MASG chapter 39

 

“Gone? Where did he go?” Xia Yu asked as he stepped off the aircraft.

Old Ghost shook his head and glanced at Silver Fang. “We’ve been briefed—this operation is extremely dangerous. Go rest now.”

“Wait! Where did Midou go?” Xia Yu sprinted to his side. He understood the literal meaning, but emotionally, it was unbearable. “Where’s Midou?”

Lao Gui crouched down to meet his gaze at eye level. Two large hands gripped Xia Yu’s shoulders firmly, anticipating his next desperate dash. “We did everything we could. Midou’s heart stopped beating during your return journey…”

“Impossible!” Xia Yu tried to bolt but was pinned in place. He shook the syringe in his hand frantically. “We got it back! We got it back!”

“Too late. His heart has already stopped.” Old Ghost didn’t want to crush their hopes, but he had to face the harsh reality. “He’s in resuscitation now, but the doctors say not to get our hopes up.”

“Hic.” Mo An was so flustered that he hiccupped and bit his tongue. “Then why not give him a mechanical heart?”

Xia Yu nodded. “Right! Didn’t they say all human organs can be replaced now? Quick! Give him a mechanical heart! His heartbeat will recover! I… I…”

Xia Yu suddenly stopped, overcome with grief. He couldn’t utter another word and forgot to cry. Strangely, he didn’t feel sorrow, it lacked a sense of reality. He’d never imagined that Midou could leave them. In Xia Yu’s mind, as long as they retrieved the special medicine from Moruote, Midou would be cured.

“Replacing a mechanical heart requires major surgery. There’s no time to prepare. The terrifying thing about Moruote is that it increases the body’s rejection response. Once a genetically engineered person is infected, they’ll remain rejection-positive for life and will be unable to receive organ transplants ever again,” Old Ghost explained. How could the adults not have considered what everyone else could see?

Even if the other adults hadn’t considered it, how could Milian have overlooked it? In this age of mechanical organs, he possessed enough wealth to cover the cost of surgery. Yet Moruote prevented them from having this opportunity.

Xia Yu let out a hollow cry, his only means of expressing his frustration. Why? Why did Midou have to die so young? This wasn’t right!

Nuwa shouldn’t have done this! The world shouldn’t be like this! Midou never did anything wrong. He just wanted to grow up. Why was even such a simple dream shattered? Xia Yu shook his head frantically, trying to shake off this terrible reality. Only when he realized that reality couldn’t be changed did his nose begin to sting.

“How could this be? How could this be? He was just a little bear! He hadn’t even finished his honey cake! You… you didn’t take care of Midou properly. You let him leave hungry! You… you’re all bad people.” Xia Yu rambled incoherently. “No, no, I don’t believe it. I need to see him! I need to give him his shot!”

“Xia Yu!” Lao Gui grabbed him again. “Don’t run off.”

The next moment, someone else seized his other hand tightly, and a distinct numbness spread through his palm.

“Let him go. Let us see Midou,” Mo An demanded, his voice thick with displeasure.

Old Ghost looked at him. The kid was naked, with only a coat wrapped around his butt, soaked through. Old Ghost had wanted to refuse—taking them there would only make them wail in grief—but when Xia Yu turned around with tears streaming down his face, Lao Gui’s heart softened.

Fine. Let them say goodbye to their friend. Some regrets simply couldn’t be left unresolved.

If he’d had the chance to properly bid farewell to his brother back then, he wouldn’t be consumed by such bitter regret today.

In the blink of an eye, Lao Gui had changed his stance. “All right, come on. But just one look.”

The middle level had its own medical facility. In this era of advanced technology, accessing treatment was simple, and medical resources were abundant. Outside the operating room stood a crowd of people—Milan’s colleagues, many of whom had watched Midou be born and grow up.

Milan was the only one seated, too weak to stand. She still clutched the cake tightly in her hand, crushing it. Even now, she refused to accept the reality that her precious child had stopped breathing in her arms. She needed something to hate just to keep living. So she glared fiercely at the cake, directing her hatred toward it. If only she hadn’t insisted on buying it, she could have said a few more words to her son and held him when his nose started bleeding.

“How is he?” Lao Gui asked a woman.

The woman shook her head. Anyone could see that nothing had changed. The child’s resuscitation had failed, and now a white sheet covered him.

Lao Gui began negotiating with the adults. Mo An glanced at them, then at Milian, but lacked the courage to approach and comfort her. Outside the operating room, the air was bitterly cold and thick with the scent of disinfectant. Red lights flickered incessantly on the walls. He noticed the camera watching them once more, its monitor like an unblinking eye.

Half a minute later, Lao Gui walked over and nudged Xia Yu. “Go on. I’ll give you a few minutes to say goodbye. Don’t leave with any regrets.”

