Chapter 12 It's so hot here, take me outside (The End) Besides time...
She didn't sleep a wink all night, her eyes wide open until dawn. He Yujiao and Wu Yan went to the workshop, but Xia Zhu said she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be going today.
After the two left, she sat up in bed, wondering what would happen if she skipped work in her dream because she didn't follow the factory's rules.
It's still cloudy today; it seems like there wasn't a moment of sunshine in my dreams.
Looking down through the window, now completely covered by railings, the blue crowd in the courtyard resembled damp, humid clouds on a cloudy day, obscuring the originally bright sunlight.
She had a headache and felt that she vaguely sensed the key figure in this dream, but she just couldn't grasp it. After pacing back and forth in the small room a few times, Xia Zhu lay back down on the bed. The wood grain under Wu Yan's bed helped her clear her mind.
Whether it was because she hadn't slept all night or because her brain cells were exhausted, Xia Zhu fell asleep without realizing it. When she woke up again, the room was already very dark, and He Yujiao's alarm clock on the desk showed that it was already 6:45 pm.
I slept all day, and by now the workers in the workshop are almost done finishing their shifts and going home.
After resting for a while, her mind was indeed much clearer. Xia Zhu felt that her thinking ability had been restored. She got out of bed and stood in the center of the room where the lights were off, recalling the scene when she woke up in this room on the first night.
The sound of crying in the middle of the night, the seemingly normal roommate, and the completely exposed room.
Everything that had happened these past few days flashed through her mind.
Then she realized she had made a big mistake, a mistake that had gone off track from the very beginning.
Walking to the desk, Xia Zhu opened the only unlocked drawer.
The twilight today was unusually colorful, with wisps of golden clouds drifting between the horizon and the sky. Xia Zhu ran across the courtyard into the workshop building. Of course, things had returned to normal here, and the anxious crowds that had blocked the gate the night before were gone.
She climbed up to the third floor in one breath. The workday bell was already ringing over the loudspeaker, and people were gradually appearing in the corridor. Xia Zhu squeezed against the flow of people and finally made her way into workshop 302. She saw He Yujiao standing up from her workstation in the distance, with Wu Yan beside her. He Yujiao also saw Xia Zhu. She exchanged glances with Wu Yan, and both of them looked towards Xia Zhu.
"Are you feeling better? Everyone's off work now, why did you come over?" He Yujiao asked as Xia Zhu approached.
She nodded, not wanting to engage in any further pleasantries, and got straight to the point.
What is the relationship between Zhou Xiaoli and Manager Wang?
As soon as Xia Zhu finished speaking, the expressions of the two women changed. He Yujiao changed her familiar and enthusiastic face, and the corners of her mouth and eyebrows raised in tacit agreement. Her eyes swept over Xia Zhu from head to toe, and Xia Zhu felt her heart start to beat faster.
"What do you think? What kind of relationship do you think it is?" He Yujiao's tone and expression were full of meaning.
Just as Xia Zhu was about to speak, Wu Yan, who had been silent all along, suddenly sneered. Two huge dark circles under her eyes made her already large eyes look like they were about to droop.
Wu Yan stared at her from below, uttering each syllable slowly and deliberately: "Self-deception."
"What..." Before Xia Zhu could finish speaking, the lights in the workshop suddenly went out, with only a faint daylight shining through the high window. He Yujiao and Wu Yan beside her remained expressionless, simply staring at her in the same posture without saying a word.
Xia Zhu looked up and noticed that on the window facing them, there were ribbon-like things hanging from the airtight safety netting, fluttering in the wind. The girl next to her, who usually sat at her workstation, had been hunched over her seat organizing something. Now she turned towards Xia Zhu, and in the dim light, Xia Zhu could see what the girl was doing.
The girl had completely changed. Most of her hair had fallen off from her charred head, with some still stuck to her scalp. She was using her mutilated hand to scoop out the rotten flesh flowing from her chest cavity, but because half of the flesh in her palm had fallen off and was hanging down, leaving gaps, the bits of flesh that were scooped up would flow out of the gaps again.
The girl kept muttering "It's not pretty anymore" as she fished it out, with half of a pink plastic piece still stuck to her head.
Xia Zhu turned her head and saw that there were more than just one Jiao Ren in the entire workshop; there were others standing on chairs, by the door, and under the windows.
They were all female workers who had worked hard here.
"Buzz—", the incandescent light tube above her head flickered a few times and then lit up again. The scene around her returned to normal. He Yujiao and Wu Yan stopped looking at her and walked past her expressionlessly, disappearing through the door.
Xia Zhu was silent for a moment, then chased after him.
But the two had just left, and she ran into the courtyard but couldn't find them anywhere. It was completely dark now, and the once bustling area was now eerily quiet. There wasn't a soul around, let alone He Yujiao and Wu Yan.
