SOP CH20: Point of No Return

The cold wind inside the room cut to the bone, the atmosphere heavy and grim. Diamonds looked around at everyone, his expression filled with shock. Ever since moments ago, he had repeatedly tried to confirm their memories of Madam Spades, yet not a single soul remembered the elderly woman in the black veil who had tended bar for so long.

She had vanished entirely from everyone’s memories, and no trace of her remained in the photographs either. Brushing past the others’ attempts to stop him, Diamonds rushed into what had once been Madam Spades’s room on the second floor. There were no traces of daily life left there; it had turned into a storage room, packed with moldy wooden crates filled with absinthe.

“Do you truly not remember Madam Spades?”

The veins on Diamonds’s neck throbbed violently, like a small snake undulating beneath his skin.

Everyone looked at one another in bewilderment. Hearts said with worry, “Diamonds, what kind of wild nonsense are you babbling?”

“I’m not babbling. Another person lived here. Don’t you find it strange? We are Poker Bar. We have ‘Hearts,’ ‘Clubs,’ and ‘Diamonds,’ yet we lack ‘Spades.'”

“Didn’t our bar always lack someone? The three of us are difficult troublemakers to begin with, lacking a bellwether to keep us in line. The seat of ‘Spades’ has been vacant for a very long time.”

Diamonds clenched his fists tight, his fingernails turning pale and white. He knew the reason behind this phenomenon: most likely, a time cleaner was operating in the past and had murdered Madam Spades.

And due to the tangled chaos of the timeline prior to 2026, the only time cleaners capable of operating in the past had to hail from the 1805 Branch.

“Stinky liar, are you conning us again? What trap are you trying to set now to steal time from us?” The snow leopard eyed him with deep suspicion. Even Hearts sighed, “Diamonds, you’ve been too exhausted these past few days. You’ve actually started having delusions.”

“Everything I’m saying is the truth! The 1805 Branch is active in the past right now. If we don’t intervene, the cleaners will slaughter every single one of us!” Diamonds lost his composure in rare fashion, his eyes bloodshot.

Faced with Diamonds’s protests, Hearts and the snow leopard offered bitter smiles, clearly unconvinced. No one trusted the words of a fraudster.

“The 1805 Branch? Isn’t that an urban legend passed down for years? Does it really exist?” Hearts and the snow leopard exchanged glances.

Diamonds was dumbfounded. Only now did he remember that the details regarding the 1805 Branch had been told to them by Madam Spades. She was born in an older era and possessed knowledge of many past secrets. Now that she no longer existed, the 1805 Branch remained like a phantom concealed in history, unprovable by anyone.

The man and the leopard departed, leaving only Diamonds and Quicksand in the room. The hands crept across the clock face, ticking away in a sluggish, maddening drag. Diamonds suddenly spoke: “Black-hearted employee, help me up.”

They staggered downstairs. The bar was already packed shoulder to shoulder with patrons. There were down-and-out men with frayed suit cuffs and lovely women wearing crimson nail polish. Diamonds faced them, calling out in a loud voice:

“Everyone, does anyone among you know Madam Spades?”

The crowd looked up in surprise, then shook their heads one after another. A man in a leather jacket laughed, “Diamonds, what kind of trick are you pulling now? Trying to fleece our pocket change again?”

Diamonds forced down his irritation: “I’m not pulling tricks. I am asking you in complete seriousness.”

A burst of laughter exploded among the patrons, sounding as if they had heard an exceptionally hilarious joke. No one believed him. Knitted brows tight, Diamonds pursed his lips and turned away.

Bearing his ailing body, he sprinted through the streets and alleys, panning for gold in sand in search of proof that Madam Spades had existed: the Super Cheap Clinic, Wanfu Diner, the ruins of the Blood Arena, markets, dark alleys, casinos… He ran for hours, yet yielded nothing in the end. All traces of Madam Spades were like the wreckage of a colossal vessel, sunk into the deep sea of oblivion.

After an unknown while, dusk arrived, the light from holographic billboards dyeing the air a viscous bluish-purple. Exhausted from walking, Diamonds leaned against a wall with head lowered, his shadow resembling a dying serpent.

Quicksand walked over slowly, handing him a bottle of water and a handkerchief. It took Diamonds a long time to come to his senses, reaching out sluggishly to take them.

“Did you find that person called ‘Madam Spades’?” Quicksand asked.

Diamonds glanced at him, curling the corner of his mouth weakly: “Do you believe she exists?”

“No.”

Diamonds stared at him in shock for several seconds, then dropped his head in exhaustion.

