The air in the room was bone-chilling, the atmosphere thick and heavy. Diamonds looked around at everyone, his expression a mix of shock and consternation. Ever since a moment ago, he had been repeatedly trying to confirm their memories of Madame Spades. Yet, not a single person remembered the old woman who had long stood behind the bar mixing drinks, her face hidden behind a black veil.
She had vanished entirely from everyone’s memory, and her figure was nowhere to be found in the photographs. Ignoring the attempts to stop him, Diamonds rushed into Madame Spades’ former room on the second floor. There was no trace of life left there; it had been turned into a warehouse, piled high with moldy wooden crates filled with absinthe.
“Do you really not remember Madame Spades?”
The veins on Diamonds’ neck throbbed violently, like tiny snakes writhing beneath his skin.
Everyone exchanged bewildered glances. Hearts said worriedly, “Diamonds, what kind of nonsense are you spouting?”
“I’m not spouting nonsense! Someone else used to live here. Don’t you find it strange? We are the Poker Bar. Right now we have ‘Hearts’, ‘Clubs’, and ‘Diamonds’, but we’re missing ‘Spades’.”
“Hasn’t our bar always been missing someone? The three of us have always been difficult troublemakers. We lack a leader who can rein us in. The seat of ‘Spades’ has been vacant for a very long time.”
Diamonds clenched his fists so tightly his fingernails turned white. He knew the reason behind this phenomenon: a Time Cleaner must have been active in the past and murdered Madame Spades.
And because of the chaotic timeline prior to 2026, the only Time Cleaners capable of operating in the past had to come from Branch 1805.
“You damned liar, are you tricking us again? What kind of trap are you trying to set this time to steal our time?” Snow Leopard looked at him suspiciously, while even Hearts sighed, “Diamonds, you’ve been too tired lately. Now you’re starting to experience delusions.”
“I am telling the truth! Branch 1805 is currently active in the past. If we don’t intervene, the Cleaners will murder us one by one!” For once, Diamonds lost his composure entirely, his eyes bloodshot.
Facing Diamonds’ arguments, Hearts and Snow Leopard could only offer bitter smiles, clearly unconvinced. No one would believe the words of a con artist.
“Branch 1805? Isn’t that just a long-standing urban legend? Does it even exist?” Hearts and Snow Leopard exchanged glances.
Diamonds was left speechless. Only then did he remember that the details regarding Branch 1805 had been told to them by Madame Spades in the first place. She was a person born of the old era and knew many secrets of the past. Now that she no longer existed, Branch 1805 had faded into history like a ghost, with no one left to prove its existence.
The man and the leopard left, leaving only Diamonds and Quicksand in the room. The hands of the clock ticked away, dragging on sluggishly, fueling the anxiety in the room. Suddenly, Diamonds said, “Hey, black-hearted employee, help me up.”
They staggered downstairs. The bar was already packed with patrons. There were down-and-out men with frayed suit cuffs, and pretty women with painted nails. Facing them, Diamonds asked loudly:
“Everyone, does anyone here know Madame Spades?”
The crowd looked up in astonishment, then shook their heads one after another. A man in a leather jacket laughed and said, “Diamonds, what kind of trick are you playing now? Trying to swindle us out of our coins again?”
Diamonds suppressed his anxiety. “I’m not playing tricks. I am asking you seriously.”
A burst of laughter erupted through the crowd. It was as if they had heard a hilarious joke. No one believed him. Frowning deeply, Diamonds pursed his lips and turned away.
Forcing his sickly body forward, he ran through the streets and alleys, searching for any evidence of Madame Spades’ existence like panning for gold in a river. The Affordable Clinic, the Heavenly Blessing Eatery, the ruins of the Blood Fighting Arena, the markets, the dark alleys, the casinos… He ran for hours, but in the end, he found nothing. Madame Spades’ existence had sunk into the deep ocean of oblivion like the wreckage of a massive ship.
An unknown amount of time passed before dusk fell, the light from the holographic billboards painting the air a thick, viscous bluish-violet. Exhausted from walking, Diamonds leaned against a wall with his head bowed, his shadow resembling a dying snake.
Quicksand walked over slowly, handing him a bottle of water and a handkerchief. It took Diamonds a long while to come to his senses before he slowly reached out to take them.
“Did you find that person called ‘Madame Spades’?” Quicksand asked.
Diamonds glanced at him, pulling up the corner of his mouth weakly. “Do you believe she existed?”
“No.”
Diamonds stared at him in shock for a long moment, then lowered his head in exhaustion.
“Everyone says the same thing,” Diamonds murmured. “To me, she was a living, breathing person who stood right in front of me yesterday. But when everyone else besides you insists on one thing, you start to doubt yourself too: did Madame Spades actually exist, or is she just my illusion?”
