Chapter 196: The Mercury City Film

Chapter 196: The Mercury City Film

After reviewing the general outline of the plot, Tang Fei and Zhou Weichuan scheduled a meeting with Director Chen Ye to sign an agreement and delve deeply into the entire psychological journey of the female protagonist throughout the story.

"Mercury City" is a rare blockbuster film on a grand scale that casts a woman in a pivotal leading role. Globally, there are only a handful of commercial films that centralize around a female protagonist.

Actresses often have limited options in films, typically confined to romantic roles, art-house films, or as eye-candy in big-budget blockbusters.

For a film like Mercury City, it virtually mobilized the entire entertainment industry with actresses vying for roles, yet it was ultimately awarded to Tang Fei, someone with no prior film experience.

This could also be seen as Chen Ye's statement of sentiment towards the Peony Award.

When Chen Ye was still acting in TV dramas as a newcomer, he became a well-known star alongside Liang Jing. Unfortunately, Liang Jing became an overnight sensation early in his career. He firmly refused to buy an award after being persuaded by the Peony Awards, which led to his three blockbuster dramas in a row being unable to enter any mainstream domestic awards, and even being nominated was difficult. Subsequently, fewer people sought him for acting roles, forcing him to leave for abroad.

"Mercury City" primarily unfolds in a future where Earth undergoes a cataclysmic transformation, ushering in an epoch of glacial ages lasting billions of years, rendering it inhospitable to human life. At this time, interstellar travel is in its nascent stages, and numerous expeditions venture into the depths of space. Many of these voyagers lose contact with their origins. Amidst the escalating deterioration of Earth's environment, a massive fleet of ten thousand individuals embarks on an exploratory journey and encounters a planet designated as Galaxy 34172-62B. This celestial body is entirely submerged in water, with its shallowest points reaching ten meters and its deepest depths stretching for thousands of kilometers.

At that time, the exploratory spacecraft was on the verge of exhausting its energy. This water-covered planet shared an atmosphere and solar conditions identical to Earth's, with one sole drawback: it lacked land.

Out of necessity, the ten thousand individuals made landfall on the planet and named it Mercury, borrowing the title of a celestial body that once resided within the solar system, now transposed to this distant realm.

Back then, the planet's surface was ravaged by extreme weather conditions, storms. As such, they decided to leverage technology to construct an underwater metropolis that could accommodate millions of people, named Mercury City. Within its confines, the impact of the storms was mitigated, ensuring survival.

As generations passed, millions of years elapsed, and the extreme climate vanished. Humans, adapting to their environment, underwent genetic evolution. Eventually, after millions of years, humanity split into three distinct groups.

The first group experienced a mutation in their skin, allowing them to breathe underwater with lungs that had atrophied. A protective membrane grew around their eyes, and gills emerged beneath their collarbones.

These individuals were known as the Honored Ones (the Upper Class).

The second group had their lungs mutate, enabling them to hold their breath for three hours underwater. They needed to resurface for just one minute every three hours to breathe. Their skin secreted an oily wax to protect it, and they wore specially designed underwater goggles to shield their eyes.

They were called the Commoners (the Lower Class).

Both these groups were capable of thriving under high water pressure.

The third category, however, represented a regression in their genes. They were too fragile to live underwater, requiring constant exposure to air. Unable to withstand the underwater pressure, they couldn't stay submerged for extended periods or drink water directly, needing purified water instead.

These individuals were referred to as the Fragile Ones (the Inferior Class).

The Honored Ones inhabited the central city, while the Commoners resided on the outskirts. The Fragile Ones, mostly, were relegated to living beyond the city walls.

The protagonist's name is Yu Yang. Born into a low-ranking family, she is considered a lesser individual in this society. A mere year separates her from her elder sister, who holds the esteemed status of a high-ranking individual, while Yu Yang unfortunately bears the label of an inferior one.

Yu Yang's mother, Liu Xi, was overwhelmed with sorrow at her birth, succumbing to postpartum depression. Every day, she wept incessantly, "I bore her with the intention of honoring her elder sister, how could she be an inferior? This can't be—it's impossible. Our family hasn't seen the birth of an inferior in five generations; our genes are impeccable. Why has this happened?"

Her father, Yu Hai, would console her mother in his arms, "It's alright, we still have Yu Jiang. When she turns twenty, we'll be able to move to the central city."

