I met Da Wei and Zichen on the same day, just an hour apart. At the time, both Da Wei and I had gone to a book club meeting, arriving a bit late with no seats left. We stood at the back listening for a while before each of us left the venue and went to the café downstairs. Da Wei sat at the table next to mine, holding the book being discussed that day—Bolaño’s The Last Evening on Earth —and we had both ordered Americanos. He struck up a conversation with me in a somewhat disinterested tone, asking which story in the book I liked best. I said Anne Moore’s Life . He replied, “All you girls like that one.” What about you? I asked. He said his favorite was Sensini . I immediately suspected he was gay—because a gay friend of mine also loved that story the most. He was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, an ambiguous outfit. We talked a bit more about 2666 . As the book club was about to end, he suggested we move somewhere else, since the lecture attendees would soon flood the café.
We stepped outside and ran into another person holding The Last Evening on Earth —Zichen. He had left the lecture halfway to use the restroom. While standing at the urinal, it dawned on him that the panelists didn’t know much more about Bolaño than he did, so he went back, grabbed his bag, and left. He was standing under a lilac tree, smoking. It was spring, and a light rain had just passed. He mentioned that a Bolaño metaphor had come to mind: The sky looked like the grimacing face of a square robot . None of us could recall where that line appeared, so we didn’t respond. Da Wei smoked a cigarette with him, then asked if Zichen wanted to join us somewhere else for a while.We went to a café with three-bladed ceiling fans hanging overhead and talked a bit more about Bolaño before heading home to sleep. That café later became our regular spot, where we often met in the afternoons. By summer, we decided to start an independent magazine called Whale . The name was Da Wei’s idea—he insisted that a magazine was a living thing and should be named after a living creature. Whale was published quarterly, featuring poetry, fiction, and a small selection of photography. The printing costs and writer fees were all covered by Da Wei. His father had given him an apartment in the city center, which provided him with a substantial monthly rent. But he refused to work at his father’s company, which he called a "capitalist junkyard." Junkyard —he loved using that word to describe everything he despised. The world, to him, was full of such junkyards.
It was 2012. Da Wei was twenty-nine, I was thirty, and Zichen was thirty-two. We could hardly be called young anymore. At that age, Nick had witnessed Gatsby’s downfall, and Frank had lost April[1]. It was time to wake from the dream, yet our meeting seemed only to delay that inevitability. In a way, Whale became a refuge for preserving the remnants of that dream. At the time, I was serializing a novel in it—a story about a girl in love with the ghost of a sailor from Conrad’s era. Da Wei mostly wrote poetry, clearly influenced by Bolaño in his belief that even novelists must first be baptized by poetry in their youth. As for his poetic influences, it was hard to pin down—Celan, Trakl, Dickinson, all left their mark. His poems were thick, viscous things, filled with bizarre imagery: a polar bear’s kiss, a seal’s toes, Qu Yuan’s pillow. He even drew some illustrations to accompany them.
Zichen hardly contributed any personal writing to Whale , aside from the opening note in each issue. His main role was soliciting submissions. We all knew he was working on a novel, but he never showed it to anyone. As he put it, his writing was undergoing some kind of violent transformation.A year later, The Whale ceased publication. The main reason was a lack of submissions, though this was also because there weren’t many authors we deemed worthy. However, a more pressing issue was the magazine’s dismal sales. We had sent copies to small bookstores on consignment, but very few sold. The returned issues piled up in the borrowed warehouse. One evening, we stacked all the magazines against the wall, cleared a small space in the middle, and the three of us sat there to hold a simple farewell ceremony. That night, we drank too much, taking turns embracing and kissing each other. When Da Wei kissed me, I thought of the white bear’s kiss from his poetry. It must have carried some pure meaning, devoid of any lust. Falling in love with one of them would have ruined something—the dream would shatter in an instant, violently. This was what I thought as I staggered outside to use the toilet. The toilet was a red-brick bungalow in the open field. Coming out, I heard the sound of water nearby. Walking a little further, I saw a river. The sailor’s ghost stood on the water’s surface. I said, “I’ve already figured out the ending of the novel, but I don’t think it’s necessary to finish it. It should sink with The Whale —do you agree?” The sailor’s ghost neither agreed nor disagreed. He raised a hand, as if to see if moonlight could pass through his palm. I walked back to the warehouse and stood at the door, remembering that my old laptop had broken and the first half of the novel’s draft was lost. This meant that if I set fire to the warehouse now, that novel would vanish from the world entirely. The sailor’s ghost seemed to have followed me, and now he whispered a warning: “If you do that, I’ll become a ghost of a ghost!” But ignoring his protest, I kept imagining the flames engulfing the building before me, with my two friends still inside. I imagined losing them—how lonely, yet how free, I would be. Then I pushed the door open and went in. Zichen was cradling Da Wei’s head as if soothing him to sleep. Seeing me enter, he shook him awake. Da Wei sat up dazedly, and in the dim light, Zichen stood and announced the official disbandment of The Whale . Then he reiterated the magazine’s literary principles. First, oppose vulgarity. Second, oppose realism and political allegory. Additionally, he believed fiction should be expansive, without an absolute center, filled with many mysteries that need not be solved. Finally, he said that in this country, it was incredibly difficult to maintain a purely literary life. We finished the alcohol, all of us feeling deeply sorrowful.After the magazine ceased publication, we didn't see each other for a while—probably three or four months. During that time, I nearly married a man I met at a friend's wedding, and Da Wei broke up with his girlfriend of two years who was living in the UK. We briefly commiserated over our heartbreaks on the phone, then realized we hadn't seen Zichen in ages.
We each called Zichen separately and learned he had broken his leg and had been bedridden at home for two months. When we offered to visit, he refused. Da Wei and I spoke again on the phone. "I still want to see him," Da Wei said. "I think he needs us right now." I replied, "I really want to see him too, but I feel like he's drifting away from us. We're about to lose him."
We called Zichen again, pressing to meet. Eventually, he agreed, but instead of letting us come to his place, he suggested a small park by a lake.
