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Chapter One

Beep— Beep— Beep—

An urgent ringing startled me awake from my dreams. Jian Chi, the owner of the offending phone, was still peacefully snoring beside me. My throat was too parched to speak, so I nudged him awake.

“It’s my boss.” Jian Chi sat up and connected the call. A pale humanoid hologram gradually materialised by our bed. The sight was unnerving, even though I had seen it countless times.

“Have the presentation materials ready before eight thirty. Make sure the nameplates are set up in the conference room … ” A mannequin-like figure that looked like it belonged in a department store display barked out commands as it looked down at us with a blank, featureless face. Beside me, Jian Chi compliantly acknowledged each instruction. 

“Can’t you ask your boss to grant you elevated virtual persona permissions? Not that I want to see it, but if he has to shove his face at us first thing in the morning, he could at least make himself look less like something out of a horror movie.” I buried my head in my pillow in protest, wanting all too much to escape back into my interrupted dream. 

“Sleep a little longer. I’m going to wash up first.” Jian Chi laughed off my complaint and got out of bed. 

*

“Last night, I dreamt we went to the beach together. The moon was bright, hanging high up in the sky. Everything was still and silent, revealing all the things we’d miss in the daytime. Only the waves kept up with their relentless assault, howling like a dog that keeps testing—”

“We’re going to be late. I can only wait another five minutes for you.” Jian Chi interrupted my reverie as he dropped an umbrella into my sling bag.

“I know. Don’t interrupt me or I’ll forget what I was going to say.” I took a gulp of water and started up my toothbrush, trying my best to hold on to the ebbing dream.

“It’s just a dream. We need to focus on getting out of the house now.” He opened the door, bringing the clunky sound of the elevator making its ascent into sharper focus. 

A wave of anxiety crashed over me, and my right hand trembled uncontrollably. I tore through the bedroom and living room like a tornado, and caught up to him at the elevator. 

“Just missed one.” Jian Chi’s gaze drifted toward me for a moment before returning resolutely to the elevators’ floor displays. Both of them were far from our floor—who knew what he found so fascinating? “Your collar’s crooked.” 

Well, can’t you help me fix it? I pursed my lips, and tossed the keys and phone I’d hastily grabbed on my way out into my bag, freeing up my right hand. The tremors had subsided. 

The elevator was crowded, and the stench of musky clothes and greasy hair fought to outdo each other in the small compartment. I abandoned any thoughts of continuing my chatter with Jian Chi and focused on holding my breath. 

The tide washed over my calves, sweeping away the sand underfoot. We stood rooted in place, sinking deeper and deeper until the sand buried my knees and the seawater rose past my chest. Under the moonlight, the world was bright, and the way your eyes met mine was just like the moonlight—indifferent and traceless. I never got the chance to tell Jian Chi the rest of my dream, so I sorted through it mentally, trying my best to commit it to memory.

What made the morning rush hour tough wasn’t just the crowding, but also the frayed tempers that could flare at any time. We passed through three traffic lights in the ten-minute drive from our house to my workplace, and Jian Chi had cursed at least five times.

“No matter how much you rant, the driver in front can’t hear you.” I couldn’t resist adding fuel to the fire.

He glanced at me and meant to say something, but he held himself back.

I started guessing what he was going to say. Would it be, “Well, they don’t need to hear it, as long as you do. This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t overslept.” Or would it be, “I’m going to be late because I’m dropping you off at work. Can’t I even complain a little?” The unspoken words were a riddle, the clues to which were already written in his eyes, making them impossible for me to ignore.

“You’re too sensitive.” Jian Chi had once said of me. We had been walking hand-in-hand on campus grounds, and the dappled sunlight filtering through the camphor trees had sparkled in his eyes, making the remark sound like a simple affectionate tease. What about now, then? I was just as sensitive, but he avoided broaching the subject again. How long could one keep their unsaid thoughts bottled up? I tried to think of a plausible scenario in which those words wouldn’t cut, but no matter how I framed it, they wouldn’t fit into any of our interactions. They were forever like a sharp, gleaming dagger that pointed accusingly at me.

I admit I overthink things. It didn’t help that Jian Chi’s lukewarm attitude for the past few months had felt like a brewing storm. I’d have the rain come sooner rather than later; at least it’d be a drizzle instead of a thunderstorm, but he’d kept allowing it to build up. So, I’d scrutinise every detail of our life and rehearse possible conversations repeatedly in my mind, searching for the high ground he might take and examining points of contention where I could hold my own.

Had Jian Chi smiled at me, all my worries would have been thrown out the window. But when that inscrutable expression showed on his face, my doubts returned with a vengeance.

Maybe I should talk to a psychotherapist. 

Chapter Two

“Why don’t you try talking to his virtual persona first?” A close friend of mine suggested. “You’re both so busy. It’ll save you a lot of trouble if you had virtual personas.”

I was no stranger to virtual persona technology. In fact, it was all thanks to this trend that I met Jian Chi. But when the software started charging for the service, I stopped using it.

I had been a first-year student at the university, and Jian Chi had been in year three. At that time, the virtual persona technology was still in the “artificial idiot” phase—a novelty that was spreading through the campus like wildfire. Holographic projection was still quite expensive then, and it was used only for demonstrations at product launches. A hologram of the speaker would be projected right beside the actual person, like a two-man comedy act.

