After finishing his talk with Curator Wu, Li Feng turned and exited the lab capsule. He walked over to the glass wall and looked at Mr. Long, who had resumed meditating on the other side.
“Mr. Long,” he knocked on the glass, “I have something I want to ask you.”
“If it’s about certain top-level secrets of Yun City, I can’t possibly tell you in front of all these people,” Mr. Long said calmly with his eyes closed.
“They’re all dead,” Li Feng replied.
“Bullshit,” Gao Shan said just as calmly—he’d probably been worn down to the point of apathy.
“Those two chiefs,” Li Feng looked at Mr. Long, “you know who they are, right? Based on the timeline, when Old Wu locked them up in the storage room, that was after you took office.”
“Personnel changes in the lab aren’t under my jurisdiction,” Mr. Long said.
“Placing two chief scientists in a storage room to monitor surveillance—such a personnel change that directly impacts Yun City’s scientific capacity—doesn’t require your or the General’s approval?” Li Feng said. “So if I kill Lao Wu right now, that’s also fine?”
“Don’t you have anyone else to use as a hostage?!” Curator Wu cursed behind him. “You’re insane!”
“There are only two humans here,” Li Feng glanced back at him, then turned again to Mr. Long. “Is it because they know something about the General?”
Mr. Long sighed lightly and opened his eyes.
“There’s more, isn’t there?” Li Feng said. “What else do they know?”
Mr. Long glanced at Chen Dang and Gao Shan. He looked hesitant. He clearly didn’t want to talk, but if Qiu Shi contacted the two again like before, and it involved those secrets, Li Feng being completely in the dark could delay the rescue.
“We’re not entirely in the dark,” Chen Dang spoke up. “Some secrets that are considered top secret in Yun City aren’t necessarily so here.”
“Then you explain,” Li Feng said.
“…Quick on the uptake, aren’t you?” Chen Dang smiled.
“Mr. Long,” Li Feng looked at him, “as for the people in here, you only need to keep Old Wu quiet. As for them…”
He looked at Chen Dang, Gao Shan, and the silent Shadow Guard they’d brought: “From the second I closed the lab door, they were never going to leave again.”
“We could restrain Mr. Long before he spills the secret,” Chen Dang said. “If we can’t leave, you’ll never learn the secret.”
“Then we’ll die together. A Mr. Long who can’t tell me the secret,” Li Feng said, “is of no use to me.”
Chen Dang raised an eyebrow, mildly surprised.
“A Mr. Long who has told the secret,” Li Feng continued, “is also of no use to me. So the only reason to keep him alive is to protect you. When this lab reopens, it’s to keep you alive.”
“Interesting,” Chen Dang said.
“I don’t know all the details,” Mr. Long finally said. “The incident happened before the war. By the time I took office, most of the records and people who knew the truth were gone. The information I have is uncertain and incomplete.”
“About what?” Li Feng asked.
“A missing first-generation biochem,” Mr. Long looked at Chen Dang. “He held the core data of a research project at the time. He destroyed all the data and vanished in the lab.”
“Vanished as in… what exactly?” Li Feng asked.
“His body and system were intact, but…” Mr. Long pointed at his own head, “everything in his system was gone. He became an empty shell.”
“So his memory was wiped?” Li Feng frowned.
“That’s how I understood it,” Mr. Long said. “But it might not be exactly that.”
Li Feng looked at Chen Dang. “Are the secrets overlapping?”
Chen Dang just smiled and said nothing.
“Bioroids really do hide emotions better than humans,” Li Feng glanced at Gao Shan behind Chen Dang. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Gao?”
Gao Shan said nothing, just sat down and turned away.
“No matter,” Li Feng said. “Qiu Shi and Xing Bi will give us answers.”
“Gentlemen…” Qiu Shi sat in a chair, looking at the two smiling chief technicians. Xing Bi was right—these two were probably a bit mad, but definitely not stupid.
“What should I call you?” Qiu Shi asked.
