title: Echoes of the Quake: The Fragility and Hope of the Middle Class slug: 2025-03-25-earthquake-aftermath

title: Echoes of the Quake: The Fragility and Hope of the Middle Class slug: 2025-03-25-earthquake-aftermath

title: Echoes of the Quake: The Fragility and Hope of the Middle Class slug: 2025-03-25-earthquake-aftermath

The old server room hummed, the sound of the fans like a dying beast gasping for breath. The mottled paint on the walls bore witness to countless silent days and nights. Uncle Li, in his drab work uniform, held a portable hard drive in his hands as if it were a precious treasure.

Today was "Forgetting Day."

"My cat food is gone again!" Old Wang, leaning on his crutch, his voice piercing the evening quiet. He stared at the surveillance screen in front of him, specially installed to protect his "treasure" - an orange cat named "Mimi."

The screen showed an empty corridor, only the dim yellow light shining quietly. This was the third time this month, a whole large bag of cat food, vanishing without a trace. Old Wang suspected someone was stealing it. He had more than once waited in ambush in the corridor, but each time he came up empty.

When Lao Li woke up, the world had changed. He lay in a sterile white hospital bed, his mind a blank slate, like a desert swept by the wind. The doctors said he had suffered sudden amnesia, the cause unknown. The only thing proving his identity was an old smart wristband on his wrist, displaying the name "Li Wei."

"Li Wei, programmer." This was the only information he could piece together from the blurry fragments of his memory. He didn't know what kind of code he had written, why he was lying here, or even why he was called Li Wei.

Li Ming discovered the hidden folder while organizing his old hard drive. The folder was named "Backup," and it contained only three files, with timestamps indicating they were created on their wedding anniversary. Puzzled, he opened the first file. It was filled with dense data, resembling some sort of arcane code. The second file was a facial scan of his wife, and the third file was an unnamed audio file.

He clicked on the audio file.

Uncle Zhang first noticed something was amiss when he went downstairs to buy groceries. He habitually glanced at the doorplate of his unit - 302, the silver numbers reflecting a cold glint under the sunlight. Today, it was empty, leaving only a bare wall.

At first, he thought his old eyes were playing tricks on him, or that it had simply been blown off by the wind. He rubbed his eyes and carefully felt the wall; there was indeed no trace of it. He went to the door of 301 next door, and the doorplate was still firmly attached. His heart skipped a beat.

The streets were crowded, data streams flickering across everyone's retinas, precisely labeling each person's identity, interests, and spending potential. This was 2042, where algorithms ruled everything. Everyone was assigned an exclusive "life trajectory," from breakfast to partner, all efficiently planned by algorithms.

Li Ming, 28, a data engineer, maintained this system day in and day out. His life trajectory was perfect: stable job, comfortable apartment, and a 98% match recommended partner. Until one day, he discovered that his data stream had disappeared.

"It... it's gone." The technician, Xiao Li, spoke with a sob in his voice, his fingers flying across the keyboard as if trying to retrieve the lost characters. On the monitor screen, the process bar for the once-busy "Emotional Analysis Algorithm V3.7" was now empty.

Emotional Analysis Algorithm V3.7, an AI that was unknown yet omnipresent. It lurked behind every social media platform, every online communication, like an invisible psychologist, analyzing people's emotions and predicting future behavioral patterns. It did not belong to any company or individual; it existed in the cloud, serving the entire society.