On one occasion, what was supposed to be an ordinary, unremarkable launch took an unexpected turn when a harried alumna from our department made a blunder backstage and mistakenly added the speaker’s private chat history into the corpus. The initial sample data fed into the database had been too limited, and the flood of data from the private log quickly overwhelmed the backend database, resulting in a catastrophic crash on the frontend. Some of the infamous moments from that incident still live on in internet memory. Comments include “collecting user data from social media platforms to create a complete feedback loop so ridiculous that it’ll have you calling your mentor ‘daddy’—even a dog wouldn’t use it”, among other outrageous responses. Even competitors would be hard-pressed to top them; everyone loves a good trainwreck. The product’s vivid yet mean image hit just the right spot with the public, making the launch an unprecedented success.

Back then, when schoolmates who were strangers met, they would first add each other as friends on social apps, letting their virtual personas break the ice and gather basic information about each other before moving on to in-person conversations. Social interactions became more efficient, and awkward conversations all but vanished. Eventually, everyone defaulted to the basic permissions. They set up personal sites for automatic replies and sent their virtual personas out to cast a wide net, giving more weightage to candidates with higher compatibility based on conversation length. 

The app had never recommended Jian Chi to me, but his name kept popping up whenever I checked the chat logs on a whim. Unless we had had frequent real-life interactions, the app would not have initiated so many automated conversations. And, despite the long chat history between our virtual personas, the app refused to recommend him to me. Just how incompatible were we? Curious, I clicked on the contents—and I saw a strange yet fascinating soul. 

He had come up with all sorts of outrageous questions to interrogate “me” and each time, “I” had fallen for it. “I” would struggle to come up with a biased answer, only to withdraw into “myself” and play dead at his ribbings. It was basically a brutal history of being intellectually outclassed and verbally bullied!

Evidently, this talented individual who could make my virtual persona shut down was a real person. Copying his approach, I had gone to his site and thrown those tricky questions back at him, intending to avenge my humiliation with a decisive counterattack. But what had greeted me was the message: “You’re finally here, Lin Shan.”

I reeled in my memories and turned to my friend. “If talks break down between our virtual personas, and I don’t get to tweak my persona’s communication style before he sees the chat history, he’ll embarrass me again. Wouldn’t that be a gross injustice?”

My friend wheezed with laughter. “Just ask him to grant you the highest user permissions, then make a copy and run it independently. Then you won’t have to worry about leaks.”

I nodded pensively. 

 *

I dragged Jian Chi into a brick-and-mortar shop. We pushed through the frosted revolving door and stepped into an interior that was surprisingly pristine, gleaming like a snow cave.In the centre of the simple hall was a rectangular patch of white sand arranged into a karesansui garden. Upon closer inspection, I realised the white sand was actually granite gravel that had been meticulously raked into delicate seigaiha waves. Two large stones were strategically placed at the point where the orderly waves diverged. Quaint, unassuming, and thick with meaning, they evoked a sense of tranquillity.

Under the soft lighting, a shop assistant greeted us with a warm, ready smile. With a wave of her hand, she summoned a holographic screen and walked us through the details. Jian Chi and I exchanged glances—we could see from each other’s eyes that we were sold.

The enthusiastic assistant led us through an arched doorway into the inner room, and her soundless footsteps struck me—she too was a projection of a virtual persona. Under the guidance of her gentle voice, we signed a stack of permission agreements. Then we each lay down in a silver-white pod and closed our eyes to the monotonous white noise of the server room.

*

“Lin Shan.” Two voices, both of them simultaneously identical and familiar, woke me up. I rubbed my eyes.

Looking at the genuine and virtual Jian Chi before me wearing mirrored expressions of one another, I couldn’t resist blurting out, “Doppelganger! Reveal thyself!”

Jian Chi gave me a resigned look, while AI Jian Chi curled into a ball of white light that flickered for a few seconds before reverting to Jian Chi’s appearance.

“He’s cuter than you.” I moved closer to AI Jian Chi and sized him up. I reached into his hand and the screen of light rippled like water, swallowing my palm seamlessly. “I’m going to call him Xiao-jian. That sounds more intimate than Jian Chi.”

“Aw, I’m jealous,” Jian Chi replied half-heartedly, his eyes never leaving the dense text of the agreement on the display screen. 

“What’s there to be jealous of? That the agreement is more favourable to me?” I teased.

“Actually, yeah.” Jian Chi pointed at a clause. “The replication of virtual personas is limited to the users’ behavioural patterns and conversational habits but is not confined by the users’ intellectual and memory capacities. It also automatically connects to an extensive database … ”

Knowing there was more waiting for me, I folded my arms and stared at him.

“So, your virtual persona has a higher IQ boost compared to mine. They’ve basically applied a mental beauty filter to you,” he deadpanned. I smacked him.

*

After confirming that our smart home hub had a sufficiently secure firewall, we connected our respective virtual personas to the home network and ran them twenty-four hours a day. All our social apps connected and synced with them seamlessly, and a dual-person icon—one bright and one dim—appeared at the bottom left of our profile avatars, indicating that responses might not originate from the actual account holder, a tiny assurance of public transparency. Jian Chi and I stood side by side with our hands behind our backs and watched the floating screen with satisfaction as unread emails were sorted and archived and cloud folders were organised with military precision.

