“Tick—”
“Tick—”
“Tick—”
It was unknown where it came from but an instrument was making a monotonous sound. However, there was also another sound in the room.
“Thump thump.”
“Thump thump.”
“Thump thump.”
It sounded like a human heartbeat but it couldn’t be because the sound was permeating the whole room. The four walls seemed to have a mechanism that played the sound. At this moment, footsteps came from the end of the room. There were two humans and they walked and talked like they were recording something.
After a while, a brief dialogue rang out.
“Zone 4 is normal.”
“Zone 6 is normal.”
“No. 113 has stopped developing.”
“Continue the observation.”
“No. 334 has proliferated abnormally and must be destroyed.”
“No. 334 was transplanted too early.”
“There is no way. My report wasn’t approved. The superiors are determined to offset the high abnormal rate with the high birth rate.”
“The abnormal rate of the embryos has been increasing for the past two years. This isn’t a wise decision. The embryo must stay with the mother for a least one month to ensure successful development.”
“The mother’s flowering period is too short. If the time is extended then the birth rate won’t be enough.”
“Why is it so hard?”
“Optimistically, the overall number of children is improving.”
The footsteps faded away. Only the heartbeat was still ringing in the entire room. The light in the room was dim and soft. It was a stable nest or a huge hollow organ. The powerful heartbeat was like proof of life.
An Zhe slowly exited the pipe and felt a bit uncomfortable. This place seemed to have strange fluctuations that affected his body. Fortunately, after seeing the layout of the room, he finally regained his perception of direction. He had to go near the outside of the building.
After turning around in the pipe many times, he found many vents. These vents led to one small room after another. Now it seemed that people were sleeping and there was a person in every room. He couldn’t go out to check but he could hear the breathing sound. It was very weak and must be the breathing sound of children. The window was closed and there was a red light camera at the top of every room. He couldn’t escape through this type of room.
Thus, it was a long time before An Zhe finally managed to find a vent on the ceiling of the corridor.
He carefully emerged, spreading his body flat on the ceiling as he moved down the corridor. The cameras were pointing down and were unable to capture the ceiling.
The layout of each floor in the Garden of Eden was similar. He recognized that this should be a corridor for handling chores, there the warehouses for cleaning tools, household items, food and supplies were located.
An Zhe was slightly excited. By lay, in this type of corridor, there would be a door leading to a small terrace. It was occasionally used for drying things and sometimes the staff would smoke there. He soon successfully found the door and stretched his mycelium through the crack. It was bright outside, showing it was already daylight.
Before An Zhe had time to think carefully, his attention was completely diverted. On the empty terrace, on a concrete fence stood a girl in a white dress. Her back was to An Zhe as she faced outside, slowly opening her arms and leaning forward—like she would fall at any time.
An Zhe’s human figure appeared and he took a few steps forward, grabbing the girl by the shoulder and pulling her off the fence back to the ground. “You…”
The girl turned back. An Zhe was startled. He had seen her before. Just two days ago, she ran from the Garden of Eden to the road outside and was stopped by Lu Feng. Finally, she was taken away by the staff of the Garden of Eden.
At this time, she glanced at An Zhe and it was almost an empty look. She didn’t have the bright colours of the children in An Zhe’s class and for a moment, An Zhe had thought the girl was a lifeless doll. An Zhe knew that his current image wasn’t ordinary. He wore a robe made of mycelium and perhaps looked like a human going out with a sheet—but normal humans didn’t go out wearing a sheet.
Yet this girl looked like she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She didn’t seem to realize how unusual An Zhe’s clothes were or how abruptly An Zhe appeared. She also didn’t seem to recognize him or remember his existence at all. Three seconds later, she slowly turned back to look in front of her.
It was early morning and the aurora had just disappeared. A thick white mist flowed through the dark grey city. Undulating waves were rushing into the grey-blue sky. At this angle, half of his field of view was blocked by the cylindrical magnetic field generator not far away. It was larger and taller than every building and was like a mountain, an island in the sea fog or a spiral ladder connecting the sky to the ground. The street lights flickered with the morning stars in the sky but they were overshadowed by such a huge image.
This girl was looking up at the infinite sky above.
“I don’t want to jump.” Her voice was very soft but her words were clear. “I want to fly.”
An Zhe told her, “You will fall.”
“I know.”
Her tone was too dull and unlike children of this age. The morning wind came and her white skirt and black hair. She looked unusually slender and soft. Women and girls outside generally didn’t have this type of appearance. Du Sai had such characteristics but it was more visible in this girl.
