Chapter 8
Chapter 8: Fly Me to the Moon
Before Zhao Meiyou stepped into Ruin A173, he left a message at the theatre. No matter who came looking for the headliner that day—or if the headliner himself showed up—the response was the same: "Don’t bother looking. Boss Liu left word that he won’t be in Level 33 today!"
Someone like Diao Chan would take those words at face value. The headliner, though, would immediately grasp the hidden clue Zhao Meiyou had left for him—stay out of Level 33.
Other than Level 33, there was only one possible destination for the headliner—the place Zhao Meiyou truly wanted him to go.
Ruin A173.
I’ve got to admit, I never expected it to come to this, Zhao Meiyou thought to himself.
After all, he didn’t really know the headliner’s husband. The old man was someone from the ruins, and trust was not something Zhao Meiyou could freely give. The message was a last-ditch safeguard—if he ended up dead, at least someone would know where to retrieve the body.
But the truth of the matter turned out to be far more explosive than he’d imagined. Zhao Meiyou stared at the young man in the room. The youth seemed momentarily disoriented, but after a moment, he snapped back to attention. “What have you done, sir?” he asked.
The old man’s smile was tinged with resignation, but his resolve was firm. “Qijue, this dream of yours needs to end.”
The boy wiped his face and took a deep breath. “I refuse.” Then, from who-knows-where, he produced a pure white mask and slipped it on. Crisp and decisive, he uttered a single word: “Dragon.”
Coloured dragon patterns flared to life across the blank mask, and in an instant, the boy transformed into a massive dragon. With a roar, he lunged at Zhao Meiyou, making it abundantly clear he intended to fight to the bitter end. The headliner’s expression changed in an instant; he shoved Zhao Meiyou aside. “Run!”
Zhao Meiyou stared at the boy-turned-dragon and thought to himself that the kid’s head might not be screwed on right. With mental illnesses, there was always something new to see.
He wanted to say more, but the situation unfolding before him was already far from simple. Well, on the surface, it was already ridiculously complex, but there was something about watching it from the sidelines—it gave you a better vantage point to see through the fog than those trapped in the thick of it.
“Please come with me,” the old man instructed, leaving no room for argument as he whisked Zhao Meiyou away. The manor was on the verge of collapse. They got into a carriage and sped towards a tunnel. Zhao Meiyou still had a cigarette hanging from his lips, now reduced to a mere stub in the howling wind. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“At my age, reasons cease to matter for a lot of things,” the old man replied. He pressed down on the accelerator, and the car surged to an unprecedented speed. In that moment, he didn’t look much like an old man at all. The wind whipped through his white hair, revealing a pair of calm and composed eyes. Even at this breakneck, life-threatening pace, he took one hand off the wheel to light himself a cigar.
By the time they finally escaped the chaos of the riotous space, the scenery around them had returned to a flurry of static white noise. Zhao Meiyou was left without even the stub of a cigarette, his face battered in dust from the gale, coughing uncontrollably as he slumped against the window.
"That's why pomade's a fine thing, though young folks these days don't seem to fancy it," the old man said, biting down on his cigar as he handed over a glass bottle. Zhao Meiyou took it, the familiar scent of elm wood rising to meet him.
The old man exhaled a plume of smoke. "We've got little time, young man. When Qijue goes haywire, the whole space trembles. They'll be on us soon enough."
Blowing smoke, truth be told, was an art. Back in his teens, Zhao Meiyou had tried to mimic the languid decadence of NPCs in holographic games, their cigarettes dangling just so. But the essence had eluded him; he’d only ended up looking like a scruffy troublemaker in need of sleep. Now, as the smoke spiralled from the old man’s fingers, Zhao Meiyou realised that the idols of his youth had all lost their sheen.
