Su Qing jumped as though his tail had been stepped on—Chen Lin stood with arms crossed beside the door that had been opened at some point. He looked at Su Qing with a smile that made you want to smack him, then turned his eyes on Cheng Weizhi and asked again: “Tell me, the flaw in the blue seals’ energy crystal system—what is it?” 

Cheng Weizhi became obviously nervous at his appearance, all ten fingers digging firmly into the window frame as though searching for support. But Su Qing had obviously become bolder after nearly a month of tempering. He had found the means of remaining firm in battle. In his one-on-four fights, the germ of an inclination towards violence had unconsciously grown up. From a delicate pretty boy young master, he had turned into a hardy expert fighter. 

His eyes fell on Chen Lin’s neck. Grinding his teeth, he began considering where to strike. 

Chen Lin passed right by him and looked Cheng Weizhi over. “Whose little grey are you?” 

Cheng Weizhi leaned against the window and quietly said, “I’m…a Type 1.” 

“Oh, a Type 1.” Chen Lin nodded. “Li Gu and Gui Song’s little greys are Type 1s. What a pity… You’re right. The blue seals’ energy crystal system does in fact contain a flaw. Human emotions are often mixed together and can’t be categorized so clearly. During each energy conversion, many unnecessary things get taken in. They need to be cleaned up externally.” 

“In a…” Cheng Weizhi couldn’t resist responding, but when he spoke he found that his throat was parched. He cleared his throat a little unnaturally. “In a metabolic system that hasn’t successfully integrated with the organism, there will be many problems…” 

Seeing the two of them begin to go back and forth discussing scientific problems, Su Qing thought that such an opportunity wouldn’t come again. He stealthily picked up a fruit knife from the coffee table—it had been brought out by the Type 4s, then seized by Su Qing—gently extended the blade, and slowly came up behind Chen Lin. 

“For example, unsteadiness,” Chen Lin said. Just then, while he was distracted by talking, Su Qing seized his chance and raised the little knife, jabbing down towards Chen Lin’s neck. As though he had eyes on the back of his head, Chen Lin raised a hand and precisely caught Su Qing’s wrist. His strength was astonishing. Su Qing felt as though his wrist was about to snap. He was dragged down, and the small knife fell to the floor. 

Without any effort, Chen Lin twisted his arm behind his back and held him to himself, one hand clutching his neck. His fingers were ice-cold. Su Qing was forced to raise his head. Chen Lin laughed and looked up, carelessly saying to Chen Weizhi, “If we don’t go through a cleaning for a long time, we enter a very unsteady state, like a grey seal going into mental chaos on his first mission from lack of habit. Our seal dims, our eyes become bloodshot, and also…” 

He lowered his head and sniffed the side of Su Qing’s neck, then glanced up at him. “It becomes very hard for us to be responsible for our own behavior—Su Qing, you were so well-behaved when you first came here. How come you can make such a disturbance now?” 

Su Qing thought, Like hell I’m afraid of you, I’ve still got an invincible little steel fork in my pocket. 

Then Chen Lin reached into his pocket. Su Qing felt a chill at heart and thought, I’m done for. I forgot this Martian shitheel reads minds. 

Actually, Chen Lin could only sense others’ emotions; he couldn’t really read minds. The main reason he knew this brat was hiding a lethal weapon in his pocket was that he had seen it many times on the security monitor. Those comrades whose IQs had been shattered by anger had come to grief from it. 

Su Qing howled. “Where-where the fuck are you touching?” 

Chen Lin took the steel fork from his pocket and dropped it on the ground, then stuck his ice-cold fingers into Su Qing’s shirt, sliding up along his waist, so chilly that Su Qing gave a start.  The smile on Chen Lin’s face was gone. “What, after this long, you still haven’t figured it out? Little greys aren’t people, they’re our…personal property.” 

As Chen Lin spoke, he brought his hand around to Su Qing’s chest and lightly pinched, hearing him hiss. 

Before, it had always been Su Qing feeling up others. He hadn’t thought that today he would be felt up by this undesirable wretch in glasses. Su Qing felt sick at heart. It was as though ants were crawling all over his body, utterly revolting. But before he could say anything, Cheng Weizhi flared up. 

Professor Cheng, having lived to such a great age, had heard of some social depravities and thought “Even such a thing exists—public morality really isn’t what it used to be,” then hadn’t taken it to heart. He really hadn’t expected that he himself would one day encounter a pinnacle of shamelessness like Chen Lin.

Of course, he didn’t know that Su Qing was in fact also very shameless. In Professor Cheng’s heart, he was a studious, sensible, righteous child, simply like a white lotus, a resplendent ray of sunshine that had lit up the whole grey house. 

Cheng Weizhi’s face turned red. Pointing at Chen Lin, he said, “You, y-you let him go! He’s still a child, how can you do this kind of thing to him? Was your conscience eaten by a dog?! You…you’re a beast in human clothing, a swine!” 

Su Qing’s high school homeroom teacher’s assessment of him had been: “Don’t be so pleased with yourself because you’re a bit clever and your family has some stinking money. Sooner or later, you’ll be the dregs of society!” 