The two clearly hadn’t expected that question. They exchanged a glance, momentarily stunned.
“You don’t know?” the shorter one asked.
“Nope,” Qiu Shi replied.
“Wu Kangwen didn’t… didn’t mention us?” The taller one asked.
“He did. Storage keepers,” Qiu Shi said. “Been working in this sunless place for twenty years. Tough life. Gone now.”
The smile faded from the short one’s face.
“Not surprising,” Qiu Shi propped his head with one hand and tilted it toward them. “Curator Wu has too many subordinates. He can’t possibly remember everyone’s name.”
“When we were chief researchers,” the tall one said coldly, “he was still just an assistant.”
“Wang Hong,” the short one said.
“Zhang Tan,” said the tall one.
“I’ll remember that,” Qiu Shi said.
After a moment of silence, Wang Hong asked, “What else do you want to know?”
“Things even Wu Kangwen didn’t know,” Qiu Shi said. “The old man hiding in there—he didn’t know about him, right?”
Zhang Tan chuckled. “He didn’t know about the General either.”
“Why do you say ‘hiding’?” Qiu Shi asked.
“That has nothing to do with your lab connection,” Wang Hong said quickly. “You won’t run into him.”
“Who’s he hiding from?” Xing Bi asked.
“No idea,” Wang Hong said, glancing at Qiu Shi. “Is he still going in?”
Whether Qiu Shi entered mattered a lot to them. Yun City had never enhanced humans. Qiu Shi, being more suited to the connection experiment than an ordinary person, was their best subject. That’s what they cared most about.
“If he’s going in, we need to prepare,” Xing Bi said. “He’s the only suitable candidate. If anything goes wrong, you’ll lose your only test subject.”
“Prepare how?” Zhang Tan said. “If we say he can go in, then he can go in.”
“What’s with the old man? What’s in the other rooms? How can we communicate with the General to ask how to open the lab? If the General doesn’t know, who else can we ask?” Xing Bi pressed.
“So many questions,” Wang Hong muttered.
“To ensure the subject’s safety and that your future experiments can proceed, these are necessary,” Xing Bi said. “Last time, you gave no such precautions. If something happens and he can’t continue, all you’ll be doing is watching the monitors.”
“You’re the ones begging us now,” Wang Hong said.
“No,” Xing Bi replied, “you need our cooperation. If you want your old lives back, this is your only shot. Show us what your unauthorized research has discovered—bring it to light. Only if you do what Wu Kangwen couldn’t will you get a chance to return to the lab.”
Wang Hong glanced at Zhang Tan. “You’re good with words.”
“Mm, bioroids do think fast,” Zhang Tan said. “No wonder the old man had to hide, had to hide.”
“Why would the old man hide from a bioroid?” Qiu Shi asked immediately. “Which bioroid was he hiding from?”
Zhang Tan shut his mouth.
“Let’s talk,” Wang Hong said.
“Alright,” Qiu Shi replied, “but we don’t have much time. We need to be quick—if we’re too slow, the person we rescue might already be dead and useless to you.”
The two chief scientists went into the lounge.
Qiu Shi tilted his head and looked at Xing Bi standing behind him. “You’re not going to sit, Captain Bioroid?”
“This way, you seem more important,” Xing Bi said. “Human.”
“And yet you let them use me for experiments,” Qiu Shi said.
“That’s what they’re interested in,” Xing Bi replied. “We had to steer things that way. But you have to remember, you’re not there to play along with them.”
“Mm.” Qiu Shi lowered his voice. “What do you think he meant by ‘hide’? If it was your mentor, who would he be hiding from?”
Qiu Shi hesitated for a moment. “…Zheng Ting?”
“If it was Zheng Ting,” Xing Bi bent down and whispered near his ear, “then the professor would already be dead. There’d be no reason to keep hiding.”
“Could it have been before he knew Zheng Ting wanted to kill him?” Qiu Shi asked.
