The Platform 1

"I have often thought that ugly women are what make beauties beautiful. I have often thought that fools are what elevate the wise. I have often thought that cowards are what set heroes in relief. I have often thought that it is all sentient beings who deliver the Buddha." —The Temple of Earth and Me

......

No matter how Xiao Chun thought it over, he was certain he had walked down the stairs and arrived on the seventh floor.

But this looked nothing like a "seventh floor."

The deathly white light shone on his equally bloodless face. He had felt this same helpless bewilderment just over ten minutes ago—when he first opened his eyes in the room on the eighth floor.

Gray walls enclosed him on all sides, without a door or window. An enormous "34" looked as though it had been hacked and chiseled into the opposite wall. The room was small, with a square hole cut into the center of the floor and an identical opening in the ceiling overhead. Above and below were more rooms with the same holes, one level after another, stretching vertically beyond sight.

He truly could not fathom the room's avant-garde design—no, he could not fathom any of this. What was happening now? Surely he was still dreaming after all.

Fortunately, a man stood across the room with his back to him. He wore a tank top and shorts and was barefoot, a huge, hulking figure covered in slabs of flesh, with a large tattoo across his back. He looked like trouble, but at least this was better than being alone.

Only a second later, Xiao Chun abandoned that thought completely. In some situations, being alone was preferable.

Before he could say hello, the man in the corner slowly turned around.

The first thing Xiao Chun noticed was how stiffly he moved. His limbs seemed unable to bend, making even the act of turning extraordinarily difficult. He shuffled his feet with sluggish effort, and before his body had fully come around to face Xiao Chun, his entire face had already come into view—

It was a textbook sagging face. The rough skin had an unnatural blue-gray cast; the nose was broad, and the loosened muscles could no longer support his brows or eyes. His eyelids drooped in layer after layer, and his irises were milky white, without pupils.

Xiao Chun swallowed a cry and stumbled backward into the wall. He pinched the webbing between his thumb and forefinger viciously. It hurt. This was no dream.

The man lumbered toward Xiao Chun one step at a time, his belly twice the size of the rest of him. His thighs were covered in bulging flesh and wrinkles, and every step was an unsteady stagger. Meaningless gurgles rose from his throat as saliva streamed from his mouth.

Xiao Chun remembered the chair leg he had been holding on his way downstairs. He looked around. Where had it gone?

He had no choice but to search for some other weapon to defend himself. He had no idea what was wrong with the man, and he fought not to imagine the worst.

The cramped room contained two twin beds, one on either side of the opening. A sink, mirror, and toilet stood in one corner, and there was nothing else. Xiao Chun's gaze settled on the mirror. It was the only thing that could even loosely be called a weapon.

Holding his breath, he quickly edged along the base of the wall toward the sink. The man turned his head to follow him. The sight nearly startled Xiao Chun into biting his tongue again.

The man's body did not move; only his neck turned abruptly. He was like a jammed windup toy, every motion eerily wrong and grotesquely out of place. A thought surfaced in Xiao Chun's mind, but he refused to admit it—the other man simply did not look alive.

Cold sweat instantly soaked the shirt beneath Xiao Chun's trench coat. He threw caution to the wind, gritted his teeth, and lunged forward. In one swift motion, he stripped off his coat and wrapped it around his fist, then smashed the mirror with a vicious punch. It shattered with a crack. He wound the coat around his palm, broke off a shard, and turned to face the stiffly advancing man.

"Don't come any closer!" he barked sternly. "I said, don't come any closer! Stay right there! Don't move!"

The man seemed not to hear him at all. His milky eyes faced in Xiao Chun's direction, the heavy flesh of his face jiggling with every step as strings of drool dripped onto his chest. Xiao Chun steadied his trembling arm, his gaze sharpening. "This is your last warning! Don't move!"

Clank—boom—

A tremendous noise suddenly erupted overhead. Xiao Chun jumped, while the man stopped, his face twisting with a strange, frenzied fervor. With difficulty, he changed direction and shuffled toward the opening. Xiao Chun looked at his defenseless back, then glanced at the hole—if he kicked him now...

"What is this plaaaaace?!"

"Somebody heeeelp!!"

"Let me out! Let me out! Who did this?! Who the fuck did this?!"

The thundering commotion seemed to awaken the entire place. Wails and screams began rising from every direction, and relief loosened something in Xiao Chun's chest. Thank God. He wasn't the only normal person here.

"Who are you?!"

"Stay back! Don't come any closer! Put that thing down!"

"Hey! Don't do anything stupid! What are you trying to do? Get down first!!"

One shout after another came from overhead, along with the dull thuds of things colliding. Xiao Chun involuntarily looked up at the opening in the ceiling. A square platform was slowly descending through it—the platform fit the opening perfectly, as though every one of these holes had been made for it.

