Arterial bleeding leads to death within ten minutes. Brain death occurs in six. The window from cardiac arrest to sudden death is a mere thirty seconds.
An indeterminate amount of time passed—perhaps ten minutes, six minutes, thirty seconds, or perhaps only a fleeting instant.
Zhao Meiyou opened his eyes to find his head and face smothered by a massive, billowing skirt.
*Where am I?* He first saw a snow-white thigh, encased in flesh-colored silk stockings that vanished into the depths of the hem. Looking up, he saw the face of a young woman. She had a cigarette filter clenched between her teeth and one foot propped on a stool as she touched up her makeup.
The room was filled with mirrors and a bustling crowd. Bright feathers were tucked into hair buns; there were bare feet, filigreed corsets, arms draped in pearls, and eyelids painted with thick black kohl. A breast suddenly lurched toward him like a massive star falling from the heavens. Zhao Meiyou scrambled to steady her—she was clearly a drunken woman. She spilled her drink all over his head and face before slumping against his shoulder and beginning to retch.
Zhao Meiyou was a regular at the theater. Based on his experience, this appeared to be a ladies' dressing room.
However, the atmosphere was worlds apart from the theaters he knew. There were the kaleidoscopic mirrors, the silver spoons and sugar cubes resting on deep green glasses, and the frenetic music drifting in from outside—high-spirited chords, drunken violinists, and drumbeats brewing a crimson storm. It was the Can-can.
Zhao Meiyou hung the drunken woman on a coat rack. He didn't have time to wonder why the people around him were utterly indifferent to a man in their midst. He pushed aside the door curtain and stepped out, merging into the garish, seductive palette like a stray speck of ash.
Outside was a massive dance hall. The second-floor boxes were packed. Painters drank while sketching in shorthand notebooks, capturing a stage that blazed with fire and diamonds. Dancers spun out from behind glass doors—stomping, kicking, and twirling—before suddenly flinging their voluminous skirts wide, their toes pointing straight toward the chandeliers on the ceiling. Amidst the manic clamor, flashes of skin were revealed to an audience of goateed men fiddling with canes, white-faced clowns, and a string orchestra in velvet coats. A woman arched back sharply, her neck pulling into a taut bowstring as a final high note shattered like a juice-filled sun bursting over the teak floor. Silk petticoats flew into the air, whipping up a multicolored storm.
Someone handed him a drink, as if Zhao Meiyou were just another reveler seeking pleasure in the dance hall late at night. The stranger, sensing Zhao Meiyou’s confusion, kindly demonstrated how to drink it: he placed a silver spoon with a sugar cube over the glass and poured water over the sugar. As the syrup dissolved into the liquor, it created a glass of Bohemian absinthe.
The liquid was a blue-green hue, the color of a woman’s eyeshadow. When the water hit it, it turned a cloudy milky white, releasing a sharp scent of anise.
Absinthe. The Can-can. Zhao Meiyou looked around; he thought he knew where he was.
He had seen such places before—not in the theaters of the 33rd District, but in old films, holographic photos, and antique paintings. The Can-can was a dance that originated among the working class before becoming a sensation in the music halls. It was famous for the high kick, where the leg was snapped up to the nose or ear. When practicing, Can-can dancers would hang a balloon higher than the doorframe and pop it with the tip of their shoe.
The dance was synonymous with scandal and rumor. The dancers wore shimmering stockings and pantaloons, lifting their skirts in the heat of the kick.
A bouquet of roses was suddenly thrust before Zhao Meiyou’s eyes, followed by a wad of cash stuffed into his waistband. The crowd before him was in a frenzy of celebration, as if a dressing room had fallen from the sky, scattering stockings and garters everywhere.
After some time, a figure squeezed through the crowd, staring at him. "Zhao Mode? Xishi?"
"Hey, Guifei." Zhao Meiyou was already a bit tipsy, smiling as he held up his glass of absinthe. "How do you still look like that?"
"I’m the one who should be damn well asking you! What happened?" Tai Zhu’s body was as round as ever, his bulk making it impossible for those around him to stand steady. "I’ve been looking for you forever. How did you turn into a woman?"
"No clue." Zhao Meiyou took things as they came, looking down at his own chest. "I was already like this by the time I noticed."
As he spoke, he hefted the two mounds of soft flesh on his chest. "I just found a toilet to check. I have to say, the transformation is quite thorough. Inside and out..."
"Save your breath." Tai Zhu looked like he wanted to slap him into oblivion. "Seems you’ve adapted well enough. You’re already drinking."
Not just drinking, but flirting. Zhao Meiyou’s current body was that of a curvaceous, sultry lady. He had even gone back to the dressing room to find a corseted dance dress to change into. Men were all the same; they all liked this sort of thing. Currently, the bar was swarmed with men lining up to buy him drinks, making him look like a regular Mammon.