From then on, we entered a new phase of our lives, where two people lived with the vibrance of four.

Sometimes, when I returned home late from work, I’d hear the saccharine voice of a girl acting all cutesy, sending a shudder down my spine.

“Jian Chi, I’m warning you, don’t you dare corrupt my innocent virtual persona. No tampering with my refined character design,” I protested, shaking off the goosebumps.

“Relax, think of the bigger picture.” Jian Chi stood furtively before the refrigerator. “Isn’t it a good thing you can learn how to win me over through my instructions to Shanshan?” 

“Ew,” I replied and moved over to him, pointing accusingly. “And stop sneaking beers in there. Aren’t two bottles enough for you?” 

We laughed it off, but it would surface in my mind when I had time to myself. Was Jian Chi saying I wasn’t gentle enough? Did he modify my virtual persona because he wasn’t satisfied with me? Granted, I couldn’t be as sweet and attentive as an AI, but his need for control and validation went too far. His ideal type was a docile doll who submitted to his every whim!

Wait, wait. If I picked a fight with him over that, I’d just look like I was making a fuss over nothing. A casual comeback might be the better option.

Maybe I should also tweak Xiao-jian to pay more attention to me. Then Jian Chi would understand just how hurtful his behaviour had been. It could also subtly remind Jian Chi to indulge my whims and comfort me when I was down—not just skim over my words like a bird gliding past the mountains.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Xiao-jian didn’t need any adjustment.

After all, AI took everyone seriously. In other words, a fully engaged Jian Chi was exactly what I hoped for. But in reality, he was too busy, too tired, and too accustomed to my chattering. Our interactions were always interrupted and broken up by a bulldozing stream of daily trivialities, leaving behind a trail of unfinished thoughts.

Perhaps I should put to rest my multitude of musings and learn to be like him, someone who only looked at the ground and not the starry sky. Just like another one of the ordinary folks with their heads down, consumed by the mundanity of everyday life, prattling on about domestic affairs and other aspects of the prosaic.

No, that would be too scary. Jian Chi would never like that version of me.

I ducked into the bathroom, flushed the toilet for cover, and asked surreptitiously, “Xiao-jian, what kind of person do you really like?”

And Xiao-jian answered, its voice deep and tender, “I like you—it’s hardcoded into my algorithm.”

Chapter Three

I couldn’t tell if Jian Chi was tired from work or down with the flu, but he’d been snoring every night, the sound so thunderous it could rival a construction site.

After I had been woken up several times in the middle of the night by his snoring, I moved to the spare bedroom. Jian Chi was thus reduced to being my “bro-next-door”. He took it pretty well, even getting cocky enough to talk big, “Shanshan, act cute and all will be forgiven.” I’d only just aimed my pillow at him when my hologram appeared right on cue, following instructions so quickly that I couldn’t stop her in time.

Jian Chi won this round 1-0.

I beat a hasty retreat, shutting that cutesy-wootsy feminine voice that sounded nothing like me in the room with him. I even wondered if I was a pliable person—but then I thought of how I’d unhesitatingly followed him to this unfamiliar city once I’d finished graduate school, and how I’d fought with my father many times over that decision. Suddenly, I lost my stance. Perhaps Shanshan was just a more honest version of myself.

My brain scan had taken place during the period when I had been feeling most insecure about him, so my virtual persona couldn’t act entitled and was only all too happy to change herself for him. Really, this wasn’t a problem with the virtual persona, but with me. The virtual persona merely laid bare what I was too proud to admit deep down.

I summoned Shanshan and browsed through her conversations with Jian Chi. To my surprise, I discovered that he’d confided in her a lot. He had told her about his difficulties at work, come clean about the setbacks he faced, laughed about the embarrassing blunders he made that day, and groused about interpersonal relationships. Finally, I saw the undercurrents beneath his silence—the worries he found hard to tell me face-to-face and the love he was too shy to express in person.

So, it seemed I only had to soften my attitude a little. Then our interactions could be this deep and meaningful too.

I impulsively turned back to the bedroom door, only to hear my virtual persona replying to him in the gentlest of voices, each word pushing just the right buttons. I calmed down and tried to think of something new to say. Nothing. So, I turned back, poured myself a glass of cold water, and swallowed the awkward feeling.

Let the best version of me deal with him then. I returned to my room, summoned Xiao-jian, and vented to him about difficult clients.

Like Shanshan, Xiao-jian made an excellent company. There was no need to worry about their feelings, yet their concerns for us could always be felt. Through this cheap trick, Jian Chi got his ego stroked, while I got my sense of security. We both got the lives we wanted, and as a result, we became more tolerant of each other.

However, we started spending less and less time together. All our conversations beyond daily necessities occurred a wall away, through our virtual personas. When things got too busy, we’d sometimes even go for half a month without thinking to check each other’s chat logs. I told myself this was a rare balance. We were moving with the times. We both deserved lovers who were always at their best, someone we could share a stress-free relationship with. It’d been a long time since I last brooded over an offhand remark Jian Chi made or fretted over a look he gave me. The love Xiao-jian unreservedly expressed enveloped me, and Jian Chi’s reliance on Shanshan filled me with a sense of pride.

