Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Goldfish Are Not for Eating

Ruin No. 000—the one every archaeologist knows, the one no one has ever entered. The entrance is on Level One. Among archaeologists, they call it the Heavenly Gate. The Heavenly Gate swings wide: boundless, sweeping. Vermilion sprawls vast; flattened stone makes a hall.

“Qian-ge.” Zhao Meiyou signed with his hands. “Is Ruin 000 really that dangerous?”

“Hard to say. But judging by its designation, yes—it’s the most dangerous of the lot,” Qian Duoduo said. “It’s terrifying precisely because no one has been inside. Fear is born of the unknown.”

Freshly awake, brain still foggy, Zhao Meiyou couldn’t shake a snag of logic. He signed, rapid-fire: “Qian-ge, if no one’s ever been inside, how did it get designated 000? How did whoever named it know it’s the most dangerous? Who assigned the numbers in the first place?”

Qian Duoduo shook his head. “No one knows. There are too many loose threads in our line of work.”

He paused. “One theory goes that anyone who enters Ruin 000 is erased from reality. The price is that no one remembers them.”

“Well, then there’s nothing to discuss.” Zhao Meiyou’s hands moved quick. “I’m definitely going with you. Done deal.”

Qian Duoduo said nothing for a long time. At last he squeezed Zhao Meiyou’s hand. “Rest up. We still have time.”

“That’s how it was.”

Zhao Meiyou popped his head up from the bath. “He said, ‘We still have time.’”

“Zhao Meiyou, in both the legal and moral sense I’m a woman who just lost her husband,” Headliner said with a cold little laugh. “You don’t bring funeral gold, fine—but to come to a widow’s door and flaunt your romance—are you even human?”

“Widows draw trouble.” Zhao Meiyou blew bubbles. “Do me a solid and I’ll invite you to the wedding. No need to bring a gift.”

“Here’s a tip: don’t get ahead of yourself,” Headliner said. “Qian Duoduo hasn’t promised you anything.”

“Come on. It’s the twenty-fifth century. The priciest lots at auction are brain slices that have tasted true love.” Zhao Meiyou cocked an eyebrow. “And your attitude? Who was it pestering me the other day—‘How do you trick someone into falling for you?’”

“Then you also know the cheapest thing on the black market is hormones,” Headliner shot back. “You want a fling, be my guest. But listen to me, Zhao Meiyou—no one has a definite answer to anything before death. Don’t get drunk on it.”

“You are absolutely no fun.”

“Desire is boundless, life is not. Chase the infinite with the finite and you’ll come to grief,” Headliner said. “I’m telling you this because your current state may be a ruin aftereffect. Call it the suspension bridge effect or the Romeo-and-Juliet effect—something you hallucinated jolted your brain, your reason hasn’t reset, so you’ve mistaken the feeling for love. Don’t be rash.”

She quoted Shakespeare: “These violent delights have violent ends.”

“Say it in plain language.” Zhao Meiyou scooped a handful of water and flung it at her. “And how do you tell if you’re in reality or a dream?”

“In a dream, you don’t know it’s a dream—you take it for ordinary time.”

“Out.” Zhao Meiyou jabbed a finger at the door. “You can’t play with us illiterates.”

Headliner actually went. Before leaving she looked down at him. “One way or another, someone between us ought to live well. Right now the odds favor you, Zhao Meiyou.”

“Then are you happy?” Zhao Meiyou asked, draped over the rim of the tub.

“My poem is over,” Headliner said, and shut the door. From his angle he could only see her back.

The latch clicked.

“A good ending,” he said.

He sank half his face into the water and stared a rubber duck in the eye.

He was in the washroom. Pipes crowded the tub’s outer wall, part of some circulation system that improved his body inside and out. He’d been soaking on and off for half a month now; the warping from his “transformation” had mostly healed, the pain down to the occasional stab.

Bored out of his skull, he had Headliner scrounge him a player. He wanted to run an experiment.

He wanted to recreate what he’d seen in the dream—a drowned orchestra singing under water.

The device shorted out after a few dunks. Headliner wasn’t about to throw more money at him, so he brought him a music box instead, hand-cranked, at least it wouldn’t electrocute him.

He flopped back. The waterline drifted up. He kept his eyes open. The music box floated above him, metal and wood sinking into the deep blue. The pitch sagged out of tune. Iron met water and oxidized; fungi worried lignin to pulp. You could almost watch it rust and rot.

He didn’t know how long he soaked. The spring wound low. Then a pair of hands split the surface and hauled him up, and a big bath towel swallowed him whole.

Qian Duoduo.

“Qian-ge, you’re back?”

“How many times, Zhao Meiyou—don’t chase the asphyxiation response.” Qian Duoduo frowned. “Are you hooked?”

