Chapter 35: Safe House

Silent.

The silhouette of the rabbit was gone, and the world was quiet.

The food, the toys, the small diamond mountain he gave her were still left in place. Little Rabbit Island returned to its original size, Yin Xian’s houses disappeared, leaving only the empty stone-paved road, with rows of streetlights casting lonely beams.

“Are you there?”

Wang Jiexiang walked on the island, calling out loudly.

“Yin Xian?”

She searched through the grass for the rabbit.

She walked all over the island but didn’t see him.

Outside the island, the sea stretched endlessly; the sky, the moon, and the stars remained silent.

Where did he go?

Wang Jiexiang stood next to the sign of “Little Rabbit Island,” tiptoeing to survey the entire island.

There’s still one more place!

Feifei’s Home.

His rabbit nest still retained the look of having been destroyed: no roof, furniture overturned; a large hole between the first and second floors, which Wang Jiexiang had hammered open with her fist.

She didn’t find Yin Xian.

Nothing useful was left.

The case report she hadn’t finished reading was also nowhere to be found.

Wang Jiexiang sighed, sitting in front of the rabbit nest.

She took off the pink little bag she had been holding and poured out the keys from inside.

The house was gone, so did Yin Xian’s wounds get treated and then he just left here?

But why was there still a key?

And it was the key to their rental house…

Wang Jiexiang’s mind wandered as her fingers brushed over the outer wall of Feifei’s Home. Her index finger touched a flat, protruding object, and she glanced over.

The object she touched was the doorknob of Feifei’s Home.

It was very small, about the size of her thumb.

Wang Jiexiang had always opened Feifei’s Home by lifting the roof, so she had never noticed that Feifei’s Home actually had a door.

She leaned down to look at the door, twisting the doorknob with two fingers, but it wouldn’t budge.

Inside the house, the door was a solid, flat brown door panel with no doorknob.

“How do you open this door?”

The door did have a keyhole.

Wang Jiexiang picked up the key she held and, thinking “no way,” tried it in the lock.

The key slid in completely and fit perfectly.

She shivered.

So strange, the door panel of the rabbit nest was a small, thin piece of wood. The lock seemed longer than the door panel, but it could still open this door?

There was nothing normal on Little Rabbit Island.

But when she thought about it carefully, this Feifei’s Home was the most bizarre.

The rabbit’s body had died and resurrected on the bed here; the juice extractor, which could get whatever you wanted, was placed in its kitchen; the all-black secret space hid Yin Xian’s case report; when she took the report out of the house, its size became normal.

Before her, the rabbit nest lay in full view, but Wang Jiexiang still didn’t dare to open the door, the uneasy feeling churning inside her.

If she opened the door, where would she go?

Back to the time she was with Yin Xian?

If so, Wang Jiexiang didn’t have the confidence to do it.

Because it was about herself, and she couldn’t be detached from it.

At the Employee Dormitory, she saw her mom, and after returning, showed Yin Xian the photo, causing him to have an uncomfortable reaction; they were swallowed by the connected duplex, and she went back to her 16-year-old hometown, completely forgetting she wasn’t in the real world.

If inside was their past, she wasn’t confident she could help him.

The Paper Crane had somehow flown to Little Rabbit Island.

Wang Jiexiang anxiously released the key from her hand.

She gazed at the paper crane, its wings fluttering as it waited by her side.

She could choose to run away, didn’t she have an escape route?

Take the Paper Crane back home, have a good meal, and sleep well.

Wang Jiexiang’s hand stretched out and then dropped.

Her heart ached, and she stared blankly at the Paper Crane. Four characters were written on its wings.

— Come to my island.

When she was young, she didn’t have money and foolishly followed him.

They squeezed into a rental house without heating, cold and hungry.

He told her stories to coax her, and when she fell asleep, it wasn’t hard to bear.

Yin Xian couldn’t tell stories. His voice was cold and hard, and his words were anything but romantic: when we have money later, I’ll buy an island. The island will have good food, big houses, and a nest of rabbits, and you can live there carefree…

He didn’t keep his promise.

They broke up, and she never lived on his island.

Now, after so long, he wrote “Come to my island.” What did that mean?

Was he asking to make up?

Could it be?

Wang Jiexiang couldn’t help but scold herself, calling herself a fool with a pig brain.

— He doesn’t even remember you!

She clenched her fist and slowly shook her head at the Paper Crane.

The paper crane knew what decision its owner had made.

Returning to its original form, it lightly landed on the ground.

