The sea wind grew stronger as the night wore on.
Jin Feixun let Yan Chuxian pull her through the abandoned old streets.
Neither of them said a word.
It wasn't until they entered an alley without streetlights that Yan Chuxian stopped.
She released her hand.
As if she'd suddenly realized what she'd done.
Jin Feixun lowered her head and looked at her hand.
The warmth of Yan Chuxian's palm still lingered there.
“Do you remember?”
Yan Chuxian asked.
“Remember what?”
“When we were running away before, you always held my hand like this, too.”
Jin Feixun looked up.
“Before?”
Yan Chuxian fell silent.
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
She didn't answer.
Jin Feixun stared at her.
“Yan Chuxian.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“This time, I don't want to know nothing anymore.”
Yan Chuxian looked at her.
After a long while, she said softly, “Then I'll tell you.”
“But after you hear it, you might hate me.”
Jin Feixun didn't hesitate.
“I won't.”
“Of course you won't right now.”
Yan Chuxian gave a small smile.
“Because you haven't remembered yet.”
1:03 a.m.
They returned to South Bank Cinema.
The ruins had been sealed off.
But Yan Chuxian skillfully made her way around to the back.
She pushed aside a collapsed section of iron framework.
A narrow door appeared beneath it.
Jin Feixun froze.
“When did there get to be a door here?”
“It was always here.”
Yan Chuxian pulled out a key.
It was the very same one Jin Feixun had found in Room 117.
She inserted the key.
Click.
The door opened.
There were no stairs inside.
Instead, a long corridor stretched downward.
Faint red lights glowed along the walls.
Yan Chuxian walked ahead.
Jin Feixun followed.
After they'd gone about fifty meters, Jin Feixun suddenly noticed that the walls were covered with photographs.
They weren't ordinary photographs.
Every one showed the two of them.
The first time they met.
The first time they saw the sea.
The first time they ate together.
The first time they argued.
The first time they held hands.
The first time they embraced.
And even—
The first time they kissed.
Jin Feixun stopped.
“These...”
“They're all fake,” Yan Chuxian said.
“What?”
“The photographs are real.”
“But the timeline is fake.”
She reached out and touched one of them.
“They rearrange everything we've experienced.”
“They make you think you've lived through something.”
“Or make you think you haven't.”
Jin Feixun looked at her.
“So my memories...”
“Some of them are real.”
“Some were put there by them.”
“What about you?”
Yan Chuxian turned around.
“I don't know either.”
At the end of the corridor stood a black iron door.
There was no number on it.
Only a single line:
B-17
Yan Chuxian stopped.
Jin Feixun stepped up beside her.
“This is it?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Yan Chuxian didn't open the door.
“Are you scared?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“I can't bear to.”
Jin Feixun looked at her.
Yan Chuxian said quietly, “Because every time I go in...”
“When I come back out, I remember a little less of you.”
She placed her hand on the door.
“The first time I came out, I'd forgotten your birthday.”
“The second time, I'd forgotten where we first met.”
“The third time, I'd forgotten the way you used to call me.”
“The fourth time...”
She paused.
“I forgot why I loved you.”
Jin Feixun's heart felt as if a fist had closed around it.
“What about the fifth time?”
Yan Chuxian looked at her.
“The fifth time...”
“I forgot everything.”
“Except you.”
Jin Feixun's eyes reddened.
“So that's why you kept coming back?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Why?”
Yan Chuxian gave a soft laugh.
“Because it's strange.”
“I can forget everything.”
“But every time I see you...”
“I still fall for you all over again.”
Jin Feixun said nothing.
She reached out and took Yan Chuxian's hand.
“That's enough.”
Yan Chuxian looked at their clasped hands.
Tears suddenly spilled down her cheeks.
“Feixun.”
“Yeah?”
“If the sixth time fails...”
“It won't.”
“But what if it does?”
“Then I'll go through it with you.”
Yan Chuxian shook her head.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I've already died five times.”
She looked at Jin Feixun.
“This time, I don't want you to go through it with me.”
The door opened.
Inside was a vast underground archive room.
Countless tapes were arranged in neat rows.
A long table stood in the center.
Six file boxes sat on top of it.
Each box bore a year.
2017.
2020.
2023.
2026.
And two without dates.
Yan Chuxian walked to the front and picked up the first one.
“This was the first time.”
She opened it.
Inside was only a photograph.
Seventeen-year-old Jin Feixun.
Seventeen-year-old Yan Chuxian.
Standing in the rain.
Both of them smiling.
Jin Feixun stared at the photograph.
“The first time we met...”
“It wasn't at the cinema,” Yan Chuxian said.
“It was here.”
“That day, your mother brought you in.”
“She said you had to know the truth.”
Jin Feixun frowned.
“What truth?”
Yan Chuxian looked at her.
“About you.”
The second box.
2020.
Inside was a recording.
Jin Feixun pressed play.
Her own voice came through.
“I agree.”
Yan Chuxian's voice followed close behind.
“Are you sure?”
“I am.”
“Even if you'll forget me?”
“I am.”
“Even if you might not recognize me the next time we meet?”
“Then I'll get to know you again.”
