Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Madame Butterfly

They hit ruin after ruin, the train idling now and then so they could picnic along the star road. It turned out the Presence wasn’t only at the edge of the universe. Drifting past a nebula spread wide as an ocean, Zhao Meiyou saw giants standing around it.

They kept their heads bowed, deaf to everything else, staring into the nebula as if peering at the sea in a petri dish.

Human language only allowed “giants” for creatures like that. Myth might have supplied better words—Pangu, centaurs, hive-born—if only Zhao Meiyou weren’t illiterate and unable to summon scripture on cue.

He studied the distant figures. At that scale, a cosmic being really could split the firmament between stars with an axe. “What are they doing?”

“Making soup,” Qian Duoduo said.

“Soup?” Zhao Meiyou frowned. “What kind of soup?”

“Primordial.”

Primordial soup—in Earthly parlance, a biologist’s guess at how life begins. At the dawn of history, Earth was swaddled in a primeval ocean. Within it, inorganic molecules reacted until chemistry became the first spark of life.

That viscous, organic broth: the “primordial soup.”

“I see.” Zhao Meiyou considered it. “And once the soup’s done, what’s it for?”

“To drink, of course.”

Starlight drifted through the carriage in scattered threads. The air seemed thick, almost liquid. Then, out of nowhere, Qian Duoduo asked, “Have you read the Classic of Mountains and Seas?”

“What’s that?”

“A classic among archaeologists—records left by some of the earliest of us. The leading figures in that first generation mostly had Old Eastern blood. They tried something interesting: reading the ruins through chapters of the Classic of Mountains and Seas. They left lines that still carry an odd weight.”

He recited: “In the wilds of the Great Remnant, at the brink of the abyss, Di Jun has sons, who wait to eat the sun and moon.”

As if expecting Zhao Meiyou not to follow, he added, “A second-generation archaeologist of Old England descent spent decades on the Classic of Mountains and Seas. In Old Eastern legend, Di Jun is a sky god—and a giant. He argued that ‘Di Jun’s sons’ refers to them. There’s a line in that Old Englander’s last manuscript, famous in the field. Many think it’s the key to the Classic of Mountains and Seas’ ‘Great Remnant’ chapter.”

Watching the giants dwindle in the star-sown dark, Qian Duoduo said slowly, “At the lip of the abyss, the giants wait for supper.”

“Well then.” Zhao Meiyou thought of their bent heads and fixed stares. “No wonder. When I’m starving, I look just like that, hovering over the stove waiting for the pot to boil.”

The train kept on. According to Qian Duoduo, the Rum Tunnel connected most ruins.

“I don’t have a home court,” he said. “I can adapt to any ruin. We’ve had others like that before—wandering from ruin to ruin. We called them troubadours.”

Given who Qian Duoduo worked for, Zhao Meiyou could picture the job—oversight, rescue. No home court made sense.

They passed more ruins. Sometimes the train stopped and Qian Duoduo hustled him through, speedrunning with a guidebook in hand. Ruins took all shapes: a planet-sized library; a derelict station; a civilization locked in a single battle; a gallery without end. They rolled past a ruin that was essentially a bathhouse: archaeologists soaking with fishbowl oxygen domes on their heads; someone getting a scrub; the master sloshing hot water from a wooden bucket onto a plastic table, then swaddling the client in cling film. The line held both humans and things that weren’t. Zhao Meiyou watched a mermaid on a mat, the scales she shed glistening like crystal. In the sauna a blind octopus sat with a two-string fiddle, sawing out a tune and singing to itself.

In the end, Qian Duoduo had to drag a drooling Zhao Meiyou away.

Back on the train, he said, “Your nerves are very good for a rookie.”

“Hardly.” Zhao Meiyou waved it off. “People live on food, that’s all. At times, the oldest hungers block the rungs of reason. But faced with the unknown, they’re the very thing that beats back fear. Whatever you are, step one is whether you’re edible.”

Time inside the Rum Tunnel slipped and doubled. They saw dozens of ruins. Zhao Meiyou wasn’t remotely tired; Qian Duoduo, though, seemed a little drowsy. He rubbed his temples. “One more ruin, then we call it…”

He didn’t finish. A phone rang in the carriage.

