Haiyingsen (6) + Diary (1)

Chapter Summary: Yes, that's how Theodosius sneaked into the palace :)

Following the previous chapter, Ye Wanzhou found Caesar's diary while doing archaeological work in the library. The diary begins by narrating the past from a first-person perspective, including the death of Phaethon and the creation of Gratian.

Octavian made Gratian a cup of coffee. The emperor didn't drink it; the little boy placed the beautifully patterned enamel mug on his plate, and a rich, bitter aroma wafted out. He could only smell it now, not drink it, because his cardiovascular system couldn't handle the stimulation of caffeine.

"Your Majesty, Estravan requests an audience."

The boy whispered in the sleepy emperor's ear. This wasn't his job. But the former chairman of the alliance had asked the emperor's personal physician not to tell the minister of state about his audience with the emperor, "My relationship with His Excellency Caligula has never been very good." The man smiled apologetically.

The little boy nodded. He liked this person; his demeanor reminded him of his father, mother, brother, and sister, and of all the elders whose memories were fading, their outlines becoming increasingly blurred yet also increasingly gentle.

The young doctor said, "Alright. You may go in. But you can only speak with His Majesty for a short while. His Majesty has had a long day."

"Greetings." The emperor sat in his armchair, leaning on the armrest. The crimson curtains opened and closed, and the man bowed deeply to the emperor. The intelligence guards had dutifully searched him upon his entry; he was unarmed. The man raised his hands to indicate his innocence.

The emperor said, "I have seen you. Many times."

The Emperor pondered for a moment, "Former Speaker of the Republican Alliance, Estravan Caesar... Well, you are now the Imperial Regional Administrator of Heysen. What brings you here?"

Estravan first expressed his loyalty and respect to the Empire and the Emperor. He then said, "Your Majesty, the merchants of the Alliance had a shipment of goods to be transported to the Empire, but it was intercepted by the Intelligence Bureau."

"This shipment is the exhibit you just saw. It's the first batch of biological agents intended to be launched in Zeus, the imperial capital. All customs clearance procedures were completed, but the merchant ship was illegally searched by the intelligence agency before it set sail."

"Have you spoken to Caligula about this? It's his job."

“I did say that. But the Secretary of State ignored it, saying the intelligence agency conducted the search on your orders.”

“I do not intend to get involved in your dispute,” the emperor said after a moment of contemplation, “but justice must be served and the law must be obeyed.”

Who is in charge of transporting this batch of goods?

"He is my nephew."

"name?"

“Theodosius. His name is Theodosius Nemesis.”

The emperor took out the seal, and Octavian immediately took a piece of white paper, on which Gratian wrote a few strokes.

Estravan said, “Your Majesty, although my nephew is in charge of this shipment, he is still just a child. I fear he is incapable of handling direct negotiations with Caligula.”

“If children don’t experience things, they’ll always be children.” Gratian looked up at him. “So, what do you suggest we do?”

"Just inform Minister of State Caligula to allow this shipment of unproblematic goods to be sent to Zeus as soon as possible."

“Isn’t your nephew in charge of this shipment? I can give him a letter and have him negotiate with Caligula.”

"Thank you for your kindness, Your Majesty. He is still young. This is, after all, something we old folks should do."

"In that case, what's the purpose of appointing him as the person in charge?" "This batch of your goods... Hmm, it seems rather mysterious."

The emperor suddenly spoke.

"I have a question, though you may choose not to answer. Estravan, you don't seem to be the type to resolve conflicts openly. In particular, do you want me to intervene in your conflict with Caligula? Why?"

"Because the Secretary of State is currently interfering in too many areas where he should not be involved."

"So he offended these remnants of the 'veterans' of your old alliance." The emperor nodded.

"Hopefully there's nothing wrong with the goods themselves. For example, unless I vouch for it, Caligula doesn't believe there's nothing suspicious about the goods."

Estravan felt a cold sweat break out on his back. "Of course, Your Majesty. This is a perfectly qualified batch of goods."

“You know that’s not what I meant.” The emperor put down his pen, crumpled the paper he had written on into a ball, and threw it aside. “Go and remind Caligula that even if it’s an intelligence agency authorized by the emperor, it should still follow legal procedures.”

