Zhao Meiyou hadn’t picked this moment to visit the Metropolis on a whim. The 330th floor was gearing up for the Wandering Gods Festival, and the big day had arrived.
The 330th floor marked the boundary between the Lower District and the Middle Layer District, a place packed with gambling dens and black markets. The bloodier the business, the more they turned to gods and Buddhas for luck, so the annual festival was always a grand affair. Unlike the holographic projections in the Lower District, the 330th floor’s wandering gods were crafted in the ancient style with paper and bamboo—banners, imperial edicts, colorful sashes, and spirit plaques, all complete. The procession started at dawn and paraded through the streets until nightfall.
Back when Zhao Meiyou was still living in the Metropolis, he’d heard a joke about how folks in the Lower District might not drag themselves out of bed at dawn for a brawl or a killing, but for welcoming the gods, they could stay wired through an all-nighter.
They emerged from the playhouse right at three in the morning. In front of the 330th floor’s colorful ceremonial arch stood two massive drums that had just finished a round, followed by a thunderous burst of firecrackers that lit the sky blood-red.
A gaggle of kids in face masks dashed across the ground littered with red confetti. Gongs clanged, and out stepped a god-priest with a long mustache and eyebrows, his kindly face holding a green bamboo whip and a jug of wine.
Zhao Meiyou clapped his hands over his ears. “That’s the Constable Lord leading the way. Don’t block him, or he’ll lash you!”
The gambling dens prayed for wealth first and foremost, so the wealth gods came out leading the pack: Chai Rong of the South Road, Bi Gan of the East, Wang Gong of the Central Road, Guan Yu of the West, and Zhao Gongming of the North. They wore python robes or donned armor, their feet shod in giant ingot boots. Eight bearers carried their divine palanquins, heaped high with massive treasure basins from which attendants sloshed waves of gold powder.
Not sprinkled—sloshed. The 330th floor had deep pockets, and they scattered wealth with the flair of true big spenders. Liu Qijue was standing too close and got doused head to toe. Onlookers immediately swarmed him, tugging at his sleeves to snag a bit of the fortune. Liu Qijue couldn’t dodge fast enough, and even the Little Mister lost a shoe in the crush. He finally broke free and, spotting Zhao Meiyou doubled over laughing, bellowed amid the drums and gongs, “Why the hell does that wealth god have fluorescent tubes sticking out of his head?!”
Liu Qijue wasn’t versed in the Lower District’s folk faiths, but he knew industrial tech and ghostly fairy tales didn’t mix. The god statue’s golden crown was jammed full of glowing tubes, paired with exaggerated face paint that looked wildly bizarre—unclear if it was a proper deity or some knockoff from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.
“Tradition be damned!” Zhao Meiyou roared back. “It’s high-tech cultivation!”
From the 22nd century to now, human civilization had risen and fallen countless times. The surviving embers had reignited, and the Metropolis’s faith system was a glorious mishmash stew—East, West, North, South all jumbled together. Lost legends got patched together by later generations into new tales. In under an hour, they’d seen pretty much every god, ghost, hero, and spirit from heaven and earth: paying respects to the Heavenly Duke, frolicking with Zhong Kui, watching Liangshan outlaws perform heroic dances. Diao Chan, sharp-eyed as ever, even spotted a statue of the Virgin Mary draped in monk robes. He blurted out in the wind-whipped chaos, “How’d even she sneak into the mix?”
Liu Qijue was flipping through an electronic storybook he’d bought from a roadside vendor, spitting sunflower seeds as he replied, “This thing says that after the heavens and earth fell back into chaos, all the gods gathered together. Guanyin and the Virgin Mary became sworn sisters, so now they’re family…”
“It’s a festival—more the merrier!” called a stranger. “Saves you from playing mahjong and ending up one short!”
Before the words died, a massive procession of wandering gods approached from afar. At the front, a spirit medium in a black face mask flung handfuls of golden paper money with a clatter and proclaimed in a high voice, “Heaven and earth, all spirits united!”
“Gods and ghosts fare no better than mortals—mournful for a cycle of sixty years, carefree once more after a century—”
Diao Chan had heard that paper money was burned for the dead, but gilded like this, it turned auspicious. Just like the Metropolis: palaces of heaven above, bottomless abyss below, immortals up top, ghosts down under. But in the end, it was all humans crammed together.
“Holy shit?” This time it was Zhao Meiyou yelping in surprise. “A wedding sedan? Who’s tying the knot in the middle of this?”
Diao Chan and the others looked where he pointed. Sure enough, after two columns of drummers came a flower-decked bridal sedan. “Fake, right?” Liu Qijue eyed the groom perched on a tall horse. “That’s a paper puppet.”
It was paper all right—a young man’s likeness, pale face with red lips, decked in a crisp new riding jacket and a red corsage on his chest.
The whole street of gods and ghosts were played by humans, but for the human bit, they used paper. “Interesting,” Zhao Meiyou murmured. He tapped open his terminal, seemingly running a remote scan. As the sedan neared them, he spoke up suddenly. “There’s a live person inside.”
Diao Chan’s mind leaped ahead. “Some tourist gimmick? Ride in a bridal sedan?”
