Do you believe there's something in this world that can mimic you?
I'm not talking about someone putting on a mask to look like you, or dressing up to trick your friends. I mean something that copies you down to the bone, to the blood, to every pore in your skin.
It stands under the streetlamp, wearing your clothes, wearing your face, smiling at you. And when you try to run, your car acts like it's possessed, refusing to leave that spot no matter what.
My name is Lin Yuan. This happened last autumn.
You might not believe it, but I'd urge you to listen anyway.
Because if one day you pass through that place called Erdaogou in the Liaodong mountains, you need to know what to look at, what not to look at, and when to play dumb instead of being smart.
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After driving for over six hours, my back was killing me.
Funny thing is, standing behind a counter for eight hours never tired me out this much. But cooped up in that driver's seat, staring at the highway for six hours straight? I felt like I'd been beaten up when I got out.
Must be the feeling of being trapped, I thought. The seat's so small, the view's just that one road ahead—asphalt in front, trees on either side, the city getting farther and farther behind.
The longer I drove, the heavier that suffocating feeling got, like someone was piling blankets on top of me, one after another.
I stopped at three service stations. Each time I'd stand by the car, smoke a cigarette, and look around. The first stop had a few big trucks parked nearby, drivers squatting on the ground eating instant noodles.
The second stop only had a Jinbei van, empty. No sign of the driver. By the third stop, I was alone in the parking lot. Wind rustled the pine trees, and the sky was already darkening.
By the time I turned into Erdaogou, it was pitch black.
The navigation said, "You have reached your destination." I looked out the window, and my heart skipped a beat.
I realized I had no real concept of this place. I'd only seen it on maps, in photos. But now that I was actually driving in, I realized how dark it was here.
Streetlamps were few and far between, casting sickly yellow light that got swallowed up by the trees before it could reach far.
The place I was staying was the house of Aunt Qiong, my mom's college classmate. Mom said Aunt Qiong was a wonderful person. Her kid had gone to work in the city, leaving her alone in that big house. It'd be nice to have company, she said. Perfect timing, since I was starting work at the nearby forest farm—I could crash there for a few days until my rented place was ready.
Mom hadn't seen Aunt Qiong in over twenty years. Not since their college days.
I parked in her driveway, turned off the engine, and the world went dead silent. I sat in the car for a few seconds to catch my breath before grabbing my bag and getting out.
The moment my foot hit the ground, the lights came on.
It startled me. Then I figured it must be motion-activated, or Aunt Qiong had heard the car.
The door opened a crack, and a dog squeezed out first. A black-and-white Border Collie, bounding toward me, front paws outstretched, tail wagging like crazy.
"Doubao!" an old woman's voice called from inside. "Doubao, get back here!"
The dog ignored her, continuing to jump on me. I squatted down, scratched its ears, and managed to calm it. "It's okay, Auntie. He's friendly."
Aunt Qiong hurried out, wearing blue floral pajama pants and a hand-knitted wool vest over them.
Her hair was mostly gray, tied carelessly at the nape of her neck, bouncing as she walked. She took the leash from me, smiling, but I could see she was sizing me up.
"Come in, come in! It's cold outside."
Inside, I finally got a good look at her. She was older than I'd imagined. I'd seen photos of her and Mom from college—round face, big eyes, laughing brightly. Now her face was lined, and her right eye drooped a little more than her left. Maybe from an illness, maybe just age. But she was still spry, cheeks rosy, her thin hands gripping mine tightly when she held them.
"Oh, look how big you've gotten!" she said, examining me up and down. "Your mom sent me a photo when you were still a chubby little boy."
"That was junior high, Auntie."
"Was it ever," she said, releasing my hands and patting my shoulder. "You take after your dad—tall."
She spoke fast, with a loud, cheerful Liaodong mountain accent. I followed her inside, Doubao nipping at my heels.
The hallway wasn't long, lined with cross-stitch pictures—peonies, I think, though I didn't look closely. She pushed open a door and told me to put my things there.
The room was spotless. The sheets were pulled tight, no wrinkles. A crocheted doily covered the nightstand, holding a small porcelain deer. Across from the bed stood an old wooden-framed mirror, its paint chipped in places.
"You settle in," she said, turning back toward the kitchen. "I'll make you some coffee. I can't drink strong stuff anymore—heart trouble—but I keep it here since your mom said you like it."
"Auntie, I can do it myself."
"Nonsense, you sit."
I didn't argue. I tossed my bag on the floor, sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, then stood up again. Something about that room made me uneasy.
Maybe it was the mirror facing the bed. Every time I looked up, I saw myself, and it felt wrong.
I went to the kitchen. She'd already started the water. Above the stove was a large skylight, showing the black night sky—no stars at all.
The fridge was covered with photos, held up by fruit-shaped magnets. I leaned in to look.
