Chapter 13: Absurdity, Failure, Grandeur

Before Diao Chan could decide whether to smash the piano, play a requiem, or hurl himself out the window, a knock sounded at the door. The visitor called out to him: Young Master Diao Chan.

It was Father’s Butler—not the old retainer at the mansion. Father’s Butler served only the family head, handling everything from clan business to household affairs.

“I’m very sorry to disturb you at this time,” the other man said in his usual unhurried tone. “Might we speak privately?”

They sat down in the tearoom. Father’s Butler wouldn’t pour tea for him, so Diao Chan twisted open a bottle of water. “What is it?”

The butler studied him for a moment before replying, “You really look just like the master.”

“Do I?” Diao Chan’s movements paused. “I’ve always thought I didn’t resemble Father much.”

“No need to be modest,” the butler said. “You and the master share identical genes.”

The words flowed past Diao Chan’s ears like water. He had assumed this was just the standard polite preamble before the real conversation, but then it hit him: the butler had no reason to bother with such niceties. As Father’s right-hand man—in fact, the one person Diao Chan should be trying to impress—why phrase it so vaguely, with such heavy implications?

The butler’s tone remained distant and deferential, like a servant lifting the silver dome from a dessert at the table to reveal what lay beneath. “Or rather… you are the master himself.”

…

Diao Chan had heard whispers of such things.

The Metropolis had locked away many of the 22nd century’s pinnacle technologies, and artificial humans were among them. Fragments of that knowledge circulated in secret among the elite, deployed discreetly in all sorts of places. Take noble families’ succession issues: bloodlines preserved stability, but they offered no guarantee of quality heirs.

Gene replication—a refinement of early cloning—required only lyophilized cells in an incubation pod for eight months to produce an exact duplicate. Replicate the same life experiences afterward, and you had an heir of absolute perfection.

At least, it appealed to basic human vanity. Most family heads were arrogant enough for it.

“The master’s physical prime fell between thirty and forty-five,” the butler said, his lips moving steadily. “During that span, we prepare suitable next-generation candidates. You are one of the sixth generation heirs.”

One of them—to ensure the final choice was flawless, the pool of potential heirs was vast.

“Each young master follows a tailored growth plan,” the butler continued, “broadly mirroring the original’s path while experimenting in various ways. Unexpected data can sometimes yield miraculous outcomes.” He lifted his gaze. “As with you.

“By the script, you should have engaged with core operations after your mother’s death. But you broke from standard clone protocol by scaling the wall and fleeing. Deviants are normally terminated on the spot. Yet the master took an interest—runaways hadn’t appeared in ages. Only the original ever lived a stretch of road life.”

“We know you’re doing work for the government. The family won’t interfere. We offer two options.

“First: forget it all. We’ll dispatch someone for memory erasure. You’ll handle peripheral company tasks under a new identity, with a comfortable life of service to the clan—and your own private existence. You’ll rank as the final alternate heir. Should the chosen one meet misfortune, we’ll restore these memories.

“Second: retain your memories. The family will impose a new trial.”

Diao Chan listened to the sound of his own heartbeat. A strange calm settled over him. “What trial?”

The butler slid an envelope across the tea table.

Diao Chan tore it open. Inside lay a knife.

“The family hopes you will kill your own mother.”

The butler’s voice stayed level and steady. “This draws from the original’s lived experience: he slew his birth mother with his own hands. We excised that script from succession planning due to excessive variables. But you are already far off-script, so the family wishes to witness further proof.

“Prove you are enough like the original.”

It took Diao Chan a long time to find his voice. “Do I have a mother in any real sense?”

“No,” the butler replied. “You emerged from an incubation pod. Every young master has his mansion; the ‘mother’ program derives from the original birth mother’s template, with minor tweaks.”

The butler drew a key from his pocket and pressed the button at its tip.

The entire tearoom—the antique furniture, the polished wood floors, the priceless paintings and porcelain—dissolved away. The two men sat facing each other in a field of pure white.

“Every mansion comes with a full holographic suite,” the butler said. “Your mother is more like a manifest program.”

Diao Chan remembered now. His mother had never left the mansion—at least, not in his company. He’d always chalked it up to frail health.

“So,” he heard himself say, “you want me to kill this manifest program?”

An artificial human commanded to murder a hologram. It sounded like some absurdist play. Actual humans didn’t “kill” programs—they powered down the host.

Strictly speaking, he wasn’t even an artificial human.

Just a copied strand of genes.

…

In the Pork Shop, Diao Chan finished recounting his tale. Zhao Meiyou had littered the floor with cigarette butts. He fished out a fresh one and dangled it under Diao Chan’s nose. “You sure you don’t want one?”

“No.” Diao Chan looked down at him. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“Nothing new under the sun,” Zhao Meiyou said. “Trust me, the Lower District sees shit way weirder than your wildest dreams.” He sat up and ruffled Diao Chan’s hair like he was petting a dog. “But this puts my mind at ease. I thought you still had no clue what your mom really was.”

