貔貅
Little locust, born in the dirt, forelegs treading, hind legs bent, long wings aflutter, alighting on a willow, asking Old Mister Cicada when he grows up, and when he gives birth; in January and February there is no you, in March and April you are born, in May and June giving birth, in July and August squandering time, and in September and October, you are returning to the underworld.
—Folk saying
Yandi the Flame Emperor wished to oppress the princes, so they turned to Xuanyuan, who practiced virtue, and built an army, who studied solar terms, and cultivated the five kinds of grain, and pacified nations, and nurtured the people, and measured the four directions. Who taught the Pixiu to be a valiant warrior, along with the tiger and the lynx and the bear, and with their aid he vied with Yandi in the Banquan Desert, and after three battles, he realized his aspiration.
—Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian, Royal Annals of the Five August Emperors, Huangdi Epoch
1
The first time I heard of the project was seven years ago.
By then I’d graduated. Even though my master’s degree gave me some rallying power in the job marketplace, I was still part of a vast army waiting for work. After several months wasting time in my dorm, the move out date finally loomed.
I wasn’t in this mire for lack of trying. My CV was all over the place. I was not surprised as an unemployed biology graduate, but after a few hundred CVs didn’t yield even a bit of feedback, it was harder to convince myself the problem was only my field.
After my family learned of my situation, they advised me to return home and get a teaching job—that meant earn a living and find a wife as soon as possible. Their tone did nothing to ease my mood. I was running on empty when a company I’d never heard of came knocking. They wanted to meet with me and discuss something in detail. I immediately accepted.
They set up the meeting at a swanky, well-known wine café downtown. My contact called himself Xu Guang. He was dressed casually and seemed extraordinarily young for his rank. When he saw I’d overdressed in a suit, he was perhaps a bit surprised. Not long after we sat down, his boss showed up. After an exchange of pleasantries, they invited me to eat and chat. A few rounds of toasts later, I finally started feeling relaxed.
Then Xu Guang made his pitch:
They represented a medium-sized state-owned enterprise, Wuzhou Rare Earth Mining Industries Limited, under the jurisdiction of a mining group covering a southeast province. The company dabbled in investment—the wine café we sat in was one such outlay—but their core business was still mineral exploitation and smelting.
The boss, in his vaguely accented Mandarin, said: “Rare earth metals are more precious than gold. Do you understand? Explain it to him Little Xu.”
Xu Guang held forth on rare earth elements, their valuable physical properties, how making alloys improved materials performance, and the fact that high-end electronics require rare earth metals for their very existence. “There are serious restrictions on exports. They’re an important natural resource reserve in terms of national strategy.”
I was pleased with my own natural resource reserve—of knowledge. At least something had come of all those chemistry classes. “Of course, and thank you so much for contacting me, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be of much use to you. In terms of mining, that is. I don’t know much about it.”
“We know that. On the mining side of things, maybe we could provide some training. But that’s not what this is about. We’ve seen your dissertation. We felt maybe you could come and . . . give it a shot.”
I felt I was missing something. “I’m a biologist. My research was on a strain of bacteria that, frankly, not many people care about. I tried to insert two gene segments, and I failed. So I don’t understand . . . ”
“Precisely. That strain that nobody cares about. That’s just it. We need that little guy.”
“For mining?”
“Yes. For extraction, or bioleaching. For metallurgy.” He told me that in terms of salary I could rest assured. Although I wouldn’t be part of the mainstream bioresearch establishment, I wouldn’t be disappointed. I’d be able to arrange my own state-of-the-art lab, the company’s best. “You’d be in charge of the whole project. Think about that.”
Maybe it was the alcohol, but I felt I was groping for something in a haze. Some fixed but hidden future was looming in my mind. I couldn’t quite make it out. I was pretty sure my biology education wasn’t supposed to lead to this, but I couldn’t find grounds to refuse.
Regardless, it was better than begging on the streets. So went my thinking.
“So, this project you mentioned . . . ”
Xu Guang grinned. The boss picked up his glass to make a toast, and I hastily grabbed my own drink. After the round, Xu Guang began to speak, taking his time: “We’re calling it ‘Pixiu.’ Do you know this word?”
2
I had in fact come across it, long before. It had to do with my grandmother, but I barely remembered.
Grandmother was a very traditional person. Her baking skills used to make me green with envy—from steamed buns and noodles to pastries and wontons, she could do it all. But her personality was difficult. She was crabby and tough, and once she’d made her mind up about something, a team of oxen couldn’t move her. According to Mom, I was only a hundred days old when I first encountered Pixiu. Tradition demanded prognostication by straw-drawing on my Hundred Days Feast. My parents were college graduates who ran in science research circles. They were considered intellectuals and had little regard for traditions of this type, so they skipped it.
But in the end, Grandmother couldn’t be talked out of it. Soon after my Hundred Days, she chose an auspicious day from her almanac and prepared a family gathering, complete with a ceremonial spread of food. After everyone had eaten their fill, Mom cleared the table. Then, with me in her arms, she approached.
The so-called drawing of straws was actually a red cloth on a table or bed for the display of various items. The infant was meant to choose one of these. Since the child had no discrimination, it would follow its inclinations and choose something at random. On the unseen, mystical side of things, the selection was supposed to predetermine the child’s life. Grab a book, and you’d become a renowned author; grab a calculator, and you were doomed to keep the household books; snatch up a crayon, and you’d be a painter; a soccer ball meant a future in sports; a harmonica meant musician-hood; a mirror meant future fashion knowledge; and so on. A lot of nonsense.
I grabbed a sticker, a color image of a kind of talisman: broad wings sprouted from the shoulders of something like a panther, a beast of prey.
Mom says that when I grabbed it, Grandmother was overjoyed, clapping and cheering. She insisted I would grow up to earn a material fortune. Surely this was a good prospect. She had prepared the talisman with utmost care. Although there were other things on the red cloth representing money—a commemorative coin, a one-hundred-yuan banknote, copper coins from old dynasties—I had stumbled over those and snatched up the Pixiu without hesitation. Grandmother called it an image of wisdom. It didn’t mean a future of small change or side doors, but abundant financial resources.
Everyone was happy to hear these words.
I caught pneumonia soon afterward and had to be taken to the hospital every few days. Mom and Dad were working and couldn’t always do it, so Grandmother filled in. During this time, she would call me lowly names like Dog Head or Stupid Whelp. This was another of her old traditions: call a child a dog and grant it the tenacious vitality of a dog. This went on until I was over two years old and my trips to the hospital grew less frequent. Finally, she was able to go back to my original name. I don’t remember much about this either.
