Chapter 6 chapter Five

The sun peeks over the edge of the horizon, slanting down on the city of Bangkok.The skeletons of expansion-era buildings, the gilded stupas of temples, are stained red like molten metal.The sun seemed to light the high spires of the palace, where the Child Queen and her servants lived in seclusion.The elaborate decorations of the Temple of the City Pillar seem to reflect the firelight, and here, day and night, monks chant prayers for the city's sea walls and drains.The sun is like a burning fireball, moving slowly in the sky, reflecting the warm ocean like a sea of ​​blood, only the occasional waves will reflect a little blue light.

The sun hit Anderson Lake's sixth-floor balcony, and the sun poured into his apartment.On the outer edge of the balcony, jasmine branches trembled slightly in the hot wind.Anderson looked up, his blue eyes narrowed by the sunlight.Beads of sweat oozed from his pale skin, glistening in the sun.Beyond the railings of the balconies, the whole city seemed to float on slag, and the illuminated spiers and glass glinted with golden light from time to time. In the sweltering heat, he sat naked on the floor, surrounded by open books: lists of plants and animals, travel notes, history of the Southeast Asian peninsula, and other books were scattered on the teak floor.Old books with moldy pages, torn pieces of paper, and half-torn diaries are all souvenirs of a bygone era.At that time, tens of thousands of plants shed their pollen, spores and seeds into the air.He'd been looking up the variants all night, but couldn't remember much.He always had a picture of naked flesh in his mind—the girl's square skirt slid up her legs, peacocks embroidered on shiny purple fabric, her smooth thighs parted to reveal the wet middle.

In the distance are the tall buildings in the Phunji district, and the sun illuminates their other side.In the damp yellow mist, they looked like three fingers pointing skyward.During the day, they look like ordinary slums, with no sign of the exciting and addictive stuff inside. A clockwork girl. His fingers were on her skin."You can touch me," she said, but those black eyes were cold. Anderson took a deep breath, pushing away the haunting memory.The plague he battled every day was aggressive, and she was the exact opposite.She was a flower in a greenhouse, suddenly falling to the dust—the environment was too rough for her delicate design.Considering the climate and people here, she probably won't live long.Perhaps it was this vulnerability that struck him; despite her having nothing, she put on an air of strength.She pulls up her skirt at Rowley's request, but still struggles with something like self-esteem.

That's why you told her about those villages?Because you pity her?Isn't it because her skin feels as smooth as a mango?Wasn't it because you could barely breathe while petting her? With a gloomy look on his face, he turned his attention again to the open book, forcing himself to face the real problem, the one that had sent him on a clipper and airship, from the other side of the world: Gi Bu Sen .Gi Bu Sen by the Clockwork Girl. Anderson rummaged through scattered books and papers to find a photo.An obese man sits with scientists from the Midwestern Consortium at an agribusiness-sponsored conference on rust variants.He looks bored, his eyes are not looking at the camera, his neck is covered with layers of fat.

Are you still that fat?thought Anderson.Do Thais keep you full like we do? Only three people could have done it: Bowman, Gibson and Chaudhuli.Soon after Bowman disappeared, the monopoly of enhanced soybeans was broken.Chaudulli went out to hang out when the airship was docked, and disappeared within the Indian Industrial Group. Maybe he was kidnapped by people from Pure Card Company, maybe he escaped, and of course he might be dead.And then there's Gibson. Gi Bu Sen.He is the most shrewd of the three, but on the surface, he is also the least suspicious.After all he is dead.His children found his charred body in the ruins of his house...and it was cremated before the company could do an autopsy.He did die.His children, who underwent polygraph and drug-assisted questioning, said their father had indicated he did not wish to undergo an autopsy.He would not allow his body to be cut up and embalmed.But DNA testing matched samples taken during his lifetime, and the body was his.Everyone is convinced of this.

