PBS Ch54: Change

After returning to Yun City, everything seemed to be moving too fast. From the operating room to the lab module, from the Exhibition Hall to Valley Plaza, from the cries of “For Yun City” to that kiss in the dormitory, from Li Feng barging in to the warehouse filled with bioroids before them…

Qiu Shi still felt dazed as he stared at this place—a true hell for bioroids, row upon row of massive capsule-like containers.

“These are Yun City’s bioroids,” Li Feng stood in front of the shelves. “Some are new, never activated. Others…”

He turned to glance at Xing Bi. “Were sealed away after the Great Purge.”

“A century ago,” Minister Liu murmured, stepping closer to peer into each glass pod.

“Minister Liu,” Curator Wu hurried forward, “these bioroids require strict control over their environmental data to ensure stable biological functions, so—”

“Oh.” Minister Liu smiled and withdrew the hand he had been about to place on the glass. “Of course. I’ll defer to you on this.”

“Let’s move to the control room,” Li Feng said. “Curator Wu can explain in detail.”

The control room was adjacent to the warehouse, with a massive monitoring screen displaying real-time data and the physical condition of every bioroid.

Two staff members were inside—likely the only ones who worked here regularly besides Curator Wu. The moment they saw the unexpected visitors, they seemed startled, their faces turning even paler.

Though, even without the fright, they already looked deathly pale—like fish trapped in an underground cavern, nearly translucent.

While the bioroids in the warehouse required precise control over light, temperature, and every biological parameter, the humans in charge of them appeared weak and ghostly, like bloodless corpses.

Curator Wu sent the two staff members to the break room and personally began explaining the bioroids’ status to Minister Liu and the unfamiliar military officer.

Meanwhile, Li Feng pulled Xing Bi and Qiu Shi aside. He tapped on the console, bringing up a simple list on the small screen: serial numbers, names, and corresponding photos.

This was the roster of bioroid hell.

Every bioroid sealed in this underground prison existed only as a string of data in this minimalist list.

Even the temporary inventory sheets at the Security Bureau’s warehouse were more detailed than this.

“Xing Bi,” Li Feng looked at the list, “you should know all of these people, right?”

Xing Bi was silent for a few seconds. “…Yes.”

“I need you to pick twenty,” Li Feng said. “People you trust.”

“Define ‘trustworthy,’” Xing Bi asked.

“They’ll listen to you. Follow your orders.”

Xing Bi stared at him without replying.

“What are you planning?” Qiu Shi lowered his voice. “After screwing me over, now you want to screw him too?”

“Being uncontrolled is the greatest strength,” Li Feng said.

Qiu Shi froze for a moment—Xing Bi had said those exact words after his surgery. He turned to look at him.

“I can make it happen,” Li Feng continued. “I can give you that strength.”

“Who’s that man?” Qiu Shi glanced at the officer standing with Minister Liu.

“Yu Shi,” Li Feng replied. “Colonel Yu.”

Qiu Shi raised an eyebrow. The presence of Colonel Yu suddenly made it clear why Team Three had been sent to their deaths. He still didn’t know why Colonel Xu had ordered them out—maybe it was bad intel, maybe it was a misjudgment, maybe it was exactly what Xing Bi had said: she needed to believe that humanity was strong enough.

But whatever the reason, the result had played perfectly into Li Feng’s plans.

Colonel Yu was here to replace Colonel Xu.

“What are you trying to do?” Qiu Shi asked again.

“Restore balance. Return to the beginning,” Li Feng said. “Humans and bioroids need to face this war together. No matter what the outside world has become, Yun City can only survive by returning to its roots. The people here, the bioroids here—they can only continue existing if we go back to the start.”

Qiu Shi had to admit, that argument was compelling.

And for Xing Bi… Qiu Shi glanced at him. The idea must have been even more tempting.

If Li Feng was telling the truth, if they could truly return to that era—where humans and bioroids coexisted—then maybe these bioroids, silent in their glass prisons for a hundred years, could finally be free.

“No partners, no need to be friends,” Li Feng said. “Just pure cooperation.”

“And then what?” Qiu Shi asked. “Wasn’t that how it was back then too?”

“That’s your problem to figure out,” Li Feng said. “I won’t live long enough to see that future. I just want to find the best solution for our present.”

Qiu Shi fell silent.

Xing Bi didn’t speak either.

Li Feng didn’t say anything more. He turned and walked back toward Curator Wu.

“What do you think?” Qiu Shi asked.

“What do you think?” Xing Bi countered.

“I can tell you what I think,” Qiu Shi said. “But I don’t want my opinion to influence you. After I say my piece, I still want to hear your thoughts.”

“Alright,” Xing Bi nodded.

