A sharp pain radiated from his abdomen, and Zhao Meiyou felt his consciousness rapidly slipping away. He forced his head to turn, meeting Diao Chan’s eyes.
He wanted to say something, but in the end, he only managed a strained smile as he breathed his name: "...Diao Chan."
Qian Duoduo’s figure dissipated in mid-air. The mainframe whirred violently, emitting a scorched smell.
*Don’t break,* Zhao Meiyou thought dizzily. *If I die, who’s going to fix you?*
He tried to lift his hand, but his arm felt as heavy as a thousand pounds. That bastard Diao Chan must have coated the blade with something—likely a nerve paralytic.
*What’s the point? If you’re going to use a knife, just be quick about it. Is he still worried about me feeling pain even now?*
Before total darkness descended, Zhao Meiyou struggled to utter one last sentence: "...If I die, close my eyes."
He certainly wouldn't be able to rest in peace otherwise.
...
*All sentient beings of Jambudvipa, every movement of their thoughts is karma, is sin.*
His consciousness drifted between this shore and the next. In the haze, Zhao Meiyou heard the tolling of a bell once more.
He snapped his eyes open.
The sunlight was brilliant, stinging his eyes until they nearly watered. It took Zhao Meiyou a long moment to steady his racing heart. Like the violent palpitations after a nightmare, he was soaked through with cold sweat, his uniform clinging stickily to his skin—right, the uniform.
He was wearing the archaeologist's uniform.
This was Relic No. 000. They had been delivered here by a steam train that appeared out of nowhere. Qian Duoduo had taken the lead in pushing open the city gates—and then the dream had descended. Or perhaps it wasn't a dream; God only knew what that thing was. Zhao Meiyou felt like he was truly on the verge of a mental breakdown. What was going on? Where exactly was he?
"Zhao Meiyou." Someone was calling him.
Zhao Meiyou looked up. It was Qian Duoduo.
The young man looked at him, frowning slightly. "What’s wrong?"
Zhao Meiyou knew his face must look terrible right now. Qian Duoduo reached out, his palm touching the back of Zhao Meiyou’s neck as he leaned in, about to kiss him. Zhao Meiyou reacted instinctively, thrusting a hand out to block the space between them.
Qian Duoduo froze. "Zhao Meiyou?"
"...Qian-ge," Zhao Meiyou finally spoke after a long pause. "Give me a moment to breathe."
"Look at the people around you."
The people around them—the archaeologists gathered here by that mysterious train—almost everyone was exhibiting the exact same reaction as Zhao Meiyou. Some were muttering to themselves; some stood rooted to the spot like sleepwalkers who hadn't yet woken up. More looked as if they had been suddenly force-fed a massive amount of unknown memories, their eyes bulging, some even collapsing to the ground to vomit.
Zhao Meiyou knew that a Quantum Field Threshold could inflict mental trauma, which was why many archaeologists seemed a bit unstable. This instability was a form of self-protection; everyone had their own coping mechanism.
But at this moment, almost everyone’s "instability" manifested with the same symptoms.
In this situation, it was hard for Zhao Meiyou not to wonder: was everything in the "Ancient Capital" truly just his own delusion?
The Buddha, the Ancient Capital Research Institute, Antarctica, the Orion War, the Great Cataclysm, the temple ruins, the Bridge to Grandma’s House.
The first rule of Relics: A Relic is not a dream.
Was everything within the Quantum Field Threshold a reality that had once happened?
Zhao Meiyou instinctively looked toward the chaotic crowd. Only one person seemed out of place: Liu Qijue. He had his hands tucked into his uniform pockets, looking around somewhat blankly. "What’s happened all of a sudden? What the hell is this place?"
"Jue... Imperial Concubine!" Zhao Meiyou walked over and grabbed him. "How are you feeling?"
"Zhao Mode?" Liu Qijue looked at him, puzzled. "What do you mean, how am I feeling?"
"You don't feel anything?"
"What should I be feeling?"
"Like... a dream?" Zhao Meiyou asked tentatively. "The Ancient Capital?"
"Ancient Capital?" Liu Qijue’s expression was one of utter confusion. "What Ancient Capital? Zhao Mode, are you okay?" He reached out to touch Zhao Meiyou’s forehead. "You didn't catch a fever from the mental shock, did you? Where’s your better half?"
What was going on? Why did Liu Qijue have no reaction at all? Just as Zhao Meiyou was spiraling into confusion, someone suddenly walked up to him—one of the archaeologists he had met during the party at Column’s house.
This person wasn't in great shape either, looking like he was having a heart attack, his eyes still a bit glazed. Fortunately, he had regained consciousness. He held his uniform jacket in his hand, his shirt drenched in sweat.