But I do remember being very young and wearing a small pendant on red string. I remember the string seemed new, though perhaps it had been replaced several times. The pendant was a piece of resin lamination, the surface worn and scuffed and no longer transparent, though you could still dimly make out what was inside:
None other than that Pixiu sticker I’d grabbed when I was one hundred days old, according to Mom.
Grandmother had taken the sticker, and a lock of my hair, and she’d found a specialist to seal them in resin like man-made amber. She’d taken it up a mountain for blessing by a famous Taoist priest, rendering it safe and sound. It was meant to be worn and never removed, a safeguard of prosperity.
Perhaps because of this, Grandmother and I were very close. Later, I moved in with her because she lived close to my school. Every weekend she would make dumplings and pancakes and watch me contentedly eat.
She would tell me about the time Grandfather passed Peking University’s entrance exam, then tested positive for TB. He was forced to go home and rest. He recovered but never went back to school.
Every time she brought this up, I would grip her hand and vow to someday pick up where Grandfather left off. I would attend that illustrious university. Grandmother would laugh heartily, and praise me and my good prospects, while caressing the safe and sound pendant.
“Do you know about Pixiu?” she asked after one of my declarations. I shook my head. She pointed to the pendant and said, “Originally, the Dragon King had nine sons, and the ninth was none other than Pixiu. Every day it ate riches and treasures, and then it got a sick belly and had diarrhea, making a big stink in Heaven. The Jade Emperor smelled it and covered his nose. ‘Have you no sense of shame?’ he cried and gave Pixiu an angry spanking. This sealed Pixiu’s anus. It could no longer empty its bowels, just eat. So, its stomach soon filled to the brim with treasure. That is why Pixiu signifies accruing wealth and making profits.”
This Jade Emperor tale made me laugh uncontrollably. I didn’t really take its meaning to heart. Remembering this episode so much later, and the way Grandmother looked at Pixiu with single-minded devotion, it was like she fathomed my entire life. But maybe that’s just my imagination.
After all, it was so long ago.
3
Wuzhou had become famous for its rare earth resources a few years before. Like other mineral products, rare earth minerals were under strictly enforced control in terms of exploitation. Thus, in name and fact, Wuzhou Rare Earth Mining Industries enjoyed seniority over all local mineral resources. Meanwhile, under the banners of wholly owned subsidiary companies, they’d achieved much in the field of investment. Nearly half the local economy was stimulated by the company, so it was quite famous too.
When I arrived in Wuzhou, the reception personnel wanted me to go directly to the R&D center and check in for duty, but I insisted on first visiting the mining site. I got directions and drove out of the city toward the nearest mine.
Several kilometers out, the air was already suffused with dust. Although the pit had already entered the last stage of exploitation, weeds growing on the perimeter aggregate, immense excavation facilities still roared and shook the earth. The roadway spiraled down the vast pit to the bottom.
I detected a faintly irritating scent.
“Sulfuric acid,” Xu Guang said. I hadn’t noticed him come and stand beside me. “After going through the primary filter to become refined ore, it’s transported to a nearby processing plant to undergo sulfuric acid and high temperature treatment. This extracts the rare earths.”
“It doesn’t seem as bad as you said,” I said, choosing my words cautiously.
“Oh really? The numbers are no cause for optimism. This is the third consecutive year showing negative profit growth. Most of the exploitable high-grade ore has been collected. We’ve lowered our standards to add new mines, but quality reduction means reduction in rare earth content. A ton of raw ore yields about half what it used to. Add manpower to that, and aging equipment . . . well, we need new ideas.”
“So . . . ”
He patted my shoulder. “So, let’s see what you’ve got.”
We went to the R&D center, but I didn’t properly enter the lab for another six months. There was training in rare earth exploitation stages and workflow. During this time, I began to appreciate the scale of the task before me.
When it comes to copper, iron, and heavy metal oxide minerals, the primary refining method is high temperature dry metallurgy. For metal sulfide minerals and other types of minerals, hydrometallurgy is used, with acid or lye treatment coming first, then further extraction processes in the sequence, yielding useful metal elements, separated, and refined. Bacterial metallurgy, or bioleaching, is simply a branch of hydrometallurgy.
Bioleaching requires specific sulfur oxidizing bacilli, or rod-shaped bacteria. These microorganisms survive in relatively high-acidity environments. Their metabolism involves electron exchange with metal ions, oxidizing metal sulfides into soluble sulfates, and in some cases even generates sulfuric acid to accelerate the process. Ore thus treated by sulfur oxidizing bacilli, or Thiobacillus oxidans, can yield liquid soluble metal elements. At this point, as long as the bacterial solution is recovered, the required metals may also be obtained. When it comes to high-grade mineral resources, bioleaching costs a lot more than traditional industrial techniques, but regarding low-grade resources, it’s the only viable option.
This was precisely what the company needed.
Project Pixiu was about finding a special bacterial strain that would target rare earth elements.
My predecessor had accomplished much. He’d taken bore samples at three different mines, a hundred samples at each site, and after lab cultivation, he’d conducted repeated screenings and independent cultivations. The remaining materials seemed to be the results of the last batch. He’d labored for five years.
Five years, and he’d never found an effective strain. No wonder he’d wanted to leave.
But I knew my predecessor had to have found something. Since Xu Guang wasn’t telling me, I had to seek clues for myself.
After combing through all the data, I narrowed my search. There was a protein called Spi-213. Unlike copper and iron, rare earth elements are not mineralized as sulfides, but as more stable phosphates, silicates, and fluorocarbonate salts—one of the reasons sulfur-digesting Thiobacillus was of no use here. However, ion exchange can occur between rare earth elements and other metal elements in mineral crystal lattices, and Spi-213, it turned out, could function as a kind of unidirectional catalyst, inducing replacement of rare earth ions in minerals with iron ions from the environment and combining them with polyhydroxy carboxylic acids.
The strange thing was, although all the relevant samples came from five sampling points in the same pit, no strain cultivated in the lab could produce this sort of organic acid, and there were no signs of the Spi-213 protein. My predecessor, after eliminating the possibility of exogenous contamination, had left an annotation: “ghost bacteria.”
But when I saw Spi-213’s spatial structure, I suddenly realized I’d seen it before. I hastily sought the old data, and there it was: a byproduct of metabolism in the S-fatty acid bacillus I’d researched. It bore a striking resemblance, topologically, to Spi-213.
That strain of bacteria I’d spent seven years studying was extremely anaerobic, and a participant in trophic mutualism.
Pixiu couldn’t survive on its own.
Now I understood why Xu Guang had sought me out.
