Chapter 18: Seeming Like an Old Acquaintance
Quicksand’s daily schedule was laid out in stark, clearly defined blocks. He would wake early in the morning to eat a meal of overcooked bacon and charred charcoal sausages. In the afternoon, he would tidy up the alcohol bottles and cigarette packs in the bar, wiping away the saliva left behind by drunks on the glass windows. When he had a moment of leisure, he would sweep the floor on the second floor. He entered the rooms of Hearts and Diamonds as if traversing an uninhabited realm, but Madame Spades’ residence was like a sanctuary—he never dared to visit, and the tip of his broom would only skim past her door before he quickly retreated.
Since the life-or-death arena fight, he had grown closer to Hearts. The two of them would secretly drink the malt whiskey Madame Spades kept hidden, clink their bottles on the terrace, and head to the old church to meet rebel members whose hair was dyed in a riot of colors. Hearts quietly told Quicksand that the people here were all like tightly closed river clams, harboring a secret within themselves.
“By now, you should already know my secret. Rumor has it that Doctor Hua over at the ‘Affordable Clinic’ around the street corner is an immortal who has lived for an eternity. As for Madame Spades, can you guess her age?”
The two of them were chatting on the terrace at the time. Quicksand recalled her face, which was concealed beneath a black veil, and her voice, which sounded like a leaky, broken fan—weathered and ancient. Thus, he said, “Fifty… sixty?”
Hearts smiled, “Take that number and multiply it by four, and you’ll get a close approximation. She was born in the year 1790.”
Quicksand’s tongue tied itself in knots, but upon reflection, in this world of chaotic time, such occurrences were no longer uncommon, so he forced himself to accept it.
“What on earth is the Madam’s background?”
“Haha, it’s not proper for me to pry either. I only know that she moved in shortly after the bar was built, appearing to be an old acquaintance of Diamonds. If you want to know about her past, you might as well ask Diamonds.”
Quicksand remained silent, interlacing his fingers and repeatedly forming complex shapes with them. Diamonds’ mouth was as unyielding as a steel plate; one couldn’t even pry out his own secrets, let alone the stories of others.
Noticing that Quicksand had placed a rasped hand-axe beside him, Hearts asked in surprise, “Where did this weapon come from?” Quicksand said, “The kids from the junkyard gave it to me. Originally, they said they would take it back after the life-or-death duel, but unexpectedly, it was left behind in my hands.”
Hearts smiled, “I saw that you wielded it quite handily during the arena fight. You might as well keep it. If the kids come to ask for it back, I’ll pay them on your behalf.”
Quicksand nodded silently, stroking the handle of the axe as if greeting an old friend. The rasped hand-axe possessed some years of history; fine scratches covered the blade, reflecting a gleam like a layer of cold frost when caught by the light.
Hearts added, “But if I remember correctly, this is the weapon used by the Cleaner ‘Quicksand’. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t look new either. I wonder if it was used for many years or inherited from a predecessor.”
Quicksand remarked, “I didn’t think the Corporation would be so stingy as to give out only secondhand gear to pick through and use. If I were a Time Cleaner, I would have jumped ship long ago.”
Hearts burst into a hearty laugh. The battle with Branch 2030 had drawn to a close, and this was a time for the rebel army ‘Clepsydra’ to rest and reorganize. The two left the terrace and walked down to the second floor, where the snow leopard was crouching in Hearts’ room, its head covered in connected cables as data emerged on the holographic screen like planetary orbits.
Seeing them arrive, the snow leopard let out a yawn, its tail drooping onto the floor like a dead snake:
“You’re here? Hurry up and massage this lady’s shoulders! I’m about to die of exhaustion from processing the files dug out from Branch 2030!”
Quicksand walked over, using the excuse of massaging its shoulders to stroke every single inch of its fur. Hearts asked with a smile, “Thank you for your hard work. What are you doing right now?”
“I’m decrypting the file on the Cleaner Quicksand. Just a little bit more.”
Suddenly, Quicksand felt as though he had been struck by an electric shock, snapping his head around to look. Data surged frantically across the holographic screen. As the progress bar hit the bottom, a window instantly popped open.
Hearts and the snow leopard gasped in amazement, hurriedly leaning in close. Hearts murmured under his breath, “Let me see who this formidable enemy is.” The snow leopard said, “He won’t escape now!”
Quicksand’s throat seemed frozen, no longer swallowing, until the two let out frustrated groans:
“How is there nothing at all?”
Sure enough, the screen displayed a complete blank. The file on the Time Cleaner “Quicksand” was a wordless book.
“Thinking about it carefully, the Cleaners’ headquarters is at Branch 2035, and ‘Quicksand’ is the Chief. His file must be classified as top-secret; it’s just not time for us to pry into it yet,” Hearts lamented. Aside from him, the snow leopard arched its back in anger, “A waste of effort! It caused this lady to stay up all night for several days!”
Taking advantage of their clamor, Quicksand quietly slipped out of the room. His ears buzzed, and the moment he heard the two words “Quicksand”, his heart beat against his chest like an iron hammer. Yet, upon seeing that the document was completely blank, he somehow felt a wave of relief. His past was still shrouded in clouds and fog, blurry and indistinct, and he was terrified of uncovering it.