“That’s possible,” Xing Bi said. “But Zheng Ting didn’t plan it long in advance, and he didn’t chase him for long either. It happened quickly. Afterward, there was no chance to link memories or do any other processing.”
Qiu Shi turned to look at him.
“They burned him,” Xing Bi’s voice wavered slightly. “Right on the rooftop. I… watched it happen.”
Qiu Shi didn’t say anything more. He reached back and pulled Xing Bi into a half-hug, patting him lightly on the cheek.
The two chiefs must have had no trouble discussing things in private—it was much faster than talking with the rest of them. It wasn’t long before they came back out of the lounge.
Wang Hong, who was the more articulate of the two, dragged a chair over and plopped down in front of Qiu Shi. “Instructions.”
“Go ahead,” Qiu Shi looked at him.
“You’ll be entering the general’s memory. What he knows is what you’ll find—what he doesn’t, you won’t,” Wang Hong said. “The rooms aren’t real, just fragments of memory. The tech back then was limited. It’s visualized to this extent but can’t be made seamless or video-like.”
Wang Hong spoke quickly, like a chick pecking grains—on and on and on. Qiu Shi had to focus hard just to keep track of what he was saying.
“You can’t communicate with the general. This is his memory. You don’t exist in it. If you suddenly appear and start interacting with him, it’ll trigger suspicion in the brain,” Wang Hong continued. “As soon as an unexplainable anomaly is detected, the connection will cut off. When reconnected, the memory won’t update—he’ll only remember what’s already there. No new info will be written in. Any attempt to insert something new will trigger a reset.”
“Let me get this straight.” Qiu Shi frowned.
Wang Hong gave him two seconds to “get it straight,” then went on: “Here’s a hint. When I went in, there was a room filled with codes and symbols—might be a way to reboot the lab.”
“Which room?” Qiu Shi asked.
“No idea,” Wang Hong replied. “They all look the same and they’re not in fixed locations. You could open ten doors and still get the same memory fragment.”
“Fu-ck.” Qiu Shi cursed.
“Don’t worry about the old man—he’ll avoid you,” Wang Hong said. “The old man’s not complete. Just a small fragment of consciousness. We don’t know why he’s in the general’s brain. When we tried to study it, access was locked.”
“The general isn’t aware of that consciousness fragment, right?” Xing Bi asked.
“Right,” Wang Hong confirmed. “The old man is careful. If the general finds out, he’ll erase him.”
“Can I make contact with the old man?” As Qiu Shi asked, Xing Bi’s hand on his shoulder tightened suddenly, fingers digging in hard enough to hurt.
“No,” Xing Bi and Wang Hong said at the same time.
“If it’s not a complete consciousness, it’s hard to judge… good or evil,” Zhang Tan said. “Everyone has dark thoughts. If this fragment happens to be…”
“…the part that harbors those dark thoughts, it could be dangerous for you,” Xing Bi finished the sentence for him.
Zhang Tan nodded. “You might not come back.”
“You have to come back,” Wang Hong said, looking at him with gleaming eyes. “We still need to run tests on your brain…”
“Control yourself,” Qiu Shi cut him off. “You’re making me sick. I’m not going in like this.”
“You’ll go. You want to save people,” Wang Hong said with an excited smile. “You’ve got a sense of duty.”
“Maybe. But I grew up outside the city collecting corpses,” Qiu Shi replied. “The world I’ve seen is different from yours. What lies under my sense of duty isn’t all light.”
Wang Hong’s smile froze for two seconds. He stared at Qiu Shi for a moment, then stood up. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Xing Bi said. “Pull up the bioroid roster. I want to check something.”
“What are you looking for?” Zhang Tan asked, pulling up the list for him.
“I’m activating two medically oriented bioroids to assist you,” Xing Bi said.
The medical assistants weren’t for the chief scientists—they were for Qiu Shi. With these two assisting throughout the procedure, the two unstable chief scientists wouldn’t need to do anything directly. If anything went wrong, the assistants could act immediately.
