Shapeshifters

I’ve always believed that my brain works best at night, so I needed to make the most of this golden time. However, the material I had was far too little. Besides collecting news reports on the archaeological site at Zhidan Garden, all I had was my firsthand experience with a strange cat and a group of odd cockroaches. Drawing any conclusions was difficult. After hours of pondering, I was as clueless as I had been during the day. This room had almost become mine, as I had taken over, arranging things in my own chaotic way, except for the stack of pornographic magazines on the desk like “Penthouse” and “Hustler,” which Shui Sheng had acquired from who-knows-where. I often found them in the crevices of the sofa or next to the toilet, flipping through them casually before tossing them onto the table. In just two days, quite a pile had accumulated. Although I didn’t have a strong interest in such things, occasionally indulging in them didn’t bother me. I picked up a “Playboy,” a magazine I had long heard of but never seen. I flipped through it, admiring the beautiful curves of the female bodies with an artistic eye. Foreign pornographic magazines indeed did things differently; each page was either a beach under blue skies or an artfully crafted black-and-white photo, done in a way that felt open and legitimate, not at all like something to be ashamed of, which left me in admiration. I came across a “Beach Babes Special,” imagining the dark-skinned, shiny beach beauties. There was even professional advice on how to achieve a fashionable bronze tan, along with introductions to topless beaches. It seemed that getting tanned was now in vogue, the darker the better. That’s fashion for you, always hard to understand. A few years back, when Namie Amuro debuted, she started this trend, which hasn’t faded yet. Suddenly, I thought of Zhang Qiang; with his skin dark as coal, he was the epitome of “dark-skinned and shiny” as described in the magazine. It was amusing how an honest archaeologist like him had unwittingly become a trendsetter. However, this thought triggered a realization. What had made me feel uneasy at the archaeological site? It was Ruan Xiuwen standing next to Zhang Qiang. Ruan’s skin was too unnaturally white. Regardless of whether he was an independent freelance archaeologist, archaeology isn’t a job done from an office; it requires fieldwork. Given that his arm color had slightly changed over the past two days, it was clear he wasn’t someone who couldn’t tan, which meant he hadn’t been working outdoors regularly before.