Into His Heart

Interstellar society had an enormous variety of drinks. But because living bodies had been so heavily modified, ordinary flavors no longer registered. Many foods and drinks therefore had to be made of at least nano material.

Golden Silk Brew was a common drink, named for the thousand golden threads of matter that swam through it.

It had little nutritional value, but it released Neutron Pulses that stimulated carbon-based lifeforms, giving them an intense jolt and a dizzy spell.

The dizziness was nothing like drunkenness. It was more like taking a stun grenade to the head... as if someone had slammed a hammer into your brain. It packed a punch.

The feeling came and went quickly, though. In practice, the drink occupied much the same place as soda did on Earth.

Huang Ji and Kaleidoscope sat across from each other in a room. Each had a thick tube running from a ten-meter-tall pressurized tank to his mouth and was gulping down the drink.

To savor it properly, Kaleidoscope had even changed into a Golden Crow Clan body.

The scene looked just like their first meeting.

"Old Six, how long has it been since you last drank this?" Huang Ji asked, reclining at a comfortable angle.

Kaleidoscope lay flat on the floor and laughed. "Almost two thousand years."

Huang Ji shook his head. "Exactly. The you of today isn't the Old Six from two thousand years ago."

"No," Kaleidoscope said calmly. "They're both me."

Huang Ji scoffed. "Didn't you say it could help you quit that stuff? Didn't you say it was your favorite drink in the world?"

"I was fooling myself." Kaleidoscope stared blankly ahead.

Huang Ji closed his eyes. "That's just it... You're always like this. In your eyes, there's nothing you can't give up."

"You call something your favorite,