Jia Ming followed the stubborn command in his mind to the old industrial zone at the city's edge. This place was a corner forgotten by time. The red-brick tube-shaped apartment buildings had peeled, revealing mottled gray plaster underneath; when the wind blew, dust from the wall cracks sifted down in rustles. The air reeked of rust mixed with dust, a gritty tang that burned the lungs. He stopped in front of the most dilapidated one—the entrance corridor was pitch-black, a fetid stench of mildew and cooking fumes billowing out, stinging the tip of his nose.
The person he sought was on the top floor: Gu Ying.
A woman thoroughly reshaped into the epitome of "absolute loneliness" by the virus.
The virus had not taken her life, yet it had erased every last trace of her need for and instinct for "sociality." Kinship, friendship, romantic love, a sense of belonging, the desire for social interaction—all the cornerstones of what it means to be human—had never seemed to exist in her. It was not that she "disliked" connection; she was utterly "unin need" of it. Man is the sum of his social relations, yet from the moment she was infected, Gu Ying had severed every thread connecting her to the outside world, becoming a lone dust particle suspended in a vacuum—absolutely silent, spinning on its own.
Once, Gu Ying had been an ancient book restorer at the municipal library. The work, which required patience to tend to fragile pages and rice paste, had always suited her temperament. The virus had merely pushed this quietude to an extreme, purging all impurities that might have invited interaction. Today, her world consisted of nothing but this attic room stacked with ancient books and the gray, desolate abandoned factories outside the window. Even the wind seemed trapped behind a layer of paper, unable to drift into her profound silence.
Jia Ming stood outside Gu Ying's door, sensing a bone-chilling cold—a cold that rejected all proximity. Yet in his virus-warped perception, this cold was proof of "focus," the very "tranquility" he was meant to find. At first, he did not knock. He simply pressed his body against the door, the command in his mind echoing relentlessly: It's her.
Just minutes earlier, Auntie Wang had rushed up in a panic, saying her husband had fallen out of bed, and she couldn't lift him on her own—she'd come to beg the only neighbor on the top floor for help.
At that moment, Gu Ying was bent over her worktable, repairing a fragment of a Song Dynasty copy of the Diamond Sutra. Her wolf-hair brush, dipped in pale rice paste, glided steadily along the frayed edges of the fragile paper, her breathing so faint it was barely perceptible. A knock, muffled by Auntie Wang's cries, burst in, shattering the room's profound stillness. The fingers gripping her pen trembled instantly, yet the tip of the brush never wavered, not a single inch off course. A flicker of irritation crossed her mind—not for the stranger's distress, but for the ancient book's quiet rhythm, rudely disrupted for no reason.
She had no intention of rising. The cries outside shifted from frantic pleas to despairing sobs, lasting a full three minutes. In those three minutes, the only sounds in the room were the soft scratch of the brush against paper and the light thud of Sheriff's paws hitting the pages as he jumped down from the stack of books.
Sheriff was the cat she'd rescued—pitch-black with not a single stray hair, even his eyes a deep, dark brown. He circled Gu Ying's feet, brushing gently against her trouser legs with a tiny, soft "meow." It was not until Auntie Wang's sobs turned to hoarse curses and her footsteps faded away that the corridor fell silent again. Only then did Gu Ying slowly set down her brush.
She stepped to the door, peering through the peephole—empty. Even the corridor's light felt cold and distant. A faint flicker of relief crossed her eyes, gone as quickly as a mirage.
A few days earlier, a letter from the Municipal Bureau of Culture had arrived, emblazoned with "Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritor" on the envelope. Gu Ying tore it open, read two lines, and clenched the paper tight. "Invitation to participate in events," "promote traditional culture"—these external expectations and recognitions were no different to her than the dust drifting past the window. Expressionless, she shredded the letter into pieces, pushed open the window, and let the wind carry the scraps floating down like useless ash.
She had not slept the night before, working on repairing a Qing Dynasty medical text. Tucked between the pages was a rusty needle; she'd nicked her finger on it while turning the page. Tetanus struck in the early hours.
Even then, she had sat at her worktable, holding a magnifying glass to examine the annotations in the medical book. Agony suddenly seized her—her jaw locked tight first, like a frozen iron block, unable to open; then the muscles in her arms convulsed, tensing sharply, and the magnifying glass clattered to the table. She fell from her chair, her back slamming into a bookshelf. Ancient books crashed to the floor with a clatter, their pages scraping against her face, carrying the musty scent of years past.
Her body convulsed uncontrollably, thudding against the floor. The shadow of death crept in, enveloping the entire room. The instinct to survive churned in her throat, urging her to scream for help—but a louder command echoed in her bones: the virus-implanted "absolute loneliness." The thought of someone bursting in, seeing her huddled on the floor, drenched in sweat and in a pitiful state, touched by a stranger's hands—she found it more agonizing than death itself.
Gritting her teeth, she swallowed the urge to cry out. Sweat mixed with blood from her fingertip seeped into the floor, leaving a small dark stain. Sheriff stirred awake at the noise, padding over to her, his nose nuzzling her sweat-soaked forehead before gently licking her bleeding finger. That soft, warm touch, in the midst of the room's frigid silence, became the only lifeline she could cling to as she teetered on the edge of death.
Dawn was breaking when the convulsions finally eased. Gu Ying collapsed to the floor, her body limp as a rag. She had survived—alone, under the gaze of a black cat, having clawed her way back from the brink of death.
And now, at this very moment, Jia Ming knocked.
Three soft raps, light yet like pebbles dropped into still water, echoing through the room.
No sound came from inside. Jia Ming lifted his hand, about to knock again, when the door creaked open a crack. No lights were on inside, and a slender figure loomed in the darkness, like a deadwood stump fused into the wall's shadow. A smell drifted out—the musty scent of aged paper, the coolness of alcohol, and a faint tang of blood and sweat.
Jia Ming could not see her face, yet he "felt" it—it's her. In his virus-warped perception, this cold, this quiet, this air of total isolation were all proof of "holiness."
Gu Ying stared at the stranger through the crack. A powerful "desire for connection" radiated off him, a sticky spiderweb of need that coiled tight in her stomach—more uncomfortable than any physical touch. Instinctively, she reached to close the door, her fingertips brushing the wood.
But the moment their gazes locked—
Like two cold iron bars clashing suddenly, a resonance like ice shards exploded, twining around each other through their stares. The command in Jia Ming's mind surged to its peak, then froze abruptly, like a taut string snapping at the limit of its stretch.
The command was fulfilled.
For the first time, a flicker of movement crossed Gu Ying's face, as frozen and ancient as ten-thousand-year-old ice. Her pupils clearly reflected the twisted, ecstatic smile on Jia Ming's face. No words were spoken, no understanding reached, not even a true exchange of glances—but a connection forged by the same virus-warped genes had silently wrapped around them both, then tangled with the life forces of Hu Ping, Yan Zhi, Feng Jian, and Han Che, blurring the lines between them all.
Jia Ming wore a confused, half-comprehending smile, turned, and descended the stairs, his footsteps fading slowly.
Gu Ying slowly closed the door. Sheriff padded to the door, ears pricked, staring alertly at the corridor's renewed silence. She shot the bolt with a click—a sharp, piercing sound.
At that moment, a voice suddenly erupted in the frozen depths of her consciousness—not her own, yet clearer and more stubborn than any of her thoughts:
"Find him!"
The absolute loner had, in the end, been betrayed by her own loneliness. She had to leave this island that belonged only to herself, to seek out "him." Sheriff seemed to sense what was coming, lifting his head, his amber eyes fixed steadily on her.