Two Lin Shen

Line A Su Wan handed Lin Shen the other letter left by the Projection Su Wan. The letter contained her instructions for the world of Line A — if the exchange succeeded, let her Lin Shen come over. The two Lin Shen sat by the lake for an afternoon, each understanding that they weren't there to replace anyone. In the end, the original-line Lin Shen looked at the lake and made a decision.

In the research institute's conference room, fluorescent lights hummed.

When Line A Su Wan pushed open the door, the two Lin Shen were at opposite ends of the table flipping through documents. She paused at the doorway for a second — the scene was too uncanny: two identical faces, wearing different colored clothes (one light gray, one dark blue), the same hand turning pages in the same way, even the same subtle pinky curve when flipping.

"If you two sit together," she walked in, "the people at the institute will think I cloned my boyfriend."

Line A Lin Shen smiled. Original-line Lin Shen did not. He was still looking at the Projection Su Wan's letter, having read it who knows how many times.

"There's another letter." Line A Su Wan pulled another folded piece of paper from her folder, placed it on the table, and slid it over with her fingertip. The paper was old — older than the one from yesterday — its creases deep as if carved by a knife.

Original-line Lin Shen took it.

"She — the Projection Su Wan — sent two letters in total before the passage closed," Line A Su Wan said. "The first was to me, which you already saw yesterday. This one is for you."

Original-line Lin Shen's fingers stopped on the crease, not opening it immediately.

"When did you receive it?"

"The day after the accident. Six hours earlier than the one sent to me." Line A Su Wan sat down in a chair, hands crossed on the table. "I didn't show it to you at the time — because I wasn't sure if you wanted to see it. And I wasn't sure if this Lin Shen beside me —" she glanced at Line A Lin Shen, "was ready for it either."

Line A Lin Shen said nothing. His fingers started circling the rim of his coffee cup again.

Original-line Lin Shen finally opened the letter.

The same dark blue ballpoint pen, the same handwriting pressing so hard it almost pierced through the paper. But the words in this letter were more rushed than the last, some even slanting off the lines — she was racing against time. The passage was about to close; she only had a few dozen seconds.

"Shen:

If you're reading this, it means you really found your way here.

I knew you would. That's just how you are — you never give up. You'd revise a blueprint four times and still think it could be better, and if you were looking for someone, you'd turn the whole universe upside down. That's exactly what I was afraid of. So before the passage closed, I spent a few seconds writing this letter — just in case you really chased after me, at least someone would tell you the truth.

The truth is simple: I love you. From the very first day on the street when you helped me pick up my blueprints, I started loving you. Every day of these two years, every morning when I woke up and saw your face, I felt like I'd stolen something. And actually, I did steal something. I stole two years of time, from a world where I was never supposed to exist.

The day the correction mechanism activated, I could feel it. First, the paint on my fingers wouldn't wash off — no, it wasn't that it wouldn't wash off, it was that it was disappearing. Then Xiao You at the coffee shop asked me: 'Are you here on a business trip?' — he'd already forgotten I used to sing there. I knew it would eventually reach you. Eventually, one day you'd wake up and not remember there was someone sleeping beside you.

So I left you a lot of things. Under the furniture, in the cracks of the walls, behind sticky notes, in the inner pocket of your wallet — on every single one, I drew a little sun. The correctors can erase digital records, they can rewrite people's memories, but they probably never expected someone to draw on the sealing tape of a moving company's box.

If you find them, then it proves one thing — I existed. No matter how much this world tries to change it, there is someone who remembers me.

Don't blame Jiang Fei. She helped you sincerely, even if she won't admit it herself.

Don't blame Lu Yan. When he lost his wife, it was the same as when you lost me.

And don't blame yourself.

Every single day we were together was my choice. Including not telling you the truth — that was my choice too. If I had to do it a hundred times over, I'd choose you every single time.

Now, do one last thing for me:

If the exchange succeeds, let Line A's Lin Shen come over. He's been waiting for me over there for two years too. Let him come back. He's been living a copy's life over there — he needs to return to the one beside you. Even though they look exactly the same, the one you love is her, not this one.

As for you — you stay here with Line A's Su Wan. She's another me, and she deserves to be loved. And besides, two Lin Shen and two Su Wan — the scales will be balanced.

Lastly, let me teach you how to get along with Line A's me: she doesn't like cilantro, her milk tea must have less sugar, and she sleeps hugging the corner of a pillow because her mom wasn't around when she was little and she was scared sleeping alone — she's never changed that habit, but she never talks about it. Remember that.

Goodbye, my love.

Su Wan"

Original-line Lin Shen read the last word, neatly folded the letter paper, and placed it back on the table.

The conference room fell silent for a long time. The fluorescent lights hummed. A bird flew past the window, its shadow sweeping across the blinds.