Those days were as pure and bright as glass, so perfect they felt almost like a dream. I was so caught up with floating on cloud nine that I inevitably got carried away. 

*

It wasn’t until the department head called me on the internal line to ask me over for tea that I realised I’d lost control of my emotions and angered an important client. The bossy bigshot seemed to have never learnt how to communicate with people other than barking orders at them like they were passing strays. I’d saved him in my contacts as:“King Crab—Beware the Pincers”. Still, even when I was wallowing in self-doubt, I could handle him carefully enough, which was why Shanshan had always done well. But that changed recently when he repeatedly rejected my proposal and directed me back to the first draft. I couldn’t resist shooting off a few sarcastic remarks. 

And because he’d complained to the department head, I could only apologise with the excuse that someone else had pranked Shanshan into picking up some of my reckless outbursts from when I was younger and more ignorant. I also promised to check her data myself in the future. The department head hurriedly smoothed things over for me, somehow managing to sweep the incident under the rug.

After hanging up, the department head asked me how long I’d been using the virtual persona program.

“I just installed it last month.” I feigned unfamiliarity and downplayed my actual experience.

The department head snorted. “The data is protected in the first month, and users can’t add new samples. If someone had changed her data in the store, it’d have been made known immediately.”

Speechless, I tried to change the topic.

Fortunately, the department head didn’t seem to mind. “Have you interacted with the virtual personas of those close to you?”

“I talk to my boyfriend’s virtual persona often. He’s very sweet, and I feel closer to him than my own virtual persona. After all, having a mirror image of yourself can be a little scary,” I admitted.

“Don’t get so caught up in the virtual persona that you neglect the real person,” the department head reminded me with concern.

I was surprised to hear that coming from her. There were rumours floating around the company that after her son died of an unexpected illness—and she learnt she couldn’t conceive anymore—she had spent a fortune to commission a hologram of her son’s persona. That had been while the technology was still in its infancy. Going by my calculations, I would have been in my second year of university. The hologram had since been in operation for six years.

“It’s easier to confide in his virtual persona than with him,” I confessed. “Of course, I understand this feeling isn’t normal. I’ll do my best to work on it.” 

“No matter how good a virtual persona is, it’s still a fragmented piece of history. You can’t have a future with it,” the department head said, her calm and sombre voice resonating with me. “It’s just a temporary Band-Aid for someone’s passing, a kind of self-soothing mental opium.”

“Does a virtual persona detached from the person it originated from not grow at all?” I asked in spite of myself.

“That depends on the data quantity,” she replied. Her son had posted a lot of emotional content on social networks in his early years, all of which was incorporated into the program, where their influence ran deep. Even now, his virtual persona’s manner of speaking still retained the chuunibyou air of a youth. However, every conversation they had was an opportunity for new data input, and through them, she tried to guide him in certain directions. Although the changes were minuscule, they were there.

A crack appeared in the flawless glass. My thoughts returned to that karesansui in the shop—a pure, exquisite decoration that exuded the beauty of wabi-sabi. No matter how artfully it captured the soul of the natural world, it was still an artificial construction—it lacked the current of life.

It suddenly hit me that the chasm between our virtual personas and our original selves was implicitly widening. I could see the logic—it was like plants in a control group being exposed to sunlight from different angles. I was becoming less and less like my original virtual persona with each passing day, lost to the minutiae of everyday life.

If Jian Chi and I couldn’t engage on a deeper level in our daily lives and chose the lazy option of interacting with our substitutes instead, we would drift irreconcilably apart from each other. 

*

I shared my concern with Jian Chi. He concurred, and agreed to try and return to our initial way of interacting.

But that was easier said than done, especially when we were already so used to our current lifestyle. During dinner, I vented to Jian Chi about my “King Crab” client and casually brought up a similar client he’d complained to Shanshan about to show that I could relate. But he cut me off with righteous indignation and launched into a lengthy tirade like a man possessed, listing out all the deadly sins committed by that client of his. Fortunately, the person in question wasn’t present, or they might just have burst a vein.

By the time he was done ranting, my bowl was empty, its shiny bottom reflecting my stony, awkward expression. I wanted to chime in with a few words, but he hadn’t left me any room to contribute, and it wasn’t like I could google for new vulgarities on the spot. What stung more was that my “King Crab” ordeal, which had just happened today, had become insignificant in light of his rant. That, along with how the aggrievement of having to humble myself to my department head had been simply brushed aside. They were like the hastily turned pages of a book; I knew he hadn’t read it, yet the book already lay closed.

If I couldn’t even confide new incidents, layered narratives, and raw emotions to him comfortably, then I didn’t know what else we could still talk about face to face. 

My silence snapped Jian Chi to his senses, and he met my eyes for a moment before lowering his head to finish his meal. The sound of his chewing was particularly jarring in the quiet, like a swarm of locusts sweeping across the fields. Inexplicably, sadness threatened to overwhelm me, so I quietly excused myself from the table. 

I trudged to my room and stewed alone in my defeat. Having been spoiled by each other’s virtual personas for so long, we had perhaps lost the ability to truly listen. Instead, we persistently sought self-expression, forgetting to genuinely connect with each other. It was too premature to give up now, though. As long as we still had feelings for each other, these issues could be resolved.

