The collar beeped at precisely five-thirty in the morning, a shrill electronic pulse that sliced through the thin veil of exhausted sleep. Lin Yue's eyes snapped open to gray darkness, the barred windows showing only the faintest hint of pre-dawn light bleeding across the horizon. Around her, the other women stirred on their cots, some groaning, one—Wang Fen, Huxin 3—letting out a small, animal whimper before silencing herself.
A recorded voice crackled through hidden speakers, cool and genderless: "Morning processing begins in thirty minutes. Proceed to the medical wing in an orderly fashion. Non-compliance will trigger collar correction."
The word "correction" hung in the air like a threat with no shape. Lin Yue swung her legs over the side of the cot, her bare feet touching cold concrete. The metal collar had warmed against her skin during the night, but it still felt alien, a second skeleton imposed upon her own. She touched it with trembling fingers and felt the tiny seam where the locking mechanism sat flush against her nape.
The bathroom was chaos. Women crowded around open sinks, splashing water on their faces, avoiding each other's eyes. There were no mirrors—none anywhere in the barracks—as if their own reflections had been deemed unnecessary. Lin Yue washed mechanically, the cold water doing little to clear the fog from her mind.
A young woman bumped against her elbow and immediately flinched away. "Sorry, sorry," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
Lin Yue turned to look at her. She was small, impossibly young, with the round cheeks of someone who had not yet lost all her childhood softness. Her collar tag read HX-009, but when she saw Lin Yue looking, she ducked her head and mumbled, "I'm Ah Zhen. Well, I was. Now I'm just Huxin 9."
"How old are you?" Lin Yue asked.
"Eighteen. Last month." Ah Zhen's lips quivered into something that tried to be a smile. "I came because my mother needs an operation. They said the money would come in six months. They said it was safe."
They said. Lin Yue had heard those words before, had spoken them herself in the factory dormitory. She said nothing, only reached out and squeezed Ah Zhen's hand briefly before the guards began shouting for them to line up.
The medical wing was in the same windowless building as the Processing Center, but deeper inside, through a series of heavy doors that opened only when guards pressed their keycards against wall-mounted scanners. The air grew colder with each threshold, until Lin Yue could see her breath misting faintly in front of her face.
They were separated into three lines. A nurse with a clipboard—not the same one from the dock, but cut from the same cloth—began calling out designations. "Huxin 1 through 5, examination room A. Huxin 6 through 10, examination room B. Xiaogu designations, examination room C."
Lin Yue felt a chill at being sorted out from the others. She looked around and counted four other women directed toward room C. All of them wore the XG prefix on their wrists. All of them looked as confused as she felt.
"What does it mean?" one of them whispered, a gaunt woman with prominent cheekbones and the number XG-003.
No one answered.
Examination room C was smaller than the others, equipped with a single examination table, an ultrasound machine, and a tray of instruments covered with a sterile blue cloth. A man stood beside the ultrasound monitor, his back to the door, adjusting the settings on the screen. When he turned, Lin Yue saw a face that was neither cruel nor kind—a face that had been carefully emptied of anything that might be called humanity.
"I am Dr. Feng," he said, not offering a hand. "I oversee the Xiaogu protocol. Please disrobe from the waist down and take your place on the table. We will proceed one at a time. XG-007, you are first."
Lin Yue did not move. Her feet had rooted themselves to the floor. The nurse from processing had been cold, but this man radiated something else entirely: a clinical detachment so absolute that she felt less like a patient and more like a specimen pinned to a board.
"Did you not understand the instruction?" Dr. Feng asked, his tone unchanged.
"What is the Xiaogu protocol?" Lin Yue heard herself ask.
For a moment, Dr. Feng regarded her with something that might have been surprise, though it was hard to tell on a face so deliberately neutral. "You were not informed. I see. The recruitment agents are often... selective with details." He picked up a tablet from the counter and scrolled through it. "The Xiaogu protocol is a specialized surrogacy track for recipients with particular genetic requirements. The embryos you will carry have undergone advanced pre-implantation screening. The process requires closer monitoring and additional hormonal support. Your contract includes a supplementary clause for this."
"Supplementary clause," Lin Yue repeated. The forms she had signed without reading.
"The compensation is higher," Dr. Feng added, as if this were a kindness. "Now, please. The schedule is tight."
Lin Yue undressed with hands that felt disconnected from her body. The examination was thorough and utterly impersonal—ultrasound, blood draws, an internal exam that she endured by staring at a crack in the ceiling tiles. Dr. Feng dictated notes in a low monotone, phrases like "uterine lining optimal," "follicular reserve within parameters," "carrier viability confirmed."
When it was over, he handed her a small paper cup containing two pills. "Hormonal primers. You will take them now, and you will continue taking them daily at this time. Any missed dose will be noted."
