Time Travel Beginning with a Null Pointer Exception
"Brain completely fritzing out"
Many people have said that when they arrived at some place for the first time, it felt oddly familiar—puzzling, with no apparent explanation. Now Baixiang has had the same experience. Of course, perhaps the reason isn’t that the author couldn’t figure out how to begin and so cribbed the opening from Han Shaogong; it is merely that Baixiang has skipped too many university chemistry classes and his brain is completely fritzing out.
Regardless, Baixiang has at last arrived in Goat Village. The layout of the houses in Goat Village differs from elsewhere; every house fronts the street with a shikumen gate, and on each gate a wolf is chained. It seems Goat Village’s years of reform and openness, with advancing technology, have finally succeeded in the easier task of subjugating domestic enemies, taming the predators of the green meadows into pets.
The alleys are pitch dark, the electric lights flickering half on, half off. A goat-hustler, hands tucked in sleeves, whispers covertly as Baixiang passes, like a KGB agent making contact: “Hey friend, want a changsān?”—Inside one garret room comes a goat’s roar: “Has the foot-washing water been heated yet?” Baixiang lowers his head—he never does well in such scenes—and scuttles as fast as he can toward the deeper alleys. Through the dim blur, he glimpses newsprint plastered on a wall: “Jing’an District housing prices reach 2,300 yuan per square meter; real estate experts urge: sell now!”
He lodges somewhere at some inn, dumps his backpack on a bed that feels like a university dormitory bunk, ignores the roommate whose brain seems as fresh as new goat droppings, and goes downstairs to the small courtyard. The sky seems about to rain; the bluestone-paved lane holds no girl with fragrant lilac—the drains disgorge wave upon wave of vomit. But there are no wolves here. Sprouting, it seems, from the shadowy damp, Baixiang notices a well before him; he surmises that Lu Wenfu drew material here once, and this must be a sacred pilgrimage site.
Perhaps it is this magic that draws Baixiang slowly toward the well; had he entered the building, he would never have cleared the first dungeon. All around is very quiet—it is nearly 1 p.m.; yet the quiet stirs, as though something moves through the air. Into his mind comes Ten Thousand Maggots Surging; at his ear, a clear whisper: “Turn left, turn right”—Baixiang startles, shuddering. But even sensing inexplicable dread, Baixiang still leans against the wellhead. This isn’t Norway’s forest; someone would find you if you fell in, he thinks. And so a surge of electromagnetic interaction arrives from behind, and before he hits the bottom he only hears a goat’s voice: “Go on down!”
Baixiang loves urban legends: he frequents r/urban_legend and 2chan, enjoys creepypasta from the mysterious island board. But he very much dislikes becoming a protagonist, having tallied the Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio: over half its main characters meet with misfortune. The author now faces a Russell’s Paradox: if Baixiang knows he is the protagonist of a magical-realist novel, then the novel is absurdist; if he doesn’t know he is the protagonist of an absurdist novel, then the novel is magical-realist.
In any case, though he has drunk no energy drink, Baixiang feels himself being lifted; hearing and sight seem to lose meaning here. After an experience like the space-time tunnel in Contact, Baixiang at last touches solid ground—he lands face-first in the dirt. What an inhumane way to time-travel, he thinks. Where is the BGM from Thus Spoke Zarathustra?
He stands up, earth-covered and dazed, knees about to shatter. He looks around: the air has an idiotic freshness; criss-crossing paths, cockcrows and dog barks in the distance. From afar approach several wolves—a gray one, a red one, and wolves of orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Baixiang opens his mouth: “Excuse me, uncles—what year is this, and where is this place?”
The wolves in their cross-collared robes are unperturbed: “This is the Goat Village Red Tea House of Meiji 17th Year… no, Chongzhen 11th Year of Huating County.”
Baixiang is startled. Going south to join the Kun rebels right now seems a dead end—Director Xiao hasn’t written that part yet. He looks around; behind him is the well, and on it is written: “When drawing water, don’t forget those who dug the well; forever cherish Zhu Youjian,” the last character’s right half seemingly altered from the character jiao. He suspects this is the portal he fell through. Peering down, he sees nothing but a misty void. Must he leap back in himself? Baixiang hesitates.