“What do we do now?”
“Wait.”
“That’s what I figured.”
At that moment, both men displayed astonishing professionalism—their voices steady, their expressions unchanged. Qian Duoduo was a veteran archaeologist who had seen and weathered his share, while Zhao Meiyou had crossed paths with far too many lunatics. Human experiments, slavery—these were histories that countless races had rationalized in the real world, not even rising to the level of pathology.
The train hurtled through the subway tunnels. After an unknown stretch of time, its speed began to slacken. Qian Duoduo spoke up suddenly. “There’s a fork up ahead.”
Zhao Meiyou glanced at him. “How do you know that, Brother Qian?”
“Instinct.” Qian Duoduo closed his eyes. A moment later, he added, “We’ve changed course.”
His words had barely faded when Zhao Meiyou felt the car lurch to a halt, then reverse. The front end shifted direction. Qian Duoduo had been spot on—they had veered into a branch line.
This car didn’t seem to have a driver. So who had rerouted the train?
Zhao Meiyou ventured a guess. “Maybe there’s infighting in the Artificial Human camp.”
Qian Duoduo nodded. “We can use that to our advantage.”
“Whoever’s controlling our train must have high-level access.”
“Risk factor’s unclear.” Qian Duoduo’s tone was matter-of-fact. “If shit hits the fan, you hide. I’ll handle the fighting.”
Zhao Meiyou opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, light bloomed outside the window. They hadn’t pulled into a station. Instead, the tunnel wall in the darkness lit up with a projection, like those LED ads flickering between stops.
The image started out blurry. Zhao Meiyou could just make out what looked like a human head. Then the picture shifted, dragging the entire wall with it as it slowly bore down on the side of their car.
Qian Duoduo yanked Zhao Meiyou behind him. What happened next defied belief: Qian Duoduo’s head popped off like the cap of a bottle, his spine extending from the stump of his neck. A large-caliber handgun sprang out from inside.
By any normal standard, that gun was meant for high-value targets—sniping tanks from a distance, say. It sure as hell wasn’t suited for use in the cramped confines of a train car.
Qian Duoduo must be a die-hard fan of hyper-violent aesthetics.
The sort who threw himself into a fight without a care for his own life.
The man clearly had violent impulses. He might even suffer from selective emotional deficits. Zhao Meiyou hadn’t finished his mental assessment when his hand suddenly grew heavy. Qian Duoduo had twisted off his own head and tossed it to him.
They were still linked through the comm channel, and Qian Duoduo’s voice echoed directly in Zhao Meiyou’s mind. “Take the gun.”
Zhao Meiyou blinked. “What’d you say, Brother Qian?”
“The rifle.” Without giving him time to react, Qian Duoduo yanked the long barrel free from his neck like King Arthur drawing Excalibur from the stone. He flung it to Zhao Meiyou. “Figured you’d be used to something like this.” Then he ran a hand along his waist, and two semi-automatic pistols resembling Brownings popped out from beneath his skin. Those, clearly, were his weapons of choice.
So, Zhao Meiyou thought, does that mean my little diagnosis fits me better?
Qian Duoduo dropped into a defensive stance. The projection outside the window kept inching forward. It seeped through the walls like liquid mercury, dissolving the alloy ceiling and panels. Now they seemed to be gliding through a corridor of mirrors.
But it wasn’t a real mirrored hallway—just some kind of holographic synthesis. Zhao Meiyou could still feel the car rumbling along beneath them, though at a much reduced speed.
The “mirrors” didn’t reflect the two of them. Instead, they revealed a figure who wasn’t physically present in the car.
It was impossible to tell right away if this was an Artificial Human. Superficially, at least, the figure looked more human.
An elderly man.
Zhao Meiyou started to say something, but Qian Duoduo beat him to it—smashing the mirror surface with a sharp crack. Quick, precise, ruthless. The classic strike-first tactic.
“…Brother Qian?” Zhao Meiyou feigned confusion, though inwardly he thought, This guy’s definitely got violent tendencies. Never mind that in a clash of experts, the one who moves first often loses. Starting a fight without even gathering intel first? Was this a joke?
“It’s an Artificial Human.” Qian Duoduo positioned himself squarely in front. “The only part of an Artificial Human that ages is the brain. Even if the shell degrades, it never shows that obviously on the exterior.”
Yet this projection’s occupant—Artificial Human or not—displayed clear signs of aging. That was tech that had never been implemented. Not impossible, just pointless.
This kind of deliberate, outward aging wasn’t driven by functional needs. It stemmed from some twisted mental compulsion. That made it dangerous.
Too bizarre. Better to shoot first and ask questions later.
But things didn’t go according to plan—or rather, they went exactly as one might expect they wouldn’t. Beside the shattered mirror, a fresh image materialized. This time, the old man spoke first. “We don’t have much time. Please hear me out.”
