Chapter 1 Agatha

"The key left by the Queen?"

Agatha's expression changed instantly, her eyes fixed on Councilor Winston's.

However, the latter seemed even more surprised than she was. Winston's eyes were full of astonishment. "You don't know? Then how did you get in here?"

Agatha's expression turned serious. She realized the situation seemed different from what she had expected. When she had sensed she could "enter" the stone wall, she had assumed Councilor Winston, who had entered before her, was the same kind of being. But now it seemed the Councilor had used other means.

He possessed more secrets than she had anticipated.

"I have my own methods," Agatha said slowly, a hint of pressure creeping into her tone. "You mentioned the 'key left by the Queen.' What exactly is that?"

Winston looked at the gatekeeper suspiciously, but after a moment's hesitation, he sighed in resignation, reaching into his chest pocket.

"Well, we've come this far. There's no need to keep secrets anymore."

He pulled out a small object from his pocket. It was a brass key with ornate patterns, its handle shaped like a horizontal "8," or the infinity symbol in mathematics. Its head, however, lacked the common teeth of an ordinary key, instead featuring a grooved cylinder.

Agatha curiously examined the object in his hand, suddenly feeling it was not so much a key for opening doors as…something for winding up dolls or clockwork mechanisms.

"A wind-up key?" she blurted out unconsciously. "Are you saying this is something left behind by Queen Lei Nora? Why would it be in the hands of a councilor like you?"

"Passed down through generations of councilors, this key is a gift, and a curse, left by the Queen for the rebellious," Winston said, a wry, bitter, even fearful smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "From the moment the first councilor received the key, the shadow behind Frost City has loomed over our heads, Lady Gatekeeper."

Agatha didn't interrupt the seemingly weak middle-aged man's rambling, almost delirious mutterings. She patiently waited for him to finish before saying calmly, "You actually know the truth about the Boiling Gold Mine, don't you?"

"If you're referring to the fact that the Boiling Gold Mine showed signs of depletion as early as the Queen's era… yes, I know," Winston sighed softly, speaking frankly. "I'm sorry. I knew from the start what that door you discovered was all about, but I thought there was still time to set things right before the situation worsened. That way, all you would have found was an abandoned mine shaft, and Frost… would still be the prosperous Frost."

"I need an explanation, Councilor," Agatha said, her expression stern, her tone a bit icy. "The Boiling Gold Mine was already depleted in the Queen's era. Then what have we been digging out and transporting for the past few decades? And what connection is there between the city's anomalies today, the actions of those cultists, and the depletion of the mine?"

"Boiling Gold, still Boiling Gold, Lady Gatekeeper. What we dug out was Boiling Gold, and what we transported was still Boiling Gold, in truth, in fact," Winston said, lifting his head, his face bearing an expression that was neither crying nor laughing. "It's not some kind of contamination. We tested it, and the Queen's era tested it too. If something looks like Boiling Gold, is used like Boiling Gold, and produces the same effects and byproducts as normal Boiling Gold, then without a doubt, it should be Boiling Gold."

"Those really are Boiling Gold?!" Agatha's eyes widened suddenly. This answer was particularly unimaginable to her. "But the mine was depleted decades ago. The ore that appears in the mine shafts now…"

"That's precisely what's most terrifying and bizarre, isn't it?" Winston said with a wry smile. "The veins are depleted, but soon new ore fills the unattended corners, as if a false 'Frost City' parallel to the real world is constantly injecting ore into reality. Or rather… once the mine went deep enough, we've been mining ore from a mirror world. And those phantom-like, illogical things… no matter how they're tested after being mined, they're all real."

Agatha listened to all this with a grim face. These unbelievable truths assaulted her already often muddled mind, but in the end, she remained calm and spoke softly, "Mirror Frost… Councilor, you're right. There is indeed a Mirror Frost. The fog that now envelops the city, and the counterfeits that constantly appear in the fog, all come from that Mirror City. This Mirror City is gradually eroding and replacing our real world."