First, I had to take fresh samples. The original mining pit had been filled with waste by manual labor and was covered in vegetation. But with some effort, I found several of the bore holes.
After I had my samples, I did all I could to recreate the conditions of the original experiments. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the Spi-213 protein. This was what I’d feared. Too much time had passed between samplings. The physical and chemical environment had changed, and the bacteria had gone extinct.
Still, it didn’t mean there was no hope. Embracing a can-do attitude, I decided to use the original sampling point as my ground zero and work outward from there seeking new possibilities. A few months later and several hundred meters outside the pit, I finally came across Spi-213 once again.
The newly discovered sampling point also happened to be a rare earth element peak value point. I tried to recreate the environment in a liquid substrate, and after many defeats, gradually began to find my way. It took several more months to obtain the Spi-213 protein, after numerous generations in culture.
That S-fatty acid bacillus of my former research was in the trophic mutualism category because of the unconventional way it kept its metabolism going. Most cellular life relies on oxidizing sugars to produce energy in the form of ATP. The S-fatty acid bacillus, however, in its anaerobic circumstances, could switch to breaking down fatty acids and benzoic acid sulfonate. This process consumed ATP, but this seemingly suicidal behavior didn’t starve the bacteria to death. The product of its reducing, decomposing metabolism was useful to a strain of Desulfovibrio. In exchange, the S-fatty acid bacillus consumed some of Desulfovibrio’s ATP to maintain its life processes. In this interdependent relationship, both bacteria took what they needed.
My predecessor’s failure made me realize that Pixiu’s surviving form must be even more extreme than S-FAB’s. It was completely novel in its maintenance of life. It could not, under any circumstances, survive independently. It had to rely on a cooperative partner. Since I couldn’t find Pixiu directly, I determined to find its partner.
By adjusting the PH level of liquid culture media, and raising or lowering sulfide or sulfate content, I could selectively inhibit reproduction of certain bacteria, accomplishing my filtering goals. Of course, such adjustments might immediately kill Pixiu, but I rather expected to kill its partner and thus starve Pixiu to death. Under each targeting regime, and after several rounds of filtering, I expected to obtain the strain I sought, Pixiu’s partner.
I don’t remember how many times I repeated the process. One day I tracked down Xu Guang and showed him the genetic assay report.
“So, you found it?” After scanning the report, he lit a cigarette. When I didn’t answer, he pointed to a DNA sequence and said, “What’s this?”
“Pixiu’s partner. A kind of Desulfovibrio. I hesitate to say ‘host,’ with the parasitic implications. It’s really a symbiotic relationship.”
“So why not get rid of it?”
“But they’re—”
“Have you considered efficiency?” Xu Guang seemed uninterested in me repeating myself. “We need to simplify things. Just like crude ore becoming a concentrate. Have you tested these bacteria in terms of rare earth ore transformation efficiency?”
I shook my head, and Xu Guang nodded. “Desulfovibrio does not have the ability to displace rare earth ions. Taking the anaerobic environment into account, we would have to provide supplementary protein from the outside. This would waste almost half the resource.”
“But if we separate them, Pixiu can’t survive.”
“I’m not denying that. Haven’t you done gene recombination work before? I think it’s time again.”
“But I . . . failed last time.”
“Since the bacteria would waste resources, we must remove it. You have more experience than last time, and you have our confidence. Please don’t disappoint us.” Xu Guang narrowed his eyes and got closer. “As for resources, we can, of course, provide. Just remember . . . we want results.”
Insert gene fragments to make Pixiu independent?
I absently recalled that when I’d chosen biology, all those years before, I’d been eager to win the title of “life engineer.” So why was I cowering from it now?
I had no answer.
4
“Why?” a boy once said.
Twelve years old and faced with this question, I had no answer for that either.
I wanted to flee, but there were others behind me. I knew I had no physical strength, so I didn’t move.
The boy in front of me got closer and tore my safe and sound pendant from my neck. I tried to get it back but the others restrained me.
The boy held the red string and watched the pendant revolve. “What is it?”
“A safe and sound pendant. That’s Pixiu inside.”
“Pixiu? Ha! Hey Pixiu, you’ve got no anus, right? All you do is eat and never take a shit, right Pixiu? Ha!”
“Give it back! Grandma says Pixiu’s gonna make me rich!”
“Rich? Really?” He tossed the pendant over his shoulder. “Hey, you still haven’t answered my question. Why not lend me some cash? Are you deaf? Search him!”
I writhed and struggled, but my hands were secured by the gang. I couldn’t move. The boy rummaged through my pockets and found what was left of my allowance. Unsatisfied, he glared into my eyes, grinning demonically.
He yanked down my trousers in a flash.
“Look! Red underwear! They’re even decorated! Just like a girl’s! Ha!”
That’s when I discovered that closing your eyes only makes voices more distinct. I never told anyone about this incident, not my parents, not Grandmother.
I went looking for my pendant the next day, but it was gone. It didn’t bother me so much. I hadn’t planned on wearing it much anyway.
Grandmother asked after the pendant a few days later. I told her I didn’t know what had happened to it, that I’d woken up one morning to find it gone. She said nothing about it. She just lit a few joss sticks in the home shrine and held forth on the animal zodiac.
Not long afterward, it was Lunar New Year, aka Spring Festival. Like others, I looked forward to a night of setting off fireworks—that, and the red envelopes full of cash that were distributed to children every year. But this year, to use my parents’ words, I did not acquit myself well.
According to custom, the junior family member was to pay the senior members a formal New Year’s visit. Then I would be entitled to the cash gift. But this was not simply keeping old folks company, not just chatting and eating with them. Grandmother and Grandfather were sitting erect in their chairs. Before them on the floor were two red cushions. I was to kneel in proper fashion, facing them, and touch my head to the floor three times while wishing them a happy new year. Thus would the old folks be appeased, and I would accept my red envelope.
So it had gone year after year, until this year.
This year, I refused to kneel. Grandmother beckoned me toward her, but I just hid behind Mom. Grandfather kept saying to forget about it, but Grandmother couldn’t let it go. Dad pulled me into another room and quietly asked me why I was misbehaving. I sensed I was causing him to lose face, but I just kept shaking my head and insisting I wouldn’t kneel. Even if it meant I wouldn’t get my money.
After Dad left, Grandmother came in alone. I didn’t dare meet her gaze.
She touched my forehead. “When you grow up, you’ll understand. Whether or not they kowtow, you still have to give the children their red envelopes.”
I cried, feeling somehow wronged.
We sat there in silence for a while, until Mom called for us to come eat.
