Narcissist

Translation by Jiaxin He

About the author

Frost Echoes, a science fiction author graduated from Peking University. His long novel The Cry of the Dead received the Qixiang Cosmos Award for the First Globally-held Metaverse Writing Contest, and has been published. He has received multiple awards from SciFidea Chinese Dyson Sphere Essay Contest, 2023 Qixiang Cosmos Long Novels Contest, the Waterdrop Award, and the Douban Reading Writing Contest. In addition, several of his short stories have been published on Science Fiction World Magazine and other science fiction platforms.

About the translator

Jiaxin He majored in English Literature in college, she has always loved reading all sorts of novels as they often serve as the perfect medium for people’s imagination. While she grew up in China, studying abroad in the U.S. for over 10 years made her realise and appreciate the power of language as a means of communication. Now, she is more than delighted to combine the two things that she holds dearly to help connect more people through words. She has participated in the Chinese to English translations of games such as Onmyoji, Ghost Story, Legend of Mir, and so on.

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Main text:

Home, is but an Interrogation Room

At seven o’clock, the music sounded punctually.

In her dreams, the woman knew that this was Act I finale of Swan Lake, a tune she knew all too well. This is a cheerful tune, depicting a wedge of swans flying into the skies. The white, soft swans, the pine-scented forest, and the crisp clear water of the lake.

In her dream, the woman had become a swan and was flying, no, floating in the sky. True flight takes no effort, the wind will take care of everything. And there’s no destination, just floating.

The woman indulged in the sensation of floating until the sound of the alarm clock at half past seven, like a blade, lynched her dreaming self.

There is a theatre next door. For a while now, the music would start punctually at seven o’clock every day, as the sound technicians had to tune the audio equipment before the show officially kicked off at ten o’clock.

The lynched woman forced herself to open her eyes. After barely piecing her fragmented body back together, she pulled herself out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom to splash cold water across her face.

At this point, the music had transitioned to Act II, where Princess Odette and her companions were turned into swans by the evil magician Rothbart, and could only regain their human form at night. The music begins to turn low and tense. The Princess is waiting for her saviour to arrive, but of course, the saviour had to be a man, and had to be a prince. Since the beginning of time, only man can save woman.

The woman spat the toothpaste foam out of her mouth as she wondered what was so good about being human and what was so bad about being turned into a swan? She couldn’t figure it out. If she was turned into a swan, she would want to fly, no, float, instead of reverting back to her human form.

The woman rubbed cleansing foam all over her face, closed her eyes, and the vision of floating in her dreams, washed back into her body.

A swan floats in the air …… without direction, purpose, or things that must be accomplished …… and most importantly, without a boss.

The image of a boss popped up in her daydream, where he appeared as Zeus, golden and majestic.

The air in which the woman supposedly floated in seemed to solidify into ice.

Knowing that there was one way to break through the concrete ice, the woman reached a still-foamy-hand between her legs. That floating sensation came back, and that imagery of the boss bowed out of her imaginary stage for a temporary leave.

In her mind, there was now a lake made of tears; the lake became turbulent, and the swan flew away. Then the lake grew even more troubled and overflowed its dam. After it was emptied, the gravel and rubbish at the bottom of the lake were revealed.

Tears flowed away, and her insides were now empty; the woman was now just a layer of skin, withering to the ground.

She opened the bathroom door with a sense of relaxation and comfort when she suddenly felt a pair of eyes on her, and she felt herself being interrogated by the gaze. She was getting smaller, infinitely smaller, under the pressing gaze of the interrogator.

The woman forced herself to get composed and meet those very eyes. They were her own eyes, a large picture of herself hanging on the wall, dressed in dance costume, looking directly at her future self. She was once a promising student at the dance academy, too. In this interrogation from the past, the woman felt herself turning into a speck of dust, into a hair that fell to the floor to be stepped on.

The woman slipped her feet into her trainers and hurriedly fled the interrogation room.

Mankind, is the Hell for God

On her way to work, she has to pass the theatre. As since they invariably tunes their audio equipment at seven o’clock every day, the noise makes it cheaper to rent around the vicinity. Since it’s also not far from where she works, she eventually gave in after trying to move several times.

Opposite the theatre is a Catholic church called the Church of Epiphany. On the roof of the church, a crucifix stands solemnly with Jesus crucified on it, His head covered in thorns and nails piercing through His hands.

During the years when she was a heavy alcoholic, she tried finding faith. She tried praying to Jesus, and attended a sermon or two. She once asked a priest, “Why was Jesus willing to suffer for mankind?”

