Another Person

The scalpel gleamed in the shifting match-flame. The skeleton-in-skin limped toward me, one step at a time. He stopped less than two metres away and said quietly: "The hole's dug and ready. You'll be buried there shortly."

He had been digging my grave outside.

He said no more. He picked the nearly burnt-out match from my hand and used it to light the candle on the windowsill.

My vision cleared. On the wall clock across from me: 2:05. The minute hand was working its way toward the fateful time.

The skeleton-in-skin glanced back at the clock, too, and shook the scalpel lightly. In a low voice: "Almost time. The other one may not be coming. Looks like it'll just be me to send you off."

I didn't know who he meant by "the other one." No time to wonder. My life was about to end, and I still didn't know why I was dying. This graveyard. This house. This room. This man. All of it seemed to be hinting at something — pointing at me — but I couldn't find the connection.

I still couldn't move. Only my fingernails, pressing deeper into the chair's armrest.

The skeleton-in-skin finally raised the scalpel. But this time his expression was unlike the cold detachment he'd had when he killed Dr. Xu. Instead, his eyes held something like infinite compassion.

"Go in peace. Don't blame your second uncle for being hard."

Second uncle.

Those two words strung together everything that had been hinting at me. Memory came flooding back in an instant:

My mother's voice — "Call him Second Uncle" — a rough hand ruffling my head. This graveyard. This house. This grass mat. I had been here as a child; my mother brought me. I had stood outside this broken door, shyly peering in. After my mother died, I had never come back.

"Second Uncle!" In the instant the scalpel moved toward my throat, those two words came out — and saved my life.

The scalpel stopped in midair.

The man in front of me took half a step back. The scalpel fell from his hand. He stared at me with wide eyes, his lips trembling, working for a long time before sound came: "You… you woke up?"

I began to notice my senses changing. The fingers gripping the armrest could open now. My arms could rise. The darkness in front of me receded gradually; the space grew brighter. The candlelight on the windowsill became sunlight. Night became day.

Every part of my body ached. I could smell the musty damp of the room, hear the wind through the windows, see the dust floating in the light. A realness I had never experienced before. Was this reality?

"Second— uncle," my mouth seemed to be moving on its own, and I repeated the words again.

Hearing me speak a second time, the man in front of me — my second uncle — hadn't yet recovered from his shock. He was almost incoherent in his agitation: "Yes, yes! I'm Second Uncle! I'm Bao Hui. I'm your second uncle. Your second uncle—"

I wanted to speak more, but my throat was terribly dry. I moved my mouth and produced no sound.

Second Uncle moved quickly, took a thermos from the floor, poured a cup of water, and held it to my lips. I swallowed one mouthful, and with considerable effort produced a second sentence: "Why did you want to kill me?"

Second Uncle set down the cup. His expression shifted from elation to desolation. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed and looked at the floor. "You're all I have. Of course I want you to go on living. You were admitted to hospital several months ago, and after the operation you never woke up. Everyone told me that vegetative state patients almost never recover consciousness. I looked after you for more than half a year. Three days ago I was diagnosed with end-stage liver cancer. I don't have long. I wanted to make arrangements for you while I could still move — because when I go, who will take care of you."

He raised his head, eyes reddened. "But it's all right now. You're awake. Awake is good. Awake is good."

While he was speaking, a phone in his pocket lit up. He answered it: "Here already? No need to help me bury — he woke up… Wait at the entrance, I'll come and get you."

He hung up, gave me another sip of water, and stood. "I'm going out to meet someone. Back in a minute."

He limped out, leaving me alone in the room with an overload of information I couldn't take in all at once. For the past half year I had been a vegetative patient? The man I had believed was trying to kill me had been taking care of me for more than half a year. Was this the real world? Wait — I suddenly felt there was a logic gap. Something in this real world didn't add up.

From outside came a sound in the main room — then Second Uncle pushed the door open and walked back in. Someone came in with him.

When I saw that person's face I felt every hair on my body stand up. The person who had come in with Second Uncle — was me. Teacher Tuniu.