Lin Yue swallowed the pills dry, their bitterness coating her tongue. As she turned to leave, Dr. Feng spoke again.
"XG-007. The collar you wear is not merely for tracking. It monitors your biometrics—heart rate, cortisol levels, body temperature. It knows when you are distressed, when you are lying, when you are considering something you should not consider. Please do not give it reasons to report you."
She walked out into the corridor, her legs unsteady, and nearly collided with Chen Xiang—Huxin 1—who was being led back from room A by a guard. The older woman's face was ashen, and she walked with a strange, stiff gait, as if something inside her had been bruised. She did not look at Lin Yue. She did not look at anyone.
The morning passed in a blur of procedures and protocols. By midday, they were herded into a dining hall adjacent to the barracks, where trays of food awaited them—steamed vegetables, bland rice, a cup of warm soy milk. The food was nutritionally complete but flavorless, designed for function rather than pleasure. Guards stood at every exit, their faces hidden behind surgical masks now, their eyes scanning the room with the lazy vigilance of men who had done this work for years.
Lin Yue sat at the end of a long table, forcing herself to eat. Beside her, Ah Zhen picked at her rice with chopsticks that trembled in her small hands.
"Did they do the examination?" Ah Zhen asked quietly.
"Yes."
"Did it hurt?"
Lin Yue considered lying, then chose the truth. "It was cold. But not painful."
Ah Zhen nodded, as if this confirmed something she had already guessed. "One of the women in my room said she heard that some of the surrogates never leave. That if something goes wrong, they just... stay here. Permanently." She set down her chopsticks. "Do you think that's true?"
Before Lin Yue could answer, a guard passed behind them, close enough that the fabric of his uniform brushed against Ah Zhen's shoulder. She flinched violently, nearly knocking over her soy milk.
"Careful," the guard said, his voice muffled by the mask but still audible—male, young, with an edge of amusement. His eyes lingered on Ah Zhen's face, then traveled downward in a way that made Lin Yue's stomach clench.
The guard's name was stitched onto his uniform in small white letters: GAO JIAN.
Ah Zhen kept her head down until he moved away, then let out a shaky breath. "He was watching me during the processing yesterday. The whole time. I thought I was imagining it, but—"
"You weren't," Lin Yue said flatly. She had seen that look before. In the factory, in the village, on the trains. The look of men who had learned that some women had no one to complain to.
After lunch, they were given a two-hour rest period. The guards escorted them to a fenced courtyard behind the barracks—a rectangle of packed earth with a few wooden benches and a single stunted tree. The walls were high, topped with coiled razor wire that glittered in the afternoon sun. The sea was visible only as a sliver of blue between the concrete and the sky.
The women spread out across the courtyard. Some sat on the benches, staring at nothing. Others walked slow circuits along the fence, as if measuring the boundaries of their cage. Lin Yue found a spot near the tree and sat down with her back against its rough trunk.
She was exhausted in a way that went beyond physical fatigue. It was the exhaustion of constant vigilance, of holding her fear at bay with sheer will. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the sun warm her face.
When she opened them again, Ah Zhen was gone.
Lin Yue sat up straighter, scanning the courtyard. The other women were all accounted for—Chen Xiang on a bench, Wang Fen walking her slow circles, the others scattered around. But the bench where Ah Zhen had been sitting was empty.
A narrow gap in the fence led to a small shed that the guards used for equipment storage. Lin Yue had noticed it earlier because the door was slightly ajar, which seemed wrong in a place where everything was kept locked and sealed.
She rose to her feet, her heart beginning to beat faster. No guards were visible in the courtyard—they were stationed outside the fence, at the main gate. The shed was in a blind spot.
Lin Yue moved toward it, her soft-soled shoes making no sound on the packed earth. As she drew closer, she heard a noise from inside—a muffled cry, then a voice, low and threatening.
"Keep quiet. No one's going to help you. You're nothing here. You're just a body. That's all any of you are."
The door was open just wide enough for her to see inside. Ah Zhen was pressed against the wall, her gray smock hiked up to her waist, her eyes wide with terror. The guard, Gao Jian, had one hand clamped over her mouth and the other fumbling with his belt.
Lin Yue did not think. Thought was a luxury for people who had time, and she had none. She looked down at her feet and saw it—a broken terracotta flowerpot, abandoned beside the shed, its shards scattered across the dirt. She bent down and picked up the largest piece, a curved triangle of baked clay with an edge sharp enough to cut.
Then she was through the door, her body moving on instinct, the shard swinging in a wide arc that caught Gao Jian across the side of his face. He screamed—a high, shocked sound—and staggered backward, his hand coming up too late. Blood welled from a gash that ran from his temple to his jaw, bright red against the surgical mask that now hung in tatters.
He turned toward her, his eyes blazing with pain and fury, and Lin Yue struck again. This time the shard slashed across his forearm as he raised it to defend himself. More blood. He stumbled against a shelf of tools, sending wrenches and coils of rope crashing to the floor.
