What are you, really? (Part 2)
More than fifty years ago.
Amiya didn't initially realize that anything was wrong.
Xiao Lin was always so patient, not saying much, but he would hand her a pot of warm water when she inadvertently stopped walking, and pull her scarf up a little when the sea breeze stung her cheeks. No man on the island ever did that. To them, a woman's life was nothing more than marrying, having children, and remarrying—a cycle that repeated endlessly as long as she had value.
But Xiao Lin is not.
He would listen to her. He would remember every little, seemingly insignificant thing she mentioned. When the villagers mocked her for being "too outgoing, too restless," he would casually remark:
"I think this is a good thing."
Amiya then fell in love with him without any hesitation.
"Xiao, I'll take you somewhere."
That evening, the setting sun sank into the sea, and the sky looked as if it had been stained with blood. Amiya held Xiao Lin's hand and led him through the village, along the rock walls that rose with the dark tide, to a natural cave eroded by the sea.
The cave was damp and warm, but there was a strange, sweet, fishy smell in the air.
"This is...?" Xiao Lin asked gently, as if unwilling to break a certain ritual.
Amiya smiled slightly, a hint of pride in her expression: "Our people's true burial ground."
He paused for a few seconds.
She had already reached the end of the cave, parting the drooping vines—
Those "corpses" slept beneath a transparent film of water. Their skin was snow-white, their eyelashes so light they seemed to move, and their features were all exquisitely beautiful, almost unreal. Time seemed to have stood still for them.
“They’re all dead,” Amiya said softly. “But as long as they’re covered by the tide, they won’t rot. We’ll preserve them as if they might wake up at any moment.”
Xiao Lin remained silent. His silence was soft, yet sharp as a knife.
Amiya didn't understand. She assumed he was just shocked, so she leaned closer and whispered in his ear as if sharing a secret:
"We are human beings, and we are not human beings."
“Our ancestors came from the sea and intermarried with humans. We can survive in the sea and also live on land like humans. As long as we return to the sea, we can live... for a very, very long time.”
Xiao Lin's eyes finally lit up.
It wasn't tenderness, nor was it affection. It was the light that shone when a researcher encountered a sample.
Amiya suddenly felt a chill down her back, but she didn't have time to ask.
Xiao Lin had already taken her hand, his tone gentle to the point of reverence:
"Thank you."
"Thank you for telling me this."
At that moment, Amiya thought that "thank you" meant she was accepted and cherished. She even smiled shyly, her eyes sparkling as she looked at him.
But she didn't know.
At the same time, Xiao Lin had already formed a complete, clear, and chillingly cold conclusion in his mind:
Longevity and the preservation of corpses must be related to marine genes.
—Segoe Island is not a legend; it is a repository of mermaid genes.
—And Amiya was the key that unlocked all of this for him.
He looked at her, his eyes warm. But it wasn't love.
That was the tenderness that came from choosing a docile and unsuspecting laboratory animal.
——————————
The first change Amiya noticed was the way the villagers looked at her.
At first, it was just a few vague comments:
"She brings that outsider man with her every day; it's outrageous."
"Two-faced... Sego Island will not tolerate such people."
After that, even her closest childhood playmates would unconsciously take a half step back when they saw her, their expressions so complicated that it was hard to tell whether it was fear or hatred.
Amiya didn't understand.
She simply fell in love with a stranger, nothing more.
But just as she was about to ask for clarification—
Xiao Lin gently took her hand.
Don't pay attention to them.
His tone was gentle, as if he were accepting all the grievances of the world.
“Amiya, you are not like them. You are special.”
One sentence is enough.
Amiya's eyes reddened; all her doubts, confusion, and anger were soothed by those words.
She even felt that she was "understood".
The second step is isolation from the outside world.
Xiao Lin gradually stopped participating in the expedition team's group activities. He refused to publicly record any information about Saige Island and stopped attending team meetings.
The reason couldn't be simpler:
“I’ve found a breakthrough, but I need to delve into it on my own.”
The research institute placed its full trust in him. After all, he was the youngest chief researcher; his abilities, reputation, and experience were enough to convince everyone of his judgment.
Thus, he gradually gained the right to "enter the depths of the island alone".
And the only person who stayed by his side was Amiya.
Amiya thought this was "trust." In reality, it was the last rope severing her connection with the group.