Once it gets dark, this place might no longer be safe, so she thought for a moment and decided to go back to her dormitory first.
As Xia Zhu walked up the stairs, she was recalling the expressions and attitudes of He Yujiao and the other woman and the words they had spoken when a clear sobbing suddenly came from the empty stairwell. However, it was no longer as mournful and ethereal as before; instead, it was filled with resentment and venom.
Xia Zhu had a bad feeling. Logically speaking, the sun had just set, and the crying shouldn't have started so early. She ran quickly, but the crying followed closely behind her.
Pushing open the dormitory door, Xia Zhu saw He Yujiao and Wu Yan sitting at their desks, the sky already dark but without turning on the lights. Xia Zhu walked straight up to them, looking directly into He Yujiao's eyes.
"Who am I?" Xia Zhu asked.
"What?" He Yujiao looked amused. "Xia, what's wrong with you?"
"Who am I?" she continued to ask.
"You're Xia Xia."
"My name."
He Yujiao leaned back in her chair, squinted, and her expression was unreadable in the darkness.
"Xia Lifang, what's wrong with you?"
Taking a deep breath, Xia Zhu's suspicions were confirmed.
Xia Lifang, the Xia in He Yujiao's words, never referred to Xia Zhu. She was wrong from the beginning, believing that she would still be herself when she entered the dream. In fact, she had been playing someone else all along.
Therefore, the "Xiaoli" mentioned by Manager Wang should be "Xiaoli," which explains why that exquisite and expensive jewelry box appeared in Xia Zhu's, or Xia Lifang's, drawer.
Now, the key to realizing the dream is...
"Where is the mirror?" Xia Zhu leaned down and approached He Yujiao.
"What do you need a mirror for?"
She braced herself against the armrests of He Yujiao's chair with both hands, encircling her inside.
“Where is the mirror in this place?” Xia Zhu repeated expressionlessly.
He Yujiao seemed startled; she stammered.
"There's one in the storeroom..."
The storage room? I didn't see it last time I went there. She glanced at the flashlight on Wu Yan's desk, picked it up, and then felt her coat pocket to make sure the key was still inside.
"Thank you," Xia Zhu said to the two people sitting blankly in the chair, then turned and left the dormitory.
The shrill cries around her almost pierced her eardrums, but Xia Zhu ran headlong, ignoring the sounds that were almost solidifying and tangling in her hair. Now she finally understood why the group of charred people had been chasing her last night—because she held the key that allowed them to escape the infernal inferno. Perhaps "she" was the culprit behind this disaster, and she had locked that escape route once again to escape the workshop building.
It's like two different timelines overlapping in the dark.
As she rushed out of the dormitory building, the cries behind her were suddenly dispersed by the night wind. The sudden silence made her ears ring. She turned around and glanced at the dark doorway. The cries, along with those of the girls trapped in the fire, were forever left under the airtight protective netting.
Xia Zhu felt depressed. After spending a few days with them, she felt that the girls were just like her classmates. They were about the same age, young and beautiful. They loved beauty and were charming, yet they were also hardworking and resilient. They missed their hometowns but were full of hope for the future. The good years were turning over in their hands, while the beautiful scenery outside the high window was unattainable.
She had no understanding of so-called fortune and destiny; she only felt that it was a pity to lose a flower blooming towards the sun, and that it shouldn't have ended like this.
Reaching the iron gate of the workshop building, a pungent, metallic scent wafted out from the gaps. Xia Zhu took out her key and unlocked the heavy chains. Turning right inside, she found the warehouse door wide open, just as it had been the night before. Eighty toy dolls were neatly arranged on the floor in the center. Now she finally understood what this meant.
Eighty girls died in the raging fire, and Zhou Xiaoli may have been one of them, but for some reason, she was never seen even during the day.
As soon as she entered the warehouse, she noticed a noise coming from the stairs outside the door, waking Jiao Ren upstairs again. She turned around and closed the warehouse door. The lock was broken, so she could only push it closed temporarily. Closing the door felt awkward right now, but Xia Zhu didn't have time to be sad. She had to hurry and find a mirror.
The warehouse was very empty. Apart from the toys on the ground, there was nothing else in sight, let alone a room full of clutter. Moreover, she noticed that the toys on the ground were wriggling and seemed to be trying to get up.
Looking around, Xia Zhu noticed that only the wall facing the main gate was without windows. Perhaps the door to the storage room was hidden in the dark wall. So Xia Zhu quickly crossed the warehouse and went to the corner to start groping around.
She also found many cigarette butts on the ground and suddenly remembered the men she had seen smoking on the first day. If it were a warehouse full of goods, a small cigarette butt could burn everything to ashes. This factory produced toy dolls, not to mention the flammable materials.