Jin Feixun stood stunned.
Yan Chuxian lowered her head.
“That was the second time.”
“You chose to erase your memory.”
“Why?”
“Because you realized...”
Yan Chuxian lifted her eyes.
“As long as you remembered me...”
“They could find me through you.”
Jin Feixun fell silent.
At last, she understood.
Her memory was Yan Chuxian's coordinates.
The third box.
2023.
There was no photograph inside.
Only a ring.
Jin Feixun picked it up.
Two characters were engraved on the inside.
Chuxian.
She froze.
“This...”
“You gave it to me,” Yan Chuxian said.
“You don't remember?”
Jin Feixun shook her head.
“I don't remember.”
Yan Chuxian smiled.
“I remember.”
“But what happened afterward?”
“Afterward, you forgot.”
“Why?”
“Because you took it off yourself.”
Jin Feixun looked at her.
“Why?”
Yan Chuxian didn't answer.
She opened the fourth box.
Inside was a video.
The screen lit up.
The image showed Jin Feixun in 2026.
She sat in a room, her expression cold, a knife in her hand.
Yan Chuxian sat across from her.
The Jin Feixun in the video spoke.
“This is the last time.”
Yan Chuxian asked, “Have you really made up your mind?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“If you kill me, you'll be able to forget me.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Then will you be happy?”
The Jin Feixun in the video fell silent.
For a long time.
Then she answered, “At least you'll be able to live.”
Yan Chuxian smiled.
“You fool.”
“If I live without you...”
“How is that any different from being dead?”
The video ended there.
Jin Feixun was already crying in the real world.
She turned around.
“I really killed you?”
Yan Chuxian didn't answer.
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Five.”
Jin Feixun closed her eyes.
Five times.
She had killed Yan Chuxian five times.
Every time...
Yan Chuxian had chosen to come back.
Just to see her one more time.
Suddenly, every light in the basement came on.
The red lights turned white.
An alarm sounded.
The color drained from Yan Chuxian's face.
“They're here.”
Jin Feixun looked toward the door.
Footsteps approached.
A lot of them.
“How much time do we have?”
Yan Chuxian glanced at the electronic clock on the wall.
71:12:08
“Less than seventy-two hours.”
“Where are we going?”
“The last archive room.”
“Where is it?”
Yan Chuxian didn't answer.
She picked up the fifth file box.
There was nothing inside.
Only a blank sheet of paper.
She handed it to Jin Feixun.
“Write your name.”
“Why?”
“Because the sixth experiment isn't really meant to erase me.”
Jin Feixun looked at her.
Yan Chuxian said softly, “It's meant to erase you.”
Her pupils suddenly contracted.
A crashing sound came from outside the door.
Bang!
The iron door shook.
A second blow.
Bang!
Yan Chuxian grabbed her hand.
“Go!”
They rushed toward the other side of the basement.
A hidden door was set into the wall there.
Yan Chuxian entered a password.
But the door didn't open.
Words appeared on the screen:
Enter the experiment subject's name.
Yan Chuxian entered:
Yan Chuxian.
The screen flickered.
Error.
She entered it again.
Error.
She turned to Jin Feixun.
“You do it.”
“Me?”
“Enter your name.”
Jin Feixun walked over.
Her fingers settled on the keyboard.
She entered:
Jin Feixun.
The screen instantly turned red.
Identity confirmed.
Experiment subject: Jin Feixun.
The sixth experiment officially begins.
Jin Feixun went rigid.
Yan Chuxian's face changed completely.
“No...”
The countdown on the wall suddenly shifted.
71:00:00
A full seventy-two hours.
The countdown had begun.
And outside the door...
A familiar voice rang out.
“Jin Feixun.”
She turned around.
Shen Wen stood in the doorway.
A group of people in black stood behind him.
He didn't look at Yan Chuxian.
He only looked at Jin Feixun.
“You finally came back.”
Jin Feixun tightened her grip on the recorder.
“What are you really trying to do?”
Shen Wen answered calmly, “End the sixth experiment.”
“How?”
Shen Wen looked toward Yan Chuxian.
“Make her vanish.”
Jin Feixun stepped in front of Yan Chuxian.
“What if I don't agree?”
Shen Wen was silent for several seconds.
Then he said, “Then we'll have to make you vanish.”
The basement fell silent.
Yan Chuxian grabbed Jin Feixun's hand.
“Don't.”
Jin Feixun turned back.
“What?”
Yan Chuxian looked at her.
Her eyes were filled with fear.
“This time...”
“Listen to me.”
“Leave me.”
Jin Feixun didn't answer.
The next second, every light in the basement went out.
In the darkness, a voice came over the speakers.
It wasn't Shen Wen.
It wasn't Yan Chuxian.
It was Jin Feixun's own voice.
Cold.
Strange.
As if it came from seventeen years ago.
“If you're hearing this message...”
“Don't trust Yan Chuxian.”
“She isn't the victim.”
“She is the beginning of all this.”
Jin Feixun whipped around.
Yan Chuxian stood in the darkness, her face pale.
She didn't explain.
She only looked at Jin Feixun.
Then she said softly, “Now...”
“You should start hating me.”