ATL | Chapter 9

Suddenly, something was placed under his ankle, the touch soft.

Ganlin looked down and saw a bundle of black, folded cloth.

Arthur's police uniform jacket.

"Going to the hospital would be too much trouble," Arthur said. "Keeping it raised helps reduce swelling, but all you have on you is a work uniform. Sorry, I offended you."

"Officer," Ganlin's throat moved, "......thank you."

The other man smiled gently. "It was only a small favor."

"Sit quietly for a while," he said. "I'll get an ice pack for you to put on."

Ganlin really did not move, obediently watching Arthur leave the rest room, until even the last little section of snake tail could no longer be seen, and both of them had completely left each other's line of sight.

Hetaweisi slightly, slipped into the storage room, and casually locked the door.

Up to this moment, he finally had a moment of leisure, and sent Xiao Xun a message.

"Check this person."

Very soon, he took the ice pack and returned to the rest room where Lin Bai was. The other person's forearm rested on his knee, as if he were spacing out.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." Heta gave a slight smile, walked toward Lin Bai, then crouched on one knee in front of him and started fiddling with the ice pack.

In Ganlin's eyes, Arthur was wearing a tight vest and a white shirt, his eyelids lowered, focused on the movement of his hands. His head was pressed quite low, almost hanging down to his own chest. Because of that, it was very easy to notice that his features were somewhat deep.

"Officer," Ganlin asked, "are you mixed-race?"

"Do you mean race, or companion gene?"

"Both."

"Then, both." Arthur said gently, "My father's companion gene is black mamba, and my mother's is otter. As for race, our ancestors seem to have had a cross-continental marriage, but that was already the old world's way of speaking."

As if returning the courtesy, Ganlin also took the initiative to speak.

"With a temperament as good as yours, your family relations must be very harmonious." He said as if casually, "I've never seen my dad and mom, but I do have a cute Younger Brother."

Heta had already set the ice pack in place, then sat down beside Lin Bai, and asked without changing expression, "You came to work in Dawn District for your Younger Brother?"

Lin Bai gave a light "mm." He bit his lip, as if struggling over whether he should confess, not knowing that Hetaweisi had already seen through everything about him, from his background, his family, his work, to the little Morning Dew Flower Shop.

Lin Bai's concealment was very thin.

This little argali thought that, as long as he had not signed a Temporary Worker agreement, he would not be easily investigated thoroughly. But a clumsy lie might deceive "Arthur", it could not hide from SEC agents.

Besides that, Lin Bai's psychological endurance was not very good, and even little lies would expose his guilty conscience. The abdominal pain at the morning security checkpoint should have been the result of being too tense, because he feared being treated as a stowaway and turned away, losing this hard-won opportunity.

Hetaweisi thought that in Lin Bai's twenty years of life, he might have rarely received kindness.

Therefore, before such a tiny bit of concern from "Arthur", he could not wait to reveal his true feelings, trying to seek resonance.

Lin Bai's eyelashes lowered, still and sadly trembling. He was silent for a long while before finally summoning the courage to speak.

"My Younger Brother," Lin Bai said hoarsely, "he's sick, and it's getting worse and worse."

Heta asked, "What illness?"

"Autism." Lin Bai forced a smile. "A Ci, ever since he was little he was different from other children, he almost never spoke, never made a fuss, and never smiled. At first I thought he was just precocious, until I saw him cut himself with a knife."

Heta handed a cup of hot water to Lin Bai's palm, and the other obediently took it and held it. His face was hazed behind the white steam, showing a bit of distance.

"Basic disease knowledge..."

"That's a compulsory course only taught in Huizhi District." Lin Bai murmured, "Actually, my Younger Brother and I came from Lower Nest."

　　——He was unexpectedly even more candid than imagined.

Arthur hurriedly said, "Sorry."

"It's okay." Ganlin blinked, "Now, my Younger Brother and I have already settled in Huizhi District."

"However, Lower Nest, you should have heard of it too. That place doesn't have any good hospitals, it's dirty, chaotic, there is drinking, robbery, and trouble everywhere, and at every moment someone dies in brawls. It's already not easy to stay alive, so who would care about A Ci's illness? But he's only five, still so small."

"As the Older Brother, we are each other's only relatives."

"From Lower Nest to Huizhi District," Arthur said considerately, "it was hard, wasn't it?"

Hard, in fact, was far from enough to describe this perilous road. Two artificial sky curtains divided the new world into three, and Dawn Tower could not shine into the dark narrow lanes at the bottom. Whether looking up from Lower Nest or from Huizhi District, the sky curtain was a lock.

A towering world, with only a few routes of ascent that connected the Three Districts and stretched for a thousand meters.

Before Ganlin thought of certain past events, he timely withdrew Man Si. He looked at Arthur, the corners of his eyes slightly red.