The priest replied, “Because of love. To love someone is to be willing to suffer for them, and Jesus loved all mankind, so he willingly suffered for us all.”

Mankind was created from the image of God, and because God loved all men, they became the hell for Him. She could not understand what kind of love could humble God to such an extent. This doubt kept the woman from accepting the faith. Later, the woman found a way to indulge herself in a state of slight intoxication, even without alcohol, and forgot about faith altogether.

People are obviously more interested in secular pleasures than religious metaphysics, and while the Church of Epiphany is largely deserted all year round, audiences have already begun to line up in front of the theatre, with a huge poster of ballet star Lin Zhilin next to the queue.

Old memories struck her abruptly, since she used to be classmates with Lin Zhilin many years ago, and the brightest star in the class was her, not Lin Zhilin. If not for that incident, it would have been her on the poster. Ambitiousness could sometimes bring success, while others only leave ugly scars.

She hurriedly shut off the valve of her memory and ran towards the bus.

Darkness, is Illuminated by Sparks of Pain

If there are aliens spying on Earth, they must think that Earthlings are a strange kind that enjoys self-imprisonment.

In any city, there are lots of square buildings, with square rooms inside each buildings, and square grids inside each rooms. Smaller squares lie within large squares. People draw these squares and confine themselves to them.

The woman was seated in a cubicle, facing the document on the computer screen. The document doesn’t really need to be reviewed again. The duplication of the client’s pet dog is underway, and there’s really nothing to do with it at this moment. But at work, you have to pretend to be busy, or you will be. Before being “optimised” into this line of business, she couldn’t understand why anyone would duplicate a pet. Wouldn’t it be better to buy a new one? But slowly, she understood. It’s all about neatness, which represents control, and control means power, for which there is the ultimate thrill.

When she was seven years old, she once watched a funeral of a certain tycoon live on TV. Neat crowds lined up in parade-like squares, even the crying was uniform. Since most people didn’t have the means to create a parade square at home, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to duplicate ten puppies and have a virtual parade.

It has been ten minutes since the puppy was taken to the duplication room. The owner who sent it over is waiting in the VIP room. Those who are able to afford the duplication service are VIPs, as this service charges an exorbitant fee, enough to buy a small house in a second-tier city.

The woman had previously visited in the duplication workshop. The room is spacious for a puppy, but wires are strewn everywhere, like a web trapping its prey. When a duplication begins, there would be a red light sweeping across the room and a sound that booms like thunder. She imagined herself to be the puppy that had been tied up, placed in a basket and sent into the duplication room. The puppy didn’t know where it was, the puppy didn’t know what it was doing, the puppy didn’t know if it would make it out of the room alive.

Little did the puppy know that it was its favourite master who had sent him here.

When the duplication is over, the puppy would be sent to the VIP room, where its most trusted master would loosen its leash, pet it, tell it that everything is over, and that everything is fine. Then the puppy would love its master even more. Next, another identical puppy would be brought out. The duplication takes place at the molecular level.

A light cough interrupted the woman’s contemplation, who then realised that her boss was standing behind her.

Her boss lightly hooked with his finger, and the woman’s soul was hooked away at once, following the boss into the conference room, before her body hesitantly tagged along.

Her boss sat at his desk, looking down at her. The woman cowered in the chair as her gaze looped around the weighty belly and met the boss’s eyes briefly. The woman’s gaze instantly cracked into pieces, and she quickly looked down. This victory made her boss look all the more towering, just like Zeus in Greek mythology.

He pulled up the sales figures for the first three quarters of the year, which was presented in the form of a bar graph, and lectured spitefully while pointing to the lowest bar on the graph. For three quarters in a row, the woman was the worst performing salesperson.

She thought that the conversation would follow the usual routine of him starting off with a rebuke, followed by her explanations, and ending with the acknowledging of her mistakes. But it didn’t. Her boss wanted more. This room was soundproof, everything that happened in this room would not be seen or heard outside.

Halfway through, the woman opened her eyes and looked at the shadows on the wall. There were two shadows, one large and one small, overlapping and entangled with one another. She suddenly recalled how she danced Swan Lake at the dance academy years ago.

That night, she returned home and spent half an hour lying dead on her bed first. After that, she got up, slowly crawled under the bed, and pulled out two pots of cacti. The two potted cacti were identical and were her first duplications upon joining this department.

The cacti were dusty and hadn’t been watered in three years, but both were alive and well. She wished people could be like cacti.

The woman closed her eyes and pricked her fingers with the cactus spines, sparks of pain illuminated the darkness and gave her some relief. Shaking her bleeding fingers, she made her way to the bathroom. She pressed her fingers to the mirror above the sink.