“I want this to end faster,” Qiu Shi said. “I don’t know Li Feng’s full plan—he’s an old fox, no one ever truly knows what he’s up to. But if he can even accomplish a fraction of what he says, I want you to be free. I want my brothers to live out their days safely, to grow old and die peacefully in the bunker outside Yun City.”

“Li Feng wants control of the military,” Xing Bi said. “Minister Liu and Colonel Yu aren’t the only ones on his side. He has enough backing now. These twenty bioroids—he’s taking them to meet Mr. Long. If this were just about deploying them for battle, we wouldn’t need ministers and colonels here.”

“Meeting Mr. Long?” Qiu Shi frowned.

“He wants Mr. Long to relinquish power,” Xing Bi said.

“He’s staging a coup?” Qiu Shi asked. He had always figured that Li Feng would eventually climb to the top of Yun City—but he hadn’t expected it to be now, or like this.

“Not necessarily,” Xing Bi said. “Among Yun City’s residents, he doesn’t have the same prestige as Mr. Long. He won’t be able to gain that in a short time. So he doesn’t need status—he only needs power.”

“…Just in that short moment,” Qiu Shi leaned against the wall, still a little stunned, “you thought of all this?”

“I thought of more than this,” Xing Bi replied. “I simplified it so you could understand.”

“Was that an insult?” Qiu Shi asked.

Xing Bi just smiled.

“How do you know all this? His plans?” Qiu Shi asked.

“I’m guessing,” Xing Bi said.

“You can just guess this stuff?” Qiu Shi was skeptical.

“I’m an old relic. Your ancestor,” Xing Bi said. “Your great-grandfather. Guessing this isn’t that hard. Though I might not be completely right.”

“So…” Qiu Shi looked at him.

“If that’s the case,” Xing Bi said, “then my choice is the same as yours.”

Qiu Shi didn’t speak. He glanced over at Li Feng.

Li Feng walked toward them.

Xing Bi didn’t say anything and instead turned to the screen displaying the bioroid roster.

Eighteen first-tier combat bioroids, two first-tier support units—one by one, Xing Bi selected them with a tap of his fingers. There were both men and women.

Besides Xing Bi, none of the younger “apocalypse folks” in the room knew how long these bioroids had actually been in those stasis pods.

Would they be like Xing Bi? Awake most of the time, trapped in endless darkness, thinking over and over, waiting for an awakening that might never come? Or just waiting for the day they would finally stop thinking altogether?

No one had cared before.

And now, no one knew.

“Activation will take some time,” Curator Wu said. “You can all wait in the lounge for a bit.”

Li Feng led Minister Liu and Colonel Yu to the lounge. The two staff members inside, already pale as ghosts, seemed utterly terrified and ran out in a panic.

“For security reasons, these two monitors haven’t left this place in twenty years. They have no contact with the outside world at all,” Curator Wu gestured for Xing Bi and Qiu Shi to follow him next door, speaking with some emotion. “They live only for these bioroids. Not easy.”

“Easy to get sentimental, though,” Qiu Shi commented.

Curator Wu shot him a look.

In the warehouse, the robotic arms had begun retrieving the capsules from the shelves, placing them onto the activation platforms.

Twenty units in a row.

Curator Wu walked over and pressed the activation buttons on each one, initiating the wake-up process.

A countdown appeared—fifteen minutes.

Qiu Shi crouched down, watching the seconds tick away.

Xing Bi crouched beside him.

“Are their memories locked too?” Qiu Shi asked.

“No,” Xing Bi replied. “That process takes time. Usually, it’s only considered after activation.”

“Will it be necessary now?” Qiu Shi asked. He remembered that Xing Bi had voluntarily locked away his memories of the Great Purge. If these bioroids hadn’t undergone that process, they would wake up remembering how they killed their own kind before being forced into stasis.

“There’s no time now,” Curator Wu said. “That’s why Deputy Director Li wanted to pick the ones who would cooperate first.”

Qiu Shi didn’t say anything. He reached out and lightly traced his fingers across the back of Xing Bi’s hand in reassurance.

Xing Bi remained silent as well but turned his hand over to grasp Qiu Shi’s fingers in return.

As the countdown reached zero, a series of short beep sounds echoed through the warehouse as the stasis pods unlocked one by one.

Li Feng returned to the control room with Minister Liu and Colonel Yu.

The pods opened in succession, and the bioroids stepped out.

Xing Bi slowly stood up.

All of their gazes locked onto him.

“We meet again, everyone,” Xing Bi said.

“Please don’t move just yet,” Curator Wu checked the readings on a biometric scanner. “I need to confirm that your biological responses are stable.”

Once all the checks were complete, Curator Wu left for the control room.

“Is Yun City still standing?” one of the bioroids asked.

“It is,” Xing Bi answered.