Theodosius's second journey to Zeus was accompanied by a large quantity of glittering potions and glass tubes; he was loaded onto the bottom of a large shipping container—all important cargo. Below the hold lay the tranquil, deep, dark blue Milky Way; stars, like white waves on a night sea, dotted the vast expanse of pure black. The glass tubes containing the injections clinked softly. He refused to sleep, fearing that if he fell asleep there, he would never wake again. In the mythology of the empire, Hypnos and Death were twin brothers, with identical faces, identical expressions, identical childlike innocence, and identical silvery laughter.

He was in a daze when the light streamed in, the box opened, and a damp, dusty smell wafted in. A woman's face appeared above him. She looked at him and said, "The son of Caesar Ganymede. Is that right?"

Theodosius's muscles were all tense.

The woman waved her hand. "Don't be nervous." She was wearing a short nightgown, the lace trim barely covering her thighs, her hair was meticulously combed, and her face was covered with a layer of white lotion. He found himself in the woman's bedroom.

That should be a very beautiful face; if you remove the skincare liquid that obstructs the view and the grass-green eye patches around the eyelids.

“Are you Queen Drusilla?” He stepped out of the box.

"Hmm? Didn't your superior tell you what to do after you came to Zeus?" The Queen handed him a knife that she had prepared beforehand, disguised as a cufflink.

The boy did not answer.

"You prepared these things yourself?" The Queen nodded. "Very well."

She touched the delicate curls in her hair, turned, and said as she walked away, “What are you still doing here? The Emperor sleeps at the end of the corridor next door. See those places with lots of flowers and plants? Watch out for that old black cat named ‘Caesar.’ It loves to meow, and the poisoned fish cake is on the table to your right.” “Remember. You’ve never seen me. I’ve never seen you either.”

"The maids, on the other hand, think that you are my lover tonight."

"Was this arranged by Estravan?"

"Who?" The queen's face remained turned away from him. "I don't know this person. I don't know what you're talking about."

Theodosius remained motionless. Drusilla glanced up at the large mirror in front of her.

“This isn’t a trap.” The woman sighed. “Alright… I know the former Speaker of the Alliance. Alexander is hungry, listen, he’s crying! That insatiable, naughty child. Alright, alright, Mommy’s here, sweetie. My little prince, my little darling, sweetie.”

Theodosius glanced back one last time as he climbed from the Queen's window onto the opposite corridor; Alexander was a tall boy, perhaps a teenager, perhaps older. The Crown Prince, half-leaning in his mother's arms, stared back at him coldly. "Assassin," the boy murmured silently, his lips moving.

Then, the boy revealed a pleased, childlike smile of joy at finding candy. The Queen took a vial of medicine from the box, inserted a thin needle into her skin, and slowly injected the liquid. "Hebe, Goddess of Youth"; the nameplate on the vial was faintly visible. The Crown Prince was temporarily set aside by his loving mother, and the Queen stood before the large mirror, peeling away her old skin bit by bit, like a great serpent awakening.

＊

Volume Two: The Diary of Caesar Garnier

(This volume begins with the first-person narration of Caesar.)

As the warm amniotic fluid slipped from my fingertips, I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a primordial ocean at the dawn of Earth's existence, the murky hot water mixed with mud, coarse, fine sand leaking through my fingers. No, not sand; soaking in the amniotic fluid were shimmering fragments, inorganic salts and electrolytes, maintaining the baby's metabolism and balance with the external environment. The baby was covered in tubes, each latex tip biting into his fair, delicate skin. The baby's golden eyelashes, like tiny brushes, trembled gently in the flickering, fluorescent green light of the laboratory, like butterfly wings. A butterfly rested on a large golden flower, breathing.

The amniotic fluid gradually thinned, and I removed the baby from the incubator. Its delicate little body was still connected to a spiderweb of thin tubes. I turned off the computer-controlled life support system. I removed the needles from the baby's body; small, red, pitted spots covered its skin. The baby's face twitched in pain, but it was strong and didn't frown. Good baby, I thought. Those pitted, elongated holes healed visibly. No scars remained. In the lab, everyone was watching me.

"Did it work?" they asked.

My palm stroked the baby's soft cheek. Its little nose twitched slightly, and it slowly, with confusion, opened its eyes.

I saw the entire universe in its icy, cold, starry eyes.

"Gradius. Your name is Gradius, isn't it?"