However, considering that all the evidence is nothing more than a small number of genetic fragments taken from the corpse of "myself", the world's best genetic dismantler, it is unreasonable to doubt this statement. Anderson started rummaging through the papers again, wondering what the calorie key had been up to in the days before his death.He found the records they left when they were debugging equipment in the laboratory.Nothing, no text mentioning his plans.He just died, and they were forced to believe that he really was. In this way, the emergence of Ngaw basically makes sense.It is also a nightshade.Gibson always likes to show off his skills.He was an egoist, everyone who worked with him said so.Gibson would be extremely excited to use the entire seed bank, it was like a game to him.He resurrected entire species of plants that had died out, and then surpassed his own achievements with some genes from local species, thus creating Ngaw.At least Anderson thinks the fruit is native.But who knows?Perhaps it was a new creation, something that popped out of Gibson's mind, like Eve from a rib of Adam.

Anderson fingered the books and notes in front of him thoughtfully with his thumb.There is no mention, not a single word, of Ngaw in these materials.All he knows about the fruit is its Thai name and odd appearance.He didn't even know if "Ngaw" was an old name or a new one.He had hoped that Raleigh would remember something, but Raleigh was old and opium-if he had known what the fruit was called in Thai, he had long since forgotten it.No matter how you look at it, there seems to be no way to translate the word.It will take at least a month to send samples to Des Moines for inspection, and it is impossible to determine whether the fruit is already on the classification list.If its genome has changed significantly, it may not be possible to find a corresponding sample in the DNA bank.

Only one thing is certain: Ngaw is something new.The last ecosystem survey was just over a year ago, and none of the natural resource agents had reported the fruit.Between a year ago and the upcoming next investigation, Ngaw came up.It sounds as if the land of Thailand suddenly decided to revive this extinct fruit and promote it to the market in Bangkok. Anderson flicked through another book, trying to find something.Since coming here, he has been collecting written materials, so as to peep into the history of this city of angels.His collected books were published before the calorie wars, the plague and the age of shrinkage.He'd scoured the rubble of Expansion-era buildings, he'd scoured antique stores, and he'd racked his brains over every book.Most of the books from those times have been burned or rotted in the humid climate.Still, he found quite a few, suggesting that many families valued books more than quick fire materials.The materials he found now fill the four walls, and rolls of books with moldy edges line the shelves.It oppressed him.He thought of Yates, the man eager to unearth extinct genes and repurpose them.

"Think about it!" Yates once snorted loudly, "A new era of expansion! Busy airships, a new generation of twist springs, the ethos of fair trade..." Yates also has his own collection of books.From libraries and trade schools all over North America he stole books, dusty tomes of past knowledge that had long been neglected—he took the Library of Alexandria Carefully rummaged through it without anyone noticing because everyone knew global trade was dead. When Anderson took over, Yates's desk was surrounded by mountains of such books: The Practice of Global Management, The Cross-Cultural Corporation, Asian Thinking, Asian Tigers, Supply Chain and Logistics, Modern Thailand", "New Global Economics", "Exchange Rate Issues from a Supply Chain Perspective", "Thais Are Serious", "International Competition and Management".All content is related to the history of the old expansion era.

In his last moment of despair, Yates pointed to the books and exclaimed, "We could have had these again! All of this!" Then he began to cry, and Anderson finally felt a tinge of sympathy for the man.Yates devoted his life to the impossible. Anderson opened another book and looked carefully at the old photos in it.Red peppers, piles of red peppers are placed in front of the photographer who has been dead for many years.Red peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, it's these lovely nightshade plants again.If it weren't for them, Anderson wouldn't need to travel from headquarters to Thailand, and Yates might have a chance to make his dream come true.