An Zhe stood behind her. He had just protected a human child and he paid for it. His existence was exposed to the girl and now he was in extreme danger. He couldn’t reveal any flaws.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“There are a few times when the surveillance will be messed up and they hadn’t found it yet.” The girl explained. “I will use that time to go out and see the sky.”
“You can look at the sky during free time.” An Zhe wondered, “What class and what floor are you on?”
He seriously fulfilled his duties as a teacher and couldn’t let this child stay in such a dangerous place.
She replied, “I’m in the Garden of Eden.”
“What class are you in at the Garden of Eden?”
“I don’t have classes on those floors. Boys are there.” She stated.
An Zhe patiently explained to her, “There are girls in the class as well.”
There were many girls in the class such as Jisha, although they were dressed like the boys. They didn’t wear dresses or have shoulder-length hair like the girl in front of him.
“Those girls aren’t girls.” She turned to look at An Zhe. “The 20th floor and above are real girls.”
An Zhe wondered, “Why?”
“You don’t even know this?”
“I don’t know.” He knew very little about this human base.
For the first time, the girl’s face was something other than blank. She smiled and declared with a hint of pride, “Then you don’t know the Rose Declaration.”
An Zhe inquired, “What is it?”
The girl turned around and lay on the railing, the sun rising in the sky. “Then you don’t know about the bacterial infection.”
“I know.” He knew about the disaster that killed most of the world’s humans.
She told him, “Only people with good genes survive.”
“Yes.”
Human treatment was ineffective against the strong mutant bacteria. They could only escape infection by virtue of innate immunity. A person’s genes could resist the disease and they could survive.
“Once those people survived, they found that very few living children were born in the world.” She reached out and combed her hair, pausing for a while like she was organizing her thoughts. “After the infection, the females who survived had defects in their fertility. There were only a few and the defects were relatively small.”
An Zhe didn’t speak. The girl wrinkled her nose and continued. “Scientists will give them a genetic test. If they score 60 points or less than they have completely lost the function of fertility. If it is more than 60 points, it is possible to give birth to a normal child. Then there was the Rose Declaration. You are a boy so the declaration doesn’t matter.”
“What is the declaration?”
“I just recited it. Do you want to hear it?” She suggested.
“Okay.”
Her tone was calm as she recited, “The 23,371 women with a fertility score above 60 in all four human bases voted to pass the following declaration, with zero refusals: I voluntarily dedicate my life to the fate of humanity, to accept genetic experiments and accept all forms of assisted reproduction to continue the cause of the human race’s struggle for survival.”
“That’s it.” she said, “Thus, I’m on the 20th floor. Now you know.”
“Thank you,” An Zhe told her. “Still, you should be careful not to come to such a dangerous place.”
“I’m not going to jump.” Then she wondered, “I come here every week and you aren’t here.”
She looked at An Zhe again. “I wanted to see the sky so I came here. Why did you come?”
An Zhe answered, “I can’t find my way back.”
“I know the way. I have a secret passage.”
An Zhe thought about it. “I also have no clothes to wear.”
“I also know where the laundry is.”
An Zhe requested, “Can you tell me?”
Rather than answering directly, she wondered, “Are you a lower class student?”
“I’m a teacher.”
“Promise me one thing.” Her eyes seemed more energetic as she spoke to An Zhe. “Promise me one thing and I’ll find clothes for you and take you to the secret passage.”
“What is it?”
“Find a boy called Sinan on the 6th floor and tell him that I’ve been hit with a tracking agent and can’t go out to play with him later. This time next week, you can come here again and tell me what he said.”
An Zhe was silent. The girl glanced at him. “Can’t you do that?”
“I…” An Zhe glanced at her. She blinked, looking like a normal child. In the end, An Zhe told her, “I might not be able to do it.”
“You can find him on the sixth floor.”
An Zhe didn’t speak.
She seemed to be in a hurry as she opened the door of the terrace. “I’ll get you some clothes.”
Before he could stop her, she disappeared through the door. If the Sinan she mentioned was the Sinan that An Zhe knew then this boy was no longer in the Garden of Eden but at the Lighthouse. An Zhe just didn’t know what would happen to her if he told her the news. He knew that human emotions would cause her pain.
By the time the girl came back, pulling him through the dark empty corridor and finally stopping at a small open door in a pile of debris, he still hadn’t thought of the wording.
“If you can get in then you can do down to the first floor.” She pointed to the door.
The door was half open. Strictly speaking, due to years of despair, it was no longer tightly closed but was released. However, the chain-shaped rusty metal latch was still hanging on the door and embedded in the wall, so that only a small width was opened. It was enough for a child moving sideways to enter.
An Zhe said, “I’ll try it.”
