The wind and the snow of the night will be gone.
The night itself will have vanished.
I will have left the world.
The whole bitter world will go with me. (Adapted from Borges's "The Suicide")
...
The night was peaceful and solemn. At least, that was the concept in Li Yue's early cognition; she believed that work did not exist during the night. However, in Yakutsk, things seemed to be different.
The torches here seemed to burn eternally, providing light. Occasionally, workers who could no longer bear the freezing cold would stop for a brief moment to warm themselves by the fire. Every now and then, a corpse of someone who had frozen to death lay by the roadside, appearing tranquil and solemn, as if they had fallen into an eternal sleep.
Dying was like water vanishing into water.
Lane smoked in silence beside her, the faint white smoke rising slowly into the air. The two of them walked through the snow, beneath the stunning beauty of the aurora dancing across the heavens. Yet, no one stopped to admire it.
“Ten or so years ago, Yakutsk was exactly as you imagined, with merchant ships coming and going in a constant stream.” Lane flicked his ash and exhaled deeply. He looked at the workers still laboring and those heading toward the taverns, then sighed.
“But as the taboos were opened, people carved out direct routes to the south. There was no longer a need to bypass Yakutsk.” Lane stubbed out his cigarette.
“Taboos?” Li Yue pondered the term, wondering if it had some connection to religion.
“There used to be temples at sea that blocked the shipping lanes. But as the secrets of those pieces of God's legacy were slowly deciphered, those taboos vanished, and the routes became clear.” Lane looked at the harbor, where only a few small cargo ships were docked, feeling a sense of nostalgia.
“Now, except for a few relics left by extremely powerful gods, almost everything has been taken away.”
“Extremely powerful?”
“Supposedly skeletal remains and the like. Although their exact locations haven't been found, what would happen even if they were?” Lane smiled. “That ancient deity who held sway over death, the mortal world, and reincarnation... the one who once severed the astral realm from the mortal world. They say His skeletal remains are in this very sea.”
“God's legacy...”
“These things are double-edged swords. Unless the soul is a high match, one cannot absorb a piece of God's legacy. Even if you do, your cognition will be slowly rewritten.” Lane sighed.
“Will one be slowly replaced?”
“More or less. I’m not entirely sure; I’ve only had some contact with it.” Lane glanced at Li Yue’s chest out of the corner of his eye. “Most absorbers will only take in one piece. That way, the influence is minimized. Furthermore, if the legacy of two different gods exists within one body, they will experience strong rejection, especially if their authorities are vastly different.”
Li Yue nodded thoughtfully. She listened to her own heartbeat for a moment, waiting quietly for Lane to finish his smoke. The feeling of being alive brought her waves of peace.
Gurgle. In the quiet atmosphere, the sound of a stomach cramping rang out. Li Yue instinctively looked at her own belly; although hunger always accompanied her, it had never manifested as a physiological sound before.
“It’s me. I’m hungry. Let’s go to a tavern and get something to eat.” Lane scratched his head awkwardly. He stubbed out his cigarette and tossed it into the snow.
“You don't seem to like vegetables much.” Lane remembered the leftover vegetables on Li Yue's plate this morning. Even though he had indeed cooked a bit too much broccoli, Li Yue had still sat down and finished them before leaving.
“It’s fine. I’m not a picky eater.” Li Yue thought for a moment. “Tomatoes... are more acceptable. But I find myself hating green vegetables more and more. I don't know why.”
“I hope you can stomach it. There isn't much delicious meat in this area anymore.” Lane shrugged. “The butchered meat is sold by cut in different districts. When trade was prosperous, meat was constantly sent here to ensure the dockworkers kept their strength up.”
“Now, this place has lost much of its value. Those who work here are usually the lowest class of laborers. There are no fresh vegetables and no quality meat.” Lane thought about it. “There’s hardly even any sausage, just some offal.”
“I’m not picky. Except for humans.”
Lane froze. His internal definition of 'not picky' was rewritten once again. The young girl's answer surprised him; it was even shocking.
“For psychological reasons?”
“I’m just afraid that after eating it, I’ll completely turn into a monster.” Li Yue looked at Lane. Through her dark red eyes, one could almost see a suppressed bloodlust and madness.
The two of them fell silent and walked one after the other into a small tavern. Li Yue glanced at the menu and handed the choice over to Lane.
“Only beet soup left. There used to be cabbage soup.” Lane studied the menu, falling into a state of indecision. Li Yue watched the people around them; their skin clung directly to their muscles, and their body fat was incredibly low.
Li Yue looked at the food on their tables, unable to identify the dark, murky soup for a moment.
“Shredded black bread, a bit of almonds or oats, mixed with vegetable soup or offal broth, with salt and vinegar added.”
“Doesn't it smell fishy?”
“At least it has a hint of animal fat.” Lane shrugged.
