Chapter Fifty-Two: My Angel

“It’s always black here. I can’t see the sky, and I can’t smell the sea.” The little girl clutched the book in her arms and slowly drifted off to sleep, tears lingering at the corners of her eyes. Whether the scent of the sea entered her dreams, no one could say.

Time trickled by. The little girl curled up in the corner by the wall, her book slipping from her embrace—a tattered fairy tale, its title still faintly visible: “The Sea Maiden.” In the darkness, the fairy tale slid to the floor, startling the girl awake. She rubbed her sleepy eyes and retrieved the battered book. Many pages had been torn out, but the one with “The Sea Maiden” remained intact—she had read it countless times.

“In the depths of the vast ocean, there is a kingdom of fishes…” She picked up the fairy tale and began to read softly. In the darkness, only a faint, gentle light seeped in from outside the room.

“What is the sea?” The girl fell silent.

There was not a sound. Her world had always been thus.

Distant footsteps grew closer. The girl hid the fairy tale behind her back—a gift left by her sister.

The last gift.

The footsteps halted outside the door.

“Number 0737, get up!” A cold voice barked as the door swung open. White light flooded in. The girl shielded her eyes against the sudden glare.

“If you’re not dead, then move!” A middle-aged man, perhaps forty, entered. Seeing the girl huddled in the corner with her eyes covered, he grew impatient and yanked her scrawny arm. “Come out, now.”

Dragged from the room, the fairy tale fell to the floor. She let out a soft cry and tried to reach for it, but was pulled away. At the edge of the light, the tattered fairy tale lay quietly on the ground.

She struggled, but couldn’t break free. She made no sound, no protest, only gazed at her fairy tale, stretching out her hand as it faded further from view.

…

“Today your task is to process these,” she was brought into a sealed room and shown a small box filled with silvery liquid. The girl said nothing and placed her hands into the fluid.

“Fifty-seven kilograms of mercury need to be converted today. Should take about three hours,” said one of the people seated at computers behind her, beginning to record data. “Start the analysis.”

The girl closed her eyes and slowly raised her palm to the surface of the liquid mercury. As her hand touched it, the mercury seemed to grow dull.

She stood there silently as time passed. After half an hour, she opened her eyes and shook her head, withdrawing her hands. “It’s too much.”

“You don’t have the right to speak. Hurry, or you won’t eat today.” The middle-aged man’s sharp voice made her shrink in fear. She put her hands back on the liquid’s surface.

Time crawled by. Her breathing grew ragged, cold sweat beading on her brow. Her frail body trembled—she had stood there for nearly three hours, unmoving.

She cracked her eyes open; the world blurred before her. Touching her nose, she found it slick with blood.

Pain—her head felt as if it were being torn apart. She staggered back, vision swimming, and collapsed onto the cold, unyielding floor.

“Ninety-four percent conversion rate. Damn it, she didn’t finish the task. Hey! Quit playing dead!” The man raised his foot to kick her, but someone stopped him. “Don’t kill her—who else will do the conversion?”

“Damn it! We’re short by so much. How do I explain this to the higher-ups?” The man fumed, “That’s at least two million merit points.”

“Let it go. We’ll report the truth. Number 0737’s ability has reached its limit.”

“Hmph.” The man snorted. “Take her away!” He turned away, unwilling to look at her, heading to the small box. “Collected: one hundred thirty-two grams of dark matter metal.”

…

“Am I dead?” The girl awoke from a dream, groping beside her on the moldy bed until she found her tattered fairy tale. By the door was a small dish. She crept over and found food: a piece of bread, a sausage, a cup of milk, and a piece of pudding.

Perhaps she had worked hard enough today to earn a reward.

She hummed quietly, hugging the food in the corner, opening her fairy tale. “In the depths of the vast ocean, there is a kingdom of fishes…”

“If I could, I would trade my entire life for just one day of freedom,” she whispered to the book, “even if I turned to foam in the end.”

The mermaid in the story was everything she longed for—not the prince, but the sea itself.