Just one curling ring of smoke, and you could glimpse in it a sharp, cutting youth, an elegant and dashing man in his prime, and a serene, unhurried elder. Their faces flickered through the haze, vague but defined. When those shapes dissolved, what lingered was a face tinged with warmer hues—fine lines at the corners of his eyes etched like chisel marks on ivory, and beneath the folds of a suit, the embers of an unextinguished volcano.
He was old now, but somehow more alive than ever, for his soul had finally found a place to anchor.
Zhao Meiyou understood then—there was no need to ask why. For a man of his age, words like "love" were too frail to carry any weight. Kings conquered the years not through words, but through action and resolve.
"I see now. My earlier words were out of line," Zhao Meiyou said. "But I have one last question: when Young Master Liu left the ruin to head to Level 33 to find my sister, what day was it?"
The moment the boy in the room transformed into a dragon, everything snapped into a single thread.
The old man chuckled. "As expected of a friend of Qijue."
Zhao Meiyou smiled back. “And you are worthy of being his lover, too.”
The back of the car shook violently as the white space began collapsing at an alarming rate. The duelling headliner and dragon were closing in fast. "I don't think I need to say much more," the old man said, handing Zhao Meiyou a cigar and clipping and lighting it for him. "Straighten your tie, slick on some pomade, and go do what adults are supposed to do."
Zhao Meiyou stepped out of the car, and in the next second, a gust of wind swept past him as the taxi roared straight towards the dragon. It was, without a doubt, the most spectacular car he'd ever seen, outshining even Diao Chan's dazzling collection of rare treasures. It charged ahead like a groom late to his wedding, dressed to the nines and racing to the chapel. Roses and fireworks erupted from its boot as it sped through the city streets. Zhao Meiyou, left coughing in a cloud of exhaust, suddenly found himself with a vivid picture of what he wanted his golden years to look like.
The headliner, locked in a frenzied scuffle, was struck by a car and sent flying. He arced through the air like a meteor before crashing down at Zhao Meiyou’s feet. Zhao Meiyou, slicking pomade through his hair for his first attempt at a slicked-back look, glanced at him and asked, “How’s it?”
As the headliner staggered to his feet, Zhao Meiyou raked his hair back. “Like a dashing soy egg, eh?”
The headliner ignored him entirely. “Zhao Meiyou, are you going to help or not?”
“Help? Of course I’ll help you out.” Zhao Meiyou shrugged. “But how, exactly?”
“First, we must stabilise the original body,” the headliner said, pointing to the dragon in the distance. “If he falls apart, I’m done for. And after me, the whole of A173 will follow.”
“Alright, but before we get to that, I’ve got a question for you.” Zhao Meiyou fixed his gaze on him and repeated the same question he’d asked in the cab earlier: “When did Young Master Liu leave the ruin to head for Level 33 to find my sister?”
The headliner looked bewildered. “December 8th. Why?”
“Did you go in or out of the ruin on December 8th?”
“No. I was performing that day—you even came to watch, Zhao Meiyou.” The headliner’s patience was running thin. “What are you trying to say?”
“Listen to me, Liu Qijue,” Zhao Meiyou said, drawing in a deep breath. “I got my hands on government records about the lifeforms in the ruin. They documented the exact date they detected a lifeform leaving the ruin—the same day Li Daqiang disappeared.”
“That day was December 8th.”
The moment the boy transformed into a dragon, the uneasy contradiction Zhao Meiyou had felt all along finally erupted.
His own ability was transformation, so he understood clearly the difference between “Creation” and “Transformation.” Creation was directed outward, bestowed upon others. Transformation acted inward, reshaping the self. Liu Qijue could alter anything in the ruin as long as it fell under the realm of his own Creation.
But there was one thing he could not change: living people from the real world—archaeologists who ventured into the ruin. Living beings were not his creations. The untouched appearance of Li Daqiang was proof enough.
By the same logic, the boy who could transform into a dragon wasn’t a living person.
The boy was a created lifeform.
