Little Pink Starfish

Lily softly said, “Sorry, Madam, I was just a little worried about Sinan.”

“Is there anything that can’t be spoken properly?” Madam Lu reached out her hand. Lily obediently let go of An Zhe and went to hold Madam Lu’s hand.

Last time at the Lighthouse, Madam Lu had been wearing a mask. An Zhe could only see her eyes. This time, he finally saw her features clearly—gentle lines, arched eyebrows, but thin lips pressed together when she didn’t smile, adding a trace of firmness to her gentle appearance. Lu Feng did not resemble her.

Yet somehow, An Zhe felt that her features bore a slight resemblance to Lily’s. If the entire base’s population grew from Eden’s embryos, and all embryos originated from the women in Eden, then Lily indeed might be Madam Lu’s biological daughter. In that light, Lily decisively leaving him upon seeing Madam Lu to be led away made sense—after all, she was Madam’s cub, not his. Only the spore would never leave him.

An Zhe looked at Madam Lu, uncertain what she would do with him.

Only to hear Madam Lu say, “Is he your friend? You came to the corridor to find him?”

Lily exchanged a glance with An Zhe. Her clever gaze flickered. She said to Madam Lu, “He doesn’t want to go back. Can we invite him as a guest?”

“Let’s invite An Zhe to dinner. Their food is terrible,” she added.

An Zhe realized this little girl was trying to help him avoid the search happening below. But he didn’t think Madam Lu would agree—his sudden appearance here was far too suspicious.

Yet, to his surprise, Madam Lu actually said, “Alright.”

Lily exclaimed, “Madam is so nice today.”

Madam Lu bent down and stroked her hair. “I’ve always loved you.”

Lily affectionately rubbed her palm. “I like you too, Madam.”

——And just like that, An Zhe was brought to the 22nd floor of Eden. The atmosphere there was peaceful. Soft music played in the hallway, the snow-white walls were covered in illustrations—flowers, butterflies, bees, clouds, or Madonna-like figures. Compared to the outside, this was like another world.

In the spacious corridors and halls, An Zhe also encountered other women. They were all dressed in clean white gowns, their black or chestnut hair flowing freely, with calm expressions. When they saw Madam Lu, they nodded politely.

In a small booth of the public cafeteria, An Zhe had dinner on the 22nd floor: sweetened milk, half a roast chicken, and a bowl of vegetable corn soup.

After the meal, Madam said, “Time to send your friend back.”

Lily pouted, “Let him stay a bit longer.”

Madam indulged her, saying, “Then come with me to water the flowers.”

So Lily pulled An Zhe’s hand, leading him through the snowy-white hall to another round room. At a glance, An Zhe saw the room’s lush reds and greens—the center had a flower bed several square meters wide, filled with deep red roses.

“My lover used to bring me some seeds from the wild,” Madam Lu said to An Zhe. “Later, Lu Feng did the same. I remember that day when you were with him.”

An Zhe nodded.

“He’s not one to easily get close to others,” Madam Lu said, picking up a silver watering can from the plant rack.

Just then, out of the corner of his eye, An Zhe saw something flicker. He turned instinctively—it was the television screen in the room, which had turned on by itself without anyone pressing the remote.

“Emergency Response Department announcement,” the broadcaster’s voice was much faster than usual. At the same time, An Zhe’s half-body photo appeared on screen. “Urgent apprehension of this suspect. If seen, please immediately report his whereabouts.”

An Zhe’s body tensed slightly. That past hour of peace now seemed a mere illusion. The world around him was still full of danger. He looked at Madam Lu.

But Madam Lu softly said, “Don’t be afraid.”

Her actions always surprised him. He had initially assumed she was a staunch supporter of base regulations. But now, that didn’t seem to be the case.

An Zhe: “You…”

“I won’t help you escape, but I also won’t hand you over—at least not for now,” she smiled.

An Zhe asked, “Why?”

“They always have many reasons to arrest someone,” Madam Lu said, turning her gaze from the screen. She lowered her head and watered the rose bushes. Crystal-clear droplets rolled off the dark red petals, fell from the green leaves, and dropped into the soil. “For example, forty years ago, they arrested my mother.”

An Zhe didn’t know what she meant to say, but she seemed eager to tell a story. Many people he had met wanted to tell him stories, as if everyone had something worth remembering deep inside.

So he said nothing, just quietly listened. The scent of roses surrounded them. Lily plucked one, peeled off the petals from its base, clenched them in her palm, then tossed them into the air. The falling petals rained down like a shower, scattering over her hair and body. One petal landed on Madam Lu’s hair.