The next morning, after the woman brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth in the mirror, she saw an unsightly bloodstain on the mirror. Inexplicably, she felt a little better inside.

One night, many days later, after the entire mirror was covered in bloodstains, the woman made up her mind. She took out her phone and got a taxi.

I Am You, and You Are Me

It was cold that night, a sign that it was going to snow, the woman arrived at her office at the coldest hour of the early morning.

Using a key that she had illicitly made, the woman unlocked the door to the duplication workshop. She took off her clothes and walked naked into the scanning room of the duplication workshop, where she had tortured many small animals, and now, it was her turn to torture herself.

Alarms roared as duplicating humans was absolutely forbidden. The woman walked out of the room and over to the controls, switching off the alarms and deleting logs of the operation.

The woman was reminded of the puppy that had been sent into the duplication workshop, naked and wary, but this time she herself was this puppy. The scanning room in the duplication workshop was designed for pets, too small for a person. Hence, during the duplication, the probe of the molecular scanner squeezed her, leaving her chest and abdomen covered in dark bruises.

An hour later, a naked woman walked out of the duplication workshop and into the lounge. The woman was already dressed and waiting for her in the lounge. The two of them looked exactly the same, as if they were mirror images. The woman’s mind was taken over by ecstasy. Life was like travelling against the odds, but she now finally had something, no, a person, in this world that she could understand and control.

There was a large mirror in the lounge inside the duplication workshop. The woman stood in front of the mirror holding the duplicate. She was a socialised being, fully clothed, while the duplicate was a primitive being, naked, but they looked exactly the same.

The duplicate opened her mouth in an attempt to say something, but was unable to do so.

The woman said “I” as a demonstration for her.

“I,” said the duplicate.

“You,” the woman continued to demonstrate.

“You,” said the duplicate.

“I am you, and you are me.”

“I am you, and you are me.”

In the duplicate’s mind, many vague memories took shape at this moment, like the mouth of a spring that just became unclogged, allowing water to burst forth.

The woman said, “You must always remember that you were made from ribs that I removed from my body. That you are an integral part of my body.”

The duplicate nodded.

“Repeat what I said.”

“I was made from ribs that you removed from your body. I am an integral part of your body.”

The woman led the duplicate out of the front gate of the company. It was snowing heavily. The woman took off her own clothes and put them on the duplicate.

The duplicate looked at everything around her, feeling intrigued. The woman took the duplicate’s hand and walked firmly forward.

The streetlight reflected two figures, one large and one small. Two incomplete individuals, merged together, to become a complete person.

Centipede on the Abdomen

Does anyone know what it feels like to love someone deeply? What we usually call love are desires, hormones, and projections of our inner flaws. The woman’s love for the duplicate was nothing like that; it was a love that stemmed from empathy. The duplicate was a precise replica of the woman. When the woman just stepped out of the duplication workshop, at the molecular level, they were exactly the same. That is to say, the memories that the woman had (stored in the form of links in the labyrinths of the nerve cells) would also be present for the duplicate, only that these memories needed to be activated and awakened.

They know each other, had the same blood in their veins, and they experienced common sufferings. However, the duplicate did not go through everything that the woman went through, so the duplicate was pure and unblemished.

That night, the woman bathed the duplicate and made her stand up from the tub with white foam all over her. Once again, the woman was reminded of the swan emerging from the water. A loophole had appeared between the ooze of dreams and reality, allowing this wonderful creature to cross through it, out of her dreams and desires, and into reality.

For a moment, she imagined herself turning into a prince. She kissed her duplicate gently, while the duplicate gestured for her to take off her bathrobe. She cringed and hesitated, but the duplicate’s fingers were firm and insistent. She undid the bathrobe, revealing the scars on her abdomen.

She never showed that centipede-like scar. It was the mark of her former motherhood. Years ago, rushing to an important performance, she entrusted her newborn baby to a nanny, who, due to the nanny’s negligence, fell ill and died. Her marriage fell apart as a result, and soon after, her career was ruined by alcoholism.

Now, the duplicate slowly knelt down in the tub and kissed her scar. The duplicate’s kisses were gentle, reminding her of the licks of a kitten or puppy.

The memories of her suffering must have been revitalised in her brain. With her kiss, the solid ice melted, and the ugly scar healed. She was a swan now, too.

In her head, the music of Swan Lake played as two swans frolicked in the lake. Water flowed out of the bathtub and moistened the floor.

Fools are Neither Good nor Bad

On another night, the woman took the duplicate to the ballet performance Swan Lake. The entire audience applauded cheerfully as Lin Zhilin appeared on stage. For the first time in so many years, the woman was able to watch a ballet performance with a sense of calmness.