Should a family, though belonging to the lower class, rear two children of the higher category, they are acknowledged to have made a contribution and are immediately granted permission to relocate to the central metropolis.

Should only one child in the family belong to the upper class, they would have to wait until that child turns twenty, having worked in a Mercury City for six years, before the entire family could relocate to the Central City.

In the city of Mercury, it was legally mandated that the vulnerable (the inferior) must be sustained by their parents in air bubbles until the age of 14, when they acquire basic survival skills, before the bond could be severed.

Indeed, over ninety percent of families opt to disown their vulnerable offspring, pretending as if they never existed. Once the connection is cut and the child abandoned, the intense water pressure instantly crushes them at birth.

Each year, the outskirts of the city witness secret abandonment attempts. When the air bubble protecting the infant expires, it shatters, and the baby vanishes into the water, as if it had never been there.

From birth, the vulnerable face the constant threat of death. They rely on devices called air bubbles for survival, and only after turning 14, when they can work, can they afford the exorbitant cost of extending their own air bubble time.

Though a heavy burden to their families, the vulnerable are invaluable and inexpensive labor for Mercury City. The authorities ensure their survival until the age of 14, harnessing their efforts in service to the city.

Thus, the law forbids it, yet prohibitions prove futile.

When Yu Yang turned fourteen, her family severed ties with her after securing a job for her.

Relocated to the outskirts against his will, Yu Yang found that the majority of the frail among them would opt to rise to the surface for rest, choosing not to use air bubbles unless they had to descend underwater, where they would then equip them.

In the outer city, many despairing weaklings, faced with the inability to purchase sufficient time in air bubbles, chose to end their lives prematurely. They sabotaged the air bubbles, allowing the pressure to crush them.

Yu Yang's eyes have witnessed myriad tales such as these.

In households of the vulnerable, mothers, too old for further labor, would opt to transfer their accumulated air bubble hours to their daughters and sons, starving themselves by ascending to the surface.

Many fragile individuals like Yu Yang, who have been severed from their families, cannot bear the agony of being abandoned by their parents and opt to violently rupture their air bubbles.

Or perhaps bands of marauders plundered others' air bubbles en masse.

At the age of 14, Yu Yang encountered a learned elderly person who was fragile. She was a fortunate one not abandoned by her parents, and she had acquired a great deal of knowledge and possessed high cultivation. She told Yu Yang, "These people who live in pain and work tirelessly day and night are all struggling to survive. Everything they create will eventually be returned to the city of Mercury through air bubbles."

"Once the air bubbles are in place, the continuity of time incurs no cost. The vulnerable are too fragile, cruelly exploited merely to survive."

This learned elder lived with Yu Yang until she turned twenty, a time when her body began to wither and the agony of illness plagued her. She smiled at Yu Yang as she confided, "My parents saved up air bubbles for me over a long period, ensuring I could live without burden, but they've both departed from this world, leaving me in solitude. I felt out of place among the city folks, and even after moving outside the city, I found no one to whom I could pour out my heart. Thank you, Yu Yang, your company has made my final days comfortable and eased my loneliness."

The erudite elder, in her final moments, bequeathed her remaining air bubble time to Yu Yang.

After parting with the old man, Yu Yang would rise to the surface each night, seeking out a serene spot where she could gaze upon the starry river above as she drifted off to sleep. Ever since her early days, she held the belief that the world above the water was more beautiful than the one beneath. There were white clouds, blue skies, dazzling starlit nights, and an airy freedom from pressure that lightened the body and soul. The vast expanse allowed for unobstructed views, a world not confined to the size of air bubbles.

These people were by no means truly inferior; that rhetoric she didn't buy for a second. They weren't meant to live beneath the waves; they should be living on the surface.

They were the ones trapped in an underwater cage, deceived for millennia by this hierarchical rhetoric.

The narrative centers around Yu Yang's epiphany that they must rise above the surface and venture onto the water. In this journey, she encounters a disgraced, 'mad' researcher who yearns for the world above, where the elite reside. Through his study of history, he has unearthed a truth long concealed: their forebears were not the feeble beings historians have portrayed them to be. These so-called weaklings are not inferior, but rather the rightful heirs to the genes of magnificent ancestors.

Consequently, he was exiled beyond the city limits and branded as a madman.