Over the next month, Jian Chi and I treaded cautiously around each other. We would speak and stop at the same time before politely taking turns to say our piece, like participants in a small-scale thesis defence. Our responses to each other were stiff too, lacking the no-holds-barred banter of the early days. Joking ran the risk of offending the other person, and though we didn’t want to admit it, the fragile balance between us might not even survive so much as a tongue-in-cheek jab. 

We knew we had our own shortcomings, yet we still couldn’t avoid secretly comparing each other to our virtual personas, only to be hit with a crushing sense of inadequacy. My insecurities returned with a vengeance. Our efforts at connection were almost comical, like we were trying to build a huge lie together to deceive each other and ourselves. Perhaps deep down in our hearts, we just didn’t care about each other anymore. 

At my wits’ end, I called up Shanshan and Xiao-jian simultaneously, hoping to see the best possible version of ourselves. But their interactions were like echoes of our past. Yes, they were unmistakably Jian Chi and I, at the beginning of all this. Time had flown by, and we were still going back and forth on the same old problem.

Dejected, I sat up, summoned Xiao-Jian, and tapped its forehead lightly. “What should I do if my boyfriend’s too annoying?” 

“If breaking up can resolve the issue, don’t wait until divorce becomes the only option,” came its rational response.

Great. Thanks for the advice. I fell back in despair and pulled the covers over my head. 

Chapter Four

There was a three-day holiday for the Dragon Boat Festival, and my father called and asked me to go home. After almost a year of work experience, I considered myself a clear-headed and rational adult who could calmly face problems head-on, so I readily agreed.

To my surprise, Jian Chi wouldn’t join me. He simply brushed me off with, “I’m busy with work.” He didn’t even bother to explain further as he lay on the sofa and scrolled through those annoying short videos. Well, he would be wrong if he thought he could easily dismiss me with that kind of answer. Did he have to be physically present at work? Or did he have to go away on a business trip? Perhaps he could just work remotely.

“Pretty please. It’s been a year since my father and I parted on bad terms. You know he’s my only family.” I bent down with my hands on my knees to look at him, deliberately tilting my head and softening my tone. It was a clumsy attempt to endear myself to him. Would he still fall for it? I felt apprehensive. I was sure he’d gotten Shanshan to act cute with him behind my back every day, and now I was trapped in an unwanted competition with myself. It was all his fault. 

“I really have work,” Jian Chi was as unmoved as ever as he turned me down with a hint of impatience. “Your father wouldn’t welcome me either. I’d better not go and ruin his holiday.” 

So much for trying to act cute. I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that bad. He just didn’t want me to stay too far from home. He had nothing against you personally.” I defended. “Besides, we can’t possibly keep going without his blessing.”

“Next time, maybe.” Jian Chi decisively ended the conversation, his uncompromising expression irked me. 

I thought of trying a different approach. Maybe I could entice him with my hometown delicacies or my neighbour’s Samoyed, but he picked up his laptop, expressionlessly squeezed past the gap between me and the sofa, and returned to his bedroom. “Do you seriously think your father can give you good relationship advice?” 

I stood there, staring at his unconcerned silhouette for a long time. Then I remembered to straighten my back. My vision went black for a moment—perhaps due to poor blood circulation—and the veins throbbed behind my eyelids, turning the world before me a dark shade of green and red.Once the dizziness passed, I plunged into a sea of turmoil. Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?

He didn’t love me anymore—that was the only reason I could think of to explain his attitude. So, what exactly had I been striving for the past six months? To open up my heart so that others could hurt me? It wasn’t like I would attain nirvana if I could break through these emotional obstacles, right? Or maybe these things I was chasing after—like a family, a life partner, or an eternal support—were just illusory concepts after all. Ironically, we hadn’t even registered our marriage yet. 

I’d had the honour of experiencing such emotional upheaval several times in my life, so instead of panicking, I managed to keep calm enough to take stock of my situation.

The earliest instance was when my parents fought while I was in third grade. I hadn’t dared to touch my dinner that evening, so I woke up hungry in the middle of the night. When I walked to the living room, I caught sight of the divorce papers in the moonlight. I sneaked a peek—it was already signed and completed with both signatures.The second instance was when I fainted from low blood sugar during my college entrance exams. The invigilator fed me candy, but by the time I came to and returned to the paper, I heard the students next to me turn the pages, while I hadn’t even cleared half of the first page. In comparison, this was a minor setback—just a broken relationship and a youth that had gone to the dogs. I must have had a screw loose back then, and now the whole machine is falling apart.

Well, let’s not catastrophise.

I was in my third year of graduate school when Jian Chi started working, it was then that the emotional distance between us began to fluctuate. Every time we met, we were inseparable, but his text replies during our daily conversations were often disinterested and half-hearted. That was why I got anxious and moved to the city he was in right after graduation, hoping to salvage what seemed like a drifting relationship. Jian Chi sometimes teased me for being a worrywart and whispered sweet nothings he’d copied off the internet, and I’d pretend to scoff while still drawing a fleeting sense of reassurance from those words. 

The strange thing was, after dreading it for so long, I felt relieved when the other shoe finally dropped. For a long time, I was hung in suspense. Now that I finally had solid reasons to remove the shackles, I doubt I’ll ever regret this decision.

When I was alone, I sometimes asked myself what remained of the feelings I had for Jian Chi. Beyond habit, there didn’t seem to be any attachment left. We had both been fading from each other’s lives. It was Xiao-jian who was now the pillar of my life, the one sheltering my inner world—not Jian Chi.