One showed Aunt Qiong with a middle-aged man, both smiling in this very kitchen.
Another was a young man in camouflage, standing next to a big truck. And an older one—Aunt Qiong holding a toddler in a park.
"That's my son," she said.
I hadn't heard her come up behind me. She was holding two mugs.
"He looks sharp," I said.
She didn't reply, just handed me the coffee and sat across the table with a glass of water.
The coffee was bitter. I took a sip and waited. I could tell she had something to say. Her gaze wasn't the warm look of an elder—it was more like she was weighing something, hesitating.
She blew on her water, then smiled. "You city kids, first time staying in a place like this—scared?"
"I've lived in small towns before," I said. "Went to college in a county."
"That's not what I mean." She shook her head, tapping her finger against the glass. "This place... it's different."
I said nothing, waiting for her to continue.
She looked up at me, her droopy eye blinking slower than the other. "Your mom didn't tell you about this place, did she?"
"Tell me what?"
"Nothing." She shook her head again. "She wouldn't know. We don't talk about this outside the village."
I was confused. "Auntie, what are you trying to say?"
She set her glass down, folding her hands on the table. It looked like she was about to make a confession.
"Lin Yuan," she said, using my full name for the first time. "Do you believe there's something out there that can copy people?"
"Like... mimic them?" I asked.
"Exactly," she nodded. "Mimic everything. Trees, rocks, cats, dogs... people."
I wanted to laugh, but her expression stopped me. "You mean... Bigfoot? Or some kind of mountain spirit?"
"Don't worry about what it is," she said. "No one knows for sure. Just remember this—there's something here.
It comes from the forest. Been on these mountains who knows how long. Old timers called it 'Huan'er'—'the changer.' Younger folks call it 'the copycat' or 'the shadow.' Kids just call it 'the mimic.'"
She said all this matter-of-factly, like she was telling me when the village store closed.
"I'm not telling you this to scare you," she said, looking me in the eye. "It's because you'll run into it sooner or later."
She didn't blink when she said that. I studied her face, trying to figure out if she was joking.
Fifty-something, kind face, sharp mind—didn't look like she had delusions. But Mom had never mentioned her friend being superstitious.
"What counts as running into it?" I asked.
"You see something that feels wrong," she said. "Can't put your finger on it, but it shouldn't be there. Like a rock that wasn't there yesterday. Or a dog whose tail doesn't wag. Or a person who looks like someone you know, but walks wrong, talks wrong—everything's off."
She paused.
"That's it."
The coffee had gone cold. I didn't drink any more. Doubao had wandered in from the hallway, lying at my feet, chin on my shoe, eyes wide as saucers, like he was listening too.
"What happens if you do run into it?" I asked.
Aunt Qiong held up one finger.
"First rule: Don't bring it home. No matter what—chairs, pots, a stray dog that looks sad, a stranger knocking asking for water. If you don't know it, if it feels wrong—don't let it in. Once it crosses the threshold, it has your permission. Then it can pretend to be anything in your house. You won't have anywhere to hide."
She held up a second finger.
"Second rule: Don't touch it. It can't touch you either. If it gets close, back away. Never let it make contact. Once it touches you, it can copy you—your face, your smell, your mannerisms. Then you won't be just you anymore."
She held up a third finger.
"Third rule," she said, leaning in, voice dropping. "Never let it know you've figured it out."
The kitchen went silent. Outside the skylight, the night was pitch black. Doubao suddenly stood up, trotted a few steps toward the hallway, then turned back to look at me, ears pricked.
My throat was dry. "Aunt Qiong... if this thing copies someone, what happens to the original?"
She didn't answer directly. She took another sip of water, pressing her lips together.
"Years back, there was a Liu family at the east end of the village," she said. "The wife didn't listen. Told her not to mess with it, but she didn't believe.
One day she saw a tree on the mountain path—its bark looked like human skin. She got scared and went around telling everyone.
Fine, tell people if you want. But then she had to drag someone to go see it. That night, her family woke up to find an extra person in the house."
"An extra person?"
"Her daughter was twelve. The next morning, there was another girl in the house—exactly the same. She said it wasn't her daughter, but the mimic had copied her. Whatever happened to her... the Liu man never talked about it.
For days, the whole village smelled like rotting meat. Took two weeks for the stench to go away."
I stared at Aunt Qiong. Her expression hadn't changed much, like she was telling a story from far away. But her knuckles were white where she gripped her glass.
I opened my mouth to say something, but all that came out was: "It's getting late, Auntie. Maybe we should talk about this tomorrow."
She looked at me. Her eyes held disappointment, or maybe something else.
"Fine," she said, standing up. "You're tired. Get some sleep. Doubao, stop barking."
Doubao wasn't barking. He was standing in the hallway, staring at the front door.