“Your hair’s a bit long,” Grandmother said. “After the first month of the new year we’ll have to get it trimmed properly.”
5
There was no progress on Pixiu’s transformation.
Not because I was hesitant to modify genetics. It was my work, after all, and I saw no fundamental difference between it and millions of years of natural selection. Of course, the opposition would say that natural selection is relatively smooth and steady, involving plenty of stasis, and therefor predictable.
But they’d be wrong.
Nobody can predict the future. The best you can do is limited inference or deduction.
This was, perhaps, why my research was stagnating.
Inserted gene fragments were expressing well in Pixiu, already quite an achievement considering my past failures. But like I said, nobody can predict the future.
Pixiu had been a carboxylic acid bacillus before forming its mutualistic relationship with Desulfovibrio. When I integrated a Desulfo gene excerpt into Pixiu, its organelles produced the necessary proteins to make it capable of oxidizing sulfides and carboxylic acid for energy. The latter was precisely the metabolite produced when Pixiu displaced elements in rare earth ores. However, my transformed Pixiu was still showing insufficient levels of Spi-213 protein.
At first, I thought the relevant section of the gene excerpt had been severed during insertion, compromising expression. I replaced several enzymes, but Pixiu still showed no signs of restoring Spi-213. I wondered if the whole plasmid was controlling the relevant gene expression. I tried to retain the original carboxylic acid bacillus genes, then insert the Desulfo gene as an independent fragment.
No change. The new bacteria could break down sulfides but couldn’t displace rare earth elements. The inverse was also true.
Progress was stalled and time was dragging on. Xu Guang said nothing, though he did come more often to inquire about the work. Wuzhou Rare Earth seemed to be as well-regarded as ever, but within the company, the negative growth in metallurgy and exploitation was an undeniable fact. Over half of profits now depended on investment. Rumor had it workforce reduction would begin the following year. Several mines and companies were said to be slated for shutdown.
Although the R&D center was safe for the time being, pressure was mounting. After repeated consideration, I blended the purified carboxylic acid bacillus with Desulfo and delivered the liquid to Xu Guang for on-site testing.
And sure enough, it showed an effect. But analysis of reclamation from the liquid showed that transformation efficiency still wasn’t up to standard. Without industrial value, its existence was worth no more than a joke.
I fell into prolonged, fretful idleness. I reviewed experiment notes unceasingly. I repeated experiments to no avail. I adjusted the liquid substrate composition, hoping to improve transformation efficiency. Ironically, what I’d already delivered to Xu Guang was the optimal proportion. To do better, I could only reduce PH while ensuring Spi-213 protein activity, but that would cause the bacteria to decompose. It would be killing the hen to get the eggs.
Pressure in the lab finally boiled over. I’d known this moment was coming, even before Xu Guang found me upgrading my online CV. He hurled my computer at the floor, smashing it to pieces, then harshly criticized me, ranting about my incompetence, all the money the company had wasted on me. I had yet to produce the slightest result. As far as he was concerned, I should pack my things and beat it.
I confessed I had no clear-cut plan. I begged for more time to think, to find a way forward.
“Find a way? You mean more time to polish that CV and flee like your predecessor? How about I give you a push? If there’s no progress with the next field test, your ass is out of here!”
“Just wait a second.”
“Fuck waiting!” Xu Guang slammed the door on his way out—and clear understanding suddenly dawned on me.
Spi-213’s existence relied on the mutualism of two bacterial strains. Break that equilibrium either way and the protein vanished. Extremophile life must dispense with all useless or inefficient physiological functions. When a carboxylic acid bacillus can independently rely on an oxidizable resource for its energy, it may give up its partner’s expensive, energy-consuming metabolism.
Instinctive choice.
It just needed a push.
There wasn’t time to find another computer. I grabbed a marker and started scribbling on a window.
Since my objective was to improve Pixiu’s transformation efficiency, I meant to increase the relative amount of Spi-213 while the bacteria were still alive. The protein was a sign of the two strains’ mutualism. In other words, I needed to force them into truly dire straits and cause them to strengthen their interdependence.
It was subtraction, not addition.
I began planning new experiments and strategies, until the windowpanes were covered in writing. Early the next day, the lab was forging ahead at full steam.
Results soon emerged.
After Desulfo had undergone some gene cutting, it could no longer use the nutrients in the liquid culture medium. For the carboxylic acid bacillus to survive, it had to first consume ATP for energy, then displace rare earth elements from ore with carboxylates, which would then get passed on to Desulfo for processing into sulfate. During this process, the energy Desulfo produced would be shared by both partners. In order to ensure its own sufficient energy consumption, the carboxylic acid bacillus had to increase its advantage, which meant substantially greater Spi-213 density.
Under an electron microscope, something I hadn’t anticipated came to light: they didn’t simply exchange carboxylates. The cell bodies of the carboxylic acid bacillus and Desulfo adhered together, became synthesized. They swapped cytoplasm, and even organelles, to directly exchange nutrients.
This was the true Pixiu.
I watched this intimate, miraculous scene until dusk, when the light outside began to dim. I turned on the lab lights and sat dumbfounded in my chair, becoming gradually aware of what had happened.
I’d created a brand new, independent life-form.
And its only reason for existence was to excavate rare earth elements from ore.
I suddenly felt an unprecedented dismay.
But its fate was already sealed.
Xu Guang read my Pixiu report and launched field tests immediately. When the first batch of liquid sample was poured into the experimental ore pond, I took my leave. I knew my creation would accomplish its mission. At the end of the test, the leached liquid would flow into a gathering pond, and there the blend of rare earth elements and Pixiu would be treated with a hydrochloric acid type reagent and further refined.
In my imagination, the resulting liquid was the color of blood.
I tendered my resignation the day after the test.
6
Because of my continuing higher education, I no longer lived at Grandmother’s place. I didn’t encounter Pixiu for quite a while.
In the new school, none of my classmates wore an eccentric safe and sound pendant. I was very happy to blend in.
Superficially, anyway.
It was just a normal fever at first. By that time the bird flu epidemic had passed, and my parents weren’t too concerned. Unexpectedly, my common cold soon triggered inflammation, and my windpipe fell into the virus’ hands. After I lost consciousness to my rising temperature, I was sent for an emergency hospital stay.
When I came to, Mom told me I was lucky to have gotten there in time. I might have developed acute pneumonia. I can’t remember how I responded. My attention was drawn to a bedside plate of fruit.
“Grandmother came. She insisted on staying a while. She wouldn’t leave until the doctors said you were in the clear.”
Not long after leaving the hospital, I was summoned to Grandmother’s place.