His eyes, glistening, gazed back at me. It was as if he were gazing at a road; humanity's ancestors and countless gods, past, present, and future, standing as signposts and milestones along the long path of evolution. They all looked at me, at us, at this infant, at this tiny child named "Gradian." The child grasped one of my fingers, put it in his mouth, and sucked on it with his pink, soft gums—it tickled. I tried to pull my hand away, but he giggled and wouldn't let go.

"Hey, it's a healthy, chubby little boy!"

A cheer erupted in the laboratory.

Outside, spotlights shone in, and officials, reporters, and members of the public desperately squeezed their heads through the cracks in the door. I stepped out, carrying my child. He nestled against my shoulder, his soft, golden baby hair brushing against my chin, his arms wrapped around my neck. He stared curiously at the reporters' cameras. The exposure seemed to startle him; he first hid behind my back, then peeked out again, stretching out his arm, trying to catch the fleeting light.

“Do you like light? That was artificial light, from the camera and the lights,” I whispered in my child’s ear, smiling, and pointed to the night sky above. “Look, there are many more things shining in the sky. At night there’s the moon and the stars. And during the day, there’s the sun.”

The child spread his arms wide, like a bird about to take flight, embracing the night breeze, pointing at the bright moon, and shouted, "Sun!"

—"The end of the tree of evolution. The birth of a new human."

This was the front-page headline of the next day's news. The Earth Republic Alliance placed high hopes on the birth of Glatian: "From the hunter-gatherer era to the agricultural era, then to the industrial era, and finally to the information and intelligent era we are currently in, humanity seems to have finally reached a crossroads in evolution. Even today, we still retain remnants of the survival and thought patterns of our ancestors on the East African savanna, which may have helped us create an extraordinary civilization over the past tens of thousands of years. However, if we want to make further breakthroughs, it's time to transform humanity itself. Just as gorillas cannot understand concepts, theorems, and formulas that humans can easily comprehend, the new humans represent a major breakthrough in the limits of human intelligence. They are a completely new creation never before seen in nature, a source of pride for humanity. Their existence will prove that 'man is God'..."

At the very end of the article, a unique addition was made: "Of course, yesterday our Gratian pointed at the moon and said it was the sun. On the one hand, we marveled at the child's amazing intelligence (he learned to speak in less than half a minute after stepping out of the artificial womb!), and on the other hand, we felt it was urgent to arrange a qualified linguistics teacher for him who was not so fond of telling corny jokes."

I closed the newspaper. "Gradius," I said, "that's the moon. Not the sun. Come on, repeat after me, 'Moon—bright—'"

"Sun!" The little boy, nestled in his baby stroller, waved a bright red carrot. "It's edible! It's delicious!"

"You can't eat the sun!"

“Carrots are edible.” The little boy blinked his icy blue eyes. His irises were light blue, almost pure white in bright light, with a deep black dot deep in his pupils. His expression and tone were typical of a child, but his eyes were extremely cold.

Many years later, I asked Gratian why he fell in love with me. He said, "Because you were the first person to smile at me when I came into this world."

Did I laugh then? Maybe yes, maybe no. I can't remember. I only remember that when I saw the tiny, baby-like Gratian nuzzling against my arm and fingertips, this entire lonely universe finally responded to my cry for the first time.

I come from a remote seaside town. In my memory, the wind was always gentle and damp. Wearing shorts and open-toed flip-flops, I would stroll on the beach, a flock of white seagulls flapping their wings, feathers scattering across the sky. The sun was intense, and the insteps of my feet were always tanned with streaks of brown and white. The sea lapped against the shore, and residents threw their trash into the sea—colorful plastic bags and buckets of foul-smelling water were dumped into the ocean. The sea always remained silent. At the sweltering midday, the waves stilled, and those colorful, shimmering objects floated on the dark blue sea, sunlight skimming across the rippling waves. The wind blew, very strong. During the day, the wind blew from the ocean to the land; at night, the opposite. The daytime wind was warm and humid, the nighttime wind cold and dry.

I carried a fishing bucket and walked towards where the nets were cast; there, fishing boats were moored, heading out to sea. Groups of them, like whales chatting together. A song drifted from the whale pods; the fishermen had turned on their radios and were listening to the morning broadcast. Gravel slipped from the edges of my shoes, crunching and rustling, tiny pebbles scraping against the vast coastline on the earth.