Xia Yu hadn’t cried before, but now tears welled up. His emotions had a delayed effect, but once triggered, they were unstoppable. In the end, it was Mo An who pulled Xia Yu into the operating room. When Xia Yu saw the tiny body on the operating table, he shuddered violently.

This was Midou.

Was this really Midou?

“Midou…” Xia Yu whispered softly.

The sound amplified their grief. Only the three of them remained in the operating room. It felt like they were hiding in the basement of Power Plant No. 3 again. Back then, Midou could talk and laugh. He would also make little snoring sounds when he slept.

“Midou.” Mo An called out, too. He still remembered being carried on Midou’s back. Why was he dead? Was he really dead?

Midou’s body was covered with a white sheet, and one of his hands hung down. Xia Yu rushed over and grabbed his hand. No, the adults were wrong. Midou wasn’t dead. His little hand was still warm, and his fingers were still soft. How could he be dead? Without a second thought, Xia Yu retrieved the precious medicine. He carefully pushed the liquid into Midou’s arm, expelling all air bubbles, as meticulously as he would when injecting Mo An with nutrients. He inserted the needle into Midou’s arm.

“It’s okay, it’s okay… We brought the needle back. Once you get the shot, you’ll wake up. Please don’t fall asleep again.” Xia Yu murmured to himself, wanting to push the liquid through quickly, but afraid of hurting Midou if he went too fast. His tears finally fell, splattering onto the silver floor of the operating room.

But even after emptying the syringe, Midou’s small hand remained utterly still. Xia Yu tossed the syringe aside and began rubbing Mi Dou’s palm and the back of his hand. “It’s okay. Mi Dou is just too cold right now. Bears hibernate in winter, and Mi Dou sleeps when he’s cold. Once his hands warm up, he’ll wake up.”

“Mi Dou, wake up soon. We collected so many fragments this time. We’ll have lots of points and money later. We can buy you a honey cake. Every day, every day.” Xia Yu’s hands and words never stopped moving. He lifted his hand again and again, but the moment he let go, Midou’s hand fell.

It fell, and Xia Yu picked it up again. It fell again, and he picked it up once more. Its soft, padded flesh still retained its pale pink hue, but its fingertips no longer moved.

The crushing pain of losing a friend forever began to overwhelm him as he kept picking it up. Finally, Xia Yu let go of Midou’s hand, tears streaming down his face. This little bear had truly left them, never to return.

“Hic.” Mo An hiccupped again as he glanced at the nearby monitor. It should have displayed Midou’s vital signs—no heartbeat, only a flat line. He looked at the massive machine beside it. “What is this?”

Xia Yu was unable to speak.

Lao Gui had entered unnoticed and now stood behind him. “It’s a pacemaker. The doctors fought for a long time.”

“How did they fight? With that?” Mo An pointed at the machine, still in shock and refusing to believe that Midou was gone.

“With electric shocks. They applied them directly to the heart.” Lao Gui took Xia Yu’s hand. “Let’s go. Give Milian some time. She hasn’t said goodbye to Midou yet. Let them have their private moment.”

Xia Yu shook his head. He wanted that private moment with Midou, too. He didn’t want to give it to anyone else. At that moment, Mo An stood on tiptoe and lifted the white sheet covering Midou.

Beneath the cloth, Midou had departed peacefully without suffering, though dried blood still clung to his nose. Mo An wasn’t afraid of the dead. For a mermaid, death was a sacred, grand curtain call. He simply disliked how Midou had slipped away so silently.

When Mo An placed his left hand over Midou’s heart, a fullness overwhelmed him. The next instant, the fullness transformed into an electric current surging through his palm and releasing itself.

The entire room seemed to tremble as if shaken by an earthquake. The silver walls briefly lost their illumination and plunged into darkness for a fraction of a second. The overhead fluorescent lights flickered violently before a nearby bulb exploded. Yet none of this shocked Lao Gui, a battle-hardened veteran for whom electromagnetic flashes were commonplace on Earth.

But he was immediately stunned. This wasn’t an electromagnetic flash!

Midou, who was lying on the bed, shot up half a meter before crashing back down. His chest was still connected to the machine. When someone died, their holographic projection would vanish, leaving only flat numerical displays. Now, a blue dot appeared in the air and transformed into a perfectly straight blue beam standing beside Midou’s hospital bed. Xia Yu and Mo An couldn’t comprehend what it meant.

But Lao Gui knew—it meant the vital signs monitor had been reactivated!

In the blink of an eye, the blue beam split into countless rays that spiraled outward, completing the transformation from point to line and line to plane. A small, three-dimensional figure formed from condensed blue light appeared above the right side of the bed. The constantly shifting numbers suspended in midair represented the body it was scanning.