“I doubt it.” Zhao Meiyou’s tone was grave. “The bride in there’s no girl. Her mouth’s sewn shut.”
“No girl?” The Little Mister jumped. “S-sewn shut how?”
“A boy, looks about eleven or twelve.” Zhao Meiyou pondered for a moment, calm unlike the Little Mister’s panic. “I’ve heard about this before. Some clinics on the 330th floor specialize in organ trading. Superstitious buyers get cold feet about foreign parts in their guts, so they parade through the festival to shake off the bad juju.”
Liu Qijue scanned the street’s riot of crimson and emerald. “Aren’t gods supposed to punish evil and reward good? They aren’t scared of karma?”
“Do evil on one side, pray to gods on the other—balances out.” Zhao Meiyou shrugged. “Same as Diao Chan pulling an all-nighter while slapping on a face mask.”
“You two, enough.” Diao Chan couldn’t take it. “So, we doing something or not?”
Liu Qijue blinked. “About what?”
“Save him!” Diao Chan exploded. “Your Little Mister’s right here watching. You gonna play hero or what?”
“No need, no need.” The Little Mister waved frantically. “I get it. We can’t save him.”
Never mind that the 330th floor was a gray zone even the Metropolis Government hesitated to touch. Normally, their status might give them leverage, but they were sneaking in this time—better not make waves.
Things were complicated enough back in the Ancient Capital without pouring fuel on the fire.
Diao Chan jabbed Zhao Meiyou. “Zhao Meiyou, say something.”
“Normally, yeah, there’s a safer way, but we can’t stick around long enough…” Zhao Meiyou trailed off, then veered wildly. “But since we ran into it, must be fate.”
All conditioned things arise from causes. He lit a cigarette and glanced at Liu Qijue. “Wanna put on a show?”
Liu Qijue shrugged indifferently. “Sure.”
Zhao Meiyou: “Heh heh heh heh heh.”
Liu Qijue: “Tch.”
Under the big red lanterns, they shared a knowing grin. Amid the street full of gods and Buddhas, they looked like a pair of kid-eating demons—prime candidates for exorcism.
The grins gave Diao Chan goosebumps. He grabbed the Little Mister and shoved through to the crowd’s edge. “Vice Dean? What’s up?”
“Those two are about to stir shit,” Diao Chan said knowingly. “Things are gonna get lively. Better hide.”
The grand red bridal sedan crept down the street amid deafening drums. Roadside banquet tables groaned under pig heads and sacrificial wine. The wandering god statues were mostly jolly and dignified, their operators on stilts to reach the height—like giant puppets, shambling in a rhythmic dance, long sleeves whipping up lanterns and sending sparks flying through the crimson streets.
At the street’s end sat a copper basin with a roaring fire, yellow paper tossed in continuously.
A drum crash startled the air. The lead general, adorned with feathered plumes and embroidered balls, leaped forth with a spin, vaulting the flames now leaping several feet high. A train of massive wandering god statues followed, each several meters tall and easily clearing the basin. But one in colorful sashes suddenly buckled at the waist and pitched forward.
These paper giants were top-heavy, crowned with jeweled headdresses. The crash set off a domino chain reaction, toppling all the way to the leader—just as he was crossing the fire basin. Off-balance, he plopped right down. His ornate frame ignited instantly, flames racing to his head just as a string of firecrackers popped off, turning him into a skyrocketing blaze of fireworks lighting up the night.
The massive statue became a pillar of fire. The crowd erupted in screams and scattered.
Zhao Meiyou chucked a firecracker aside and barked into his terminal, “Done! Move now! Chaos won’t last—the fire trucks are tailing right behind!”
Just minutes earlier, Zhao Meiyou had scanned the whole procession with his terminal and spotted that many statues were mechanical, driven by levers with no one inside.
That made the rest child’s play. He’d hacked their remote controls, kicked off the spectacle to draw eyes, and cleared the way for Liu Qijue to snatch the kid amid the pandemonium.
“Zhao Meiyou, you didn’t crack the full program!” Liu Qijue’s voice crackled from the terminal. “The sedan’s swarmed with combat mech thugs… Damn, didn’t the government ban this crap?! Hurry up, Zhao Meiyou! Ten against one, I can’t hold forever!”
“Coming, coming, coming!” Zhao Meiyou’s fingers flew over the terminal. “Whoa, this firewall’s thick. Last time I cracked something this tough was college, swiping those triple-X vids from Diao Chan’s computer… Got it!”
The “groom” blocking Liu Qijue suddenly sagged. Before he could exhale, it sprang back up, flailing its arms in a manic, hypnotic dance.
Nearby, the drum team’s rhythm shifted. The lead paper-money scatterer pinched his voice into a falsetto and trilled like a demon—
“The great king sent me to patrol the mountains, catch a monk for dinner—”
“Wrong, wrong! Accidentally loaded the all-nighter hype playlist.” Zhao Meiyou had meant to switch it but shrugged. “Eh, whatever. Keep the music pumping, keep dancing—drinks half off for everyone!”
“Dance my ass! Zhao Meiyou, have you been ‘working overtime’ clubbing with those trust-fund brats again?!” Liu Qijue sprinted past with a body slung over his shoulder. “Move! Can’t you see the casino thugs coming out?!”