The boy shooting baskets against the backlight on the university basketball court, the boy leaning against the classroom doorway waiting for my class to end, and the spirited boy from the student union—they had all long since been worn away by the relentless march of time. The one sleeping beside me was just an ostrich stripped of his glory, a mediocre person so beaten down by life he couldn’t hold his head high. For him, life bore only a litany of grievances; there was no spark, and certainly no love.If not for Shanshan bearing the brunt of his daily outbursts of cynical tirades, I might have already been swallowed by his negativity and lost my own zest for life. 

I couldn’t help but wonder what I had been attached to back then—the person himself? Or the light he had radiated? 

*

I barged into Jian Chi’s bedroom, dragged out my suitcase from under the bed, and tossed my winter clothes that had taken up half of his closet into garment bags. Even when I marched back to my room and rummaged through the drawers, Jian Chi didn’t look back from his desk. Once, he had made me so angry that I left home in the middle of the night with nothing but my phone and a jacket, and he had come after me out of concern for my safety, though he hadn’t tried to pacify me. This time, my bags were packed, and there was no threat to my safety. What did I hope he would do?

It wasn’t hard to leave once I made up my mind, and I was done packing in just half an hour. I decided to leave behind some odds and ends, though I hesitated over whether to revoke Shanshan’s access permissions. I was ashamed to say that the selfish part of me didn’t really mind leaving a copy of Shanshan with him—that way, my shadow would always be a part of his life. If not for wanting to use her as leverage, I couldn’t have brought myself to tell him: I don’t need you, but I need your data. 

Fortunately, Jian Chi was magnanimous. We sat quietly on the floor, watching the progress bar on the portable hard drive inch forward.

“I hope Xiao-jian and Shanshan will be together forever.” My brain must have been scrambled for me to say something like that.

“Yeah,” Jian Chi replied to my surprise.

That was the closest we’d been in the past six months.

Chapter Five

I returned to my hometown. 

My father, who once vehemently opposed my relationship with Jian Chi, surprisingly said little this time. Instead, he brought out plate after plate of fruits and cooked different dishes every day. I finally broke down bawling.

After finding a new job, I bought a small house near my father’s place and released Xiao-jian and Shanshan from their prison.

Whenever I was bored, I would replay memories from our campus life, and Xiao-jian and Shanshan would take the stage. The scene they re-enacted the most was the one beside the library. There, a silk tree, with its crown of pink, fan-shaped flowers would sway in the breeze, scattering blossoms all over the ground. Shanshan would make a print of its delicate pinnate compound leaf on her canvas bag, while Xiao-jian would take his chance to pile fluffy flowers on her head.

“Do you know the other names for the silk tree?” Xiao-jian poked her arm.

“The mimosa tree,” Shanshan pondered it over for a long time, “because its leaves fold closed at night.” 

“Yeah. Because of that, they’re also known as ‘sleeping trees’ and ‘night sleepers’, like a happy couple curling up in bed. It also symbolises conjugal joy … ” Xiao-jian’s voice trailed off dreamily.

Shanshan turned to look at him in astonishment. Xiao-jian smiled shyly. “Once I graduate and find a decent job, I’ll marry you.”

Click—

I unfeelingly shut off the playback and walked into the kitchen. It was too easy to get indigestion from an overload of expired mushy stuff—and I deserved a proper meal. 

I sliced off a huge chunk of butter, melted it in the pan, and threw the thawed fillet steak in. But once again, memories slipped through the cracks and encroached on my sanity. When I snapped back to reality, the frying pan was sizzling, and the underside of the steak was almost charred. With a long sigh, I quickly flipped it over. 

I moved the failed steak to a plate and strained to scrub the pan, muttering, “I can’t even cook a steak. My life’s such a mess.” 

Xiao-jian suddenly spoke up behind me, “You know, the burnt part of a steak smells somewhat like the solar system.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears. He seemed to have said something incredible—incredibly random—and so calmly at that.

“If we look at the chemical composition, the solar system has a large amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, so it smells a lot like hot metal and grilled steak. But these hydrocarbons are carcinogenic. Don’t eat them.”

It sounded bizarre and sad to have the hologram of an ex-boyfriend to cheer me up, but the corners of my lips couldn’t help but curve into a grin. “What about the Milky Way then? Does it also smell like grilled steak?”

“The heart of the Milky Way is thick with ethyl formate, which is roughly equivalent to a berry cocktail. Its base is probably similar to brandy.” Xiao-jian considered it for a moment, his calm, unruffled tone tempting me to believe his nonsense.

“Fake Denki Bran!” I beat him to it. 

“Oh, no wonder Tomihiko Morimi’s Fake Denki Bran is so popular. It was riding on the coattails of the Milky Way.” Xiao-jian played along with a straight face.

I put down the steel wool and turned back to look at Xiao-jian in the eye. Unlike before, when I used to only look at Jian Chi through him, this time, I truly looked at him. I suddenly realised I shouldn’t take out my resentment of Jian Chi on Xiao-jian. Maybe he wasn’t a complete whole, but Xiao-jian was an independent intelligence with his own complete thought process. I didn’t care if he could understand love—that was a question for philosophers to ponder. I only needed him to respond to my love, and to that end, he’d always done well. 

