“You don’t need to wink at me like that. I’m not interested in guys.” Zhao Meiyou glanced up at the agent across from him without fully raising his head. “You can cut the theatrics.”
“Also,” he stretched out his limbs and crossed his legs, “why does it sound like you’re implying I’m the living thing that got hauled out of the site?”
The agent’s face turned a little green. He forced a smile. “Rest assured on that count. The Metropolis hasn’t produced an archaeologist who’s broken two Site Laws in a row yet.”
Zhao Meiyou recalled the four Site Laws. He had broken the second one—brain damage and all—and nothing had happened. So someone else must have broken the fourth.
“That living thing the archaeologist brought out of the site,” he said, his interest piqued. “Can I meet it?”
“That lifeform is listed as unknown status in government records. It vanished right after emerging, and attempts to intercept it failed.” The agent continued, “Site A173 has already been pretty thoroughly explored. On top of getting familiar with the workflow this time, you have another mission: try to find clues related to the missing lifeform. Ideally, figure out its identity.”
“Come on, that’s a stretch,” Zhao Meiyou said. “If you haven’t even seen it, how can you be sure it’s a lifeform?”
“The government has a full-coverage observation system for all known sites,” the agent explained. “It’s not super precise, but it’s the best current tech can manage. It can’t monitor everything happening inside a site at all times, but it can detect the vital signs of any lifeforms entering or exiting.”
Zhao Meiyou looked down at the dossier in his hands. The final page had this printed in bold black letters: …Observed a lifeform exiting Site A173. Vital signs do not match stable model.
System determination: First-ever lifeform carried out of a site. Origin: quantum field threshold.
“The archaeologist who successfully carried the lifeform out of the site was Li Daqiang. His file’s in the documents we gave you,” the agent said. “But after sending the lifeform out, he immediately returned to the site and never emerged again. He’s been missing ever since.”
“Got it,” Zhao Meiyou said after a moment’s thought. “When do I start?”
“Three days from now. Since this is your first exploration mission, the government is assigning another archaeologist to work with you.”
“Can’t Diao Chan do it?”
“Citizen Diao Chan’s rank is pretty high, and he already has fixed sites he explores. Last time was an emergency to rescue you. Once your rank goes up, you’ll get chances to team up.”
Back in the Lower District, Zhao Meiyou first gave Diao Chan a good beating—or rather, they beat the crap out of each other until they were puking. Once they’d emptied their stomachs, they threw arms around each other’s shoulders and went out for a meal. After getting roaring drunk, Diao Chan said to him, “Xi Shi, sorry about that.”
“No need to apologize,” Zhao Meiyou slurred, thoroughly soused himself. If the roles were reversed, he’d do the same. If he had a special constitution and Diao Chan was ordinary, hiding it would be the best protection unless they faced mortal peril. The fight was just to vent years of pent-up frustration over the secret. Now that the knot was untied, things could go back to normal.
He and Diao Chan had known each other for a long time—but not forever. Before they met, Diao Chan had lived a chunk of his life without Zhao Meiyou in it.
Mutual respect.
“By the way, what’s the deal with my sister?” Zhao Meiyou asked, his tongue thick. “Is she an archaeologist too? The government doesn’t hire child labor, does it?”
“Ordinary people can enter the quantum field threshold under certain special conditions,” Diao Chan said. He was so drunk he was about to slide under the table. “But not physically—it’s in a mental state, like a super realistic dream. That’s what happened with your sister. She’s an ordinary person, but that CD player really did come from a site. The Lower District is full of all kinds of junk… A specialist already gave her psychological suggestions. She won’t remember any of it.”
Zhao Meiyou was too hammered to stand, let alone get home. They crashed together in a hospital room for the night. The next day, they were back to their usual chaos. This time, Grandpa De had gotten obsessed with trying to sing opera tunes. That pitch—it was killer. Zhao Meiyou couldn’t handle it. Grandpa De turned red-faced and thick-necked with rage, grabbed a kitchen knife, and chased him down the hallway all afternoon, threatening to castrate him and rip out his vocal cords.
Two days flew by. The night before the mission, Zhao Meiyou dumped all the patient files on Diao Chan, washed his face, and tried to sort through everything that had happened these past few days from start to finish. He conked out facedown on the desk halfway through.
No helping it. There were just too many loose ends.
Like, how could anyone be sure the reality they were in was the real one?
What if the archaeologists in the sites were exploring their world?
And his brain—maybe the reason he hadn’t suffered brain death wasn’t his special constitution but because his brain had been swapped out.
So was he still the original Zhao Meiyou?
How many archaeologists were there total? How were they selected? How many independents like him before he got on the rolls? Were there civilian organizations?
Was what happened with his sister really an accident?
Who was lying?
Stop. Zhao Meiyou cut off his thoughts. No more.
There was a saying in the Lower District: It’s bliss to be befuddled. That was also the motto of their mental hospital. Embrace ignorance. Be ignorant. The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
The depths of the starry void always held unknowns.
Don’t ask too much, or you’d go mad.
Zhao Meiyou resolutely shelved his thinking and went to sleep.
His last thought before drifting off: Hopefully tomorrow’s partner is a beauty.
The next day, staring at the hefty guy in front of him, he said with utter sincerity, “Just kill me now.”
“Huh?” The Lead Actor looked at him in bewilderment. “Zhao Meiyou, what’s with the death wish first thing in the morning?”
“How are you an archaeologist too?” Zhao Meiyou rubbed his forehead. “Who else I know is in on this?”
“No idea. Archaeologist files are non-public even internally. The government doesn’t meddle in colleagues chatting, but they won’t tell you who’s who either.” The Lead Actor said, “It’s every man for himself.”
