AUS Chapter 55: Let Me Find Liu Jiang

The last remaining subway line was shutting down soon.

This was the news I received when I boarded the train again.

Although the storm a few days ago hadn’t affected the section of the line I was on, the circuits in the unmanned areas surrounding the capital had been cut. The cause was natural destruction; wind had swept damaged building debris into the underground tunnels. It took the workers a great deal of effort to clear it all out, but some of the generators were damaged. Given the current state of repairs, they had no choice but to abandon some sections.

“In two more weeks, all sections will cease operation,” the subway worker told me.

“Is there any possibility of it running again?” I asked him, though I didn’t hold out much hope myself.

As expected, the worker shook his head and then said to me, “You’d better decide which side you want to stay on and then find a permanent residence soon. With the upcoming lack of resources and order, I’m afraid the environment will only get worse.”

I nodded and stepped into the empty train car.

From my company to my home, the subway passed through an above-ground section. It used to be a park with a body of water in the middle. On weekends, it was filled with residents; on weekdays, with tourists. People would fly kites, play frisbee, or sunbathe on the lawn.

Before the apocalypse, I would look up when passing through here. Occasionally, I would catch a fleeting glimpse of a young person, and I would think that maybe, just maybe, I would come here with someone someday.

It was only after all the grass had withered and yellowed that I rode the subway again and saw this place clearly.

On a good-weather day after the apocalypse, I had seen survivors on the remaining patches of lawn here. They were mostly in a hurry, dressed in windbreakers, their heads and faces covered tightly, but they still lingered, enjoying the rare warm sunlight.

Today, as I passed through the above-ground section again, I didn’t look up. Whether there were people under the sun now or not, I didn’t want to be a spectator.

An hour later, the subway arrived at the station. I sprinted out of the station as fast as I could, running toward my apartment.

Thanks to the electrolyte water I was fed, my stamina could still hold out for a while. The fever reducer was still working. Although I felt light-headed, I could manage.

I ran all the way up to the fifth floor and reached my apartment.

Thankfully, the building wasn’t too high, and I had taken protective measures before leaving. The windows weren’t broken, and there was no water or dust on the floor. But none of that was so important anymore.

Because I had just made a decision—I decided to take my things and leave, to stay at the company.

This was a move that was, relatively speaking, unlike me. It wasn’t smart; in fact, you could say it was a bit reckless.

Compared to the residential area where I lived, the area around the company was practically devoid of resources. There were no outposts there, it was in the opposite direction of the survivor evacuation route, it was near a windward slope, and it was packed with high-rise buildings, any one of which could become a target in a storm.

That’s all the more reason for me to stay there.

Only if I’m there can the servers be protected.

Back at my apartment, I first made myself a cup of hot cocoa. After recovering from my dizziness, I went back to my room and began to push my personal belongings toward the center of the room.

Clothes, daily necessities, survival supplies, and the most important thing—the cardboard box Liu Jiang had left behind.

After packing the supplies that would sustain my life into my backpack, I returned to the cardboard box, took a deep breath, and opened it.

The letter Liu Jiang had left me was on top. Beneath it were his school uniform and miscellaneous items. I took out the irrelevant items, folded them neatly, and placed them on the desk to the side. After setting aside the photo album, I found the cassette tape I hadn’t paid attention to when I first received the box.

Liu Jiang had a lot of cassette tapes in his room, of all different batches and price points, from Western pop hits to mainland pop music. I had seen so many of them that I just assumed this one had been casually tossed into the box and never thought to take it out.

Now, I picked up the tape again and turned it over. On the pale beige cover, in a rectangular box in the center, was a single English word in all caps—EAGLES.

It was the cassette for “Hotel California.”

An indescribable feeling shot through my chest. I remembered the fragmented pieces of my “dream” from yesterday. He had been sitting at the foot of my bed, playing this song in a tone that seemed completely free of worry.

Now, I felt that he had deliberately placed this tape in the box. He must have something to tell me.

As for how I was supposed to know the message he wanted to convey—I actually had a cassette player in my home.

It was probably not long after I moved into this apartment that I noticed an empty space on my newly purchased bar table.

I tried putting a cup holder there, a coffee machine, a vase, or other decorations, but nothing felt right. On a whim, I was wandering through a second-hand furniture store in an alley and happened to see this cassette player. With the feeling that I was definitely about to be ripped off, I bought it. To my surprise, it fit perfectly, both in color and size, as if it were made for that spot.

