A Place for a Toad

Toad Mortimer stayed in Tiankeng Village for three days, and Sing Sing stayed with him for all three.

The first two days were mostly spent resolving the canteen's survival crisis.

At noon that day.

In the open courtyard of the construction site's canteen, the aroma of potatoes stewed with meat rose from a bubbling iron cauldron.

At his very first meal, Mortimer held an iron bowl and wolfed down eight huge bowls of white rice in one sitting, even licking the broth from the bottom of the pot.

His appetite left Lao Wang, the canteen cook working the wok, speechless.

Carrying a large ladle, Lao Wang walked over to Sing Sing, who was picking his teeth with a toothpick:

"Comrade Zhou, this brother of yours from the northwest... doesn't he have a bit too much of an appetite?"

"I steamed enough rice in that pot for sixty grown men, and he polished off eight men's portions all by himself!"

"The other workers are still hungry, waiting for the second pot!"

Sing Sing paused in the middle of picking his teeth and waved a hand grandly:

"I'll apply for funding later!"

Lao Wang pointed at the dirt road winding up the mountain:

"It's not about the money. Hauling grain here is a real hassle. If rain causes a landslide, we could go ten days or half a month without a rice delivery. If he keeps eating like that, the site's grain stores won't hold out."

Sing Sing rubbed the stubble on his chin, and an idea struck him:

"Lao Wang, that's easy. He eats bugs."

"He eats what?"

Lao Wang wondered if he'd misheard.

"Lao Mo has that skin condition, right? The doctor specifically said he needs plenty of protein, and his food can't be too refined."

"Grasshoppers, crickets, big black spiders—locusts are best!"

"Other things might be scarce in these Yunnan-Guizhou mountains, but there are enough of those things to fill a stir-fry."

"Have him catch them in the grass after work. He can treat them as dessert, and it'll save you some grain!"

Skeptical, Lao Wang turned and looked into the distance.

Mortimer was squatting in the sun, his legs folded up against his chest and his hands hanging to the ground.

Even more outrageous, a fly had just passed in front of him when a flash of red streaked through the air. With a smack, the fly was gone, and Mortimer smacked his lips in satisfaction.

"...Fine. If you say it's a skin condition, it's a skin condition."

Lao Wang swallowed and slipped away with his ladle.

On the third day, having learned what he needed, Mortimer officially started work.

Sing Sing watched him all day, holding a notebook to record the test results.

At six in the morning, before the mist had lifted, Mortimer set off to work with the other laborers.

The cliff-face section was extremely difficult to build, requiring row upon row of holes for anchor bolts to secure the rebar in the vertical rock face.

Normally, an ordinary worker had to strap on a safety rope and hang in midair. Once the pneumatic drill started vibrating, the worker would sway wildly in the air. After a full day, he'd be lucky to drill twelve holes, and his lumbar disc would be sticking out another two inches.

Mortimer didn't need a rope at all.

He sprang onto the cliff face, and the powerful mucus secreted by his limbs held him firmly against the vertical rock.

His lower body wedged tightly into a crevice, while his tongue darted nimbly through the air.

He curled it around a pneumatic pick weighing dozens of jin and drilled a hole on the left—rat-tat-tat. Without even bending over, he flicked his tongue and drilled another on the right.

While stopping to catch his breath, he could even use his tongue to pick up a wrench and pass it to a coworker.

By evening.

Sing Sing went over to look and found thirty-seven holes drilled densely across the cliff face.

Lao Liu, the project manager, stood below, beside himself with excitement.

"Comrade Zhou..."

Lao Liu grabbed Sing Sing's sleeve:

"Your unit can loan him to us or assign him here long-term, and I'd even pay to buy out his contract!"

"Whatever it takes, you have to let me keep him here!"

"Don't worry, he's not going anywhere."

"He's signed a three-year employment contract. It's there in black and white with the official seal. He can't run off."

"What about you?"

"I'm leaving first thing tomorrow morning."

With that, Sing Sing pulled a sheet of paper from his trouser pocket, a full page of writing on it.

"These are Lao Mo's special instructions. I stayed up writing them by hand last night. You must keep them to yourself."

Lao Liu carefully took the paper and held it up to the light of the setting sun:

First: Make sure he gets six thousand calories a day. You can also give him half a day off to catch bugs for an extra meal.

Second: Rinse his whole body with clean water twice a week. His skin condition is unusual and causes him to secrete mucus. If he doesn't wash, his blanket will stick to him and won't come off.

Third: He's very sensitive to dryness. Buy a large plastic tub for the work shed and fill it with water so he can sleep with his feet soaking in it at night. Don't skimp on the water bill.

Fourth: If any problem comes up that you can't solve, or if he's treated unfairly, call this number at any hour.

Below the phone number were three large Chinese characters: Sing Sing.

Lao Liu read it through carefully, folded the paper into a small square, tucked it into his pocket, and patted his chest:

"You can rest completely easy. On my construction site, as long as a brother is willing to put in the work, I'll treat him like my own flesh and blood!"

"If anyone dares curse him, I'll smash their front teeth with a pneumatic pick!"

Lao Mo's manual

Late that night, the mountain wind howled.

Sing Sing gave Mortimer his final instructions before leaving.

"I'm leaving first thing tomorrow morning. From now on, you'll work under Manager Liu."

"I don't need to teach you the work. You're better at building infrastructure than anyone else in the world."

"But there are a few hard rules you need to carve into your brain."

Mortimer pricked up his ears.

"First, study Chinese. You have to memorize twenty new words every day."

"I installed an app on your phone. Follow that green bird!"

"Next time I come, I'll test you. If you fail pinyin, I'll dock your performance bonus for the month. Got it?"

"Second, no fighting."

Sing Sing stared at him:

"You're not a wanted man in the United States anymore. You have legal status now. If you get into a fight, you'll be taken to the police station, and if it's serious, you'll go to jail!"

Mortimer committed each rule to memory, Sing Sing's reflection in his yellow eyes.

His lips moved, and he struggled to arrange the unfamiliar syllables with his tongue.

"Where you go?"

"To find you some coworkers."

"Co... workers?"

"That's right. There are bridges across rivers and tunnels through mountains to build. Once we're done in Guizhou, there's Yunnan next door and Sichuan up north."

"Our territory is huge. If we rely on you alone, clinging to cliff faces every day, you won't finish the work even if you keep at it until you retire at sixty."

Mortimer asked in a muffled voice:

"Other Mutants?"

"That's right."

"Will... they want to come?"

Mortimer recalled the days he'd spent hiding in New York's sewers, dodging the special police hunting him.

Sing Sing looked out the window at the night:

"Let me ask you: do you want to sleep under bridges every day and be chased down and beaten by the special police?"

Mortimer shook his head.

"There you go. As long as they haven't got water in their brains, who wouldn't want to come?"

"All right, work hard and earn yourself a city-level model worker award."

"At the end of the year, I'll file a report to get you double pay, and I'll buy you two jin of top-quality imported locusts for snacks."

He turned and strode to the door.

"Ah Qi!"

Mortimer suddenly called out behind him.

Sing Sing stopped and turned around.

Mortimer's throat gurgled for a long time before he finally forced out three awkwardly pronounced Chinese syllables:

"Th-thank you."

Sing Sing froze for a second.

Looking at this toad the whole world had abandoned, he felt something stir in his throat.

But he had never been comfortable with such sentimental scenes. He waved a hand and walked into the night without looking back.