“Humans are so resilient,” a clear woman’s voice sighed, like a bell over still water, abrupt in a world inked in black and bleached white.

“The Plague of Beasts can’t topple them, and man-made wickedness still surfaces under light like oil on water. They’ve crossed eons, tide after tide, to prove they’re worthy of our love.”

The same clear voice rang again, warm as spring sun through thin clouds, yet her words floated aloof, like a deity looking down from a cold, high moon.

“Humans didn’t live through the Plague of Beasts because they’re strong, but because the plague wasn’t strong enough. Human evil surfaced because of bargains, like coins swapped in shadow. They spanned eons because you stayed my hand for eons.”

A second voice cut in, cold and mechanical, each word a shard of frost, pointing straight at the rot.

“In that case, shall we wager again?”

Brilliant light bloomed where black bled into white, like a lotus of lightning unfurling in a void, as if building something from nothing.

“What do we bet on?”

“We bet on—”

Radiance drowned the black-and-white world like a noon sun over fresh snow, swallowing even the two voices.

In the year 2050, the greatest Plague of Beasts erupted. A flood as tall as Everest thundered like a god’s roar and drowned the world, tearing lives away like leaves in a storm, smashing the civilization humans had built over tens of millennia.

Yet human science didn’t retreat; new shoots grew as old forests burned. Before the plague, the Future Ark Project had already taken shape, and in the deluge, it saved a great many lives.

The colossal floating city—the Future Ark—took root after the waters withdrew, like a steel lotus on land scoured clean by the Plague of Beasts. Humanity’s sheer numbers became countless pairs of hands, rebuilding like ants after rain; the cities hadn’t recovered their old splendor, but the technology leaped a century ahead.

Nations rose again when the plague waned, leaning on these floating cities to forge a new human world.

January 20, 2060

Under a sky hammered by rain, Xie Ye fished out a pack of cigarettes, his fingers trembling like wind-tossed branches. He tapped out a stick, already wet, and clenched it between his teeth. Only then did he remember—on a night like this, no flame would hold. He could only bite down and breathe the bitter paper.

The small motion pressed his palm against his belly. Warm slickness seeped between his fingers like ink through paper. He looked down.

Leaning against the car, he stared at the gaping wound in his abdomen, a red flower torn open. His face, bloodless as paper from the loss, couldn’t even muster a flicker of expression.

He turned his head. A few paces away lay a corpse in black, mangled by the impact, a shadow crushed into meat. Xie Ye’s mouth curled into a reckless grin, bright as a cut in the dark. The smile tugged his flesh; pain knifed through his gut.

He hacked up a mouthful of blood; the burn made his eyes water without permission, rain mixing with tears on his cheeks. He still laughed, a little wild, like a man who’d found a flame in a snowstorm.

On a nearly abandoned highway, one lay dying, one lay ruined, and all of it traced back to one month ago—an urban legend that crawled under the city’s skin and hissed.

December 1, 2060 — Chenghai

Xie Ye slid a processed file into its envelope, sealed it, and locked it in a heavy cabinet that boomed like a drum in a lifeless room. He didn’t flinch; he just ran through his checks like clockwork.

As a government clerk, his life in the floating city differed little from the common crowd—food, clothes, commute, all water under a steady bridge. He traded his labor for a place on the Future Ark. That was the way he chose to live.

If a clerk had any perk, it was the web of faces and favors—a river of contacts running quiet under the road.

He finished his tasks, checked everything twice, then stepped out and locked the archive room door.

“Xie Ye, want a drink tonight?”

He had barely left the building when a voice called from behind, rough and cheerful like a hand clap.

He didn’t need to turn to know who it was—his hearty supervisor, a broad-shouldered old-timer whose laughter filled halls.

Because of that, Xie Ye put on a real smile instead of the lacquered one he wore at work. As a clerk, he’d learned to lay bricks of politeness high, but this man had helped him too much in this floating city for a false face.

“Sorry, boss. The girl’s out of class. I’ve gotta hurry home.”

He scratched his head, sheepish as a boy in the sun.

“That so? Shame. You’ve been grinding hard; don’t burn yourself out. Good clerks don’t grow on trees.”

The old-timer clapped his shoulder. From inside his suit, he palmed a vial, hid the motion like a magician, and slipped it to Xie Ye. The smile on Xie Ye’s face flared brighter, like a lantern catching.