Zhao Meiyou wanted to explain, but the dream was too slippery. In the end he said, “Qian-ge, my lung capacity is stellar. I’m not going to suffocate.”

Then he noticed the plastic bag in Qian Duoduo’s hand. “You bought fish?”

Qian Duoduo’s last attempt at fish soup had detonated Zhao Meiyou’s worldview; he’d never imagined anyone could desecrate ingredients so thoroughly. He’d boasted that once he was better, he’d cook himself.

Qian Duoduo clearly wasn’t about to save face. The bag held a sack of goldfish.

“Qian-ge,” Zhao Meiyou said sincerely. “Goldfish are not for eating.”

“I know. I bought them to look at.” Qian Duoduo seemed troubled. Not reassured, he asked again, “You’re sure you’re not addicted to asphyxiation?”

You could hardly blame him for jumping at shadows. Too many archaeologists went off the deep end—especially odd specimens like Zhao Meiyou.

“Really not, Qian-ge.” Zhao Meiyou smiled. “I’m a doctor—I can tell the difference.”

“I hear residents of Level 33 prefer calling you a butcher,” Qian Duoduo said dryly.

“Just a joke,” Zhao Meiyou said breezily. “Really, Qian-ge—my lungs are great. I never choke on—”

Qian Duoduo stepped forward, leather shoes into the tub. He seized Zhao Meiyou’s shoulder and yanked him close. Both of them went under.

Deep blue. Bubbles racing up. Zhao Meiyou’s eyes flew wide as Qian Duoduo leaned in, forced his lips open.

The plastic bag fell. The music box warbled. Goldfish thumped across the floor.

Was it a kiss? Impossible to say. It was short and also endless. Qian Duoduo pried his mouth and poured the briny reek down his throat. Zhao Meiyou choked until his head rang. He couldn’t tear free. Drowning and hypoxia slammed him, the music box dissolved into the water, and the music rode the liquid into his blood and sang inside him—

He burst up, clung to the rim, and dry-heaved.

Qian Duoduo wiped a hand down his face, as if willing to accept Zhao Meiyou’s claim. He nodded, then staggered to the sink. He’d swallowed more bath fluid than Zhao Meiyou; he bent over and retched, and even spat up a small goldfish.

Zhao Meiyou had never seen such a kill-one-thousand-lose-eight-hundred tactic. He recovered first. “Cough—Qian-ge, I—”

Qian Duoduo turned on the tap, splashed his face, and looked over. “So. How’s choking feel?”

It was a violent method—not even a method, really. But Zhao Meiyou knew that for a while, every time he tried to sink his head under, he’d flash on the choking and the retching.

He raised both hands in surrender. “I won’t do it again.”

But, Qian-ge, he thought.

How do you know I won’t be thinking about your mouth instead?

Qian Duoduo read him like a billboard. “If you want to kiss me, come kiss me. Don’t get off in the water. Coward.”

“...” Zhao Meiyou surrendered again.

This time he meant it.

There was fish in the freezer. Qian Duoduo poured the new goldfish into the tank. Zhao Meiyou went to the kitchen to prep the fresh stuff. The safe house had been Headliner and her husband’s place; the kitchen was well-stocked. He even found a built-in antique oven with a brass door—an old man’s taste, probably, and not easy to work. Clearly the previous owner had known his way around a stove.

He stared at it, decided against it, and went with fish soup.

Bird’s-eye chilies, cherry peppers, green and red chilies, green Sichuan peppercorns—into hot oil to bloom, blistered to tiger skin, then strained. Water for a base. The vegetables were fresh from the Middle District, glossy and tender. On the cutting board the riot of peppers lost their heads; rich juice welled from their wounds, and the kitchen soaked in wet, verdant heat.

He cranked the flame high. The aggressive perfume of chilies went feral. Once it rolled with oil and water, the scent became an animal coupling.

Headliner poked in, seemed about to say something, coughed, and fled. Qian Duoduo saw her emerging and asked, “What’s Zhao Meiyou doing?”

“A ritual!” Headliner said, pinching her nose.

The fish thawed. He crosshatched and salted it, ginger for the funk. Chili oil into the water for the broth, mushrooms blanched to line the bowl, fish last; don’t let it boil—let it smolder.

He dug out a clay pot. When the soup was ready, he decanted it. The kitchen door swung wide. He knew those footsteps. He held out a tasting spoon. “Qian-ge, want to check the salt?”

The spoon pinged off a gas mask.

“...Qian-ge, what are you doing?”

Through the mask his voice was muffled. “Whoever you want to kill, just tell me. You don’t need to go to the trouble of brewing poison.”

