The tea froze solid in my cup before I could even finish the first sip.
I sat in my small apartment in the heart of Shanghai. Usually, the city hums. You can hear the tires on the wet road and the distant sound of millions of people living their lives. But today, the city was dead. I looked at my computer screen. On the left monitor, my virtual city was warm. The steam hubs were glowing orange. The workers were happy. It was a masterpiece of survival math.
On the right monitor, the local news was a mess. A blue "Technical Error" box covered the screen. They had been calling it a freak cold snap for three days. They told us to stay inside and wait for the gas heaters to catch up. They lied.
"Chen, stop looking out the window. You're losing focus."
Lao Wei's voice came through my headset. It was a rough, scratchy sound. I could hear a metallic clink-clink-clink on his end. He was always messing with something.
"Wei, the air is too dry," I said. My voice sounded thin in the empty room. "My tea turned to a block of brown ice in ten minutes. Inside my house. With the heat on."
"It is just the humidity, kid. A pipe probably burst at the plant. Focus on the game. We need to finish this bridge by midnight or the guild kicks us off the top rank."
I stood up and walked to the glass window. I didn't see the bright neon lights of the shopping mall across the street. I didn't see the taxis. I saw a white frost pattern crawling across the glass. It looked like a spider web made of diamonds. It was growing while I watched it.
"There is no midnight, Wei," I whispered. "Not for the game."
"What are you talking about?"
"Listen to the street," I told him. "Just stop moving your wrench and listen."
For a long minute, neither of us spoke. The only sound was the low, mournful whistle of the wind as it whipped between the skyscrapers. It wasn't the sound of a city. It was the sound of a mountain top.
My radiator gave a final, tired hiss. The small red power light on my space heater flickered. It blinked once, twice, and then stayed dark. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen stopped. The glow of my dual monitors vanished, plunging the room into a deep, gray shadows.
"Chen?" Wei's voice was small now. The bravado was gone. "My lights just went out. All of them."
"Mine too," I said.
"How cold is it in your room?"
I took a breath. It felt like needles in my chest. "It hurts to breathe, Wei. The air is sharp."
I didn't wait for him to answer. I stood up, my chair legs screaming against the floorboards. I didn't reach for my wallet. I didn't grab my phone charger. I walked to the corner of the room and picked up the heavy black tool bag. I had packed it two weeks ago, right after the first snow hit the northern provinces. My friends laughed at me then. They called me a doomsday prepper. They aren't laughing now.
"Where are you going?" Wei asked. I could hear him shuffling, probably looking for a flashlight.
"The University," I said. I pulled on a thick thermal vest. Then a sweater. Then my heavy winter coat.
"You are crazy," Wei shouted. "The streets will be a riot. People are going to be fighting for blankets and gas. Stay in your apartment. Put on all your clothes and get under the covers."
"Lin is there," I said. I pulled my gloves on. "She is in the basement levels of the Archive. If the power is dead, the electronic doors default to a locked position. It's a safety feature to protect the scrolls from fire. But without power, those doors are five inches of solid steel. She will be trapped in a freezer."
"Chen, you cannot walk ten blocks in this. Look at the temperature. It's falling a degree every ten minutes."
"I am not walking," I said. I grabbed a heavy iron wrench from my desk. "I have an old bike in the garage. My grandfather's bike. No computer chips. No battery. No sensors. Just iron and a chain. The cold can't break it."
"You want to die for a girl and some old paper?"
"I am going for the seeds, Wei. Lin has the keys to the climate-controlled vault. If the world is ending, I'd rather have a bag of rice than a high score on a server that doesn't exist anymore."
The line went dead. The internet was gone. The towers had finally frozen over.
I stood in the center of my dark room. The only light came from the "Emergency Exit" sign in the hallway. It was a dim, bleeding red. It made the frost on my window look like blood.
I grabbed my bag and stepped out. The hallway was already freezing. The air smelled like wet dust and old metal.
I pushed open the heavy stairwell door. The elevator was a dead metal box stuck somewhere between floors. My boots made a sharp, hollow sound on the concrete steps. With every floor I descended, the air grew thicker and smelled more like cold stone.
By the time I reached the basement garage, I could see my own breath. It didn't just drift; it hung in the air like smoke.