Zhao Meiyou found a gap to escape the crowd, following Tai Zhu out of the dance hall. Under the night sky, a massive red windmill was spinning. "I was thinking, if you didn't show up soon, I’d just pick one who looked decent and see what sleeping with them was like."
Tai Zhu: "Zhao Mode, be normal for once, please."
"This *is* how a normal person thinks, okay?" Zhao Meiyou looked at him strangely. "Wouldn't you want to if it were you?" He hefted his chest again, shoving the two mounds like a pair of round eggplants toward Tai Zhu’s face. "We’re brothers, right? Want a taste first?"
Tai Zhu raised his hand and then lowered it, restraining himself with great effort. "I don't hit women."
"But seriously, what is going on with me?" They stood under a gas lamp as Zhao Meiyou watched the horse-drawn carriages passing on the street. "We’re inside the Relic, right? Are those people buying me drinks actually alive?"
"You can think of them as living," Tai Zhu said. "Relic A173 is very hospitable to humans. The similarity between this place and the real world is extremely high."
Zhao Meiyou pointed to the gas lamp above. "The real world?"
The Metropolis had gone through countless generations of power grid updates. Gas lamps were antiques you could barely find even on the black market. Here, they lined the streets. Looking at the food, clothing, housing, and transportation, almost nothing was the same as the real world. How could the similarity be considered high?
"I wasn't finished," Tai Zhu continued. "The world presented within Relic A173 is the reality that humanity once possessed."
Before the words had fully landed, Tai Zhu put two fingers to his lips and whistled. A taxi pulled over immediately. "Get in."
Zhao Meiyou sat in the back seat. The scenes flickering past the window felt like they were from centuries ago. Four-wheeled carriages came and went, coachmen in uniform capes sitting at the front beside swaying oil lamps. There were many open-air cafes along the streets, and violet-colored buildings stretched into the distance. Men and women sat together, smoking and eating oysters. Occasionally, a tavern door would burst open, spilling out a group of drunks like a bucket of sunflowers poured into the cool night. The crowd grew, singing loudly as they drank. The air grew hotter until the damp, midnight chill transformed into a sweltering summer night.
Zhao Meiyou turned to look out the rear window. On the distant horizon, the stars swirled, and the full moon spun into a massive vortex. "...I’ve seen a patient in the hospital paint this."
Tai Zhu gave a grunt of affirmation from the front. "That’s right. That’s Van Gogh’s *The Starry Night*."
"We are currently in late 19th-century Paris, on the heights of Montmartre. The dance hall you just left is the famous Moulin Rouge," Tai Zhu said. "The last quarter of the 19th century is known to history as the 'Belle Époque'."
In this beautiful era of Paris, haute couture began to emerge, and phonographs and film projectors gradually became common. Salons were held everywhere in the city at night; poets exchanged recitations for food at banquets. The artists gathered on Montmartre were as numerous as the stars in the sky. They drank absinthe—that intoxicating beverage that induced vivid hallucinations, leading Verlaine to shoot Rimbaud, Wilde to collapse drunkenly into a bed of tulips, and Van Gogh to cut off his own ear after a glass.
Undoubtedly, it was a grand age. Cubism, Fauvism, Surrealism, and a series of avant-garde movements were brewing in the bars, destined to benefit the centuries to follow. Half a century later, Sartre and Beauvoir would meet at the Café de Flore, Existentialism would rise in power, and Hemingway would cross the Atlantic to sleep on the floor of a room at 74 Rue du Cardinal Lemoine.
In this final quarter of the 19th century, they sat in a taxi driving along the banks of the Seine. It was an undeniably surreal scene; automobiles had not yet entered the mass market, and horse-drawn carriages were still the most fashionable mode of transport. Yet, the men and women by the river were unfazed by this bright yellow car. Some bold youths even tapped on the window, offering beer and cigarettes.
Tai Zhu looked at him through the rearview mirror. "Stop drinking. We have a long way to go."
Zhao Meiyou studied the night scenery outside. A damp mist blew off the Seine; it was impossible to tell if it was midwinter or a summer night. Some people were wrapped in heavy mink coats, while others dipped their bare feet into the river water. "You still haven't answered my question." He tapped the front seat. "How did I turn into a woman?"
"Every Archaeologist possesses a unique ability within the Relics," Tai Zhu said. "Given your current situation, your ability is likely 'Shapeshifting'."
As the name implied. Zhao Meiyou looked at his current body and suddenly closed his eyes.
Tai Zhu: "What kind of nonsense are you trying now?"
Zhao Meiyou: "I want to see if I can grow myself a dick."
"Go ahead and try," Tai Zhu said. "If you grow one, you won't count as a woman anymore. See if I don't beat you to death then."