So stupid, so laughable, as if all those preparations were for today.

So that I could find the clues he left behind.

I went to the bar table and plugged the cassette player into the generator. After a power-on beep, the green light turned on.

I opened the cassette case, took out the tape, and put it in, Side A facing up. The machine started to run. I heard the faint whir of the tape turning, and then, the intro began to play.

I held down the fast-forward button, advancing the music to the last line I had heard that night. After a brief pause, the next lyric played.

“I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
‘Relax,’ said the night man, ‘We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!’”

The ending featured the lead singer’s exquisite vocal run, followed by a guitar duet. At this point, all the song’s lyrics had ended.

My hands rested on the bar as I held my breath, thinking about the lyrics I had just heard. Then, I rewound the tape again.

The lead singer on the tape sang the lyrics perfectly once more, nailing the vocal run at the end a second time.

I didn’t stop. I rewound the tape again, this time all the way back to the beginning. Starting from the first line, I listened to the entire song once more.

After three times, I was leaning on the bar with both hands.

The music had played in my ears three times. I wished I could just dive into the tape, travel to the 1994 “Hell Freezes Over” concert written on the cassette’s label, go on stage, grab the lead singer by the collar, and ask him what he really meant by writing those words.

I dismissed my absurd thought and stopped the cassette player just as it was about to reach the end.

I turned around, my back to the bar, and slowly squatted down, sliding to sit on the floor.

If I were an outsider, someone completely unrelated to all of this, I might have been able to discern the information these lyrics could provide. But as me, as the currently powerless Yang Pingsheng, my mind seemed to be filled with a thousand conjectures and thoughts, yet at the same time, it felt completely empty.

Anxiety, panic, sleepiness, the urge to vomit, boredom.

All sorts of emotions flooded my brain at once, flowed down my throat into my chest, then to my stomach, and then shot straight back up without hesitation, making me want to throw up everything in one go.

I covered my mouth with my hand, barely managing to suppress a dry heave. I took a few deep breaths, forcing myself to calm down.

Calm down, Yang Pingsheng, calm down.

My breathing gradually slowed. I tilted my face up, resting the back of my head against the wall, and finally pulled myself out of the emotional mire.

No, I have to listen one more time—I have to find the message, no matter how.

I reached up with my hand behind me, trying to rewind the tape to the beginning. But limited by my position, my hand was blocked by the edge of the bar. After a few attempts, I decided to just get up and press the button. But as my hand swung, I accidentally hit the fast-forward button, and the tape began to advance toward the blank section at the end.

I sighed at my own clumsiness, slowly propped myself up, and knelt on the floor, waiting for the tape to finish.

However, after about thirty seconds of blank tape, my ears suddenly caught something.

Someone was talking.

There was another sound recorded on the second half of the tape!

I immediately released the fast-forward button and rewound the tape to where the sound began.

The tape stuttered twice, then continued to play. The first thing that came out were a few distant shouts, as if someone was talking in the distance. Then the sound got closer, and someone was speaking right next to the recording device.

It was a young, yet incredibly familiar voice. 

“Hello, hello? Can you hear me?”

It was Liu Jiang’s voice.

To be precise, it was the high school Liu Jiang.

His voice still had a clear quality at the end of his words, his pronunciation was slightly off, and the resonance from his thin, teenage chest was something I would never forget after hearing it once.

“This is sixteen-year-old Liu Jiang! It’s P.E. class right now, and I’m going to leave a message for my future lover on my favorite cassette tape—”

At this, he couldn’t help but laugh. Judging by the echo, he must have been hiding in some corner, secretly recording with his personal cassette player.

After laughing, he got serious, cleared his throat, and continued:

“I have no requirements for my future lover. He can be good-looking or not, he can be serious or flamboyant. He just has to be himself. I hope he’s happy and has no worries. Most importantly—”

Here, he paused. The tape’s low-quality audio couldn’t capture many details, but I could imagine the scene at this very moment.

He was standing on the sports field, the sky behind him heavy with clouds. Dusk was approaching, and the clouds divided the sky into many parts, each a different color.

“I want him to know that whenever he feels lost or confused, please come find me here. I’ll always be here.”

After he finished, he paused for a few seconds, then was amused by his own mock-sentimentality and laughed again. Amidst the clear, seemingly carefree laughter, the tape came to an abrupt end.

This is it.

This is it!

I have to go back to the past in the As Usual Project and let Liu Jiang himself solve the puzzle he left behind.