Unknown Crisis

“You helped me a great deal.”

She still felt a lingering fear. If there had been one less Yu Mao behind the story from all those years ago, she really might have been forcibly dragged back.

Looking at Yu Mao again, her gratitude only deepened.

Yu Mao was clearly delighted; every word came out rounded, bright, and crisp. “I exist for this.”

Why were they circling back to that again? Nan Changgeng shook her head helplessly. “But people shouldn’t exist just to help someone else. If you want to better yourself, you should choose a different goal in life.”

Yu Mao fell into thought. After several dozen seconds, she suddenly lifted her eyes, her gaze trembling faintly. “I want to... live so I can see your happiness.”

“Good.” Nan Changgeng curved her brows and smiled. She wasn’t surprised by the answer, but she still felt as if she had taken in a full, invigorating breath; even the tangled emotions pressing at her heart seemed to clear.

“You need my happiness, and my happiness needs you. We’re indispensable to each other.”

“Indispensable...” Yu Mao murmured under her breath.

She could sense Nan Changgeng’s need for her, and now that understanding had deepened another layer. In the surface layer of her awareness, for the first time, she clearly felt concern and resistance toward death.

It was an uneasy feeling, not entirely comfortable. Death had always hung so close over her before. Yet her soul seemed fuller because of it.

She wanted to live a long time, long enough for Changgeng to no longer need her... no, until she and Changgeng were no longer indispensable to each other.

Nan Changgeng didn’t know what she was thinking. She only felt that when Yu Mao was thinking seriously, there was always something rigidly cute about her; beneath those thin eyelids, her eyes shifted in tiny movements, like the loading effect of a computer running calculations.

Nan Changgeng casually grabbed a strand of hair that had fallen over her chest and, like a prank, twisted it into the shape of a little broom, then lightly brushed it under Yu Mao’s chin. Seeing her look up in a daze, she couldn’t help but smile.

As her mood settled, another matter suddenly surfaced in her mind. Her movement stalled, and she asked abruptly:

“Where’s Nan Qiming? He’s wandering around abroad; doesn’t Nan Qiming care about him?”

It was also because she truly wasn’t familiar with this brother of hers. There had only been a handful of times in a year when they’d even met face-to-face; after she’d left home, contact had long since been cut off. Add to that the shock of the news, and for a moment she had actually forgotten him completely.

Yu Mao said, “He was under too much mental pressure from your father. His mind had already gone wrong. Before you escaped, he had already caused losses by mishandling company affairs; he broke down, smashed his head against the wall until he knocked himself unconscious, and was treated by your father as a discarded pawn and locked up in a psychiatric hospital. Three days later, he died by suicide.”

Nan Changgeng’s shock was no less than when she had just heard of her father’s death. “How could that be? Something so huge happened, and I didn’t know anything about it...”

“Very few people knew about it. Even your mother didn’t know. Your father thought it was embarrassing and deliberately covered it up, only telling the outside world that he was ill and needed rest. Not long after that, he began preparing the marriage alliance. I once found out he complained that you weren’t a boy, which meant that if he wanted to secure a child who would take the mother’s surname, he would have to give up more profit. According to my analysis, he had completely given up on Nan Qiming and was eager for you to have a child who would take his surname, so he could raise that child as the new heir.”

Nan Changgeng’s throat tightened. As she listened, a chill rose through her entire body; it was as if cold, writhing insects were crawling up her back, making her almost shiver.

What a terrifying man. He had utterly lost his humanity.

Even if she and Nan Qiming weren’t close, even if they were rather unfamiliar with each other, blood still tied them together. A helpless sorrow rose in her heart, like the bitter empathy of a hare mourning the dead fox.

If the chosen heir had been her, then... would the one who walked toward suicide in that psychiatric hospital years ago have been her instead?

It seemed that whether it was her or Nan Qiming, they were both tools in her father’s hands to achieve his aims: one the heir who had to be absolutely perfect, the other a sufficiently useful tool for marriage alliances.