Phaethon said that whenever the wind blew, he felt like he was about to fly away. “The wind fills my chest,” he said, pointing to his heart, which I want to clarify is not the organ for breathing air, but for pumping blood. Phaethon continued, “My whole body is filled with air. My armpits, shoulders, inner thighs, lower limbs—the wind slides through my body, and I am lifted up by the airflow, lifted up…”

"And then you flew away?" I grabbed a fish by the tail from the net; it was exhausted and struggled slightly before obediently falling into the bucket. A strong fishy smell crept up my arm and into my nose. There was also a hint of salt and mineral.

"And then I touched the sun!"

I rolled my eyes. "Phaethon, do you know that the sun is the star in our galaxy, and that its mass and volume are tens of millions of times that of the Earth? Do you think you can touch the sun by flying up into the sky? People will think you're still living in the Middle Ages."

Phaethon is my younger brother.

"Brother, the teacher said, uh, that my guardian needs to come to the school this week."

"So, I'm going to your school to see your teacher." I turned around with a straight face, knowing full well that I was still just a student. A middle school student. "What mischief have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"Brother, I have four exams this semester. I got full marks in math, physics, chemistry and biology."

"What necessary connection does this have with your illegal and disorderly conduct at school?"

"I just want to do an experiment! You know that water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen atoms; hydrogen and oxygen burn to produce water, and the two molecules are linked together by molecular bonds, releasing heat in the process. I think that if we use solar energy to break down the internal structure of water molecules and reduce them back to hydrogen and oxygen, we can generate a large amount of free clean energy, produce oxygen artificially, and also drain excess wastewater that has accumulated in swamps and depressions, thus improving the environment. What do you think?"

"...Just tell me what you did."

"I installed a large lens on the back hill of the school, near the artificial lake. I focused the lens on the artificial lake on the back hill of our school. Then, at noon, the sunlight fell on the lens, and after some refraction and focusing..."

"You set the school lake on fire?!"

"Yes..." He bowed his head and admitted his mistake, "It, it exploded halfway through. Because I put a catalyst in the lake water beforehand, which caused, uh, there was too much hydrogen gas decomposed in the water, and it couldn't be released. And then... um."

After apologizing to Phaethon's teachers and principal at his school, I asked him why he thought of using water for experiments—a question clearly difficult for a nine-year-old. He frowned, thought for a long time, and said, "Because I think water is the origin of the world. Our land is surrounded by the ocean, and perhaps at the end of the earth and the sea, at the end of time and space, vast water falls from the highest heavens like a waterfall at the edge of a cliff, plunging into an endless, dark abyss. I think that's what the end of the world looks like!"

“Sometimes I think, God is perfect, but our world is flawed. How can this be? It must be because the spacetime we live in is like a mirror, a great lake. People, flowers, animals, the ocean and the sky, the world and we are all just reflections of God in the mirror, or rather, in the lake. That’s why it sometimes seems so false, so flawed. At such times, the true nature of the world is exposed to us, to all of humanity.”

Later, Estravan told me that an ancient Greek philosopher named Thales had said something similar: "All things begin with water."

When Fahrenheit was a little older, he said he had a new idea: to develop a type of bacteria that could use solar energy to break down water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. I chuckled awkwardly and asked, "You're not going to blow up the school lake again, are you?"

He felt deeply humiliated and shouted, “Not this time, brother. Water and sunlight—using these two natural forces directly is too violent for humankind. But we can invent tools, using mediums. Like, well, using a lever to move the earth.”

"In fact, this lever that moves the earth is the point of connection between us and this great force of nature. The bacteria I'm going to invent belong to this point of connection."

His research interests differed from mine. I studied biology, he studied physics; I was fascinated by uncovering the secrets of humanity itself, while he aspired to open the door to the outer universe. I wished him success. He thanked me sweetly, wrapped his arms around my neck, and gave me a quick kiss. He was fourteen that year, still a child; at his fourteenth birthday banquet, he donned a huge alloy wing, so light it gleamed with a deep blue metallic sheen in the light, contrasting beautifully with his dark golden hair. Standing at the highest point, as everyone at the banquet looked up, he shouted, "Brother, brother! Look, I can fly! I can fly!"

The wind was strong, carrying a strong smell of alcohol from afar. In an instant, I wanted to cover my face and say, "What the hell? Who's your brother? I don't know you!" and at the same time, I wanted to rush out and catch him with my thin arms.

He flew off. The crowd screamed as he plummeted. Slowly. I ran over, opened my arms, and tumbled into the shimmering pool with him, wings and all. "Splash!" The water surged, ripples spreading from the center, revealing two heads emerging from the center. I heard the screams around me turn to gasps, then to jubilation. Laughter.

