Zeroth Directive

Archive III

In order to ensure the safety and communication between the nomadic cities in Yan, maintenance and construction work on Chidao both old and new is a never ending project, from which countless business opportunities and life-changing chances emerge. For those especially who do not live in a nomadic city, the compensation for helping out with the Chidao is often enough to make a considerable leap in their standard of living. Though after such a change, there comes the question on how to maintain the new status quo. Most settled communities often want long-term contracts with the Chidao maintenance agency, but such opportunities are rare. For the more proactive people, getting a glimpse of the Chidao and the fragments of the nomadic cities they bring renders them unable to hold back their aspirations. Many young people and even those older follow the Chidao on their journey to the nomadic cities. An entire village moving to a city like in Wind Chime's case is certainly a bit extreme, but it is by no means unheard of. Wind Chimes gets dejected at the sight of one deserted village after another, but she also understands that those people have the right to pursue a better life. What she could do, then, was to send back wanders's money and letters together to their parents, and then deliver their words as well as letters from others with huge bags of dried meat back to the city. An old man was calculating his money under the light of an oil lamp, pondering over what farming equipment to purchase, what crops to grow, if he should use an entire barrel of soy sauce to pickle meat, and eventually decided to use a majority of the funds to rear some livestock; a young person was lying in bed exhausted, watching a beautiful life depicted on the television screen, subconsciously going through an entire packet of dried meat while talking to themselves with a few hints of their rusty native tongue. At that moment, Wind Chimes was out in the wilderness travelling between cities. The twin moons shone overhead, the mountains stretched in all directions, and the night breeze blew through the thin clothing she had chosen to keep her journey lighter.

Archive IV

There is a Moushan Village in the area that Wind Chimes works. When she was there to deliver a huge sum of money, the village was in chaos. However, the uproar did not concern her much and she quickly moved on after dropping off the money, for there were many more deliveries to make. Only later did she learn that there was a cruel connection between the teenager she had parted on bad terms with and the baffling commotion in the village. She spent an entire day watching the footage in the young man's camera: the scenery, the monologue, the interview, the little stunt of pretending the camera was off while leaving the microphone on, and the 'apology letter.' After that, Wind Chimes started bringing the camera everywhere. At first, her experience was limited to filming deliveries. She is not a film enthusiast, so it was not surprising for her to assume the camera was broken because the lens cap was not on. But still, she persevered with the same tenacity she traversed the mountains with, and went from filming goods, to people, and then the roads she traveled, and the memory card soon ran out of space. The more videos she shot, the more she regretted her actions back then. Naivety is not arrogance, but willful ignorance is. However, when she was asked if she wanted to sell the rights of her footage to companies, she merely laughed at the thought. She knew that her work was shining a spotlight on the daily isolation and poverty of the villages, as well as the foundations of her nostalgia. She would not cut herself any slack, but did not want to publicize it either. These images were ruthless, but also extremely valuable to her. As for that disturbance, none of the Rhodes Island operators involved in the incident have spoken much about it. We only found out her opinion on the matter when Wind Chimes talked about it in a conversation with others. 'I remember it all, I'll never forget it. But that person's death... was purely an accident.' 'If I didn't deliver the money, what else could they have done?' 'I can't think of anything else.'

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Wind Chimes

Archive I

Promotion record

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Archive II

Archive III

Archive IV