That meeting was eerie. Da Wei and I arrived at the appointed time to find Zichen already there, sitting alone in a wheelchair by the water. It was evening, and the place was deserted except for a few wild ducks taking flight from the lake. He seemed like he had been waiting there forever—or as if he belonged there. When we parted, he insisted we leave first, saying someone would come for him soon. Reluctantly, we left him by the water.
It was during that meeting that Zichen first mentioned Haitong. "I've been reading this woman writer's novels lately," he said. Neither of us had heard of her, so we asked if she was famous. "Not many people have read her," he said. "She's very elusive—no one knows where she is." Then he asked if we remembered the story in 2666 where three scholars travel to Mexico City in search of the writer Archimboldi. When we nodded, he smiled approvingly and said, "Maybe Haitong is our Archimboldi."
Da Wei asked, "Are you saying we should go looking for this writer?"
Zichen replied, "The best way to get close to a writer is to become part of their story. We all like Bolaño, right?"
I said, "Fiction is a kind of enchantment. Acting out the story is like exorcising it—it strips the novel of its mystery."
Zichen countered, "Every great novel is a labyrinth. How can you know unless you walk through it?"
Da Wei pointed at Zichen's cast and said, "Let's talk about it when you can walk again."After parting ways with Zichen, I had dinner with Dawei. Dawei remarked that Zichen looked somewhat haggard, as if he hadn't spoken to anyone in a long time. I agreed, saying that when one stays alone for too long, all sorts of strange thoughts start to emerge. He nodded and suggested we visit him again next week.
That night, after returning home, I searched for information about Haitong. She had published a novel in 2008 titled The Pleiades , which was now out of print. Only one seller in Beijing was still offering it on a secondhand book site. I bought a copy from them, only to later find out that Dawei had also purchased one from the same seller. Both books were shipped at the same time and arrived at our respective homes the next day. But before that, I had already read everything available online about Haitong.
In 2008, after The Pleiades was published, it stirred some reactions. Some readers were outraged by the depictions of sex and violence in the book—a boy molested by an older man, a girl masturbating with a baton, a teacher suffocating a cat inside a piano, a water dispenser filled with blood... Critics argued that the author used excessive portrayals of sex and violence to create a spectacle, grabbing readers' attention. However, this 487-page novel appeared chaotic and unstructured, leaving readers unsure of what the author was trying to convey. Some even said the book made them so uncomfortable they wanted to immediately throw it out the window. Others expressed pity for the author, calling her a woman with a disordered mind and severe childhood trauma.
The novel didn’t receive much attention from the literary world, but by the end of the year, a prestigious literary award surprisingly granted Haitong the "Special Book of the Year" prize. The citation read: This is a novel that defies summarization—it embodies the author’s vibrant vitality and untamable talent.
Haitong didn’t attend the award ceremony. Her editor appeared in her place, explaining that she was traveling. However, when interviewed by the media afterward, the tall, thin man in black-framed glasses admitted he had never met Haitong in person—they had only communicated via email. A journalist—a woman who seemed in a hurry to pick up her child from school—asked him pointedly, So, in your mind, what kind of woman is Haitong?
The editor adjusted his glasses and said, I imagine she’s probably a little plump but doesn’t eat much, quite shy, speaks very softly...
The journalist withdrew her microphone and said, Alright, thank you. We look forward to reading more of Haitong’s works in the future, okay? That afternoon at five o'clock, the courier delivered the book. I unwrapped it and began reading at the dining table. The narrative voice of the novel was peculiar, like someone speaking in a strong wind, now near, now far. The protagonist, a thirty-year-old female writer, unable to bear living with her husband any longer, decides to leave home. She moves in with a reader she met at a book club—a single mother with a nine-month-old baby boy. Every day after the reader leaves for work, the writer tells the infant fairy tales she makes up: a goldfish falling in love with a fisherman, how the moon buries its illegitimate child, Rapunzel strangling the boy who eloped with her using her long hair... These tales fill thirty pages. Just as the novel threatens to turn into One Thousand and One Nights , one day, the writer decides to leave. She takes the baby, who by then has learned to walk. They board a cable car up the mountain, and inside the cabin, the writer recognizes the man sitting opposite her as her mother’s lover. The story then shifts to the writer’s childhood. Her father, a soldier, was often stationed away from home, while her mother, busy with her lover, entrusted her to her younger uncle. The uncle was deaf but also a painter who frequently used her as a model. One day, she knocked him to the ground and boarded a train to Beijing. However, she didn’t become a writer but instead... a model. She sat poised in the natural light studio of the art academy, sneaking peppermints into her mouth while the boys bent over their sketches. Her mother came by train to visit and, when asked about her lover, claimed she no longer had one. The writer then remembered—he had been executed during the 1988 crackdown. The novel recounts his story, though the writer’s mother is conspicuously absent from it.
In the second chapter, the baby has grown into a fifteen-year-old boy who takes a girl two years his senior to an abandoned haunted building in the city center for a date. In the basement of the building, there’s a door that opens onto a dark tunnel filled with tiny white flowers. The next fifty pages of the novel morph into a botanical treatise, detailing how this plant, which doesn’t rely on photosynthesis, traveled from Persia to China, was once considered lethally toxic, and wasn’t discovered to have medicinal properties—its stamens could treat epilepsy—until the late Qing dynasty. The novel then explains the tunnel’s origin: the haunted building was once the residence of a Kuomintang official during the Republican era. When the Communists liberated Beiping, he fled with his family through the tunnel. A concubine who didn’t go with him hanged herself in the attic. The novel delves into her story, revealing why she stayed behind. By the end of the chapter, in the tunnel, the boy tells the girl he once lived there for two years as a child.
