Chapter 1
Before school that day, I said offhandedly,
“Mom, I dreamed about savory flatbread last night.”
The living room fell silent for a long, long time.
Mom stared straight at me. For a moment, I thought she’d frozen.
Then her face twisted.
“Chen Xiaoba, how dare you dream about savory flatbread?”
“Do you have any idea how expensive flour from Earth is?”
“Do you know how much I suffered—moving to Mars, all so I could give birth to you…?”
She covered her face and sobbed.
I knew what Mom would say next.
She would say,
“Chen Xiaoba, you know you were never supposed to exist, don’t you?”
“Your father and I were both ‘unskilled persons.’ We couldn’t afford to raise a child on Earth.”
“I couldn’t bear to give you up, so your father and I moved to Mars… and now you still keep asking for things?”
Mom sank into a crouch, weeping.
I knew that one month’s rent on Earth could keep us alive for a year on Mars.
Only here could they afford to raise me.
I tried to help her up.
“Mom, I’m sorry. I promise I won’t dream anymore.”
But she pushed my hand away and stayed crouched on the floor.
At the far end of the corridor, a neighbor poked her head out to watch.
The walls on Mars were thin.
Everyone knew what had happened in our home.
Everyone knew that I, the ungrateful brat, had dreamed about savory flatbread last night.
Heat rushed to my cheeks. Mortified, I said,
“Mom, I’m going to school.”
I left with my backpack.
As the door closed, I could still hear Mom’s voice.
“That child—why can’t she ever spare a thought for me?”
As I walked down the corridor, a hum came from the ventilation ducts.
They said air was free on Earth.
It wasn’t here.
Every breath we took was included in our building-service fees.
I had always known that my parents once lived on Earth.
But they had no creative abilities and no irreplaceable technical skills.
In the year 2196, people like them were called “unskilled persons.”
They weren’t allowed to live in Earth’s central districts.
They weren’t allowed to buy non-synthetic food.
And they couldn’t afford the cost of one more child.
But Mom couldn’t bear to give me up.
So they sold their capsule berth in Earth’s outskirts and applied for the Mars Resettlement Program.
Back then, the news said Mars was the new hope.
The cost of living on Earth was too high, and most people were struggling.
Mars, however, had only recently been developed. Food was subsidized by the base, and everyone could start over.
“Starting over” meant loading the people Earth couldn’t afford to support onto transport ships and sending them somewhere farther away to live.
We lived in an underground city on Mars.
There was no blue sky here, no grass, no wind or rain, and no savory flatbread.
Whenever I longed for something from Earth, Mom would cry,
“I could have stayed on Earth!”
“It would’ve been hard, and it would’ve been cramped, but at least I’d still be on Earth!”
“It’s because of you that I had to move to this place!”
As she cried, she tore frantically at her own hair.
“Do you have any idea how many credits your monthly nutrition, education, and oxygen allowances consume?”
“And you still keep asking for things?”
When I was little, Dad would comfort her.
Eventually, though, he grew tired too.
He transferred all his credits to Mom and left our home.
I never saw him again.