The man looked at him and called out, "Director."
A buzzing sound erupted in Zhao Meiyou’s head.
"What did you call me?"
The man opened his mouth, clearly uncertain, but finally made up his mind and said, "We met in the Greenhouse before, Director Zhao."
Zhao Meiyou tested him like they were exchanging secret codes: "The King sent me to patrol the mountains?"
"...Drinks for the whole house, two hundred and fifty."
Zhao Meiyou felt the buzzing in his brain intensify. He had never heard those lyrics before—except as the background music used by those trust-fund brats when they were partying in the Greenhouse back in the Ancient Capital.
But how many years ago was that?
While the two stood in silence, another person stepped forward, speaking tentatively: "Director Zhao?"
Zhao Meiyou whipped his head toward the crowd.
He remembered now. Among these archaeologists in the Metropolis whom he had never met, there were many familiar faces: the intern he had driven away with his cigarette smoke, the female researcher who always called Diao Chan the "Lady Director," the one-in-a-million elites, the well-connected hires squeezed in through various channels...
These were all people from the Ancient Capital Research Institute.
There were also some faces he wasn't as familiar with. Zhao Meiyou took a deep breath, trying his best to calm down. Memories from nowhere began to surface—he looked at an archaeologist who was vomiting particularly violently. The man had a severe case of premature graying. This trait pulled a trigger deep in Zhao Meiyou’s mind—he had seen this man.
This was a researcher from the Antarctic side.
What exactly was the identity of an "archaeologist"?
Was it possible that everyone capable of entering a Quantum Field Threshold was connected to the events of that year?
Zhao Meiyou immediately thought of that experiment—the Fusion Experiment. It involved quantum technology and consciousness transfer, and it used live human subjects.
Immediately following that, a truly insane hypothesis formed—
Were they, even now, still inside a massive experiment?
The moment this thought appeared, it was like a gear clicking into a stalled mechanism. Zhao Meiyou’s mind suddenly opened the floodgates. A deluge of memories submerged him, as swift as a blade drawn from its sheath, carving out ten-thousand-foot cliffs around him.
And he could only watch helplessly as those images came crashing down.
"Director?" The archaeologist beside him was startled. Zhao Meiyou had suddenly doubled over, clutching his head. Red liquid dripped onto the ground—his ears were bleeding.
"Director?!" The archaeologist’s face paled. Almost everyone present had seen this reaction before; it was the precursor to consciousness dissolving within a Relic.
"Move." Someone strode forward. It was Qian Duoduo.
He scooped Zhao Meiyou up from the ground, but Zhao Meiyou was shaking so violently that Qian Duoduo could barely hold him steady. Blood began to leak from Zhao Meiyou’s eyes and nose as he gritted his teeth, seemingly enduring immense agony.
Qian Duoduo couldn't bear to watch. He forced Zhao Meiyou’s mouth open and shoved his own wrist inside.
Zhao Meiyou bit down with incredible force. The wrist bled almost instantly; a vessel ruptured, and blood sprayed out. The sharp scent of iron seemed to clear Zhao Meiyou’s mind for a second. He struggled to release his grip, coughing, trying to say something, only to have Qian Duoduo press against him without a word, blocking all the blood back into his throat.
The nearby archaeologists watched in stunned silence as they kissed—or rather, as Qian Duoduo unilaterally pinned Zhao Meiyou down to feed him blood mouth-to-mouth. It was bloody and lingering, as if they were trying to consume one another.
"What’s going on?" Liu Qijue walked over, also startled by the sight. "Holy shit." He quickly shooed the onlookers away. "Should I conjure a bed for you two?"
Zhao Meiyou couldn't hear Liu Qijue’s voice at all. The exchange of saliva and blood created a connection between him and Qian Duoduo. It was as if a tentacle had reached into his mind, pressing pause on the memories spinning like a meat grinder. He suddenly recoiled, looking at the person before him, his face covered in blood. "...Qian-ge."
"Zhao Meiyou." Qian Duoduo seemed about to reach for him, but then he heard Zhao Meiyou say: "Qian Duoduo."
The reaching arm froze in mid-air.
"No, Qian-ge." As if regretting it, Zhao Meiyou quickly switched back to the old address. "...Let me catch my breath."
He needed to catch his breath.
To organize the sudden influx of content in his head.
Those extra memories, those images that had suddenly surfaced alongside the history of the Ancient Capital—whose experiences were they?
Just moments ago, like a massive memory card suddenly being imported into his brain, he had remembered many things he had never experienced. The memories contained Diao Chan, Liu Qijue, many people he had never met, and a Metropolis from an unknown era.