Qian Duoduo snapped his fingers. A floating panel blinked up between them, the picture so fuzzy it barely resolved into a human silhouette.

The silhouette spoke. “Citizens Qian Duoduo, Zhao Meiyou—this is an emergency rescue order.”

“Declined,” Qian Duoduo said. “I’m tired. No overtime.”

That took Zhao Meiyou aback. Wasn’t Qian Duoduo a government archaeologist? And this era still had payroll drones with the guts to refuse overtime?

The shadow buffered for a beat. “…This mission is urgent. The government will pay double.”

“Triple.”

“…Approved. Proceed at once to Ruin S86.”

Anything with an S rating wasn’t exactly safe. Qian Duoduo looked at Zhao Meiyou. “Want to go? It’s not as high as S45, but S86 has claimed plenty of people.”

“Four times,” Zhao Meiyou said.

“…Three and a half. Take it or leave it.”

Zhao Meiyou reclined in his seat and nodded. “Then let’s go.”

Like Ruin S45, S86 wasn’t plotted in the Rum Tunnel’s coordinates. They had to return to reality and enter from a Megalopolis waypoint. En route, Qian Duoduo gave him the gist. “S86 is unusual. It has a fixed keeper—not an archaeologist, but a life born of the ruin itself.”

“There are plenty of autonomous lifeforms in other ruins, aren’t there?” Zhao Meiyou asked.

“Others aren’t fixed. They’re more like something out of Creation. Think of it this way: if an archaeologist chooses a home court and goes deep, bit by bit their mind couples with the ruin. Over time, even without Creation, they’ll reshape the place without noticing. Like Diao Chan.” He paused. “He and S45 are a textbook case.”

Zhao Meiyou said he followed.

“But S86 doesn’t have a fixed archaeologist, and not because it’s too dangerous.” Qian Duoduo glanced at him. “Because this ruin has its own native keeper.”

“So the ruin is its own master? It gestated a lifeform that remodels it?” He had a flash. “It has a brain? It’s alive?”

“You catch on fast.” Qian Duoduo sounded relieved he didn’t have to keep explaining. “S86’s visible face is a grand estate. The lady of the house lives there. She’s the keeper.”

“Lady of the house? What do we call her?” Zhao Meiyou seemed to think of something and chuckled under his breath. “Madam?”

“Before that, one thing.” Qian Duoduo met his eye. “Word is the keeper of S86 isn’t a native lifeform at all, but an archaeologist the ruin swallowed. The facts are sealed. Years have passed. All we have is shop talk and rumour.”

They traded a look. Zhao Meiyou smiled. “You don’t know either, Qian Duoduo-ge?”

Qian Duoduo was quiet a long time before saying softly, “I’m not entirely my own man.”

“Understood.” Zhao Meiyou nodded, still smiling. “So then, what do we call the lady?”

They had returned to reality, taking a suspended car up to the Upper District. S86 had a theatrical entrance. Qian Duoduo led him into an East-tinged tavern and then into a private room. Water ran somewhere in the hall. From bamboo came the thunk of a hollow tube tapping rock—the sudden startle of a deer.

Screens slid aside, one by one. A woman sat opposite them, face powdered white. She bowed and plucked a string.

The first line rose, and Qian Duoduo answered the question he had left hanging. “Puccini, an old Italian, once heard a music box at a friend’s place—full of Eastern folk tunes. He took the melodies and wove them into his operas. This song is one of them.”

“I… look, I’m not educated.” Zhao Meiyou tipped his chin at the singer. “Brother, you know she’s doing the Eighteen Touches, right?”

“I know.” Qian Duoduo’s face didn’t flicker. “And I’m sure when Puccini wrote One Fine Day, he knew exactly what he was writing.”

“One Fine Day?”

“An aria from one of Puccini’s big three. Which answers your question about the lady’s name.”

“Madame Butterfly.”

When the song ended, a clean rupture took hold. They were inside the manor Qian Duoduo had described.

The layout echoed the tavern outside: a heavy Eastern aesthetic, paper doors painted with lush evening cherry. Qian Duoduo scanned the room. “The plan’s changed.”

Zhao Meiyou glanced over. “Qian Duoduo-ge?”

“The wind smells wrong.” Qian Duoduo shut his eyes and opened them again. “Change,” he said suddenly.