“Who told you to spend all your days tricking people and deceiving ghosts? You’re just like the boy who cried wolf. You’ve tricked people so many times that no one is willing to believe your words anymore.”
“I am speaking the truth.” Diamonds’ eyes were cloudy as he smiled bitterly. “It’s just that once certain truths surpass the era they belong to, they won’t be understood by people. In this era, no one understands my words, so they call me a ‘con artist’.”
Quicksand squatted down beside him. In front of them, pipes crisscrossed over the old building structures like a chilling nest of vipers, their ends dripping with a greenish slime that splattered into bizarre graffiti on the ground. He said, “In reality, you really have tricked people many times.”
“Madame Spades… she was the leader of the Poker Bar. She held the secrets of the Chrono-Entropy Corporation, making her indispensable to us. Also, she was the one who paid your salary,” Diamonds sighed. “It’s just that she would give it to me first, and I would distribute it to you on her behalf.”
Quicksand put his hands on his hips. “No wonder my salary was so meager. Turns out a dishonest merchant was pocketing the middleman’s cut.”
Diamonds shrugged. “Then do you believe my words? Do you believe that a ‘Madame Spades’ once existed in the Poker Bar?”
“I don’t believe a single word you say.”
Diamonds smiled bitterly.
However, Quicksand then muttered moodily, “But I’m very stupid. I get tricked by you every single time, so I’ll fall for it this time too.”
He stood up, his shadow stretching across the ground. Quicksand looked back at Diamonds:
“Let’s go. Where can we find this ‘Madame Spades’? Wherever you want to trick me into going, that’s where I’ll go.”
Suddenly, Diamonds’ throat tightened. At the end of the alley, the neon signs flashed, casting a vibrant, shifting light into Quicksand’s grey eyes, looking as though a cascade of broken stars had fallen into them.
Diamonds reached up to press the inner corners of his eyes, secretly wiping away a hint of moisture. Quicksand asked, “What’s this? Is the black-hearted boss so moved that he’s crying?”
Diamonds laughed. “Yeah, I’m crying.” After a moment, he added, “Just kidding.”
The light-up signs hung askew in the air, and the iron sheds by the street looked as though they had accumulated ten years of grease, showing weathered colors. The two walked toward the “Affordable Clinic”. Behind the iron gate, an old man with a goatee was sitting on a bamboo chair, sipping tea.
Seeing them, Hua Tuo let out a snort through his nose. “What are you two doing here again?”
Diamonds approached with practiced familiarity, using the tea tongs to fiddle with the tea cake. “Doctor, this Pu’er tea isn’t bad. Since we’re guests, aren’t you going to pour us a cup?” In just a few minutes, his agitation and loss of composure had been perfectly hidden beneath his facade once more.
“You’ve got good eyes, kid. This is Fuyuan Chang Pu’er tea, from a Qing Dynasty tea house. A century ago, it was auctioned off for over twenty million Hong Kong dollars. Though for this old man, I’ve tasted this grade of tea countless times, hoho.”
“After all, you are a famous doctor who lived in the 2nd century. Cut the small talk, Doctor Hua, I’ve come to ask you for some wound medicine.”
Hua Tuo squinted at Diamonds. “What’s wrong with you now?”
“Nothing much. It’s just that my usual medicine has run out, and the old lady in charge of making medicine at our bar isn’t around. So I have to be thick-skinned enough to beg you for some. Since I registered with you last time, surely you offer some after-sales service.”
The old man said crossly, “You have to pay for medicine!”
“I’ll pay, of course I’ll pay,” Diamonds said, pulling out a pocket watch. It was a platinum pocket watch, worn and scuffed. Quicksand was startled to see the Penrose stairs emblem on it—the identification mark of a time cleaner. In that instant, he seemed to understand why Diamonds always liked to steal his and Hearts’ watches to pay for things—because Diamonds’ own terminal couldn’t be shown in public.
Diamonds transferred the money to Hua Tuo. The old man’s face suddenly turned as white as lime, his Adam’s apple bobbing under his loose skin.
“Th-this much?”
The old man spoke, and suddenly, his face broke into a wide grin. He threw an arm around Diamonds’ shoulder and said, “Young man, sit, sit! Let’s have a cup of Pu’er first.”
Quicksand didn’t know how much money Diamonds had given the goateed old man, but he understood that the ancient truth of money making the world go round remained unchanged. Hua Tuo enthusiastically placed several large bags of Huangqi, Dangsen, and various other medicinal herbs onto the counter. “What do you want? I’ll mix a few prescriptions for you to take.”
Diamonds said, “You know my symptoms, just prescribe whatever.” Hua Tuo said, “Do you want golden elixir, jade powder, and stalactite? They grant immortality.”