Anderson took out Lion brand handmade cigarettes, lit one, stretched his limbs and lay on his back, looking at the smoke of this ancient plant, lost in thought.It amuses him that even in the face of famine, Thais still put in the time and effort to pick up the old habit of nicotine addiction again.I'm afraid human nature will never change. The blazing rays of the sun shone in, and his whole body was bathed in the sun.The humid air was filled with the mist of burning dung, but despite this, he could still see the industrial area in the distance. The well-organized spatial pattern was incompatible with the messy brick houses and rust-red canals of the ancient city.On the other side of those factories lay the shadow of the sea levees, a vast system of locks that let ships laden with goods into the sea.Change is happening.Really global trade, global supply chains, those things are coming back, albeit slowly and arduously.Yates loves the new twist spring he developed, but he loves the idea of ​​reviving history even more. "You know, you're not from the Agro-based company here. You're just another dirty French entrepreneur trying to get a piece of the jade prospectors and clipper sailors. This isn't India, where you can head Shiny Crown of Dai Nong Kee Wheat, requisition everything you need. Thais are not so easy to give in. If they find out who you really are, they will cut you into pieces and send back your minced meat. " "You will leave on the next airship," Anderson said. "The headquarters has also approved it. You should be happy." At that moment, Yates drew his wind-up pistol. Anderson took another drag on his cigarette, feeling very bored.He could feel the room getting very hot.The ceiling fan had stopped at some point.The guy in charge of twisting the clockwork comes every afternoon at four o'clock, obviously this time he didn't put in enough energy.Anderson frowned, stood up and drew the curtains to block out the hot sun.The building is new, thermally, allowing cooler air from the ground to circulate throughout the building.But even so, the unobstructed tropical sun is not something to bear lightly. In the dark room, Anderson continued to flip through books.Yellowed pages, damaged spines, and pieces of paper that have fallen off from improper storage and age in humid climates.He opened another book, bit the cigarette in his mouth, and looked at this book through the faint smoke.The movement of his hands stopped. Ngaw. Pile up.In this photo, a farang is haggling with a Thai farmer over the price of food, and the tiny red fruit, with its odd green hairs, appears to taunt him.The two are surrounded by bright colors, the gas-burning taxi blurred by speeding past; but right next to them, piles of Ngaw humiliate him mercilessly. Anderson spends a lot of time poring over old photos from the past, but they rarely affect his mood.He would normally ignore the blind self-confidence of a bygone era—the waste, the arrogance, and the absurd wealth—but this picture infuriated him: the sagging fat of this François, a testament to the extreme calorie abundance; This astonishing phenomenon is nothing compared to the more than thirty kinds of brightly colored and eye-catching fruits in the market.There are mangoes, pineapples, coconuts... and now, there are no more citrus in the world.And none of these... these... pitayas, no pomelo, no these yellow... lemons.All this is gone.So many kinds of fruit just disappeared. The people in the photo don't know anything about it.These long-dead people will not understand that they are standing before a treasure house accumulated over countless years. They do not know that they live in the Garden of Eden described in the Grahamist Bible, where God protects and only the purest soul can enter.There, all the delicious food in the world thrived under the careful care of Noah and St. Francis.Of course, no one would starve to death there. Anderson glanced at the caption of the picture.These complacent fat people have no idea that the fruit around them is a genetic gold mine.There is no introduction to Ngaw in the book.This fruit is just another sample of what the bountiful nature has to offer and they eat it and take it for granted because they already have so much from it. Anderson wanted to yank this fat Farang and this old-time Thai farmer out of the picture, vent his anger on them, and throw them off the balcony as mercilessly as they would have thrown those immaculate, Like fruit without even a bruise. He rummaged through the book, but found no other relevant pictures, nor any text about this type of fruit.He stood up anxiously, walked to the balcony again, came under the blazing brilliance of the sun, and looked out at the huge city.From the street below, the cries of water sellers and the roar of giant elephants came from afar.Bicycle bells rang all over the city.At noon, the city is calmer, waiting for the sun high in the sky to set. Somewhere in the city, a genetic disassembler is busily building the bricks of life, reprogramming long-lost DNA to adapt it to post-shrinkage conditions, and reviving rust, genetically modified Japanese weevils, and hypertrophic Under the attack of the lung cancer virus, it can also survive. Gi Bu Sen.The clockwork girl was pretty sure that was the name.So, it must be Gibson. Anderson leaned on the balcony railing, squinting in the hot sun, observing the huge and complex city.Gibson is hiding somewhere here, building the next piece.No matter where he is, as long as he is found, a huge seed bank will not be far away.