“Into what?”

“Anything. Use your shapeshift. Quickly.”

Zhao Meiyou swore he pushed with all the effort of a bout of constipation, but it was like a vein had clogged. He opened his eyes, still himself.

As if he’d expected it, Qian Duoduo frowned and took Zhao Meiyou’s hand. “It might be dangerous outside. Don’t get separated.”

He slid the door open.

Beyond lay corridors without end.

They stood inside a colossal lightwell. Staircases spiralled through the vertical space by the thousand, crisscrossing in all directions. Some bloomed with cherry trees. Water streamed down others. Some broke off midair, long moss trailing from the torn mouths like the rusted tongue of a woman.

The geometry made Zhao Meiyou’s head swim—a vertical kaleidoscope, Penrose stairs knotted into a Möbius strip. “Qian Duoduo-ge, was it like this last time?”

“No. This is classic ruin chaos. Someone from outside wrecked the place.” Qian Duoduo swung him up onto his shoulder. “Hold tight. Too many stairs to take them one by one.”

He sprinted and jumped, dropping toward the bottommost tier.

Wind roared past. “What’s chaos?” Zhao Meiyou shouted.

“Last time, the house was orderly. No labyrinth of stairs. Just a normal Eastern mansion. When you called Diao Chan out in S45, every lifeform in there turned on us at once. That was chaos.”

“So somebody did something to the lady here—made her snap? Madam Butterfly?” Zhao Meiyou asked.

“Could be.” Qian Duoduo snapped his fingers. “Wind.”

Currents gathered under their feet. Maybe it was his imagination, but the wind seemed weaker. Still, it was enough to set them down.

“Wait—Qian Duoduo-ge, how come your power still works?”

“Because I’m very good.” His tone was flat. “But it’s been cut, too—someone’s here.”

“Right. Being carried upside down, Zhao Meiyou patted his thigh. “Hey, Qian Duoduo-ge, negotiation. This position’s digging into my ribs. Hurts. Can we switch to a bridal carry?”

Qian Duoduo paused—and actually obliged, scooping him up.

In the gummy dark, a goldfish lantern blinked on.

Qian Duoduo kicked.

“Oww—don’t don’t don’t! Friend! I’m a friend!”

He didn’t stop, boot pinning the speaker. “Codename?”

“Koi. Codename Koi!” A man’s voice. “You’re here to rescue me, right? I’ve been stuck here forever!”

Koi. Zhao Meiyou had seen that name on the briefing.

Qian Duoduo lifted his foot. “What was the ruin like when you arrived?”

“Normal! A gorgeous house. A lady of rank invited me to dinner…”

The way Koi rambled had that asylum familiarity—half-mad babble you had to stitch together for meaning. He spilled the whole path of his exploration. Finally: “When I was about to leave, the door was just—gone! And the lady vanished too!”

“And then you were trapped here?” Qian Duoduo asked.

“Yes, and then the lady—she seemed to go crazy, just like that!”

Koi still sounded rattled. “I don’t know how long I’ve been stuck. No exit. No people. I got so tired I curled up in a hidden loft to sleep a bit, and then she appeared. I thought she was here to save me—but she set the bed curtains on fire. Laughing. She tried to kill me!”

“Have you seen her since?” Qian Duoduo asked.

“The last time—no idea when, I’ve lost all sense of time—she changed again. Got… wrong. And she said—she said she was going to kill our child.”

“Child? What child?” Zhao Meiyou blinked. “Your child?”

“Zhao Meiyou.” Qian Duoduo’s voice cut in. “Down. My arms are numb.”

Zhao Meiyou had been perfectly content being carried, even adjusted for comfort. He hopped down, regretful, as Qian Duoduo took out one of his “cigarettes” and offered Koi one. “You’ve had a time. Take the edge off.”

“Thanks, thanks—” Koi lifted it to his lips, and in the next second Qian Duoduo plucked it back, lit it, and drew once.

Zhao Meiyou could guess what he was doing—borrowing cigarettes. One drag to steal a person’s knack.

Qian Duoduo didn’t smoke. He tapped ash and set it aside, giving Koi’s shoulder a light pat. “It’s all right. We’re here to get you out.”

