The restoration zone on the library's top floor was steeped in the embers of twilight. Sunset, cutting through towering arched windows, sliced airborne dust into countless golden motes, like a scattering of crushed stars. Fatcat III lay curled in the shadow of a bookshelf, a mound like forgotten felt tucked into a corner.
Seventy-two hours. Three days since the bone-splintering agony of that failed confession. Yet, the slam of that silent alloy door seemed to echo fresh in his ears with every breath he drew, metallic and grating.
Su Wanqing's silhouette appeared again among the antique document racks. Her deep-blue uniform was sharp, ironed to perfection, not a crease dared to wrinkle. The silver badge on her armband, catching the slanted light, flashed coldly – a precise instrument measuring the towering wall built between them, brick by invisible brick, from the mortar of genetic rank and social standing. Fatcat III dug his claws deep into his own paw pads, a surge of bitter recognition flooding him. That dormant, burned scar on the nape of his neck convulsed then, like dying nerves doing a final death rattle. He watched her pause at the microfilm cabinet labeled Fourth Stellar Ring Economic History, her fingers gliding over the green tag with the cold accuracy of a scalpel finding its incision point.
Now.
A desperate, final surge of recklessness propelled him clumsily from the shadows. His bulky frame slammed into a stack of outdated data tablets. The CRASH-BANG-THUD shattered the dead silence, startling a cleaning drone hidden atop a bookshelf into a frantic, whirring flight. He ignored the clattering film canisters rolling everywhere, frantically stuffing his filthy right paw behind his back – crusted in black machine grease and flaky, dried red blood. Proof of Zhao Ritian's shattered nose bridge, gathered yesterday scavenging in the derelict repair yard. His left paw clenched desperately at the fragment of his family sigil in his pocket, its sharp edges biting into his flesh.
"S-Su… Senior Sister Su!" The words rasped out, hoarse as sandpaper on rusted iron, every syllable cracked and breaking.
Su Wanqing froze mid-turn for half a beat. She stood precisely on the border between light and shadow, not fully facing him, only canting her jaw. A stray gust from the window ruffled several strands of her short hair, brushing against her pale neck. Outlined against the light, she had a golden halo, but the silver badge on her shoulder gleamed like arctic ice, stinging Fatcat's eyes.
"I…" A thousand choked words ground into dust by sheer shame. He wanted to say the restoration zone was the only place she let him breathe, that those equations scratched on scrap paper weren't just crazy ideas, that she was the only glimmer of light he could see from the bottom of his pit. Finally, the molten core of it all – the fierce longing, the cringing humiliation, the wild, last-chance gamble – condensed in the face of ultimate despair into a ragged, full-throttled roar: "Give me another chance!... I will get better! For real! D-… The D- isn't my fault!" The voice contorted towards the end, a tearful, cracking shriek that echoed hollowly in the vast restoration zone.
This time, Su Wanqing completed her turn.
Her gaze landed on him. No disgust, no surprise. Just the detached curiosity one might give a malfunctioning piece of calibrated machinery. Pure, icy distance. Her eyes scanned his hidden, grimy paw, his dust-smudged, heaving orange belly, the near-mad desperation blazing in his eyes. That look was like a sterile-room laser beam, dissecting everything he tried so hard to conceal.
"Fatcat." She spoke, her voice as cool and controlled as reading campus bylaws. "According to Chapter Four, Section Two of the Stellar Sea University Student Mental Health Regulations, instances of emotional cognitive dissonance disorder resulting from genetic optimization disparity are advised to seek consultation at the University Psychological Support Center." She paused, her gaze behind her lenses drilling through his last shreds of resistance. "Your access privileges to the quantum database have already been suspended. Likewise, disproportionate social demands also fall outside the scope of disciplinary committee intervention."
Each word was an ice pick, chiseling apart his barely glued-together dignity. She hadn't even directly rejected the "confession." She'd redefined his vulnerability as a condition to be corrected – "cognitive dissonance." His existence was reduced to a system glitch – a "privilege anomaly." This wasn't rejection; it was an annihilation of his right to be there.