Diamonds’ eyes lit up, and he hurriedly said the more the better. They plundered the medicine in large bundles, looking like impatient bandits.
Once they got into the car, Quicksand asked Diamonds, “Why did we come here?”
Diamonds adjusted the rearview mirror and said, “Because we are about to embark on a journey of no return.”
Quicksand didn’t understand the meaning behind Diamonds’ words until the taxi stopped by an elevator entrance. They arrived at the ruins of Branch 2030, standing before that massive door stamped with the Penrose stairs.
“This journey is extremely perilous, and who knows how many injuries we’ll sustain, so I brought the medicine along first just in case.” Diamonds waved his hand at Quicksand. “You can set the luggage down now. Once I go in, you should head back, black-hearted employee.”
Quicksand’s footsteps halted, his grey eyes staring coldly at Diamonds. “Boss, this isn’t what we agreed on.”
“I just felt that these bags were too heavy and needed a porter. Did you really think I’d bring you into the Time Labyrinth with me?”
Quicksand fell silent. He had learned from Diamonds that this was an extremely dangerous place, where the probability of survival was like searching for a specific grain of sand in a vast desert.
Diamonds lowered his head. “Madame Spades disappeared because she was murdered by the Time Cleaners of Branch 1805 from the Chrono-Entropy Corporation. Due to the distorted timeline, only Branch 1805 can operate in the past. Can you imagine? If we don’t stop them, the existence of the people around us will pop and vanish one by one like soap bubbles, and we won’t even notice it.”
Quicksand took a deep breath, remembering that group photograph. Perhaps Madame Spades wasn’t the only one who had vanished from that photo. Many friends might have already perished in the past without anyone ever noticing. He asked, “Why are you able to detect the existence of Branch 1805? If Madame Spades truly existed, why is it that only you retain memories of her, while everyone else’s minds are a complete blank?”
“Because I am special.” Diamonds’ gaze shifted guiltily.
“How special? For example—you used to be a Time Cleaner?”
Diamonds shot a sideways glance at him. Quicksand said, “Time Cleaners are stripped from the timeline, allowing them to traverse various eras in a stable individual state. If you were a Cleaner, it makes sense that you would notice Branch 1805 tampering with things.”
“Then what are the Cleaners who can’t notice anomalies? Brain-dead?”
For some reason, Quicksand felt annoyed and delivered a hard punch to Diamonds.
Diamonds scrambled up awkwardly. He pressed his pocket watch into the groove beside the door, and upon sensing the Time Cleaner ID chip, the door smoothly slid open. In that fraction of a second, Quicksand witnessed a solid darkness unfolding behind the door, resembling the crushed remnants of all colors combined, like an abyss, a black hole, the universe itself. Tiny fragments of time drifted within it, shining like billions of silver sands.
“Go back, black-hearted employee. There’s nothing left for you to do here.” Diamonds made a shooing motion toward him and turned his back, his figure appearing as miniscule as dust before that immense darkness.
Quicksand saw through his hesitation and fear, suddenly realizing that Diamonds was a regular human too, someone who would flinch when facing a fated death.
However, just as Diamonds took a step toward the Time Labyrinth, a powerful force came from behind him—Quicksand had suddenly raised his leg and kicked him hard.
Diamonds stumbled, tumbling backward into the Time Labyrinth, shouting:
“What are you doing?!”
In his panic, his instincts kicked in, and he grabbed tightly onto Quicksand’s wrist. The two of them plummeted into the darkness behind the door. They felt the world turn upside down, stars swirling wildly, as if they had fallen into the Milky Way. As they fell, Diamonds gritted his teeth:
“Black-hearted employee, look at what you’ve done! Now both of us are stuck in the Time Labyrinth!”
The two of them tangled together mid-air, kicking and punching at each other. Quicksand said, “You dead boss, you’re always saying one thing and meaning another. I was actually going to leave, but you accidentally dragged me in.”
“Who wanted to drag you in?! This is an entrance with no return!”
“Since that’s the case, you’d better pay me a higher salary.”
“I’ll pay you when we get back.”
Quicksand said, “Didn’t you say this is a journey of no return?”
The two floated in the darkness, eventually landing onto a flight of stairs. The stairs were crystal-clear, formed from countless fragments of time, crisscrossing through the vast, universe-like space like a honeycomb. The fragments drifted and flashed around them like shattered glass, each piece leading to a different time and space.
Suddenly, Quicksand felt a warmth on his hand. Diamonds had taken hold of his wrist. He looked up, meeting a pair of eyes filled with a helpless smile. Diamonds said:
“Fine. For the sake of paying your salary, I’ll risk my life to come back.”
