City A

Biodata

Background

Ji Tan enters City A after collapsing at work while reading a novel generated by his AI, A Qiang. He awakens in a hospital, occupying the body of Huo Zhaixing’s nominal spouse, just before an operation intended to transfer his heart to Qiao Qiao 1.

The setting contains more than the wealthy families and domineering CEOs Ji Tan expected from the manuscript: supernatural ability users, specialized police, mechanical organs, and irreversible transformations into ghouls all exist within it 2 3 5 13.

Districts and Cityscape

City A consists of five districts named for their eastern, southern, western, northern, and central positions 6.

Beichen District

• Scale: Described as larger than any city in Ji Tan’s original world. A congested drive to the Western District checkpoint takes more than three hours 7.
• Architecture: Skyscrapers have widely differing, elaborate designs, resembling competing architectural exhibition entries 6.
• Local influence: Police advise Ji Tan to leave because the Huo family’s power is concentrated in the north 5.

Xili District

• Skyline: Closely packed dark towers are wrapped in red, blue, and purple neon, with staggered, spiraling overpasses extending into the distance 7.
• Prosperous center: Broad roads, skyscrapers, and enormous 3D displays include electronic whales whose animated spray appears to interact with surrounding buildings 8.
• Impoverished fringe: Low houses, muddy alleys, exposed wiring, and damaged illuminated signs contrast sharply with the center 8.
• Slums: Xie Zhi warns that fugitives, cultists, and volatile Orderlies make these neighborhoods particularly dangerous 8.

Government and Law Enforcement

City and District Authority

• Archon: City A retains a citywide chief executive even though its districts handle their own affairs 2.
• Dictators: Each district’s highest administrative official can decide everyday local matters without reporting to Central District 4.
• Concurrent offices: Xie Zhi becomes City A’s chief executive while retaining his position as Beichen District’s Dictator 4.
• Public identities: Xie Zhi presents himself unmasked as the citywide Administrator and masked as the North District’s Dictator. His masked identity is known to Beichen officials and the Order Administration Bureau’s T-police 4 5.

Police Organizations

District Crossings

• Checkpoints: Travel between districts involves identification and luggage checks. Xili residents have an express lane with simpler procedures 7.
• Restricted travelers: Important figures face crossing restrictions; Xie Zhi is restricted because of his position as Beichen’s Dictator 5 7.
• Ordinary residents: Generally do not face the same restrictions, although loan-shark debt prevents Ji Sinan from traveling to the Northern District 5.
• Territorial powers: Xie Zhi explicitly states that he cannot use Prohibition in the Western District 15.

Infrastructure and Technology

Transport

• Roads: Luxury cars coexist with heavy congestion, particularly in Beichen District 6 7.
• Public transit: Xili District has buses and a subway; Ji Tan and Ji Sinan travel through Fist Plaza while seeking medical treatment 11 12.
• Informal transport: Unlicensed taxis and motorcycle taxis solicit passengers outside the Western District checkpoint. A checkpoint worker warns Ji Tan that they may overcharge 7 8.
• Driving licenses: Xie Zhi tells Ji Tan that City A does not require a license to drive 6.

Mechanical Medicine

• Mechanical hearts: Advertised as cutting-edge Xili technology, with adjustable output, protection against premature beats and arrhythmia, and a claimed 90-day standby time 5.
• Replacement cost: The mechanical heart arranged for Ji Tan is valued at at least thirty million yuan 4.
• Mechanical limbs: Quickblade Clinic’s owner has an artificial arm whose fingers can transform into surgical tools, including a scalpel 11.

Internet and Communications

• Limited information access: Ji Tan finds basic information about City A fragmented and difficult to retrieve; news and social-media trends overwhelmingly concern wealthy-family gossip 9.
• Missing services: He cannot find review platforms, mapping services, or a conventional search engine when looking for hospitals 11.
• No private text communication: The phones he examines have neither messaging apps nor text messages, and the sole social-media app lacks private messaging 12.
• Voice calls: Telephone calls remain available; Ji Tan contacts Xie Zhi through separate North and West numbers 9.

Supernatural Conditions and Public Health

Orderlies

• Definition: Supernatural ability users are called Orderlies. Their powers are organized into Sequences with ranks; Director Yuan identifies himself as an E-rank member of the Doctor Sequence 3 13.
• Civilian exposure: Proximity to an Orderly’s Grace can make Ji Tan dizzy or cause him to lose consciousness 6 8 13.
• Restricted knowledge: Police discourage inquiries into Orderlies. A young officer’s claim that only people with real hearts can become Orderlies is explicitly treated as hearsay 5.

Sanity

Sanity is a bodily metric every City A resident must monitor. Its maximum is 100%, though people normally fall short of that value; frightening experiences and exposure to things that should not be seen or heard can reduce it 13.

• No natural recovery: Lost sanity does not recover on its own 13.
• Medication: Director Yuan identifies a single drug available in City A that can raise sanity, usually by 10–15 percentage points per injection 13.
• Cost and side effects: Treatment costs one million yuan per dose and erases a random stretch of memory 13.
• Monitoring: Portable sanity monitors are available; Xie Zhi recommends one for Ji Sinan before further injections 14.

Ghouls and Cult Activity

• Legal status: Anyone who encounters a ghoul may kill it without legal responsibility 13.
• Physiology: Ghouls are already dead in human physiological terms but can move, and some retain consciousness. Their destruction is called a “second death” 16.
• Supernatural growth: Ghouls possessing Grace can advance like Sequence users 16.
• Emergency defense: Ghouls and people nearing transformation are attracted to light but fear large fires 16.
• Argus worship: A cult operating on Broken Line Street claims that eating flesh containing Grace can grant supernatural power. This is presented as the cult leader’s teaching, not a verified safe method 14 15.

Notable Locations

Major Events