Chapter 27 Seven Wu Xies

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Happy Cinco de Mayo, lovelies! Hope your tacos were warm and your margaritas were cold!

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In fact, it wasn’t a torture tool and couldn’t do us any harm, but for those involved in this matter, the deterrent force of this thing was huge.

I turned my head to look at the guy beside me and saw that he also had a surprised expression on his face.

These were the heads of seven people. The girl lined them up and put them on the table in front of us.

The human heads weren’t very fresh and were a yellowish color. They had serene expressions on their faces after whatever treatment they received, but it only took a single glance to see that they were definitely dead.

But the thing that blew my mind was that these seven people all had the same face.

My face.

“This…what’s going on?” I stammered. “Why are there so many of me?”

“A lot of things aren’t successful from the get-go. A perfect replica is often accompanied by many defective products. The defective products can’t be recycled or circulated,” Zhang Longban said. “As a result, they can only exist as data.”

“These were…”

“These were the groundwork for one of you. Before one of you became Wu Xie, these people might have become Wu Xie. But their luck was obviously not very good.”

I looked at the heads, still a little unable to comprehend, “But, they’re all dead. Even if they fail, there’s no need to kill them.”

“You know my surname is Zhang, so you should also know where I come from. Back then, determining whether the disguise was successful didn’t depend on the face. To be flawless in mind and body, they needed to stay with the person they were to imitate all year round. But as time went by, some people became emotionally attached to the person they were meant to imitate and wouldn’t carry out their mission. Such people often fled overseas. In fact, appearance-changing technology is very difficult to use for an extended period of time, because it’s very difficult to deceive people who are familiar with you. Only under a certain system can many impossible things be achieved.”

Zhang Longban paused for a moment, as if he were combing through it from the beginning. After a while, he said, “We found someone searching for Zhang Qilings all over the country, so we stepped in and found a jaw-dropping conspiracy. We watched the conspiracy and began to notice that things were becoming more and more uncontrollable. In order to fix that, we had to quietly intervene in some parts and picked up some people who dazzled us.”

“Then are you Fo Ye’s people or the real Zhang family?” I asked. In fact, I couldn’t fully understand what he was saying.

“There’s no real Zhang family anymore. But Zhang Da Fo Ye didn’t belong to our system even long ago,” Zhang Longban said. “When the mainland was in civil strife, our system of international trade in Hong Kong was relatively intact.”

“So you killed all these people?”

“Yes, our predecessors were responsible for most of them,” Zhang Longban said. “If you understand the whole conspiracy that your family participated in, then you’ll find traces of our involvement in many places. In fact, we’ve been watching you.”

When saying these things, Zhang Longban revealed a kind of arrogant and calm attitude, which I can hardly describe. Later, I found out that it was a kind of aristocratic air that originated from oneself.

It didn’t come from a sense of nobility or luxury but a sense of superiority that came from knowing everything for many years.

“I’ll tell the real Wu Xie after I’ve identified the real one from among you two. Now, let’s start!” Zhang Longban winked at Miss Zhang. She and another man carried the seven heads close to us and said, “There’s only one problem—look at these heads carefully and tell us which one is most like you.”

Me and the guy next to me glanced at each other. How am I supposed to figure this out? I wondered. Whether I looked like myself or not was entirely a matter of opinion, and all of these heads had my face, which made me feel dizzy and unable to make a determination at all.

“Just tell by feeling,” Zhang Longban said. “I have the right to judge.”

If you guessed, then there was only a one in seven chance. My mind went blank and I found myself unable to look straight at the heads. The fake Wu Xie beside me said to me, “Don’t be fooled, there’s no way to distinguish them. Only when we both refuse will we have a chance of surviving together.”

“Actually, that’s not the case,” Miss Zhang said. “If we can’t tell the difference, we’ll have to cut your hamstrings and lock you in a room until you die of old age.”

“I don’t believe you’ll do such a thing,” I retorted. “We don’t have any grievances or grudges against each other, right?”

“You only have ten minutes; otherwise, you’ll have to crawl around somewhere for the rest of your life.” Zhang Longban didn’t care about what I said.

I kept brooding over it as the fake Wu Xie next to me looked at me again and suddenly said, “I’ve already chosen. Give me a pen and paper and I’ll write it down.”

“Fuck you!” I immediately scolded. “You’re talking shit.”

“It’s because I believe they’ll do what they said. You had better choose quickly,” he said to me.

My mind was buzzing and I felt dizzy when I looked at the seven heads in front of me. Which one was more like me? Shit, if I made the wrong choice, I’d be the eighth head.

I didn’t think my head would become a collectible, and a complete set at that. I thought of those times I played the Big Pineapple game (1) before and cursed in my heart, damn it. It looks like I’ll also get the headhunter’s treatment.

“Do you choose not to choose? You can die quickly and end your suffering so that you can be reincarnated,” Miss Zhang urged me on while looking at me.

“It’s not your head that will become a dried vegetable plum if you choose wrong,” I shot back. “Can’t you let me take responsibility for my head for once?”

“Ok, then I’ll let you think it over.” Miss Zhang looked at me as if she were amused. “But you’re still able to joke with me at this juncture, so you can at least be regarded as a man. If you’re wrong, I’ll let you die happily.”

I ignored her and looked at the seven heads again. Which one is like me? Which one is like me? Shit, they all look so bad and fucking alike.

Think, think, I need some idea, some sort of direction…

I tried my best to force myself to think: Which aspect was easier to sort out? Was it age?

There was no way to tell their ages at all. How could anyone see how old they were when they were all dead like this? I tried to think about how my mother used to describe my appearance. She said it was as if…it didn’t look like I was born, but pulled out.

Shit, mom, can’t you make fun of me a little more constructively?

“There are still two minutes.”

“Don’t rush me, it’s annoying if you rush me!” I scolded.

“Alright, alright, alright.” Miss Zhang said while retreating to one side.

I looked at the heads again and suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

Annoying—when I was in college, a girl who seemed to like me once said that my face was very calm and other people wouldn’t feel annoyed looking at it. (2)

<Chapter 26><Table of Contents><Chapter 28>

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TN Note:

(1) I think this is slang (to get around censorship) for the PC game Diablo 3 but I honestly don’t know

(2) Basically, Wu Xie’s handsome so people don’t get annoyed seeing his face lol

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I’ve been wondering about this fake Wu Xie since he tried to kill our Wu Xie so I’m glad he made an appearance. I thought it might be the Black Sunglasses guy at first, but considering the whole 20 years thing…. doesn’t look like it. I’m also waiting for Fatty to bust in and rescue Wu Xie even though it probably won’t happen, but I can always hope. I’m also really glad the toilet talk is over with, there are SO many better (less disgusting and more hygienic) ways to send messages, Fatty. Anyways….I won’t be posting tomorrow, which is why I managed to squeeze out this chapter tonight. Be glad I didn’t leave you all at last chapter’s cliffhanger hahahahahaha.

Updated 12/12/2021