The third chapter bears no relation to the first two. It follows three young people who leave the city to return to the countryside, attempting to reform village life and reconnect with the land. But as the three disappear one by one, the newly built village-town becomes a ghost town. Interspersed throughout are tales of village spirits, seemingly hinting that they were responsible for the disappearances. The chapter is titled “Speedwell,” with an explanatory footnote at the end: Speedwell: A herbaceous plant resembling a dog’s scrotum, of the Scrophulariaceae family, said to ward off spirits. It is also the name of the ninth fairy tale the writer told the baby. By the fourth chapter, it returned to the female writer. She was thirty-nine, without a fixed residence, living a nomadic life. She was content with this existence, though occasionally she longed for a place to take a hot bath. So she had her editor set up a mailbox for her downstairs at the publishing office, where her readers could leave keys. She would go to their addresses, talk with them, and borrow their bathrooms to bathe. In this way, she visited several readers. Some conversations went pleasantly, and after bathing, she even slept with a few male readers. The novel stopped on a clear Sunday morning as she climbed the stairs of an unfamiliar apartment building, pressed her ear to the door to listen for movement inside, then inserted the key into the lock.
I read the novel in three sittings. I slept twice in between, and during the second sleep, I dreamed of the female writer. She stood in the garden below my building feeding cats, but when I approached, she and the cats vanished into the bushes. After waking, I sketched her likeness from fragmented memories—a sharp face, high cheekbones, and light brown, cat-like eyes, though this last detail might have been confused with the cat from my dream. By the time I finished the novel, it was already noon. I felt hungry and ordered a pizza, then stood by the window waiting for the delivery person to arrive. As I reflected on the novel, I realized some parts had grown hazy in my memory, as if they had melted and seeped into the deeper folds of my brain. It felt like an invasive colonization—as though parts of my own memories had been overwritten and replaced by the story. I could even vividly recall the appearance of those small white flowers in the tunnel. Then the doorbell rang—the pizza had arrived. But I hadn’t seen the delivery person pass by the only path leading to the building. It was as if he had been hiding inside all along, slipping into his red uniform when the time came. Maybe he had multiple identities. Then it struck me that this strange suspicion might mean the way I saw the world had changed.
That night, I called Da Wei to discuss visiting Zi Chen again. Da Wei asked, "Have you read it?" and I knew he had read it too. We fell silent. After a pause, he said, "I can’t say whether this novel is good or not." I replied, "Mm." He continued, "I can’t say I understood it either. There are questions everywhere. But, how do I put it… I feel like I’m inside this novel, you know?" His voice was hoarse, as if he’d just woken up. I said, "I know what you mean." He asked, "What do you think about the book?" I said, "I just finished it. I feel exhausted—I need to sleep." He pressed, "Say something, anything. I really want to talk about it. If you hadn’t called, I would’ve called you." I said, "Maybe this novel isn’t about love, guilt, or sex, but loneliness. After reading it, I felt so alone. I know I’m lonely, but I don’t always feel it." He said, "I get it." We were quiet again before he asked, "How about we visit Zi Chen tomorrow?" "Sure," I answered.
This time, Zichen agreed to our visit request quite readily. We met again by the lake in that same park. When we arrived, it had started to rain. A park worker trimming the lawn approached us and said, "Your friend is waiting in the pavilion over there." We hurried over and found Zichen sitting alone in a wheelchair, completely dry despite the rain that had been falling for over an hour. The splint on his leg had been removed, but that limb appeared noticeably thinner than the right one, almost like a woman's leg. He told us he could walk now but thought meeting us on crutches would be undignified. Then he asked what books we'd been reading lately. None of us answered. Dawei asked instead, "Why do you want to find Haitong?" Zichen replied, "Her novels contain many questions I can't figure out." Dawei said, "She probably hasn't figured them out herself either." Zichen smiled, "She must be a woman full of flaws. But that's exactly what makes the search interesting. Whether you're searching for that German writer nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature like in 2666, or looking for a little-known female author like us—there's no fundamental difference. Because the act of searching matters more than who you're searching for. Ultimately, in this lifeless country, if you want to live a vibrant literary life, you must take action. It can't be protests, it can't be rallies—so what else is there?" I said, "This kind of writing takes a heavy toll. Haitong might never write again; The Pleiades could be her only work." Zichen countered, "You forget what she wrote in her novel—being a writer is a human attribute, not a profession. Even if she never writes again, she'll always be a writer. Besides," he added, "I have a feeling she won't stop writing, because it's the only way she can prove her existence." Dawei asked, "You're not in love with her, are you?" Zichen replied, "Loving someone so distant would be painful." I said, "But you're probably the person who understands her work best in this world." Zichen said, "Not necessarily. I think her editor understands her well too." Dawei concluded, "Then let's start our search with him."