Walking into his room, Diamonds was nowhere to be found. Quicksand sat on the bed for a short while, but his unease only intensified.
It was then that he noticed the picture frame on the nightstand, picking it up casually to inspect it. Inside was a group photograph—it was from the night after their victory over Branch 2030, a group shot of the Poker Bar crowd on the terrace. The background was multicolored, with electronic fireworks bursting across the screens. Everyone’s eyes and the corners of their mouths were curved up, little crescents appearing on their faces, but Diamonds was not among the crowd.
Quicksand felt an inexplicable sense of melancholy, as if a puzzle waiting to be completed sat before him, yet the most critical piece was missing.
Just then, he heard a rustling sound as a photograph slid out from the frame. It turned out Diamonds had not taken away the old photograph, but had directly layered the new one on top of it.
Quicksand bent down to pick it up, only to find that it was the same group photo of the bar staff he had seen before.
The old photograph had already become wrinkled and yellowed. He counted the heads one by one: in the photo was an old woman wearing a black veil—this was Madame Spades; a burly titan of a man—Hearts; a sleek snow leopard with shiny fur—Clubs Cat. There was also a youth dressed in a white suit, his hand pressing down on a top hat, the brim pulled down very low.
When he saw this youth, Quicksand’s heart skipped a beat. He had not inspected it closely before, but now he discovered a shocking reality:
This person was not Diamonds.
Suddenly, the neon lights outside the window seemed to spin rapidly, transforming into millions of shards of shattered glass that stabbed ruthlessly into his heart. Quicksand’s breathing grew incredibly heavy. The youth in the photograph had his hat pulled low, the corners of his mouth tilted upward into a stiff and shy smile. He possessed a pair of grey eyes—crystal-clear and translucent, resembling colored glaze.
A lump formed in Quicksand’s throat. As if a thunderbolt had struck the crown of his head, he murmured:
“This is… me.”
The youth in the photograph—the youth who had come to the Poker Bar a long time ago and laughed lightheartedly with everyone—was none other than his past self.
“Clubs Cat! Clubs Cat!”
The snow leopard was startled awake from its nap, looking toward the doorway only to see a grey-eyed youth leaning against the doorframe, panting for breath while clutching an old photograph in his hand.
The snow leopard said in dissatisfaction, “I am not a cat, I am a snow leopard! What is wrong with you?”
When this newcomer was first picked up and brought back to the bar by Diamonds, he had been like a block of Arctic ice, cold in both speech and action. This was the very first time he had shown such an immense surge of emotional volatility. Quicksand flashed the photograph before its eyes, asking in a hurried voice:
“When was this photograph taken?”
The snow leopard tilted its head, pricking up both ears, “I don’t remember. It was likely a very long time ago.”
Quicksand extended his finger to point at the youth in the photo, “Do you still remember who he is?”
The snow leopard’s ears flattened and rose again. Finally, it said hesitantly, “It seems to be… a child who used to help out in our shop a long time ago. His name was… Marble.”
Quicksand’s pupils contracted sharply, his heart thumping wildly as he asked again, “Is he still here? Where did he go now?”
“He disappeared later on.” The snow leopard drooped its whiskers, appearing to search through the scattered fragments of its memory. “Strange, where did he go? It seems he left after helping out for a period of time.”
The clock on the wall ticked away, the sound falling into Quicksand’s ears like the thundering of war drums. He hesitated before asking, “Then on that photograph… why is Diamonds not there?”
“He should be there. He was already at the Poker Bar back then.”
The snow leopard pondered carefully, then suddenly clapped its paws together, “Oh right! He was the one taking the picture every single time. This photograph probably just didn’t include him in the frame.”
“Can this photograph be highly magnified?”
A sudden realization struck the snow leopard, and it nodded. It magnified everyone’s pupils thirty thousand times. After sharpening, noise reduction, and deblurring, a silhouette gradually materialized—it was a young man holding a Polaroid camera, dressed in hidden-black cloth clothes with black hair, waving at the crowd opposite him as he took the picture.
“Is this person Diamonds?”
“Probably. But as for when exactly this photograph was taken, I can’t recall clearly either. Every time there was a group photo, it was this kid who pressed the shutter. The frame of this silhouette also resembles him, so it’s likely him,” the snow leopard mumbled. “But his hair… why is it black?”
Quicksand remained silent, hearing his own teeth chatter. Comparing the reflections within the pupils of several people, he clearly discerned the man’s face, the corners of his mouth hooked into a sly arc. It was the face of Diamonds.
And right beside that silhouette, a rasped hand-axe was plunged straight into the ground.
That was the weapon once used by the Chief Time Cleaner of the Chrono-Entropy Corporation, “Quicksand”. In an instant, Quicksand felt the world spin wildly like a kaleidoscope, a terrifying thought simultaneously revolving in his mind: before being handed over to the Cleaner “Quicksand”, the owner of this weapon had been Diamonds.
A long-buried secret seemed to be abruptly unveiled, allowing him to catch a glimpse of a corner of the answer:
Unbeknownst to him, he had formed a bond with the bar a long time ago. Coming to this place was fated, a revisit to an old haunt. And Diamonds, who had guided him here, was not a member of the rebel army; perhaps this person had deceived time and blinded the world—
Diamonds of the Poker Bar was once a Time Cleaner.