The garage was a forest of shadows. Expensive electric cars sat in their charging stalls, their digital dashboards dark and useless. They were high-tech paperweights now. I walked past a silver sedan that cost more than my apartment. The door handles were flush with the body, operated by sensors. I watched a neighbor, a man named Mr. Wang, hitting the window of the car with a rock.
"It won't open!" he screamed. His voice bounced off the low ceiling. He wasn't wearing a coat, just a silk robe over his pajamas. His skin was already turning a waxy, blue color. "The app won't load! I need to get my heater on!"
"The sensors are frozen, Mr. Wang," I said, not slowing down.
"Help me break the glass!" he yelled, turning toward me. His eyes were wide and wet. "You have tools in that bag. Give me a hammer!"
"Breaking the glass won't start the engine," I said. "The computer is dead. Go back upstairs. Get your blankets. Stay away from the windows."
"Give me the bag!"
He lunged at me. It was a slow, clumsy move. He was shivering too hard to be fast. I didn't want to hurt him, but I didn't have time to argue. I stepped to the side and shoved him toward the wall. He fell, his robe fluttering like a broken wing. He didn't get up. He just sat there, sobbing into his hands.
I felt a sting of guilt, but I pushed it down. In a survival sim, you learn early: you cannot save people who refuse to see the math.
I reached the back of the garage, where the storage lockers were. I pulled out my key and felt the cold metal bite into my thumb. The lock was stubborn. I had to hit it twice with my wrench before it clicked open.
Inside was the bike.
It was a 1970s Flying Pigeon. Heavy steel frame. Thick rubber tires. A simple chain and sprocket. My grandfather had kept it oiled and clean for forty years. He used to say that if a machine has a brain, it has a way to fail. This bike had no brain. It only had bones.
I hauled it out and slung my tool bag over the rear rack. I tested the tires. They were hard, but not brittle.
I headed for the exit ramp. The massive rolling steel gate that led to the street was down. Usually, you wave a hand in front of a sensor to open it. Now, it was just a wall of corrugated iron.
I looked at the manual chain hoist on the side. It was covered in a thin layer of ice. I grabbed the chain and pulled.
Nothing moved.
I braced my feet against the concrete and pulled with my entire body weight. My muscles burned. My breath came in short, jagged gasps. I could feel the cold seeping through the soles of my boots. Slowly, with a scream of complaining metal, the gate began to rise.
Inch by inch.
The sound was like a bone breaking. A gap opened at the bottom, and a blast of white wind rushed in. It was so cold it felt like fire. It hit the floor and turned the lingering dampness into instant ice.
I pulled until the gap was wide enough to crawl through. I grabbed the handlebars of the Pigeon and shoved it under the gate. I followed it, sliding on my belly through the slush.
I stood up on the other side and looked at Shanghai.
The city was unrecognizable. The streetlights were dead. The massive LED billboards that usually turned the sky purple were black. The only light came from the moon, reflecting off the white powder that was piling up in the middle of the road.
I hopped onto the bike. The seat was as cold as a block of marble. My legs felt heavy as I pushed the pedals.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The chain was dry, but it held. I began to move. The wind cut through my coat like a knife. I put my head down and focused on the red emergency light glowing on the university tower five blocks away. It was the only red dot in a world of blue and white.
I had to reach Lin.
If she was still in the basement, she had maybe two hours of oxygen left before the ventilation fans completely frosted over. And if the seeds froze, there was no point in surviving at all.
I turned the corner onto the main road. That was when I saw the first fire.
Someone had tipped over a bus and set the tires on fire. People were crowded around it, their faces orange in the dancing light. They weren't talking. They were just staring at the flames, terrified. As I cycled past, a man reached out and tried to grab my handlebars.
"Where are you going?" he hissed. "There's nothing that way! The harbor is frozen!"
I kicked his hand away and kept pedaling.
"To the fire!" I shouted back.
But I wasn't talking about the burning tires. I was talking about the fire I was going to build in the mountains. The last fire of the East.
My lungs felt like they were filling with broken glass. Every breath was a struggle. My heart was a drum in my ears.
One more block. The university gates came into view. They were locked, draped in heavy chains. Beyond them, the grand library stood like a dark mountain. Somewhere beneath it, Lin was waiting.
I didn't stop. I steered the bike straight for the small pedestrian side-gate, praying the lock was as old and brittle as the air. I raised my wrench as I rode, ready to strike.