Chapter 1

I suspect my mother isn't my mother.

And my real mother... has disappeared.

I first began to suspect something was wrong over lunch a week ago.

Mom had cooked and called me down to eat. There were four dishes on the table: stir-fried pork with green peppers, stir-fried tofu, pork liver, and tomatoes with scrambled eggs.

Bewildered, I turned to the woman coming out of the kitchen with the bowls and chopsticks.

“Mom, why did you make liver today? I never eat liver.”

She set the bowls down and smiled.

“Aren't you a little old to be so picky? Be good and eat.”

“...”

I started to say something, then swallowed it.

What I wanted to say was—

You hate liver too.

At the time, I thought she might be punishing me for doing badly on my final exams by deliberately cooking something I disliked.

But the longer it went on, the more I realized something wasn't right.

Mom had changed. A lot.

She used to go out to play mahjong with her friends. Yet a whole week of winter vacation had gone by, and I hadn't seen her leave the house once.

Vegetables, meat, drinking water—she ordered everything over the phone and had it delivered.

The strange thing was that even though she never went out, she still put on a full face of makeup every day.

All through the vacation, she hadn't asked me about my homework once.

Before, my schoolwork had mattered more to her than anything. Summer vacation or winter, she always made me study properly for two hours a day before I could use my phone or watch TV.

Now it was completely different.

She had also started humming.

Whenever she wasn't asleep, I could hear her singing softly in her room.

She spent most of the day shut away in there.

Once, I stood outside her door and called, “Mom! I'm going out with my friends!”

All I heard from inside was, “Okay.”

She didn't even come out to look at me.

When I got home, she was still in her room.

Every one of those changes was strange.

But none of them proved anything.

My suspicions kept growing, and with them a slowly spreading unease.

I tried to reassure myself with an explanation so flimsy I could barely believe it.

“Maybe... she's been losing too much at mahjong lately and decided to quit. That's why she's changed her routine.”

Then, one night, every attempt to reassure myself fell apart.

I knew for certain.

That woman wasn't my mother.

Thunder woke me in the middle of the night.

I was about to roll over into a more comfortable position when I saw something that froze me where I lay.

I was too frightened to move.

For the first time in my life, I understood what real terror felt like.

My scalp prickled.

I'd had a pimple on my face that day. Before bed, I'd taken out the little mirror I kept on my bedside table to look at it, then left the mirror there.

I was lying with my back to the bedroom door.

Lightning flashed, lighting up the room for an instant.

In the mirror on my bedside table, I saw someone.

Mom.

No.

By then, I no longer dared be certain she was my mother.

In the mirror, “Mom” stood motionless in my doorway.

Just standing there.

Staring at me.

She was wearing nothing but a slip dress.

But it was winter.

Outside, the temperature was around zero Celsius, and homes in the south didn't have central heating.

...

When had she come in?

Why was she watching me in the middle of the night?

Why wasn't she cold?

What was she going to do?

Question after question crowded into my head.

Together with her strange behavior over the past few days, they left me certain of one thing.

This person was not my mother.

Then who was she?

Why did she look exactly like Mom?

What did she want with me?

I kept my back to the door and pretended to be sound asleep, listening intently for the slightest movement.

I didn't know how long it was before I heard very faint footsteps outside.

Then Mom's bedroom door closed.

Only then did I dare relax.

Slowly, I rolled over to look at my door.

The more I thought about it, the more frightened I became.

I started trembling.

I took my phone from under the pillow and checked the time.

Three in the morning.

How long had she been standing there?

Or had she been watching from my doorway ever since I fell asleep?

I didn't sleep again that night.

At about five, I carefully sat up, terrified of making even the smallest sound.

I found a cloth bag and packed a few changes of clothes and some essentials.

Then I crept to the door and peered toward Mom's room.

Her door was still shut.

I made my way quietly to the front door, looking back every few steps, afraid “Mom” would suddenly appear behind me.

At the entrance, I eased the door open, slipped out, and gently pulled it shut.

The moment it closed, I ran.

I didn't know whether she'd noticed me leaving.

