi grew even more at a loss: “But I’m a girl.”

“More or less.”

“Then how could we be…” Lin Xi didn’t dare say her conclusion out loud, afraid that she might accidentally anger the man and he’d cut her down with one stroke.

“You think I want to believe it?” The man stood up and wiped the snot and tears from his face, his voice carrying a note of self-mockery. “That my other-world self would turn out to be such a weak, incompetent woman. Tch!”

Lin Xi was stunned. He said… another world?

The man extended his hand. There was a small tear in the sleeve on his left arm, and blood had soaked through the thick fabric. He said: “A few people tangled with me when I was rushing over. It took some effort to kill them, which gave that guy just now a chance to strike. This wound is from a hidden weapon earlier—you should have the same wound on your hand.”

Lin Xi looked down at her own arm. Sure enough, the wound was in the same place as the man’s.

She was dazed. Thinking of all the inexplicable injuries she’d suffered since childhood, she stood up and looked at the man with unconcealed shock. The man said gravely: “I work as an assassin in another world. My body is constantly covered in wounds, big and small—you should have those marks too. If you don’t believe we’re the same person, I can name the location and shape of several scars on your body. Or even better, we can test it right now.”

With that, the man casually plucked a leaf from a street tree and lightly sliced the tip of his left index finger with it, as if cut by a knife. A bead of blood welled up. Lin Xi stared blankly at her own finger. She felt no pain at all, yet the skin had broken open for no reason, and blood was seeping out.

“Understand now? I don’t know what went wrong between the two worlds that linked us together, but the fact is: I’m hurt, you’re hurt. You die, I die.” The man tossed away the leaf and looked calmly at Lin Xi. “Even though, from where I stand, living with that pathetic attitude of yours is worse than death—I’ll still keep you alive. A long, full life.”

“W-wait a minute. This is someone’s prank, right? Another world and all that… lives linked together and all that… isn’t that too absurd?” Lin Xi grabbed at her hair. “Where are you from, some kind of con artist?”

The man eyed her with disdain: “Absurd as it is, it’s reality. And right now that’s not even the worst of it—I’ll explain the details later. In any case, from now on I’ll be living with you…”

Lin Xi shook her head and cut him off: “No, no, you’re definitely a con artist.” With a trembling hand she pulled her phone from her bag. “If you don’t leave, I’m calling the police!” She had already dialed 110, and the ringing tone came through from the other end.

The man stood still and watched her for a moment: “Tch, women are nothing but trouble.” His gaze deepened. “Fine. Just don’t come crying to me to save you later.” With that, his figure dissolved like smoke and vanished in an instant.

Just then, the operator’s voice came through the phone: “Hello, how may I help you?” Lin Xi stared at the empty little street, as quiet as it always was when she walked home. She couldn’t quite react—the things she had just experienced… had they really been real?

“Hello?” the voice on the other end prompted again. Lin Xi blinked and answered: “I think… I might be hallucinating?”

“Alright, miss. Please find something hard nearby and bump into it—that should fix it.”

“Okay…”

After hanging up, Lin Xi knocked her head against the streetlamp beside her. Had she… seen a ghost?

【5】

When she woke the next morning, the sun was bright. Lin Xi stretched and felt that she’d had a truly absurd dream yesterday—people vanishing into thin air and another world, pure fantasy… Her gaze accidentally fell on her left arm, where a newly added wound was clearly visible.

She fell silent for a moment, then let out a long, defeated sigh. It hadn’t been a dream!

Lin Xi got up, took a change of clothes, and went into the bathroom. She liked to shower on summer mornings to keep her head clear and to sort out everything she had to do that day. But today her mind was a mess—one moment it was the image of that man’s head being sliced off by a giant scythe, the next it was that man’s voice saying they were the same person.

She changed and came out of the bathroom, sat down at her desk, turned on the computer, and typed “parallel world” into the browser, then began browsing one page after another.

She was a girl who took things seriously and was extremely stubborn—she had to see something through to the end before she’d stop. There was simply too much information about “parallel worlds” online, and she read on, absorbed, until her stomach was growling with hunger and she finally pulled her eyes away from the screen.

Rubbing her slightly blurred eyes, Lin Xi glanced at the sky outside and realized she had unknowingly sat there until evening. Lin Xi sighed, closed all the windows, and decided to eat first.

Her desktop background was solid black, because it gave her an inexplicable sense of security.

When she closed the last window and the black desktop appeared, the monitor acted like a mirror and reflected her figure—and at that moment, she saw a man standing behind her, his entire body wrapped in bandages, with only one eye visible on his face, staring at her.

Lin Xi’s heart skipped a beat. She didn’t dare look back, preferring to believe it was just a hallucination. But the next moment, in the monitor’s reflection, she saw the man slowly raise an axe! Lin Xi’s eyes bulged. She had no time to hesitate—she immediately hugged her head and ducked, quickly shrinking under the computer desk. In the flash of a spark, she heard a huge crash above her head: the bandaged man had brought the axe down and split the monitor in two.