Qiu Shi stood behind Xing Bi, getting a clear look at each of their faces—the way they looked at him.

Maybe because of the circumstances, these bioroids weren’t like Xing Bi when Qiu Shi first met him. Their emotions weren’t as well-hidden.

In their eyes, there was a mix of estrangement from years apart and familiarity from the same.

“The mission’s primary handler is in that control room,” Xing Bi glanced at the security monitors. “Deputy Director Li, would you like to come over?”

Li Feng promptly stepped into the warehouse.

“Li Feng, Security Bureau,” he introduced himself, scanning the gathered bioroids. “This is an urgent operation.”

“No partners. No mission briefing,” Xing Bi said. “Only my direct orders.”

During the brief silence as the bioroids processed this, Qiu Shi could sense Li Feng’s tension. If even one of them reacted negatively, it could jeopardize his entire plan.

But none of them objected.

Xing Bi spoke: “From now on, your priority is to ensure Deputy Director Li’s safety—”

He turned toward Li Feng, signaling him to give further instructions.

“From the moment we step out of this building, until we enter and leave Mr. Long’s office, do not let any guards approach or stop me,” Li Feng said.

The bioroids remained silent, indicating no objections.

“We’re moving out,” Xing Bi said.

Li Feng had once said that once you chose to trust, you had to trust all the way. He upheld that principle himself—never once doubting or restricting Xing Bi and the bioroids throughout the operation.

Once inside the car, he gave only one instruction: “When we arrive, you two stay in the car. The bioroids will come with me.”

“So we’re waiting here to help you escape in case your coup fails?” Qiu Shi asked.

Li Feng laughed. “It’s not a coup. Just a small, reasonable request. Mr. Long has to agree. You two are heroes—that title is useful. Don’t get dragged into this mess.”

“Are you expecting anything to go wrong?” Qiu Shi asked. “No backup plans?”

“No,” Li Feng said. “If something really happens, these twenty bioroids will help me get out. Then you two take them, pick up your brothers outside the city, and run.”

“You don’t need us to take you with us?” Qiu Shi asked. “For someone who really doesn’t want to die?”

“You know me well,” Li Feng laughed. “But not completely. I was born and raised here—I only want to live here.”

“Fine,” Qiu Shi said. “Then we won’t take you. We’ll just find a chance to collect your corpse later.”

The car quickly arrived at the grandest building in Yun City—a massive structure built into the mountainside, half building, half mountain, seamlessly fused together. The enormous letters on its facade read Yun City Mining Corporation.

“I’ve never been here before,” Qiu Shi looked out the window at the towering building, too tall to fully take in from inside the car.

“I haven’t been here often either,” Li Feng replied, pulling into the parking lot. As he got out, he left a final instruction. “Stay in the car. Don’t let the surveillance cameras catch you two.”

Qiu Shi and Xing Bi remained in the backseat, watching as Minister Liu and Colonel Yu exited the vehicle, followed by the soldiers. From a car parked in the corner, three men stepped out. Li Feng led a team of bioroids over to greet them.

“Who are these people?” Qiu Shi asked.

“Probably department heads,” Xing Bi said. “Li Feng didn’t waste his years at the Security Bureau.”

“I have to beg for resources like a damn beggar,” Qiu Shi scoffed. “Meanwhile, he’s handing out all the good stuff to these big-shot officials.”

“Even if you weren’t a beggar, the good stuff they get would never be given to you,” Xing Bi said.

“…When we get back, I’m putting a gun to Curator Wu’s head and forcing him to install a function that lets me shut you up with a hand gesture.” Qiu Shi muttered.

Xing Bi chuckled.

Security at the company building was tight. As Li Feng and the other officials approached, the guards at the entrance immediately stepped forward, with one reaching for his radio to report their arrival.

But before he could even bring it to his mouth, a bioroid snatched it away. Within seconds, all four guards were taken down, and the group strode into the building.

Qiu Shi watched the fallen guards. “They’re not dead, right?”

“No,” Xing Bi said. “There’s no need for that. As long as Li Feng reaches Mr. Long’s office before they wake up, it’s fine.”

Qiu Shi leaned back in his seat and sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Xing Bi glanced at him.

“This still feels surreal,” Qiu Shi said. “I can’t even tell which part of this went off the rails—it all just feels like a dream.”

“Worried about Li Feng?” Xing Bi asked.

“No, not at all,” Qiu Shi said. “If things really go south, he’d be the type to just shoot Mr. Long in the head.”

Xing Bi smiled but said nothing.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Qiu Shi narrowed his eyes. “That’s a very knowing smile.”

“Is it?” Xing Bi’s smile remained.

“It is!” Qiu Shi raised his voice.

“Maybe it’s because Li Feng interrupted us,” Xing Bi said.