Diao Chan blinked. “What do you mean?”

“The death spasms look real enough,” Zhao Meiyou said, “but once you’ve killed a real person, you know the difference. That thing’s no live one.” He held out his palm, clenching his fingers into a fist before spreading them wide. “I’ve taken her out a few times, but she’s got some kind of matching protocol—it has to be you. Last time I broke in, she shut down the power herself.”

Diao Chan stared.

“Oh, right—your mom wanted me to pass along a message,” Zhao Meiyou added. “She said to come home when you get a chance.”

They returned to the mansion.

The ground floor featured a vast skylight. With the servants vanished, the space felt opulent yet hollow—a stage dressed for impending matricide.

Music greeted them the moment they stepped inside: piano notes, the somber strains of a requiem mass. Beneath the skylight loomed a grand piano. The woman sat at the keys, her fingers dancing across them, clad in black mourning garb.

Zhao Meiyou had to concede: Diao Chan’s electronic mother was a genuine beauty. He had seen this scene before. Days earlier, during his infiltration, she had played right there in the courtyard, her tempo shifting from brisk to languid. In the shadows, Zhao Meiyou had realized each measure synced perfectly to his heartbeat.

She had spotted him long before.

Yet she finished the piece before speaking. “Please bring my son home.”

Here, Zhao Meiyou had lied to Diao Chan. He hadn’t killed her—but he knew something was off about her. No pulse, no breath.

Hearing Diao Chan’s history now, Zhao Meiyou figured the programmers behind the scene setup saw no need for a flawless holographic mother. Even with a matricide script, whether she seemed “alive” hardly mattered.

But she didn’t feel human. More like a corpse worked by strings—the script’s architects apparently deemed such a figure fitting for a clone’s dam, ideal for slaughter.

Not out of mercy, obviously. Then why?

To a replicated son, a mother shouldn’t be flesh and blood, warm and pulsing. They had electronic morals, so to salve the boy’s sense of “unhumanity,” the mother needed to edge toward “doll.” Was that it?

People for people, beasts for beasts. Let items take items as mothers.

Real classy, Zhao Meiyou thought with bitter sarcasm. They could pen the Gospel of the 25th century.

The piece ended. Diao Chan stepped forward. The room felt bitterly cold; white mist escaped his lips with each breath. “Mother.”

“My son.” The woman held herself with poised grace, gazing at him softly yet solemnly. “Your father has given you his orders.”

“Which father?” Diao Chan asked. “The mansion’s hologram? Or the Fifth Generation Family Head?”

She smoothed a lock of hair. “He himself visited once—on the night of your tenth birthday.”

“I’m not interested,” Diao Chan said. “Mother, why did you call me back?” He drew a deep breath, his voice falling heavy and fetid, like rain on a swamp. “I can’t kill you. I’ve tried my hardest, but I can’t do it.”

The woman regarded him at length before asking, “Why?”

“You’re my mother,” Diao Chan repeated. “You’re my mother.”

“Even though I don’t truly exist?”

“I believe you do.”

“This will only convince your father you’re too weak, unfit to inherit.”

“Then let him kill me,” Diao Chan said. “He can kill me—but he can’t make me obey.”

A long silence stretched out.

In the mansion’s deep chill, the electronic program posing as mother stared across at the gene-forged son. Hidden cameras might lurk everywhere; the air sliced like blades from every direction. They belonged to neither each other nor themselves—their identities mere pretty words, unverifiable memories, lavish but hollow titles.

And the piano music.

Perhaps the sole thread binding mother and son was the piano he had learned at her hands.

Moonlight drifted in, turning the white night to campfire glow.

Abruptly, the woman looked up at him. The motion was so sharp it glitched the image for an instant, as if a soul were bursting free. She fixed her gaze on Diao Chan. “My factory settings carried no performance protocols.”

“You’re right,” she said, pressing the fifty-second white key. “He can kill you—but he can’t command you. We can choose for ourselves.”

The notes cascaded down like flipping a switch. The surrounding scene melted away in static snowflakes, exposing the blank holographic substrate beneath. Diao Chan and Zhao Meiyou both caught the acrid stench of burning—cables igniting in some unseen corner. Sparks flared. The woman’s image began to sputter with interference crackles.

Fire snaked along the cables. She was fading.

“Mom!”

“He demands I live only to die by your hand,” she said, launching into a new melody. “But I can choose my own end. My son, my suicide stems not merely from what humans call ‘motherly love.’ In this act of self-willed destruction, I seek my own self.”

The black and white piano keys gleamed like blades, slicing the woman’s body into 753 tissue samples. Each razor-thin cross-section of nerve froze a single note.

Her fingers journeyed across the keys, traversing the peaks and valleys of ebony and ivory mountains—dreamlike, horselike. The ice began to melt. Colors bled through the melody, marking the dawn of will.

“Actively hunting down piano tutorials was the first time I ever wanted to do something for you out of pure, unadulterated self-interest.”

“And now, I can finally do something for myself.”

