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墨書 Inktalez
Chapter 13: Deeply Hidden Bonds
As the medical tape tore with a sharp sound, blood beads seeped from the glands at the back of my neck. The equity transfer agreement my father had thrown onto the conference table glimmered with the cold light of a Cryogenic Chamber, while the fluorescent green slime on his cuff dripped down the edge of the table. "You've messed up more than just the marriage alliance," the crisp sound of the pen piercing through paper reminded me of a scalpel slicing through skin. "The Lin family's Gene Optimization Program is about to end with you."
The sound of heavy rain pounding against the floor-to-ceiling windows echoed like gunfire on the day Zhou Yi was shot. My hand, gripping the pen, suddenly twitched, and the tip punctured a hole in the signature line, resembling an Observation Window of an embryo culture dish perfectly. "When my mom signed back then," ink suddenly spread in the blank space of the clause, revealing the date 1998.03.17, "did you also press a paperweight against her temple like this?"
As the bronze paperweight brushed past my ear, a blast from the electromagnetic lock blew open the office door. Lin Yichen stood there, his suit hem dripping with Formaline from the lab, and as I caught the paperweight with my bare hands, a faint golden liquid began to flow from its edge—just like what was oozing from my gland's ulceration. "Third Uncle," he said, his thumb fitting into the family crest's groove on the paperweight, "you've just touched my last batch of living samples."
Cold air poured in through cracks in the ceiling, and suddenly, veins bulged at my father's temples, entwined with fluorescent green filaments. The soles of Lin Yichen's shoes crushed the transfer agreement, caked with red mud—just like Zhou Yi's Tactical Boots. "She is now under my guardianship," he said as he loosened his tie, wrapping it around my wrist with a force that perfectly replicated how Zhou Yi had tied a tourniquet on me, "including that newly implanted 003 in her womb."
The smell of car disinfectant stung my nostrils as the wipers scraped away dried blood on the windshield. Lin Yichen's soaked shirt revealed stitching along his side that matched precisely with the lines on Zhou Yi's electrocardiogram paper. "Why does it have to be me?" I elbowed him at the joint of his mechanical limb; the cold metal sent a jolt of pain through an old injury in my lower back.
The apartment's password lock beeped, signaling that the Cryogenic Chamber was opening. As Lin Yichen pinned me against the entryway mirror, I saw in its reflection a wound on his back stitched with twenty-three stitches—overlapping exactly where Zhou Yi had taken a knife for me years ago. "The night your mother voluntarily became a host," he said as his canine teeth pierced into my unhealed gland, mixing painkillers' sweet metallic taste with Su Nian's pheromones, "she trembled like this while gripping onto the surgical table's railing."
When the disinfection lamp flickered to life, an Embryo Monitoring Report on the coffee table began to melt. I tore away his bandage at his collarbone; faint golden pus seeped from a burn scar marked "003." "Am I just a human incubator?" The Surgical Scissors plunged into his scapula just as an alarm blared from the refrigerator in the bedroom; three observation screens lit up simultaneously with red iris recognition.
As mechanical fingers sank into my rotting flesh at the back of my neck, pain resonated with Zhou Yi's mark left on me before he died. "Emotional fluctuations can activate latent gene chains," he said as he ripped open my collar with enough force to tear through scabs; blood droplets splattered against the Observation Window of a constant temperature chamber. "Like now—your pheromone concentration is just right when you're angry."
A rusty scent from ventilation suddenly filled the lab. A half-tube of frozen sperm rolled out from an overturned freezer; Zhou Yi's signature on its label twisted into Lin Yichen's pupil patterns amidst liquid nitrogen vapor. "He was merely a container for genetic replication," I heard echoes of Mother’s skirt tearing as she fell twenty years ago amidst glass shattering under Lin Yichen's shoe sole’s crackle. "Just like that embryo you lost—merely data for control groups."
As alarm lights swallowed up the entire room, I felt a Tactical Dagger tucked into his lower back—exactly matching in weight to what Zhou Yi had given me for self-defense. The blade pressed against my carotid artery; three Monitoring Devices emitted piercing shrieks indicating cardiac arrest simultaneously. "Go ahead," he urged as he gripped my hand to pierce through skin; blood droplets rolled down into a DNA spiral along our intertwined hands. "Let me see 003's maternal awakening threshold."
The constant temperature chamber exploded with a bang, amniotic fluid mixed with freezing liquid flooding over my feet. Lin Yichen’s bloodied palm pressed against my unstitched wound on my abdomen; stitching lines emerged in blood light resembling constellations from Mother’s diary. "Hatred is more suitable for cultivating war machines than love," he licked away ice-cold tears from my eyes, "this lesson I've taught for twenty years."
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