The third step is to make her dependent on you.
Amiya, do you know?
That night, the tide was high, and the wind blew in from the sea, so damp and cold that it felt like it was soaking through my heart inch by inch.
Xiao Lin held her in his arms, his voice so soft it seemed to dissipate in the sea breeze.
"I will never leave you. You are the most precious thing to me in this world."
Amiya slowly closed her eyes.
She didn't know that this statement was calculated—
Not too much, not too little, not too forceful, and never giving anyone the impression of distance. Just enough for her to pin her entire life's meaning on him.
Until that day.
Xiao Lin stood by the well in the village, his gaze as calm as if he were observing an unnamed specimen.
He asked:
"Amiya, would you like to take me to the place where you hold your 'Tide Ceremony'?"
Amiya paused, taken aback. The Chao ceremony was the deepest taboo among the tribe, and no one would mention it to outsiders.
She hesitated for only three seconds. Then, she looked up at Xiao Lin.
"If it's you... I'm willing."
At that moment, Xiao Lin smiled very softly.
Neither joy nor sorrow, neither loss nor gain. Like a researcher finally seeing the experiment they are about to complete.
————————————
The Chaoli ceremony is not held on the coast.
Amiya led him down a long, narrow crevice in the rocks, the seawater whispering in their ears like countless unspoken prayers. The underwater world was dark, yet not silent; a rhythmic pulse, like breathing, echoed from its depths.
When the water suddenly warmed up, Xiao Lin realized—they had arrived.
It was a natural underwater dome, its dome inlaid with thousands of luminous shells, as if stars were suspended upside down on the seabed. Beside the central stone platform lay rows of incorruptible young corpses, as quiet as if they were asleep.
Amiya stepped forward barefoot, the seawater rippling gently around her ankles.
“Whenever one of our people is about to die, he or she returns to the sea during the tide ceremony,” she explained softly, her voice clear and pure. “Those who return to the sea will sleep for a long time… and then wake up.”
Xiao Lin's heart skipped a beat.
It wasn't excitement. It was confirmation.
—The body, a hybrid of human and mermaid, will hibernate and repair itself in the sea.
Death is not the end, but merely an interruption.
"Immortality" is not a myth, but a mechanism that can be replicated.
Amiya had no idea what he was thinking. She simply raised her face, her eyes filled with tenderness and even a hint of pride.
“Xiao, I’ve wanted to bring you here for a long time. I want you to know that my people are not cursed.”
He replied softly, "Yes, Amiya. It's not a curse, but a gift."
Amiya smiled.
She didn't know the second half of the sentence was:
"—It is a gift that can be cut open."
After returning to the island, everything began to change.
For the first time, Xiao Lin took the initiative to ask, "Amiya, can you let me meet your mother?"
Amiya paused, stunned. Her mother had been submerged in the tide for many years and was now sleeping in that underwater dome.
Xiao Lin said gently:
"I want to see the family you once loved most. I want to understand you."
Amiya's eyes welled up with tears. She nodded.
She didn't know that this meant Xiao Lin would have a direct opportunity to come into contact with the bodies of the "Sleepers".
At the same time.
The islanders finally noticed something was wrong.
The women no longer greeted her on the shore. The old men would close their eyes as she passed by. The children would quietly throw pebbles behind her and then run away immediately.
Someone stood outside her window at night and coldly uttered:
"You are no longer one of us."
Amiya sat on the edge of the bed, hugging her knees, and didn't sleep all night.
In the early morning, she gently pushed open Xiao Lin's door.
He was writing something with his head down, without looking up, but he naturally reached out and touched the top of her head.
Don't be sad if they don't understand you.
Amiya finally couldn't hold back and cried softly. Unfortunately, she didn't know that what Xiao Lin had written was the first draft:
Experimental Design for Extracting and Replicating the Dormant Mechanism of Hybrid Mermaids (Draft)
Target:
Isolate the gene expression region from marine sources;
Verify the trigger conditions for "Trendy Gifts";
Attempt to replicate a controlled "hibernation → regeneration" process;
If successful, human lifespan could be extended indefinitely.
Required materials:
—Mixed-race individual tissue samples
—Chaoli Water Environment Simulation
—Live control…
Note on the right:
Amiya: Her emotional state is stable; she can continue to be used.