And Relics, and archaeologists.
The memories in his head told him that he hadn't just recently become an archaeologist by chance after being led into a Relic by a girl’s 1999 disc player. He had entered Relics long ago.
And he had met Qian Duoduo long ago.
Countless times.
Those memories were like the reincarnated lives of countless "Zhao Meiyous." In some lives, he was born in the Upper District to both parents and received a good education. In others, he was abandoned at birth and died obscurely in the heavy rain. In some lives, he lived to middle age; in others, he didn't make it to adulthood. But except for those where he died in infancy, almost every one of his lives featured Diao Chan and Liu Qijue.
They had met hundreds, thousands of times. Sometimes as strangers, sometimes as best friends. In one fleeting image, Zhao Meiyou saw the three of them fleeing in a car down a highway, pursued by a massive pack of dinosaurs that should only have existed in the Jurassic period. In the end, they all died—died within a Relic.
That was it: the Relics. In Zhao Meiyou’s countless lives, as long as he didn't die too young, he would eventually walk a destined path—coming into contact with a Relic for some reason and becoming an archaeologist.
And then meeting Qian Duoduo.
Zhao Meiyou had no way of judging how many times he had been through this cycle. He couldn't count them, or he would likely go insane. In those thousands of lives, he had fallen in love with Qian Duoduo almost every single time.
*Almost.*
He couldn't count the ones where he died too early.
In some lives, he didn't have time to grow up, dying of congenital disease or some accident. But before death arrived, he always seemed to see Qian Duoduo’s face.
The other man would be wearing a mask, pulling out his oxygen tube, shooting him during a street brawl, or pushing him off a speeding train—it seemed his life only had two ways to end: either dying in a Relic or dying at Qian Duoduo’s hands.
*What a grudge,* Zhao Meiyou thought. *Is this the legendary 'if I can't have you, I'll destroy you'?*
Even worse, in some lives where he had already become an archaeologist, he still ended up dying at Qian Duoduo’s hands.
Zhao Meiyou spoke: "Qian-ge."
Qian Duoduo looked at him, not daring to step forward. "...Zhao Meiyou."
"Is it time?"
*Are you going to kill me again?*
They stared at each other from a step apart. The sound of the wind and the voices of people faded away; the world became infinitely large.
After a long time, Zhao Meiyou smiled. "Qian-ge, can we be a bit gentler this time?"
*Kill me or hack me, do as you please.*
*It’s just that I’m also afraid of pain.*
The two looked at each other in silence until Liu Qijue’s voice suddenly came from the crowd. "What are you all standing here for? Zhao Mode, you—" His voice cut off abruptly. Liu Qijue looked at the two of them as if he were seeing ghosts. After a long pause, he blurted out, "Holy shit."
"...Qian Duoduo, why are you crying? Zhao Mode, what did you do?"
This wasn't the first time Zhao Meiyou had seen Qian Duoduo cry. In his newly acquired memories, Qian Duoduo was by his side many times before he died, the look in his eyes like a torrential downpour.
And so the Buddha lowered his eyes and shed a single tear.
Perhaps everything was a dream. Zhao Meiyou didn't have time for much reflection; he cared too much about everything that had happened in the Ancient Capital. Now that they were standing in this perfectly intact Research Institute, it was impossible to say whether this was the Quantum Field Threshold or reality. Without a doubt, Qian Duoduo was the key; he must know something. "Qian-ge, let’s make a deal," Zhao Meiyou said. "Let’s talk."
Qian Duoduo took a deep breath. "Talk about what?"
"Talk about anything. You speak, I’ll listen." Zhao Meiyou said, then looked at Liu Qijue. "Give me some paper."
Liu Qijue: "...What for?"
"Are you blind?" Zhao Meiyou said. "I need to wipe my wife’s face."
Liu Qijue activated his Creation ability and gave him a large roll of paper. Zhao Meiyou wanted to complain that even in this situation, Liu Qijue had to mess with him—of all the varieties of facial tissue or napkins, he had given him a roll of toilet paper. He took the paper, looked up, and suddenly saw a figure in the distance among the crowd.
The roll of paper dropped to the ground.
Liu Qijue was startled. "Zhao Mode, where the hell are you going?"
Zhao Meiyou didn't have time to reply; he took off at a sprint.
—That was Diao Chan.
The memories of the Ancient Capital Research Institute were too deeply etched. Zhao Meiyou couldn't be sure if they were delusions created by the Quantum Field Threshold to disturb his mind or a reality that had truly existed. He had an intuition: in his countless reincarnated lives, he was always inextricably linked to Relics and archaeologists, and the root of both was likely the Fusion Experiment conducted by Antarctica back then.