That night, I had a dream. I dreamed the sailor's ghost wanted to join our search for the female writer. He said, "Take me with you. I've been away from the ocean too long—I'm almost turning into a dried specimen." I asked, "What about your girl?" He replied, "After your novel stopped, she left me. She probably wanted to leave long ago but never told you." I said, "Yes, I had that sense too." He shrugged and said, "An unfinished novel is like unformed amber—time keeps moving forward, don't you think?" I said, "I'm sorry I made you sad." He responded, "But I didn't cry. I'm not one of Marguerite Duras's characters who weep all the time. 'You've ruined me, you've been so good to me'—you could never write dialogue like that." I admitted, "Perhaps not. I'm not a generous person."I sent an email to the editor of The Pleiades , expressing my wish to meet with him. It took him half a month to reply, explaining that the publishing house had forwarded the email to him—he had already left the job long ago. He thanked us for our concern for Haitong and agreed to meet the following week. I hadn’t mentioned the two other friends joining me, so that afternoon, he sat waiting at a small square coffee table meant for just two people. By then, Zichen could already walk with a single crutch. That crutch looked pretty cool, making me want to gift him a top hat. When the three of us arrived together, the editor quickly switched to a larger table, shook each of our hands, and only then did we all sit down again.How should I put it? The editor adjusted his glasses and said, I think Hai Tong's best days are behind her. We had some opportunities, but ultimately, they didn’t pan out. He sighed softly. I asked, Did you hope this book would make a huge splash? The editor replied, That was my promise to her. Initially, I came across The Pleiades online—just the opening—and I was desperate to know what happened next, so I emailed her. She replied quickly, sending me the full manuscript. She said, You’re the fifteenth person to ask for this story. Thank you. After reading it, I felt the novel had many flaws, but it was still a unique work. I wrote back, expressing my desire to publish it and hoping to meet to discuss revisions. She responded that, for reasons she couldn’t explain, she couldn’t meet me, nor did she want to change the novel. I tried to persuade her, saying she should consider the reader’s experience—the characters couldn’t multiply so chaotically, and the side characters’ stories didn’t need as much detail as the main ones. She replied that, to her, writing was like a computer algorithm: every character involved was an unknown variable waiting to be solved, all equal, and each had to be fully processed before returning to the previous level. I tried twice more to convince her, but it was no use. Logically, faced with an author who refused to meet or revise, I should have given up. And I did—I tossed the manuscript into a drawer. But a few days later, I took it out again, and then I started making edits myself… Da Wei interrupted, So what we’re reading now is your edited version? The editor shook his head. I only got through twenty-four pages before I fell ill. After two days in bed, I changed my mind and decided to publish the novel as it was. It took a lot of effort to convince my superiors. As you’ve seen, the book has plenty of taboo content. The day before it went to print, Hai Tong suddenly emailed, asking me to halt publication. She didn’t give a reason. I ignored her request. Only after the book was released did I write to her, saying, Trust me, this will make a huge impact. Many people will fall in love with you because of it. Then I asked for her address to send a copy. Her reply was just one line: Don’t bother. I bought one. Unfortunately, within months, the book was banned for its depictions of sex and violence. Zi Chen asked, Why do you think Hai Tong refused to show herself? The editor said, I don’t know. Maybe she had another identity and didn’t want people to know she wrote it. I asked, Do you think any of the events in the novel were real? The editor replied, If you ask me, I’d say all of it was real. Vivid as life. People say I’ve been poisoned by this book. Da Wei asked, Has no one suspected that you actually know where Hai Tong is but won’t say? The editor said, Of course they have. Feel free to suspect me too. I’ve taken enough criticism over this book. I asked, Is that why you quit? The editor said, It played a part. Mostly, that publisher would never touch another book of hers again. Zi Chen asked, Does she have anything new? The editor said, She hasn’t mentioned it, but I told her that if she writes another, I’ll find a way to publish it. I said, You’re very loyal to her. The editor smiled. I just needed something to do. Life felt too empty otherwise. Da Wei asked, Publishing a book requires a contract, which means her real name and address, right? The editor said, I took a risk—I signed the contract under my ex-girlfriend’s name. No one noticed. Da Wei asked, What about the royalties? Didn’t you send them to her? The editor said, I did, along with the keys. Da Wei asked, What keys? The editor said, When the book first came out, the publisher ran a promotion: readers could mail their keys to a P.O. box, and we’d forward them to Hai Tong. Maybe, like in the novel, she’d visit them one day. By then, the book had been out for a month, selling poorly and getting torn apart online. A female colleague suggested the gimmick. She said, Imagine coming home one day to find a stranger sitting in your living room. What an unconventional way to meet someone. I told her I didn’t believe anyone would just hand over their house keys to a stranger. But within two weeks, we had over a dozen keys, each with a card listing the sender’s address. We hadn’t asked Hai Tong’s permission, so I figured I’d just throw them away. But when I wrote to her about the royalties, she said, Send them to me, along with the keys. She gave me a bank safe deposit box address. Even now, we occasionally get a key or two, and my colleague forwards them. Da Wei laughed, You didn’t send your own key, did you? The editor flushed and snapped, I wouldn’t stoop to such a silly game! We asked for the bank’s address, but he refused. He said, As her editor, I’ll answer any questions curious readers have, but I won’t help them find her. Then he stood and walked out of the café. We stayed a while longer. I said, I have a feeling the writer’s been watching everything from the shadows. Da Wei said, Yeah, she probably knows we’re sitting here talking about her right now. Zi Chen smiled—since breaking his leg, he’d started smiling often, as if the grins were some secretion from the injured limb—and said, Maybe Hai Tong’s waiting for us to find her. Da Wei said, I keep thinking about those people who mailed their keys. How lonely must they be? The café lights dimmed suddenly. A woman at the counter was tallying receipts. I said, Let’s go. They’re closing. The old café was better—let’s go back there in a couple of days. Sure, they both said.But the café with the three-bladed ceiling fan had already closed down. In its place was a children's swimming school, its entrance adorned with a giant inflatable cartoon fish. Da Wei remarked, "Looks like a whale—maybe it's meant to commemorate us." Zi Chen said, "Perhaps one of these kids will flip through a copy of Whale magazine years later and recall the first whale they ever saw." His words reminded me of my dream the night before. The ghostly sailor's face was twisted in agony, as if he had just risen from a cage in hell. He said, "You've never once considered what kind of life the protagonists of those unfinished novels lead. They drift through the world like restless spirits."
We found another café nearby, its business sluggish, its coffee tasting faintly of plastic—likely on the verge of closing soon. We started visiting every couple of days, each of us bringing whatever new discoveries we could. Da Wei speculated that if the novel's account of her four-year-old self watching her uncle paint family planning propaganda on a street-side ladder was true, then Hai Tong was probably a few years younger than the female writer depicted in the story—an only child. Frail in her youth, she had been unremarkable in sports, music, and art. She seemed to have a particular fondness for chocolate sprinkled with crushed peanuts, as well as nougat and pineapple cakes—undoubtedly a sweet tooth. Zi Chen had tracked down the real-life inspiration for the haunted mansion: it had indeed once been a Nationalist officer's residence, but the site was now a vacant lot where a real estate company planned to build an office tower. No news reports mentioned any underground tunnels discovered during demolition, but three construction workers had mysteriously vanished during the process, their fates still unknown. He theorized that the plants in the tunnel were a mutated form of Veronica persica , which typically blooms blue but might produce white flowers without sunlight. "Two paths for one life," he mused. "What can ward off demons can also summon them."I found the story with only the beginning that the editor had mentioned, on a very niche literary forum. The username "Haitong" had only posted this one article after registering and never responded to anyone else's posts. The profile picture was just a blank black image, but when I zoomed in, I noticed a tiny white flower in the bottom right corner. It was quite blurry, likely taken in extremely low light. The user information included an email address.