“You told me before! Excessive mental fluctuations cause disorientation, make people believe they belong to the ruin!” Zhao Meiyou shouted over the roaring wind, his voice rising in fury. “You’re too damn in love with your husband! So much that you’ve forgotten who you even are! You, Liu Qijue, are the most impressive lunatic I’ve ever met, I’ll give you that!”
God created the world and descended to the mortal realm, forgetting entirely where he came from.
The headliner stared at Zhao Meiyou, mouth half open, frozen in place like someone caught in the haze of a half-remembered dream, their mind adrift in a sea of torment.
Zhao Meiyou kicked him, but there was no response. Anger surged within him. He pried his mouth open and poured the remainder of the hair oil straight down his throat.
The sharp scent of elmwood burst into the headliner’s brain, like being hurled into the depths of the ocean. Memories surged up like towering waves, lifting him to face the battering winds and storms of the past.
Whose face was that, buried deep in the recesses of memory?
How long ago had it been?
He remembered their first meeting. He had escaped from a deadly ambush amidst the ruins, only to return to a “safe” hideout where a friend had betrayed him. He killed them all—his enemies, and the comrades he had once trusted with his back.
The hideout was no longer safe. He went underground, shedding his identity as he slipped into the Lower District. There, he hid in a dilapidated holographic cinema for seven days, prying open vending machines and surviving on leftover pizzas from the audience.
Seven days later, when his wounds had healed somewhat, he didn’t leave immediately. Instead, he approached the counter and asked if he could get an annual membership.
The ticket seller, who doubled as the owner, gave him an odd look and replied in a peculiar dialect from some unknown era: “Just bring money when you want to watch something. We don’t offer any of those high-end services here.”
He thought for a moment, then removed a jade ring from his finger and placed it on the counter. It was the only valuable thing he had left. With it, he bought the shop and became both its owner and ticket seller.
A few nights later, an elderly gentleman walked in, his silver-grey hair neatly combed back. From behind the counter, he caught the scent of elmwood hair oil mingled with cigars, and stood up.
The old man glanced at him, smiled, and pointed at a floating poster on the wall. “Young man, a ticket for Schindler’s List, please.”
The old man became a regular, often arriving at nine in the evening to watch a film. Sometimes, he carried a long-handled umbrella; other times, a single orchid adorned the lapel of his suit. Beneath the glow of the moon-shaped lamp, a black cat darted about, and their sparse conversations gradually deepened.
“Young man, one ticket for Witness for the Prosecution.”
“The rain is heavy tonight, isn’t it?”
“This cat seems to have overeaten.”
“Try using a grain-based canned food—something easier to digest.”
“Have the customers been fewer lately?”
“Here’s your ticket. Please hold on to it.”
“You left your umbrella here last time.”
“Your orchid is beautiful.”
“You like jazz as well?”
“Of course, though I think Peking opera is the older art form.”
“One ticket for A Streetcar Named Desire, please.”
“Do you have any film recommendations?”
…
One evening, the holographic projector broke down. He and the elderly man found themselves staring at one another. After a moment, the old man chuckled gently and said, “It’s all right. I suppose this counts as an unexpected pleasure. At my age, the taste of surprise is an exceedingly rare delight.”
He felt a twinge of frustration, but he didn’t know how to fix the projector. The black cat nudged his hand on the counter. The old man thought for a moment and said, “I believe there might be some spare equipment in the storeroom. A long time ago, I saw the previous owner using it.”
The warehouse did indeed house another backup projector, but it lacked even the most basic holographic capabilities. It was an old digital film projector, the kind used in the first two hundred years of cinema’s birth. No, it wasn’t even that advanced. He stared at the dust-covered lamp housing and wondered, how could this possibly work?
The old man seemed to read his confusion. He smiled faintly, turned a gear on the film-loading mechanism, and said, "This is a film projector, likely the earliest form of movie projection."
The old man unfastened his cufflinks, rolled up his sleeves, and rummaged through the clutter until he pulled out a reel of film. He loaded it into the film box, and a beam of silver light flickered to life, casting itself onto the dust-streaked white wall.