He went to the door and leaned in slightly. It was impossible for an adult to pass through here but after all, he was a mushroom. His body had become a state of mycelium under the cover of clothing and after losing the restriction of human bones, he easily entered through the door.
“Your body is so soft,” the girl marvelled.
“I have one request. Can you not tell anyone I’ve been here?” An Zhe asked.
“If you come here next week—” Her voice came to an abrupt end.
“Lily?” A woman’s voice was heard.
“You’re here again.” The voice slightly rebuked the girl.
An Zhe turned to the side to hide and heard Lily say, “I’m sorry, Madam.”
“This time, I’m the one who found you.” The woman called ‘Madam’ spoke softly. “If it was them, you would be locked up again.”
Lily said, “I won’t.”
Then there was the sound of footsteps. They seemed to be going out. An Zhe looked through the gap and saw Lily behind held by a lady in a long dress. Their figures gradually walked away in the dim corridor.
Lily hadn’t finished her words but he knew what she wanted to see. It seemed he had entered an agreement with Lily. He would come here again next week and tell her Sinan’s reply.
He glanced around. There was a dim, damp environment around him and he faintly saw some gray-green mould on the wall. The ground was also covered with grey-white powder debris. This was a small and steep stairwell. It obviously hadn’t been used for a long time.
An Zhe found the position of the stair handrail and walked down little by little. It had no windows and was darker than night. This place wasn’t much better than the pipes.
Each floor had 20 steps. An Zhe walked while counting the number of floors. Once he descended to the sixth floor, the door of the staircase had a gap around the same size as the 20th floor. He exited and reached the utility room on the sixth floor.
Bright lights shone on him. Lily had given him the clothes of the Eden staff, which included a snow-white shirt. It was no different from the previous clothes. He went out and glanced at the wall clock in the corridor. It was seven o’clock. He had to go to the training base from Eden so he was already late.
An Zhe hurriedly downstairs and accelerated his pace to the door. The bright red slogan ‘human interests above all else’ in the hall was particularly dazzling on the snow-white wall. The staff in white uniforms were walking around and the voices of children were heard in the distance. An Zhe felt alive again.
Then the glass door in the lobby opened and he bumped into a man head-on.
An Zhe, “……”
It was Lu Feng. Behind Lu Feng was Seraing. He saw Lu Feng’s eyes narrow and felt some danger from the action. Sure enough, Lu Feng questioned, “Why are you here?”
Facing this person, An Zhe’s mycelium was about to explode. He shouldn’t be at Eden right now. He should be at the training base with Colin.
“I…” He looked up at Lu Feng.
Those cold green eyes stared at him like they were saying, ‘You can start lying now.’
An Zhe replied, “…I went to the wrong place.”
He really did go the wrong way and was completely lost in the underground of the city. If he hadn’t come to the Garden of Eden or found the terrace in time, he might’ve continued being trapped in that place, losing his identity as a human and never coming out again.
And…
Lu Feng, this bad thing, An Zhe would have nothing to do with him ever since.
An Zhe lowered his eyes. He didn’t know why but he felt that the current colonel wasn’t as abominable as before. He heard Seraing gently say, “Today you should be going to the training base to work. You didn’t remember that you have to change places?”
An Zhe didn’t say anything. The sun rose from behind the artificial magnetic pole in the distance and the golden light shone on the silver buckle of Lu Feng’s uniform. His voice was a bit hoarse. “I’m going to be late.”
Lu Feng didn’t speak but he didn’t say anything to make things difficult for An Zhe. An Zhe felt that based on Lu Feng’s knowledge of his IQ, Seraing’s reason was convincing enough. An Zhe moved forward, trying to bypass Lu Feng and leave here.
From the side, Lu Feng’s voice was suddenly heard. “I’ll send you.”
Lu Feng’s car was stable and fast, the speed was at least twice as fast as the shuttle bus. Once it stopped at the training base, the clock showed it was only 7:25. This was five minutes before An Zhe needed to be at work.
An Zhe got down from Lu Feng’s car and felt those going to the training base to work looking at him. In any case, it wasn’t the first time people stared at him. An Zhe headed to the card-swiping device in front of the door. People came one after another, using their ID card to open the gate and enter.
An Zhe paused. He had discovered one thing.
There was the sound of footsteps behind him. He turned back and saw Lu Feng staring at him with raised eyebrows.
An Zhe muttered, “…I forgot my card as well.”
He heard Lu Feng gently hum. The slender fingers grasped an ID card and placed it on the sensor. There was a ding and the gate opened. It was Lu Feng who used his ID card to help An Zhe open the gate.
At the same time, the colonel’s voice was heard in his ears. “So stupid.”
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