As the eldest son, Nan Qiming had naturally become the heir; and as the second child, whether a girl or a boy, she would most likely have been used for marriage.

During those years wandering abroad, had he ever suffered terribly, wondering why, after doing everything possible to restore the family’s former glory, he had ended up like this; not only had he squandered the foundation painstakingly accumulated by his elders, but he had also severed the inheritance completely in this generation.

Should he blame his own terrible luck, or blame himself for not having had more children as backups?

Would he be too ashamed to face his ancestors, to the point that he wouldn’t even dare die?

The moment she imagined his miserable death, Nan Changgeng almost let out a cold, satisfied laugh.

What a vicious person she was. The instant she saw through the illusion, she hated so cleanly, without the slightest trace of pity or lingering attachment, as if she were resenting and despising a stranger who had deceived her rather than a member of her own family.

“In this world... I actually don’t have a single relative left.” She murmured to herself in a daze.

Surrounded by traffic and crowds, she suddenly felt as though she were only a thin wisp of wind, drifting faintly through some corner of the world, unable to find where the roots of her life had come from.

As her thoughts wandered in confusion, her body was suddenly pulled into an embrace by a slender figure that had rushed toward her.

“Changgeng, I don’t want you to feel lonely. I want to stay by your side forever.”

She sensed the desire that had just been born in her heart, then plainly laid it bare in words and action, faithfully carrying out Nan Changgeng’s request.

Her eyes glistened faintly with the tears of bitterness she had absorbed.

Compared to her, her body was so small; even her embrace was thin and narrow, like a bundle of hemp rope, tightening around Nan Changgeng with a touch of hardness.

And just like that, Nan Changgeng returned to reality, sensing her own form through that bound, constricted embrace. It was as if she were a kite tied to a string; the surrounding wind had become tangible, wrapping around her perfectly as it lifted her up.

“Okay... ”

Even her throat felt a little hoarse, as if wind had seeped into it; she answered softly, returning the embrace and slowly pressing her own weight against the girl’s slightly bony shoulder.

She let out a relieved sigh, as if even the weight of her soul had found support.

“Don’t leave. Stay with me for the rest of my life.”

Nan Changgeng lowered her brows slightly; dark currents churned in the depths of her eyes.

After the emotions gradually settled under the impact, currents began to rise beneath the calm surface.

What Yu Mao was capable of only deepened her unease. The people who had created her could not have failed to know she would be a genius of extraordinary intelligence, and the destructive power of someone highly intelligent might far exceed that of an utterly vile criminal.

Yet she seemed to be under no supervision at all, simply living on as if nothing were wrong, and had even “run amok” enough to bring down a company. Did they really not care if the experimental subject committed crimes? Was there no oversight, or had they not noticed Yu Mao’s behavior, or... did they know everything, and this was all merely counted as a normal part of the experiment, a reasonable sacrifice?

The terror of the unknown left one deeply powerless, like being shrouded in a vast bank of fog, unable to see whether danger would descend; and if it did, it might be a fatal blow impossible to guard against.

When the program finished recording, perhaps they should find a way to carefully investigate this matter...

...

Back at the recording location, the two of them received intense scrutiny. Just the silhouettes of paparazzi she had glimpsed when they got out of the car numbered no fewer than five.

And once they entered the building, the staff’s gazes were even less concealed. The only fortunate thing was that all the contestants were offline, unable to sense the upheaval outside, focusing entirely on singing and dance practice; their attitude toward the two of them remained as usual.

The director slipped into the dorm to ask about the situation. Seeing Yu Mao sitting alive and well by the table, she immediately let out a breath of relief, her whole posture relaxing.

Xiaofeixia still hadn’t been turned on, and the two of them hadn’t had time to put on their recording equipment yet, so she spoke without much concern:

“Are you sure everything’s fine? This whole thing has blown up. I thought we’d be summoned by the higher-ups for questioning, but there’s been no movement at all so far.”

The moment this topic came up, Nan Changgeng’s mood turned heavy. She looked at her helplessly. “The person is temporarily fine; the rest isn’t necessarily.”