Qian Duoduo kept his finger on the trigger but raised the barrel a fraction.
“You must be from the ‘Friend’ faction. No need to deny it outright. Getting from Mars to Earth requires a mountain of paperwork—and mandatory memory wipes.” The old man spoke at a measured clip. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know. You can decide for yourselves if it’s credible. Hit a certain trust threshold, and it’ll trigger your memory switch. Then you’ll understand it all.”
Liu Qijue was right—I really don’t know shit about literature, Zhao Meiyou thought. I recognize every damn word, but string them together? Total gibberish.
Qian Duoduo uttered a single word. “Speak.”
“First, the history of Ideal City.” The old man continued. “You’ve probably realized by now that it’s a city ruled by Artificial Humans. But across most of Earth and virtually all the space colonies, this is still the age of native humans.”
“Ideal City is an experimental metropolis.”
After the breakthrough in nuclear fusion, humanity launched its Great Spacefaring Era. Genetic engineering became indispensable for space colonization, providing Artificial Human laborers.
Artificial Humans held innate physical advantages. To avert any risk of societal upheaval, a global accord capped their lifespans at a maximum of ten years.
But as life in space became the norm, humanity’s worldview evolved. A new divide emerged: humans who retained their original brains but had their entire bodies replaced with bionic prosthetics.
Thus were born the Gene-Humans and the Cyborgs.
These new bodies breathed fresh life into existence, a temptation that inevitably undermined the power structures. At the same time, the blurring lines between humans and Artificial Humans eroded traditional moral and philosophical boundaries. In 2149, a rebellion erupted in the Alpha Coordinate Zone of the Mars colony—known to history as the Turing Revolution.
The Turing Revolution’s leaders included Gene-Humans and Cyborgs. Whether native humans were involved remains unknown, but it was undeniably a success. The rebel forces seized the Alpha Zone and expanded their influence, ultimately returning to Earth. There, in a high-latitude wasteland long abandoned, they carved out a foothold.
By the late 21st century, the energy revolution had brought humanity untold benefits—but also inevitable costs. Just as with the Chernobyl Incident, half the land in that once-mighty northern nation had been reduced to irradiated wasteland.
Moscow, the former capital.
The rebels from Mars chose Moscow as their base. After a decade of war and international negotiations, the two sides reached an accord. Humanity made concessions: under strict oversight, a limited number of Artificial Humans were granted legal residency in Moscow. It was an experiment in coexistence between humans and their creations.
That same year, Moscow was renamed Ideal City.
Zhao Meiyou listened in stunned silence. Over the comm channel, he asked Qian Duoduo, “Is this old guy for real? Is this the sealed truth of history? We won’t get silenced when we get out, will we?”
“The Metropolis Government can’t directly scan quantum field thresholds,” Qian Duoduo replied. “They won’t know what happens here. As for what the old man’s saying—it might not be the whole truth. Sites don’t reflect reality perfectly. Even with a hyper-realistic backdrop, it’s human consciousness that shapes the decisive outcomes.”
Fair enough. Like Liu Qijue’s Creation skill—everything in a Site was ultimately dictated by the human element.
“S45 is Diao Chan’s home turf for exploration,” Qian Duoduo added. “His power isn’t Creation, so he can’t reshape the Site directly. But given enough time, his subconscious will seep in and alter it.”
Which meant this place carried a heavy imprint of Diao Chan’s mindset.
Humans, Artificial Humans, Gene-Humans, Cyborgs—a whole jumble of them. Zhao Meiyou thought, Diao Chan, you’ve got quite the imagination. No wonder the guy never sleeps well.
“And the Mars Revolutionary Army? There had to be human infiltrators, right? Otherwise, Ideal City’s accord sounds way too one-sided.” Zhao Meiyou went on. “Humans can’t survive in nuclear-radiated zones. It’s like sending a roomba to clean up toxic waste.”
Qian Duoduo glanced at the old man in the projection. “Possible.”
Zhao Meiyou followed his gaze, paused, then spoke up. “The live human experiments in the subway—those were your private initiative.”
He addressed the old man directly, bypassing the comm channel and skipping any question mark. It was obvious.
“Correct.” The old man nodded. “Ideal City’s towers grow ever taller. We seem closer than ever to our dreams. This city has even achieved something like communism. But as the term ‘Utopia’ has been twisted into irony since its coinage— the more Artificial Humans resemble humans, the more they inherit our desires, like children inheriting their father’s flaws.”
“I should introduce myself.” The old man smoothed back his bangs. “I was once a faulty Artificial Human.”
He launched into a brief account. He had come from Mars, one of the Turing Revolution’s leaders. His “fault” had let him exceed the ten-year limit, and he had rallied like-minded allies. They had launched the uprising, returned to the legendary homeworld, and founded this snowbound city.