“Frying chilies can be a bit rough—same as a slow-burn romance. Once it’s cooked down, it’s fine.” Zhao Meiyou hooked the spoon back and tasted it himself. “This is peppercorn fish soup. No lie—smells amazing.”

Qian Duoduo counted down three, two, one. Seconds passed. Zhao Meiyou was still upright. Qian Duoduo hesitated, took off the mask, and licked the spoon.

“Well?” Zhao Meiyou asked, beaming. “Well?”

“...I’m claiming the pot.” Qian Duoduo tapped the clay jar. “Make another. Also, Young Master Liu was trying to tell you—there’s a dinner tonight.”

Zhao Meiyou ladled him a bowl. “Dinner?”

Qian Duoduo waved it off and lifted the pot itself. “A few colleagues we know. Trustworthy.”

So an archaeologists’ gathering, then.

Headliner’s safe house sat in the Middle District. The sun slid down. A food-zeppelin cruised past the window. The server wore hover-skates and pitched from midair, holding up a red-and-yellow menu—burgers and Saltwater Cola.

M-brand fast food, Saltwater Cola, and Marlboro cigarettes were the three cultural relics that Megalopolis protected most fiercely. They said only those three still matched their centuries-old formulas exactly. In the distance the giant Buddha of Light came on—the earliest of the Megalopolis cultural architecture projects to be completed—its gilded body rising a hundred and forty-nine levels, lighting half the Middle District at night.

Sunset melted to gold. The walls shimmered like water.

First to arrive was a middle-aged man in a suit with a briefcase and a thermos, fresh from work. Then a pair of twins in school uniforms. Then an androgynous youth with a transparent oxygen tank—more a micro-terrarium—full of flowers and butterflies.

He—or she—wore a breathing mask, face hidden. A ruin aftereffect, they said: unable to breathe the air of reality.

Qian Duoduo’s “a few colleagues” turned out to be well over ten. An operatic diva. A boy in a wheelchair with an IV. A stunning woman, too beautiful to look real. A pair of siblings—beggars or robbers—who raided the pantry the instant they arrived, took the fridge, too, loaded it onto a dolly. Possibly a philosopher. In the washroom, Zhao Meiyou found they’d occupied the tub, smoking and rattling pill bottles like dice. In all, around twenty. One showed up in pajamas with a sleeping bag, lay down in the hall, and went out cold, unfazed as several people stepped on him.

Headliner ordered a mountain of takeout. The air thickened with fried chicken and hot sauce. She told Zhao Meiyou to throw together a few quick dishes and carried plates herself, and the chili sting in the kitchen slowly eased. A guest dropped a cooler of ingredients at the door; inside was a blue-green fungus.

“One look and—don’t eat that,” Zhao Meiyou said.

“Why not?” asked the masked youth. “It’s pricey. The lab can only cultivate a few dozen kilos a year.”

“Then you should visit below Level Twenty. It grows everywhere down there, and it’s free,” Zhao Meiyou said. “The tribes use it for poison.”

“With careful processing it’s edible,” Headliner said, coming up. “Your cue to get inventive, Zhao Meiyou. Turn it into food.”

“It’s hallucinogenic,” Zhao Meiyou said. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll trash your place after they eat it?”

Headliner shrugged. “They do that when they’re drunk anyway.”

By the time the food hit the table, the living room had broken into song. Zhao Meiyou glanced down from the stairs. The civil servant opened Headliner’s cabinet like a regular and started building a champagne tower. The robber siblings tried to steal the boy’s IV stand; when he failed to refuse politely, he stood, swung the wheelchair, and chased them, flattening a table and a spray of shattering glass.

Some guests looked ageless. Headliner gave him a trick. “If they look normal, they’re either minors or middle-aged. If they look a little short on brain stem, they’re usually in their twenties.”

“Why?” Zhao Meiyou asked.

“Teenagers are eager to grow up; they fake maturity. Middle-aged people want to be young; they fake nonchalance. Only the young are stuck in between, liquid, courting death,” Headliner snorted. “Survey this room and half of them should be inpatient.”

That was it—the déjà vu finally slotted into place.

Like a psychiatric ward in the wild.

Qian Duoduo was nowhere to be seen, last to appear in the living room. When he walked in, the noise switched off. The archaeologists, radar-precise, all looked at him, then together turned their heads toward Zhao Meiyou peeking from the second floor.

A hard-to-name feeling seized him. He had never feared being watched, even by snakes. But all these not-quite-hostile eyes, strung between him and Qian Duoduo like an invisible net—it was a soft blade opening the chest, butterflies pouring out, your gaudy, grand, wishful dream exposed to the world.

Scalding broth over snow. Guts on display.

The twins spoke first. The older smiled; the younger held out a hand to Qian Duoduo. “Where’s the candy?”