"Did you cry?" Line A Lin Shen asked.

"No."

"Then why did you put the paper back?"

Original-line Lin Shen looked down at his hands. His fingers were trembling, but he really hadn't cried. It wasn't that he didn't want to. It was that he suddenly realized — Su Wan wasn't even afraid of dying, so what right did he have to cry?

"She said, no cilantro, less sugar in milk tea, hug the corner of a pillow," Original-line Lin Shen said, his voice very flat. "I already knew all of that. But she didn't say it — those are your Su Wan's habits. Have you noticed?"

Line A Lin Shen paused for a moment, then turned to Line A Su Wan.

Line A Su Wan's expression shifted slightly. She instinctively pulled her hoodie sleeves down — that was her nervous habit, exactly the same as Su Wan's.

"How does she know my habits?" Line A Su Wan's voice was a little tight.

"Because you're the same person," Original-line Lin Shen said. "Even across two worlds, Quantum Projection doesn't change a person's core. The food she likes, the way she sleeps, why she's afraid of the dark — no matter which world, it's always the same."

Line A Su Wan fell silent. She looked down at her wrist, where a faint mark circled it — she used to wear a Red Cord there, but had taken it off. The reason she took it off was because when Line A Lin Shen came, he was wearing the same Red Cord — woven by their mother before she passed away. The two Lin Shen had the same Red Cord; the two Su Wan had the same habits. The universe was telling them in this way: you are two branches from the same fork.

"I agree to the exchange," Original-line Lin Shen said. "I'll stay here."

Line A Lin Shen looked up. "Are you sure?"

"She doesn't want me to come find her. She wants me to stay here and live with your Su Wan." Original-line Lin Shen gave a bitter smile. "She's even arranged that. As if I'm just one of her paintings — composition and colors all decided, and all I have to do is fill it in."

"And are you going to fill it in?"

Original-line Lin Shen stood up, walked to the window, and pushed open the blinds. Outside was this world's city — as busy as the original city, as noisy, with people lining up for coffee and others running red lights on shared bikes. But in some corner of this world, there was a Su Wan trapped between two worlds, her body growing more and more transparent, waiting for him to come get her.

"She wants me to stay here," Original-line Lin Shen said, his voice very soft. "But what about her? She told you to go back, didn't she? Said to return to the one beside you. What ending did she arrange for herself? Staying in the gap forever?"

No one answered.

"That's just who she is." Original-line Lin Shen turned around, looking at the other two in the conference room. "She carries everything herself. She didn't tell me when the correction mechanism activated, she didn't let me know when the passage closed. Even in this last letter, what she arranged for herself was — to disappear. She thought of an escape route for everyone in the world, but never for herself."

Line A Su Wan's hands clenched.

"So I'm not listening to her." Original-line Lin Shen said. "I'm going back."

"The passage needs someone on Line A to maintain it," Line A Su Wan said. "If you go back —"

"When I go back, there will be someone else on the other end of the passage to maintain it." Original-line Lin Shen looked at Line A Lin Shen. "You said the passage is bidirectional. Last time it opened, Old Zheng was on the other side maintaining the energy. This time — Jiang Fei is still over there."

Line A Su Wan narrowed her eyes. "Jiang Fei?"

"The crosser who helped us come through. She stayed behind at the hydroelectric station, holding off Lu Yan." Original-line Lin Shen said. "Knowing her personality, she wouldn't die that easily."

Line A Su Wan stood up, walked to the conference room whiteboard, picked up a marker, and started drawing. She drew two parallel lines with a dotted line connecting them in the middle.

"Assuming Jiang Fei is still alive and still in the hydroelectric station control room — she can maintain the stability of the B-side of the passage." She drew a dot at each end of the dotted line. "But there are still two problems."

She wrote a number on the A-side: "First, the temporary passage is one-way. If you want to transmit from here back to get Su Wan, the A-side also needs someone to maintain it. That person has to stay."

"I'll do it," Line A Lin Shen said.

Line A Su Wan's hand stopped.

"I know what you're going to say," Line A Lin Shen looked at her, his tone gentle. "You don't want me to take the risk. But he's another me. What he wants to do is what I want to do. If it were me over there today, I'd also come through the passage to find you. You can't stop me — just like you can't stop him."

Line A Su Wan's lips moved, but she didn't argue.

"Second problem," she continued writing beside the diagram, "after the passage opens, it can only last thirty minutes. Within thirty minutes, Lin Shen has to cross the gap, find Su Wan, and bring her back. If they run over time — neither of them can come back."

"Thirty minutes is enough," Original-line Lin Shen said.

"Are you sure? In the gap, you have no physical coordinate system, no sense of direction, no concept of time. You might wander around in there forever."

"But I can find her."

