The Superfactory with No Inspector

Between steel foundations, asphalt streets, camphor trees, and six-story apartment buildings rose from nothing. Streetlights came on one after another. Where empty land had stood seconds ago, an entire old neighborhood now glowed in the rain. A convenience-store sign flickered. Laundry hung from balconies. The bus stop read RIVERSIDE DISTRICT, BLOCK SEVEN. Lu Yao knew that neighborhood. He had driven past it two hours earlier, twelve kilometers southeast of the factory. It could not possibly be inside the wall. Then he saw the people. A girl holding a red umbrella stood in the crosswalk, staring in terror at the factories around her. Behind her, hundreds of apartment windows opened at once.