14. The Comet, Part Two

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Sure enough, the moment Mazao heard the question, her expression changed.

“Why are you suddenly asking that?” She studied my face. “Could it be that you…”

“It isn’t what you think.” I answered in an unhurried tone. “I simply want to make certain in advance, just in case.”

“How is something like this supposed to be prevented in advance?” She frowned. “Besides, you never believed what I said before, and now you’re suddenly asking such a probing question…”

“The only thing I find difficult to believe is what you’ve said about the apocalypse—not your account of how you attract calamity. Seeing how deeply troubled you are by the misfortune you might bring, I can’t simply dismiss it as a joke. Besides…”

She eyed me suspiciously. “…Besides what?”

“I can’t believe you, but I want to believe you.” I gazed earnestly into her eyes. “Mazao, will you let me believe you?”

Those were my genuine feelings. Whether it was the apocalypse or her jinx-like nature, both were things I found difficult to believe completely, yet wanted to believe were real.

But let me say one more honest thing: I never imagined that such a melodramatic line would one day come spilling out of my own mouth. I don’t remember who once said that when people play roles unfamiliar to them, they inevitably reveal their own stereotyped understanding of those roles. Perhaps I had simply read too many comics. Whenever I tried to play the kind-hearted man, the lines that came out were always this painfully overdone.

Perhaps she had been disgusted by me. Mazao involuntarily retreated once again. This time, she backed all the way against the wall, staring at me in utter disbelief.

“You really are… You really are unbelievably strange. How can there be someone like you?”

“So, does your disaster-attracting nature affect the people around those close to you?” I couldn’t help steering the conversation back to my original question.

She composed her expression, thought for a moment, and then replied, “I’m not entirely sure myself.”

“You don’t even know?” I asked in surprise. “Shouldn’t you be the person who understands this best?”

“You’d understand if you imagined it. In the apocalyptic era where I lived, strange creatures were everywhere. Survivors did their best to avoid the monsters, but anyone could be discovered by one at the very next moment and find themselves in danger.” She explained, “Under those circumstances, I couldn’t tell which of the anomalies I encountered had been drawn to me by my jinx-like nature, and which ones I had simply run into because of bad luck.”

“If everyone had a considerable chance of being attacked by an anomaly, how could you be certain that any of them had come because of you?” I did not let the question pass.

“…Statistics.” Her voice grew subdued. “By combining the information I gathered through conversations with other survivors, I realized that the frequency with which I encountered anomalies was clearly abnormal. And that abnormality would gradually affect those who worked with me as well… Some of them might have lived much longer otherwise. I should have been the one to die…”

By the end, she could no longer conceal her negativity and dejection.

It seemed that this matter had inflicted a truly serious trauma on her. An air of fragility and weariness with life radiated from her entire body.

Seeing this, I tried to divert her attention. “I understand. It’s like black paint on white paper, where it stands out clearly, but on black paper, where it becomes indistinct. In an environment filled with calamity, the effects of your disaster-attracting nature can only be observed as something blurred and hazy. Is that what you mean?”

That was true, though perhaps even in such an environment, a sufficiently large number of trials would still produce a more precise conclusion. Of course, that would also mean sacrificing more lives—something Mazao would clearly never do.

“Yes…” Mazao drew a deep breath, seeming somewhat exhausted.

Suddenly, her legs went weak. She swayed unsteadily and nearly collapsed to the floor again.

I hurried over and caught her. She had lost consciousness once before, and it seemed the same symptoms were about to return.

Fortunately, she did not faint this time. Instead, she grabbed my arm and used it to support herself.

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I helped her over to the sofa and let her sit down.

“Are you all right?” I recalled the hospital gown she had been wearing when we first met. “Do you have some kind of illness? If you need medicine…”

“No, it isn’t a physical illness.” She spoke seriously. “Didn’t I tell you before? My soul was gravely wounded by the Great Demon of the Apocalypse, to the point that I can’t even use the power of divine blessing. The reason I keep losing consciousness now is also because of my soul…”

Before she could finish, her stomach suddenly let out a loud rumble.

She fell silent.

“Are you hungry?” Only then did I suddenly realize what I had forgotten before coming home.

I had forgotten to give Mazao anything to eat!

From the moment I found her last night until now, I had not seen her eat a single thing, and she had remained in a weakened state the entire time.

This was the first time I had ever kept someone in my home for so long, so it had never occurred to me to think about her food and drink. It was like having no experience caring for a cat or dog, forgetting to prepare food for it, leaving it at home, and then swaggering off with Chang’an.