“Then do you know…”
“I know about Diao Chan. We’ve teamed up before,” The Lead Actor said.
“Do you know any others?”
“Nope.”
“For real?”
“Nah.” The Lead Actor glanced at him. “Don’t like it? Fight me.”
Zhao Meiyou wasn’t about to scrap with him. Opera performers had killer reflexes, and he’d only just survived Grandpa De trying to neuter him. Better take it easy.
Diao Chan had mentioned before that entering sites was complicated, with methods varying by case. Zhao Meiyou had imagined all sorts: slipping through a door in some government building, in a pitch-black room or one humming with magnetic fields; or the low-tech route, electrodes jammed in their skull followed by chugging a barium meal…
Anything but this.
They were in the 777th Layer District. The Metropolis had layers closed to the public, their true purposes known only to those on the rolls. They’d ridden a dedicated suspender lift up, and the entire layer was deserted.
“The 777th Layer is the access point to Site A173,” The Lead Actor said. “The whole layer is the gateway.”
They stood at the edge of the rooftop. The city stretched impossibly high, layers plunging out of sight. The boundary between the Middle Layer District and Upper District was a full layer of holographic glass, currently projecting a vast body of water. Golden-red koi darted past the flying eaves. From their vantage, it looked like a crystal-clear pond suspended in midair. To folks in the Middle Layer District, that water surface was their entire sky.
And deep in that pond lurked an ocean. In those lightless abyssal depths lay his flickering homeland.
Zhao Meiyou simply sat down, legs dangling over the edge. “How do we get in?”
“Jump down,” The Lead Actor said.
Zhao Meiyou blinked. “What?”
“Jump down,” The Lead Actor repeated. “Literal meaning. Archaeologists jumping from here don’t splat. See that holographic glass on Layer 660? We’ll vanish into thin air right before hitting it, dropping straight into Site A173.”
“Fine, you’re the boss.” Zhao Meiyou lit a cigarette. “But now I’m curious. How do you enter the other sites?”
“There’s a solid-gold trash can in a municipal building. Shove your head in the chute, and you’re in Site A79. Middle Layer District has a well they claim is full of nuclear waste, but it’s actually teeming with these weird human-faced fish. Eat one raw, and you enter Site S24. I think one entrance is in some layer’s bathroom… Oh, and that famous suspended maglev in the Lower District, with the derelict train on it…”
“No shit?” Zhao Meiyou said, a bit stunned. “But that train got gutted and turned into a street, right?” His home was right on that track!
“You gotta get to the front car. There’s a brake lever that only shows up in the rain, and the key condition is you can’t be wearing underwear when you pull it,” The Lead Actor added.
“Any normal ways?”
“Don’t play coy. That look on your face says you’re dying to try every one.” The Lead Actor knew Zhao Meiyou’s type all too well. He paused. “Sites come in all forms. Newbies usually try a few and settle on what suits them best, sticking to one type forever. Most archaeologists explore just a single site their whole lives—like Diao Chan.”
“Are there guides to the sites?”
“Nope, non-public. Government doesn’t block colleagues swapping notes, but won’t hand you a list either. Every archaeologist for himself.” The Lead Actor said, “Usually, what each one knows varies, but there’s one site that’s open knowledge in the field.”
Zhao Meiyou raised an eyebrow. “Which?”
The Lead Actor silently pointed upward.
In the Metropolis, that heaven-pointing gesture—like worship—was loaded with meaning. It meant one place.
Layer 990, the Metropolis’s pinnacle.
Among the people Zhao Meiyou knew, even a rich kid like Diao Chan had no clue what lay at the city’s apex.
The Lead Actor suddenly asked him, “You ever been to Layer 1?”
Layer 1, the Metropolis’s bedrock, where the city began.
“Yeah, pitch black and blind down there,” Zhao Meiyou said. “The base level buries a ton of foundational power systems. Supposedly, they keep the whole city running.”
“Did you see an escalator?” The Lead Actor traced a diagonal line in the air with his finger. “Not a sealed vertical lift—one where you can see the view.”
Zhao Meiyou thought for a moment and shook his head.
“There’s a rumor among archaeologists that the Metropolis hides an escalator running from Layer 1 all the way to 990. Ride it, and you see the city’s full cross-section. The only entrance is at the very bottom—you have to go to the deepest depths to find it.” The Lead Actor said, “In the trade, they call it the Heavenly Gate.”
The Heavenly Gate opens, vast and swaying, solemn ranks deployed, to attend the feast.
Stars linger at Yu, blocking fallen lights, illuminating the purple canopy, pearls troubling the yellow.
Vast halls of crimson lacquer, smoothed stone for floors, jade finials adorned with dance and song, forms swaying like eternal gaze.
“This is a site known to every archaeologist—Site 000—but no one has ever set foot inside it.” The Lead Actor gazed off into the distance.
Zhao Meiyou followed his line of sight and beheld several enormous golden God Statues. They were part of a cultural construction project in the Upper District, a work in progress that had been under construction for a century without completion.
The largest of the God Statues pierced through hundreds of levels. Legend had it that the sculptor had used gold leaf of the highest purity, and fine particles of leftover gold often drifted down from above like a delicate shower of sunlight. Children would bring clean porcelain bowls to catch the glittering dust, believing it bestowed the blessing of light.
“Alright, time to go,” The Lead Actor said suddenly. He clapped Zhao Meiyou on the shoulder. The cigarette butt tumbled from Zhao Meiyou’s fingers, and a powerful force slammed into him—
The Lead Actor had kicked him straight off the edge.