"After coming to Huizhi District," Lin Bai said, "I discovered that I knew nothing about machinery, didn't dare deal with mercenaries, and couldn't help people repair prosthetic limbs. Besides, I'm a sheep-type gene companion, my strength is very small, and the day-wage jobs never reach me; all the basic ways of making a living have their own rules, and they're almost all full too."

"But, there are very few people who sell biomorphic flowers in Huizhi District?" Hetaweisi followed along with the story and asked gently, "Lin Bai, do you like flowers very much?"

For some reason, Heta thought of the materials in the Canus Case. Among them was a photo taken by Ganlin during his time in Nanke. The other person's neck was slightly lowered, a real magnolia flower tucked in at the side of his face, his eyelashes casting a long shadow beneath his red eyes, docile in a way that was perfectly beautiful.

Yet also very false.

Compared with that, Lin Bai was immature, because he was too frank, too lacking in caution, showing a kind of clumsy cuteness.

"Of course."

Ganlin answered without hesitation, bashfully saying: "Flowers are very beautiful. Although I've never seen real flowers, the process of weaving biomorphic flowers is like weaving a dream for yourself."

"There are real flowers in Dawn District." Arthur seemed a little awkward. "However, I've never seen them with my own eyes either."

"I know." Ganlin said, "Madams and young ladies get tired of looking at them too, maybe they would also want to buy some little trinkets to try something new? So I took the risk and came here... Officer, I really need this job. If I sell more biomorphic flowers, A Ci's illness can get better as soon as possible."

He summoned up his courage and pinched Arthur's sleeve.

"Please, help me."

The Third-Rank Police Officer in front of him remained silent for a long time, finally letting out a sigh. Ganlin knew this meant compromise, meaning Arthur was willing to help him cover it up, so he slightly lifted the corners of his lips and said gratefully, "Thank you! If you're willing, I'll give you a bouquet of flowers, all right?"

"Right now it's four in the morning," Arthur didn't take up his words, only looked at the time, "you can nap in the rest room for a bit, and go back after daybreak. It's not safe at night."

Ganlin thought for a moment, and sincerely said, "Police Officer, you're really nice."

Arthur did not say anything else this time, and turned to leave. Ganlin then hugged his knees, resting his chin against them, lightly rubbing in small motions, thinking absentmindedly.

Officer Li said that because of the Canus case, the police bureau had strengthened night patrols, so the hovercar that crashed on Murder Night must already have been handled. To what extent can Hetaweisi investigate now?

With a soft click, the rest room light went out. Only Ganlin's shallow breathing remained, along with the faint reflection of Rain Drops in the corner.

That was what the latter half of the night in Yujing was like, entering each day's extremely short rest. Ganlin sat in the darkness, quietly waiting for dawn, that was what he had originally thought.

However, without realizing it, he fell back into the sticky dreamscape, and saw Lower Nest's rainy season again.

Strictly speaking, Lower Nest actually did not have rain, because there was no real sky here, no flowing clouds and sun to be seen, only dirty wind raised by stepping through potholes.

Every year when the rainy season arrived, the entire Dawn District had to cheer, Huizhi and the municipal government in Lower Nest would also celebrate, scattering mimetic water droplets between the artificial sky curtains. At the same time, Dawn Tower and the sky-screen broadcast system would announce together:

[Yujing has entered the great rainy season.]

It's just that the Lower Nest artificial sky curtain was old, and when it broke it was rarely repaired, so many places no longer lit up, and rain no longer fell there either, only able to lie dormant for a long time in darkness, treating the messy neon as a source of light.

Sanpan Lane was one such place.

Sanpan Lane, as the name suggests, was wedged into the cramped and chaotic seams of the city, winding, twisting, and coiling like a snake, and also as damp, cold, slick, and inhuman as a snake. Yet the ones living here were a group of docile sheep-type gene companions.

Gan Wei was one of the residents of Sanpan Lane. She was still very young, with a head of beautiful fine silver curls and small little sheep horns, always wearing a sleeveless long dress, cheerfully weaving through the neon, selling homemade nutritional paste to herbivore gene companions.

This thing was not the nutritional paste mass-produced by the conglomerate. It won by having free raw materials and low production costs, mainly taken from dark moss and radiation-resistant fungi in certain areas of Lower Nest. Gan Wei had a pair of skillful hands, and after her blending, these things could actually be called delicious.

Because the price was low, even though the energy conversion value was far inferior to nutritional paste, there were still residents who could not afford nutritional paste, or who wanted to improve the taste, willing to buy it and try it.

Whether she was digging up ingredients or selling, Gan Wei would always hold a tiny swaddled bundle in her arms. Whenever someone curiously came to ask, she would generously show them from a little distance away.

"Here, this is my son."

"You ask where his dad is? His dad died long ago!" Gan Wei laughed brightly, "The child takes my surname, he's called Ganlin."