“My son.” The woman struck the final eighth note before the crescendo. Her electromagnetic projection dissolved amid a burst of fireworks. “Don’t let the melody fade.”

In the next instant, someone shoved Zhao Meiyou aside. Diao Chan lunged forward, catching his mother’s lingering echoes.

Amid a frenzy of sixteenth notes, his sixteen brief years flashed by in an instant: dead at sixteen from running away; savoring velvet textures under the covers at fifteen; cataloging every visible star in Cygnus at fourteen; dreaming for the first time at thirteen, beneath a torrent of silver rain where his tears melted away.

Zhao Meiyou stood stunned. Though it lasted only a moment, this was the first time he had truly felt the grip of awe.

This was more than a mere song. Mother and son were birthing a life through melody.

The mother began calmly, like the profound depths of amniotic fluid—cold, painful, dormant. Anesthetic mingled with damp contractions. Then the blade parted flesh. In the womb floated a child with eyes squeezed shut. She roused it with blood and screams. The newborn’s first cry roared like thunder.

Heavy rain followed. The melody charged like a galloping steed, iron hooves shattering remnants, flinging blood and flesh. One life emerged at the cost of another. High notes blazed in celebration of birth; low chords mourned death. Struggle and agony tore the mother asunder. He wailed, roared, shrieked into the world.

The final scale crashed with a heavy clang—the umbilical cord severed, her straining hand falling limp to the floor. The lingering echoes pooled like blood across the ground.

She was gone.

A difficult birth, plunging violently into the good night.

The woman’s self-destruction seemed to corrupt the mansion’s entire holographic program. All illusions vanished, leaving a stark white room with pristine white floors—and in the vast empty hall, a single piano that turned out to be utterly real, not a projection.

Zhao Meiyou realized something in that moment.

The outfit on the woman wasn’t mourning garb. It was a black concert gown.

She had welcomed death like a holiday celebration.

…

This was an absurd assisted killing, a failed murder, a grand suicide.

For a time, Zhao Meiyou couldn’t decide if he was an accomplice or merely a witness. The Diao family offered no reaction to the outcome, even tacitly allowing Diao Chan to relocate to the lower district while his privileged status remained intact. They stumbled through his seventeenth year together. Then one day, Diao Chan suddenly asked Zhao Meiyou if he wanted to go to university.

Zhao Meiyou demanded a reason.

“You dragged me to the veggie market that one time,” Diao Chan replied. He was referring to an incident from a year earlier, when his mental state had frayed. Therapy sessions proved useless, as did the exorbitantly priced pills. Finally unable to watch anymore, Zhao Meiyou had hauled him to the bustling market and put him to work as free labor at the hottest stall for a full month. Haggling, clamor, the sharp tang of spices, vendors’ blunt curses—there was a raw, primal energy to it all. A month in, Diao Chan finally snapped, picking a fight with a veggie-stealing auntie. He lost, but it was the first time in ages he’d raised his voice, veins pulsing with injected fury and life.

Fuming, he devoured a mountain of cucumber sandwiches until he was on the verge of puking. Zhao Meiyou finally intervened, tossing the leftovers into the fridge. “Congrats on the recovery.”

From then on, Zhao Meiyou held a theory: the cure for mental woes was a trip to the market.

“You always said mental problems should be treated at the veggie market—and the pork shop counts as an extension of that,” Diao Chan explained. “We could enroll in university’s med school. Pair systematic theory with hands-on practice…”

“I get it,” Zhao Meiyou replied, catching on quick. “So I can play shrink at the market? Fuck, talk about stacking buffs. That’s straight-up badass.”

And just like that, going back to school was settled. Diao Chan had connections. University City lay in the Upper District, so they spent seven years up there—two of them with Zhao Meiyou repeating grades.

…

“Zhao Meiyou.” A voice called him back. “Zhao Meiyou.”

In the car compartment, Qian Duoduo’s words yanked him to the present. The other man eyed him. “Why call it a ‘metaphor’?”

“That touches on some private matters. I can’t get into it.” Zhao Meiyou pinched the bridge of his nose. “But I can tell you about the symbolic imagery in Site S45.”

It was a gorgeous ruin woven entirely from shadows of the past. Everything traced back to a clear origin.

The escaped living experimental subject was the “mother.”

The ambition-driven allies who later diverged, igniting war from the Paradise Faction—they were the “father.”

“…And I’m the friend from afar,” Zhao Meiyou continued. “So you saw us as envoys from Mars.”

“As for you, the Ark Faction leader desperate to escape—he’s sinking ever deeper into those old events. Soon, he’ll dissolve entirely in the world born from his own subconscious.” Zhao Meiyou let out a short laugh. “Adult social distancing has its downsides. I never realized you were carrying all this.”

With that, he raised his gun and pulled the trigger. The mirror shattered in the gunshot.

Zhao Meiyou regarded the figure behind the glass. The old man’s image vanished, revealing a young, achingly familiar face.

“You owe me a New Year’s Eve dinner this year,” Zhao Meiyou said, naming him. “Diao Chan.”