Professor Qiao hung her eyes low, slowly twirling a silver ring on her finger, as if her mind had already returned to so peaceful and distant place. She seed unaware that her words to Wu Yiliu were akin to bombs, saying calmly, "You asked just now when I detected the Changelings... Well, the answer is thirty-six years ago."
Wu Yiliu looked at her, montarily losing his ability to understand language. He opened his mouth, but no words ca out.
He replayed Professor Qiao's words in his mind several tis, still unable to digest any of it. After a while, he finally stamred, "Wh... what? Thirty-six... years?" The unit of asurent was actually years?
The old lady exhaled.
"Professor Qiao, you're saying this has happened once before... not that it's been happening since thirty-six years ago." This distinction was crucial; Wu Yiliu's shocked brain finally began to turn. As he gradually ca to his senses, excitent made him speak as fast as a machine gun, "You an the sa problem occurred and was solved before, and then there were no more Changelings, right? So, I only saw Changelings for the first ti when I was twenty?"
The old lady nodded.
This was like a stimulant, causing Wu Yiliu's face to flush with heat and excitent, even quickening his heartbeat.
"So—so how was it resolved initially? Can their faces really return to normal? What about the Changelings? What happened to the Changelings from thirty-six years ago?" His bellyful of questions, if written down, might form a book. "What caused the shape-shifting? Why have I never heard of it? Can we solve the problem this ti and make people normal again?"
His barrage of questions brought a bitter smile to Professor Qiao's lips.
"I never thought I would tell this story in my lifeti... So, allow to gather my thoughts first." Even in private conversation, the old lady was as organized as if she were lecturing. As she sat quietly contemplating, Wu Yiliu unconsciously held his breath. "I was thirty-three that year, just an assistant professor."
The old lady poured tea for herself and Wu Yiliu as she spoke. Perhaps it's a sign of aging, but her eyes seed to redden easily. The way she lowered her eyes as she poured the tea gave Wu Yiliu the impression that she wasn't thirsty; she just wanted sothing to do to calm her emotions.
"Back then, it was common for won in their thirties to remain unmarried and pursue their careers. I had just moved into this house, doing the teaching job I loved, spending my free ti drinking tea and reading, living entirely in my own world. Later, I calculated that the change must have started right around school vacation... I liked to be alone, even hiking and camping during the holidays, far from the crowd, so I didn't notice the change, and the Changelings didn't notice . It was because of this that the following story happened."
Wu Yiliu uttered a sound of acknowledgnt, indicating that he was listening. As he listened to the old lady's recollections, his gaze wandered around the living room and stopped on a bookshelf. Near the top shelf, there was a sowhat old-fashioned photograph — only now did he realize that the young woman smiling on the rocks by the sea was Professor Qiao.
The old lady also caught his glance, her eyes shifting from the photograph, and she smiled. Though age had wrinkled her once plump skin, her smile was still as gentle and graceful as in the picture, as if they were echoing through ti.
"Yeah, that's ... I think, the real starting point of my story should be the highway where I drove back from the mountains."
For thirty-three-year-old Qiao Yuansi, the world was a smooth, steady, and comfortable place. She was in the pri of her life, energetic, with a stable career prospect, independent and free in her life, and she could not pick out a single flaw even with a magnifying glass. The life spread out before her eyes was like the endless highway at this mont, flat and straight, shimring in the afternoon sun.
She loved the scenery on this stretch of highway the most: on the left were the deep and shallow, rolling green valleys; on the right beyond the fence was the wide expanse of the sea shimring golden beneath the cliffs. Whenever she traveled on this road, most of Qiao Yuansi's attention was not on the road but on the natural scenery.
It wasn't a big deal, as driving had beco a subconscious background operation for her. She drove steadily for a while, turned a bend beneath the cliff, and then suddenly froze.
On the side of the highway ahead, there was a person walking slowly.
A vagrant?
The few cars ahead of her whooshed past the person, blowing his long, shaggy hair into the wind. Just by looking at that ssy hair, he indeed seed like a vagrant; his actions were a bit odd, always twisting his head, intently staring at each car that passed him, as if he wanted to stick his head into the cars to take a closer look.
'I hope he's not the kind who will suddenly jump in front of a car to commit suicide,' thought Qiao Yuansi, concerned, as she turned on her indicator to move away from the vagrant and into the middle lane of the road.
However, just then a red car ca from behind in the middle lane, so she had to patiently wait for it to pass. The vagrant was not far from her now, and she had to move behind the red car as soon as it passed, so all her attention was on that car—when it passed her, the driver of the red car glanced at her and then turned his head.