“Interrupted what—” Qiu Shi started, but then his words caught in his throat.

The half-finished kiss by the window suddenly rushed back into his mind. Every sensation from those ten or so seconds surged back without warning, making his breath hitch.

“F*ck.” Qiu Shi slumped lower into his seat and tugged at his pants. “We’re in the middle of serious business right now! How do you even bring this up during something this tense?”

“That’s exactly why this feels surreal to you,” Xing Bi glanced down at Qiu Shi’s pants.

“What are you looking at? Which part do you mean?” Qiu Shi narrowed his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking about one thing but looking at another…”

Xing Bi laughed for a long time, unable to stop.

“You don’t have this problem?” Qiu Shi suddenly asked. “Don’t tell me you don’t?”

“Infinitely close to human. Infinitely close,” Xing Bi said. “If I didn’t have this, then I wouldn’t be that close to human, would I?”

Qiu Shi clicked his tongue.

“You don’t believe me?” Xing Bi asked.

“I believe you! I believe you!” Qiu Shi raised his hands in surrender. “F*ck, this is Li Feng’s car. That old fox probably has surveillance equipment in here. He might even be wearing an earpiece and listening in. Be careful what you say.”

“Impressive vocabulary,” Xing Bi said.

“An old man taught me,” Qiu Shi replied. “He used to say I was too reckless in the outer city and needed to be more cautious.”

“Didn’t seem to change much,” Xing Bi said. “Though you’re better now.”

“Yeah, well, nearly dying over and over makes you mature real quick,” Qiu Shi said.

“Your reaction time has gotten faster,” Xing Bi noted. “I almost couldn’t keep up today.”

“You—” Qiu Shi frowned. “You only drew your gun after I drew mine?”

“Mm.” Xing Bi nodded.

“You…” Qiu Shi stared at him. “Was it because you didn’t hear someone coming, or because you knew it was Li Feng and didn’t bother drawing?”

Xing Bi didn’t answer. He simply looked at Qiu Shi, the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.

“You knew, didn’t you?” Qiu Shi asked.

“Mm,” Xing Bi confirmed. “Don’t question a first-tier combat bioroid’s hearing.”

“F*ck you,” Qiu Shi muttered.

Xing Bi just smiled.

Qiu Shi looked at him in silence. He could feel the warmth of Xing Bi’s breath brushing against his ear—light and slightly ticklish. They were farther apart now than they had been in the dorm, but with the cramped space of the backseat, Qiu Shi could hear a heartbeat.

Probably his own, considering how loud it was pounding.

“Come closer,” he said.

Xing Bi moved closer.

Qiu Shi cupped his chin, looked at him for a moment, then kissed him.

It was as if Xing Bi had been waiting for this exact moment. The second their lips met, he responded immediately, his arm sliding between the seat and Qiu Shi to wrap around his waist.

Qiu Shi found the lock on the car door.

Just in case Mr. Long decided to throw Li Feng off the rooftop, and he happened to land right next to the car and open the door, Qiu Shi pressed the lock.

With that single click, it was as if everything outside ceased to exist. The sounds, the scenery, even himself.

Only Xing Bi remained.

And the warmth of skin beneath Qiu Shi’s hand as it slipped under his shirt.

—

“You know what you’re doing?” Mr. Long stared at Li Feng. “Do these ministers and officers know what you’re doing?”

“We’re all adults,” Li Feng said. “We’ve all given half our lives to Yun City. I doubt I alone could persuade them with just words—each of them has made their own judgment.”

“Colonel Xu holds a special position,” Mr. Long said. “I can’t just remove her. Colonel Yu should understand this. She was personally chosen by the General, and the General has his reasons.”

“Then let’s contact the General,” Li Feng said. “We have enough reason to explain why Colonel Xu is no longer suited to frontline command.”

Mr. Long stared at him, silent, but his eyes were filled with barely contained anger and threat.

There was no way they could contact the General.

Li Feng was certain—the General’s brain did not receive real-time updates on battlefield conditions. It was incapable of adapting to reality the way a human mind could.

“The relationship between bioroids and humans,” Mr. Long said, “is not impossible to return to what you all wish for. But you must also understand that the world has evolved from that past state to where we are now.”

“But we weren’t the ones who walked that path,” Li Feng replied. “And right now, there is no second path to take. The company has always avoided large-scale war. Given the current situation, this is the best choice for their interests.”

Mr. Long glanced at the bioroids surrounding him.

After a long silence, he finally asked, “Where is Xing Bi? Are these bioroids under his control?”

“They’re not controlled,” Li Feng said. “No partners needed.”

“Where is Xing Bi?” Mr. Long pressed.

“I don’t know,” Li Feng said. “Probably off falling in love.”

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