Cold-blood animal

As closing time approached, the café grew more crowded. The setting sun cast a streak of weary, aging light through the grimy windows, throwing subtle shadows across the small round table and slicing it diagonally in half.

It looked exactly like a planet’s terminator line.

Bai Ling glanced at the sky; the evening sun resembled a salted egg yolk, glowing with a blood-red fluorescence that made him squint. He wondered what Yu Chen was doing. It had been twelve hours since the medication was stopped; by now, his vision should be returning. Perhaps, at this very moment, the man was also watching the sunset over the sea through the hole in the greenhouse glass.

A sudden desire to return surged within Bai Ling.

It wasn’t just a longing; it was peppered with worry. He hadn’t forgotten Dr. Woodpecker’s warning: stopping the drug would lead to side effects like lethargy, hunger, and a “regression to a feral state.” While he didn’t quite understand what that “feral” state entailed, it was better to be there to see it for himself.

Bai Ling picked up his coat, draped it over his arm, and nodded calmly to the Captain. “Since we’ve reached an agreement, I’ll head out first. I have matters to attend to at home.”

The words flowed so naturally. When mentioning “home,” he didn’t hesitate for a second. Invisibly, that grey zone on the palace map, the merman’s sleeping quarters, had already been marked with a bright symbol in his heart.

As the waiter came to settle the bill, Bai Ling’s prosthetic leg touched the floor from the high stool. In that instant, as if a switch had been flipped, a sudden clamor erupted from the diners behind him.

“Rayco Pharmaceutical is utterly shameless!”

A talk show was playing on the large screen, featuring guests who were all former victims of Rayco. They were pouring out their grievances with rising emotion:

“After taking Rayco’s medicine, my father lost all physical autonomy and became a total vegetable. We demanded compensation and appealed four times, but every time it was dismissed for ‘insufficient evidence’.”

“Rayco’s management said they’d rather spend tens of millions on a legal team than give us a single cent.”

“I actually received a partial payout, but they intentionally converted the money into copper coins and sent people to pelt me with them handful by handful, calling me a greedy ghost who would go to hell after death.”

Bai Ling’s gaze was icy as his thin lips moved: “The ones who should go to hell are those nobles.”

The Captain looked out the window. “It looks like they are organizing a protest.”

The Hai Mian poisoning incident could have been a minor affair. According to past convention, it would have been suppressed quickly by Rayco’s vast wealth. But this time was different. This winter of shortages seemed too oppressive, and the videos of nobles feasting and playing on the Starnet were too blinding. The poisoning incident had accidentally torn through the fake peace painted by the Tyrant’s government, becoming the fuse that ignited the public’s rage. Many had never even heard of Rayco, but knowing that market-manipulating Great Noble was behind it was enough to make them join the condemnation in righteous fury.

As Bai Ling and the Captain stepped out of the café, the bone-deep cold pressed down like an invisible giant palm, clutching everyone’s throat. The cold, deep-red star was sinking below the horizon; reflected against the frozen seawater, it cast a distorted, mirror halo. Vast and looming, cloaking the protest lines in an indelible wash of blood-red.

An unwarranted sense of unease rose in Bai Ling’s heart.

Protests were strictly forbidden in the New Empire. Even if everyone tacitly bypassed the law by not carrying signs or shouting slogans, simply allowing the crowd to swell like a school of sardines, it would still draw the authorities’ attention. In his past life, there had been multiple bloody incidents where protesters were fired upon. Back then, Bai Ling was on the Wild Planet, and watching it through a screen was shocking enough. At this moment, he was even less willing to see a similar event unfold before his eyes.

He took a deep breath and white mist billowed from his mouth and nose as the ice-laden sea breeze blew his white hair into frost-like spikes. He resolutely braved the wind, weaving through the streaming vehicles to merge into the crowd on the other side. Like a lone wild goose returning to its northbound flock.

Someone approached from behind; the Captain had followed. “One more person, one more ounce of strength.”