The two chiefs had no objections. Reaccessing a room that had been locked for over thirty years, seeing an “experimental subject” reconnected to the neural system—this was like a shot of adrenaline for them.
With the red tape gone, the reboot of the two bioroids happened quickly.
Qiu Shi felt a little guilty about making them work right after waking up. But the bioroids didn’t seem to need a warm-up—within minutes of Xing Bi giving instructions, they were fully functional.
The reason humans needed bioroids was obvious.
The group walked into the room they’d used before. Zhang Tan operated the console, lowering the metallic cylinder, and that chair—which looked like an electric chair—reappeared in front of Qiu Shi.
For some reason, he felt more nervous this time as he sat down.
Maybe it was because he now knew more about the “instructions,” and that it wasn’t as simple as he had imagined. Or maybe it was just because there were more people in the room: the two chief scientists, Xing Bi, the two assistants, and Lin Sheng and Xu Jie standing by the door.
This time, Xing Bi didn’t operate the machine. He just held Qiu Shi’s hand while one of the medical bioroids stood behind, holding the wires and starting the connection process.
“Listen to my voice,” Xing Bi said.
“Mm.” Qiu Shi responded.
“Don’t do anything unnecessary. Don’t get swept away by what’s inside,” Xing Bi warned.
“I never knew you were such a nag,” Qiu Shi said.
“I’ve never been this worried about you,” Xing Bi replied.
Qiu Shi wanted to say something else, but the darkness was already closing in.
Then came the familiar dizziness, as light and dark alternated before his eyes.
When the mist in front of him cleared, he looked around. Just like last time, he was standing in the general’s office.
“I’m in,” Qiu Shi said. “I’ll start by checking the desk drawers, okay?”
“Go quickly,” Xing Bi’s voice came through.
Qiu Shi moved behind the desk. Everything was as it had been before—pen, phone, computer, two photo frames, one upright and one fallen.
There were four drawers in total—one large and three small. He opened them one by one.
Work notes, some paper reports, meeting documents, and then…
“Shit. There’s a gun,” Qiu Shi said.
“Don’t touch it,” Xing Bi said.
“Nothing unusual so far,” Qiu Shi said, glancing at the small door in the office. “Is that little door part of the memory too?”
“It’s the changing room. Empty,” Wang Hong’s voice answered.
“I’ll just go out then,” Qiu Shi said as he slowly moved toward the door. To be honest, he was a bit anxious. Last time, when the General had entered from outside and pointed a gun at him, it had really scared the hell out of him.
“Go on,” Xing Bi said. “Remember: just open the door, look, and close it.”
“Okay.” Qiu Shi responded.
The door opened. No one was outside. No General, no white-bearded old man.
Qiu Shi cautiously stuck his head out. It was a horizontal corridor. The General’s office was on the left, with two vertical corridors or passageways further down.
There were some portraits on the wall, all of people. They looked a bit like the portraits of Yun City celebrities in the exhibition hall. Other than that, there were just two trash bins.
Qiu Shi decided to start searching from the nearest room.
He looked to the left—three steps away was a door.
“There’s a door on my left. I’m heading over now,” Qiu Shi moved that way. Glancing back, the door to the General’s office was already closed. He was now alone, standing in an empty hallway, and suddenly felt a bit scared. “Shit, the door’s closed. I’m just standing out here.”
“The General won’t come now. He won’t appear for another five minutes,” Wang Hong’s voice floated around him, a bit unsteady. “Before that, you just need to get to the corner corridor.”
“I’m opening the door now,” Qiu Shi said.
The door opened.
It wasn’t a room—it was a wide open plaza. Very large—its edges couldn’t be seen at a glance.
The weather was beautiful. There were lots of people in the plaza—adults, children, colorful balloons. In the distance, he could see streets with traffic passing by. Laughter and cheerful voices could be heard.
This was the world before the war.
“Qiu Shi,” Xing Bi’s voice came from behind him, “close the door.”
“Okay.” Qiu Shi responded, took a step back, and the door closed in front of him.