Whether it was Tai Zhu’s threat that worked or not, Zhao Meiyou’s attempt failed. "Is my ability just not very good?"
"Practice makes perfect. You’ll master it after entering a few more Relics. Experienced shapeshifters can turn into many things; some have even turned into air."
"Then, Guifei, your ability is..." Zhao Meiyou suddenly cut himself off, then blurted out, "Fuck!"
The taxi suddenly lost control, crashing through the riverbank railing and plunging into the Seine.
The expected suffocation didn't happen. As if passing through a cool mist, they were now driving along a coastal street. This was no longer the banks of the Seine in Paris. The seaside was lined with magnificent, tall white villas in a Georgian colonial style. There was a pier on the bay, and under the shimmering starlight, across from the pier, a faint green light flickered.
The car drove past a fountain toward a brilliantly lit villa. Now, their yellow taxi no longer seemed surreal; instead, it looked far too shabby. From Lincolns to Rolls-Royces, the area was packed with luxury cars of every kind.
A crowd of revelers was streaming out of the villa like a burst of bright confetti from a party popper. Someone threw a cocktail bottle into the air. The women’s skirts had shortened, revealing high heels and calves. Corsets had vanished, replaced by straight-cut dresses shimmering with sequins and fringe. Most of them had bobbed hair and smoky eye makeup; some even wore smoking jackets and brogues.
Fireworks exploded in the sky, followed by a massive chandelier swinging out of the doors like a pendulum, shattering crystals all over the ground. Two acrobatic dancers were still clinging to it as the crowd erupted in screams and laughter. A convertible swept past like a hurricane, with at least a whole football team’s worth of people squeezed into the seats—all young men in Ivy League uniforms. The car wobbled before plunging headfirst into the fountain.
Zhao Meiyou looked out the window. A man dressed like a banker handed him a cigar. He took a sniff. "Excuse me, where is this?"
"Where is this? Did you sleepwalk your way here?" The man laughed. "Miss, this is Long Island!" He pointed into the distance. "New York is right over there!"
Zhao Meiyou pulled back and asked Tai Zhu, "Where is this now?"
"Didn't you study history?"
"In the records of human civilization preserved by the Metropolis, the 22nd century is almost entirely lost," Zhao Meiyou said. "My final thesis back then was on the Annals of the Metropolis, but that only covered things after the year 2265."
Tai Zhu gestured to the partying crowd around them. "Gossip columnists, movie stars, Broadway directors, Sicilians—this is America in the 1920s. History calls it the 'Jazz Age'."
"Looks like we’re late." Tai Zhu watched the luxury cars departing one after another. "The party just ended."
"Whose party?" Zhao Meiyou asked.
"It seems your literary studies weren't much better either."
"What does this have to do with literature?"
Tai Zhu looked at him like he was an idiot and pointed toward the distance beyond the pier, to the tiny green light across the shallow bay.
"This is Gatsby’s party."
Zhao Meiyou rummaged through his memory for a moment. "I think I’ve heard of that book, but I never read it."
Tai Zhu adjusted a knob on the dashboard, switching the radio channel. A moment later, a deep baritone voice drifted from the car speakers:
*"In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since..."*
They drove along the coastal highway, passing the Hollywood Hills. Both sides of Sunset Boulevard were lined with movie billboards; Charlie Chaplin wore a mysterious smile in the night. This was the 1930s, the Golden Age of Hollywood. Soon after, color television appeared. Jack Kerouac roared across Route 66 in a truck. Beat poets held concerts in Greenwich Village. The clock struck 1961, and Gagarin entered space. The taxi emerged from a tunnel as flames roared into the sky in the distance, screaming toward the stars.
"That’s Apollo 11," Tai Zhu said. "July 16, 1969. The first time humanity set foot on the moon."
This was the golden era of space exploration. "Space fever" would last for years. David Bowie painted himself red, donned high heels and silk gowns, and played the androgynous alien Ziggy Stardust. Guitarists smashed their instruments in bars. Record companies collaborated with radio stations, and the airwaves were filled with Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and the Beatles again... This was also the gilded age of Rock and Roll.
The scenery outside the window flew by—from countryside to plains, from plains to desert, and from desert to metropolis. They passed through one golden age after another. Time and space lost their grip here, as if they had fallen down a rabbit hole. Perhaps there was even some spider-like high-dimensional being living in the trunk, but what did it matter? The taxi passed through a toll booth, where a Coca-Cola vending machine gleamed.
They entered a city bridge. Bubbles of light and shadow floated around them. The buildings on both sides of the street were covered in billboards, like color codes dissolving into the night. A geisha with a white-painted face stepped out of a black sedan, wearing a brilliant kimono as she bowed slightly in front of a Kabuki theater.