Electricity crackled. The axe was buried in the wooden desk, and when it was yanked out it made a harsh, grating “kakaka” sound. Her panting and violent heartbeat—all the sounds played a terrifying symphony in Lin Xi’s ears.

Lin Xi was certain now: this was absolutely not some random hallucination!

She hugged her head, curled into a ball, and clenched her teeth hard without making a sound. She wanted to run, but under the desk was sealed on three sides—the only side she could flee from was exactly where the bandaged man was standing. She hesitated over whether to risk a desperate dash, when suddenly everything above her went quiet.

The silence made Lin Xi even more panicked. Suddenly, the bandaged man’s body bent down at an incredible angle—his feet were still on the floor, but his head hung upside down and reached under the desk, staring straight at Lin Xi with that single remaining eye. That eye was like an animal’s—no whites at all, entirely pitch black.

Lin Xi gasped in terror again and again. She retreated backward, but there was nowhere to retreat to.

The bandaged man reached out and grabbed Lin Xi by the hair. Lin Xi finally couldn’t hold back the fear in her heart and screamed. The bandaged man paid no mind to her struggling at all—he dragged her out from under the desk by her hair.

Lin Xi was frightened out of her wits. The only thought in her heart was that she’d studied for so long, worked so hard! And before she could even take the graduate exam, she was going to be chopped to death by someone for no reason like this!

What an injustice!

【6】

At the critical moment between life and death, even a rabbit will kick.

Lin Xi kicked wildly at the bandaged man with both feet, but her attacks were nothing to him. The man’s hand moved, seizing both her feet. His arm, like a snake’s body, coiled softly around Lin Xi’s legs, leaving her unable to move at all.

At this moment, no matter how bizarre things got, nothing could shake Lin Xi’s determination to survive. She had no attention to spare for anything else. Seeing that the sandal on her foot had slipped off, Lin Xi reached out and grabbed the slipper, then swung it hard right at the bandaged man’s eye.

This seemed to hit the man’s weak spot. His body reeled backward, and he shook his head. But after the pain came even greater fury. His mouth seemed to be struggling to open beneath the bandages, letting out indistinct, muffled roars. His arm coiled tighter around Lin Xi’s legs, and the bandages on his body suddenly shot out like arrows, wrapping around Lin Xi’s wrists and completely binding her movements.

The man raised the axe and, without even checking whether he had the right position, brought it down at Lin Xi.

Lin Xi’s heart stopped. She squeezed her eyes shut, and for some reason the words the man in the black trench coat had said last night suddenly popped into her head. He’d said she shouldn’t come crying to him for help later. He knew she’d run into danger again. If he really meant that they were the same person, that they lived and died together, then how could he have just left so easily yesterday!

That person must be watching from somewhere nearby. He was waiting for her to show weakness, waiting for her to beg him for help!

But if she begged for help now, wouldn’t that be way too fucking undignified!

But! But! In the face of a life that hadn’t even gotten into grad school yet, what the hell was dignity worth! Lin Xi screamed at the top of her lungs: “Help! I’m begging you!”

“Ding!”—a crisp sound.

The world seemed to fall silent in that instant. Lin Xi slowly opened her eyes and saw a massive scythe blocking in front of her chest, catching the axe that had nearly split her open. The man in the black trench coat stood idly to the side, glancing at her with an unreadable look, carrying countless layers of indescribable mockery: “Tch, and here I thought you actually had some backbone. Go on then—tell me, are you still going to let me live with you or not?”

Lin Xi’s legs were still bound by the bandaged man’s arm. She was practically lying flat on the ground. With one trembling hand she grabbed the hem of the man’s trench coat and said, her voice thick with tears: “Yes. Whatever you want.”

The man was slightly taken aback. He raised an eyebrow. His arm turned, and the scythe easily hooked the axe away and tossed it casually to the side. The bandaged man seemed absolutely terrified of this man in black. He quickly retracted the arm binding Lin Xi’s legs, twisted his body, and made as if to leap out the window and flee.

“Ah, wait. I didn’t say you could go.” The man in black gave the scythe a light wave, hooking it around the bandaged man’s neck and pulling him back. The bandaged man’s eye darted frantically, as if desperately searching for a way to escape. The man said slowly, “Don’t be nervous. I just have three questions for you.”

The bandaged man trembled all over, nothing at all like the decisive, composed figure who had been hunting Lin Xi moments ago.

“First, were you trying to kill her?” The man pointed at Lin Xi. The bandaged man, not understanding why, nodded timidly. The man asked again: “Second, were you trying to kill her because you wanted to kill me?” The bandaged man nodded honestly again.

Lin Xi understood. This man was making someone else prove that what he’d said yesterday was true.

The man curved his lips without a trace of feeling: “Last—how do you want to die?”

Author’s Note: Mm… the next chapter will update on the 29th at 10 AM.