Passing through the front gate, an acrid smell found its way to the top of my nasal cavity: traditional Chinese medicine.
“Grandmother?”
I frowned, following the scent to the kitchen. Something had been stewing for a long time in the earthenware pot on the stovetop. A thick layer of stems and leaves—I didn’t know what kind—covered the cutting board. Grandmother was chopping away with her thudding cleaver.
“Toad grass,” she explained. “I asked around. This stuff cures inflammation of the windpipe, and alleviates fever, and detoxifies. You’ve had bad lungs since childhood. This stuff will work.”
“But Grandmother, I’ve already recovered. You don’t have to worry.”
“Such a child! How can you not heed the lessons of your betters? If I say it’s good, then it’s good, so what’s the harm in taking it? Do you know how much effort I put into finding and preparing it?” She turned off the stove flame and skimmed the upper layer of foam off the medicine, then ladled a bit of the thick medicine soup into a cup.
I explained I’d never taken traditional Chinese medicine before.
“What does that matter? You have to believe in this one. People have been drinking it for years and ended up completely cured of their illnesses. Drink.”
I took the cup. A small piece of grass revolved in the liquid.
“Can’t add sugar. That’s no good. Hurry, drink it while it’s hot.”
Hence, Grandmother watched me choke down the noxious medicinal soup. Then she rubbed her hands on her apron and continued chopping toad grass.
I drank two more cups before I went home. They were no more pleasant than the first.
Late that night, I felt warm from head to toes. The cold air seemed to gnaw at my pores, and my body grew hypersensitive, particularly my skin. The slightest movement would produce a subtle, rejuvenating feeling. I could even ignore my gradually tightening throat.
Later, I was sent to the hospital for an acute allergic reaction that caused hives all over my body. I ended up telling Mom about drinking the Chinese medicine. I don’t know if she requested it, or Grandmother decided on her own, but the next time I went to Grandmother’s place, the toad grass was gone.
But the incense burner had been replaced by a new shrine, reportedly obtained from a fortune-telling master and capable of bringing fortune and warding off evil spirits.
An obsidian Pixiu had been placed within.
7
The next time I met Pixiu was after Xu Guang excavated me from a rural highland valley.
A small village temple on school property was being turned into a water boiling station, and many villagers bustled and protested around the construction site. My palms had grown rough and cracked over the past two years. Students had come and gone, but nothing had really changed.
“We’d like you to come back,” he said.
“My work is here now.”
“Two years . . . ” Xu Guang studied me. “Even if you stay longer, what can you really hope to accomplish here?”
I had no good answer. I’d come up here to expiate my sins, to wield science and education against rural poverty. But it was an uphill battle, and we didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.
Xu Guang swiped at his tablet computer, then handed it over. I browsed through a presentation, slower and slower, and last pausing on a photo.
“Pixiu needs you.”
“You . . . what have you done?”
“A few small modifications. They’re sexually reproducing now, but of course there are still problems. This time you don’t even have to step foot in the lab. We want you as a consultant.”
I handed back the tablet. “Would I have to meet that boss of yours again?”
“Boss? You’re looking at the boss. Much has changed. And you know, with how we plan to reward you, you could rebuild here twenty times.”
I knew he was telling the truth. He wouldn’t joke about money.
While I was gone, the application of Pixiu had spread, allowing Wuzhou Rare Earth Mining Industries to not only become a model of innovation, but a leading minerals enterprise nationally. The government had approved the purchase of a special industrial zone, but following the launch of some new environmental policies that targeted mining industry standards, the cost of destructive exploitation had skyrocketed.
When Xu Guang found me, traditional mining was facing its second severe winter. On the road back to Wuzhou, I looked through the intro to the R&D center’s lab. The biotech had evolved faster than I’d imagined. The success rate of inserted gene expression had gone up, and biological embedding tech had also improved, especially regarding invertebrates.
Despite knowing all this, when I saw the new prototype Pixius, I couldn’t hide my surprise.
Ten or more organisms were slowly squirming in the breeding tank. Their unsegmented bodies moved via muscle contraction and expansion. Their backs and rears were encased in drill-bit-like spiral shells.
“The company wants Pixiu to be active and capable of movement,” said the newly appointed R&D director. “The environmental taxes on mine restoration are too high.”
“What you’ve done here . . . it certainly surpasses the old bacteria.”
“It might seem so, but when it comes to the fundamental process of metabolizing rare earth ore, this new Pixiu is no different than your carboxylic acid bacillus and Desulfo. In fact, these new Pixius carry the genes of those old strains.”
“And what are these shells?”
“Pixiu’s abdomen secretes a sticky acidic liquid that erodes ore into edible grains. The Company wanted to find a way to consolidate rare earth elements for easier collection, so we altered Pixiu’s internal carboxylic acid oxidizing process. Now the rare earth elements can be secreted. When they interact with atmospheric CO2, a carbonate outer shell is generated.”
I watched the breeding box attentively. A Pixiu’s degree of liveliness seemed inversely proportional to its shell size. “Is there a growth limit?”
“This is precisely Chief Xu’s point.” The R&D director smiled faintly. “A shell grows until it blocks up the excretion passage. Waste material accumulates until finally causing organ failure.”
“Just like Pixiu.”
“Exactly like Pixiu.”
“Such being the case,” I said, watching him, “where is the problem?”
The R&D director brought me to a specimen cabinet. Inside were displayed a series of varying shells, the biggest around five centimeters. “Are you familiar with the Giant African snail? According to plan, Pixiu’s shell should grow to fifteen centimeters.”
“So why are they so small? What’s the problem? Environmental?”
The R&D director nodded. “You hit the nail on the head. According to test reports, Pixiu is poisoning itself.”
8
Grandfather committed suicide when I was in high school.
It was a boarding school, and I was in my third year. I only learned of the tragedy a week after it happened, from Dad’s mouth. By then, Grandfather had already been cremated. Dad only called it suicide in passing, offering no details.
All I knew for sure was the death had thoroughly broken Mom.
Thinking back now, I was never close with Grandfather, but whenever I was confused, he was the one who could snap me out of it. There was a vast bookcase in his study. You could always find a variety of tomes there. To me, Grandfather seemed more like a friend. He was very important to others who loved him.
Mom shut herself in her room for several days, refusing to see anyone. I wanted to support her, console her, but all I could do was sit beside her and say nothing. Dad and I believed it was a short-term problem, that she’d be okay after passing through this period. It turned out we were right, though it was difficult.