"This is Ginza, Japan, in 1980," Tai Zhu said. "The famous peak of the bubble economy."
Another good year.
The taxi turned into a narrow alley, and the aroma of food stalls exploded. Zhao Meiyou noticed the billboards had changed to traditional Chinese characters. Planes flew low over the high-rises, and utility poles crisscrossed the sky. Hair salons were packed with customers; women sat under hemispherical perming machines. Rotating light signs cast red and blue shadows on the glass windows. Young people gathered in disco halls to watch TV; a Wuxia film had just ended, and the closing credits played a Cantonese song.
Tai Zhu handed some cash out the window and took two bowls of fried noodles. "This is Hong Kong in the 90s."
The noodles were in white styrofoam containers. Zhao Meiyou snapped his disposable chopsticks apart. "Not going to get out and walk around?"
"Today is mainly to get you familiar with the process. You can wander around later." Tai Zhu said to the taxi driver, "Sir, take the Xizhimen Bridge and enter the Second Ring Road."
The taxi stopped before a set of vermilion gates. The palace walls were towering and majestic. Across Chang'an Avenue lay the world's largest square. Tai Zhu wolfed down his noodles, opened the door, and stepped out. "We’re here." He tapped on the rear window. "Get out."
Zhao Meiyou pushed the door open and was immediately slapped in the face by a dry, biting northern wind. The 33rd District was cool year-round; he rarely felt this kind of cold, which bit like a sharp blade and burned like strong liquor. "Where is this?"
"21st-century Beijing." Tai Zhu looked at the magnificent palace complex before them. "Tonight is the first snow in the Forbidden City."
They walked up to a corner tower. The deep red palace walls stretched out through the snow. Outside the walls was a brilliantly lit metropolis; inside was the silent, gargantuan palace city. Zhao Meiyou pulled out a cigarette, thought for a moment, and put it back in his pocket. "Truly a grand age."
"Everything you saw today was a grand age."
"I should go back and read up on the history from the 19th to the 21st century," Zhao Meiyou said with some emotion.
"Illiterate." Tai Zhu glanced at him. "In case you didn't know, the first two World Wars of humanity both broke out in the 20th century."
Zhao Meiyou paused.
"These were also the two hundred years where human civilization gradually spiraled out of control," Tai Zhu said. "From the First Industrial Revolution to the Third Technological Revolution, through the germination of the 20th century and the gestation of the 21st, human civilization reached its peak in the 22nd century. As for what happened after—though the history of that time isn't preserved in the Metropolis, you should have heard of the Orion War."
Zhao Meiyou watched the distant snow for a while and said, "But I still think this is a good era."
This was an era where one could still look up at the stars. Astronauts played saxophones in space stations. There were so many golden years to reminisce about, and people built cyber-futures in electronic dreams. The magnificent palace walls had not yet collapsed; mountains and lakes had not yet become mere streaks of ultramarine in a holographic image. Rome had not yet sunk, poets were not yet extinct, and on nights when people wanted to dance, they could dance. The original *Mona Lisa* was still kept in the Louvre before it was destroyed by fire.
"I just thought of a point," Zhao Meiyou said suddenly. "Is it that all past years can be called 'Golden Ages'?"
Tai Zhu gave an ambiguous hum.
Every tedious 'now' would eventually become a brilliant 'past,' and the past was once a future dreamed of in wild fantasies.
Tai Zhu pulled a theatrical mask from somewhere, placed it over his face, and struck a pose. Snow swirled between heaven and earth as the *laosheng* character opened his mouth atop the city wall, singing a *Siping* tune: *"In haste, I strike the wooden horse with a resounding crack, calling forth the one who serves tea and wine—"*
This was the dialogue between Emperor Zhengde and Li Fengjie from the play *The Dragon Plays with the Phoenix*. Usually a duet between a male and female lead, Tai Zhu was now playing both roles. He began with the *laosheng* style for the *Siping* tune, then switched to the coquettish *dan* voice for a *Xipi Liushui* segment: *"The crescent moon shines upon the world; tell me, soldier, where is your home?"*
Zhao Meiyou found it entertaining and couldn't help but join in, laughing as he sang: *"This soldier lives beneath the heavens."*
"Stop right there!" Fengjie chided. "If a person doesn't live beneath the heavens, could it be you live above the sky?"
The Emperor spoke teasingly: "My dwelling is quite different from others."
Fengjie’s eyes sparkled. "How is it different?"
The Emperor swept his sleeve, pointing toward the heavy snow accumulating on the glazed tiles. "I live right here, within the Forbidden City—"
They finished the entire scene together. Tai Zhu took off the mask and looked at the city in the snow. "Zhao Mode, you’re right."
"This truly is a grand age."
***