“R-really?” Koi stammered thanks. “Thank you, thank you. I think I’ve been here for so, so long…”

“Head that way.” Qian Duoduo pointed into the dark. “The exit’s over there. Count to ten thousand. You’ll hit it.”

“Can’t you come with me?”

“We need to deal with the lady. Or stick with us and we’ll all leave together.”

Koi flinched. The lady terrified him. “N-no, I’ll go. I’ll go now. I’ll leave it to you!”

They watched the goldfish lantern recede.

“Qian Duoduo-ge, you’re good at calming people,” Zhao Meiyou said. “Who knew.”

“That exit is fake.”

“Needs of the mission.” Qian Duoduo’s voice returned to flat. “He’s beyond saving. The sooner he’s gone, the better.”

“How do you know?”

“The child he mentioned. It’s probably the one he had with Madam Butterfly.”

“Oh, come on.”

“You know what the opera’s about?” Qian Duoduo angled away, and Zhao Meiyou fell in at his shoulder. “An American naval officer marries a Japanese wife—Madam Butterfly. When she gets pregnant, he decides to go home. He promises to return soon. She bears a son, and what she gets is abandonment.”

“Oh.” Zhao Meiyou let out a sound. “So in the end she cuts his head off with a sword?”

“The ending is abandonment. Don’t expect too much from old opera. The officer marries an American and comes back to Japan to take his son. Butterfly refuses to face it. She blindfolds the child and kills herself.”

“What a waste.” Zhao Meiyou had nothing to add.

“The lady of S86 is Madam Butterfly. The first time I came here, everything ran on the opera’s script. She was waiting for her husband. Every time a guest arrived, she asked: ‘Are you my husband?’”

“What happens if you say yes?”

“She’s overjoyed. Best porcelain. Tucks you into bed. And then you never leave.”

“Meaning you play husband forever? What are we, five?”

“Hardly. Becoming her husband is only step one. Then she gets pregnant and, like a mantis, eats her mate. But you don’t die. When she gives birth, she births you again.”

“…Well, that’s spicy.”

“Koi, our friend—he ran through the whole routine. When I borrowed his smoke, I got nothing. He’s already been dissolved into this place.”

“Then why kill him?”

“Because he’s not the husband anymore. He’s the son.”

“So the mother, to avenge her faithless man, kills the boy?”

“Right. The keeper of S86 shifts roles as the ruin shifts. Receiving guests, she’s Madam Butterfly. Pregnant, she’s the madwoman in the attic. After birth, when the cad won’t return, she turns into Medea.”

“Medea—Jason’s wife, who, betrayed, killed her own sons.”

“So why did Koi let himself get seduced?” Zhao Meiyou couldn’t fathom it. “Death wish?”

“That’s the risk here. Very few can resist her. S86 requires absurd mental discipline.”

“So how did you resist, Qian Duoduo-ge?”

“I told her I like men. In early Japan they were prissy about such things. She kicked me out without even dinner.”

“Fuck—genius.”

They’d been walking who knew how long when a thin, far-off scream scraped the air behind them, followed by the click of teeth worrying meat.

Qian Duoduo’s scan had pointed Koi that way—straight into Madam Butterfly’s arms.

“Tough cut, sounded stringy,” Zhao Meiyou said, listening. “Then, if he can’t be saved, how do we get out?”

“Something’s off.” Qian Duoduo took a sharp turn up a set of steep stairs, fast as a sprint. “Normally anyone coming into S86 has done their homework. Even if they slip, the government wouldn’t wait this long to issue a rescue call—”

“Maybe the earlier rescue died too?” Zhao Meiyou said. “Powers don’t work in here. Not everyone’s as strong as you.”

“If someone had gone down, I’d have heard it on the wind—” Qian Duoduo stopped.

“Qian Duoduo-ge?”

He was silent, thinking.

They halted on a long, narrow staircase. Then he said, barely above a whisper, “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I’ve been preparing to explore a very particular ruin. I may have spooked the Megalopolis government. There are very few scenarios where an archaeologist loses access to their abilities inside a ruin. One of them is when the government seals the place from the outside.”

There were more unsaid things, but Zhao Meiyou understood. Like with dogs and owners—when a subordinate becomes an unknown quantity, the fastest fix is a quiet cull.