Qian Duoduo lowered his eyes. “Candy?”

“In times like this, you’re supposed to give us candy,” they said together.

“He is,” the civil servant agreed, nudging his glasses. “And by the way, we can settle the pool.”

“What pool?” Zhao Meiyou murmured to Headliner.

“What do you think?” Headliner rolled her eyes. “How long he’d stay single.”

There was no point pretending. Tonight’s guests were clearly Qian Duoduo’s old hands, some of them Headliner’s as well. They drank and ate like starved ghosts, shot blessing after blessing—some so slurred they sounded like curses—at Zhao Meiyou and Qian Duoduo.

Unexpectedly and not, Zhao Meiyou fell in as if he’d known them forever. The trick was simple: throw out social etiquette. The people you’re with are drunks, maniacs, madmen, and children. Their fingers blue-stained from fungi, they chatted, spat grape skins, went to heaven or hell.

The diva covered Zhao Meiyou in lipstick prints. He tried to flee; she had the strength of a dockworker. Qian Duoduo finally pulled him free with a sigh. “I owe her.”

“May I ask why?”

“Long ago, I came out of a ruin and caused an accident that ruined a major performance,” Qian Duoduo said. “She was in the middle of a song then. ‘Ten Thousand Kisses Tonight.’”

Zhao Meiyou laughed. “I definitely don’t have ten thousand on me.”

He held out both hands. “Want to make up the difference, Qian-ge?”

He didn’t know how much time passed before the boy with the IV came by and handed him a tin of ointment.

“What’s this?” Zhao Meiyou asked.

“Nanofused molecules—instant relief for mouth ulcers,” the boy said, eyes flicking between the two of them. “In case you kiss your mouths raw.”

When he left, Zhao Meiyou said to Qian Duoduo, “I’m curious. What’s the IV for?” The kid didn’t look like he needed treatment.

“He ate the wrong thing in Ruin S18. Now his quantum content runs too high, and his life force is unstable,” Qian Duoduo said. “He might die in the next second. Or live forever.”

“How long’s he lived?” Zhao Meiyou asked, watching the boy’s back.

“He was friends with Young Master Liu’s husband,” Qian Duoduo said. “The IV fluid lowers his quantum threshold.”

“So it’s not a life extender.”

“It is,” Qian Duoduo said, nodding. “It accelerates his death.”

The oxygen youth cracked a butterfly chrysalis from the tank. Headliner opened a bottle of mezcal. Salt, lime, pupa, and liquor went together, and they found the sleeper under the stairs and poured it all into the sleepwalker’s mouth.

“His ability is called Specimen,” Qian Duoduo explained. “He can record everything that happens in reality and replay it inside a ruin.”

“When does he wake up?” Zhao Meiyou asked.

“That, my friend, is an unsolved mystery,” the oxygen youth said, shrugging. “In Megalopolis he looks more like he’s sleepwalking. Maybe the ruins are his reality. Who knows.”

Bitter is the short day; long is the good night. Light flies, light flies— Drink, and let your brow live long, your face stay fair.

By the second half of the night, the place had gone to hell. Maybe it was the blue-bruising mushrooms; the guests burst into song and dance. Somebody crawled on the floor. Headliner sat on the couch with a hookah; the smoke drifted up like a blurred sigh—melancholy, rapture. The fridge door hung open. Cans spewed like puke across the tiles. The drunk filled the tub with ice and climbed in, hand sunk wrist-deep into a bucket of ice cream. Bright cold light shattered across the floor, slicing the madness to shards.

Zhao Meiyou and Qian Duoduo climbed to the roof and looked toward the far-off Buddha, haloed in lamps.

Qian Duoduo brought up a clay pot—Zhao Meiyou’s fish soup. “Saved you a little.”

Zhao Meiyou took it and drank deep. He was starving; besides the alcohol, his stomach was empty. “Qian-ge, what’s the occasion, exactly?”

“A send-off,” Qian Duoduo said. “They know we’re going to Ruin 000.”

It was the phrasing that made Zhao Meiyou smile in the dark.

“Your body’s mostly fine now. If we’re going, we go fast,” Qian Duoduo said. “Everything’s set. We leave at dawn.”

“So soon?”

“Four hours till sunrise.” Qian Duoduo checked the time. “You’ve got four hours, Zhao Meiyou. Anything you want to do?”

Looking at Qian Duoduo, a sudden familiarity rose up in Zhao Meiyou. He thought of his mother. Before she wedded herself to dawn, she’d asked him the same thing—Anything you want to do?

He looked out at the bottomless towers of the Middle District. She hadn’t waited for an answer. She’d jumped.

A jump, too, is a grand departure.

In the end, he said this:

“I want to watch the sunrise with you, Qian-ge.”