“Everyone says that,” Diamonds murmured. “To me, she was a living, breathing person who stood before me yesterday. But when every single person besides yourself insists on the same conclusion, you start doubting yourself too: was Madam Spades a real person, or merely my hallucination?”

“Who told you to deceive both gods and ghosts every day? You’re like the shepherd boy in ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf.’ Having tricked people so many times, no one is willing to believe your words anymore.”

“Everything I said is the truth.” Diamonds’s gaze was clouded, offering a bitter smile. “It’s just that once certain truths transcend an era, they won’t be understood by mortals. In this era, no one understands my words, which is why they call me a ‘fraudster.'”

Quicksand squatted down beside him. Before them, pipes crisscrossed over old buildings like a terrifying nest of snakes, their tips dripping green sludge that splattered bizarre graffiti on the ground. He said, “Actually, you’ve deceived people countless times as well.”

“‘Madam Spades’… she was the leader of Poker Bar. She held the secrets of the Time Entropy Group and was indispensable to us. And your wages were paid by her too,” Diamonds sighed. “She simply gave them to me first, and I disbursed them to you on her behalf.”

Quicksand put his hands on his hips. “No wonder my wages were so pitiful. It turns out an unscrupulous merchant was pocketing the difference in the middle.”

Diamonds shrugged. “So do you believe my words? Do you believe a ‘Madam Spades’ once existed in Poker Bar?”

“I don’t believe a single word you say.”

Diamonds gave a bitter smile.

Yet Quicksand then muttered glumly: “However, I’m very stupid and get fooled by you every time, so I’ll let myself be tricked this time too.”

He stood up, his shadow stretching across the ground. Quicksand turned his head to look back at Diamonds:

“Let’s go. Where can we find this ‘Madam Spades’? Wherever you want to trick me into going, I’ll go.”

Suddenly, Diamonds’s throat tightened. At the end of the alley, neon signboards flashed, scattering brilliant colors across Quicksand’s gray eyes like a field of fallen stars.

Diamonds pressed a finger to the inner corner of his eye, secretly wiping away a trace of moisture. Quicksand asked, “What, is the black-hearted boss so moved by me that he’s crying?”

Diamonds laughed: “Yes, crying.” After a pause, he added, “Just kidding.”

Signboards hung askew in the air, the sheet-metal roofs along the street coated in what looked like a decade of grime, displaying faded hues. The two made their way toward the Super Cheap Clinic. Behind the iron accordion gate, the goateed old man sat on a bamboo chair sipping tea.

Seeing them, Hua Tuo snorted through his nose: “What did you two come back for?”

Diamonds strolled in with practiced familiarity, poking at a tea cake with tea tongs: “Doctor, this Pu’er of yours is quite nice. A guest is a guest, won’t you pour a cup for us?” In a matter of minutes, his earlier agitation and vulnerability were perfectly concealed beneath his exterior once more.

“You little brat have decent taste. This is Fuyuan Chang Pu’er, produced by an ancient Qing dynasty tea estate, auctioned off for over twenty million Hong Kong dollars a century ago. For this old man, though, who knows how much tea of this caliber I have tasted over the years, heh heh.”

“You are an illustrious physician of the second century, after all. Putting pleasantries aside, Doctor Hua, I came to ask for some wound medicine.”

Hua Tuo eyed Diamonds askance: “What happened to you now?”

“Nothing much. Just ran out of regular medicine, and the old madam responsible for concocting medicine in our bar isn’t around, so I cheekily came to beg some from you. Having registered with you last time, I presume your establishment offers some after-sales service?”

The old man growled fiercely: “Buying medicine requires money!”

“I’ll pay, of course I’ll pay.” Saying so, Diamonds retrieved a pocket watch. It was a platinum pocket watch, worn and scuffed. Quicksand was shocked to see the Penrose stairs emblem engraved upon it: the identity mark of a time cleaner. In an instant, he seemed to perceive why Diamonds always loved stealing his and Hearts’s watches to make payments: his own terminal was impossible to show in public.

Diamonds transferred the payment to Hua Tuo. The old man’s face instantly went white as chalk, his Adam’s apple bobbing beneath loose skin.

“T-This much?”

The old man beamed, suddenly wrapping an arm around Diamonds’s shoulder. “Young man, sit, sit! Have a cup of Pu’er first.”

Quicksand didn’t know how much Diamonds had paid the goateed elder, but understood that money making the world go round was an eternal truth. Hua Tuo enthusiastically piled several large bags of astragalus, codonopsis, and various herbs onto the counter. “What do you want? I’ll mix up several prescriptions for you to take.”

