Urban Planning An Excuse for Cowards

The entire city was tethered to this well.

The old man spread his arms wide, and beneath the child's feet, seven red marks in the shape of hidden buttons lit up on the ground.

Guan Jinyue grabbed the child's hand, but the red marks sent a numbing shock through her fingertips.

Her blade slashed at the red marks, only kicking up a puff of sand and dust.

The child was being dragged toward the well. He didn't cry out in pain, but desperately craned his neck to look at Chen Guan.

"Teacher, can my bones really let everyone live?"

The child's voice was very soft, yet each word carried clearly through the wind.

"If it works, does that mean I'm not useless anymore?"

Guan Jinyue gripped his arm, veins bulging on the back of her hand. "Don't listen to them."

She hated this kind of forced sacrifice narrative the most.

Even if it was fake, even if it was a fading phantom, she didn't want to see the same scene play out before her eyes again.

The child looked at her, then back at Chen Guan.

"But, sister, my teacher said everyone should have a place to return to."

He looked down at the red marks beneath his feet, his eyes reddening.

"If I don't have a home, can I at least open a path home for others?"

Guan Jinyue ignored his downhearted words, stubbornly holding onto his arm, refusing to let go.

But the seven red marks, shaped like hidden buttons, only grew brighter and deeper, like wounds branded into the earth, inch by inch dragging the child toward the bone well.

The soles of the child's shoes scraped two shallow trails in the sand.

He no longer struggled as fiercely.

That was the most troublesome part.

If a person wanted to live, others could still lend a hand.

But if a person began to believe that his death had meaning, no one could pull him back.

Chen Guan watched him, his hand still resting on the coffin lid.

The old man stood on the stone platform, half his face coated in bone dust, the wrinkles filled with white powder.

He stared at Chen Guan's hand and spoke in a hoarse voice: "Sir, you taught him his letters, so you should also teach him what great righteousness means."

Chen Guan glanced at the old man.

"Great righteousness?"

The old man raised a hand and pointed around them.

Those kneeling people, those tightly shut doors, those faces hiding behind window cracks—all were swept into his gesture.

"The whole city is here," he said.

Chen Guan replied, "And so?"

The old man looked down at the child. "One boy's life in exchange for so many people living—is that not worth it?"

The child's throat moved. He heard it, and so did the people by the well.

Then those hidden voices rose again.

"Qi Kou, don't blame us."

"When the gate opens, we'll set up a memorial tablet for you."

"Your teacher will remember you in the future."

"You're not useless. You're saving us."

One sentence after another, like invisible hands, pushing the child toward the well.

The child's eyes were red and swollen, but he still tried to straighten his shoulders.

He turned to Chen Guan and whispered, "Teacher, if I jump down, could you go home?"

Chen Guan knew that the real robed man had probably stood here too, maybe heard these same words.

Perhaps on some long-gone day, that teacher had failed to give the child the answer he wanted.

At the bottom of the bone well, the shadow of a door was growing clearer.

It was a vertical door.

Its frame was made of layered bone patterns, and the red light seeping through the cracks crawled up the well walls, along the ground, slithering toward the child's feet.

The old man raised his hand, palm down.

"Qi Kou, come here."

The child slid forward a small distance.

Guan Jinyue's sword hand emitted a faint creak as she swung her blade again.

The edge cut into the red marks, and the glow of the seven buttons dimmed only for an instant before flaring back up, even jolting her half a step backward.

The child was caught by her, but his arm ached from the pull of the door pattern.

He gritted his teeth and didn't make a sound.

Guan Jinyue's expression turned grim.

She looked at Chen Guan. "This thing doesn't recognize outside force. It's locked onto the boy."

Chen Guan grunted in acknowledgment. He had seen it too.

The rules here didn't yield to brute strength—at least, not with Guan Jinyue's level of power, she couldn't safely win this tug of war.

The old man stared at Chen Guan, his tone heavier: "Sir, you changed the door pattern back then. You should understand the door's laws. Once a living door bone is chosen by the gate, no one can stop it. You said it yourself that day—not even that coffin could."

Chen Guan suddenly found it somewhat amusing.

That robed man in this old shadow had left him a lot of trouble.

Knew how to read.

Knew how to alter formations.

Carried a coffin.

And had said a lot of things that clearly mattered.

The problem was, Chen Guan knew none of them. It was like an elementary school student stumbling into a college entrance exam.

And the people here too, always jabbering on in obscure talk, like a match for Sima Ming's old-style classroom.

The red marks tightened under the child's feet. He had been dragged to within three steps of the well.

The lanky man clutched his chest as he got up, blood still smeared at the corner of his mouth.

When he saw the child about to be pulled into the well, he grinned, his face full of vicious glee.

"Sir, it's too late."

He gasped, pointing at the child and laughing: "The door has acknowledged him. The city has acknowledged him. Even he has acknowledged it himself. You can protect him for a moment, but not for a lifetime."

Chen Guan looked at him.

The lanky man's laughter instinctively died down a bit, but he still stuck his neck out.

"What are you looking at me for? Did I say anything wrong? If you take him away today, when the wind disaster comes tomorrow, the people in the city will still come for him."

Chen Guan said, "You people sure like speaking on behalf of the door."

The lanky man was taken aback.

Chen Guan stepped toward the bone well. "A bunch of useless people, only good at using a dead thing to bully the living."

With every step he took, the door patterns in the city glowed brighter.

Deep in the streets, the house doors began to tremble, as if countless people were pushing from inside, and countless invisible hands were pressing from outside.

The child watched Chen Guan approach, and finally, tears fell.

"Teacher, you... please be well. Leave this city. Go home."

Chen Guan stopped before him, reached out, and took the half piece of hard flatbread from the child's arms.

The child was stunned.

Chen Guan broke the bread, crumbs falling into his palm.

"Were you saving this for tonight?"

The child didn't understand but nodded anyway.

Chen Guan stuffed the half bread back into his hands.

"Then eat it tonight."

He reached up and tapped the child's forehead.

"The living eat; the dead open doors. If you still have to eat, don't be in such a rush to play dead for them."

The child stared at him blankly.

The wailing by the well, the curses, the bone chimes—all receded in that moment.

The old man's face tightened with wrinkles.

"Sir, you cannot teach him like this."

Chen Guan turned around. "Then how should I teach him?"

The old man said heavily, "Teach him to die for the many."

Chen Guan looked at the bone well. "If you love the many so much, how come every time, it's someone else's child you send in?"

"And besides, I'm the teacher here. My classroom—you don't get a say."

As soon as he said this, many heads by the well bowed.

The middle-aged man who had earlier shouted about the whole city dying opened his mouth but couldn't get a word out.

The old man's face darkened. "This is the city's law."

Chen Guan nodded, looking convinced. "Yes, city laws are very convenient."

He glanced at the kneeling crowd by the well.

"Hunger—that's the city's law."

"Fear—that's the city's law."

"Wanting to live—that's also the city's law."

The red line at his feet crept up over his shoe, but he stomped it into dust.

"But when it's your turn to go down the well yourselves, the city's rules don't ring so loudly."

"A bunch of cowards."