Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Mountain City
In the dim, narrow room, a weak cough broke the silence: “Cough… cough.”
The computer monitor by the wall cast a cold white light that lit the scuffed black keyboard and mouse.
In the corner, on a black wooden bed, a thin figure lay still.
At the head of the bed, the phone screen lit up, and a crisp alarm cut through the quiet.
The boy slowly opened his eyes and showed deep, dark pupils. He rolled onto his side, reached out to silence the alarm, sat up tiredly, and steadied his breathing.
After a while, he got up and went to the window, pulling open the gray curtains.
Bright sunlight poured in at once and lit the whole gloomy room.
From the outside looking in, you could see a boy with a 3 to 7 side-part haircut, a skinny frame, clear features, and pale lips with little color.
He stifled another cough, then went to the worn desk and sat down, looking at the computer screen.
On the screen, the hottest game of the moment, Black Starfield, was running.
He opened the auction house and quickly scanned rows of numbers.
Prices had not dropped today; just as he expected, they had gone up a little.
He opened his backpack, ready to sell the gear, items, and game coins he had been hoarding these days.
But then the coughs came hard and kept getting worse.
Pain twisted his face; it felt like his lungs might come out.
He hurried to the side, took a sip of cough syrup, then grabbed a bottle of immunity medicine.
When he unscrewed it, he saw it was empty. He yanked open the drawer to grab a new one, but after digging around, he found he was out of that kind.
His heart jumped. He rushed to the bed, hands shaking as he worked his phone.
Ding. Messages popped up one after another.
Two notices flashed on the screen: “Dear Mr. Long Ming, your appointment at Mountain City First Central Hospital has been booked. Please come as soon as possible.” “Dear Mr. Long Ming, your Upper City Temporary Pass has been approved. It is valid for 24 hours. Please go to the Upper City and leave by 00:00 on March 14, Year 120 of the Era.”
Seeing the approvals, Long Ming let out a breath of relief.
He went to the simple rack, put on a gray coat, wrapped a wheat-brown scarf, changed into white cloth shoes, opened the door, and stepped into a long, narrow hallway.
The paint on the hallway walls had peeled off in big patches, showing rough concrete underneath.
Clutter filled both sides, and rows of iron doors lined the corridor. Twenty families lived on the seventh floor in all, and it felt very crowded.
Head down and coughing softly, Long Ming walked toward the stairs.
A few minutes later, he came out of the old building.
Towering, blackened high-rises reached into the clouds and blocked the sky.
They stood so close and so haphazard that the place felt heavy and tight.
If you did not know the area, you could get lost.
Long Ming took a deep breath, pressed down the urge to cough, and walked on.
After a long walk, he left Cloud Sea, the famous cluster zone in the East District.
The name sounded fancy, but it was where the lowest rung of people gathered.
He let out a slow breath, stretched, and looked into the distance. Faintly, he could see a sky-piercing peak stabbing into the clouds. That was where he needed to go.
He tugged his scarf higher and headed for the nearest subway station.
Along the way, electronic screens on building walls played ads and news.
Two men in gray trench coats, briefcases in hand and tired faces, brushed past him as they talked: “The company’s results hit a new low again this year,” said one. “Yeah, I heard they’re going to cut staff,” said the other. “When will this end,” the first man sighed.
Long Ming paused for a moment, then kept walking.
People called this world Blue Star. It had once been highly advanced. But an asteroid strike fifty years ago changed everything.
The impact killed many people, and contaminants carried by the asteroid spread far and wide, badly damaging Blue Star’s ecosystem.
The water was hit hardest. Even the oceans turned gray. Drinking polluted water for a long time ate away at the body and led to disease and failing organs.
The air became murky too, and many surface species went extinct.
Humanity faced its greatest crisis. To survive, the survivors moved to areas with less pollution and built shelter cities.
The three largest were Mountain City, Star Tower City, and Sin City.
Long Ming lived in Mountain City.
Soon he reached a subway entrance. Ten escalators carried streams of passengers in and out. The crowd was thick.
Mountain City had a massive population, about 230 million people.
He followed the crowd down the escalator, passed the security check, and reached the platform.
Whoosh. A train about one hundred meters long sped in and stopped right in front of them.
The car doors opened one by one.
Crowds of riders got off, and Long Ming boarded with the waiting passengers.
The car was jammed, and every seat was taken.
He could barely move.
He raised a hand to cover his mouth and coughed a few times.
People around him heard it, and their looks changed; they shifted aside.
He was used to it, but he still lowered his head in silence.
More than two hours later, a pleasant voice came over the speakers: “Dear passengers, we are arriving at the final stop, Upper City Station. Passengers who are getting off, please be ready.”
At the light jolt of the brakes, he lifted his head, and the train pulled into the last station.
Soon, Long Ming came out of the subway and stood at the base of the city’s central mountain.
He looked up and saw a giant peak. Graceful buildings stood on its flanks, and steel platforms rose and fell, circling the mountain from the bottom as they moved up and down. At the summit stood a massive mechanical pillar that ran through the mountain and reached into the sky, glowing with a faint halo.
Mountain City was built in three rings. The first ring was the mountaintop, the City Lord’s offices, where only public servants could go.
The second ring sat around the middle of the mountain. Huge platforms jutted out to form a thriving city in the air called the Upper City, home to elites, conglomerates, and the rich.
The third ring spread across the plain at the foot of the mountain, where all the common people lived. It was called the Lower City.
High walls split the Upper City and the Lower City, with only a few entrances open, each with a checkpoint.
Even so, people from the Lower City could enter the Upper City if they applied in advance and were approved.
But they had to leave before the pass expired. If they stayed past the time, they would be fined at best, and at worst they could be detained.