Lin Zhilin’s dance was still as graceful as ever, no wonder she was the theatre’s lead dancer. Her counterpart was Yu Mengyu, a male dancer from a ballet troupe, who was also a famously beautiful young man in the city. The two were said to be the perfect match for each other.

When the show was over, the woman and the duplicate walked out hand in hand, and as they jumped down the steps, the duplicate started to dance. Since the woman’s hand was being held by her, she couldn’t help but dance as well.

They danced on and on, until the stars spun in the sky. They danced on and on, into the streets, where the pedestrians were first stunned, and then made way for them and applauded them.

In this cruel world, there were still two little fools who could giggle in spite of everything. Good people decorate the splendour of heaven, while bad ones set off the majesty of hell. Only fools are neither good nor bad; even God could not render them a fair judgement, so he punished them to linger in this world, to create mindless merriment.

It didn’t matter how the dance was done, there was beauty in being clumsy as well.

They passed by the mall and their dance was interrupted by the crowds surging out of the mall, with the announcement of some promotions being broadcast in the mall.

The woman decided to guide and observe the duplicate as she shopped. The duplicate looked at the items on the shelves, turning her head to look at the woman with each one she took out. Only when the woman nodded did the duplicate put the item in the shopping basket. If the woman shook her head, the duplicate would put the product back. The duplicate picked out a pair of soft-soled shoes from the shelf and looked to the woman, who was a little confused. The duplicate made a dancing motion for the woman to understand that these soft-soled shoes were very much like ballet slippers.

The woman thought for quite a while before finally nodding.

The ladies were heading out of the mall and towards their home when an accident occurred. A policeman on duty on the side of the road looked at them suspiciously. In recent years, there have been a number of illegal human duplications.

The woman was panicking a little inside. Of course, she could say that they were twins, but if the police insist on scanning their iris and looking for identity information bound to the iris, everything would be revealed. Since the duplicate had no legitimate identity, it would be forcibly sent to a shelter.

The woman dragged the duplicate with her and ran in small but hurried steps, turning into an alleyway. The policeman seemingly wanted to follow them, but his walkie-talkie went off and he turned around towards the police car.

The woman sighed in relief and decided at once that she would never again allow the duplicate to be out. Their house was big enough for her. But a stage was still missing in it. So, the next night, the woman vacated a large part of the living room and made a rudimentary stage.

The woman started dancing first. After a long run-up, the swan awkwardly took off. This is her picking up her dancing again after a good many years. During the dance, she forgot her past times, her wounds, and seemed to go back to her old days on the stage.

The duplicate stood up and joined in the dance. They danced together in front of the mirror. The two shadows were first apart, but gradually, the attraction of the flesh brought the two shadows closer and closer together, eventually overlapping into one another.

That morning, the woman wiped all the bloodstains from the mirror and threw the cacti in the house into the rubbish bin.

Runaway

One morning, before the seven o’clock music had even started, the woman woke up from her sleep. She had a nightmare last night, and at this moment, it became a reality. She saw the moonlight shining on half of the bed, which was empty. The swan had flown away, leaving only a few feathers – a few strands of her long hair.

In an instant, she felt as if she had been drenched in cold water. She knew that the jungle of steel and concrete was more dangerous than the rainforest, full of cannibals like her boss who hadn’t finished evolving. How could her little sweetheart cope with any of that?

She immediately called her boss to ask for a day off. On the other end of the line, the boss was clearly a bit surprised. This was something that had never happened before, and he immediately yelled and brought up her poor sales performance, but these all sounded like mere grunts of a chimpanzee to her.

She hung up, and when her boss called again, she dismissed the call as she began to think carefully about where the duplicate could go. In an age where iris payments had become commonplace, her sweetheart could go anywhere in the world. Thinking about this, she suddenly hated high-speed trains, planes and cars, the very things that had taken her flesh and blood away.

Then it occurred to the woman that her flesh and blood, her sweetheart, had never left the house, that she had no legitimate identity, that she couldn’t get on an airplane or go on a high-speed train, but what about the motor station? She knew that although, according to the regulations, ID cards were to be checked for long-distance coaches before departure, the drivers rarely acted according to the rules.

The motor station, it had to be the motor station! She grabbed her bag and ran outside. When she opened the door, she caught sight of the duplicate standing just outside. The woman’s nerves were relieved, and she burst into tears all at once.

“Where have you been?”

“I wandered over to the theatre next door.”

“Did you get in?” The woman was a bit surprised.

“No, I got stuck when I was trying to pay for the ticket.”

