The Barrier

At 5:15 in the morning, thick smog blanketed the entire city.

Feng Zi was curled up inside the cart, covered only by a thin, tattered felt blanket she had picked out of a trash heap. Her brow was tightly furrowed in sleep, as though she were trapped in some nightmare.

It was not until Li Wei woke her that she sat up in the cart with a blank expression. Only after a moment did she emerge from that hazy, empty state.

"626, did you not rest last night?"

"I slept for a while. Then I found the cops were still searching in the middle of the night, so I didn't sleep after that."

Only then did Feng Zi realize that the alley they were in was no longer the familiar place from before. To evade the search during the night, Li Wei had pushed her around while she slept, relocating several times.

Seeing Feng Zi looking at him with wide, grateful eyes, Li Wei simply grabbed her by the collar and hauled her out of the cart.

His constitution far exceeded that of an ordinary person. A brief nap during the night was enough that he barely felt tired at all.

Feng Zi casually wiped her face with her damp clothes, soaked through by the mist, and seemed to regain her energy. Li Wei took her away without lingering. Neither of them had eaten dinner the previous night or breakfast that morning, yet neither mentioned their empty stomachs.

They clearly had no energy to think about that now.

As they approached the designated train platform, Li Wei could see through the dense haze that the place was already packed with people.

They were obviously laborers headed for the factories. There were men, women, old people, and children among them, all dressed in worn linen clothes. Whether because they had risen early or because heavy labor had crushed their spirits, almost no one spoke on the platform. The place was silent.

Li Wei led Feng Zi over, drawing no attention. They wore the same linen clothes as everyone else, and amid the fog and crowd, they did not stand out in the slightest.

About ten minutes later, several jarring voices rang out from afar, drawing closer through the smog-shrouded whiteness.

"Supervisor Zhang, why won't you pay the compensation? My father wasn't an illegal resident. He signed a contract with the factory when he started work. Now that he's dead, the factory should compensate us according to the amount in the contract, shouldn't it?"

"My husband too. We all put our fingerprints on these contracts. How can you just decide not to pay compensation?"

"My brother worked at the factory for sixteen years. His wife, children, and elderly parents all depended on him. Now he's died on the job, and his family can't blame anyone else, but if they don't get a single cent in compensation, what are his wife and children supposed to do?"

"..."

Within the white fog, Zhang Ling stood with a cigarette in his mouth, surrounded by more than a dozen men and women. There was even a child who looked no older than ten among them. Their expressions were ugly, even tragic.

The people around the station naturally heard the commotion as well. They silently looked toward the group. Though no one spoke, sympathy was clear in their eyes.

"There is indeed a problem with the company higher-ups, but you're looking for the wrong person. I'm not the one who pays compensation. I can only take you to see the factory manager. Whether you can get the money, you can discuss it yourselves once we get there."

Zhang Ling seemed quite happy to watch them cause trouble at the factory, yet he had no desire to be the one leading the charge.

After arriving at the station, he stubbed out his cigarette and left the laborers' families seeking compensation behind. He searched through the crowd and easily found Li Wei, who stood almost a head taller than most people.

Walking up to Li Wei, he pulled a magnetic card and a contract from his pocket.

"Sign this. Write the name Zhao Zihong. If you can't write, press your fingerprint. This card is your identification, and it also states that you can bring one family member."

With a broad smile, Li Wei wrote down the name of someone he did not know on the contract and took the card.

This was clearly one of the ways foremen arranged for illegal residents to enter the factory: they directly gave them an official identity. As for who the real Zhao Zihong was, that was not something Li Wei needed to worry about.

Feng Zi was still the same as yesterday. Whenever outsiders were around, she kept her head down and held tightly onto Li Wei's arm.

It was not something Li Wei had told her to do. This cripple seemed to have some social anxiety. It was not obvious when she was alone with Li Wei, but whenever unfamiliar people were present, her mouth seemed sewn shut. She pursed her lips and turned mute.

At six o'clock sharp, the train pierced through the white smog and slowly rolled to a stop before the platform with an ear-piercing screech.

The carriage doors opened, and uniformed station attendants emerged from every car. The laborers formed lines and boarded one by one, holding their magnetic cards.

But the ticket inspection process was clearly more cumbersome than usual. The attendants each held two photographs and checked the faces of every passenger boarding the train.

Feng Zi's grip on Li Wei's hand tightened. When it was their turn to board, the attendant casually compared their faces to the photographs in his hand as well.

Li Wei also glanced at the photographs at that moment.

Clearly, the people in them were Feng Zi and himself.

But Feng Zi in the photograph wore a white lab coat and sat in a wheelchair, her silver-white hair meticulously groomed as she looked coldly into the camera. She was completely different from the present-day little delinquent with her edgy, street-punk look—like the difference between a lone wolf and a husky.

Li Wei was the same. In the photograph, he wore formal attire, his hair slicked with gel, looking more fashionable than a fashion model. There was no trace of how he looked now.

On top of that, the attendant's inspection was extremely perfunctory. After confirming the information on the magnetic cards, the two of them boarded the train without issue.

There were no seats on the train. Everyone stood, and even then it was exceptionally crowded. Li Wei took Feng Zi to a corner. They did not speak, merely watching as the train slowly began to move.

The train was not slow. Li Wei estimated it was traveling at over a hundred kilometers per hour. After running without stopping for more than two hours, they finally reached the terminal.

The moment they stepped out of the carriage, they could clearly see the towering barrier that connected the sky and the ground.

From Feng Zi the night before, Li Wei had gained a rough understanding of this world.

The city they were in was called [Sun City], an underground city.

In other words, the sky they could see right now was fake. The glowing clouds were entirely artificial, while the barrier enclosing the entire city was actually hollowed-out earth crust!

When Li Wei first heard this, he could not imagine what level of scientific technology the humans in this game possessed to accomplish something like that.

Yet the buildings, transportation, and weapons displayed before him in the laborers' district all seemed far from advanced, creating a strange sense of dissonance.

After following the flow of laborers off the train, Feng Zi quietly asked, "How are we leaving?"

Li Wei swept his gaze around.

Factories belching black smoke stood everywhere. After getting off the train, the laborers each headed toward their assigned factory zones. The entire area was enormous, like a small town, yet security was plentiful. Uniformed guards could be seen patrolling from time to time.

However, they only carried black batons in their hands, not guns.

"How far is the place we're going from here?"

"3.78 kilometers."

Feng Zi gave the number with extreme precision. Before escaping, she had memorized the map of the entire city.

"Let's wait until nightfall first. It's not a good time to act during the day. Besides, we haven't eaten for nearly a day. We can at least mooch a meal at noon."