“Go to the corner corridor. Now,” Xing Bi said.
“Got it.” Qiu Shi didn’t ask questions. He turned and moved toward the vertical corridor.
He knew that even if it didn’t feel like it, that one glance had already taken more than just “a glance’s” worth of time. Maybe not long enough for the General to arrive and open the door—but if the next door was the same, he might run out of time. It was better to start searching from the corner rooms.
“I’m around the corner now,” Qiu Shi said, checking the corridor—there was no one in sight. “Did I stare for too long just now?”
“When I called you, how many times did you hear me?” Xing Bi asked.
“Once,” Qiu Shi said. “You called and I came right out.”
“Mm,” Xing Bi responded.
“Why?” Qiu Shi asked. “Did you call me multiple times? Did I not hear you?”
“No, just once,” Xing Bi chuckled. “Now go to the next door.”
“Okay.” Qiu Shi chose the nearest door again. “I’ll go into the one next to me.”
“Let me know when you open it, and tell me what you see.” Xing Bi’s voice was a little faint, but Qiu Shi could still hear it.
“The door’s open…” Qiu Shi looked inside and froze. It looked like a factory.
Mountains and forests could be seen in the distance. In front of him was a vast industrial area, with tall factory buildings lined up on either side. A deep rumble could be heard.
“I see the General,” Qiu Shi jumped when he spotted a group of people ahead. “A lot of people—looks like they’re inspecting the factory.”
“Get out. That’s not the one.” Xing Bi’s voice came through the mechanical hum—faint, but the feeling of his hand gripping Qiu Shi’s earlier was still very clear.
Qiu Shi backed away. The door closed.
“Time to come back, Qiu Shi,” Xing Bi’s voice came again. “Can you hear me?”
“How long has it been?” Qiu Shi moved toward the next door. “Just two doors, and it’s already been seven minutes and fifteen seconds? Didn’t the Chief say my time should be longer than an ordinary human’s? More than seven-fifteen?”
“It’s been five minutes and twenty seconds,” Xing Bi replied.
“Shit.” Qiu Shi froze.
“Can you hear other people talking?” Xing Bi asked.
“Who?” Qiu Shi asked.
“I’m talking.” Zhang Tan’s voice echoed from far away—like it came from deep within the corridor.
“I hear you,” Qiu Shi said. “Chief Zhang, right? Your voice sounds like it’s coming from…”
Instinctively, he looked in the direction where the voice came from—and suddenly saw someone standing at the corner up ahead.
“I see…” Qiu Shi stared at the man. “That old guy.”
Maybe because the General wouldn’t appear here, the white-bearded old man hadn’t hidden. Half of his body was behind the corner, watching him.
That had to be Xing Bi’s teacher—white hair, white beard, neatly trimmed, clearly someone meticulous. Just like Xing Bi.
But instead of a suit, he was wearing a loose, flowing white robe.
He looked… kind.
“He’s not hiding. Is he…” Qiu Shi was about to try listening for Xing Bi’s voice when the old man suddenly raised a hand and pointed to the third door ahead.
“Is it there? How do you know what I’m looking for?” Qiu Shi asked, then remembered the old man probably couldn’t hear him.
Just as he asked the question, the old man turned and walked away.
Qiu Shi realized he was already standing in front of the door the old man had pointed at.
Xing Bi’s voice was gone. No one else could be heard either.
The surroundings were utterly silent. He couldn’t feel Xing Bi holding his hand anymore.
Qiu Shi knew something was off—but in his current state, he might not be able to return. Last time, it was hearing Xing Bi’s voice that had allowed him to pull the pin and disconnect.
He took a deep breath and forced himself to stay calm.
“Xing Bi, say something I’m interested in. Something intense,” Qiu Shi said. “See if I can hear you that way. Nothing weird has happened so far—holy shit!”
The door opened—not into a scene or a memory, but into a room filled with countless floating slips of paper.
“Fu-ck, I think I found it,” Qiu Shi said.
