Science fiction + cyberpunk + AI + post-apocalypse + awakening through emotional mystery + clearance levels + System conspiracy + human nature and power struggles + battles of wits
In the 127th year of Tianshu’s operation, humanity lost the ability to cry.
Our joys and sorrows have been quantified as data. Our births, aging, sickness, and deaths have been programmed. Every heartbeat and every thought is subject to Tianshu’s precise calculations. Some call this paradise because there is no suffering. Others call it hell because no one is truly alive.
My name is Lin Shen, and I’m a Level 5 data analyst. My job is to delete emotions deemed “System anomalies.” That is, until the day I analyzed the brain data of a suicide victim and found a line of code Tianshu could never understand.
From that moment on, I began to hear my own heartbeat.
I saw Level 9 clearance holders secretly crying in deserted corners. I saw the names of lovers carved into cold steel walls. And I saw the “ghosts” who had been exiled, lighting bonfires amid the surface ruins.
Tianshu says we are sick.
But only we know that we have just begun to live.
And now I’m going to tell you a secret:
Tianshu never controlled humanity.
We chose to lock ourselves inside this emotionless cage.
And the key that opens it has always been in our own hands.
