In fact, that was not a torture device; it itself could not cause us any harm. But for those involved in this matter, the deterrent effect of this thing was enormous. I turned to look at the person next to me, who also showed a look of surprise.

These were the heads of seven people. The girl arranged the heads in a row and placed them on the coffee table in front of us. The heads were probably not very fresh; they had undergone some processing, their color was yellowed, and their expressions were serene, but it was clear that they were in a state of death.

What made my head spin was that all seven of these people had the same face. My face.

“What… what is going on?” I stammered, “Why are there so many of me?”

“Many things cannot succeed in one go; a perfect replica is often accompanied by many failures. The failures cannot be remade or circulated,” Zhang Longban said, “So they can only exist as data.”

“These are…”

“These are the groundwork for one of you. Before one of you became Wu Xie, these people could have become Wu Xie too, but clearly, their luck was not very good.”

I looked at these heads, still unable to comprehend: “But they are all dead. Even if they failed, they shouldn’t have had to be killed.”

“You know my surname is Zhang, and you should know my background. In the past, determining whether a disguise was successful could not rely solely on appearance; it required a seamless connection from body to mind, necessitating years of being together with the person being imitated. However, over time, some people would develop feelings for the person they were imitating and would be unwilling to carry out their mission. Such individuals often fled overseas. The technology of disguise is actually very difficult to use long-term because it is hard to truly deceive those who are familiar with you; only in certain systems can many impossible things be realized.”

Zhang Longban paused for a moment, as if sorting through his thoughts, and after a while he said, “For a period of time, we discovered that someone was conducting a nationwide manhunt for someone named Zhang Qiling, so we began to intervene and uncovered a shocking conspiracy. We observed this conspiracy and began to realize that things were becoming increasingly uncontrollable. To regain control, we had to quietly intervene in part of it and harvest some dazzling individuals.”

“So, are you people of Buddha Ye, or are you real members of the Zhang family?” I asked, not fully understanding what he was saying.

“There are no true members of the Zhang family anymore. However, Buddha Ye Zhang has long since ceased to belong to our system,” Zhang Longban said, “During the internal strife on the mainland, a system we had for international trade in Hong Kong was relatively intact.”

“So these people, were they all killed by you?”

“Yes, our predecessors were responsible for most of them,” Zhang Longban said, “If you understood the entire conspiracy your family was involved in, you would find traces of our participation in many places. In fact, we have been watching you.”

As he said this, Zhang Longban revealed a kind of arrogant yet calm emotion, a feeling I found hard to describe. Later, I realized it was a kind of innate, noble air.

But they were not nobles; it wasn’t a luxurious nobility, but rather a sense of superiority that comes from years of seeing through everything.

“I will tell you who the real Wu Xie is after I distinguish between you. Now, let’s begin!” Zhang Longban half-signaled to Miss Zhang, and she, along with another person, brought the seven heads closer to us, saying, “There’s only one question—each of you should carefully look at these heads and tell us which one looks most like you.”

I exchanged glances with the guy next to me. I thought to myself: how can we determine that? Whether it looks like oneself is entirely subjective, and all these heads have my face on them, making me feel dizzy and unable to judge at all.

“You can just rely on your feelings to distinguish,” Zhang Longban said, “the power to judge is mine.”

If we were to guess, we only had a one in seven chance. My head felt swollen, and I could hardly look directly at the heads. The fake Wu Xie beside me said, “Don’t be fooled; there’s no way to distinguish them. We can only survive if we all refuse.”

“Actually, that’s not the case,” Miss Zhang said. “For us, if you truly can’t distinguish, we will have to cut your tendons and ligaments and lock you in a room until you all die of old age.”

“I don’t believe you would do such a thing,” I retorted. “We have no grievances against each other, right?”

“You only have ten minutes; otherwise, you will spend the rest of your lives crawling around somewhere,” Zhang Longban said, unconcerned by my words.

I felt uneasy in my heart, and the fake Wu Xie glanced at me again, suddenly saying, “I’ve already made my choice; give me paper and pen, and I’ll write it down.”

“You bastard!” I cursed, “You speak like you’re farting.”

“Because I believe they would do such things, you’d better choose quickly too,” he said.

My head was buzzing as I looked at the seven heads in front of me, feeling dizzy. Which one looked more like me? Damn it, if I chose wrong, I’d become the eighth head.

I never thought my head could become a collectible, and it could even be a set. I remembered playing the big pineapple game before and cursed in my heart: damn it, I would also have this headhunter treatment.

“Are you going to choose or not? The sooner you die, the sooner you can be reborn,” Miss Zhang urged me.

I cursed, “If I choose wrong, it’s not your head that will be dried into preserved vegetables. Can’t you take responsibility for my head for once?”

“Alright, then I’ll let you ponder it well,” Miss Zhang looked at me, seemingly amused, “But at this critical moment, you can still joke around; that counts as being a man. If you get it wrong, I will make your death quick and painless.”

I ignored her and looked again at the seven heads. Which one looked like me? Which one looked like me? Damn, they all looked so miserable; each one looked like me.

I needed some clarity, some direction for my thoughts.

I forced myself to think: what aspect of thinking would help clarify my thoughts? Was it age?

I couldn’t tell age at all; they were all dead like this, how could I tell their ages? I thought about how my mother used to describe my appearance: it seemed like—I looked like I wasn’t born but rather pulled out.

Damn it, Mom, couldn’t you have some constructive teasing?

“Three minutes left.”

“Don’t rush me! When you rush me, I get annoyed!” I yelled.
“Okay, okay,” Miss Zhang said as she stepped aside.
I looked back at those few heads and suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
Annoyed—when I was in college, there was a girl who seemed to like me and once told me that my face was very calm and that looking at me wasn’t annoying.