Throughout the process, Grandmother didn’t change. She lit incense every day, as always. Grandfather hadn’t left a suicide note. I couldn’t help wondering if this had something to do with Grandmother. She’d never learned to read, while Grandfather had completed half a college education. How had they met back then? I knew nothing of that era.
I knew nothing of their life.
About a month after Grandfather passed away, I requested my one and only leave from high school. That day was Grandfather’s seventh and last Seven-Day ceremony.
In the house, a well-dressed Daoist priest brandished a sword and chanted scripture. Behind him, a younger priest rang a bell in harmony to an old cassette tape.
“Go on,” Grandmother said, handing me a fold of yellow paper containing two joss sticks that stuck out half an inch. “Light them for Grandfather.”
Stupefied, urged forward, I knelt before the memorial tablet and urn. The earthenware container was full of ashes. After Mom lit the fire, I threw in what Grandmother had given me.
Flame engulfed the paper. A unique sulfurous smell arose. The heat made my face sweat.
The ceremony lasted all afternoon.
Grandmother spoke with the younger Daoist priest at length. She never shed a tear.
Neither did I.
Eventually the ceremony ended, and I started cleaning the house. Grandfather had never liked the house in such a state. But when Grandmother saw me gripping the broom, she said, “No, stop. The priests said to wait at least a day, to let the Yin energy drain away before tidying up.”
“Feudal superstition,” I muttered.
“What was that?”
“I said you’re full of feudal superstition!”
Grandmother recoiled, shocked.
“Come on,” Mom urged, “be obedient. Don’t be stubborn with your grandma. Have you forgotten basic manners?”
Glaring, I dropped the broom. I shouldered my backpack and headed for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Mom howled.
“Back to school!” I replied, matching her volume. Feigning a devil-may-care attitude, I bumped into the shrine on my way out.
The obsidian Pixiu fell to the floor and broke in half. The head rolled to the door. Behind the door, the hand-rolled dumplings lay in their cotton cloth, waiting for the boiling pot.
I didn’t turn around.
9
A more detailed toxicology test report came out. The R&D director confirmed that Pixiu was indeed killing itself. While digesting ore powder, Spi-213 protein played a major role, but while displacing rare earth elements, the originally stable phosphate ions were affected by the acidic PH environment, and with other digestive fluid ingredients in play, an exotoxin was generated that destroyed Pixiu’s immune system, thus triggering tissue failure.
No one, including the R&D director, understood why this exotoxin arose.
“Just like the shells,” he said. “The spiral wasn’t part of our plan, but we were just happy the shells worked.”
This state of affairs seemed familiar.
Reading the data, I saw they’d completed many programs before my return. All were attempts to correct the exotoxin production process on the genetic level. The results had been lackluster. The experimental samples either couldn’t ingest rare earth elements, or they quickly succumbed to the new toxin. In one case, the specimen even lacked an integrated digestive tract. It struggled for a few hours after birth, then starved to death.
Xu Guang had said that I was here for two reasons. First, I was familiar with most of Pixiu’s underlying chemical processes, and the new prototype Pixius had been established on my previous work. Second, not having participated in specific work plans, I might see the problem from a new angle.
“What sort of angle?”
Xu Guang hadn’t answered, but I gradually understood what he intended.
I had the lab suspend all gene-oriented work. We started from scratch observing Pixiu, objectively studying everything from physiological processes to behavior patterns. Meanwhile, I put together a small, special group, and we returned to the mining pit to gather new samples.
The research personnel didn’t like these changes. Some even said it was a waste of time and refused to participate. When Xu Guang heard about this, he summoned me to his office. I explained my way of thinking, and he managed, with difficulty, to agree to my plan. He ordered everyone to do as I said or leave.
From then on, the lab became a quiet place. I had more alone time to observe Pixiu. I was amazed that a simple gene fragment could bring about complex and macroscopic behavior traits. For instance, Pixiu drew energy from transforming the rare earth elements in ore, but this wasn’t enough to keep it going physiologically. It needed sources of carbon and nitrogen for replenishment.
The lab had intended to make Pixiu capable of eating a few simple plants, but Xu Guang opted for sealed feeding, or artificial, controlled feeding of proteins Pixiu could digest. During the planning stage, the R&D director implemented an idea to insert a new gene fragment in Pixiu’s photoreceptor cells.
Pixiu didn’t have vision as such, just a primitive light-sensing ability. But with expression of the new gene, it could be stimulated by specific frequencies of light. This stimulation feedback to the nerve center would produce a pleasant sensation in Pixiu. It would move toward the light source of its own accord.
Thus, all one had to do was put Pixiu’s feed under the light source.
This new paradigm also led to elementary social behavior. Those Pixiu more sensitive to the food frequency discovered the food drops earlier. They were the first to take action, but at the same time they released a kind of pheromone to inform other Pixius. As compensation, Pixiu groups gave their food forerunners priority at concentrations of rare earth elements.
I sat before the cultivation tank longer and longer each day. I obtained new data, gradually coming to understand Pixiu.
At the same time, I began to have a strange, disconnected dream. I sat opposite Grandmother, facing her quietly.
Her face radiated an odd, serenity-inducing aura. I felt like I’d returned to childhood. Sometimes I’d wake, subconsciously trying to reckon how long it had been since I’d visited home.
After the objective review study came to an end, my little task force obtained the samples I required. At the next plenary session, I officially proposed my plan.
Genetic modification alone had been ineffective because of the vital connection between exotoxin formation and rare earth element transformation. The latter was, of course, the whole reason Pixiu existed.
The R&D director lodged a protest, firm in the belief there was nothing gene mods couldn’t resolve. I retorted with Spi-213: as long as there was no way to replenish the protein, these discussions were meaningless.
“And what has your so-called ‘special group’ discovered?”
“Nothing,” I admitted, but that hadn’t been my original goal. I had the objective report distributed to everyone. “Everyone’s work was consummate. On this point we should be confident. But now it’s necessary to think of Pixiu as a new organism, one suffering from a serious disease. We need to think in terms of curing it.”
I stood aside so the special group could explain their work:
There was a Clostridium strain subsisting in high phosphate density. It produced a protein called Nwa-019 that could, together with iron ions, fix phosphoric acid ions, and discharge macromolecular matter from its cytoplasm to the outside.
“So,” the R&D director said, “we isolate the gene and put it in Pixiu?”
“No,” the group leader said. “Think of it as a plan to cure a disease, not a protein processing factory. We want to alter the Clostridium to make it capable of living inside Pixiu. It would be a kind of . . . ”
Symbiotic relationship.
Unprovoked, I suddenly recalled that safe and sound pendant I’d worn as a child.