His university advisor’s assessment of him had been: “How could the Party and the people have brought up a useless thing like you?” 

His dad had been even more direct. Mentioning him, his third-person address had always been “that damn son of mine.” 

No one had ever said “he’s still a child.” Su Qing even forgot to struggle, staring, blank and touched, at Professor Cheng with his poor eyesight. 

“You’re committing a crime!” Professor Cheng seethed. 

Chen Lin laughed lightly and let go of Su Qing, saw him stumble two steps before finding his footing, then stuck a hand in his coat pocket. “Human laws are nothing to do with me. Those RZ Unit bastards are also nothing to do with me, unless they can take me down with a single bullet.” 

An oppressive, somewhat mad smile emerged on his calm face. He looked profoundly at Su Qing and extended his other hand as if to touch his hair. Su Qing dodged it as though dodging something dirty. 

Chen Lin indifferently drew back his hand. “I came to tell you that the next ‘feast’ will begin in ten days. I hope that you… Su Qing, I hope you can still be so frisky then.” 

He pushed up his glasses and turned to leave. At the door, he looked back again and laughed. “I mean it.” 

He closed the door and left. 

Su Qing twisted the wrist Chen Lin had bruised and thought, Chen, you motherfucking four-eyes, you’d better look out and not fall into my hands. 

Then he smiled comfortingly at the distressed Cheng Weizhi. “Uncle Cheng, I’m all right, look, and it’s all thanks to you. We aren’t scared of him. How can good guys be scared of bad guys?” 

Very two-faced and phony. 

The wound Cheng Weizhi had just bandaged for him had been bloodied again by Chen Lin. Professor Cheng quickly took him aside to sit. Su Qing couldn’t help being curious again: “Uncle Cheng, what were you two just talking about? What did you mean, ‘a metabolic system that hasn’t successfully integrated with the organism’?” 

Cheng Weizhi said, “The metabolic processes of living things can roughly be separated into ‘matter metabolizing’ and ‘energy metabolizing.’ There’s no need to go into energy metabolizing, the general idea is that these processes store and release energy. ‘Matter metabolizing’ plainly speaking, are the processes of ‘absorbing,’ ‘assimilating,’ ‘decomposing,’ and ‘excreting’ matter. We analyzed the energy crystal’s entire circuit for transforming energy. Did you notice a problem?” 

Su Qing frowned and thought about it, then saw the light: “Oh, I get it, there’s no excretion process!”  

He subconsciously wanted to appear a little more refined in front of Professor Cheng, so he bit back the follow-up “it eats but doesn’t shit.” 

Cheng Weizhi nodded. “There’s nothing absolute in this world, so how can you guarantee that the purity of the emotions absorbed by the blue seals will be one-hundred percent? And if it isn’t, over time, even if it’s only a little, emotions that can’t be used by the energy crystal will accumulate. That’s unnatural.” 

Su Qing automatically visualized Chen Lin lying on an enormous instrument looking constipated while some white coats encircled him and opened up his guts to remove the “excrement” for him. He instantly felt much more balanced. His wrist didn’t even hurt anymore. 

But Cheng Weizhi seemed to have thought of something else. Looking at Su Qing, he sighed. “I came before you did, and I’ll certainly leave before you do, as well.” 

As the old man spoke, his eyes unexpectedly reddened. Su Qing, not even daring to breathe loudly, waited. After a long time, Cheng Weizhi finally continued: “Remember, whatever you encounter in the future, you can’t get confused. Draw a line for yourself and look at it often, tell yourself you can’t retreat over that line. This way, you’ll know what kind of person you are. You’ll never go astray…

“Also, I have a son about the same age as you.” 

Su Qing stared. He had thought that the son “making a fuss about wanting McDonald’s” was a snot-nosed little brat. He saw Cheng Weizhi wipe his eyes and force a smile. Pointing to his head, he said, “My son is naturally…missing something that other children have. He only has the intelligence of a five- or six-year-old. His name is Cheng Ge. His mom couldn’t take the stress and left long ago. I don’t know how he’s surviving on his own when I’ve been here so long. If you get out of here in the future, there’s a slip of paper under my pillow with my address on it. You go look in on him for me, all right? I beg of you…” 

Su Qing quickly cut him off: “Even if I don’t get out, I’ll tell others in the future. Someone will have to get out, right? Anyway, I think I’ll definitely be able to get out. I’ve always had accurate premonitions, since I was little. I’m not lying to you, really. Not only will I get out, I’ll think of a way to root you out, too. So don’t worry.” 

Cheng Weizhi shook his head and sighed. “You think too simply. I feel that these things—”

He didn’t continue. Su Qing later thought that it was as if his cloudy old eyes could foresee a disaster. That day, the two of them went to sleep without speaking, though each had his thoughts in a whirl. 

Ten days passed before their eyes as if at the speed of light. One morning, before mealtime came, a sharp ringing pierced everyone’s ears. Su Qing gave a start and heard Cheng Weizhi whisper, “They’re here.”