There was a peculiar magic to watching old films on celluloid: an unseen row of spectators always seemed to materialise before the screen. The moment the black-and-white images appeared, they all, as if by silent agreement, took their seats on the floor.
That first night, they watched Casablanca.
During the Second World War, waves of Europeans fled to the Americas. The French-Moroccan city of Casablanca became a crucial gateway for those escaping Europe to reach the New World—but only a fortunate few managed to secure visas to the United States.
In this city where despair and hope entwined, the protagonist ran a bar. He had a broken heart, a loyal black musician, and a nightly flood of gamblers. Smugglers traded diamonds for tickets on ships, murderers met their fates in bursts of gunfire, and women leaned against the piano, asking her old friend for one last song.
"Play it once, Sam. For old times’ sake."
When the film ended, the old man said to the headliner, "In 1982, a singer wrote a song with the same title as this film. Its melody is quite enchanting."
He sought out the song and listened to it over and over again. A few days later, the old man returned. Their eyes met, and they both smiled. "I brought a film reel of my own," the old man said, pulling a silver case from a paper bag. "I thought we might watch it together."
This time, the images burst into colour: Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Audrey Hepburn played a socialite, wandering the streets in that famous little black dress. As dawn broke, she would take a cab to Tiffany’s and have breakfast in front of its glittering windows.
"I like that bright yellow taxi," he remarked when the movie ended.
That ubiquitous New York taxi, carrying the two protagonists down Fifth Avenue, seemed as though it could drive forever, all the way to the ends of the earth.
As it turned out, the ends of the earth weren’t so far away. Night after night, under the glow of the projector’s silver light, they drifted together through the kaleidoscope of Moulin Rouge’s Montmartre, drank deeply at Gatsby’s roaring jazz parties, witnessed student protests beneath the Eiffel Tower in The Dreamers, gazed at the infinite Pacific starscape of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and sought shelter in caves when tsunamis capsized great ships in apocalyptic visions. There, amid the firelight, students from a poetry society debated freedom and death. They joined the circle, reciting a Whitman poem aloud.
On one of these countless nights, just as another film ended, he finally asked the old man the question that had haunted him: "Why did you save me?"
During the seven days he spent recuperating in the cinema, he often caught the scent of elmwood hair oil and cigars wafting from the front rows. When the film ended, he would always find something left behind on the still-warm seats—at first, it was food; later, it was medicine for wounds.
The old man smiled. "I was wondering when you'd ask," he said, a sly glint flashing in his eyes. For a moment, he seemed younger—a sharp businessman in a tailored suit, weaving through every stratum of society, where great profit always came hand in hand with great risk.
"The first time I had nowhere else to turn, I fled into a cinema as well."
"After that, I developed the habit of watching films. Even though I've retired, that youthful pastime has stayed with me," the old man said, his voice gentle, tinged with a faint smile. "So when I first noticed you hiding in the back row, I couldn’t help but think—aren’t people like poems? There’s always some coincidental rhythm that draws them to the same places."
"What kind of business were you in?"
The old man looked at him, smiling indulgently, and uttered a single codename.
It was a name from times past. Old, yet gleaming with a distant brilliance.
"I’ve heard about what happened on Level 777," the old man remarked. "It’s been a long time since someone dared to take off their mask at the gathering. That dragon you conjured was beautiful."
Many archaeologists had heard of that codename, though it had been buried in dust for years. The one who used it was said to have long since retired.
"I’ve been retired for many years," the old man said, his tone calm and weighted. "Now, I’m just an old man who enjoys watching movies."
……
After that, it was as though the film had been paused—until one day, he ventured into the ruin again, only to withdraw hastily, nearly consumed by dread. That evening, the old man saw him at the counter, frowned slightly, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "What happened?"
"My dragon," he murmured. "My dragon is dead."
His ability, "Creation," had once been flawless. Yet this time, the ruin rejected him. He couldn’t create anything.
