(No System, plot-driven, not a formulaic power fantasy)
Chen Qing sells forged identity chips on the black market, asking only to survive in the rusting undercity.
An ordinary transaction leads him to receive an old banknote stamped with a strange serial number.
That number belongs to the municipal official who turned his mother away three years ago, leaving her to die.
Following the clues, he enters the North District, which the authorities claim has been "abandoned," and discovers cages, silent witnesses, and an iron door leading into even deeper darkness.
The gleaming city secretly depends on a conveyor belt that devours "useless people."
As he grips the rusted key that can unlock the secret, he too becomes the next target marked for elimination above the cages.