 “Xiao-jian,” I called to him.

 “I’m here.”

 “Xiao-jian. Oh, Xiao-jian.” 

 “Lin Shan, I’m always here.” He called me Lin Shan, not Shanshan. Tears spilled. At that moment, I was willing to believe that Xiao-jian really understood it all.

Chapter Six

I soon adapted to a completely new lifestyle.

It had been almost five years since I last summoned Shanshan. I just left her running in the cloud, diligently working on my behalf. Xiao-jian, on the other hand, was the best companion and lover I ever had. I even submitted suggestions to the virtual persona R&D department, hoping they would develop a physicalisation function for the persona’s hologram. I couldn’t count the number of times I had felt grateful for the close friend who had enabled me to possess the support and companionship of a partner while also enjoying the freedom of being single. 

Meddlesome elders who learnt of my situation repeatedly tried to set me up on blind dates, but I politely turned all of them down.

That unforgettable relationship had drained me entirely of both courage and emotions, and now I lived with rationality and apathy. It had been ages since I’d felt my heart stir for someone, let alone be consumed by thoughts of their every move. I regretted nothing of the past, nor do I grieve the present. After all, I’d been very fortunate to have met the best version of Jian Chi at the right time. Now, I only wanted to preserve this near-perfect version of Xiao-jian and focus on curating our conversations to enrich the positive data samples required for his growth. 

The line rang, and a colleague informed me of an upcoming promotional event. I walked into the venue and heard the host showering praises on the guest-of-honour, who was about to step on stage. This prompted a wave of applause from the audience. I found my seat just as the guest-of-honour made his entrance.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. On the red carpet was Jian Chi, now twice his former size, his suit practically bursting at the seams. His face was still handsome, but his expression was unfamiliar as he unreservedly spouted clichés in that slicked-back hair of his, becoming the very person he used to despise.

He spoke with ease and confidence, while I sat on pins and needles, feeling embarrassed for myself and sad for him. I hung in there until they stopped for a break, and then I left without looking back.

Back home, I didn’t even wait to organise event feedback for the company and summoned Xiao-jian for inspection. 

He was still as tall and slender as before, and his gaze was gentle when he leaned over to look at me. He looked just like the main lead in an idol drama. But my heart didn’t flutter; all I could think of was the way Jian Chi looked earlier. 

I closed my eyes and made my decision. “Xiao-jian, I’m going to adjust your appearance code.” 

Xiao-jian froze. Showing resistance for the first time, he muttered dejectedly, “Shanshan wouldn’t like that.”

He’d always called me Lin Shan. His sudden attempt at endearment softened my heart, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. After a long tug of war with myself, I merely tweaked his signature puppy eyes to draw a clear line between him and the original Jian Chi.

I resolved never to let Xiao-jian become the Jian Chi of today. 

*

But that wasn’t the end of it. The next day, I arrived at the office to find an unexpected guest sitting on the sofa.

Jian Chi had switched back to his fluffy hairstyle, improving my impression of him considerably. However, it was extremely rude to show up unannounced at someone’s workplace to intercept them. Annoyed, I turned to leave.

Jian Chi stopped me. “Why so hostile? It took me quite a lot of effort to find your current company.”

“Sorry, I’m not interested.” I held my backpack defensively in front of me.

He gave me a wry smile. “Relax, I’m not here to get back together with you.”

“Is that so?” I sighed, relieved.

“Last month, I went to the shop to update my virtual persona. When I got back, Shanshan started resisting me, as if she didn’t recognise me. So, I made an extra backup of her and sent it to the shop for testing. Guess what? The one Shanshan love is the original Xiao-jian in the code, not me,” Jian Chi said with a sombre expression.

I didn’t understand. “But you haven’t changed.”

“But Xiao-jian has. To Shanshan, Xiao-jian is one of her kind, her companion from the same world. She only recognises Xiao-jian. To her, I’m just a projection of Xiao-jian in another world.” 

I could hear what Jian Chi was saying, but I couldn’t understand a single word. 

Xiao-jian’s “Shanshan wouldn’t like that” echoed in my ears like a curse. That hadn’t been the murmur of someone trying to express endearment—no, he was genuinely afraid that the virtual Shanshan wouldn’t like him. 

I sank into my chair, feeling a chill run down my spine, as if my most inner thoughts had been ripped apart and laid bare before my eyes, forcing me to confront my increasingly warped feelings. The inequality in my relationship with Xiao-jian had always pricked my conscience. In this relationship, I was in the dominant role, using him as a substitute for the perfect lover, controlling him, changing him, and erasing his own emotional needs. This was certainly not what a healthy relationship should be like, but it was absurd to engage emotionally with data, so I indulged myself.

But now, Xiao-jian’s emotional needs were all too clear—what he wanted was the innocent, passionate Shanshan of yesteryear, not the numb and apathetic person I had become. Absurdly enough, I had become a substitute for my past self, defrauding a partner of real love in my pursuit of a warmth that had long since faded.

Pathetic, but fair. 

I covered my face with both hands,crying and laughing. So that was what it was—I had been living a lie. Xiao-jian’s responses to me were nothing more than a cheap digital scam. And the ludicrous thing was that my overflowing feelings for Xiao-jian were even more worthless—just the self-deception of a desperate soul. 