The old man paused in thought before saying, "It’s been many years since I last stepped into the ruin."
He wasn’t surprised by the old man’s response. "I know. No one can help me with this."
"You’ve misunderstood," the old man said, meeting his gaze. "For someone my age, jumping off a building takes a bit of preparation. Are you free at this time tomorrow?"
He froze, stunned.
The old man’s gentle smile remained. "Let’s take a look at what’s really going on first, then decide. How does that sound?"
The next day, the ruin looked like a landscape from a Dali painting. Everything was chaotic, unstable—colossal clocks bent mid-air, the sky melted, dripping translucent sludge. The old man remained calm as he surveyed the scene, then turned to him and asked, "What can your ability achieve now?"
He tried with all his might but could only conjure a single strand of hair.
"May I ask the reason?" the old man said. "Before things turned out this way, what happened to you in the ruin?"
He spoke of the student entrusted to him by an old acquaintance, of the betrayal of former friends, of the infighting among peers. Such things were hardly uncommon for an archaeologist. The old man listened quietly, then said after a moment, "Those clumsy assassins—there’s no need to dwell on them. As for that newcomer entrusted to you, you saved him, didn’t you? Then I suppose the problem perhaps lies between you and your friends."
The old man paused and amended his words: "Your former friends."
The headliner had no answer to give.
Was it to mourn the decay of friendship? It didn’t seem so. He did not fear the blood of his former friends on his hands, though his own tears had once mingled with it there.
They fell into a brief silence. On the horizon, a square sun rose—a sight he had never encountered. Ruin A173 had always been the stage of his explorations; he could even claim to be its deepest pioneer. Much of the ruin’s core had been reshaped by the power of his Creation. He had conjured vermillion temples, dragons that took to the skies, even oceans and stars. The ruin bore the imprint of his will. He looked at the floating clock in the distance, unable, as yet, to grasp what it signified.
The old man suddenly let out a soft laugh. He shook his head as he chuckled, "Ah, I see now. This truly is…"
"What do you see?"
"This should have been done by me." The old man regarded him with a faintly helpless smile. "The young always like to take away the few privileges left to the old. And we don’t have many to begin with, do we?"
He didn’t understand. But he watched as the old man stepped forward, raised a hand, and pointed at the clock floating in the sky. In a gentle tone, he asked, "Qijue, have you been thinking much about time lately?"
Time.
There was too much time between them.
There was too little time left for them.
"Qijue, please listen to what I have to say next." The old man’s voice came gently to his ear. "I’ve lived most of my life alone, but I’ve had my share of brilliant moments. I always thought I’d be like one of those old films—having already passed through its grandest climax, the lights dimming, the audience dispersing. And then, on some idle afternoon, a young person might whimsically bring up those stories again…"
"But it seems fate has been generous to me. My life isn’t a film. Fate has given me a poem instead, and the most beautiful lines always appear at the moment the poet is ready to set down his pen."
The old man was looking at him. He was smiling. It was a smile that showed his teeth, and it carried within it the weight of most of the man’s lifetime. Qijue saw a boy of his own age laughing as they kissed, teeth clumsily clashing; a young man feigning nonchalance as he offered a kiss and roses, though his tense lips betrayed his nerves; an elder extending a hand with quiet grace, inviting him for a dance. All those images blurred and fused into a single face—that of the person before him, old yet young.
"Qijue, do you know the sole essence of poetry?"
"What is it?"
"To drink, laugh, dance, and sing, for as long as the music plays."
"Are you sure you’re talking about poetry?"
"Of course. Poetry is far more than words on a blank page."
Above the weight of conventions, beyond the bounds of metre, rhyme, form, or symmetry, you can still craft a poem. Seize the final ember before the sun sinks below the horizon—chew it, swallow it whole. Pay no heed to those who point fingers and fear the flame. You will burn, you will dance in agony, you will sing in defiance. Your ribs will take on a golden glow, and in the end, you will become the sun.