"Why call him Lin... because the whole of Yujing likes the rainy season! The rainy season is so good, after artificial rainfall, dark moss and fungi can grow even more happily, and the municipal government will also give heat period subsidies, occasionally distribute basic supplies, there aren't such good things at other times."

"If you like the rainy season, won't you also like my little Ganlin by extension?"

Facts proved that Ganlin was indeed very popular, always the most eye-catching one in the pile of children, beautiful in a way that stood out very much, even somewhat abrupt.

He looked very much like Gan Wei, red lips and white teeth, lively and playful, and also always liked to move around with Gan Wei, leaping through the dim Sanpan Lane. Mother and son were both born with silver curls, and when they sold things on the street, they looked like two clean white clouds, drifting softly.

Since Ganlin could remember, life had never been wealthy, but thanks to Gan Wei's skill at making a living, the two of them never went hungry.

Whenever the artificial sky curtain darkened, Gan Wei would take him back to their tiny home, and the two of them would cook a pot of nutritional paste together, sit cross-legged on the bed, and tell each other about today's troubles and amusing things.

"Today the goat uncle at the street corner sent his little boy to school," Gan Wei said, after licking the spoon clean, casually tapping the top of her son's head, "Xiao Lin, do you want to go to school?"

After the old world collapsed, the welfare system collapsed with it. When Yujing was first established, it still did not have the ability to build a complete educational system for the Three Districts. Up to now, the compulsory education system only covered Dawn District and Huizhi District, and was partially extended to Lower Nest.

However, the number of schools in Lower Nest was scarce, compulsory schooling lasted only three years, and the subjects taught were also very limited.

Five-year-old Ganlin covered his head and asked curiously, "Do I have to go to school?"

"Yes, to school," Gan Wei said, "the nearest one, only two streets away from our Sanpan Lane."

The excitement on Ganlin's face flashed by, but then he buried his head in the blanket and pointed his little tail at Mom.

"No."

His voice was muffled. "If I go to school, I won't be able to sell nutritional paste with you."

"Nutritional paste is sold every day, aren't you tired of it?" Gan Wei laughed out loud, "All right, I know you can't bear to part with Mom. Then when you go to school, Mom will also set up a stall outside the school, and when you get out of class you can sell with Mom, and you can also invite your little friends to eat together, all right?"

Ganlin shot up from under the blanket. He raised his head and asked with shining eyes, "Really?"

"Really." Gan Wei held out her pinky finger. "Mom will pinky-promise with you."

The child got the promise, happily raising his ears, and excitedly said, "At school, what can I learn?"

"Hmm..." Gan Wei thought about it. "You can learn part repair, pipeline maintenance, recycled material identification, things like that? These are all what I heard from the goat uncle."

"Huh?" Ganlin was a little disappointed, not very interested in the things Gan Wei had just mentioned. "Nothing else?"

"I heard that schools in Huizhi District can teach more, and if you get to Dawn District, you can even use chip-assisted learning," Gan Wei rubbed her son's curly hair, "maybe Xiao Lin can go to a higher and better district in the future, and maybe also..."

She hesitated for a moment, then tentatively touched Ganlin's horn. The latter immediately dodged away, laughing, "It itches!"

Gan Wei also laughed along, and filled in the rest of the unfinished words: "Maybe in the future, Xiao Lin will become a limb scientist, and can figure out what exactly is going on with your horns."

When Ganlin heard this, he threw himself into his mother's arms and touched Gan Wei's little horn.

"Mom, when I touch your horn like this, you really don't feel anything?"

Gan Wei shook her head. "No. Not only does Mom not feel anything, other people don't either. Xiao Lin, you're special."

Ganlin was a little sad, and wanted to hide his horn. "I'm the only one like this, so am I bad?"

"Being special doesn't mean 'bad'," Gan Wei said patiently, "when we found a grain of sugar in a pile of salt, we say that grain of sugar is 'special'; when we found Mom's nutritional paste in a pile of nutritional paste, then the nutritional paste is also 'special'."

"Do you think sugar and nutritional paste are bad?"

Ganlin shook his head.

"So, whether Xiao Lin is salt or sugar, Mom likes you very much, and everyone likes you too." Gan Wei blinked, and said seriously, "However, good people like Xiao Lin, and bad people may also like Xiao Lin."

"So, the matter of the horn having touch, Xiao Lin must hide it very, very well, and absolutely cannot let anyone other than Mom know, remember?"

Ganlin answered "mm" emphatically, very cooperatively reaching out to cover his own horn, but it was so strange, why had the palm resting on his horn become no longer soft?

The temperature also seemed to be lower, as if...

As if some kind of secret probe.

Ganlin suddenly opened his eyes and looked up.

In the dim morning light, he crashed into a pair of black vertical pupils.