The Paper Crane was made from chewing gum wrappers, poorly folded, wrinkled, looking like a piece of trash.

Wang Jiexiang picked it up and put it in her close pocket.

She took a few deep breaths and calmly placed her hand on the door.

The key was turned with a “click,” and Feifei’s Home opened.

The door led to another alternate space, opening to her.

What changed wasn’t the miniature rabbit nest, but the entire island she was on.

The flowing seawater was reclaimed by the land, gray bricks paved the ground. Streetlights were replaced by electrical poles, and the tangled wires twisted into long black lines, coldly slicing the night sky.

Tree branches were assembled into rusty pipes; the stone pavement was gone, replaced by food scraps scattered on the ground.

The inescapable waves poured into the island, forming steep slopes.

A wooden house grew tall on the open space, its large body blocking the light of the moon.

Wang Jiexiang leaned against the wall, turning sideways to give way.

Around her, small houses were densely packed together.

They were at the bottom of the slope, and sunlight never reached them.

The residents, unable to dry their clothes, strung a few wires between the houses, making the already narrow passage even narrower.

Wang Jiexiang pushed aside the clothes blocking her view and covered her nose.

The air was damp and musty, and a few houses across from her suddenly lit up.

Then, she heard the sound of stir-frying, the crying of children, the music from a radio… various smells followed.

This alternate world built before her seemed to have been activated, as if someone pressed a button.

Wang Jiexiang was scared!

She was so nervous she almost wet her pants.

Everything was too real, all of it. The first place she lived when she came to the city to work was exactly here, and it was exactly like she remembered.

Her hands pressed against her temples, her scalp tingling.

“Find Yin Xian!”

She turned around, and right behind her was their former rental house.

The door was locked.

Wang Jiexiang shook the doorknob and kicked the door, but it didn’t budge.

“Open the door, open the door.”

She anxiously knocked on the door.

“Yin Xian, are you home?”

There was no response from inside.

She had the key to this house, right? She had used it to open Feifei’s Home before. Then Little Rabbit Island disappeared, Feifei’s Home disappeared, but the rental house door was locked.

Could the key have fallen somewhere nearby?

Wang Jiexiang looked around, starting to search for the key.

She walked to the next room, which was near the rental house, and found that its door was not closed.

Wang Jiexiang was familiar with this room.

Before she made up with Yin Xian, she had lived next door to him. Later, she moved into his house.

— Could it be that the space settings are from before they met?

Wang Jiexiang frowned and pushed the door open.

The room seemed empty, and she skillfully turned on the light switch on the wall.

As expected.

This little room was full of her things.

Her pillow, bed sheets, utensils, and a few jars of peanut oil by the bed…

The first job Wang Jiexiang found when she came to the city was at a supermarket, selling this brand of oil.

She entered the room, closed the door, and nostalgically sat on the little broken bed.

The vivid scene, the familiar touch, still didn’t give Wang Jiexiang a real feeling. Her heart was racing, and she took out the Paper Crane from her pocket to look at it.

She had to find Yin Xian.

Did she have enough money to buy a phone now? Where was her phone?

No phone, but maybe some money would do. She could find a public phone booth and call Yin Xian.

Wang Jiexiang was rummaging through the cabinets.

Footsteps came from outside.

She stopped what she was doing and held her breath to listen.

The footsteps grew closer and stopped at her door.

Wang Jiexiang turned her head toward the door. The person outside was unlocking the door to enter the room.

The door opened.

Both she and the other person were startled.

The young girl’s face turned pale. She stumbled back a step, rubbing her eyes in disbelief.

“Whew, scared me to death!” she patted her chest and muttered to herself, “Turns out it’s just a mirror—I thought someone looked exactly like me.”

The stunned Wang Jiexiang looked behind herself.

There stood a large full-length mirror, and in it was the only reflected figure: her eighteen-year-old self, still standing at the doorway, visibly shaken.

And she herself…

Her gaze was suddenly pulled far away.

She was standing at the doorway, blankly staring at the mirror.

She tilted her head, and the girl in the mirror tilted hers too.

She wore a white T-shirt with the name of a supermarket printed on it, her high ponytail tied neatly, and a tacky hair clip holding up her bangs.

Her baby-fat cheeks were fair and tender, like a peeled boiled egg—no makeup, radiating youthful energy.

“Did I forget to turn off the lights when I left?”

She scratched her neck in confusion.

“So careless. Electricity’s expensive.”

She was talkative—could go on even when she was alone.

Kicking off her shoes, Wang Jiexiang stepped into the house.