The woman thought to herself that perhaps there was still a tiny difference between her and the duplicate’s irises. She affirmed her order to the duplicate, “I told you how dangerous it is to go out. From now on, you are not allowed to leave the house unless I am taking you out.”

The duplicate was shocked and didn’t know what to say. The woman said, “Promise me you won’t leave me. You don’t know how much I worried for you.”

The duplicate didn’t understand, but she nodded nevertheless.

“Repeat my words.” The woman said.

“I won’t leave you.” Said the duplicate.

That night, the woman cancelled payment authorisation via iris verification.

The Rhythm of Nature

That concluded the runaway incident, but from then on, the woman could no longer sleep peacefully at night. She would lie next to the duplicate and sense the duplicate’s quiet breathing.

Breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in. It was the rhythm of nature doing its work. The woman knew that hidden desires sprouted and grew like weeds with the passage of time.

The moonlight was like water as it shone on the bed, leaving a shimmering silver lake on the bed. It occurred to the woman that the swan was growing up and that the swan would fly away. She created a peaceful lake for the swan, a lake without gales and waves, serene to the point of being a bit dull. The baby swan would wish to fly to a much vaster lake.

The woman thought that her woman belonged in the world of fairy tales. She ate the poisoned apple she fed her and fell into a deep slumber. But all women in fairy tales have moments of awakening, and there would always be kisses from their princes to wake them up from their dreams. She pictured the prince, and involuntarily, the image of her boss filled her mind. A mountainous belly, with a row of hair growing right in the centre, like the trees that separate two mountain ridges. His legs and arms were covered in hair, like a wild animal. The prince would also watch porn and masturbate over the toilet. Since the last episode in the conference room, she hated men all the more; she felt that men were animals that had not evolved to completion, and that their status was somewhere between that of the southern apes and the females. She figured that men would always win the competition simply because civility could never overcome savagery.

The woman thought, a prince like this would give her swan a kiss of true love. And here my little swan would fly away, and be held captive in the kitchen by the prince, imprisoned in day-to-day scrubbing, sewing, and mending.

The desires of a mature woman are like weeds; she could level them, but she could hardly destroy their roots. The only way to make her realise the nature of men would be to subject her to harm, but that was precisely what she did not want to do. She did not want her beloved to go down the path she herself had travelled once.

Runaway, Yet Again

Despite the woman’s extra care afterwards and the affirmation of the ban, a second runaway occurred soon after.

The time was eight o’clock in the evening when the woman returned home from work to find the duplicate missing.

This time, the woman did not panic.

She hurried downstairs and ran to the theatre next door. On the deck in front of the theatre’s main entrance, she saw the duplicate dancing, and accompanying her, was the handsome Yu Mengyu.

The deck was cramped, just a few square metres between the theatre entrance and the steps, but the two dancers conjured up the feeling of a vast lake.

She recalled the scene of herself dancing with the duplicate after watching the Swan Lake the other day. It was obvious that Yu Mengyu danced better than herself. They were the perfect match, man for woman, that was the law of nature.

The woman felt the anger of jealousy raging. Was she supposed to go up and stop them? If she did, would the duplicate tell the truth, thus exposing her own illegal deeds?

The woman hesitated and watched. Finally, anger got the better of her, and the woman walked up and stepped in between the two dancers rudely.

The woman took the duplicate’s hand and hustled away, nearly tripping over the steps.

The duplicate had a puzzled look on her face. She asked, “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? You still have no idea what’s wrong? How did you hook up with him?”

“Hook up?”

“I mean, how did you manage to catch him on?”

“I was dancing here and just ran into him. He asked if it was okay to dance with me. I said I didn’t mind. He was such a good dancer! He promised me he’d get me a job offer at the theatre……”

With a loud snap, the woman’s slap struck, and the duplicate looked at her in shock and bewilderment.

“You’re so cheap! You have no idea what men have in mind! Just hurry up! Let’s go home!”

The duplicate stopped and stood there looking at her.

The woman said to the duplicate, “You know what? You are an illegal existence. Do you realise what will happen if your identity is revealed?”

The duplicate shook her head.

The woman looked around and found a rubbish bin by the side of the road. She dragged the duplicate over to the bin and said, “Open it.”

The duplicate opened the bin as the woman pressed down on the duplicate’s head, forcing her to look into the bin.

Inside the bin was a brightly coloured toy puppy with fluffy fur. The stench was so overwhelming that the duplicate plopped down at the railing on the roadside and vomited.

The woman said to her. ‘You know what? You’re just like this puppy, and if no one loves you, the only thing you deserve is to be thrown in the rubbish. The police will send you to a factory that specialises in the disposal of illegal human beings, where you will be crushed into mush.”