"Focus on your Genetic Optimization Remedial Classes, Fatcat." She concluded, the tone devoid of scorn, just a procedural, frigid "recommendation." The dark blue figure pivoted decisively towards the stairwell entrance. Her steps into the shadows were as steady and measured as clockwork, as if she'd just processed a routine system error. The alloy door snicked shut without a sound, barring the last remnants of light and stealing the very air from his lungs.
The rusted roller door of "Nomad's Haven" warehouse groaned like a dying beast. Fatcat III shouldered it open just enough, squeezing his heavy body through the gap, and crumpled like discarded wet cement onto a leaking air mattress. PLOP. The stench of dust and cheap, sour motor oil assaulted his nostrils. He didn't bother wiping the grease from his claws. He didn't try patching the mattress. He didn't even look up at the ceiling, where the spreading mold patch looked like the grey hem of his father's jacket as he fell.
Time solidified in the foul darkness. He curled up, his enormous frame utterly motionless. Only the fractured ribcage sent jagged shards of pain with each inhale, a grim reminder: still breathing. His mind drifted in a foggy haze pierced by the sharp agony. Su Wanqing's final verdict looped endlessly: "Cognitive dissonance… Privilege anomaly…" Each phrase ground down his frayed nerves like alloy gears.
[Bzzt... Emotional core module... permanent failure...]
The electronic voice in his skull cut off completely. Like a terminal unplugged.
Light? He'd actually dared to grasp for light? A system-designated "anomaly," a genetic optimization reject sentenced to life imprisonment, only belonged here, rotting gradually in the dump. The warehouse became a vast digestive tract, slowly consuming him. He ignored all sound – ragpickers hawking junk outside, the distant rumble of maglev tracks, even his own stomach's desperate, gurgling pleas. Only one sound penetrated this self-made tomb: his mother's furious pounding and screeching each evening.
"Fatcat! You useless failure! OPEN UP!" The shriek, sharp as broken glass, carrying the toxic stench of cheap perfume, slithered through the door cracks. "Three days! Skipping class! Starving yourself! You wanna rot in there?! Nine trillion in debt still hanging over us, and you wanna turtle up? Just like that deadbeat father of yours!"
Eyes shut tight, claws digging into the synthetic stuffing leaking from the mattress tear, he buried his face deeper into the sour-smelling vinyl. The sound of his mother's nails scraping the metal door was like sandpaper on exposed nerves. He remembered his father, in that past life, atop Liu Corp Tower – did he hear similar roars from the debt collectors below?
"Worthless leech! Trash! D- grade garbage!" His mother's tirade hitched with sobs, yet dripped poison. "I scrub dishes till my hands bleed, not so you can fester in filth! Open this door now, or I swear I'll call the reclaim team to melt that fat ass of yours for biofuel!"
The pounding escalated into kicks. The rusted hinges screamed under the onslaught. Fatcat III clamped his paws over his ears, curling tighter with fear and revulsion. Hunger was a dull memory buried under overwhelming numbness. But each jarring kick vibrated through his broken ribs, sending fresh lightning bolts of pain that blackened his vision. His mother's hysterical venom and Su Wanqing's icy "recommendation" twisted together into a suffocating net, binding him irredeemably to this putrid darkness. Living felt like a punishment heavier than death.
Until the fourth morning dawned. With a resounding, metallic SHUDDER, the roller door was kicked inward with brutal force! A blade of blinding morning light stabbed into the gloom, making Fatcat III flinch and curl tighter still.
His mother stood silhouetted. Her thinning fur was ragged like dried weeds, dark bags hung heavy under swollen eyes. Her worn server's uniform, bleached thin and stained with last night's grease, hung loosely on her frame. She looked like a cornered animal, radiating raw hatred and a reckless, feral desperation. The nauseating cocktail of synthetic jasmine perfume and industrial-strength cleanser hanging around her instantly overwhelmed the warehouse rot.
"Playing dead?!" she shrieked, lunging at the mattress. Her thin, claw-like hands clamped onto Fatcat III's uninjured left arm with iron force, nails digging in! The acrid smell of sweat and cheap makeup assaulted his senses. "GET UP! You pile of sludge! Today, even if I have to drag you, I'm taking you to that school! Let the whole place see what a wreck you are!"