But I was scared.

So scared.

Fear of that unknown thing made it impossible to stay in the house a second longer.

Only after I was outside the residential complex did I stop to catch my breath.

It was dark all around, and the streets were deserted.

Where could I go now?

I wandered along an empty street, trying to force myself to calm down.

Call the police?

No. I didn't have any evidence.

Who was that woman, anyway?

From everything I'd learned, no two people in the world looked completely identical.

Then where was my real mother?

There were too many questions.

And I was only sixteen.

I had no way to answer them, and I didn't have the courage to go looking for the truth.

“Once it's light... I'll go to Uncle's.”

I found an internet café where I could sit until morning before going to his house.

When I woke, it was already eight thirty.

I grabbed my bag, hurried out, and took a taxi to Uncle's address.

He didn't live far from us. The journey took a little over ten minutes.

I ran to ring the doorbell.

The door soon opened.

Before Uncle could say anything, I went in with my bag and started taking off my shoes.

“Uncle, there's something really important I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

A woman's voice.

I froze.

Then I looked up toward the living room.

My “mother” was sitting on the sofa.

Expressionless.

Quietly staring at me.

Of all the possibilities, I'd never imagined she would be at Uncle's first thing in the morning.

What frightened me even more was that she didn't seem surprised to see me.

It was as if—

As if she'd known I would come.

And had been sitting there waiting.

It was terrifying.

Her own daughter had left home before dawn without a word.

As a mother, she hadn't called me once.

She wasn't worried.

Instead, she was calmly sitting in Uncle's house.

That only made me more certain.

She wasn't my mother.

Seeing me standing in the doorway, Uncle took my bag.

“What's wrong? Come on in.”

“You two are funny. Both turning up first thing in the morning, and you didn't even come together.”

He walked into the living room as he spoke.

I hesitated, then followed.

I deliberately chose the seat farthest from “Mom.”

From the moment I'd entered the house, I'd kept my head down. I didn't dare look at her.

But I could feel it.

She'd been watching me ever since I arrived.

Her gaze made it hard to breathe.

But I couldn't run.

A sixteen-year-old who left her family had nowhere else to go.

All I could do was put my hopes in Uncle.

“You haven't had breakfast, have you?”

He went to the bedroom door beside the living room.

“Get up, honey! Yiyi and her mom are here. Make them some breakfast, will you?”

Then he came back, sat down, and asked, “You said you had something important to tell me. What was it?”

Instinctively, I looked up at “Mom.”

Sure enough, she was still watching me.

There was no emotion in her eyes.

Just that unbroken stare.

I quickly turned back to Uncle.

“Uncle... I want to stay here for winter vacation.”

“Huh? That's what you call important? If you want to stay, just come over.”

At last, “Mom” took her eyes off me and looked at him.

“She's only joking. She's still got a lot of homework left.”

“I can do my homework here.”

I answered in a rush.

“Isn't your cousin coming over today?” “Mom” looked straight at me again. “She should be there soon. Aren't you going to spend time with her?”

This time, the corners of her mouth slowly lifted into a smile.

My younger cousin lived in another city.

Before the vacation, we'd arranged for her to come and stay with me.

Today was the day.

I'd been so preoccupied with “Mom's” strange behavior that I'd completely forgotten.

“You should listen to your mother. If you won't play with your little cousin, am I supposed to keep her company?”

“Mom” kept smiling at me.

Right then, she looked completely normal.

If I told Uncle what I suspected, he certainly wouldn't believe me. He might even think I was just sulking over an argument with her.

Besides, I couldn't leave my cousin alone with “Mom.”

I could wait until tonight. Once she was fast asleep, I'd sneak my cousin out with me and go to her house.

After breakfast, “Mom” and I took a taxi home.

Neither of us said a word the whole way.

The moment we arrived, I ran to my bedroom and locked the door.

Throughout it all, “Mom” hadn't done anything unusual.

I crawled under the covers, took out my phone, and called my cousin.

The moment she answered, I lowered my voice.

“Hello? Tiantian, are you nearly here?”