Phaethon wiped his tears and snot on my chest.

"Hey kid, how much did you drink?"

"I didn't drink much."

I felt like I was hugging an opened jar of wine. I said angrily, "I won't save you next time."

"No way. My brother will definitely save me. I'm your favorite little brother."

He was as proud as a peacock in mating season; his beautiful, large tail swayed in front of me.

I resisted the urge to pry that big, flowery feather off. "What will you do if I'm not by your side anymore?"

"Are you leaving?" he suddenly looked at me sadly. "Brother, where are you going?"

I said I wasn't planning on going anywhere. But two people can't be together forever, whether they're lovers, spouses, friends, parents and children, or even brothers who grew up together like us. People can't stay together forever; it's too counterintuitive. You see, we all come into this world alone, and in the end, we will all leave alone.

I thought of myself when I was very young. The school playground was overgrown with weeds, dusty and swirling. In the yellowish-gray mist, a bright red slide stood out prominently in one corner. In the slanting sunlight, children playing by the slide gathered and dispersed, gathered again, and dispersed once more. These children were my peers, my classmates with whom I learned pronunciation and spelling in class, and who teased each other about our accents. They greeted me, and after they had all left, I reached for the slide's handrail and climbed onto this red, silent behemoth. I felt like I was standing very high—no, not high enough; the earth below was only a tiny patch. I slid down from the top, then climbed back up, down, up. Unconsciously and meaninglessly, I repeatedly tried the same feeling of sliding down; when I landed back on the ground, the momentum of the fall vanished, and so did that fleeting, wind-like freedom. I felt a hunger within me, so I climbed to the highest point I could reach time and time again, surrendering my body to gravity, letting it fall, letting it fly, letting it shatter.

Fahrenheit was not far from the scarlet slide, right next to me. He had an open backpack slung over one shoulder and was holding a carrot carved into the shape of a spaceship in his hand; according to him, it was his craft project. The carrot warship squeaked and flew, and he swung it around, mimicking the action of a flying warship. He then took out a craft knife and started making an engine, digging a large hole in the ground. He said he was going to lift this "warship" into the sky.

We were the last ones to leave the whole school. After riding the slide, I liked to stroll between the school buildings. I didn't understand why all the other children rushed out of the iron gates and ran home. I didn't want to go home, and neither did Phaethon. The only sounds at home were the clanging of shoes and the gushing of running water from the pipes. The man sat silently by the door, the woman busied herself by the sink, their shadows muffled in the hazy gray light, utterly unremarkable.

But school is different. The characters and formulas engraved in books and written on the smooth blackboard awakened me, just as our ancient ancestors were awakened when they looked up at the magnificent starry sky. Our ancestors were just walking on the earth, ignorant and unaware, without memory or future, until one day they accidentally looked up at the Milky Way, and thus human history began, and civilization was born.

Back then, Phaethon was always with me; he was a very opinionated child, yet surprisingly clingy. Later, he went to university with me in Heysen College, where his classmates called him a "brother-obsessed" guy. I wasn't entirely sure what that term meant, but I could roughly guess. Later, he received an award from the Allied government, then he began leading research on the "photosynthetic water-decomposing bacteria" project, and then he died.

The project was never completed. He died in an accident. A drowning accident.

The Allied government immediately halted the research after his death.

They turned their attention to me, saying, "Genetic engineering can bring more tangible benefits to the government, and its advantages for national development and rejuvenation far outweigh those of developing and manufacturing energy-producing photosynthetic bacteria."

"No. Developing new energy sources can supply not only the cities and people of the Earth Republican Alliance, but also the newly developed interstellar colonies. They are either short of water, arid, or uncultivable by vast oceans. Moreover..."

“No, no, you are unaware of current national policy, Mr. Garnier. Some energy companies are unwilling to share their market with this still immature technology. They also add that the technology is dangerous and they do not recommend that the government adopt it.”

"But the construction of the Iliad Stargate itself requires a huge investment of energy. With sufficient reserves, how could new energy sources take away their share?"

"This is not a question you should be pondering, Mr. Ganymede. The construction of the Iliad Stargate involves state secrets, and we hope you will refrain from discussing this topic further. The Allied Government has fully weighed the interests of all parties and decided to abandon the bacterial project. This is good news for you, Doctor. You should be pleased. The government has already allocated the 100 billion research funds you need to your institute. You and your colleagues are free to edit human embryos within the bounds of the law. We look forward to your 'work'."