The director froze. “What do you mean?”

“Hard to say...” Nan Changgeng was forced into the role of a riddle-maker and said half-jokingly, “Anyway, keep a little sense of crisis. If nothing else, when you go back you can think more about what you’d do if the world were about to end.”

Although the situation had indeed made her feel a lot of urgency, those matters were too far removed from the reality she had lived in for decades; in truth, she couldn’t easily take them too seriously.

She couldn’t even guess where the danger would come from: a natural disaster, or a zombie virus? Or an alien invasion? She had no clue at all, and didn’t even know where to begin preparing.

Especially since the experiment had already been running for at least twenty-odd years. Maybe the crisis wouldn’t break out in their generation at all?

The director, naturally unaware of the truth, found it even more absurd. She shook her head, assuming Nan Changgeng didn’t want to explain further and was deliberately changing the subject. “Fine. You two do what you need to do. Put on the equipment and turn Xiaofeixia on. Our official account is almost being bombarded into oblivion by netizens.”

“No need to rush; the paparazzi should already have spread the news that we’re back.”

Nan Changgeng unhurriedly put on her mic; she also helped Yu Mao put hers on.

The director paid no attention to her words at all. She had already darted to the doorway to switch on Xiaofeixia. The moment it lifted off, she gave each of them a ball and a slap, sending both of them flying into the room and straight to their destination.

As soon as the livestream went live, a massive number of netizens flooded in at once, nearly crashing the server.

The comments scrolled by in a blurred mass. Most were ordinary viewers discussing conspiracy theories; even the fans worried about Yu Mao were squeezed to the point that their voices carried almost no weight.

[They’re back, they’re back; the cat is fine!]

[What exactly does that account’s records mean? What secret is Yu Mao hiding? Can no one really give an explanation?]

[I suspect Yu Mao’s mental illness was artificially created. I’ve never heard of any kind of mental illness where someone has loved a person they met only once since childhood to the point of going crazy over it.]

[I just feel like something huge is hidden behind this. Things have blown up this badly, and the higher-ups still haven’t reacted at all; that’s the real problem!]

[Watch while you can and cherish it while you can. I have a feeling this show won’t last long.]

Fortunately, none of that was visible to them, and they didn’t need to respond.

After the director left, they sorted themselves out a little and went downstairs to the practice room.

If they only wanted to practice singing, they could have done it in the dorm; it would even have been quieter than the practice room. But she felt that if Yu Mao wanted to grow, she still needed to come into contact with more people and perceive more complex information from the outside world.

Just as they arrived at the practice room, Lin Baiyu came over and asked where they had gone that morning.

“After spending the whole morning feeling like the program team’s atmosphere was off, you two disappeared at the same time. What big thing happened outside?”

She lowered her voice on the last sentence, covering half her mouth with an air of mystery, her big eyes blinking with curiosity.

“Something did happen. You’ll know when you go out.” Nan Changgeng knew all about saying a lot without saying anything.

“...” Her lips pouted. Seeing that Nan Changgeng didn’t want to say more, she turned away sulkily.

Nan Changgeng kept a straight face, carried two stools over to the window, and sat down. Yu Mao still wanted to crouch by her feet, but Nan Changgeng scooped her up at once.

“Sit properly. Don’t act like a cat.”

Yu Mao blinked blankly. “Oh.”

Then she heard Nan Changgeng ask abruptly:

“What question did Lin Baiyu just ask us?”

After hesitating for two seconds, Yu Mao extracted the audio from her blurry memory and said somewhat uncertainly, “She asked... where we went, and what happened outside.”

Her brain, like a program repairing old photos, pieced the whole sentence together clearly, then picked out her own answer from it.

“That’s right.” Nan Changgeng patted her head in encouragement. “Keep it up; next time, try to answer right away.”

“Mmm...” Yu Mao responded sluggishly. Her eyes were with great difficulty torn away from the woman; she forced them wide open and made a very serious effort to look around at the other contestants in the practice room.