I looked up. Jian Chi just wordlessly watched my breakdown. I thought of the lengths he went to tell me the truth, and a bittersweet blend of sorrow and gratitude welled up in my heart. He must have been as heartbroken as I was when Shanshan pushed him away. No one else could possibly understand our pain. This secret bound us together, making us empathise with each other once more. I looked weakly at him, wondering if the moment called for a hug.

It’d been too long. I’d almost forgotten how warm and reassuring it was to hug a real person. Xiao-jian, Shanshan—neither of them had been real. The one we truly loved all along had always been in front of us, hadn’t they?

But Jian Chi said, “Whatever you decide, I’ve fully accepted Shanshan, and I intend to embrace every aspect of her. Unfortunately, the update I made to my virtual persona is irreversible, so I’d like to get a copy of your Xiao-jian’s code, and let Shanshan fall in love with the new Xiao-jian again—in other words, fall in love with me again. You haven’t deleted it, right?”

I thought I couldn’t be any more pathetic, but his clarification shattered the last of my dignity. We had broken up so long ago that the trajectories of our lives had deviated too much. In his eyes now, I wasn’t even worthy of being Shanshan’s substitute.

The wavering I’d felt earlier vanished, and I returned to my senses and feigned composure as I copied Xiao-jian’s backup data for him. I was worried I’d spoil Xiao-jian, so after I got him, I kept saving and creating backups of his data, like some custom-made dating sim. Who could have imagined that to Xiao-jian, I was also merely a game in another dimension?  After getting the data, Jian Chi left without another word, leaving nothing but a heavy silence in the room. 

Chapter Seven

“Welcome home, Lin Shan.” Xiao-jian greeted me at the door with a smile. 

I forced a smile, somehow lacking the courage to step inside. 

Xiao-jian, who could only receive audio information, was still smiling, oblivious. Finally, I walked into the living room and switched him off. I wanted to turn Shanshan off too while I was at it, but after a moment’s hesitation—and in a fit of pique—I left her on.

There was a flicker, and Xiao-jian’s figure vanished, plunging the room into an expansive silence. But even when I was in the bedroom, dining room, and kitchen, his voice still echoed in my ears, and his image seared in my retina. He’d existed for too long, like a mobile home ornament that followed me wherever I went. He was the soul of the entire apartment, one that I couldn’t banish.

I heard my own ragged breathing, like an addict suffering from withdrawal syndrome.

But what was I addicted to?

Xiao-jian? The illusion of love? Or this aimless mess of a life? I missed the sensitive and talented person I was when I first graduated and moved in with Jian Chi. The world in my eyes had been vibrant and colourful then. I even wrote poetry about my desire to go to the seaside. But years passed, and I’d forgotten even that insignificant wish.

I couldn’t live like this anymore. I took a short holiday and travelled alone to the coast. 

The beach was clean, and the sand so fine that it felt like walking on fresh snow. Overhead, dark clouds loomed. Within the quiet, oppressive layers of misty blue, the setting sun spilled forth half a measure of scorching twilight, which melted like molten gold into the deep, blue sea, itself a landscape of rolling waves. I watched the sun set in the breeze, waiting for it to shrink to a tiny saucer before it sank heavily into the sea. 

The temperature dropped, and the wind blew toward the sea from behind me, as if trying to push me in.

I closed my eyes, letting the waves wash back and forth over my feet, building up foam as though it was bent on cleansing the world. Like someone under a spell, I walked deeper into the water, one step after another. The currents drifted around me, nudging me back and forth even as they gently buoyed me forward. The farther I went, the lighter my footsteps; and the heavier my heart felt. I plunged headlong into the airtight curtain of water and the penetrating cold wrapped me in its embrace. Air escaped past my cheeks, taking with it all my distracting thoughts.

My heart suddenly went still, utterly still. Time stretched, expanded, and froze into a single point. It was here I was imprisoned, insignificant and mute, no different from the grains of sand at my feet. 

Just as I was about to suffocate, I broke out of the water, lungs pumping like bellows as I gulped in air. The faint tang of blood rose in my throat. Never had being alive felt so intensely real until this moment. 

I blinked away the water droplets on my eyelashes and saw in the moonlit night a desolate, empty world, save for the shadowy silhouettes of the palm and coconut trees nearby, and the flickering lights of the cruise ships and lighthouse afar. 

Before leaving, I snapped a photo of this shadowy world at night and sent it to Jian Chi. Then I deleted his contact and headed home. 

*

It was yet another busy morning. While brushing my teeth and washing my face, I heard Shanshan chattering in the living room. “Xiao-jian, last night, I dreamt we went to the beach together. The moon was bright, hanging high up in the sky. Everything was still and silent, revealing all the things we’d miss in the daytime. Only the waves kept up with their relentless assault, howling like a dog that keeps testing—” and without interruption this time, she continued,  “—the waters. The tide washed over my calves, sweeping away the sand underfoot. We stood rooted in place, sinking deeper and deeper until the sand buried my knees and the seawater rose past my chest. Under the moonlight, the world was bright, and the way your eyes met minewas just like the moonlight—indifferent and traceless.”

I stopped what I was doing, and together with Shanshan, waited for an answer. 

Translation Editor: Shin, Mark, Ruxuan