"Why would governments want gene editing now?" I said sadly, revealing the truth. "Because after you have gained power, wealth, and status, you have stood at the top of the pyramid, stepping on the backs of many ordinary people. You have begun to yearn to become gods."

You can't say that.

"You see, the initial beneficiaries of a new technology are naturally the best among humanity. So, who are the best? How do you prove it? Power, wealth, status, intelligence—there must be at least one of these things, right? The best will enjoy the new technology first, and ultimately, out of compassion for the ignorant and weak, these good technologies will be generously shared. One day, the general public of the global republic will benefit from this technology. Gene editing will become widespread, and people will have more outstanding children."

I felt this government official spoke in a way that was different from the average person in the Republic. Sure enough, on the eve of the war between the Earth Republic Alliance and the Galactic Empire, he immediately defected to the Empire. Only then did the Republic government frantically release information about his previous acts of selling intelligence to the Empire, illegally embezzling public funds, and keeping thousands of mistresses, declaring him an "enemy of the Republic."

In the midst of the chaos, Estravan was appointed to fill the vacancy. Estravan was the last Speaker of our Earth Republic Alliance.

All I know about the final fate of this defecting Allied official is that after arriving in the Empire, he spent a fortune to have all his organs replaced and went to the hospital for a blood transfusion every two months. He was well over a hundred years old, but I guess he will outlive all of us.

The day I received news of Fahrenheit's death, it was raining heavily outside. That evening, I sat in the lab, exhausted from a long day, finalizing data checks on the dimly lit computer screen. A text message popped up on my phone. I went to the lakeside; the red and blue lights of police cars tore through the rain, and passing traffic cameras, draped in white plastic raincoats, asked, "Are you Mr. Caesar Garniermed?"

I said yes.

I didn't have an umbrella. It was very cold. The police said, "We found a body in the lake. It floated down from upstream at dusk. It has been confirmed that your brother, Faeton Ganimede, was conducting a physics experiment in the mountains a few days ago. According to his university, Central Hainson University, he has not yet returned to school. We strongly suspect that the body is your brother."

After a long pause, I finally said, "Okay. I understand. Let me help you confirm if this is Phaethon."

"Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Ganimede."

Phaethon's body was bloated, like a dead pig. He floated, his belly filled with maggots and flies. I waded over, opened my arms, and tried to embrace him as I would a child who once longed to fly. As my palms touched him, flies swarmed and buzzed from his ears, nose, and mouth, engulfing him. Maggots, huddled together, fell near the floating corpse, clinging tightly to the surface, writhing. I smelled a terrible stench; my knees were submerged, and I vomited and wept.

I don't remember how the police pulled me out of the water. It was cold outside, but the water was scalding hot at night. Police searchlights swept across the dark lake surface, and Phaethon's body looked like a floating bun from afar. Soaked in water, white and mushy.

I didn't feel tired until the nurse injected a sedative into my vein.

"Get him out of here! He just... he just tried to commit suicide!" someone shouted from the side.

Suicide? Is this person talking about me?

I was thinking. People later told me that I had acted foolishly and done something to harm myself. But I didn't think so. Looking at Phaethon's pale, swollen body, I felt that my mind had never been as calm and clear as it had been at that moment.

I am fully conscious.

On Phaethon's fourteenth birthday, he asked me where I would go. He asked if his brother would leave him behind and go somewhere no one could see or find him. I didn't leave Phaethon; he left me first.

The elementary school in our seaside town where I spent my childhood was demolished, and the red slide was put in a museum as a relic of an ancient era. It's a bit funny; it's just a plastic slide, what kind of cultural relic value could it have? However, the people of Haiyingsen have hardly ever seen plastic, let alone a "slide" that children in the countryside play on. One day, I actually saw the same slide I sat on in elementary school in a museum in the city center. It was the same slide that the children in the elementary school in the seaside town used to play on. It wasn't as tall as I remembered; the "red behemoth" only reached my forehead and was about my height.

Gratian is a miracle that God gave me.

I took a hair from Phaethon; I took a hair from the teeth of the peach wood comb he usually used, analyzed the DNA sequence in the hair, and put it into the gene sample library that the laboratory was collecting. I said to my colleague, "The initial data for the new human can use the gene set I just selected as a blueprint."