10
After my college entrance exam, I quarreled with Mom about what I should major in. For my part, I wasn’t loud. Mom persisted in her belief that I should go for something finance-related, or management perhaps, but I didn’t want that. Not at all. The night before I was to fill out the form, we finally reached an understanding.
The next morning, I found something by my pillow: a resin-embedded gold pendant, a familiar-looking Pixiu.
“Grandma knows you’re heading out to study,” Dad explained, glancing at Mom. “She wants you to have it. If you don’t want to wear it, hang it on your schoolbag or key chain. Or keep it in your dorm room.”
I tossed it in my bag. In some corner of my psyche, I think I still reproached her, or myself, my own earlier helplessness.
Although we reconciled later, I didn’t say a word to her for five years after Grandfather passed away.
During these five years, at Spring Festival and other holidays, I would follow my parents to Grandmother’s. She changed a little. Chatting with my folks, she inquired after their health and nothing else.
Later on, Mom said Grandmother had taken up with traditional Chinese medicine again. She was obsessed with all kinds of healthcare products peddled on the street.
“We try to advise her, but she won’t hear it,” Mom said. Such reckless spending was not the way to go. She could end up in trouble if a real problem came along. I spent a week compiling research and science on what Grandmother had purchased, arming myself with numbers, charts, news reports.
I came and spread it all out before her. A pregnant glare reminded me that she couldn’t read well, and even if she could, the charts and numbers would mean nothing to her. She frowned at one of the printouts. Her dry, withered finger shivered as it moved along a line of text. She had been deteriorating with age. I just hadn’t been aware of it.
I sat by her side, trying to explain the basics. She said nothing. I couldn’t guess what she was thinking.
“How about the pendant I gave you?” she asked about halfway through my lecture. I replied, and she launched upon her familiar explanation: “That is Pixiu. Old Folks have it from oral tradition that it brings wealth and fortune to your home.”
“Pixiu’s earliest official appearance was in Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian,” I replied. “At that time, it was considered a wild beast like a tiger or leopard. It had nothing to do with bringing riches.”
Grandmother quietly took this in. I continued my lecture on the unreliability of her healthcare products. Maybe it was just my imagination, but something seemed to diminish in her. Suddenly she was just a common, helpless old person.
“So,” she said at last, “I shouldn’t be buying these things, right?”
“That’s right. Save your money. Exercise more. Go to the hospital for a checkup every six months. Much better than all that traditional nonsense.”
“Okay.” Pushing on her knees, she stood with great effort. “I’ll heed your advice. You’ve grown up well, after all.”
But I wasn’t headed for Peking University, as I’d promised her. Not even close.
I said no more to her, or if I did, I can’t remember what. I imagined the look of that long-lost safe and sound pendant. Pixiu, dim and lusterless under a layer of dust, stared at me and seemed to presage something.
11
I had no success.
My task force’s Nwa-019-producing Clostridium was repellent to Pixiu. A long stay in Pixiu’s digestive tract seemed out of the question. Nevertheless, I felt we were headed in the right direction.
The R&D director decided to alter the Clostridium’s genes, rendering it capable of adapting to Pixiu’s interior cell environment. I approved this decision, and it turned out to be right. On the night of the Clostridium’s successful implantation, we had a party celebrating our heroic deed.
Xu Guang was surprised I didn’t hole up in my room and update my resume. I joked that maybe I was getting too old for that.
Nine months later, the first batch of Clostridium-treated Pixiu reached the end of its life. Researchers extracted dark-skinned Pixius from the breeding tank and took the stiff bodies away for dissection. The shells were subjected to mass spectrometry and physical analysis.
Before all that, cursory examination had revealed an average shell length of about fourteen point five centimeters. The biggest was eighteen centimeters, an auspicious number.
Half a month later, the latest prototypes of Pixiu were put into practical production. Wuzhou Rare Earth’s local media liaison convened a press conference. It was the public’s first view of Pixiu’s true colors. The anti-GMO crowd wasn’t as vocal as we’d feared. I didn’t even pretend to care about this.
I told my family about the broadcast time and Mom congratulated me. Later, when we talked on the phone, I didn’t tell them that my dreams of Grandmother were growing less frequent, and that I was suffering from insomnia.
When I couldn’t sleep, I would spend time alone in the lab. I would watch the slowly crawling Pixius in the breeding tank. I watched them drag their heavy shells and leave eroded trails on the ore surface until the sun rose. I told myself the experiment was a success. But I couldn’t shake a sense of unease.
I started browsing the experiment records again, over and over, until one day I came across a draft of Pixiu publicity. The cover said, “Pixiu’s recombinant genes are patent protected by Wuzhou Rare Earth Mining Industries Limited.” But there was no mention of the breeding issue.
Something was nagging at me. I hastened to find the latest breeding batch number, then sought out the R&D director.
“Only three generations of Pixiu?” I said. “What happened to the fourth?”
“Fourth?” The R&D director raised a brow. “We never needed a fourth generation.”
I soon found out that when Xu Guang mentioned sexual reproduction to me, it was indeed the tentative plan, but subsequent development revealed it had greater publicity value than real utility. Before I returned, most Pixius were unable to reproduce beyond a few generations. Xu Guang felt this was advantageous in terms of preventing unsanctioned breeding.
“If they want it,” the R&D director said, “they’ll have to buy it from us.”
“And what about those control groups? Why is there no record of a fourth generation?”
“Because none were born.” The director shrugged his shoulders. “As I think you know, mating frequency declines generation by generation. The third generation couldn’t breed. As for the pre-Clostridium treatment samples, the exotoxin gradually accumulated. The third generation couldn’t survive.”
“You mean to tell me that the Pixius all become impotent?”
“It’s either impotence or early death. But that’s really ideal, isn’t it? Benefit to the company is paramount. Frankly, I thought Chief Xu must have explained this to you already.”
I hadn’t talked to Xu Guang about it.
After the dissection report was released, I compared it with earlier records. Nwa-019 density seemed related to mating frequency. Why?
I couldn’t figure this out alone, so I sought out my task force’s leader and requested total confidentiality. He was silent after my pitch. I asked him what he needed.
“How about a month?”
I was very relieved I’d approached the right person. A month later, the research results showed up on my desk. Nwa-019 protein was effective, as we’d discovered, but as it eliminated exotoxin it also substantially reduced Pixiu’s phosphorus content. This element was important in maintaining its original nervous system.