“Lights out! Lights out!” Footsteps and harsh shouts echoed down the corridor. The girl hid her book under the bed, finished her dinner, and lay down. “I wish I could take a bath…”

Tomorrow was “living day”—the one day when all the institute’s children gathered to bathe and receive fresh clothes and bedding. If luck favored her, she might even get a new book.

Curses drifted in from the hall. “Did that kid really die today? What a waste. Nearly blew up the whole institute, too. They say there was damage everywhere.”

The girl listened quietly as the voices faded, her gaze lingering on the corner of the fairy tale by her pillow.

The institute required all children to be educated, at least to be literate, but the methods were inhumane.

She touched her head, feeling a bald patch, the skin scarred from burns. The people here used machines to forcibly pump knowledge into their minds; many children were left broken, their minds gone.

Lying on her bed, she couldn’t sleep. Her head ached—was it from overusing her ability? She rolled over and noticed a sliver of light on the floor.

There shouldn’t have been any light in the institute.

She looked toward the source. At some point, a crack had split the wall.

Was it caused by today’s accident? She crawled over to the beam of light—a silver radiance, more beautiful than any light she had ever seen.

She looked up, following the silver thread as it pierced the darkness, tranquil and serene.

“Is this natural light?” she asked. No one replied. She reached out, as if to grasp the light, believing that if she could just hold it, she might finally be free.

That night, she did not sleep at all. She sat quietly in the corner, watching the crack in the wall until the corridor lights came on.

…

“This is Number 0737.” As the staff brought the little girl before him, Nan Feng snapped from his thoughts. He glanced at the girl—skin and bone, face ashen, eyes devoid of life. “This child won’t last long,” he sighed.

“She has a rare ability. The higher-ups don’t want her to die just yet. You’re to take charge of her.” The woman in white handed the girl over. Nan Feng appraised her—five or six years old, utterly emotionless. If she weren’t standing before him, he’d wonder if she were alive at all. “I understand. Leave her to me.”

Left alone with the girl, Nan Feng was at a loss. He had devoted his life to research, never had children.

“Anyone my age would have a granddaughter this size,” he mused, then shook his head. The girl before him was nothing like a normal child.

Moreover, he had no idea how to deal with a little girl.

How to communicate? This child clearly wouldn’t speak first. Seeing the utter absence of emotion in her eyes, Nan Feng felt a headache coming on.

He lifted his hand to pat her head, but stopped midair. “She probably wouldn’t even understand what that means,” he thought. The girl simply stared at him, empty and silent.

Nan Feng faced the hardest question of his academic life: “How do you speak to someone who is already ‘dead’ inside?”

He gave a bitter smile. “What’s your na—” He stopped, realizing, “This child doesn’t have a name, does she?”

Not even a topic to begin with.

He gave up and shook his head. “I understand the basics. If there’s a chance, I’ll take you out to see the world.” It was something to say to fill the silence—after all, in some sense, this girl was already “dead.”

He turned to go, when suddenly a small hand gripped his coat.

He froze. A spark flickered in the girl’s eyes as she looked up at him—not lifeless, but yearning. In halting words, she spoke: “Take… take me to… see the sea…”

…

Nan Feng had never imagined he might one day have a “granddaughter.”

That changed the day he met the little girl. After seeing where she lived, he immediately requested her transfer to his own quarters. Though the approval never came, she did at least get a new place to stay.

Her health was dire. Nan Feng decided he must care for her personally, so he moved into the institute, taking a room next to hers.

He never expected to stay for seven years.

…

“You should have a name,” Nan Feng said, holding her gently. “Everyone deserves a name.”

Her eyes were no longer empty, but shone with a trace of life.

Three months after Nan Feng arrived, the girl smiled for the first time. It was a stiff, awkward smile, as if her lips had been pulled into place.

Even so, Nan Feng was overjoyed. He hugged her, stroking her hair. “You should have a name.”

“You are an angel sent to me by heaven,” he said warmly. “So I shall call you Angel—because you are my angel.”