“Humanity’s Four Bases. Twenty-three thousand three hundred seventy-one women passed the following declaration with zero dissenting votes: ‘We voluntarily dedicate ourselves to the destiny of humanity, accept genetic experiments, accept all forms of assisted reproduction, and devote our lives to the continuation of the human race,’” Madam Lu softly repeated the “Rose Declaration” An Zhe had once heard from Lily, but compared to the girl’s clear and cheerful voice, her tone was solemn.

“One sentence was removed from this declaration—a precondition,” Madam Lu said. “Under the premise of having basic human rights, they agreed to undergo genetic experimentation and assisted reproduction. Moreover, the initiators reached a consensus with the base that women would manage women.”

“But that was nearly seventy years ago. Back then, everything seemed promising—so long as we could continue, things would improve… If I were one of those women, I would’ve agreed without hesitation. Everyone was sacrificing. I would’ve been willing too.”

“At the time, extrauterine embryo cultivation wasn’t yet mature. For months, the base aimed for higher birth rates. Their uteruses barely had time to rest.” She looked up at the steel-colored ceiling. “The burden of childbirth was too heavy. Their lives were completely destroyed. Birth quotas were relaxed, but no one agreed.”

“Those who signed the Rose Declaration and all girls born after were expected to dedicate themselves to it—naturally so. And we desperately needed population. That’s how the Lighthouse, the military, the main city, the outer city, even the women managing other women all saw it.”

Her tone was gentle—so gentle that it evoked emotional resonance. An Zhe quietly listened by the flower bed’s edge.

“To protect themselves, they launched a protest movement. That was forty years ago. My mother was one of the initial organizers,” Madam Lu said with a faint smile. “All written records were destroyed. I was too young then to remember much. I only recall one night—she locked me in a room at the United Front building. Then came a gunshot… I saw blood seeping from under the door. After that, I was sent to Eden.”

“They finally realized the only effective way was to control reproductive resources completely. So they removed that sentence. The next generation of girls were gathered and raised in Eden, taught from an early age to remember their duty, with no other education. That way, the base didn’t need to worry about declining birth rates or girls feeling dehumanized from non-stop reproduction.”

She looked at the surrounding walls—but it was as if she saw through them to the entire human base. “It pains me. But I know my pain is insignificant. In this place, someone dies every second. Humanity’s only way to survive now is to become a single living organism. People of different duties are its organs: the Lighthouse is the brain, the military its claws, the outer city people its flesh and blood, the buildings and walls its skin—and Eden is the womb.”

An Zhe looked at her. She seemed to understand his gaze and said, “I never resented this place.”

She bent down and picked up Lily. Lily buried her face into her shoulder.

“I’m just often puzzled by one thing,” she gently stroked Lily’s hair. “We resist monsters and mutations, resist foreign genes contaminating human DNA, to preserve uniquely human will and avoid domination by beastly instincts… But to achieve this goal, everything we’ve done violates human morality. And the collective we’ve formed—everything it does, from resource acquisition to growth to reproduction—can only be described as animalistic. Humans are no different from the monsters outside. We just use our flexible brains to give our primal behaviors a self-deceiving justification. Humanity is just one of many ordinary species—born like all life and soon to perish like all life.”

There was a deathly stillness in Madam Lu’s eyes. “Human civilization and its technology are both insignificant.”

She said no more. She looked up for a long time at the ceiling. An Zhe saw her palm press a dark-colored dial—and gently turn it.

The radiation-proof metal panel in the ceiling retracted with a thud. This was Eden’s top floor. Beyond the glass was the boundless sky. Night was when the solar winds paused. The silent dusk and the Milky Way poured down together.

An Zhe whispered, “There will be a day things get better.”

Perhaps one day, there would be no need for judges to kill their own, for soldiers to die in the wild, for Eden’s girls to regain freedom.

“No,” Madam Lu said. “The time when this world completely breaks down is near.”

“Lily,” she turned to the little girl in her arms, “do you want to fly?”

An Zhe looked at her gentle profile. After hearing those words, a chill rose up his back.

Lily simply hugged her neck and said crisply, “Can I? Like Sinan?”

“You can.”

At this moment, An Zhe finally fully understood Sinan’s intention in sending Lily back to Eden.

—It was exactly the opposite of what they had guessed then.

Returning to Eden wasn’t because it was safe.