He didn’t add the other thought: maybe it wasn’t about Qian Duoduo at all. Maybe they were aiming at him and Diao Chan.

And if Diao Chan’s sealed and can’t use his power, what then?

“S86 is a natural abattoir. No one’s home court. Without Madam Butterfly’s leave, we don’t leave.”

“What if we kill her?”

“Worse. S86 is built oddly. Lose its native keeper and it seals itself, inside out.”

“Reason with her?”

“There’s no reason left once she’s Medea. Koi may have been bait. A sacrifice to set the trap. Good plan, from their point of view.”

“Don’t overthink it, Qian Duoduo-ge.” Zhao Meiyou stepped up and clapped his shoulder. “Maybe it’s killing two birds. People who can’t keep it in their pants offend the state sooner or later.”

He wasn’t anxious. He watched Qian Duoduo draw conclusions of his own. Partly, yes, the man was strong; force was the final truth. But also: his own history felt off.

Lower District instincts, maybe. Hospitality too warm always meant a trap. Qian Duoduo was kind to him—suspiciously kind. Was guilt over S45 enough to get a man to this pitch?

Qian Duoduo didn’t even know what he and Diao Chan had done in there, and volunteered himself as guide. Fine, maybe the undying bug made it make sense. Still—his gut told him this man was performing for him. Saying with every move: You can trust me. Go on. Hand it over.

Yes, Zhao Meiyou had his own designs. Yes, he and Diao Chan were plotting. Yes, he and Qian Duoduo were using each other. But even so, something wasn’t right. If this were truly a guide, Headliner’s style—throw you in a ruin and leave you to fend—was what he knew. Maybe he was just a wild boar who couldn’t stomach fine feed.

Either way, he decided to keep a sliver of suspicion. Anyone who appears at every perfect moment and ticks every box of your taste—why? Look in a mirror. Who in this economy deserves a windfall from the sky?

More likely, the other side’s scheming too.

At ease, Zhao Meiyou thought to himself. Let’s see what you do next.

And there was a crack already. If Qian Duoduo knew each turn of Madam Butterfly’s metamorphosis, then someone had lived it and told the tale. So how did the first one get out?

We just copy their homework. If Qian Duoduo didn’t say, that meant something.

While his mind was staging a full opera, Qian Duoduo said, “…There is a way out.”

“Oh? You’re really going to tell me?”

“But it’s… particular.”

“There we go. Lay it out. Tell me how you plan to use me. I’ll consider it.”

“There was a pair who escaped S86. A husband and wife. The husband got seduced. Only the wife made it out.” Qian Duoduo paused. “The wife was pregnant.”

“Pregnant?”

“S86 runs on the logic of the opera. The premise is that only the keeper—Madam Butterfly—can bear a son. ‘Gestation’ is the root of her authority. During the female archaeologist’s labour, the ruin briefly mistook her for the keeper, and she had the power to open the door.”

“So…?”

“So.” Qian Duoduo drew a breath. “Zhao Meiyou, you really can’t use your shapeshift?”

He felt himself try a hundred forms in a handful of seconds. Then, with difficulty: “…No.”

“We’re not likely to find a woman in here.” Qian Duoduo snapped his fingers. He used Creation to fashion a person—a woman—who right now was an ugly in-between. She sloughed apart and puddled into slime.

Zhao Meiyou thought he heard him mutter, “Fuck.”

Fair enough. He’d swear too. If this was a play, the sacrifice was a bit much. Surely the heavens weren’t hinting at that—no way, Qian Duoduo-ge, say something—

Qian Duoduo snapped his fingers.

He turned into a woman.

“Given what I can do right now, this is the limit.” In his eyes, Zhao Meiyou saw something like a march to the gallows. “You heard everything. Our one way out is to get a woman pregnant, steal the keeper’s authority, and open the door. Do you understand me?”

It was like a volcano blew; the green algae in a long-neglected goldfish bowl burst into bloom; flower snails ganged up on blue-bruising mushrooms; a comet exploded a second ago—everything reeled. All his earlier deductions collapsed in a heap.

He stayed quiet a long time. Then, at last:

“So, uh, I don’t know how to deliver a baby.”

“And?”

“…But I did learn postnatal care for sows.”