The Year 2433

[What is beautiful?] The System asks as usual.

Li Su: Wearing a black, white, and gray H-J uniform, keeping to the prescribed hairstyle, and curling your lips when you meet people.

[What is right?]

Li Su: Protecting the base's interests, reporting my whereabouts to the System every day, avoiding private dealings, and cursing the rebels.

[Who are the rebels?]

Li Su: The traitor Lu Cheng.

In 2433, coastal cleanup worker Li Su finds a glass bottle by the river.

Inside the bottle is a piece of paper: [My name is Lu Jinxin. What's yours?]

Sharing written messages and communicating in private are serious crimes, but Li Su is curious, so she writes back anyway.

Soon, another bottle arrives.

This person is a complete stranger who keeps saying unlawful things, yet every opinion is so captivating.

At last, Li Su cautiously slips in a note: You must be beautiful.

A bottle drifts over, bearing a photo of a sweetly smiling face Li Su recognizes: the rebel Lu Cheng.

And beneath the photo it says: I am powerful.

A short piece, written in a burst of inspiration.

It has a dystopian setting.

A writing exercise, with no particular message to convey.

Theme: Protect the environment, starting with not littering