Fatcat III was hauled bodily from his stinking nest. The broken bones in his ribcage grated together with a sickening scrape under the brutal handling. Agony ripped through him, forcing out a guttural, inhuman howl. "AAARRRGH—!"
"Shut that noise!" His mother snarled, utterly indifferent. Her other hand seized the scruff of his neck, wrenching and heaving as she hauled him towards the gaping door. His immense bulk scraped along the greasy concrete floor, leaving long, dirty smears. The base of his tail hit a sharp, protruding metal fitting on the floor—searing, neural shockwave pain shot straight to his skull. Tears flooded his vision instantly.
"Look! Just look at you!" His mother's spit flecked his face, her voice distorted beyond recognition by rage. "Filthy! Reeking! Fattened like a pig for slaughter! Gen-optim D-! Born useless! The school called! Miss another day and you're out! You wanna drown us both in shame?! HUH?!"
Turbid dawn light flooded in from outside the warehouse. Fatcat III was hauled, scraped, and dragged from his decaying den by his mother. The sharp chill of the morning air felt like sandpaper grating over exposed skin and wounds. He stumbled, a ragdoll violently pulled beyond its limits, his massive frame collapsing against his mother's slight shoulder – or rather, driven solely by the blazing strength of her all-consuming, venomous desperation.
Passing ragpickers and early hawkers shot him looks – curious, indifferent, or dripping with naked contempt – their eyes pricking at his exposed wounds and grime-coated fur. His mother, dragging him while wheezing for breath, spat a constant stream of bile into the cold air: "...should've tossed you down the medical waste chute when I had the chance... saved this lifetime of humiliation... nine trillion credits... that fucking pit I'll never climb out of..."
Fatcat III hung his head. His amber eyes stared blankly, unfocused. The pain converged into a singular, dull roar: the brutal, grinding wrongness of his ribs, the electric shock spasms at his tail base, the raw sting of abraded paw pads, and the mangled pulp of something once called "dignity." His mother's toxic screech intertwined with Su Wanqing's glacial pronouncement into a mad, looping soundtrack in his skull. An emptied-out husk, he surrendered to being dragged towards the place called "school" – a new execution ground. With every painful step, he drew closer to the rooftop adorned with seventeen taut black cables.
One, two, three... He counted the thick, black cables hanging taut over the ledge outside the railing. Seventeen. They swayed slightly in the wind, like lengths of rope waiting to bind... well, bind this. This walking carcass... despised by everyone. The grotesque thought flashed through his mind. He saw his father's grey jacket flapping like a snapped wing as he fell. He heard the frigid legal detachment in Gu Yan's "Procedures consider only records" in that hearing room – a judge passing final sentence. He felt again the burn of Lin Wanwan's skirt brushing his paw, "So filthy," like having disinfectant poured on him. The thick, wet CRUNCH of Zhao Ritian's alloy knuckle dusters pulverizing bone. His mother's voice twisting "Useless leech!" with deep, corrosive resentment, like carving his heart open. And finally... the image froze: Su Wanqing turning the corner on the stairs, that deep blue vanishing, the sleeve badge's cold silver glint burning his retinas.
The light was gone.
Living... took courage.
He had none.
Fatcat III closed his eyes. The pressure cooker of it all – the crushing exhaustion, the abyss of despair, the soul-scraping humiliation, and those pathetic little crumbs of shattered hope – ruptured violently. The scar at the base of his skull lay dormant, dead. No cold electronic hum. The wind roared louder, a furious torrent filling his large ears like a thousand screaming voices – mocking, jeering, pushing. He leaned forward, infinitesimally at first. His center of gravity teetered, held... then began its slow, inevitable surrender. His orange fur, matted with filth, hung suspended for a breathless moment in the harsh glare of the morning sun – caught in the howling wind at the roof's edge. It was the stasis before the fall. Like a withered autumn leaf, scarred by insects, about to be torn free.