No wonder Mazao had seemed displeased when she saw me return. She had probably expected me to come back quickly and never imagined that I would leave her at home hungry for so long.

I felt terribly ashamed.

“I’m sorry. I was careless and failed to think this through beforehand. You must be very hungry now, right?”

“It’s nothing. I’m used to it.” Her expression suggested that this was perfectly ordinary, though her hand could not help drifting to her stomach.

Hearing that only made me feel even more guilty.

“I didn’t realize you had fainted from hunger…”

“It wasn’t because I was hungry!” She frowned and argued, then involuntarily rubbed her stomach again. “I already told you—it was soul trauma. As for food, I ate yesterday. I’ve only gone hungry for one day; that’s not enough to make me faint. I lost consciousness because of my soul trauma… Wait. What is that look on your face?”

“Right, I understand. Soul trauma. I understand.”

“No, that expression means you don’t believe me at all… Don’t look at me with that sympathetic expression! Didn’t you just say that you wanted to believe me?”

Compared with the embarrassment of being hungry, she seemed to care much more about being looked at with sympathy. She was so angry that she appeared ready to bite me viciously.

I immediately changed the subject. “But isn’t there still food in the refrigerator? And there should be some snacks in the bedroom. Didn’t you touch any of them?”

“You mean the stir-fried meat and rice in the refrigerator? Those are your food.” She looked at me as though this were self-evident. “I still have to hide here for the next three days. How could I take your food and water without permission? Anyone who behaved that way would deserve to be killed.”

“This isn’t the apocalypse. No one deserves to die over a minor mistake like that.” I hoped she would be able to relax while staying here. “This time, I was in the wrong. I didn’t think things through beforehand. From now on, feel free to use anything in my home as though it were your own. What’s mine is yours. Eat and drink whatever you like, and tell me if you run out.”

Instead of being pleased by such generous treatment, she looked suspicious.

“How could that be allowed?”

“You’re only staying for three days, aren’t you?” I used that to dispel her doubts, then walked toward the refrigerator. “Wait here. I’ll cook something for you right away. Just to be safe, let me confirm this first: you really didn’t faint because you were hungry, did you? There’s truly nothing physically wrong with you?”

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“I’m fine.” She did not seem to be lying.

“Then I’ll make you some fried rice. But remember to chew slowly.” I took the food out of the refrigerator.

It was left over from the last time I ordered too much takeout. Since ordering more through the delivery app came with substantial discounts, I often ordered several dishes at once, stored whatever I could not finish in the refrigerator, and reheated it in a pan whenever I got hungry. What remained now was stir-fried pork with green peppers and rice, shredded stir-fried potatoes, and several eggs. I planned to mix everything together and make fried rice for Mazao.

There was actually another question I wanted to ask her, but I decided to fill her stomach first.

However, she seemed to have discerned something from my attitude.

“You still have other questions you want to ask me, don’t you?” She stopped me while repeatedly studying the plastic containers of food in my hands. “I wasn’t able to answer your previous question properly, so that can’t count as payment for food. You may ask me one more question.”

“If I ask, will you answer?”

“I can’t guarantee that. It depends on the question.” Her attitude remained unchanged.

I set the plastic containers of food on the dining table beside me.

“All right… First, you crossed over from the apocalypse to this point in time yesterday, correct?”

“I told you the same thing before.”

“The police officer who came to my door this morning said you were a serial killer who had murdered five people over the past two or three months. What do you have to say about that?”

“I didn’t do it.” She spoke with absolute certainty. “Before yesterday, I wasn’t even in this era.”

Yes. That was the alibi she could claim.

Between Mazao and Investigator Kong, one of them was definitely lying. The odds that Mazao was the liar were greater, since this era contained photographic records of her face.

But I knew of one possibility that could make both of their testimonies true.

Mazao was a traveler from another time. The concept of time travel had originally been a fictional literary device, referring to the phenomenon of a person being moved to another time or space for some reason. Broadly speaking, it could be divided into two forms: one in which the person’s body and soul moved together to another time and space, and one in which only the soul made the journey. In many works of fiction, those who traveled with only their souls would possess the bodies of other people.

Mazao had once said that she arrived in this era after an attempt to transfer through space had failed. Because of that, I had instinctively assumed that her body and soul had both traveled here together.

But if the body Mazao currently inhabited was not originally hers, and its true owner had been the serial killer, then most of the mysteries would be solved at once.

“Mazao, is this body really your own?”

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