Though the readings hadn’t materialized yet, one could clearly see the bright red heart beating vigorously within the blue figure.

[Heart rate: 24. Initiating automatic emergency protocol. Respiratory assistance activated. Adrenaline infusion initiated.]

Upon completion of the scan, all the equipment in the ward activated and executed the rescue procedure methodically without human intervention. Having never witnessed anything like this, Xia Yu and Mo An stood frozen in place. By the time they reacted, Lao Gui had already lifted them both up in one swift motion and carried them out.

“Restart resuscitation! It rebooted!” Lao Gui bellowed in the corridor, his emotions beyond description. Not only his feelings, but the entire sequence he had witnessed defied words. At his shout, the crowd surged toward them like two magnets hurtling toward each other.

“Say that again? What’s going on?”

“It really rebooted? Seriously, let’s go in and see!”

“Where’s the doctor? Where did the doctor go? Someone, come quick!”

The crowd surrounding them chattered incessantly, drowning out even Milian’s voice. She stood at the back of the crowd, utterly numb and drained of strength. She was unsure whom to look at. Suddenly, she snapped into action. She let out a cry and lunged toward the operating room door. But the emergency surgery had already begun, and entry was denied.

To the right of the door was a floor-to-ceiling blue observation window. The robotic doctors who had left earlier were now fully in position. Every detail told the crowd: Midou was alive.

Unnoticed, Mo An’s clothes slipped off his hips. Bare-bottomed, he was led away by Lao Gui. Before leaving the floor, he glanced up at the camera. The bright red surveillance monitor had just adjusted its angle, locking onto him. It was watching him again. Mo An glared fiercely at it. He disliked being observed, especially by Nuwa.

Xia Yu’s emotions were all over the place. A wave of heartbreaking sorrow for Midou washed over him. The two were carried into the elevator, where they were hit by a sudden, intense sensation of weightlessness. They were set back down on the floor. Only then did Xia Yu notice that Mo An was naked.

He took off his T-shirt and wrapped it around Mo An’s butt.

“Ugh, clothes are such a hassle,” Mo An muttered.

“What did you do to Midou just now?” Lao Gui was more concerned about that, having witnessed everything.

“Nothing much. I just touched him.” Mo An hid behind Xia Yu. Being young, he naturally turned to someone older for help when faced with problems he couldn’t solve.

Xia Yu didn’t know what had happened, either. But that didn’t stop him from shielding Mo An. “What did you say? My brother…?”

“Enough. Stop pretending. I saw everything.” Lao Gui rubbed his temples. Talos must have concealed crucial details—these two kids were definitely not normal.

Xia Yu and Mo An remained silent, not out of fear, but because neither could formulate a response nor coordinate their story in front of the Lao Gui. Seconds later, their floor arrived. The Lao Gui led them out and stopped at their room door. “I’m going to check on Midou now. You two go rest, then decide if you want to tell me the truth.”

His intent was clear: I know you’re hiding something. Whether you tell me or not is your choice. But you’d better tell me.

“Hmmm… I’ll take my brother back to rest first.” Xia Yu picked up on the subtext and turned to lead Mo An into the room. The moment they entered, the room’s temperature system activated and a projection appeared on the wall. [Welcome.]

The two froze. That message had never been there before.

[Don’t be afraid. I’m not a villain. I’m merely an artificial intelligence.]

Another AI! Are you the same type of intelligence as Jingwei? Xia Yu almost blurted it out, but, having learned survival instincts, he remained silent. Jingwei and this AI might not see eye-to-eye. Perhaps there was conflict between them.

[My name is ‘Ling Shi’. You may call me by that. I am the administrator of this building, as well as a subroutine of Nuwa. I believe you will need my assistance to live here.

“Ling Shi?” Xia Yu realized that Ling Shi could infiltrate their room. “Why would you help us?”

“Is that you behind the monitor?” Mo An stood naked before Xia Yu.

Ling Shi: [Good heavens, you’re not wearing any clothes?]

“Mind your own business. Not wearing clothes is my choice. Don’t ignore my question.” Mo An stared at the text. “Have you been watching us all along?”

Ling Shi: [You could say that. It’s surveillance and protection.]

“You’re Nuwa’s subroutine. Why is that considered protection for us?” Mo An pursed his lips and turned to ask Xia Yu, “What exactly is a subroutine?”

“A subroutine is…well, a subroutine. Honestly, I don’t really understand it either.” Xia Yu shook his head. He could ask Jingwei about it later. The characters on the wall gradually dispersed, then rapidly coalesced into a blurry string of text.

[Are you willing to join me in opposing Nuwa? If you are, I will tell you everything I know.]

There was actually such a sentence on the wall!

---

 If you’re enjoying my translations, feel free to leave a comment or support me on Ko-fi ☕