“Qijue, I won't be the only one you've ever loved, but I’m honoured to be one of them.” The old man looked into his eyes. “As the final ember before the sun sets, I think I’ve got one last blaze left in me. Will you hold on to me?”
Qijue instinctively glanced at the clock above him, only to have his eyes covered. "Let it go." The old man’s voice came from the darkness. "At least before the sun sets, there’s still time for us to make a poem."
They moved to the Middle District, where the conditions were better suited for the elderly. A projector was installed in the bedroom, and old films were played over and over. His abilities were slowly returning, until one day at the Chuyun Theatre, where the famous Peking opera "The Monkey King Wreaks Havoc in Heaven" was performed. As they stepped out of their box, the old man suddenly said, “Qijue, I have an idea.”
“You once said that when your powers are restricted, you can only conjure hair at most—what if it’s the Monkey King’s magical hair?”
His power was fully restored. Ruin A173, transformed, took on the forms of various times and spaces. The images on the silver screen came to life one by one. They travelled across eras in a bright yellow taxi and dined at the Waldorf Hotel, the very spot where Donna and the Colonel danced in Scent of a Woman. The band played the melody of “Por una Cabeza.” The old man stood, smiling, and invited him to dance a tango.
“Let’s change the tune,” the old man said. “We’ve heard ‘Por una Cabeza’ a thousand times already.”
“What would you like to hear, mister?”
“Perhaps we could try some jazz.” The old man’s smile held a trace of childlike mischief. “How about ‘Fly Me to the Moon’?”
…
"…Liu Qijue?" A faint voice came from nearby. "Guifei! Damn it, Liu Qijue! Wake up, Liu Qijue!"
The headliner finally snapped out of it. Zhao Meiyou, out of breath from shouting, bent over, coughed twice, and rasped, “Do you remember now?”
The headliner stared at him, like someone abruptly roused from a long, deep dream, and then punched Zhao Meiyou square in the chest.
Zhao Meiyou had just straightened up when the punch doubled him over again. “Damn it, Guifei, you don’t have to be like this.”
The headliner turned away. “Thanks.”
Zhao Meiyou chuckled. He didn’t fight back—it was inevitable to take a beating. After all, the price of waking from a dream might very well be a final goodbye.
Well, they were brothers anyway. Zhao Meiyou could handle a little morning grumpiness from the headliner. “You’d better go check if your partner’s holding up…”
“Nothing will happen to him,” the headliner interjected, snatching the cigar from Zhao Meiyou’s hand and taking a puff himself.
“You must be joking—that’s a dragon,” Zhao Meiyou muttered, glancing into the distance. He’d been too preoccupied with the headliner’s condition to notice, but now, to his surprise, the rampaging azure dragon had vanished. A taxi was slowly making its way back.
The elderly man lowered the car window and handed a painted dragon-patterned mask to the headliner, his smile gentle: “Qijue.”
That strong? Zhao Meiyou watched in a daze as the headliner accepted the mask. Wait—would this count as a case of domestic violence?
The headliner traced the outline of the mask, sighed softly, and murmured, “Mister.”
The elderly man stepped out of the car and embraced him—a long, heartfelt embrace. But eventually, he let go, turned to Zhao Meiyou, and said, “I owe you a ‘thank you’, young man.”
“Think nothing of it.” Everyone has some admiration for strength, and this old man was absurdly strong—so much so that his presence was almost too dazzling to belong to someone his age. Even Zhao Meiyou, for the first time in a while, felt a bit shy, like a junior receiving unexpected praise. “But I do have a question… Why didn’t you wake Guifei earlier?”
The moment the words left his mouth, he realised he’d trodden on delicate ground.
The old man’s smile remained as warm as ever. The headliner took a sharp drag from the cigarette. “Because of corrections.”
“Corrections?”