They parted at the curb’s fork. The supervisor crossed to a tavern whose windows glowed like embers. Xie Ye ducked into the bike shed, unchained his bicycle, tossed his backpack into the front basket, pushed off with one foot, and rode toward his apartment, tires whispering on wet stone.

At the base of his building, he locked the bike with the care of a man hiding bread in winter, then stepped into the shed’s restroom. He cupped water and slapped his face, trying to loosen a day’s worth of tight muscles, as if shaking dew from leaves.

He checked his watch. The hands pointed to six. He hurried to practice a passable smile in the mirror, a mask warmed by breath, then walked out toward his unit.

This was ritual, bone-deep. He refused to carry a storm-cloud face into that room. He wouldn’t load his life’s weight onto that thin pair of shoulders.

From the shed’s mouth, he saw her from afar—a girl in a gray sailor uniform. The wind lifted her long hair and hem like reeds in a lake; under the swaying lamplight, she was all the tender blaze of youth.

“Welcome back, brother.”

“Mm. I’m home.”

The usual exchange filled his chest like hot tea on a winter morning, and the day’s fatigue melted like frost in sun.

He cooked, as always, and they ate together, a small island of light on a dark sea. It was the part of the day he savored most.

“Changsheng, here’s this month’s medicine. You must take it on time.”

After dinner, he handed his sister the box while they let the TV mumble in the background. The screen’s glow painted the room like fish scales.

“Brother… again?”

Xie Changsheng took the box in both hands, testing the waters.

“The old-timer helped again. We owe him. You don’t need to pay that back. Otherwise, what’s a brother for?”

He shrugged, playing it light, tossing worry aside like a stone skipped on a pond.

He wouldn’t let her fret. In a home with only two reeds left standing, the elder had to brace the wind.

She said no more, no fuss, just tucked the box away and went to her room to rest. She was a student, after all. It was close to midnight; she couldn’t toss time out the window like he did before a day off.

Bored, Xie Ye flicked through channels, lowering the volume until the TV was just rain on glass. He turned to the regional news. One headline made his willow-leaf brows knit tight, a shadow crossing the moon.

…

December 5, 2060 — 10:00 p.m.

Xie Ye stared, hollow-eyed, at the morgue door in the police station corridor, clutching the medicine like a drowning man clutching driftwood, as if someone might snatch it away.

Hours earlier, when his sister vanished, he had grabbed the box from home and sprinted into the rain, searching every alley and underpass, terrified her illness had dragged her beneath the surface without a sound.

The call from the station smashed his last stray hope like porcelain on stone.

His once-neat suit was smeared with grime; jacket and shirt were soaked through, clinging like wet leaves. The hairstyle he’d fussed over had collapsed into a bird’s nest. Mud on his trouser cuffs told how far he’d run through the storm.

And the answer he received was the one he could least accept, lightning straight to the heart.

The body lying quiet on the cold iron bed was no one else—it was his last blood, his sister.

“Sir, I’m very sorry… We found your sister at the highway entrance. A detective passing by gave us the lead…”

A seasoned detective at his side looked at Xie Ye’s state, shook his head, and lifted him from his knees. He guided him into a small rest room, like a man steering a boat through fog.

“Th… thanks…”

The words came only after a long while, rasped from a throat dry as cracked earth.

“That officer found her. You can ask her the details.”

The old detective patted his shoulder and nodded toward a woman sitting straight-backed nearby, then left with a sigh that hung in the air like mist.

Xie Ye raised his head. The female detective sat there as if carved from still water, maybe a few years older than him, brisk as a blade, a keep-your-distance chill around her.

In her eyes, you could see she wasn’t ordinary.

“Excuse me… can you tell me what happened?”

If a mirror had been in front of him, he would’ve seen how awful his forced smile looked, a crack in a frozen lake.

The detective let out a soft sigh and began to describe what she’d seen, voice steady as rain on eaves.

Outside, the old detective heard Xie Ye finally asking and let himself relax a fraction, like a rope gone slack.

For an elder brother, this kind of blow could break the backbone. He’d seen cases like this—some relatives never climbed back out of the pit.

Hunched in the dim corridor, he thought as he fished out a cigarette, lit it, and drew deep, as if he could pull the storm from his chest with smoke.

“Officer Bai, the task force is waiting for you.”

The reminder came from a junior, quick footsteps tapping like drops on stone.

“Let’s go.”

He ground the butt out on the gritty rim of a trash can. His gaze was calm as a still pond. Few would guess what rough seas he hid beneath.