I went back to my room, closing the door but leaving a crack. I lay in bed, tossing and turning. Her words kept going around in my head—absurd, but somehow chilling.
Not because of what she said, but how she said it. She wasn't telling a story. She was reciting rules.
I rolled over, facing the mirror.
In the mirror, I saw myself in my pajamas, lying on my side. Moonlight filtered through the window, faint and hazy. As I watched my reflection, it started to feel... unfamiliar.
Couldn't say why. It just didn't look like me.
I rolled back over, pulling the blanket up to my chin.
I don't know how long it took me to fall asleep.
I woke up to the sound of barking.
I checked my phone: 1:22 AM. Doubao was barking in the living room—high-pitched, frantic, with a whimper in his throat.
I waited. No sound of Aunt Qiong getting up. The barking continued.
I got out of bed.
My feet hit the floor with a creak. In the silence of the night, it sounded like a clap behind me.
I stood at my door, hand on the knob, and suddenly remembered Aunt Qiong's rules: don't bring things in, don't let things in.
I shook my head, dismissing the thought, and opened the door.
The hallway was dark. The living room light was off, but there was a faint glow from the kitchen—probably the stove light or the fridge. Doubao heard me open the door and ran toward me, paws clicking on the floor.
He ran to me, circled twice, then ran back toward the kitchen, looking over his shoulder like he wanted me to follow.
I followed him to the kitchen.
Moonlight streamed through the skylight, turning the stove white. The photos on the fridge looked eerie in the moonlight—faces blurred, like reflections in water.
I scanned them, and suddenly noticed one I hadn't paid attention to before.
The photo of Aunt Qiong and the middle-aged man, smiling in the kitchen. In the daylight it had seemed normal, but now in the moonlight, the man's features looked wrong.
Couldn't pinpoint what was off. Just that his smile was too wide, his eyes squinted too much—like someone had tried to act "happy" by reading the dictionary definition.
Then I saw the note under the fridge magnet.
It was a white sticky note, held by a strawberry magnet. I definitely hadn't seen it during the day.
I pulled it out, holding it up to the moonlight.
It read:
Xiao Lin:
So sorry, but Aunt Liu's pipes burst and her house flooded. She can't handle it alone, so I went to help.
I'll be back first thing in the morning. There's porridge in the pot, coffee on the second shelf of the cabinet. Make yourself at home.
Aunt Qiong
The handwriting didn't match the woman I'd met that day. Not the voice, not the person.
My hands started shaking.
Doubao was lying on the kitchen windowsill, front paws on the edge, growling low in his throat. I walked over slowly, looking out.
There was a person standing under the streetlamp.
Not far—maybe twenty meters away, right in front of Aunt Qiong's house. They stood in the yellow circle of light, wearing a dark hoodie, jeans, sneakers.
Their posture was strange—legs spread wide, like a toddler learning to walk, like they'd fall over if they didn't stand that way.
They raised their hand.
Not waving. Just lifting it straight up, like doing calisthenics—arm up, then down, then up again.
They were smiling, but the smile didn't match the eyes. The mouth was too wide, the eyes too narrow—like two different expressions forced together.
I leaned closer to the window, trying to see their face.
Doubao barked—short, sharp.
The person looked up, straight at the window. The streetlamp's yellow light hit their face.
They were wearing my hoodie. Dark gray, with that little red ink stain on the left chest that wouldn't wash out. It was my clothes.
They had my face.
But the proportions were wrong. Eyes too low, nose too high, forehead too wide. Like someone who'd never seen a human before, following instructions from a manual to stick the features on.
They were smiling.
I turned and ran.
Something tripped me—maybe Doubao, maybe my own feet. I fell, knees hitting the floor hard. I scrambled up, ignoring the pain, and ran for the door.
I fumbled with the lock, twisting it twice before it opened. As I burst outside, only one thought ran through my head: get in the car, drive away, now.
I didn't even remember my bag was still in the guest room.
My keys were still in my pocket. I pulled open the driver's door, started the engine, shifted into gear, and floored it. The tires screeched, spinning on the pavement, then the car shot forward.
The mountain roads through Erdaogou were narrow, full of curves. I drove too fast, the car sliding around turns. In the rearview mirror, Aunt Qiong's house got smaller, the streetlamps receding one by one.
I reached the big hill leading out of the village, and my heart finally started to slow.
Then the car stopped moving.
The engine was still running, the dashboard looked fine. But I couldn't go forward. Every time I reached a fork in the road, I'd pick the way out of the village—but somehow, I'd end up back where I started.
Erdaogou only had one main road. No way to get lost. But that road had turned into a loop. I drove for who knows how long, and when I looked up, there was that crooked streetlamp in front of Aunt Qiong's house again.
I tried three times.