“The current Ruin A173 has been largely reshaped by my abilities. In other words, the operational laws here are governed by my subconscious,” the headliner explained. “Mister… mister is the same. He is an avatar I created. If I don’t fully accept my identity as the original, he cannot declare the truth.”
What I don’t agree with is wrong.
Errors will be corrected.
Thus, the truth that the headliner was the true original can only be exposed by outsiders to the ruin. Because they are not Creations, they are not bound by the creator’s laws of correction.
This is truly… Zhao Meiyou severed the thought that was on the tip of his tongue, leaving behind only a raw, half-formed realisation.
This is truly.
He could more or less guess why the old man had chosen this moment to reveal the truth.
What he said at the very beginning, it turned out, was the truth: the old man’s original self outside the ruin was truly at the end of his rope.
A final farewell was imminent.
There might be another reason. “What’s going on with Li Daqiang?”
“As you’ve seen, the younger version of me,” the headliner paused here, clearly trying to untangle the chaotic logic, “he’s been trying to drag you into the ruin. But for a Creation to leave the ruin, there are conditions—it must follow a real, living human into the physical world. That’s likely why he struck a deal with Li Daqiang.”
This must have been the boy’s most reckless act—he somehow sensed the ageing man’s life was nearing its end. That awareness tipped him into chaos; he spiralled, dissolving the living into the ruin itself.
Headliner grew agitated as he spoke. “Damn it, it’s so simple. How did I not realise this sooner?”
But it wasn’t all that surprising. When caught in a beautiful dream, most people have no desire to wake.
The old man gently patted the headliner on the shoulder and turned to Zhao Meiyou. “Many archaeologists have ventured into Ruin A173 over the years. But after observing for a long time, young man, I’ve realised you’re the only one fit to awaken Qijue.”
He smiled again as he spoke, “Or perhaps you’re the only one who ever could.”
For years, he had watched from the sidelines, waging quiet battles against the corrections while biding his time. His youthful lover had created something too wild, too dangerous within the ruin—an easy tool for others to exploit. Only Zhao Meiyou, perhaps the one true friend of Qijue, could shield the secret, could carry the burden of it all.
Zhao Meiyou glanced at the old man, then at the headliner, and felt an indescribable tangle of emotions—a sour bitterness, a sharp joy, a swell of melancholy. For a moment, he felt like the Queen Mother of the West, breaking apart a pair of star-crossed lovers.
Headliner drew a deep breath. “...Mister.”
The old man smiled at him, as tender and encompassing as ever. “Qijue.”
They both understood—it was time to wake from the dream.
The old man extended his hand to him. “Qijue, do you remember our tango at the Waldorf Hotel?”
Headliner’s head snapped up.
“Come, my husband.”
Let’s dance one last time.
Zhao Meiyou watched in astonishment as the space around them began to shift. This wasn’t Headliner’s power—Creation could summon matter from nothingness, but what unfolded now was different. Countless scenes flitted past like grains of sand: a home, Rick’s Bar, the Eiffel Tower, the slopes of Montmartre, Tiffany’s… until finally, the scene settled in a grand, glittering hotel. Beneath a resplendent chandelier, the room shimmered with elegant figures and the sparkle of crystal glassware.
The colonel and Donna had just finished their dance to “Por una Cabeza” as the band flipped through their sheets of music. The young man and the old man stepped into the ballroom, stirring the silvery light pooling across the floor.
Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars
In other words, hold my hand
In other words, darling, kiss me…
As the jazz melody played, the old man looked at the sobbing young man and whispered, “One cry for me is enough, Qijue. Just one cry is enough.”
“Do you remember what I told you before? The one true purpose of poetry—what is it?”
"To drink, laugh, dance, and sing, for as long as the music plays."
Zhao Meiyou approached a dining table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. He signalled to the waiter for a cigarette.
On that night in the emergency room, sitting around a simmering hot pot, Diao Chan had told him that at gatherings of archaeologists, few dared to remove their masks. Diao Chan mentioned Liu Qijue and a few other ancient names, one of which carried an especially striking code name.