The duplicate’s mouth dropped open in shock. Seeing that she was frightened, the woman took her hand and said, “You don’t have to be afraid. I love you, and I will keep you safe.”

The duplicate nodded. To which the woman said, “As long as you listen to me.”

The duplicate nodded again. “Say: I will listen to you,” said the woman.

The duplicate said, “I will listen to you.”

The woman hugged her gently and kissed her forehead. Then took her hand, and together, they went back home.

Word of Sin

The woman removed the large photograph of her young dancing self from the wall.

The woman ordered the duplicate to destroy the photo, trampling on it and cutting it up with scissors, destroying the dream of her past altogether. “Dance” was henceforth a word of sin, never to be spoken again.

The woman upgraded the smart door locks of the house, setting a password that must be entered to exit the flat from then on.

Would this help? The woman dared not be sure. Perhaps, nature had its own laws: flowers bloomed and wilted, grass sprouted and grew and withered, the laws and rhythms of it all were irresistible. But the woman had to resist, because apart from this tiny mirror image of herself, she literally had nothing. If no duplicate existed, the woman thought, who could bear my love? She must be kept, by any and all means.

The woman thought of a way out.

She walked to the kitchen and made her way to a dusty case from the highest part of the cabinet. She opened the case and unearthed a bottle of wine, opened the bottle, and poured the wine into glasses.

The duplicate looked at her in surprise. The woman had memories of wine, so the duplicate had them as well. But it had been many years since the woman had abstained from wine, and naturally the duplicate hadn’t drank any, so her memories were yet to be revitalised. The duplicate looked at the wine glass with some curiosity.

The woman taught the duplicate how to drink, and the two women gently clinked their glasses.

The woman said, “When you’re feeling upset, just drink a little and you’ll feel better.”

Alcoholism

Alcohol is indeed good stuff. In the beginning, you would only use it to forget things, later, you would forget who you are with its help.

The woman knew the wonderful feeling of being drunk: the feeling of not needing to think about anything, like that driftwood in the water which was just euphoric. Indulgence could easily wash out boundaries of rationality, resulting in one’s acceptance of physical harm. Having walked down that path, she knew exactly how it would turn out.

She also knew how to overcome alcoholism: Find a busy job and always go with the flow in any endeavour, never thinking, and never confronting any serious issues. Exhaust oneself in repetitive labour. This is the state she referred to as being mildly intoxicated without the need for alcohol.

But the duplicate couldn’t go out to work, so she couldn’t use this trick.

The duplicate stayed at home and just started drinking without much to do. A few small drinks at first, then slowly increasing the amount later on.

When the woman noticed that the duplicate was starting to become alcoholic, she knew that her plan had worked. Binge drinking was only the first stage, the next would be overeating and uncontrolled weight gain.

There were people with weight problems, but no such swans, because a swan that was too heavy couldn’t fly. So, her swan could never fly away again, and she would stay in this peaceful little lake for eternity.

One night, she came home to find the duplicate slumped over the table, reeking of alcohol.

Complex emotions surged through the woman’s mind, mixed with complacency and pity. She dragged the duplicate and pulled her into the bathroom.

The duplicate then vomited in the bathroom, and she threw up bits of red and green stuff on the bathroom tiles.

“I work hard every day to provide for you and look at you, what have you done?” The woman questioned.

The duplicate kept shaking her head without saying a word.

“Answer me! What’s the matter with you?”

The duplicate remained silent.

The woman grabbed the sprinkler, unscrewed the faucet, and drenched the duplicate with ice-cold water. The duplicate continued to vomit in the stream of water until she had emptied her guts and stuck her face to the floor.

The woman turned off the sprinkler and helped the duplicate remove the wet clothes from her body, tossing them into the rubbish bin. Then she towered over the duplicate in judgement.

The woman said, “Do you know? That everything I’ve done, is for you?”

“Really?” The duplicate looked up and asked her.

The woman took the duplicate into her arms and stroked her tenderly. “It’s true, absolutely true. I love you and would rather suffer for you, everything I do is for you, I would die for you, even if that means being stabbed a thousand times.”

When the woman said “suffer”, the image of the boss came back to her mind. The abdominal hair, the mountainous belly, the hairy chin. The expenses of supporting two people were greater than those of supporting just one. The boss obviously learnt of her weakness, and lately, she had been giving him whatever he desired.

She had expected the duplicate to be moved, but she was wrong. The duplicate asked something she had never conceived of, “What is the nature of our relationship? Why should I accept your love?”

