The Black Iron Hostel -Wang, Xiaobo

The bald guy entered the store to buy goose feathers stored in a magnetic jar. He reached for the feathers, composed himself, and pressed his hand on top of the shop counter. �Ten feathers, for the shuttlecock,� he said to the keeper. The keeper with the bent back walked over to him and bend over to exam the man�s fingers on which lay ink stains. The keeper had an eye that grew scales, its white sheath looking like a blister. He directs that eye to the bald guy, and gazes straight down upon his very soul. The man had to look aside; he looked up and stared at the ceiling. Above him hovered the crossings of rafters and rails. They made up a complex hologram. In the end, strangely enough, the baldy got his feather. He could return to his desktop calculations. The virtual world allows a little bit of freedom compared to the real world. The man stepped out of the shoppe and onto the street. Now he's back in the blizzard. He could return to his dwelling and resume his work with a quill and lambskin. How can you ever believe this: a man in the 15th century, with a quill and lambskin as his stationary, can have a profession of network engineering. But it doesn't matter whether you believe this or not. A man must have what he needs in order to work. I.e., me writing my net fiction could be in the Black Iron Hotel facing a monitor; while the same me in the virtual reality could be sitting under a palm tree, making scratches with my reed pen onto a scroll of papyrus. There is, obviously, no need to ask where exactly I am� The bald man left the shop and started walking on the street. Once again he smelt the fragrance of the lotus. He spotted the girl walking beside him. She looked slightly different than before, but it was definitely the same person, or rather, the same image. �Hi there, you�re here again,� he says. �Oh yeah, why not? What else?� she answeres. There is something familiar with her tone. �Who are you?� he has to ask. �Why do you have to know?�comes back the answer. Then the girl sped up her walk. He couldn't catch up with her. He knew in VR you couldn't catch anyone, it always depended on the other�s will to be with you or not to be with you. Still, he ran after her, stopping to pant only after she disappeared around the corner. In VR you can always ask the girl of her identity, she'd tell you her name, give you her card or even write down her phone number on the back/palm of your hand, but you can never find her. This is, after all, virtual reality. Soon the falling snow got heavier. The man walked back to his cottage in the snow. He thought long in the dark. His conclusion was this: such a person was of freedom in reality. His conclusion reached, it�s time to return to the real world. He took off his earphones.

Dirty snow piled high on either side of the blackened path, its end merging into the street. A smear in the snow intercepted the greasy obsidian of the stone pavement. The stones were like the countertops of a griller�s kitchen. Amid the omnipresent white, a girl walked directly towards him. She had on a shortened black cloak; her white legs were revealed from under the hem, moving briskly. A pair of purple geta were doned on her feet. The purple color did not come from the wood, and they've stain her soles red. As the girl passed by, a wisp of fragrance stirred in the air. The man on the road froze. He turned around and saw the girl�s retreating back. He could see the sparks coming off the iron heels of her geta whenever they made a scraping contact with the stony pavement. The paved road was as smooth as the melted asphalt; its surface reflected the churning grey clouds of a snowing day. Now the man was faced with a dilemma: should he continue his walk and visit the grey shop for goose feathers, or should he turn around and follow that pair of white legs, legs that ended with stained red soles? In such a virtual world, both choices took place.

The bald guy could smell the fragrance of lotus blossoms when he reloaded himself into his file. There was a faint music in the air, it blended in with the howling winds. Someone must have entered into the virtual world he made. For a while, he stood still in the street, trying hard to make out directions. Then he followed the fragrance of the lotus. Gaining up on the girl fast, he then settled into an even pace. Looking towards her, the man saw a face lucid and plump, a face unlike anyone he knew. But. of course, in VR anyone can have any form, any voice, he knew that. Even himself did not resemble himself. They reached the end of the street and faced the never-ending barren land. Black vegetable patches appeared where wind blew the snow off the grounds. The snow covered up all the ditches around them, yet the yellow stalks of the reeds still stood, marking their edges. There was a Chinese wood pentagon at the roadside. It�s three-story-tall but impressed you as much higher. They stopped and look up the edifice in detail: narrow corridors, pillars and windowsills with paint cracked up and fallen off, showing hem linings underneath. An iron chain threaded through the lock holes in the double doors and held the doors close. The girl stepped up and produced a key to unlock the doors. The copper lock looked antique and exquisite, so was the copper key in the girl�s hand. The bald guy was forced to take a note for this lavish treat of detail. -- Making a world was easy, but attention to detail was always recommendable. As the doors opened with a yawn, they entered into a gaping hall stone paved with four pillars at the corners. A human-sized mirror greets the guests. It� s an alien object with etched lines in fern-like patterns on its surface. The man pressed closer to observe his reflection on a facet. He found it. In the mirror, he had a head of thick hairs, heavy facial hair, and a long, gaunt face. Besides, he also looked tall. All in all, he looks like Don Quixote. The bald guy was prepared for the first look of his image, yet it still surprised him. He retreated with a gasp.

The girl in Room 401 had a file among her URLs. It's also named "hei". The icon for the file was in the colors of red and black: a black barred gate drapped with red curtain. It's very hard to pass throgh the gate because it's set to be private. Other doors to her world existed but through them you could only be a guest, not an owner. There had been one who hacked through the door and that's that.. The net was not about accessibility, it's about your expertise in hacking. Having done that, the hacker found himself sitting inside Room 401 in Black Iron Hotel, his hand cupping his chin, his face feeling rather smooth. It was quite a discovery for the hacker, that the girl had set the VR inside the reality. He walked towards the bars, and looked down on the bald guy in his sleep. His bald face looked frail and pale, covered with flies, but still alive, still breathing. Then the hacker turned around and spot a virtual object: a mirror framed with black iron. It merged into the background, narrorw as a blade. You could use it for sure, if all you want to see is your profile. The profile of the girl is approximate of her real person: only her waist a little narrower, her leges a little longer. She is in the same dress, faded jeans and checkered shirt. Even her face looked the same as when the story started. The girl moved a chair over the mirror and started to make up her face. The hacker rolled his eyes for having to bear witness of such a long and rediculous proceeding. That done, the girl donned her purpure dress: deer-skin leather vest and a mini skirt. The material hugged the body as if a second skin. She is sexier in her shirt and jeans but not sexy in the vest and mini. In her shirt and jean, the girl had the look of a virgin, never exposed to the lust of men; while the purple outfit made her look whorish. The virginal look was sexy but the whorish look was not. However, the girl felt just the contrary. She buzzed twice and the manager appeared at the end of the hall. As the man in black dress approached, she felt faint in the head, her breathing shortened. Her knees felt as if to give out under her. These feelings rather unsettled the hacker, it was not pleasant for him. However, he was rather touched. A man's life was worth living, had he been able to give such a thrill to a woman.