"Are you referring to the gene sequence extracted from that light blonde hair?"

"Exactly."

"Okay. I have no objection. I'll do as you say."

Jun Yeyuan was always the first to stand up for me.

She always wore a deep, cold red lipstick, like autumn maple leaves, and a white lab coat, the standard attire for researchers. She said, "Indeed. Even when creating superhumans, we need at least one prototype. We can't just randomly combine them; the risk of failure is too great."

"But will the government approve us to do this? Even if we choose a parent sample, shouldn't it be decided by a parliamentary vote?"

Yang Luo is a prosecutor sent by the government to oversee the project.

"Because every ethnic group wants to use its own genes as the prototype for the new human."

"So you mean we should wait until they come to a conclusion before we follow your orders?" Ye Yuanchun curled the corners of his mouth.

“This is not funny. Yuan Chun, we cannot deprive people of their right to choose. Everyone’s thoughts should be expressed and respected,” Yang Luo said.

Jun Hahara shrugged.

She turned to the others, “Everyone, our leader says he’s decided to use the owner of this blond hair as the model. We’ll create our new humans based on this person’s appearance, personality, and spirit. Do you agree?”

Most of the other researchers agreed with my idea.

Yang Luo was a little annoyed. "This research project is not a tool for you to achieve your personal desires."

No one paid her any attention. She sat down at the table, took off her prosecutor's cap, and rubbed it. She wanted to pour herself a cup of hot water; the water dispenser was broken, so she pressed the button hard, and a few drops of pale, cold water fell into the paper cup.

I poured a cup of black liquid—my coffee—from the kettle beside me and handed it to her. It was a little cold. She smiled gratefully and said, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," I said.

Gratian's features vaguely resembled Phaethon's, but he was far more handsome. The modified genes were more powerful than I had imagined; their traits were perfectly manifested, and humans, merely by gazing at his appearance, could associate him with the gods of Mount Olympus. I loved his eyes most—the icy blue of his pupils, a color between glaciers and the sky, much like Phaethon's, much like mine.

I looked through the glass wall at the slide, an antique displayed on a shelf. As my contemplation ended, I found Grati waiting quietly beside me; he was only five months old, yet already looked like a seven-year-old. It was predicted that his body and mind would complete their development thirteen months after birth, remaining in their golden age of around twenty. I didn't need to teach him anything; his brain could be filled with knowledge as quickly as a computer, absorbing, learning, and evolving like a powerful artificial intelligence algorithm.

A ball rolled to the boy's feet, bounced, and gently struck his calf before landing back on the floor. The floor reflected the light, casting the boy's image. He stood with his hands behind his back, his pupils fixed on me, unwavering. His icy irises met my gaze directly.

"What's wrong, Gratian? Is today's class over?"

“It’s over, Caesar.” He lowered his eyelashes obediently, his golden wings unfurled again, and he looked up, asking, “Who is the ‘F’ here?”

“I know the ‘C’ here stands for Caesar.”

A line of spelling tucked away in a small corner. Crooked and slanted, it was carved from a rough piece of metal behind the corner of the plastic slide frame. "Wow, you actually spotted it right away? You're so observant to find such tiny words," I laughed. "'F' is my brother, Phaethon. Phaethon Ganymede."

"You have a younger brother? Are they blood brothers? What kind of person is he? Does he love you?" Gratian's face suddenly turned very ugly.

“They’re brothers. He and I share the same blood.” I thought for a moment. “Yes. He loves me very much. He’s the person who loves me most in the world.”

Gratian remained silent. After a long while, he reverted to his previous obedient boy demeanor and said, "Caesar, I'm hungry."

“But I have something to do tonight. Do you know Estravan? The one who hugged you last Saturday. He…”

"I'm hungry!" he shouted, then added pitifully, "I want to eat right now. Caesar, I want to eat what you make." He tugged at my sleeve, carefully, pulled it, observed my expression, and then withdrew his fingers.

"Alright, alright." He looked so pitiful. My heart softened. It made me feel like I was abusing a child. "Let's go home."

"What about Uncle Estravan...?"

"I'll tell him to come again when he's free. What would you like to eat tonight?"

"Mozzarella cheese! Oh no, I mean pizza, a pizza with mozzarella cheese! I want three layers of cheese, and a stuffed crust!"

——tbc——