Winston's expression changed slightly, then he was silent for more than ten seconds before finally letting out a long sigh. "Ah, so this is the price of that Boiling Gold."

"The price? You use that word too lightly—it's not just you and I who are paying the price now, but the people of the entire city, most of whom have no idea what's going on…"

"But most of them are enjoying everything that Boiling Gold trade brings—in this extremely cold city, it's Boiling Gold that allows everyone to have warm homes and enough food, allowing us to maintain a relatively prosperous standard even after the sea cliffs collapsed, Lady Gatekeeper." Winston paused for a few seconds, then waved his hand.

"You should know that I'm not extravagant, I don't buy property, I don't keep private wealth—I don't even have an heir. Lady, everything I've done has not been for personal gain."

Agatha stared into the councilor's eyes, but in the depths of those eyes, all she saw was exhaustion.

"They had no choice…"

She murmured to herself as if she were talking to herself.

"It's that everyone has no choice," Winston shook his head. "I know what you mean. Today's road, today's price, were not chosen by the citizens of the city themselves—but I didn't choose it either. No one has any other way to go.

"The city is only so big. There's no second Frost on the boundless sea for us to settle down. We need to eat, we need fuel, we need houses and clean fresh water, we need Boiling Gold—even if it comes from a bizarre shadow world. Without Boiling Gold, in just one winter, the city will lose a quarter of its people, and the rest will gradually return to the dark age of city-states before the great industrial development, and continue to lose a quarter or even more of the population…

"Lady Gatekeeper, take a rest. You and I are both tired enough. Perhaps we should now accept a fact—the city is a steam locomotive heading for the abyss, and everyone is on the train. The only difference between the city's protectors and ordinary people is that ordinary people are eating, drinking, and living with their eyes closed, while we… are just keeping ours open."

Agatha ignored Winston's self-deprecating remarks. She stood silently in the darkness, feeling the unbearable cold coming from all around again, feeling the blood in her veins gradually cooling.

Then, she broke the silence: "Someone made a different choice."

“…Yes, there was one. The people of Frost once called her ‘Queen,’ and history books call her ‘Mad Queen,’" Winston laughed, not knowing whether he was mocking the Queen or himself. "A great mortal. She even wanted to fight against this sea, against the terror in the deepest parts of the sea."

"The Submersible Project…" Agatha said softly, the various clues she had gathered in the past finally coming together in her mind, forming a clear thread. "So, the Submersible Project wasn't just a simple exploration project as recorded in the data… The Queen wanted to uncover the secrets deep within the city?!"

"We don't know why she thought the Boiling Gold constantly appearing in the mine was related to the 'deep sea,' but she was obviously on the right track—the uncontrolled nature of the Submersible Project and the terrible fate she later faced prove that she touched the real source. The most ironic thing about our world is this," Winston shifted his position by the tree stump. He looked up at the endless chaos and wriggling shadows above, and said slowly, "The truth points to madness, and madness points to failure. Every step you take toward the goal is a step toward the abyss."

Winston sighed.

"She wanted to find out the truth about the Boiling Gold Mine, to solve the hidden dangers behind the city, to use her own wisdom and strength to fight against the sea itself… This is good, but the fact proves

that she just consumed her fate in advance."

"So, you 'successors' decided not to follow her old path—you pretended to close your eyes like everyone else and rushed to the abyss with this train, and the Queen, who once tried to step on the brakes or change the track, was ultimately defined by history books as a madman seduced by the subspace."

"Frost's ancient motto—the dead must make way for the living," Winston slowly turned his eyes and looked into Agatha's eyes. "If defining her can allow Frost to quickly recover stability after the turmoil, then she probably wouldn't mind."

Agatha wanted to say something, but in the end, she said nothing.

After a long time, she could only shake her head gently.

"How did that key… end up in the hands of the first generation of councilors?"