It stopped briefly on each floor before slowly descending again. The bright clatter of bowls and plates occasionally mingled with furious roars and terrified shouts. None of it made any sense to Xiao Chun, and that incomprehensibility left him even more unsettled.

It had been a long time since such uncontrollable chaos had entered his life—no, that wasn't true. When the paternity test had been placed in front of him, the turmoil had been far worse than this.

An odd feeling stirred in Xiao Chun. He glanced at the man waiting by the opening. The man was no longer paying him the slightest attention. He had tilted his head back, exposing folds of flesh where his nape should have been, compressed into thin, deep furrows. Xiao Chun had just looked away when he abruptly froze and stared again. Those were not furrows pressed into his flesh. They were actual gashes.

A wound deep enough to expose bone ran across the back of the man's neck. Its color had long since faded to match the surrounding skin, and with no trace of blood and rolls of flesh obscuring it, Xiao Chun had failed to notice it at first.

Though some part of him had already expected this, Xiao Chun still sucked in a sharp breath. His scalp prickled, his head buzzed, and cold sweat dampened the hair over his forehead.

He tightened his grip on the shard of glass and made his decision—he had to deal with this "thing" first.

He could no longer spare attention for the descending platform overhead. Every ounce of his focus was fixed on the figure before him. Slowly, carefully, as soundlessly as possible, he approached from behind. He shifted the shard in his hand several times, unsure what angle to stab from. No, stabbing was clearly an unnecessary step. Given the difference in their size, he should push the man straight into the hole.

He gathered all his strength. His hand had just reached the man's back when, without warning, an extraordinarily vivid image flashed before his eyes. It was so clear that Xiao Chun almost mistook it for the resurfacing of a memory he had once lived through—

In the vision, the platform descended to his floor. Astonishingly, it was covered in food, though the food had already been trampled beyond recognition. A short-haired man stood at the center of the platform with black steel slats strapped to his back and a shard of glass clutched in his hand, just like Xiao Chun. Strips of cloth were wound around his right hand to protect his knuckles and palm. His features were sharp and severe, his black eyes filled with bloodlust and frenzy. The corners of his eyes were red, his brow tightly furrowed. The instant he saw Xiao Chun, his eyes blazed. Then he charged straight at the hulking man beside the opening and, without so much as blinking, drove the shard into his eye.

The vision vanished there.

For a moment, Xiao Chun's eyes lost focus. He was certain he did not know the man he had seen, had never been to this place, and could not possibly have known there would be food on the platform.

Yet in that brief instant of hesitation, the man in front of Xiao Chun seemed to sense something. His entire head abruptly swiveled around one hundred and eighty degrees—something no living human could ever do.

Those pupil-less white eyes stared directly into Xiao Chun's. His hand jerked, and the glass shard fell to the floor.

Frustration nearly tore a shout from him. With no time to think of anything else, he planted both hands against the man's broad back and shoved—he did not budge.

The man's arms twisted backward as well. He now looked like a giant puppet whose body and limbs had been assembled the wrong way around. He seized Xiao Chun's wrists with strength far beyond anything Xiao Chun had expected, pinning him as if in a pair of iron vises. More terrifying still was what he did next. His nose twitched as though savoring the scent of something delicious, and drool spilled across the back of Xiao Chun's hand. Xiao Chun's stomach churned. The man opened his mouth impossibly wide and bit down at him.

In that instant, Xiao Chun summoned strength he had never known he possessed and smashed his head into the man's chin. There was a muffled thud. Xiao Chun's vision swam, and the man paused. A tooth dropped from his mouth, but there was no blood.

As if his blood had run dry long ago.

Xiao Chun raised a leg and kicked him squarely in the lower abdomen. The man did not react at all. Of course. In his condition, how could he possibly have anything resembling a weak spot?

As the two fought for their lives, the platform descended slowly behind the man. It slotted neatly into the opening on their level and came to a steady stop. Xiao Chun's gaze swept past the man's shoulder and met the eyes of the person standing on the platform. In an instant, his own eyes widened in shock.

The sight before him was identical to the vision that had just flashed through his mind. The only difference was that the newcomer did not hesitate. He raised his shard and lunged, driving it toward the nape of the man who was trying to bite Xiao Chun.

He moved fast. As he stabbed, he leaped onto the man's back, wrapping long, powerful legs around him. Practically riding on his shoulders, he thrust the shard down viciously while extending an arm between the man and Xiao Chun.

The man sank his teeth into the newcomer's arm. Even through the fabric, Xiao Chun shuddered as if he too could feel that piercing agony.

Blood streamed down the newcomer's sleeve—blood! He was alive!

Xiao Chun snapped back to himself and immediately joined the newcomer in pushing the man onto the platform.

One stab was not enough. The newcomer yanked out the bloodless shard and deftly drove it into the man's eye, then his ear, then his cheek.