The third time, I pulled over, turned off the engine, and rested my head on the steering wheel, gasping for air. My heart was pounding, and a cold sweat soaked through my clothes.
It felt like a hand had reached into my chest, grabbing something and pulling it out slowly. I sat in the dark, only the faint green glow of the dashboard lighting the car.
I tried to start the engine again, but my hands were shaking so bad I dropped the keys twice before getting them in the ignition.
But I couldn't drive away again.
A strange feeling came over me—if I kept going that way, the car would take me somewhere I shouldn't go. Somewhere wrong.
But if I went back—back to Aunt Qiong's house, back to that bed, under the covers—everything would be okay.
Like when I was a kid, coming home from school, opening the door to the smell of dinner, hearing Mom call from the kitchen, "Wash your hands, it's time to eat." That thought wrapped around me like a warm blanket.
My hand turned the wheel on its own, making the U-turn.
When I saw that crooked streetlamp again, I actually felt relieved.
I parked back in the driveway, turned off the engine, and sat there for a long time. The streetlamp was empty now. Aunt Qiong's lights were still on—yellow, warm, looking peaceful.
I pushed open the car door, my legs wobbly.
When I walked in, Doubao didn't bark. He was lying at the end of the hallway, head resting on his paws. When he saw me, he just lifted his eyes.
I went to the kitchen, rereading that note. Then I opened the fridge, searching through the photos for one I hadn't looked at closely—the old photo of Aunt Qiong and Mom from college.
In that photo, Aunt Qiong was in her early twenties—big eyes, double eyelids, smiling with all her teeth.
Her eyes were dark. Not the color of the woman I'd met today.
I slowly pulled my hand back.
The bedroom door at the end of the hallway was closed. Had it been closed when I left? I couldn't remember. I just remembered leaving it open.
Doubao suddenly lifted his head, staring at that door.
No light came from under the door.
But there was a sound. Very faint—like fabric rubbing, rhythmic, over and over.
Like someone rocking in a chair.
I stood frozen in the kitchen, the note crumpled in my hand.
I thought about Aunt Qiong's three rules.
First rule: Don't bring it home.
Had I brought it in? I didn't know. Had it been here before me? Or had it been here all along?
Second rule: Don't let it touch you.
I had touched her. She had hugged me. Her hands had held mine.
Third rule: Don't let it know you've figured it out.
I knew now.
But I didn't know if it knew I knew.
Doubao stood up, barking once at the hallway.
The door creaked open.
The room beyond was pitch black—I couldn't see anything.
But I heard a voice coming from the darkness. Aunt Qiong's voice, warm and cheerful, just like before.
"Xiao Lin? Can't sleep? Come on in, let's chat."
The door stood open.
I didn't move.
I wondered—if someone leaves, and something else takes their face and talks to you... what does it want from you?
An answer.
A nod, a shake of the head, moving forward or back. It wants you to acknowledge it. One word, even one sound—and it has your permission.
I opened my mouth.
Doubao barked at me suddenly—loud, fierce, like he was telling me to shut up.
From the darkness at the end of the hallway, another voice spoke. Not Aunt Qiong's this time—younger, stranger. But it made my hair stand on end.
Because the tone, the way it drew out the words, the rhythm of its breathing... it was exactly like mine.
"You figured it out, didn't you?"
I didn't answer.
I squeezed the note in my hand, backing away step by step until I reached the guest room.
I didn't close the door.
I lay on the bed, facing the wall, pulling the blanket up to my chin. On the other side of the wall, it was quiet. No sounds at all.
But I could feel it.
Watching me.
Tomorrow morning, when the sun comes up, I'll walk out of this room. I'll see Aunt Qiong sitting in the kitchen, eating porridge, smiling at me, saying, "Good morning, Xiao Lin. Did you sleep well?"
I don't know how I'll answer.
All I know is Doubao didn't sleep all night. He paced up and down the hallway, his paws clicking on the floor. Every now and then, he'd stop and look through the crack in my door.
His eyes glowed like two lamps in the moonlight.
But I noticed something.
His shadow, cast on the hallway wall—sometimes, it wasn't the shape of a dog.
I'm sitting in Aunt Qiong's kitchen writing this now. It's still dark out. My phone's almost dead, only one bar of signal.
I'm not writing this because I want to.
I'm writing because I don't know how much longer I can tell the difference between her... and it.
If you're reading this, wherever you are—whether you've been to Erdaogou or not.
Remember Aunt Qiong's three rules.
And one more she didn't mention: If one day you meet something that mimics someone you know—so perfectly that everyone thinks it's real—ask yourself this.
Does that person have a shadow? Does their reflection look back at you in the mirror? Do they know what day it is? Do they remember what you were afraid of when you were five?
If you can't answer those questions.
Then it's not just mimicking that person anymore.
It's mimicking you.