We started discussing what to write in the email to her, even considering whether to pose as journalists or foreign publishers interested in her story. But in the end, we decided to be honest. We shared our thoughts on The Pleiades , listed a few questions, and sincerely expressed our wish to meet her at the end. That part was written by me, so I remember it clearly.
I wrote: First of all, thank you for bringing the three of us back together. We’ve tried to grasp something in your story to set ourselves apart from others, to confirm that literature is the soul’s only escape. We all believe that one day, we will meet—either we come to you, or you come to us. Would you be willing to come to us? We’d love to meet you.
Da Wei wanted to include two lines of his poetry, but we stopped him.There was no reply to the email. Two weeks later, Zichen made a small discovery. The only seller on the used book website offering The Pleiades had changed the stock count from three copies to ten. What did this mean? It seemed he was collecting the novel. We wrote to him, using the excuse of asking for help finding some old books, and proposed a meeting. He replied with an address, telling us to call him when we arrived in the area. Following the directions, we found ourselves surrounded by farmland—though none of us could identify the specific crops growing there.
After the call, a man in a straw hat came out to meet us and led us down a narrow path to a courtyard at the end. Three mutts lay sleeping on the ground. We sat beneath a grapevine trellis, and he offered us homemade apple wine. The drink had a peculiar taste. A black-and-white dog woke up, sniffed at my cup, then wandered off.
Dawei asked, "Do you have many copies of The Pleiades ?"
The man removed his hat, revealing hair that was almost entirely white despite his age. "A few hundred," he said. "I’ve been buying them up from different places over time."
I asked, "Why?"
He replied, "Bookstores couldn’t sell them, so they were returned to the publisher. After sitting in storage for a while, they’d be pulped. Then readers would never be able to buy the book again."
"So it’s out of love for Haitong?" I said.
"More like preservation," he said. "Everyone has something they want to defend. If you can’t find it, you make your own."
Zichen asked for his thoughts on Haitong.
"I think she’s dead," he said. "In The Pleiades , I sensed a deep weariness of life. On one hand, I could feel the author’s fierce vitality; on the other, I felt she intended to destroy it. In a way, the novel reads like a suicide note. It’s as if she’s saying to us, I’m going to die—can you find me before I do? "
The three of us fell silent.
"Of course," he added, "that’s just my impression after reading it. At first, it was faint, but over time, it grew stronger. One morning, I woke up absolutely certain she was dead. From that day on, I started buying up every copy of The Pleiades I could find. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s just that her death fits my aesthetic, creating a kind of fantasy—one I can live in for a long time."The apple cider gave off a rotten smell under the sun. He admitted to us that the brewing was still in the experimental stage—perhaps too much hops had been added. Drink up, drink up, he said, it won’t get you drunk. Da Wei asked, Have you always lived here? He replied, Oh no, I used to live closer to the city, also in a bungalow, where I stored a large number of old books. One night, the room with the books caught fire. Da Wei asked, Were there many copies of The Pleiades in there? The white-haired man said, Yes, it was a heavy loss, but some survived. I moved them all here. Da Wei asked, Do you suspect someone deliberately set the fire to burn that book? He said, I don’t know. Maybe it was just an accident. I’m a simple man, inclined to think simply—the fact that we can sit here chatting proves that, doesn’t it? Da Wei said, We didn’t come to burn books! The white-haired man laughed. He said, Books can never be burned to extinction.
Before we left, he led us to the vegetable garden behind the yard and pointed at the watermelons lying in the dirt. The patterns on the rind change, he said. If you stare at them every day, you’ll notice. Then he gazed at the empty lot in the distance and added, Maybe soon, there’ll be a library here, a restaurant, a small auditorium with a glass roof. At night, you’ll look up and the stars will seem so big they might fall from the sky. I asked, Just like in The Pleiades ? He chuckled and said, Haha, I’ll remember to plant more speedwell to ward off ghosts.
We sat again in that desolate café. Autumn had arrived, and leaves drifted in through the open window, settling on our cooled coffee cups. I asked, Do you think she’s dead? Zi Chen said, I don’t think so yet. But I agree with what that man said— The Pleiades is indeed steeped in a heavy aura of death. She probably did have a plan to kill herself, maybe even set a deadline. Da Wei said, If we can find her quickly, we can stop it. Zi Chen said, Death can’t be stopped. I asked, If someone really did intend to burn those books, who could it be? Da Wei said, Maybe Hai Tong herself. She didn’t want those books to remain in the world. Remember, in The Pleiades , the female writer said she wanted exactly 3,999 readers, no more, no less. The print run must have exceeded that. I said, The address of the secondhand bookstore isn’t online—how did she find it? Zi Chen said, If you buy books from a store, you’d have its address, right? Da Wei said, This is insane—she tracked down the bookstore from the delivery slip, sneaked in at night, and burned his storage room… Zi Chen said, Isn’t her madness exactly what we love about her?
I called the white-haired man again and asked for a list of contacts who had purchased The Pleiades . He laughed on the other end and asked, Starting a book club? I said, Yeah, I want to hear their thoughts on the book. He said, You’re looking for clues about Hai Tong, aren’t you? I said, We still want to believe she’s alive. He replied, That’s good. If you find anything, let me know. Oh, and the apple cider experiment was a success.According to the list provided by the white-haired man, he had sold a total of sixteen copies of The Pleiades . Twelve of the buyers were in other cities. As the editor mentioned that Haitong's safe deposit box was opened at a local bank, we decided to start with the four local buyers. We called each of them, saying we were organizing a book club for The Pleiades and asked if they would like to participate.
The first three who answered were men. One had forgotten buying the book, another said he had only bought it because he was interested in haunted buildings but found it not scary at all, so he was quite disappointed. The third man agreed to attend the book club, and we told him we would notify him of the specific time and location later.