Ah Zhen scrambled away, pulling down her smock, her breath coming in ragged sobs. But there was no time to comfort her. From outside came the sound of running feet and shouting voices. The other guards had heard the commotion.
The shed door slammed fully open, and two men in black fatigues burst in. One of them grabbed Lin Yue from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. The shard fell from her fingers and shattered on the concrete floor. The other guard hauled Ah Zhen to her feet by her hair.
Gao Jian was leaning against the wall, one hand pressed to his bleeding face, the other cradling his slashed arm. "She attacked me," he gasped. "The bitch attacked me for no reason."
"That's not—" Ah Zhen began, but the guard holding her shook her hard, and her words died in a choked whimper.
The guard restraining Lin Yue spoke into a radio clipped to his shoulder. "Incident in storage shed B. One guard injured. Surrogate involved: Xiaogu 7. Requesting extraction team."
The response came crackling back, barely audible over Gao Jian's pained breathing: "Copy. Bring her to disciplinary. Director Shen wants to handle this one personally."
Director Shen. Lin Yue had not heard that name before, but the way the guard said it told her everything she needed to know. This was the person who handled problems. This was the person you never wanted to meet.
They dragged her out of the shed, past the staring faces of the other women in the courtyard. Chen Xiang's mouth hung open. Wang Fen had stopped her pacing and stood frozen, her hands pressed together as if in prayer. None of them spoke. None of them moved to help.
Lin Yue did not blame them. She understood, with a clarity that was almost peaceful, that this was how the island worked. Fear was the currency, and everyone was bankrupt except the men who held the keys.
The disciplinary block was underground, accessible only through a staircase hidden behind a door marked "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY." The air grew colder with each step down, until Lin Yue was shivering in her thin smock. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting the concrete corridor in a sickly yellow pallor.
At the end of the corridor was a heavy steel door. The guards pushed it open and shoved Lin Yue inside.
The room was small and square, with a single chair bolted to the floor in the center. The walls were bare concrete, stained here and there with dark patches that Lin Yue did not want to examine too closely. On a metal table against the wall lay an array of objects—restraints, a stun baton, and something that looked like an antique wooden collar, dark with age.
Standing beside the table was a man she had not seen before. He was perhaps fifty, with silver hair cropped short and a face that had been carved by decades of hard discipline. He wore a black uniform with no insignia, and his eyes were the color of winter slate.
"Xiaogu 7," he said, as if tasting the designation. "I am Director Shen. I oversee security and correction on Huxin Island. You have assaulted one of my guards. Do you have anything to say before I determine your punishment?"
Lin Yue met his eyes. "He was trying to rape Huxin 9. I stopped him."
Director Shen's expression did not change. "The guard reports that you attacked him without provocation. There are no other witnesses to your version of events."
"Ah Zhen saw. She was there."
"Huxin 9 has already been questioned," Director Shen said, and the faintest smile touched his lips. "She was very clear that she saw nothing unusual. The guard was inspecting the shed when you entered and attacked him. She was confused and frightened, of course, but that was her statement."
The words hit Lin Yue like a physical blow. Ah Zhen had been terrified, had been brutalized, and the moment they separated them, she had been made to recant. Of course she had. What else could an eighteen-year-old girl do, surrounded by men who held her life in their hands?
"So you see," Director Shen continued, "we have a problem. An unprovoked assault on staff is a serious breach of protocol. It requires a serious response."
He picked up the wooden collar from the table. Up close, Lin Yue could see that it was not antique after all—it was a replica, newly made, but modeled on something very old. It was shaped like a yoke, with two semicircular openings for the neck and a wooden bar that extended outward, designed to make movement awkward and exhausting.
"This is a cangue," Director Shen said, running his fingers along the smooth wood. "Han Dynasty origin. The prisoners of Xiaogu wore them while they performed hard labor. Mr. Huo is a student of history. He believes that certain punishments have stood the test of time for good reason."
He nodded to the guards, and they forced Lin Yue into the chair. She struggled, but they were too strong. The wooden yoke was fitted around her neck, its weight immediate and crushing. It pressed down on her shoulders, forced her spine to curve, made every breath a conscious effort. The guards locked it in place with iron pins.
"In the ancient protocols," Director Shen said, watching her with those slate-colored eyes, "a convict who assaulted someone while already under sentence would have their punishment upgraded. The specific case that inspired Mr. Huo's approach involved a prisoner named Zai Tudou. He was serving as a qian chengdan—a laborer wearing the cangue—when he got into a fight and injured another man. The magistrate ruled that his penalty must be intensified. He was taken off the labor detail and placed in isolation, still wearing the cangue, for an extended period."
