chapter 3
The moment I came in, Peipei threw her arms around me.
“Sis, are you hungry? I got paid for my part-time job.”
She pushed a piece of pale-pink nutrient paste into my mouth.
Cool sweetness spread across my tongue.
“I passed a Xian vending machine and saw they had a new peach flavor, so I brought you one.”
“Is it good?”
Peipei watched me with shining eyes, waiting for my verdict.
“What about you?” I asked, nodding.
“The breadwinner gets first pick!” She waved grandly. “The basic flavor is good enough for me.”
The primary ingredient in basic nutrient paste was cockroach.
It kept carbon-based life alive.
As for the taste…
I lowered my head and took a small packet of paste from my bracelet’s storage compartment.
Peipei held the cloudy yellow substance in her palm. “What flavor is this?”
“Grandma.”
“I haven’t tried it yet, but the Xian employee who processed her body said it should taste all right.”
Peipei put a piece in her mouth and slowly savored it.
“Dad’s paste tasted exactly like beef. Mom’s was hot and spicy.”
“Grandma’s… tastes a little like osmanthus candy.”
Peipei had been very young when our parents died. She remembered them only vaguely, through the taste of the paste made from their bodies.
Grandma took us in afterward.
She rented a little courtyard planted with bionic osmanthus trees. Every autumn, their rich fragrance steamed through the whole yard.
Later, Peipei and I left Grandma one after the other, traveling from the wastelands to the Lower City proper.
The first time we walked through the unreal light of its holographic signs, I had held Peipei’s hand and marveled at the feeling of moving through colored fog.
Back then, I had naively believed that hard work would eventually earn us a good life in the city.
I never imagined that the moment we turned away would be the last time we saw Grandma.
As for a good life…
To be fair, those words had to be taken apart.
Good belonged to Xian.
It also belonged to the rumored residents of the Upper and Middle Cities.
Life was the spontaneous choice our dead parents had made after a man and woman mated.
Survival belonged to Peipei and me.
I surveyed our cluttered five-square-meter room and gave a bitter laugh.
Before I could speak, Peipei cut in.
“I’ll be an adult in a couple of days. Then I can find a proper job.”
“Nobody is born to live on nutrient paste and synthetic food forever.”
“I’ll give you a good life, Sis.”
She said it like an oath.
I clasped her hand.
In the cold, diseased cruelty of the Lower City, I owned very little.
Peipei was the most important thing I had.
Not one of them.
The only one.