The fourth call was answered by a woman. She simply said she wasn’t interested and hung up. Her listed address was Office 217 in the College of Liberal Arts at a university, and the name field was filled in as "Professor Luo."
We arrived at the university and found Office 217 in the College of Liberal Arts. The room wasn’t large, but it was filled with potted plants, resembling a tropical greenhouse. A young man was sitting beneath a large-leafed plant, filling out forms. We asked if there was a Professor Luo here. He said, "Hmm, Professor Luo Xuewei? She’s not in." We told him we really wanted to attend her class and asked if he could tell us the schedule. The man checked his computer and said it was Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m., in Room 2113 of Public Teaching Building No. 2. He walked us to the door and said, "You’d better go soon." We asked what he meant. He replied, "Professor Luo won’t be teaching next semester—she’s about to have a baby."
We walked out of the Humanities Building, where a stretch of withered yellow grass lay before us. I said, "She’s going to have a baby." Dawei glanced at me and remarked, "You look as upset as if the man you love had betrayed you." Zichen said, "Maybe it’s because pregnancy delayed her suicide plan." Dawei added, "Wonder what kind of man she married."
On Thursday afternoon, we arrived punctually for the lecture and took seats in the back row. There were about twenty students—some with purple hair, others with nose rings. A girl in front of us told a boy, "I took Prozac with beer and ended up seeing a mirage. I grew up by the sea but was always too embarrassed to admit I’d never seen one before."
Professor Luo arrived, her round belly wrapped in a black wool dress. She stepped onto the podium and said, "Today, we’ll discuss Joyce’s short story The Dead . You’ve all read it, right?" A male student said, "The story’s pretty dull." Professor Luo shook her head. "Actually, it contains immense sorrow..." Another boy raised his hand and asked, "Professor, do you ever have wet dreams about your ex-boyfriend?" The boy next to him chimed in, "Do you still have wet dreams when you’re pregnant?" Professor Luo didn’t seem angry and kept smiling. She analyzed the story in a slow, deliberate tone, repeatedly using words like "grief," "hurt," and "shadow." The students frequently interrupted her to share their own painful experiences—being abused by their fathers or attempting suicide after a breakup... Professor Luo listened with gentle eyes, like a priest hearing confessions. After class, we asked a nearby student what the course was called. She said she’d forgotten, but Professor Luo always taught depressing stories. We asked, "Is that Professor Luo’s preference?" She replied, "No, it’s our need. We just love listening to these bleak stories."We went back to her office, where she was watering the plants. She turned around and saw us, startling both herself and us. She found a few chairs and had us sit among the greenery. We discussed her class with her, agreeing that it felt like a form of psychological counseling. She said, "Yes, the kids who take my class all have some psychological issues. Sad novels help them process their inner pain." Dawei asked, "Do you write novels yourself?" She replied, "I wrote a little in college, but I haven’t written since." The three of us exchanged glances. Zichen asked, "Have you read a novel called The Pleiades ?" "Yes," she answered. I asked if she liked it. She smiled. "Of course I like it—because it’s my story. Well, not entirely, but parts of it." I said, "Maybe it’s a side effect of reading that book, but after finishing it, I also felt like I’d witnessed some of the events firsthand, like the little white flowers in the tunnel." Dawei and Zichen nodded. "Yeah, we felt the same way." Teacher Luo asked, "Did your mothers also have a lover who was executed? Did your uncles also make you pose as their models?" We fell silent. She said the childhood experiences of the female writer in the novel were exactly like hers. Dawei said, "Alright, did you ever tell anyone about those experiences?" Teacher Luo replied, "In college, I had a very close roommate. I told her, and she encouraged me to write those stories down. I wrote a little, but then my mental state deteriorated, and I took a leave of absence." Zichen asked, "Is the part in the novel the same as what you wrote back then?" Teacher Luo said, "I can’t remember how I wrote it. I’ve heard about the content of The Pleiades , but I’ve been too afraid to read it. I wanted to find what I’d written first, but I never could. Eventually, I bought a copy online. After reading it, the story in the novel overwrote my memories. The only thing I know now is that it’s my story." Dawei asked, "What was your roommate like?" Teacher Luo said, "She was a very tall, thin girl who rarely talked about herself. When I returned to school after two years, she had already graduated and changed her number—probably didn’t want to stay in touch. Later, when I thought about her, I realized I knew nothing about her past." Dawei asked, "Did she like sweets?" Teacher Luo said, "She had mild anorexia and only drank celery juice." I asked, "Do you hate her for stealing your story?" She said, "Her image in my mind is very vague. I can’t quite believe the novel was written by someone I knew. Every time I try to recall my childhood, my memories slip into the events that happened later in the novel. I’m already a person without a past. So I have to have at least a little bit of a future." She placed her hands on her stomach, as if warming them. We left her office.Winter arrived, and we huddled in a corner of the café. The waitress, bundled in a padded coat, watched expressionlessly as the workers repaired the heating. From Professor Luo, we had learned the name of our female roommate—Chen Sining. According to campus network records, she had gone to Spain after graduation and now lived in Córdoba in the south. Her photo album had three uploads: one of the bullring in Zaragoza, another of a flamenco dancer in Seville, and the third, a picture of her standing on the balcony of her apartment, surrounded by bougainvillea. Searching her campus network ID, we found a post she had made on a beauty forum, asking whether anyone had experienced rib pain after breast augmentation, to the point of being afraid to sneeze. There were no replies. That lonely question from 2011 hung on the page, conjuring the image of a woman in a foreign land, struggling to suppress a sneeze in the dead of night.
We were all somewhat disheartened, perhaps unable to believe that what the female writer cared about most was her own chest. Da Wei suggested we go to Córdoba—he would cover the expenses. He said Córdoba might be our "Araby," but we had to go there to find out. Zichen stared at the bare branches outside the window and said, "Exactly. 'The Last Leaf' is a terrible story, but honestly, if someone painted a leaf like that for me now, I’d be grateful." Da Wei replied, "Córdoba is quite warm. There are plenty of leaves there." Zichen said, "I hope so." Da Wei added, "Even if she isn’t the person we’re looking for, it doesn’t matter. We can stay in Spain until my savings run out."
