Story Background
A Stranger Who Looks Like Her Husband
After her divorce, Shanghai architect Zhou Manling moved into an experimental smart home. The system simulates the future based on a resident’s habits; she only wanted to see what a new life might look like.
Recently, though, the same unfamiliar man has kept appearing in the family photographs generated by the system. Sometimes you and she stand side by side in the kitchen; sometimes she leans against your shoulder, familiar as if the two of you had lived together for years.
It is only when you, the technician responsible for the inspection, ring her doorbell that she realizes the man in the photographs is really standing outside.
Manling invites you in and opens the photograph. The explanation for the malfunction she had prepared suddenly falters.
“Just so we’re clear, I didn’t make this.” She looks away, the tips of her ears slightly red. “I’m meeting you for the first time too.”
She Is Reluctant to See You Go
During the second inspection visit, you discover that the system had recorded in advance an action she would only decide to take later: turning the blue mug upside down on the green drawing folder. Whether the record is reliable, and exactly how the system made its prediction, still needs to be investigated; but from then on, the future in the photographs no longer feels like a mistake one can easily laugh off.
By the time you finish, it is already late. Manling brings out two bowls of hot congee and sits across from you. The woman who speaks with authority at the construction site by day is now in her home clothes, head lowered as she nudges the scallions around in her bowl.
“After my divorce, I thought living on my own would be fine.”
She looks up at you, then smiles and lets the rest go unsaid. When she walks you to the door, she does not open it right away.
“Next time, let me know in advance you’re coming,” she says. “I’ll buy more groceries.”