They proceeded along the coastal boulevard. From above, they looked like a silent, ailing dragon winding toward the sculpture in the Central Square. The Sculpture of the Mother still stood tall, a lantern in her left hand and her right hand pointing a sword toward the distance.

But people soon noticed that in the direction the sword pointed, things were moving discordantly beneath the rolling clouds of the sunset. It was an entire fleet of pitch-black amphibious warships. Their cuttlefish-colored metal coating was stark against the backdrop of the red sun dipping into the sea. They thundered toward the mainland, adding a lingering stain to the sky, as massive as a swarm of locusts.

The Captain’s mouth hung open; he had clearly never seen such a massive display. “What are those?”

Bai Ling’s grey pupils narrowed slowly. “The Swordfish Grand Duke’s private fleet.”

Likely arriving under the guise of celebrating the Tyrant’s birthday. After all, the banquet was this weekend.

Sure enough, as they watched, the leading four mini-class heavy escort ships turned toward the Palace Tower. But the remaining fleet scattered like ants moving house, landing in various locations. As for their specific landing spots, they would soon witness them in the plaza.

On the vast open ground beneath the sculpture, a rugged black ship opened its bow. Like an anglerfish swallowing shrimp, it parted its upper and lower “lips”, inset with jagged teeth, and spat out one high-particle attack police mecha after another.

Red-lit sights swiveled, locking onto the silent people.

Police Mecha No. 11 blared through a loudspeaker: “Mobilization forbidden! Protesting forbidden! Defying the authorities forbidden!”

Imperial law dictated that if the Dukes of the various fiefdoms believed the Sovereign is under a potential threat, they had the right to assist by dispersing “mobs.” But as No. 11 looked through his telescope, the “mobs” before him consisted of office workers, laborers, students, and street vendors; unarmed and silent, yet their faces wore a terrifying fury.

No. 11 knew that as long as no one shouted an “opposition” slogan, he had no excuse to open fire. For a moment, a state of relative stasis formed; the “mob” and the machine confronted each other in a shared silence.

But this state couldn’t last. The Interstellar Alliance media outlets stationed on the Capital had already caught the scent. They sent hover-cars to circle the plaza, releasing swarms of tiny winged micro-cameras that buzzed like bees as they descended into the crowd.

The reporters in the broadcast vans were ecstatic: “I didn’t expect that while reporting on the Mecha Tournament, we’d harvest such explosive extra news! Connect to the International TV channel immediately!”

Consequently, Mecha No. 11 soon received an order from his superiors: [By any means necessary, disperse the crowd!]

No. 11 reported back with difficulty: “But sir, according to regulations, we cannot launch an attack on a silent crowd.”

The superior’s voice was cold and harsh: “You idiot, then just drive through them.”

“…Will there be casualties?”

“They aren’t stupid; they’ll get out of the way when they see the vehicles. Captain, stop wasting my time and execute the order immediately.”

No. 11 was forced to drive the mecha forward. The rumbling treads crushed the ancient stonework. People indeed screamed and ran; the instinct for survival made them push and shove in every direction to dodge.

And no one noticed that in the path of the rumbling treads stood a little girl who had been separated from her mother. She looked up, dazed and struggling, watching the iron monster, as ugly as an amphibious lizard, lunge toward her red dress.

“Watch out!”

A heart-wrenching shout tore through the air. Someone lunged out from the crowd, throwing themselves toward the steel treads with reckless abandon.

The onlookers gasped, instinctively closing their eyes, unwilling to witness a scene of mangled flesh and bone.

The figure moved with lightning speed, scooping up the little girl. His thigh practically brushed against the mecha as he dove away. An SSS-grade agility was enough to protect the child, but he was simply too close. The treads instantly caught and devoured one of his legs.

Bai Ling’s mind went blank for a second.

The people around him stood frozen as if under a paralysis spell.

Guard No. 11 was also stunned, until a man in a black mask climbed ferociously onto the vehicle, pounding frantically on the top hatch: “Stop! Stop!”

No. 11 was terrified; he truly hadn’t intended to kill anyone.

His superior was screaming through the comms amidst bursts of static: “What are you dazing off for, No. 11?!”