From Chen Sining’s third photo, the golden spire of a mosque could be seen behind her apartment. We marked all the mosques in Córdoba on a map and booked a hotel near one of them.
The day before our departure, Zichen committed suicide. He swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. By the time his family—a very elderly aunt—found him, there was still a faint breath in his nostrils. She immediately called an ambulance. But the ambulance was caught in a citywide lockdown—a state leader had just concluded a five-day official visit and was en route to the airport. The ambulance stopped at the security cordon, its red light swaying like a disapproving prophet. By the time they reached the hospital, he was already gone.
Da Wei and I attended Zichen’s funeral. Very few people came, and none of them knew each other. They left right after the ceremony. I went to speak with the elderly aunt. She didn’t seem particularly sad—if anything, she seemed relieved. I suggested coming by in a few days to help sort through Zichen’s belongings. She advised me to come after 3 p.m., as her afternoon naps were long. Da Wei went outside alone to smoke, and later I found him under a pine tree. It wasn’t particularly cold that day, and a watery snow was falling. The sky looked like the grimacing face of a square robot, I remarked. Da Wei responded with a grimace of his own.
I fell ill with a high fever that wouldn’t break. Over the phone, I told Da Wei I probably didn’t have the courage to sort through Zichen’s things. Da Wei said, "I understand. I’ll do it. Take care of yourself." I replied, "You too."Four months had passed since I last saw Dawei. During that time, several things happened: I moved once, went on two blind dates, and started dating one of the men. Someone also called several times asking whether the "Pleiades" book club was still happening and why they hadn't been notified. Additionally, the sailor's ghost reappeared and told me about some of his failed romantic experiences. I advised him not to obsess over love. He replied, "Characters in novels aren't real people—they often fixate on just one thing. The personality you gave me only cares about love." I asked if he encountered many characters from unfinished novels by other authors. He said, "All the girls I meet are like that—they're like underdeveloped embryos, which is why they act so erratically." I asked if he could help me find a character from a novel written by my friend Wu Zichen. He said, "I'll try, but generally we don't mention who wrote us unless the author is famous. Only those characters who think they come from prestigious works brag about their authors."
One day in April, Dawei called to arrange a meeting. His tone was grave, as if he had something important to say. "Let's meet somewhere else," he said. "That café closed down." We went to the bookstore where we first met. The layout of the first-floor café had changed, and the server told us a flower-arranging class would start soon—there was still time to sign up. Dawei sat across from me, fingers tightly interlaced. He had tanned and grown a beard. I asked if he'd been on vacation, but he didn't answer. Instead, he leaned forward and said quietly, "I found Haitong." I set down my coffee cup and stared at him. "Where is she?" He looked pained, then told me, "Zichen is Haitong." I shook my head. "That's impossible." He said, "I've spent these months investigating—it's undeniable."
Dawei told me that on the day of the memorial service, he went outside alone to smoke. A short man in a fitted wool coat approached him to ask for a lighter. The man asked, "Are you also a friend of Zichen's?" Dawei said yes. The man nodded. "Me too." Seemingly overcome by memories, he confided in Dawei that he and Zichen had been deeply in love seven years earlier. Dawei didn't seem surprised, explaining that he and Zichen were literary friends who knew little about each other's private lives. "Ah, literature!" the small man said, nodding. "I remember Zichen once said he wanted to write a book from a woman's perspective—to hide himself away so no one would know he was the real author." Concealing his shock, Dawei asked, "Why a woman's perspective?" The man replied, "Maybe he still felt people were prejudiced against gay writers. If he had to choose between a male or female voice, he preferred the woman's." Dawei asked, "Did he ever write it?" The man said, "I don't know. We lost touch long ago. He probably never imagined I'd come today."Da Wei paused for a moment before continuing. On the day he went to Zichen's home to collect his belongings, he didn't find any diaries or manuscripts. Everything had already been sorted. Only in a long-unused backpack was there a stack of notepapers, filled with unrelated nouns and fragmented sentences. Among the nouns, "tunnel" and "cable car" appeared repeatedly. Some of the notes were dated 2010, earlier than the publication of The Pleiades . Among those notes, he also discovered a dried white flower. I said, perhaps these were all coincidences. Da Wei replied, think about it—when we were searching for Haitong, almost all the new leads came from Zichen, right? I asked, then why did he want us to look for Haitong? Da Wei said, he needed a few immortal readers to serve as his mourners. We were the most suitable candidates. Haven't we been poisoned deeply enough? I began to cry. Da Wei said, perhaps Teacher Luo's roommate—Chen Sining—knew him. She told him Teacher Luo's story. That's why he didn't want to go to Córdoba, do you understand? Da Wei sighed and said, Zichen's aunt mentioned that when he broke his leg, it was because he jumped from a fourth-floor balcony. He had attempted suicide more than once. I said, let's stop here. I want to go home.
The next morning, I called Da Wei. In the afternoon, we met again at the bookstore café. I said, I didn't sleep all night. Da Wei said, maybe I shouldn't have told you. I said, at first I hated him, but by dawn, I didn't anymore. I envied him a little—he could devote his entire life as an offering to literature. But we can't. Da Wei said, yeah, we can't. Because life only happens once. We stayed at the café until closing time, then went to a bar for a drink before heading home. On the third afternoon, we met again and went to the same bar. The same routine continued for the rest of the week. Neither of us mentioned literature or Zichen, only occasionally touching lightly on life. He regretted giving up soccer in college, while I thought about signing up for a baking class. We urged each other to live well. But the prolonged encouragement seemed to betray our confusion. One evening during the second week, the bar was taken over by soccer fans. He asked if I'd like to go to his place instead. I went. The house was large and empty, with a garden that was equally barren in May. Da Wei said, I've always wanted to plant some flowers. I said, mm-hmm. He asked, what should I plant? I said, roses or maybe wild roses? He said, okay, I'll look up where to buy them. I said, the neighbors have a whole yard full—just ask them for a few. He said, but I've never spoken to them before. I said, then go talk to them. Didn't we agree to embrace life unreservedly?