She could change lanes now; Qiao Yuansi checked her rearview mirror, confird there were no oncoming cars, and quickly moved to the middle lane, right behind the red car; the weird vagrant quickly flashed past her right side window—though he was a lane away, she still felt the tangible sensation of being watched.
The vagrant disappeared from the rearview mirror; her eyes lingered on the sea outside the fence, and she uncomfortably adjusted her position.
It still felt very uncomfortable.
It was strange; what on earth was making her feel this way?
Qiao Yuansi pulled her attention from the natural scenery and looked at the road ahead. Then she squinted, carefully looking at the road and the red car in front.
The driver who had glanced at her was now looking at her, and their eyes t on the highway.
That flesh-colored face had twisted 180 degrees, looking as if it had risen from the back of the driver's seat in front, and was now facing Qiao Yuansi directly; the lower half was blocked by the car seat, so only a pair of vague eyebrows and two vague eyes were visible.
With a sudden scream, Qiao Yuansi instinctively slamd on the brakes. The car screeched on the road, and inertia almost caused her to smash into her steering wheel—she quickly ca to her senses, and in a panic, hurriedly released the brake, tremblingly picking up speed again in the midst of angry honks from the car behind.
The driver of the red car in front was still staring at her, unmoving.
Was it a mask? Was it a prank? Had she seen it wrong?
There were many possibilities, but none could stop her trembling. She gritted her teeth, pressed hard on the gas pedal, and accelerated towards the red car, almost tailgating it. The originally blurry flesh-colored face beca clearer as she approached: it was nothing else but a human face staring at her from the back seat.
She couldn't see the lower half of the face, but after a few seconds of eye contact, the eyes seed to squint, and the cheeks slowly bulged. It was as if the driver's face was laughing from behind the seat.
When the red car suddenly honked twice, Qiao Yuansi jumped in fright, only to find her hands soaked in cold sweat. Looking up again, there was only a dark back of a head in the front car, and the face seed to have been an illusion.
She swallowed hard, slowly pulled away from the red car, and used the turn signal again - this ti, she wanted to move to the far-right lane because only there could she stop in the ergency lane. Her current condition was not suitable for driving.
Qiao Yuansi parked the car and imdiately leaned on the steering wheel, taking deep breaths for a while. The red car had disappeared in the highway traffic, sowhat easing her tension. Besides, turning a face 180 degrees seed like an illusion or a so-called supernatural event.
She didn't know how long she had stayed in the ergency lane, still in shock and confusion. When she felt her heartbeat steadying, she looked up to find a highway patrol car stopped behind her.
If she got a ticket for this, it would be bad luck on top of bad luck.
Qiao Yuansi quickly fixed her hair in the mirror. She was pale with wide eyes, not looking like soone who needed to stop due to extre fatigue. She couldn't think of a suitable excuse for her actions when the officer walked up and knocked on the window. She took a deep breath, opened the window halfway, and forced a smile. "Offic—"
The word "officer" turned into another scream, filling the car, tearing through the air.
The patrolman, with a long face that had fallen to his chest, reached his hand into the half-open window; Qiao Yuansi scread and recoiled but forgot she was still wearing her seatbelt. The patrolman's face, which couldn't be called a face at all, pressed crookedly against the glass, one hand reaching in to scratch her face, pulling her skin so it burned with pain.
She only rembered flailing and struggling with one hand while trying to unbuckle with the other, everything becoming a blur in chaos and fear.
Until a dull "thud" made her realize that the relentless hand, seemingly attracted to her face, was gone. Not understanding what had happened, she unbuckled the seatbelt and scrambled to the passenger seat, only then looking back.
"Ah, got scared, huh?"
Outside the window, a strange young man with shoulder-length hair was looking at her—the vagrant.
No, that's wrong, Qiao Yuansi quickly corrected herself. His hair was ssy, and his clothes were unconventional, but there was a clear and crisp quality about him, like a wild eagle that had seen the plains.
"Is this your first ti seeing these face-deford duoluozhongs?" he asked, though she didn't understand his words. "Strange, did you just co from the mountains? How is it your first ti seeing these monsters?"
She wiped her face, trying to calm down, although she felt it might be easier to just go insane.
"F-Face-deford...? So, you saw it too," she said, still trembling slightly. "What's a duoluozhong? Who are you?"
"It's a long story," the young man said with a slight smile. "In short, I'm a posthuman who teleported to this apocalyptic world four days ago... Why are you looking at like that? Don't get wrong, I didn't cause this. Your world has already t its doomsday."
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