ATL | Chapter 16

After Cizhu was brought home, Gan Wei went to boil hot water for a bath, and the two children huddled together, squeezed onto the small bed, sizing each other up with curiosity and caution under the old neon light hanging on the wall.

Ganlin swallowed and asked carefully, “Can I touch your legs... are these legs?”

Cizhu’s worn-out coat had already been taken off by Gan Wei, and behind him, eight spider legs covered in white fur had nowhere to go, looking somewhat awkward. He hesitated for a while, then turned around.

Only then did Ganlin finally see clearly.

Cizhu’s spider legs were not decorations at all, but were really growing out from his spine, part of Cizhu’s body. This kind of gene fusion with a gene was extremely rare, because the survival rate was too low, too low.

Although new humans all had animal genes as companions, for the vast majority it only appeared externally in tails, pupils, and the like. People with such a high degree of mutation almost could not live to be born.

Ganlin gently touched them, and Cizhu immediately curled up.

Ganlin asked at once, “Does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t hurt.” Cizhu pressed his lips together. “You, you’re not afraid?”

“Why would I be afraid?”

“Because I’m deformed.” Cizhu said softly, “No one would grow spider legs from their back, it’s scary.”

He knew he was different. From the time he could remember, his mom hid him at home, not allowing him to go out, and not allowing him to look outside through the crack under the door.

Cizhu’s home was small, like a cave, with more than half of it underground. Every day, Mom climbed out from the upper half of the door, taking away sound, color, and wind, and after the artificial sky curtain darkened, she brought back only A7 nutrient paste enough to maintain vital signs.

“Eat.”

Mom threw the nutrient paste to him in the corner. Cizhu tore it open and swallowed it amid the stench of rot.

Rot constituted his entire understanding of food in his childhood.

Cizhu did not waste even a little, he treasured everything outside the cave. That was a world close at hand, yet out of reach, and he could not go out, because he was a monster, and would scare everyone.

Including Mom.

Mom slept far away from him. Even though the home only had a small bed, the two of them each curled up in a corner, with a thin layer of dust gathered in the middle of the mattress, yet it was like an impassable divide.

When Mom came home, she was often drunk, crying and laughing at him.

“Little burden, if it weren’t for you, I would have left this damned place long ago.” Mom glared at him fiercely. “Just like your dad who ran off, so detestable!”

Cizhu did not know how to comfort her, so he could only pick up the broken glass bottles and repeat it over and over.

“I’m sorry, Mom, I’m sorry.”

When Cizhu first heard this kind of thing, he always worried that he really had been abandoned, and would die in the decaying cave, but later, the one who decayed first, unexpectedly, was his mother.

That was the time she was the most drunk. She became unable to speak, and unable to walk, and was carried back through the door by others. She was like a giant garbage bag, crashing down with a bang.

Dust flew all over the room. Cizhu’s eyes rarely saw light, so he had to squint, awkwardly crawling toward Mom. When he looked up with difficulty, he saw several tattered old-style contribution points coupons, swaying as they fell onto Mom’s body.

The people above did not leave, and, unable to see the dark cave, they shouted at the top of their lungs.

“What bad luck, you’re her brat, right?” the people above said, “I’ve settled the contribution points with her, don’t think that old-world ghosts and gods crap can really scare me!”

After the people above finished speaking, they hurriedly ran off. Cizhu was only four years old, and still did not understand what they were saying. He collected the old coupons, stacked them neatly and put them beside Mom, and because he was afraid Mom would get angry after sobering up, he did not dare touch her.

The half-open door never closed again. After curiously observing the changing light and dark of the artificial sky curtain twice, Cizhu smelled something similar to A7 nutrient paste.

Only then did he belatedly understand.

Mom would not wake up again.

There were two quilts at home. Cizhu covered Mom with one, and draped the other over himself, and from then on he never returned to the cave.

He kept in mind at all times that he was a monster, and relied on caution and old coupons to get through summer and autumn, but winter was truly too hard to endure, and he had no choice but to gather his courage and walk into Slug Amusement Park.

Cizhu had not expected that he would, without realizing it, let down his guard, and be coaxed by Gan Wei into following her home. Even less did he expect that after Gan Wei somewhat forcefully helped him take off his coat, she would not show disgust, and seven-year-old Ganlin did not either.

“But,” Ganlin said, “you were originally a spider, weren’t you?”

Little sheep said that, and took Cizhu’s hand, touching his own ears.

“Just like my ears are sheep ears.”

He turned around again and lifted his soft white little tuft.

“My tail is also a sheep tail.”

“So, even if the other spiders don’t have legs.” Little Ganlin reached a conclusion. “You’re just a special little spider. Special does not mean bad, do you understand?”

Ganlin laid out his case convincingly, passing on the logic of salt and sugar to Cizhu, and did not stop even after Gan Wei dragged the two children off to bathe.

Little sheep was soaked all over, burying half his face under the water, learning to blow bubbles like a crab. Cizhu was finally amused, and Gan Wei rubbed the heads of the two cubs, while helping Cizhu dry his hair, said, “Cizhu can be Ganlin’s Younger Brother, okay?”

“Can I?” Ganlin sprang up at once. “Then wouldn’t I be the Older Brother!”

The little sheep had just become an Older Brother and immediately said he also wanted to take care of his Younger Brother. The place for drying hair had been occupied by Gan Wei, so Ganlin wrapped a small towel around the white fluffy spider legs, and also split half a box of his nutritional paste for his Younger Brother.

Cizhu did not dare take it, and hurriedly pushed it back to Ganlin.