Xiao Lin put down his pen.
The sound of the tide outside was calm, no different from usual.
No one on the island knew that from this moment on, the destruction of Sego Island had already been written in the first line.
——————————
More than fifty years later, less than three days after the "Ashura" research vessel "accident".
GI Institute, a top-level laboratory.
Before the surgery began, Xiao Lin was not nervous. The responsibility for such a major incident as the loss of "Experiment Subject S1" would not fall on him—and even if someone had to take responsibility, it certainly wouldn't be him.
Because the Federation Human Legion cannot live without the support of the GI Research Institute. Never. And now, he has to do something that is irrelevant to the so-called "greater good of humanity."
—After more than fifty years of waiting, it's time for a result today.
Even though aging had caused his hands to tremble, and even though he knew that everything he was doing fell into the category of "anti-natural" experiments, he still steadily put on the surgical breathing apparatus and slowly pushed the bioactive solvent into his vein.
He watched as the solvent flowed into his body through the catheter, the liquid level dropping in the syringe, its color resembling finely ground silver powder dissolved in water, almost harmlessly gentle.
There was no pain. It was just a slow, warm sensation rising from deep within my bones, like something long dormant being awakened.
His heart rate began to decrease, his blood pressure stabilized again, and his cellular metabolism slowly shifted to another physiological pathway. On the surface, he was just lying there quietly with his eyes closed, but on a microscopic level, his body was redefining the meaning of "living."
After a long time, he opened his eyes. The world seemed quieter than before. The sounds were no longer noisy; all the noise had been naturally filtered out, leaving only the necessary elements. Even the light had become softer, as if it had been rerefracted by another transparent layer.
He raised his hand; his skin still had a human texture, only the color was cooler than before, lacking the dullness common with aging, and presenting a thin and clear luster.
It's not an exaggerated change. You wouldn't notice it if you weren't careful.
Xiao Lin slowly sat up, his breathing so steady that it hardly seemed like someone nearing eighty.
The assistant asked in a low voice, "How are you feeling?"
“I’m fine,” Xiao Lin said. “It’s like I have new ears and eyes.”
That's the truth.
He felt he had finally "reconnected with life." Not returning to youth, but entering a new physiological flow, as if cells no longer ended in death, but transitioned to another stable state.
He didn't feel anything was wrong. On the contrary, for the first time he felt that he was truly standing on the opposite side of nature, yet firmly rooted in it.
Success was assured.
He even let out a soft sigh of relief in his mind.
Amiya, I did it.
A few days later, he began to notice some subtle changes.
It wasn't pain, it wasn't strange, but rather a smooth feeling in my thinking.
In the past, when working on complex models, he needed to first build the framework and then fill in the logic. Now, it's as if he only needs to see the first piece of the puzzle, and the rest automatically fill in. He doesn't need to conscious reasoning; his thoughts extend forward even before he gives any instructions.
His assistant, thinking he was recovering well, even brought him hot soup as a celebration.
Xiao Lin offered no explanation. He preferred to believe that he had finally "become a higher form of life."
At night, he organized his experimental records in his quiet office. His pen moved almost without pause, his thoughts so clear that even he was slightly surprised.
But he suddenly stopped halfway through writing.
He had just subconsciously written down a line of theoretical assumptions that he hadn't even considered. That line didn't belong to his research system, nor was it a conclusion he had ever thought about.
The tone, logic, and argumentation were precise, calm, and almost like—
It was like someone else. Someone else, someone he knew very well.
Xiao Lin stared at that line of words for a long time, until a chill slowly rose from the base of his spine.
It was only for a fleeting moment. The next second, he suppressed that faint unease.
He told himself that this was a natural result of cognitive advancement, an inevitable behavioral pattern as the brain approaches a "second layer of consciousness." Humans cannot comprehend the merman's way of thinking, and for now, he was simply adapting.
He took a deep breath, put the paper into the folder, his movements steady and his expression calm. It was as if he truly believed his explanation.
However, late at night, when he walked out of the experimental area alone, he clearly heard a slow and silent echo from the depths of the water.
It's not a sound, not words. It's simply the presence of some kind of consciousness. Quietly, I am with him.
There was no aggression, no orders, no demands. It simply stayed with him, like a shadow, as if it had always been there.
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