Diamonds said, “You understand my symptoms, prescribe whatever you see fit.” Hua Tuo asked, “Do you want golden elixir, jade dust, and stalactite powder? They grant eternal youth.”

Diamonds’s eyes sparkled, hurriedly saying the more the better. They carried off large bags and small parcels of medicine like impatient bandits.

Once inside the car, Quicksand asked Diamonds: “Why did we come here?”

Adjusting the rearview mirror, Diamonds said, “Because we are embarking on a journey of no return.”

Quicksand did not grasp the meaning of Diamonds’s words until the taxi pulled up beside the elevator entrance, bringing them to the ruins of the 2030 Branch before that colossal door stamped with the Penrose stairs.

“This journey is extremely perilous. Who knows how many injuries we’ll suffer, so I brought medicine along to be prepared for anything.” Diamonds waved his hand toward Quicksand. “You can put down the bags. Once I head inside in a moment, head on back, black-hearted employee.”

Quicksand halted in his tracks, his gray eyes fixing a cold stare on Diamonds: “Boss, that’s not what we agreed on.”

“I just thought the luggage was too heavy and needed a porter. Did you really think you were going into the time labyrinth with me?”

Quicksand was silent. He had learned from Diamonds that this was an exceptionally perilous place, the probability of survival akin to locating a specific grain of sand in a desert.

Diamonds lowered his head: “Madam Spades vanished because she was murdered by time cleaners from the Time Entropy Group’s 1805 Branch. Because of the disrupted timeline, the only branch capable of operating in the past is the 1805 Branch. Can you imagine it? If we don’t stop them, the people around us will pop and vanish one by one like soap bubbles, while we remain completely oblivious.”

Taking a deep breath, Quicksand recalled that group photo. Perhaps on that photograph, the one who vanished was not merely Madam Spades. Many friends had already perished in the past without anyone noticing. He asked: “How were you able to detect the 1805 Branch’s existence? If Madam Spades truly existed, why do only you remember her, while everyone else’s mind is a complete blank?”

“Because I’m special.” Diamonds averted his eyes.

“How special? For example, having once been a time cleaner?”

Diamonds looked at him askance. Quicksand said: “Time cleaners are detached from the timeline, shuttling across eras as stable individuals. If you were a cleaner, it’s only natural you would perceive the 1805 Branch tampering with things.”

“Then what about a cleaner who doesn’t notice anything abnormal? Are they brain-dead?”

For some reason, Quicksand felt annoyed and punched Diamonds hard.

Scrambling up in disarray, Diamonds pressed his pocket watch against the indentation beside the door. Sensing the time cleaner ID chip, the door swung open obediently. In an instant, Quicksand beheld a sheet of solid darkness unfolding behind the portal, like the dregs left after crushing all colors, resembling an abyss, a black hole, the cosmos itself. Tiny time fragments drifted within it like billions of grains of silver sand.

“Go back, black-hearted employee. There’s nothing more for you to do here.” Diamonds made a shooing gesture, turning his back. His silhouette appeared as minuscule as dust before that immense darkness.

Quicksand detected his hesitation and fear, suddenly understanding that Diamonds was an ordinary mortal as well, one who would shrink before destined death.

Yet just as Diamonds took a step toward the time labyrinth, a powerful force struck from behind as Quicksand abruptly kicked him forward.

Diamonds stumbled, tumbling into the time labyrinth, yelling aloud:

“What the hell are you doing!”

In desperation, he instinctively grabbed Quicksand’s wrist. Both plunged into the darkness behind the door, feeling heaven and earth overturn as starlight spun wildly, like falling into the Milky Way. As they fell, Diamonds ground out through clenched teeth:

“Black-hearted employee, look at what you’ve done! Now both of us are inside the time labyrinth!”

Tangled together in mid-air, they kicked and punched at each other. Quicksand said: “You dead boss are full of contradictions too. I was about to leave, but you carelessly dragged me in.”

“Who wanted to drag you in! This is a portal of no return!”

“In that case, pay me higher wages.”

“I’ll pay you after we get back.”

Quicksand said: “Didn’t you say this journey has no return?”

Floating through the darkness, the two finally landed on a flight of stairs. The staircase was crystal clear, forged from countless time fragments, crisscrossing through the vast, universe-like expanse like a honeycomb. The fragments flowed and shimmered around them like shattered glass, each leading to a different spacetime.

Suddenly, Quicksand felt warmth on his hand: Diamonds had grasped his wrist. Looking up, he saw a pair of eyes brimming with helpless amusement. Diamonds said:

“Fine. Just to pay your wages, I’ll risk everything to make it back.”