“Just eat it, there’s more if it’s not enough.” Gan Wei slapped a new box onto the table, resting her face in her hand with a smile. “Mom still has to trouble you two to be taste testers for the new flavor of nutritional paste.”

That night, Cizhu got his Older Brother’s old pajamas. He and Ganlin lay side by side by the window, watching neon light up each other’s youthful faces. Cizhu carefully curled up his spider legs, avoiding stabbing Ganlin.

“They can’t be taken back?” Gan Wei came back carrying something and put it on Cizhu’s head.

It was actually a pair of soft imitation sheep ears.

“A little gift.” Gan Wei helped adjust the angle, making sure it could fully cover Cizhu’s ears. “Do you like it?”

Cizhu was a little dazed, and only dared to nod slightly. It was not until Ganlin took his hand and they together touched the soft new ears.

“Mom,” Ganlin said, kneeling upright on the bed and shaking Gan Wei’s arm, “you’re amazing, do you have anything else?”

Gan Wei held his face and pinched it, smiling. “Since Xiao Lin also wants one, how could Mom forget you?”

As she spoke, she took out a small box, and Ganlin said in surprise, “What is this?”

“It’s face-molding clay.” Gan Wei blinked. “Mom made it herself using dark moss extract. Xiao Lin likes hide-and-seek, doesn’t he? You can use this to shape masks for yourself, and then your game win rate will greatly improve.”

Before she had even finished speaking, Ganlin threw himself into her arms and gave her a solid kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you, Mom!” The little cub’s short tail kept swishing, and he leaned close to Gan Wei’s ear to ask softly, “I want to take my Younger Brother to play together, can I?”

“Of course you can,” Gan Wei said, “you have to get along well with your Younger Brother.”

As the facts proved, Ganlin really was a very qualified Older Brother. He would help Cizhu pull up his collar and use a large hood to help him weaken the abrupt bulge on his back.

The family’s contribution points were not enough for both children to go to school at the same time, fortunately Cizhu was a few years younger. When Ganlin patted his chest and said that once he started working, he could earn contribution points, then his Younger Brother would also be able to go to school.

“What do you want to study?” Ganlin held his Younger Brother’s hand, and the two went together toward Slug Amusement Park. “I chose recycled material identification, if I earn enough, I might even be able to send you to a school in Huizhi District, and then when you grow up, you can become a limb scientist.”

“A limb scientist,” Cizhu asked, “what do they do?”

“Mm...” Ganlin thought about it. “They can research prosthetic limbs, and selling prosthetic limbs can earn a lot, a lot of contribution points!”

Cizhu’s eyes lit up. “Then can they research my spider legs?”

If it had been a year ago, Ganlin would have said yes. At that time, he and Gan Wei even harbored the idea of researching the tactile sensitivity of their own sheep horns.

But now, Ganlin had already accepted a year of basic education, and knew that in Yujing, brain modification and research into the external traits of companion genes were not allowed.

Cizhu did not understand. “Why?”

“Because something will happen.” Ganlin looked at his Younger Brother, teaching patiently like a little Teacher.

“The human brain is the most precise instrument.” Ganlin said, “In the old world, science’s degree of development of the brain was already very limited. But at that time, all human brains still had the same structure. New humans, because they fused with hundreds of kinds of companion genes, had brains far more delicate, and far more fragile than old-world humans.”

Therefore, they were also more easily driven mad, crippled, or even killed by modification.

The frequency of incidents was too high, too high. In the early days of Yujing’s establishment, and the early days of the rise of prosthetic limbs, before there were any bans, the mortality rate for brain modification reached a shocking eighty percent.

It was like a shackle on the newborn world, allowing gene fusion between races and barely permitting survival, yet not allowing excessive probing, forcibly creating a terrifying hollow in limb life science.

In addition, the same went for the dominant traits of companion animal genes.

Ganlin remembered very clearly that the textbook said there had once been an elephant gene companion who underwent cosmetic surgery and shortened his long nose, and the next day he died at home, his whole body rotting, blood and water flowing all over the floor.

The mortality rate for dominant animal traits was not as high as brain modification, but it had still reached a very terrifying seventy percent.

“So, even if you really want to know why the spider legs are dominant, you absolutely cannot undergo mechanical augmentation.” Ganlin said seriously, “It’s dangerous, Cizhu, you have to cherish your life.”

Cizhu lifted his head. By now he already knew about the special nature of Ganlin’s sheep horns, so he said solemnly, “Older Brother is the same, I will protect you well.”

The artificial sky curtain gradually darkened, and the lights of Slug intertwined together. After the two cubs, hand in hand, ran into the colorful neon, the laughter of the amusement park faded away with it. Ganlin slipped into the peaceful midnight of Dawn District, leaned by a broken window, and lightly exhaled.

He reached out and touched his horn.

The horn was very large, completely the dominant trait of an argali, and the tactile nerves were still crawling across its surface. Ganlin skillfully felt to a certain spot, pressed lightly, and

removed most of the horn.

The remaining part was about the size of a sheep horn, and the part he removed rested in his palm, quickly changing from curled to upright. Only by the cold, white moonlight did one discover that it could actually extend into a sharp spike.

Ganlin gently stroked it, as if consoling the passing years.

Even after it had been removed, touch still fed back to his nerves. Ganlin still remembered the sensation when this thing cut off those two mercenaries’ heads. Sticky, dense, bone linked to bone, tendon linked to tendon, truly disgusting.

He took a wet wipe from his chest and wiped his horn. The process was focused and careful, like maintaining a work of art without equal in the world.

Only when the spare magnetic card began vibrating did Ganlin glance over carelessly and switch over to the mini communicator.

A certain low male voice then rang out.

“Not having an easy time, hiding here and there, are you, Ganlin?”