He crouched down so that his face was level with hers. "You are Xiaogu 7. You were already a prisoner of this island. Now you have added an assault to your record. The ancient punishment fits the modern crime. You will wear this cangue for seven days. You will remain in isolation in a cell below this level. Food and water will be provided, and a medical technician will visit daily to ensure your physical functions remain within acceptable parameters. After seven days, you will be reassessed."
"And the baby?" Lin Yue asked, the words scraping past the wood pressing against her throat. "What about the embryo transfer?"
Director Shen straightened up. "The Xiaogu protocol will proceed as scheduled. Your body is an asset belonging to the Huo Foundation. It will be maintained and utilized regardless of your behavioral status. The transfer will occur in this cell if necessary. You will carry the pregnancy in isolation. After delivery, your sentence will be reviewed."
He gestured to the guards. "Take her down."
The cell was at the end of another corridor, deeper underground. It was barely larger than a coffin, with a thin mattress on the floor and a bucket in the corner. The walls were damp and covered with a faint layer of salt crystals that glittered in the dim light of a single bulb. There was no window, no clock, no way to measure the passage of time except the slow burning of her own muscles under the weight of the cangue.
The guards pushed her inside and slammed the door. The lock engaged with a heavy clang that reverberated through the concrete.
Lin Yue sank to her knees on the mattress, the wooden yoke forcing her to hunch forward like a penitent at prayer. Every position was uncomfortable. Every breath was a negotiation with the weight pressing down on her spine.
But she was alive. Ah Zhen was alive. Gao Jian would carry the scar of her blow on his face for the rest of his life, a permanent reminder that even a branded, collared, caged woman could still draw blood.
She did not know how long she knelt there—minutes, hours—before she noticed the markings on the wall. They were faint, scratched into the concrete with something sharp, almost invisible in the dim light. She had to lean close, the cangue scraping against the wall, to make them out.
XG-003 WAS HERE. THEY TOOK MY KIDNEYS. DON'T TRUST THE DOCTOR. THE BABIES ARE NOT—
The message ended in a long scratch that trailed off toward the floor, as if the writer had been interrupted—or dragged away. XG-003. The gaunt woman with the high cheekbones whom Lin Yue had seen in the medical wing that morning. But these markings looked old, months old at least. The salt from the walls had begun to fill in the grooves.
XG-003 had been someone else. A previous occupant. A previous Xiaogu 7, perhaps, before the numbers were recycled and reassigned.
Lin Yue pressed her forehead against the cold concrete and closed her eyes. The weight of the cangue, the dampness of the cell, the words on the wall—they all merged into a single crushing truth. This island did not release its surrogates. It used them until they were empty, and then it used what was left.
She thought of Qiu Yan, who had come here weeks before her. What number had they given her? What cell had she been kept in? Was she still alive somewhere in this underground labyrinth, or had her body already been carved up and discarded?
A sound broke through her spiraling thoughts. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
It was coming from the ventilation grate near the ceiling, a small rectangle of metal mesh set into the concrete. The pattern was deliberate, not random—a rhythm that repeated, paused, repeated again.
Tap. Tap-tap. Tap.
Lin Yue's heart seized. She knew that rhythm. It was a signal they had used in the factory dormitory, when the foreman was making his rounds and they needed to warn each other to hide their contraband phones and forbidden snacks. A simple code: one-two-one. I am here. Can you hear me?
Qiu Yan had been the one who taught her that rhythm.
With the cangue digging into her shoulders, Lin Yue crawled toward the grate. She could not reach it—it was too high, and the yoke made lifting her arms impossible—but she could press her face close to the wall and whisper into the vent.
"Qiu Yan?" Her voice was a dry rasp. "Qiu Yan, is that you?"
The tapping stopped. For a long moment, there was only silence, and Lin Yue thought she had imagined it, that the isolation was already unraveling her mind.
Then, faintly, so faintly she almost missed it, a voice drifted through the vent. It was barely a whisper, cracked and broken, but it carried the unmistakable cadence of the girl who had once laughed with her in the dormitory light.
"Lin Yue. They took my baby. They said it was defective. They said they would try again. Don't let them—"
A door slammed somewhere above. The voice cut off abruptly. Heavy footsteps echoed through the ceiling, and then there was only silence again.
Lin Yue pressed her forehead against the wall, tears she had not allowed herself to shed finally spilling down her cheeks. The weight of the cangue bore down on her shoulders, the number on her wrist stung with fresh ink, and somewhere in the darkness above, men who called themselves philanthropists were deciding her fate.
But Qiu Yan was alive. And if Qiu Yan was alive, there was still something worth fighting for.
She lay down on the thin mattress, the wooden yoke forcing her body into a curve, and stared at the salt-streaked wall until the light bulb flickered and went out, plunging her into absolute darkness. The tapping did not resume. The silence was total.
In the blackness, Lin Yue closed her eyes and began to plan.
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