Zhou Qiming's consciousness began to loosen as the subway neared its final stop.
To say he "fell asleep" wasn't quite accurate.
The train was still moving forward, the rhythmic grinding of steel against rail pressing against his eardrums, vibrations traveling through the seat into his back. His head rested against the window. The glass was cold—cool enough to be felt, though not sharp. The chill seeped slowly inward from his forehead, a quiet reminder that his body was still there.
The sound in his headphones came and went, like a radio station with poor reception.
Someone was speaking, though it didn't feel as if the words were meant for him.
"The life you live now is the one you chose."
The sentence carried no emotion.
It didn't ask for a response.
It wasn't a reminder, and it wasn't an accusation.
It sounded like something pre-recorded, played at a fixed moment—whether the person present heard it or not hardly seemed to matter.
Zhou Qiming instinctively reached to adjust the volume.
The thought surfaced—and stopped.
Not because he was tired.
It simply felt unnecessary.
His awareness began to loosen.
Not abruptly, but as if he were being lowered into a stable environment. The parts of him that usually stayed tense began to release, little by little. No one prompted him. No one urged him on.
He didn't immediately realize what was happening.
Only that he no longer needed to listen for the station announcements, no longer had to judge whether he was almost there.
Light appeared first.
He couldn't tell where it came from, or which direction it belonged to. It wasn't like a lamp or a screen—more like brightness seeping through a layer of skin. It wasn't glaring. It simply persisted. Zhou Qiming couldn't sense any boundaries. He couldn't tell whether he was lying down, sinking, or being held in place.
The weight of his body grew unimportant.
The position of his limbs blurred. Even his breathing no longer required attention.
He tried moving a finger.
There was no clear feedback.
It wasn't that he couldn't move.
The action simply wasn't emphasized—like something optional, whether performed or not.
He tried to confirm something.
For instance, where he was.
The thought barely took shape before it dissolved.
Not interrupted—more like a notebook being closed mid-sentence.
Another thought surfaced, lighter than the last—
Who was he?
Before it could become a complete question, it was gently pressed down. Not rejected. Not denied. More like taken over.
As if, here, it didn't matter.
The details he usually relied on to confirm that he was still there began to lose relevance. The rhythm of his heartbeat. The depth of his breath. Whether his muscles were tense. These once-solid signals slowly receded into the background.
And then he realized something.
There was no time here.
Not that time had stopped—there simply was no scale for it.
No "already passed." No "about to happen." The judgments that usually surfaced on their own—I should wake up, I should get off, I should do something—felt unnecessary here.
The state was almost too stable.
No evaluation.
No demands.
No reminders of any kind.
He thought of the red warning windows that would suddenly pop up at work.
Of meetings where phrases like stay neutral, watch your boundaries, avoid subjective judgment were repeated again and again.
The images appeared—then were washed away, casually erased.
No residue. No resistance.
There was no performance metric here.
This wasn't a conclusion he arrived at through reasoning.
It felt like an assumption built into the environment itself—one that required neither explanation nor proof.
A feeling surfaced inside him, difficult to name.
Not safety.
Not relief.
More like—
finally, there was nothing left to prove.
That was when the surroundings began to change.
A faint pressure emerged.
As if space itself were slowly contracting—or breathing. At first he thought it was an illusion, until he noticed the rhythm.
Vibrations reached him from far away.
The screech of brakes, the crackle of announcements, the coughs of a crowd—filtered through layers of distance, knocking against some outer shell.
For the first time, he felt uneasy.
Not because of the sounds themselves.
But because a thought suddenly became unmistakably clear—
If he stayed here, he might never be asked to wake up again.
The idea appeared without warning.
Not as reasoning, but as a judgment delivered directly to him.
The pressure intensified.
Light fractured, as if being pulled apart. He felt himself pushed in a certain direction—not violently, but without any room for negotiation.
The sensation of being held remained, but it grew unstable.
As if this place was never meant for prolonged stay.
Before his consciousness was pulled back, the familiar voice sounded once more:
"The life you live now is the one you chose."
The subway's arrival chime rang out sharply.
Zhou Qiming opened his eyes.
The carriage was empty.
All the lights were on, harsh and exposed, leaving nowhere to hide. A cleaner stood outside the door, tapping the glass twice with a rag before pointing toward the exit.
The message was clear: the train had reached its stop.
When he stood, his knees buckled slightly.
Not from fatigue—more like stepping out of weightlessness. His feet were on solid ground, but his body hadn't fully readjusted to gravity.
His backpack felt heavy.
The soles of his shoes pressed firmly against the floor.
His phone vibrated.
A message from his supervisor appeared, telling him to cover the morning shift and report before nine.
It was 8:17.
He stared at the screen for a few seconds without replying.
Not because he hadn't seen it—
but because he didn't want the message to become real just yet.
Outside the station, the morning rush was already thinning.
Breakfast stalls were closing their umbrellas. The sweetness of soy milk mixed with engine oil and dust, drifting toward him in uneven waves.
He suddenly realized that earlier, he hadn't needed to breathe.
At least, not like this.
The company occupied Tower B of the office complex.
Tower A was bright and orderly, its glass façade polished and reflective, ready for a brochure. Tower B was different—its lights always half on, half off, several floors permanently vacant.
At exactly nine o'clock, he sat back down at his desk.
The system window popped up automatically.
Task volume. Accuracy rate. Rankings. Each line laid out with precision.
He put on his headphones and opened the first item.
The moment the image appeared, his body tensed instinctively.
Blurred screenshots.
Obscured details.
Rows of malicious comments stacked neatly below.
He knew this material well.
The mouse moved.
Checked.
Submitted.
The motions were fast—almost requiring no thought.
At some point, he realized something.
He hadn't truly seen this content in a long time.
His eyes registered it. His judgment followed. But between the two, something stable had settled, holding emotion at a distance.
The sensation was unsettlingly familiar.
It felt like the same medium that had surrounded him earlier.
The thought made him uneasy.
Not because of that place—
but because he had begun to use it as a point of comparison.