The woman was dumbfounded by the question. Anger made her unreasonable, “You must accept my love. I am your creator.”

The duplicate continued, “I would have preferred not to have been created by you. After I was created, I no longer have anything to do with you. You should leave me alone and let me destroy myself.”

The woman returned to the bedroom alone and left the duplicate in the bathroom. That night, the woman laid in bed for a long time, waiting for the duplicate to come to bed and sleep, while the duplicate threw up in the bathroom for ages.

Relationship

What was the nature of the relationship between herself and the duplicate? The woman struggled desperately with this question.

Friendship? That was the first thing the woman had to rule out. Friendships are the most comfortable, simply because you can always walk away when you are no longer feeling so.

Kinship? Shouldn’t it be a mother-daughter relationship? It seemed like it, but the most crucial process of nurturing was missing. Then would it be too late to make up for it now?

She imagined putting an adult in a cradle with a bottle to feed her, and she, too, found it comical herself.

Romantic relationship? It didn’t seem quite right either, love is such a frivolous word that it couldn’t reflect the weight she attached to their relationship, the superimposed weights. These days, love is the cheapest disposable item, just like disposable underwear and disposable cutlery, which can be used and thrown away instantly. Love is also a layer of wrapping paper, which disguises the need for men and women to keep warm in the cold by bumping into each other.

The woman suddenly felt a lack of words. There were thousands of common words in modern language, but surprisingly, there was not a single word that could be used to define the relationship between the two of them.

She decided that a strong and heavy relationship was needed to tether the two together forever.

The best way to build a strong relationship is to be indebted, and to be fair, the replicant didn’t owe her anything so far. Her creation was entirely passive, but it was up to her to figure out how to make her be in debt.

The next morning, on her way to work, she passed by the Church of Epiphany again, and she suddenly understood why Jesus had to be crucified. Because God loves people, God had to keep people on His side, so that people would prefer going to church instead of going to the opera, and therefore, God had to let people be in debt.

She gazed long at the suffering statue of Jesus and pondered.

Love is Colder than Death

One night, after work, the woman summoned the duplicate to the dinner table and attempted to have a serious conversation.

The duplicate was still intoxicated. The woman said, “You’re going to ruin yourself if you go on like this, you know that?”

The replicant sneered, “I am not yours, and I can destroy myself. You create, and I destroy, fair enough.”

Distaste made the woman turn her face away, but she quickly regained her composure and said, “I’ll let you listen to a recording.” With that, the woman inserted a flash drive into the port of the television. From it came unpleasant sounds, a man’s coercion, the woman’s begging, and moans of their intercourse.

It was a scene that took place between the woman and her boss. The duplicate reacted as she expected, emotions of sadness and pity flashing across her face. Her body trembled slightly, as if she was trying to repress her inner turmoil. “Why did you put up with such insults?”

“To set you free.”

“Set me free?”

“As you know, your existence is illegitimate. But I have a way to get you a legal identity so that you can be free. Only, it’s going to cost a fortune, requiring connections, bribes, and so forth.”

As the woman spoke, crucified Jesus once again came to her mind. To make people in debt, God went on the cross. In comparison, her sacrifice was nothing.

“So, you sacrificed like this just for the sake of money?”

“It’s not for money. It’s all for you.”

“Now, are you still going to talk about our relationship in such careless terms?”

The duplicate lowered her head in shame.

The woman continued, “What do you think you can do to repay me for this love?”

The duplicate fell silent; she did not know how to repay the love. Love was colder than death, and its weight was heavier than hell.

“Take your time with it.”

“I can’t think of anything.” The duplicate felt that this dedication, along with the debt that the dedication created, was far too heavy, so heavy that she couldn’t possibly bear it.

“You will promise that from now on, you will live happily in this home, and never leave this place.’’

“I promise that from now on, I will live happily in this home, and never leave this place.”

The woman established a set of rules: when she should do aerobics at home in front of the TV and when she should go to bed……

There were rules for everything.

Obedience to the rules came with a reward: namely, a little bit of wine. Violation of the rules carried a penalty, not only did she not get to drink, she would also be cold-shouldered and reprimanded.

The duplicate lost some weight, improved her physique, and learnt to please the woman, who felt that she was improving in the art of management.

A Self-Sufficient Little World

The promise reassured the woman a little, but there was another pitfall in the woman’s mind, which was: would the promise do any good? It might help, but it didn’t carry enough weight. More weight must be added.

The empty wall after the photo was taken down gave the woman an idea for a fix. After the dancing photo was taken down, a large blank space was left on the wall. The surrounding walls had turned brown and old; only this wall, covered by the photographs, remained snowy white. This void was a reminder of something missing, and the woman wanted to replace it with another photo.