“If we oversimplify it as a binary split, I’d be the moderate faction,” the old man said. “At the start, we all were.”
“It’s a core tenet of Artificial Human rationality—perhaps an instinct at the birth of any race. We lean toward peace, channeling our capacity for war into other pursuits, exploring existence itself.
“You said you ‘were’ an Artificial Human.” Zhao Meiyou cut in. “What’s that mean?”
“Ideal City has fractured internally. Our founding goal was to test human-Artificial Human coexistence. But in the end, we uncovered a fundamental divide: whether one possesses a soul.”
“It’s the bedrock of human moral superiority. Only a mother’s womb can birth a soul, they claim. Artificial Humans emerge from vats and synthesis pods, relegating us to the realm of machines and tools.”
“So, here’s the question: what’s inside a womb? What’s inside a mother? And what is the soul within a human body?”
Qian Duoduo thought of the escaped experimental subject. “So you’re using live humans for dissections and experiments.”
“That’s right. It’s the root of the schism.” Weariness seemed to flicker in the elder’s eyes. “I only learned about all this recently—this underground lab, this madness. My old… friends and I, we were once quite close. But it’s like a son in his youth desperately trying to shake off his father’s influence, only to realize in adulthood that he’s grown more like his father with every passing year. He’s been tainted by human thinking.”
What’s the opposite of human? Animal? God? Or artificial human?
Did artificial humans represent rationality?
Then, as their antithesis, did humans signify madness?
“Humans create artificial humans, and artificial humans dissect humans.” The elder sighed. “Even among antonyms, there’s a shared thread of insanity.”
Qian Duoduo fell into thought.
Zhao Meiyou’s face remained impassive as he wondered inwardly: What the hell is this guy talking about?
“…Never mind. So what are you planning to do next?” Following the logic of why this man had stopped them, he should want to halt all this. “And how did you get so old?”
“I won’t stop it. I no longer have the power to. Word of Ideal City’s human experimentation has leaked through certain channels. Artificial humans and humans will clash in armed conflict once more. Ideal City itself has fractured—the Paradise Faction chooses to stay on Earth, even if it means war with humanity, while the Ark Faction has decided to leave.” The elder paused. “I’ll be leaving too.”
“The universe is all human colony space now. Where could you possibly go?”
“The depths of the galaxy.” The elder replied, “Humanity’s reach is still confined to the Orion Arm. I’ve been in touch with an old friend on Mars. He’s developed some new tech over the years. Though this new method of space travel is harsh on the body, it’s worth the risk.”
Kids scrap until there’s a clear winner or loser, adults sit back watching the tigers fight so they can fish in troubled waters, and the elderly just sigh and step away from the fray.
Zhao Meiyou asked Qian Duoduo over the comms channel, “Brother Qian, so this guy thinks we came from Mars to deliver intel to him?”
“He mentioned brainwashing and memory switches at the start,” Qian Duoduo replied in the channel. “That must be Diao Chan’s private setup in the site. I’m not that familiar with him—do you know how he handles his world-building?”
It was hard to guess. Zhao Meiyou wasn’t sure if he should let his imagination run wild; after all, Diao Chan was usually the one calling him crazy.
At a loss, Zhao Meiyou decided to change the subject. He turned to the elder and posed another question. “Why did you age? A malfunction too?”
“I grew weary of the endless lifespan that came with malfunctions.” The elder said, “So I tried something new.”
“I preserved my own brain program but abandoned my synthetic body for one born of a mother’s flesh.”
A human body with a mechanical brain program—neither gene-human nor machine.
“That’s interesting.” Zhao Meiyou eyed the elder. “You claim you don’t support human experimentation, but isn’t this body you’re in stolen from a living person?”
“You’re just an accomplice trying to flee the murder scene, aren’t you?”
Before the words had fully left his mouth, the compartment—or rather, the mirror corridor—shuddered violently. Cracks spiderwebbed across the mirrored surfaces, and Qian Duoduo jerked his head up. “You triggered the site’s alert mechanism!”
Zhao Meiyou: “…Quantum field thresholds and an anti-theft system?”
“Quantum field thresholds are influenced by the mind. S45, as Diao Chan’s main exploration ground, is deeply infused with his consciousness.” Qian Duoduo’s tone was steady but his words came fast. “You’ve stirred his subconscious. What did you just say?”
He’d said—you’re just an accomplice trying to flee the murder scene.
In a flash of insight, Zhao Meiyou blurted, “I get it.”
Qian Duoduo steadied himself amid the jolting and grabbed Zhao Meiyou, who was getting tossed around. “What?”
“I get it,” Zhao Meiyou repeated. “I figured out how Diao Chan set this up.”
“This Ideal City, and all this messy, full-of-holes nonsense…” Zhao Meiyou raised his hand, as if searching for the right word, then gave up.
“It’s one giant metaphor.”