Line A Su Wan looked at him, her gaze sharp behind her glasses, as if she could pierce right through a person. But she didn't ask "how can you be sure" — she already knew the answer. Because if it were her Lin Shen trapped in the gap, she could find him too.

"Fine." She capped the marker and put it back in the tray. "I'll go prepare the passage device. We can launch in three days. These three days, you two —" she looked at both Lin Shen, "have a good talk. After all, after this, you might never see each other again."

She walked out of the conference room. The door closed behind her.

The two Lin Shen sat on opposite sides of the whiteboard, their shadows cast on the wall by the fluorescent light, like mirror images between two parallel lines.

"If I go back," Original-line Lin Shen said, "and you stay here, the dotted line between us —"

"Will be permanently closed," Line A Lin Shen finished. "The two worlds will each run on their own, as if nothing ever happened. No corrections, no passages, no crossers."

"That's fine too," Original-line Lin Shen said.

"It is fine," Line A Lin Shen said. "But you'll remember."

"Won't you?"

"I will too."

Both fell silent. That silence wasn't awkward — it was a kind of understanding unique to the two Lin Shen. They didn't need to speak to know what the other was thinking. Because it was the same person's same struggle in the face of two different fates.

"Your firm over there," Line A Lin Shen suddenly said, "is Gu Yang doing well?"

"Still wearing plaid shirts every day, looking devastated when he takes on a project saying 'brother we're doomed,' then staying up three nights straight to deliver the drawings."

Line A Lin Shen laughed. "Same over here. The exact same Gu Yang, the exact same plaid shirts, the exact same catchphrase. The first time I saw him, I almost blurted out 'you again,' but that time he didn't recognize me at all."

"So how did you get to know him later?"

"Pretended to be a newly hired designer. Introduced myself all over again. Got to know him all over again." Line A Lin Shen said. "Starting from scratch. You know what that feels like? Like an actor getting the same script, but the director changed, the actors in the opposing scenes changed, and you know what the next line is — but you still have to wait for the other person to speak first."Original-line Lin Shen had pictured that scene. Running into a former colleague on the subway and saying, "I'm Lin Shen, the new guy." Running into his old landlord at a café and saying, "Nice apartment. How do I rent it?" Running into Gu Yang at a bar and deliberately ordering a beer he didn't like, just so he wouldn't be recognized.

One person's two years equals another person's twenty years.

"Have you ever regretted it?" Original-line Lin Shen asked. "Falling into this world?"

A-line Lin Shen didn't answer right away. He looked at the two parallel lines on the whiteboard, staring at them for a while.

"The first three months, I regretted it every second," he said. "Then I met Su Wan here. She's exactly the same as the Su Wan you know, but she's not the one I know. When I was with her, sometimes I'd wonder—was I deceiving her too? When I looked at her, was I thinking of someone else?"

"And did you?"

"I did. At first, I did." A-line Lin Shen's voice grew very soft. "But later I didn't. Because she has her own self too. She'd lose her temper over wrong experiment data, argue with me about whether we should eat less cilantro—every difference she had from the Su Wan on your side made her into a unique Su Wan."

He paused.

"Then I understood. I fell in love with her. Not because she looks like someone, but because she's the other side of the Su Wan on your side—the side that should have belonged to me, but fate pushed her to you, and pushed another Lin Shen to me, making me wait for my own Su Wan."

Original-line Lin Shen looked at A-line Lin Shen. This man in the light gray trench coat, who had waited two years in another world, didn't get his own Su Wan in the end—instead he got another version of himself, coming to tell him: We're going to swap. You're staying here. I'm going back.

"I'm sorry," Original-line Lin Shen said. "I came too late."

A-line Lin Shen was stunned for a moment, then laughed. He laughed until his eyes turned red, until he had to lower his head and cover his eyes with his hand.

"You shouldn't apologize," he said. "You're the only one—the only person in the whole world—who could show up at this time and this place."

He took a deep breath and lifted his head.

"Three days from now. When the passage opens, I'll be in the control room. When you come back with her—don't look back." He reached out his hand.

Original-line Lin Shen looked at that hand. The same fingers as his, the same calluses, the same Red Cord.

He took it.

"I won't look back," Original-line Lin Shen said. "But don't close the passage either. I'm just going to get her, not going to die."

"I'll try."

The two let go of each other's hands. The meeting room fell quiet again. Outside the window, the city had started to rain. Raindrops pattered against the blinds, a sound like the ticking of a countdown timer.

The two Lin Shens sat at opposite ends of the long table, each reading their own materials, each lost in their own thoughts. Between them lay the distance of a table—and the distance of a universe.

But at the same second, they both turned to the first page of their documents. The same finger on the same hand, at the same angle.

On parallel lines, the two Lin Shens opened the final chapter together.