Nerve cells of low differentiation weakened during Pixiu’s aging process, resulting in damage, and due to the reduced phosphorus content, this damage would be irreversible. This would trigger a continuous sensation of pain. The irritation would gradually strengthen, accompanying sexual maturity. By the time sexual behavior was possible, they would feel like their bodies were being ripped apart. It would bring their small brains to the brink of collapse. The nerve cells would have no choice but to shut down. This would leave them unable to distinguish other Pixius from the environment.
Thus, they couldn’t reproduce.
Even worse, this reaction would get stronger by the generation—a complete deviation from natural selection, at first glance. But the previous, pain-insensitive strain of Pixiu was also the Nwa-019 rejector. It couldn’t even reach sexual maturity, on average, and so couldn’t even produce a third generation. As for the increasingly sexless strain, they lived longer and grew bigger. But the third generation couldn’t differentiate mating partners from the environment, and thus couldn’t produce descendants.
All of this was due to Nwa-019 ensuring survival.
“Is there a way to switch neuronal functioning back on?”
“I already tried,” the group leader said. “You do that, and when they reach sexual maturity, they enter a condition like hunger strike. A few days later, they die.”
They would rather starve themselves to death than live in pain.
“Mr. Xu and the R&D director came to the lab, by the way. They want data sorted by next month so other departments can get going on Pixiu commercial production, ASAP. You weren’t here.” The team leader wanted to say something but hesitated. “I thought you should know.”
I had signed a contract with Xu Guang. I still had several years to go. But if I quit in advance, how much damage would it really cause? I guessed Xu Guang had probably done this calculation already.
The team leader and I stood there in silence.
“If you have something you want me to do,” he finally said, “there’s not much time.”
12
Grandmother passed away in my last year of postgrad.
The omens began during Spring Festival: reduced appetite, yet no obvious weight change. Then, during her community plan check-up, her blood work came back with some abnormalities. The doctor exhorted her to go to a bigger hospital for more tests.
She didn’t tell my parents. She continued going about her business for several weeks until something went wrong and forced her to get examined.
I learned of the results on the phone: intestinal cancer, late stage.
Grandmother was sent to the hospital for acute abdominal pain. The doctors discovered a grave ascitic fluid buildup and were forced to take emergency measures. This was a matter of damage control, not a cure. Soon after, test results indicated her peritoneum had ruptured due to tumors of all sizes cramming her intestinal tract. She had lost her appetite because she couldn’t digest or regularly defecate. A doctor told Mom they could carry out conservative treatment, forbid eating to clear the intestines, while supplementing with intravenous glucose, and wait for some restoration of health before following up with serious diagnosis and treatment. They drew up a treatment plan.
But we all knew it was too late.
During Grandmother’s final days, she liked to sit in the hospital lounge looking out a window. One look lasted the whole day. I couldn’t guess what she saw in the end. Pedestrians coming and going, maybe, or sunshine passing through leaves, or something else.
Later, she was taken home.
On the day before my dissertation defense, Mom sent me a photo. I hadn’t seen how she looked in the end, until then. She was like a wasted candle, prematurely exhausted, life force drained, face withered, skin clinging to bone. A human skeleton.
I was in shock. I couldn’t recognize that face. I couldn’t see the person with whom I’d been so close as a kid. I had to suppress Mom’s words from echoing in my mind: intestinal cancer, the tract crammed with tumors, no way to defecate. She had starved herself to death.
Just like Pixiu.
13
Outside my window was a shady field. There was no way to see that it had once been an abandoned mine pit, but I could foresee what it would soon become: the starting point of the future. As batches underwent testing, qualified Pixiu would set out from here, heading for places perhaps long forgotten, to accomplish their final mission. And all of this had, in some sense, originated in me.
How do we define life’s purpose, after all? And who should provide the definition?
Back in those poverty-stricken rural highlands, I thought I’d found the answer. But I was wrong.
I wanted to find the answer in Grandmother’s eyes. After all, she had believed in Pixiu more than anyone.
I didn’t know why I was brooding on the sterility of Pixiu’s fourth generation. Obviously, it had no real connection with the mythological animal Grandmother had always talked about. But I’d hoped it would become something completely new, a real, independent animal—even if it couldn’t be depicted as a winged, feline chimera.
I couldn’t conduct new experiments. The lab would be moved soon. Only the experimental records had been set aside for me. Records that could have been altered.
But I could still resolve this problem—perhaps. It was just that Xu Guang hadn’t given me much time.
Spi-213 could bring about the exotoxin, which led to immune system destruction if left untreated. Nwa-019 led to chronic pain, the shutting down of neuronal function and perception, which made sexual reproduction impossible. This was the price Pixiu paid for existence.
I had thought of mining as Pixiu’s reason for living. Now, looking through those piled experimental records, I realized mining was not its purpose, but its means of subsistence. We had designed it this way. We’d forced it to compromise between maintaining life and mining rare earths.
But this still wasn’t enough.
I thought about Grandmother. Throughout her life, she resisted a world she understood less by the day, until both sides lost. But that was her foundation: simple and unremarkable justifications. She didn’t understand compromise. She sought a way forward in the oral tradition of older generations. Hidden in those words, in Pixiu, was an instinct tens of thousands of years old—even if we were sufficiently clever these days to see it for a preposterous sham.
And even if life is hard, there’s always the next generation.
This was just what Pixiu needed.
Its life was so painful. How could I give it the ability to love?
I charged into the lab and rummaged for the record I needed. I found it and inserted a new page. They would not be able to discover that the infant Pixiu’s shell—no, it would start earlier, at ovum fertilization—would fluoresce faintly, invisible to human eyes, and this would last until the end of infancy. In every Pixiu, photosensitive cells attuned to this frequency would stimulate a reward sensation.
There would also be another change.
Pixius that could no longer shut down pain-producing nerve cells naturally starved themselves to death. They had to sense others of their kind, even if it was painful. At least they might know the joy brought about by new generations. A glimmer of light in the dark.
I wasn’t totally sure about all this. I just had my hope.
I hoped, and I hope.
Perhaps, in time, there will be gene fragments to replace Spi-213 and Nwa-019, these that bring both pain and survival to generations.
But before that time comes, they will exhaust their strength, and raise their young, and for the glory of that moment, endure with patient restraint all the tribulations and evils of this world.
These insignificant Pixius will impart and inherit this conviction from generation to generation.
I just impulsively called Mom. I asked how Grandmother and Grandfather met. Mom burst into tears. She cried for a long time, then replied: “Those were hard times. They were introduced by a matchmaker hired by their parents. Back then, one family on its own might not survive, but two might have a chance.”
I listened and found myself crying silently as a thought passed gently through my mind. It was a promise made long ago that can never be kept.
Originally published in Chinese in Douban Read, March 2017.