The moment she clearly heard the first sentence from behind her, amidst her terror, Jin Xueli felt a flicker of relief—
"I knew you were back a long time ago,"
Her own voice, like a thick, miasmic fog, drifted up from behind her head. "You're so easy to fool. Not like me at all."
'Thank goodness,' Jin Xueli thought as she pivoted on her knee and twisted around. 'Its first sentence was just nonsense.'
So what if it had found out early? No matter what, it was always going to come down to a fight to the death.
She was already mentally prepared. Yet when the other "Jin Xueli" suddenly appeared in her line of sight, her breath still hitched involuntarily, as if someone had shoved her in the chest.
Compared to the "Jin Xueli" from her memories, the resident now looked even more vivid, more real: a forehead glistening with beads of sweat in the firelight, a lock of golden-brown hair stuck to its temple, the peach fuzz on its cheeks, the hot breath puffing from its lips…
Those eyes were so bright it was as if nothing else existed.
This was Jin Xueli. This was herself. And yet, she was standing outside of her own body, watching her own arm raise high and bring a dark shadow crashing down on her.
At the last possible second, Jin Xueli dove to the side. A deafening CRASH exploded next to her ear as the exhibit was gouged, a huge chunk bitten out of it. Amidst the flying splinters, she squeezed her eyes shut and rolled away. Her face and hands were already pricked with countless slivers of wood.
"Just die already! There can only be one Jin Xueli in this world!"
The unfamiliar, yet distinctly her own, shout echoed through the exhibition hall. With a grunt of effort, the other "Jin Xueli" pulled a fire axe from deep within the splintered wooden exhibit.
'When did it…?'
Before she could even finish the thought, Jin Xueli sprang to her feet and bolted. In her panic, she'd forgotten she had taken off her shoes. With only socks on her feet, she had almost no traction on the slick exhibition hall floor.
The moment she was about to slip and fall, she threw herself forward in a diver's lunge. 'Ever since I woke up again,' she thought grimly, 'it feels like I've spent more time crawling and rolling on the floor than standing.'
The fire axe landed with a heavy THUD, biting deep into the floor tiles just a foot away from her.
Jin Xueli had never taken off a sock so fast in her entire life.
Seizing the moment while the fire axe was still stuck, she ripped off a sock, aimed for the eyes on her other face, and threw it. Like any normal person, the resident wasn't about to let a sock hit it in the eye and quickly jerked its head aside.
Jin Xueli wanted to press her advantage, but there was no chance to take off her other sock and throw it. The resident had already closed the distance, raising the axe high above her.
Almost instinctively, she kicked out at the resident's ankle.
After copying Jin Xueli, the resident was just in a normal human body. Kicked in the shin with full force, it cried out in pain and staggered back two steps. Jin Xueli seized the opportunity, scrambled to her feet, and ran—one foot steady, the other slipping.
As she ran, she couldn't help but think back to the ankle she had just kicked.
She'd never considered it before: 'What kind of shoes is the resident wearing?'
She already knew residents couldn't copy things like backpacks or phones. But what about clothes? What about shoes?
In that life-or-death moment, she had caught a glimpse…
"Wait!"
Jin Xueli knew she couldn't outrun the resident with one bare foot. What was more, the more time she wasted, the more dangerous her situation became. Desperate, she risked a glance back and shouted, "What are you wearing?"
The other "Jin Xueli," gritting its teeth in hot pursuit, faltered for a second at her words but wasn't distracted. It swung the axe at her first. Only after Jin Xueli narrowly dodged did it laugh, panting, "Trying to buy time with pointless chatter?"
"Residents can't copy backpacks, and they can't copy clothes either!"
Afraid it would charge again, Jin Xueli yelled quickly, "You copied my appearance, but you're still wearing your own shoes! The memory of what clothes and shoes I wore before coming to the Nest today must be in your head, right? Look down at yourself, then think back. Do the clothes in your memory match the ones on your body?"
The other "Jin Xueli" froze for a moment and actually looked down at its clothes.
Even residents of the Nest couldn't go around naked; they usually wore something.
This one, perhaps because it was a "Vulture" and had to be ready to transform into someone else at a moment's notice, wore unremarkable, versatile black pants and black shoes. It was no wonder Jin Xueli had never noticed its attire. When your own face emerges from the darkness, you don't tend to pay much attention to the other person's shoes.
"They match," it said articulately when it looked up again. "When I enter the Nest at night, I always wear black clothes and black shoes to avoid attracting attention. It's ridiculous if you're trying to trick me with this."
It hefted the fire axe in one hand and kicked out lightly with the toe of its shoe.
"I can even tell you that I bought these shoes on sale at Bloomingdale's. I figured that for stuff I wear in the Nest, quality is all that matters. There's no need to pay full price for a stylish design."
This time, it was Jin Xueli's turn to be stunned. That line of thinking was, without a doubt, her own. She could even recall several items of clothing she had bought for the exact same reason.
"And you?" The resident smiled at her, a lock of hair sticking to its lips, framing its teeth. "If you really have my memories, you'd realize *your* clothes are the ones that don't match."
Jin Xueli couldn't help but look down, her gaze falling on her khaki sweatpants.
She remembered putting on these exact pants before jumping out the window… but where did they come from?
Most people could vaguely remember where they bought their clothes, but these sweatpants felt as if someone had just pulled them onto her seconds ago. They were so unfamiliar it left her bewildered.
'Why don't I have any memory of buying these pants?'
"It seems that after a resident copies its original, it polishes and smooths out the memories, fixing any details that don't fit the facts to cover up the flaws… That's why you so firmly believe that you're the real me."
As she stared down at her pants in a daze, the other "Jin Xueli" slowly approached. Its voice, its warm breath, its sweaty smell, and its feet in their black shoes were encroaching on her very existence, bit by bit.
"Residents can't be killed. I've heard that."
It said in a low voice, "However, I need to disable you first, just to be safe… I imagine there's a time limit to you being copied into human form, right? When time's up, if you haven't returned to Blackmoor City to replace me, you'll probably revert to your resident form, won't you?"
'Wait—what is it saying?'
It was like a tiny pinprick deep in her mind, letting in a sliver of light the size of a grain of rice. But the light flashed once and was immediately swallowed by a heavier, more urgent shadow.
She neither heard nor saw it—it was as if some kind of intuition beyond her five senses made Jin Xueli suddenly duck, lunge forward, and tackle the resident, lifting it off its feet just as the fire axe swung down at her forehead.
The resident's arm, tensed for the powerful swing, struck her hard on the ear and head. But the deadly fire axe had finally scraped past her shoulder, slipped from its grasp, and clattered onto the floor tiles nearby.
The two of them fell to the ground together. The resident's head hit the floor with a gut-wrenching CRACK.
"You copied my form," it still managed to gasp out, "so you also—"
Before it could finish, Jin Xueli had already pulled out the towel she'd stuffed into the back of her waistband and shoved it at its mouth.
The resident thrashed its head from side to side to avoid it. Although the towel didn't go in cleanly, it stopped the resident from finishing its sentence.
Jin Xueli didn't dare let go. Gritting her teeth against the resident's pummeling fists, she pulled the long towel taut with both hands. Seizing an opportunity when its lips parted, she jammed it deep into the resident's mouth. The towel stretched across her other face like a rope, forcing its tongue deep into its throat and reducing its speech to muffled whimpers, unable to form a single clear word.
"I… I think I get it now…" she whispered, staring at the face distorted by the towel. "I think I understand your attack pattern. You really are the resident."