Within seconds, the man's head and neck had been riddled like a hornet's nest. Fighting back nausea, Xiao Chun worked in perfect concert with the newcomer to pin him on the platform. Then the food captured the man's attention. Ignoring both of them completely, he grabbed a handful of cake that had been trampled to mush, stuffed it straight into his mouth, and chewed in great gulps.

Xiao Chun could only stare, dumbfounded. The newcomer hauled him to his feet, pulled him off the platform, and then wrapped him in a fierce embrace.

The warmth of a living body pressed close. Xiao Chun's fingertips were icy as they unconsciously clutched the man's sleeve. His thoughts were a mess, thick as paste. One moment he was thinking of the man still devouring food; the next, of the inexplicable vision that had flashed through his mind—and then come true.

He could make no sense of it. It was a long while before his attention finally returned to the person holding him.

The man's body was shaking, but he was warm—almost feverishly hot. For some reason, that heat brought Xiao Chun a measure of calm.

Alive. He was alive... Why was he trembling so badly? Had he pushed himself too hard?

Xiao Chun instinctively tightened his arms around him.

After pausing for a moment, the platform descended to the floor below with another thunderous boom.

The man on it kept shoveling food into his mouth as the platform carried him down and away. Only when Xiao Chun was certain he could not climb back up did he finally let out a deep breath.

Belatedly, he became aware of a tingling numbness in his limbs. Coming back to himself, he gave the man a gentle push. After a moment's hesitation, the man straightened.

He looked exactly like the man in Xiao Chun's vision: neat black hair cut short, striking features carved into hard, severe lines. With the bloodlust yet to fade, he resembled a cold sword fresh from its sheath, keen-edged and forbidding. But at this moment his eyes were closed, his long, thick lashes trembling and their corners wet as he struggled to steady his rapid breathing. He looked like a traveler who had finally come home after a long journey, his face exhausted.

Was he... crying?

Xiao Chun abruptly came to his senses and remembered how the man had blocked that bite for him. He hurriedly took hold of his arm. "Let me see how bad it is!"

Was he crying because it hurt so much?

Xiao Chun hesitated, then added guiltily, "Thank you for what you did just now. My name is Xiao Chun. You..."

The short-haired man did not answer. He opened his eyes.

He was the same height as Xiao Chun, so they stood perfectly eye to eye. Xiao Chun found himself caught by his gaze. The words on his lips snagged at the tip of his tongue, and for a long moment he could not remember what he had meant to say.

The man's brows and eyes were exceptionally fine, his face undeniably handsome. But the murderous intent radiating from him had made his expression almost savage, overwhelming any awareness of his looks.

Now, upon closer inspection, Xiao Chun saw pale skin, strong brows, and beautiful, peach-blossom eyes. His brows swept toward his temples like twin swords, while the corners of his eyes were red and tears hung from his lashes, poised to fall. Though he had been committing such ruthless violence moments before, he now looked fragile—the contrast was startling. His irises were pitch black, and the emotion in their depths was intense enough to drown a man. Xiao Chun could only stare back, dazed, as something tightened faintly in the depths of his heart.

He could also see his own reflection in the other man's eyes. He was hardly fit to be seen: hair disheveled, collar hanging open, forehead red and swollen from the brutal collision. His face was deathly pale and his lips slightly parted, making him look foolish and utterly lost.

For "Mr. Xiao," who had been acutely conscious of his conduct and appearance since childhood, this was as disheveled as it got.

Feeling sheepish and embarrassed in front of the man who had saved his life, he lowered his head and looked away, carefully rolling up the man's sleeve to inspect the injury.

Only then did he notice that the man seemed to be wearing... pajamas?

Blood streamed from the bite marks on his pale, slender arm. Fortunately, the teeth had not sunk too deep. And because Xiao Chun had knocked out one of the culprit's teeth earlier, there was an obvious gap in the bite. Even so, Xiao Chun frowned at the sight. He had nothing on him that could stop the bleeding, so he pulled out the hem of his shirt and gently wiped the blood from around the wound, then asked to borrow the glass shard.

The short-haired man finally spoke. His voice was hoarse, and he stared at Xiao Chun without blinking. "What for?"

"To bandage your arm." For some reason, Xiao Chun felt the man badly needed soothing. His voice softened without conscious thought. "The fabric of my shirt is a little rough, so it might not be very comfortable. I hope you don't mind."

The man shook his head. "I won't."

But he did not hand over the shard. He merely withdrew his arm, apparently unconcerned about the wound, and tugged his sleeve down to cover it. Then, in answer to a question Xiao Chun had not asked, he said, "My name is Yu Gu."

"Yu as in 'zhongyu', ‘finally.' Gu as in 'gunian', ‘to keep in one's thoughts.'"

Yu Gu.

A strange flutter passed through Xiao Chun's heart. He could not say why, but the name felt familiar.

"Mr. Yu," he said, watching Yu Gu. "Why did you come down from above? Is there another way out? What is this place?"

"The Platform," Yu Gu replied simply. "If you want to survive here, the first thing you have to do is find a way to get food."