Xia Zhu frowned, her hand carefully running along the wall. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the doll on the ground not far away had mostly stood up, and there was a rattling sound coming from the iron gate.
Just as the door was flung open and all the toy dolls stood up, she finally felt a well-hidden crack in the wall. Pressing on the crack, she pushed hard, and a door opened in the wall. Xia Zhu slipped inside. In her last glance before the door closed, she saw a charred mass of people surging towards her like a tide, all stretching out their clenched fists in her direction. Realizing that the charred figures were the female workers who had perished in the fire, Xia Zhu could no longer feel fear towards them.
Turning on the flashlight, Xia Zhu discovered that the room was filled with all sorts of things, which must be the storage room He Yujiao had mentioned. Xia Zhu dragged a shelf on the left to block the door and began looking for a mirror in the room.
She wondered if it was because there was too much dust in the room, but she felt her vision was starting to blur, and everything in front of her was gray. This made her feel like she was back in reality but without her glasses, which made her feel a little insecure.
A muffled thud came from the wall; Jiao Ren seemed to have crashed into it, still searching for the door that had made Xia Zhu disappear from their sight. Rubbing her eyes, she quickly continued searching; the sounds outside the door grew louder and louder, and her heart trembled with each passing moment.
Finally, in a corner hidden by two cardboard boxes, under a red cloth, Xia Zhu found the mirror.
Her vision was completely blurred, so she could only crouch down and get closer to the mirror. In the mirror, which was also covered in dust and filthy, appeared the face of an unfamiliar old man.
The old man's body was covered with wrinkles and brown spots, his hair was a mixture of black and white, and his eyes were cloudy and unfocused as he squinted at "himself".
"Xia Lifang," Xia Zhu called out the name.
The old man in the mirror hesitated for a moment, then finally nodded shakily.
"You are Ryou, the master of this dream."
“It’s me,” the old man said in a hoarse voice.
"The person connected to Manager Wang is not Zhou Xiaoli, but you. That's why you have a key with the manager's name on it that can open the workshop building?"
Xia Lifang closed her small, wrinkled eyes in pain, and said in a trembling voice, "It was me, it was all me. He gave me the key and made me manage those female workers. I was a model worker in the workshop, and with the key, I was all the rage for a while. I wanted to act like a manager and not let those female workers who were working overtime go back to their dormitories without permission... so I locked the door..."
“But I never imagined that night, a few people smoking would throw their still-lit cigarette butts into the warehouse. Maybe the cotton and fabric caught fire, or maybe rats gnawed through the wires. In just a few minutes, the fire raged up and shot up to the third floor. They…they all died…” Xia Lifang buried her face in her hands, her voice muffled as it escaped through her fingers. “I didn’t want to face the fact that I had killed eighty living people, so I could only distort the truth in my dreams, constantly implying that someone else was entangled with Wang Guobin. But I know these are all excuses…it’s all my fault, all because of me…”
She slowly raised her face, her eyes unfocused in mid-air, as if she had seen something.
"That was in 1991... I was only 23 years old, and they were so young..."
Looking at Xia Lifang, who was excessively aged and didn't seem to be in her fifties, Xia Zhu felt that perhaps guilt was accelerating her decline in the remaining years of her life. She couldn't forget her, month after month, year after year, and in her midnight dreams, she trapped herself in a period of time in 1991. The lives of young girls were forever frozen there because of her, while Xia Lifang aged into a state they could never reach. Besides time, there were other things that urge people to die.
She wasn't the only one who caused this heartbreaking disaster; there were many others in the factory. Small mistakes made carelessly led to catastrophic consequences. Xia Zhu wondered if those people would feel guilty and develop inner demons like Xia Lifang, or if they were glad they hadn't been caught in the disaster. Facing Xia Lifang, she didn't know what to say.
A loud crash came from the doorway. Jiao Ren pushed the door open a crack, and several pairs of charcoal-black hands reached in, pushing against the shelf blocking the door.
Just as Xia Zhu was about to ask Xia Lifang about the stone, she saw the person in the mirror reach out and put their hand into their pocket. Realizing what was happening, she also reached into the right pocket of her shirt and felt a cold, rough stone.
The shelves collapsed, the door was smashed open, and countless black figures were squeezed into the door frame, with severed limbs and broken bodies scattered all over the ground.
She took out the stone and held it in her palm. The natural stone emitted a shimmering green light. Just as Xia Zhu felt dizzy, a hideous face rushed in front of her. A pink plastic piece was stuck in her skull, and a hand with exposed flesh gripped her arm tightly.
"It's so hot here, take me outside..."
She vaguely heard the sound of a charred body breaking, but she couldn't muster any strength and could only close her eyes and fall backward.
A note from the author:
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The first dream has ended.
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