That night, I didn't leave. The next morning, arm in arm, we rang the neighbor's doorbell. He gave us three wild rose plants and dug up five rose bushes for us. We spent the whole day getting the flowers settled, then rushed to the mall before closing to buy two bath towels and two pairs of slippers.A month later, we got married. Two months after that, I became pregnant. We redecorated our home and invited some new friends over. Another two months passed, and Da Wei started working at his father's company. On mornings with important meetings, I would get up to help him tie his tie. By then, I had already gained twenty pounds, my face covered in spots, spending my days curled up in bed, drifting in and out of sleep. My dreams were like repeatedly filtered purified water—utterly devoid of any stray thoughts. In the afternoons, I would take walks downstairs and met two women whose bellies were even bigger than mine. They tirelessly discussed stroller and baby formula brands with me and told terrifying stories about nannies stealing children. I think they rather liked me because I knew nothing and always wore a look of utter bewilderment. "Oh my god, you don’t even know…" they would shriek, deriving some satisfaction from it.
Yohei was born two months premature and spent two weeks in an incubator. During that time, I often felt as though I had merely been ill and had forgotten about the existence of a child. When the nurse handed him to me, I couldn’t hide my surprise. He was as small as a naked heart. Da Wei said, "Don’t worry, he’ll grow up strong."
He woke up countless times every night, shattering my sleep into fragments. Sometimes, when he was asleep, I would sit by the window, my buttons undone, waiting for him to wake again. Outside the window, the garden’s transplanted roses and Chinese roses hadn’t bloomed—their branches were bare, without a single leaf.Da Wei came home late every night, drunk. He'd complain to me about how his colleagues at work slighted him, humiliated him, how his father always had that "you've disappointed me" line ready. One day, I said it was just a job. Da Wei replied, "Yeah, but what else do I have besides this job?" I stayed silent. He said, "I know what you're thinking—that I've become vulgar and can't do anything right. You're disappointed in me too, aren't you? No matter what kind of life I give you, you're never satisfied, never even give me the slightest fucking smile when I come home!" I said, "The baby's crying." Da Wei said, "Let him cry!" We sat there as the child wailed, the cries eventually fading into whimpers before stopping altogether. Da Wei asked, "You still think about Zichen often, don't you?" I said, "Yes, and so do you, don't you?" Da Wei said, "So us being together was a mistake." I said, "Maybe." He slumped on the sofa, his eyes despairing. Soon, he fell asleep. I remained seated, waiting for the baby to cry for me again. But he didn't. I walked over and shook Da Wei awake. He glanced at me, then turned over and went back to sleep. Standing in the silent house, I lost track of time until I heard a knock on the window. It was the sailor's ghost, his face pressed against the glass, grinning at me. I pushed open the door and stepped into the yard. The moment he saw me, he said, "I found the character from that novel written by Zichen." I asked, "What's she like?" He said, "A really cool girl from an unfinished sci-fi story. The upper half of her neck is metal, and her head's super smart—she can calculate cube roots of seven-digit numbers in her head." Then, excitedly, he told me he'd pursued her for a long time, and yesterday she finally agreed to be his girlfriend. He said he was incredibly happy; everything was wonderful, except that kissing her felt a bit chilly. I said, "I wish you both happiness." He replied, "Thank you, and your friend too." He waved goodbye. I turned off the porch light, went back inside, and took off my slippers, damp with dew.
The next day, I woke up early, made breakfast, and stood at the door watching Da Wei leave. I fed the baby and put him back in his crib, then cleaned the house and packed some clothes into a travel bag. Before leaving, I took my copy of The Pleiades from the shelf, stuffed it in, and zipped the bag shut. I locked the door and walked out onto the street, carrying the bag. The sun was blinding, and the water left by the street sweeper was evaporating. At the subway station, I was pushed onto the train by the crowd. A man brushed against me with his elbow. I stared at him, and he turned away. At the next stop, I squeezed out of the crowd and got off. Sitting on a bench, I pulled out a piece of bread and devoured it. Suddenly, I felt a pang of homesickness—for the place I'd just left—though I couldn't pinpoint what exactly I missed. I stuffed the last bite of bread into my mouth and walked to the opposite platform.I walked to the door, set down my travel bag, took out the keys, and unlocked it. The child was babbling, and without even taking off my shoes, I rushed into the living room. A woman was sitting by the crib, her thick braid draped over her shoulder, her skin dark, wearing a deep gray robe—her age indeterminate. She was telling the child a story in a low, soothing voice.
I asked, "Who are you?"
She smiled and said, "I'm Haitong. Did you send me the key? It was a long time ago—last year, I think. I haven't had the chance to come until now."
I shook my head. "I never sent a key."
"Oh," she said. "Then it must have been someone else in the family, one of my readers. They even left a little love poem on a slip of paper—quite touching." She reached into the crib and stroked the child's cheek. "He's very well-behaved, so quiet."
I had so many questions for her—questions that would never be answered. But instead, I said, "Please leave. This is my home."
She looked puzzled and said, "The owner of this place invited me here."
I replied, "I am the owner here. Would you please leave?"
I held the door open and stood there. Shaking her head, she muttered, "People these days are simply unreasonable," before grumbling her way out.
I closed the door and returned to the sunlit living room. If there's one unsolvable mystery, it's probably what the future holds. What will I become in the future? What will Da Wei become? And what about Yangping when he grows up? I sat by the window, watching the already sleeping Yangping, and placed a blue teddy bear in his hand.
[1] Frank and April are the male and female protagonists in American writer Richard Yates' novel "Revolutionary Road."
[2] "Araby" is a short story by Joyce published in 1914, included in "Dubliners." Araby is the name of a market in the story.
[3] O. Henry's short story.
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