Their dishes were served. It was indeed a meal made of scraps: ox tail fried in lard, lamb offal with artichokes, beet soup, and some cod.
Lane poked the cod on the table.
“This is very common in the Outer Ring and in trade. Cod preserved with salt for a long time. It lasts a while and the yield is high.”
Li Yue took a few bites. The taste wasn't strange, but it had a distinct local character. She ate quickly. Even the black bread—which was extremely hard to chew and had hints of bitterness and sourness—was crushed and swallowed as easily as white bread under her incredible bite force and sharp teeth.
Just like the bone-in steak from two days ago. While she had sat listening to everyone chat, she had casually chewed through a bone as thick as a thumb out of boredom, crushing it as easily as if she were eating chocolate.
Food had become nothing more than flavors: sour, sweet, bitter, salty. Whether it was delicious or not seemed to have lost its meaning. There was only the lingering taste in her mouth, a mixture of the faint scent of animal offal and the aroma of artichokes soaked in lemon juice.
Lane drank a glass of light beer. Most of the people in the room were drinking crude spirits, with bread dipped in salt as their side dish. Though simple, for their incredibly bleak and bitter days, it could even be considered a luxury.
The concept of day and night had blurred here. It was as if the world had become much more silent since the big ships stopped coming, infecting the workers living here. They had fewer grand words and more silence. Those with families had sought other paths or were separated from their loved ones. Those who remained struggled here, committing a powerless, chronic suicide.
Days passed like this, one after another.
...
Only when she saw the soldiers standing at the factory gates did Li Yue feel a hint of living breath and familiarity. They held long barrel firearms driven by gunpowder. Apparently, these were Reinhardt's invention. Li Yue believed that if not for this world where magic flourished, such weapons would surely be at the forefront of the era.
She just wondered if that Steel Magic User had other inventions that matched his status as a Great Mage.
“This place uses a structure similar to the Energy Tower in the very center of the city, transporting heat through pipes.” Lane looked at the small Energy Tower at the center of the factory complex, narrowing his eyes slightly. “Heat can also be generated and stored here. The reason it was built here is because there are large coal mines nearby.”
In the quiet night, the glowing Energy Tower was like a small sun in the darkness, though it could only illuminate a relatively small area.
“The uniforms of those guards look so familiar.” Li Yue and Lane stood behind a large boulder, observing closely. Faint traces of blood rose deep within Li Yue’s dark red eyes.
“Those are regular army uniforms...” Lane raised an eyebrow. “How could a wealthy man from a kidnapping case hire regular troops?”
“I don't know why, but it’s the truth.” Li Yue seemed firmly convinced she wasn't mistaken, which caused a faint sense of unease to stir in Lane.
“Do you think there’s a problem with the heat supply from the factory's Energy Tower?” Lane looked at the Energy Tower in the distance. It appeared as usual, with no signs of dimming.
“We’ll just have to come and see tomorrow.” Li Yue scanned the factory's perimeter. Soldiers on horse-drawn carriages were patrolling constantly. However, a high level of alertness was a good thing. In history, rioters had destroyed a factory's Energy Tower, causing a vast area to lose its heat supply, which led to many people freezing to death.
Since then, the military presence near Energy Towers had increased significantly. However, the shifts weren't long; after all, it was truly too cold outside. Usually, there were three to four squads rotating. The closer one got to the Inner Ring, the better the security. Even inspections were conducted in layers, unlike these remote areas where one could enter as long as they had a legal report.
Li Yue stood watching for a while, thinking of ways that might involve less bloodshed. Lane noted the soldiers' shift times and drew a rough sketch of the factory's layout. It was now close to midnight, and the surrounding temperature was still dropping.
Li Yue yawned, her eyes seemingly asking Lane if it was time to head back. Lane lit a cigarette and smoked as he walked.
“Let’s move faster.” Li Yue’s figure began to flicker, turning into a blood-red shadow that darted through the frozen world. Lane helplessly stubbed out his cigarette, tucked away the smoke he had barely puffed on, and ran after Li Yue through the snow.
In this world where the temperature continued to plummet, some drank a few gulps of spirits and lay down in the snow, never to wake again. Some shifted their bodies in their foul-smelling hovels, throwing the corpse of a fellow worker who had already frozen to death out of the room. Then they simply existed, without extra prayers or expectations, silently enduring hunger and cold to survive another day.
Inside a warm hospital in the Inner Ring, a tiny baby was born. He opened his mouth and wailed loudly, a heart-wrenching cry. The people around him smiled, celebrating the arrival of a new life.
In the noisy wind, Li Yue could hear faint heartbeats. Some were slowly slowing down, while others were slowly coming to a halt. Some were beating one second, only for the sound to vanish the next.
On the twenty first day of life, the heart begins to beat, and it does not stop until death.
Rate on N.U.