What kind of photo shall we replace it with? No landscape paintings should be hung, as they would remind the duplicate of words such as ‘far away’ and ‘travelling’, and the woman loathed all words with the word ‘far’ in them. Yet the woman was not interested in still-life objects and plants.

One day, looking at the snowy white wall, the woman suddenly realised that she should replace the photo with a picture that clearly defined the ‘relationship’ between the two of them. She must keep the duplicate forever captive in this room through a certain kind of ‘relationship’. Forever and ever, till death do them part.

The woman felt that she had found a way to crack the ‘relationship’ conundrum.

It was necessary to add some intensity to the word ‘love’ by attaching a chain to it, and that chain would be marriage. Instead of being the tomb of love, marriage ought to be a piece of amber in which the buds of love are enclosed. The flowers sealed in the amber would lose their fragrance and colour, but they would not change.

The woman said, “Even though you don’t deserve to be loved, I will not only love you, but I will give you a reciprocal promise, and I will marry you.’’

The duplicate nodded obediently as she said, “I have only one request, and that is I would like to dance one more time before we get married.”

“Dance?” The woman frowned.

“Just one last time, to bid farewell to the past.”

The woman contemplated it for quite a while and agreed. “Fine, but not before we get married; on the night of the wedding. And not your solo, I’ll dance with you.”

The duplicate nodded.

The woman began to plan a wedding. A grand wedding reception was not to be expected. Apart from the fact that she had no money, such a reception would expose her little sweetheart to other people and even bring the risk of exposing her identity, or worse, running away. It would be held in this home, with only two people attending, since this world only needed the existence of this two anyway.

The woman invited a photographer to the home to take their wedding photos. The photographer wasn’t surprised to see two identical people and seemed to be used to the spectacle.

When selecting photos, the woman saw them sticking to each other so closely, with exaggerated smiles that were so sweet, that the woman felt could not only shield against the threats of the world, but also create a self-sufficient little world.

On the day the grand photo came in the mail, the two decorated the bridal room together. The woman ordered the duplicate to hang the wedding photo of the two of them on the wall instead. The woman gazed at the photo and wondered, could this moment truly be eternal? Was this an extravagant wish of mankind? She again thought of the laws of nature, the irreconcilability of time, and had a feeling similar to that of standing on a high building and looking down. But she no longer had a choice.

Pas de Deux

After two busy days of decorating on Saturday and Sunday, the wedding took place on Sunday evening. Due to the illegitimate identity of the duplicate, as well as monetary constraints, there was no way for them to organise a formal wedding. It was better this way. This was a private deed, a private ceremony, with only the two of them present.

The wedding day happened to be the duplicate’s “birthday”, which was also a gift from the woman to the duplicate. In the middle of the room, there was a huge birthday cake.

At eight o’clock in the evening, the woman opened the window and saw the lights of the theatre illuminating the crucified Jesus at the Church of Epiphany. She said to the duplicate, “Let us swear by God that we love each other and are willing to suffer for each other.”

The duplicate said, “We love each other and are willing to suffer for each other.”

They danced the Swan Lake again. They hadn’t danced for a while and their dancing skills were rusty again. But dancing was more powerful than words; dance could develop itself, create itself, and improve itself. As they danced, their hearts were once again in tune, they got better and better, and at the climax of the dance, a figure pulled the cake-cutting knife out of the birthday cake.

These days, at the woman’s demand, the duplicate worked out at home every day, her strength grew quite a bit, and with the first cut, she stabbed through the woman’s palm.

She stabbed and stabbed as the moonlight cast the cluttered shadows onto the wall.

The woman laid on the ground and stopped resisting. She knew that the duplicate was stronger than herself, for the duplicate knew the rules of the world, whereas for a time she herself had had a fantasy in mind.

Everything was over, the woman lay twitching in a pool of blood, but she had one final dying remark, the password to the smart door lock that would unlock the front door.

Early the next morning, the duplicate replaced the photo hanging on the wall from the wedding photo to a photo of the woman dancing solo in the past.

A New Life

It was the woman’s first day stepping out of the door and trying to get to work at the office. The boss froze when he saw her, thinking she was prettier with a strange indescribable feeling. Not that the boss cared about such feelings.

The woman silently stared for the longest time at the operation workshop where she was born.

Shortly thereafter, the woman learnt to relieve her stress by pressing bloodstains on the mirror.

One night a few years later, on a day when it was also snowing heavily, the woman once again walked into the duplication workshop.

Translation Editor: Xuan