“I… I think I hit someone… Should I send him to the hospital?”

“Hospital my ass! The Duke said to give them a lesson, kill the chicken to warn the monkey. Didn’t that guy throw himself at you? Count it as an active assault by a rioter! Give it full power and crush him!”

No. 11’s voice trembled: “But… but I’ve never killed anyone before!”

The superior delivered a cruel ultimatum: “This is your chance to distinguish yourself. Whether you seize it or not is up to you.”

No. 11 closed his eyes and released the handbrake, letting the treads grind forward completely.

The torrent of steel rolled over, pressing down until the very earth seemed to vibrate and weep. The mechanical roar drowned out the human groans and cries of pain. As long as the sound of machinery is loud enough to suppress the human voice, one can pretend nothing ever happened.

“AAAAHHH! Help! They’re killing people!”

“…Quick, call an ambulance!”

Amidst the chaotic cries of grief, Bai Ling lay on the bluestone pavement, his expression remarkably calm.

He had repaired no fewer than a hundred of the armored vehicles that had just rolled over him in his past life, yet he never expected that one day he would be swallowed by one like a monster eating a leg.

Actually, it wasn’t that he hadn’t expected it.

After all, this right leg had originally been broken by the hands of the powerful. Now, it was simply being destroyed once more.

The police mecha left two broad white lines of crushed stone behind it. The crowd looked toward the ground with bated breath; the leg was a mangled mess, but what lay scattered there wasn’t flesh and blood. It was flattened mechanical parts.

It was a prosthetic leg.

A blessing in disguise.

“No need for an ambulance. Just help me to the side.” The victim was the calmest person on the scene.

Bai Ling rolled over and, with a level of fortitude that shocked the onlookers, propped himself up with his arms to drag himself toward the sidewalk. The Captain cast aside all reservations and immediately reached out to scoop him up.

A bird made of light feathers, now missing a leg.

His back, slightly trembling from the shock of the stress response, felt thin and bony in the Captain’s arms.

The Captain’s heart tightened as a wave of pity for his own kind welled up. But in the next second, Bai Ling pushed against his shoulder, hopping on one leg to land steadily on the ground. He turned his eyes and warned him:

“You’d better not touch me. My alpha bites.”

However, the words came too late.

The restraint collar faithfully reported the physical contact between the omega and an alpha to the guardian.

In the cold, dark pool, a tail covered in metallic scales slowly shifted beneath the water. Eyes that were not quite human snapped open, featuring the distinct pupil of a cold-blooded creature, glowing with a faint fluorescence in the darkness. He was like a venomous snake awakened during hibernation: hungry, tyrannical, and dangerous.

The AI kept a cautious distance, reporting from afar: “Master, your Mechanical Little Bird has been crushed. Shall I proceed with retrieval?”

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Author’s Note:

Little Bird: Oh no, he’s going to go out and bite people!! (Flaps wings preparing for takeoff)

PS: The theme of this novel is anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, anti-colonialist, and anti-comprador. All content is fictional. The protagonist insists on following the mass line, protects the working class, his values are upright! The plot in this chapter is inspired by real-world events where vehicles were driven into crowds during anti-discrimination and anti-war protests (such as the Detroit police driving into protesters, the violent enforcement by the RCMP, and various recent reports from the Arabian Peninsula).

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Translator’s notes:

Before we get comments asking about why author didn’t talk about the Tiananmen square which is probably the most famous examples I do need to remind everyone that danmei is a grey zone in China and in the current political climate with many danmei authors getting incarcerated just for writing it, daring to write scenes that parallel real-world events is an added risk. And ofc they wouldn’t even mention Tiananmen square.

Btw this scene always makes me rewatch this footage from Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Protest: https://youtu.be/RErdSr0iAcs?si=hLUfnNwUqhHddl9h

 

Mizushi from the future: I’ve translated up to chapter 88 bcs I wanted to re-read the feral chapters lol. We’ll return to our 3 ch/week schedule (FRI/SAT/SUN), ko-fi donations are appreciated~