If his hypothesis was correct, then the Ancient Capital Research Institute was the starting point of everything.
Diao Chan had stabbed him before he triggered the quantum bomb back then. What happened after that?
If the current archaeologists were all the researchers from back then, were they all subjects of the Fusion Experiment?
Why did almost everyone have memories of the Ancient Capital, yet Liu Qijue couldn't remember anything?
How much did Qian Duoduo know? Was he in danger here?
Diao Chan had previously sealed himself in Relic S45—was it really to avoid trouble? What kind of game was he playing? And why did he appear at this exact moment?
Zhao Meiyou ran wildly after Diao Chan. The surrounding scenery was familiar, almost identical to the Ancient Capital Research Institute in his memory: the lab buildings, the Greenhouse, the dormitories, the cafeteria... Plane trees lined the asphalt streets, and most of the buildings were red brick with wooden windows, their walls covered in green vines.
He suddenly realized where Diao Chan was going.
This road led to the No. 2 Experimental Field.
Aside from the archaeologists on this trip, there seemed to be no other life forms in this Ancient Capital. The gates to the No. 2 Experimental Field were wide open. Zhao Meiyou reached the pool from all those years ago without hindrance. Diao Chan was standing in the water, and the massive mainframe had already risen from beneath the surface.
Zhao Meiyou’s footsteps faltered.
"Zhao Mode." Diao Chan didn't turn around, seemingly knowing Zhao Meiyou had followed him. "Don't be afraid. Another Qian Duoduo isn't going to pop out of this thing."
Zhao Meiyou walked to the edge of the pool and asked bluntly, "You’ve always remembered the events of the Ancient Capital?"
"I remembered some of it, not all," Diao Chan replied. "I only remembered everything after coming here."
"How did you get here?"
"By train. That train passes through all the Relics; no archaeologist would refuse to board it." Diao Chan said, "The reason you didn't see me at first was because I got in earlier than you."
"Were you hiding from me?"
"I stabbed you here back then. If I didn't hide, was I supposed to wait for you to remember everything and kill me back?"
"Then why did you reveal yourself now?"
"Because I really did have to wait for you to remember everything." Diao Chan answered his questions patiently, then beckoned. "Zhao Mode, come here."
Zhao Meiyou didn't move. "What are you doing? You going to fucking stab me again?"
"Correct." Diao Chan actually nodded, then pulled a knife from the inside of his uniform. "I’ll aim for the heart this time. It’ll be quick, not as painful as last time."
For a moment, Zhao Meiyou thought Diao Chan had gone mad, but the other man’s expression was calm and certain. "Did you know? For an archaeologist in a Relic, a wound to the heart isn't actually fatal. The brain is. But the current you wouldn't even die from a brain injury, so what’s there to fear from a single stab?"
"I don't know what there is to fear from a stab, but I know that if I take this hit and nothing happens, then there was no need for you to go to all this trouble." Zhao Meiyou said, "If I’m not mistaken, this is the end of Relic No. 000. Anything could happen. Maybe I really will die if you stab me."
"Even if I don't kill you, Qian Duoduo will." Diao Chan didn't argue; he just sighed. "Haven't you remembered everything?"
"Bullshit. One is murder and the other is dying for love—how can those be the same?"
"..." Diao Chan shook his head, not particularly surprised, yet feeling he had nothing left to say. "I knew it would be like this. Forget it."
Before Zhao Meiyou could realize what Diao Chan meant by "forget it," the machinery under the water rose even higher, revealing the quantum bomb Zhao Meiyou had buried beneath it all those years ago.
In this "Ancient Capital" presented by Relic No. 000, nothing was locked.
Including this bomb.
Everything happened in an instant. Diao Chan glanced back at Zhao Meiyou and decisively pressed the detonation key.
White light exploded, instantly annihilating everything. It wasn't destruction in the sense of violence or fire; it was more like an electronic erasure, a rapid edit. All subconscious thoughts and physical reflexes, all the hard-won memories and truths—from beginning to end, from inside to out—were all cleared with a single click. Clean and empty, as if newly born.
...
After an unknown amount of time, he vaguely heard some noises.
A plastic door curtain was pushed aside. The scents of prickly heat powder, floral water, mosquito coils, and braised food mingled together, steaming in a hot, humid mass. A woman was speaking, and a lighter sparked to life to light a cigarette. The air circulation seemed poor, a bit like an old bathhouse—stifling, yet with a hint of coolness.
"Dr. Zhao! Emergency!"
Zhao Meiyou was startled awake by the sound of cards being shuffled.
***