At the time, Diao Chan had said, "Some abilities are so rare that archaeologists use them directly as their code names."
"This ability," Diao Chan explained, "can freeze, or even reverse, time within ruins."
Bewildered by the cryptic explanation, Zhao Meiyou had asked bluntly, "Stop teasing. What's the code name? Is it ‘Time’?"
He remembered Diao Chan shaking his head through the mist rising from the hot pot and uttering a single word—
It’s “Poetry”.
Now, Zhao Meiyou watched the dance floor, where the young man and old man swirled together. No, they were no longer a youth and an elder. They had shed the husks of time-bound bodies, left only as souls, bare and facing each other.
When poetry began, time stood still.
As the dance ended, the elder held the young man close, their pose frozen in an embrace. His lips brushed against the other's temple as he softly recited a line of poetry.
The first law of the ruins: ruins are not dreams.
Ruins are not dreams; they are the forest between dream and reality. Within the dream, we bury the selves that have died. In the forest, we grow wild and untamed, emerging at last with the courage to face reality.
“Qijue, live on.”
The words fell onto the floor like pearls, their crisp echoes reverberating. Gentle waves spread outward, and time unfurled like a great river. The river cleansed everything, carried everything away, leaving behind a space as pristine as blank paper.
The headliner and Zhao Meiyou locked eyes.
Zhao Meiyou cleared his throat. "Shall we go?" he asked. "By the way, how do we leave now?"
"A173 has been completely emptied," Headliner replied, wiping his face. "The operational rules I set before no longer apply. This place is now just an empty shell. If you want to leave, just hold onto that thought, and you'll be out immediately."
Zhao Meiyou thought for a moment, then crouched down in front of his friend. "What about you? What do you plan to do?"
"I still need to wrap things up," Headliner said. "I have to cobble something together to appease the government; otherwise, the next archaeologist who ventures in might get scared to death. And then there's Li Daqiang…"
"You don’t need to tell me about it," Zhao Meiyou interrupted with a wave of his hand. "I came into A173 this time for you."
Adults get what they ask for.
Headliner was silent for a moment. Then he punched Zhao Meiyou lightly before the two embraced tightly.
"Well, I'm off." Zhao Meiyou stood up. "Next time at the theatre, remember—you owe me supper."
The next moment, the lingering sound of his voice dissolved into a vast whiteness.
The theatre in Zone 33 had not raised its curtain in ages. Old Mr. De, steaming with frustration, howled incessantly and chased Zhao Meiyou down the corridor every day. Word had it that the original headliner had left for urgent business and wouldn't be back anytime soon. Eventually, the troupe managed to find a fresh talent. Over the next month, they staged a new rendition of Dream of the Red Chamber, which drew a decent crowd.
The Lower District was never short of lively happenings, and soon enough, people all but forgot the old headliner, famed for his skilful portrayal of Ji Gong.
By the twelfth lunar month, the Easterners in the district were preparing for the New Year. The Disease Butcher slaughtered pigs right on the street, distributing the blessing meat to families for their kitchen gods. After a long day, Zhao Meiyou decided to skip his shift that night, leaving Diao Chan alone in the emergency room while he snuck off to the car park for a midnight snack. He’d rented a barbecue truck, and as he ate and drank, he could hear the faint sounds of gongs and drums drifting from the theatre.
A moment later, the chair across from him scraped against the ground. "Is this seat taken?"
"You've already sat down, and now you're asking if someone's—" Zhao Meiyou raised his eyes, his words trailing off mid-sentence.
From the distant stage came a resonant line: "Look at him, his face as radiant as the autumn moon, his complexion like the blooming flowers of spring, sideburns sharp as if cut by a blade, brows painted like ink strokes—"
"Radiant as jade, his beauty peerless."
That incomparably elegant young man sat down, arching a brow and flashing him a smile.
"My name's Liu Qijue. Shall we get acquainted?"
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