Smile Under the Scorching Sun

Ding—

As the shop door swung open, a soft female voice rang out.

"Welcome."

At the same time, a beautiful face appeared on both sides of the door: long, wavy blond hair, vivid red lips, and a bright, flashy smile.

But the person who entered barely glanced at the lovely face. Instead, he frowned and shouted toward the counter, "Xilin, tell Old Daiwen to change that face already. How many years has it been?"

The boy behind the counter, busy handling a bottle, shrugged. "Can't help it. The boss likes it."

"Forget it. Getting Old Daiwen to change the welcome image is harder than getting him to quit gambling." Some people in the bar chimed in, laughing and shouting.

Thirty years ago, that face had belonged to the dream girl of men across the planet. It had captivated many. Time was the cruelest killer, and beauty faded with age. But before that killer could do its work, the beautiful singer and screen sweetheart had met her end after a failed gene transformation. For the first ten years afterward, many people had kept holograms and electronic posters of the singer in their rooms. But thirty years had passed. Tides rose and fell, and all things faded like clouds before the wind. New beauties had buried the loveliness of the past, and few people still cared to revisit fantasies that no longer existed.

Of course, the bar's owner, Old Daiwen, was a sentimental man. Even though thirty years had passed, he still used the beautiful singer's image in the bar's welcome display. For more than thirty years, it had remained unchanged. It was one of the topics that customers who came here liked to talk about.

The newcomer pursed his lips, clearly unimpressed by the owner's habit. He couldn't be bothered to say more, so he walked over and took an empty seat at a table. The people around him were all familiar faces, and soon they were chatting. He didn't place an order.

Xilin—the boy standing behind the counter—took a bottle of liquor called "Smile Under the Scorching Sun" from the bar shelf and set it on the newcomer's table. He opened it, then left to fetch drinks for the other customers.

Without another word, the newcomer kept chatting with the others. He picked up the uncorked bottle and took a swig.

"Ah, that's the stuff. Nice and strong!"

Xilin smiled, returned to the counter, and entered the tab in his Electronic Notebook.

The bar was ordinary, and so was the town where it stood. Nearly everyone here belonged to the lower classes. In the words of people from the central districts, they were "lower-class people"—or, to put it more harshly, "scum."

The lower classes had their own joys. They liked sitting in bars without high-end robots, where the service was all provided by people. They drank cheap but potent liquor and talked with familiar drinking buddies about what had happened during the day. They complained about the bosses who exploited them and traded rumors about this person or that. Their lives were simple and good.

The "upper-class people" in the prosperous districts couldn't understand the joys of the poor. It was like successful people in fine clothes rushing along the road to money and power. If they happened to pass some ruins and saw a stray cat excitedly batting at flies, they would think, How bored must you have to be to do something like that? No wonder you're such a lowly creature.

What was lowly? What was noble?

The Seven Yuan Gene Level drew the line between them. Inferior genes made inferior people; superior genes made noble people. That was all.

Everyone in the bar, Xilin included, had an F-class Gene Type. On this planet, that put them among the lowly poor. Those with an E-class Gene Type were granted the chance to work in the prosperous districts, while only people with a D-class Gene Type or higher could truly establish themselves there.

As for people with a G-class Gene Type, they were the most tragic of all. The poor quality and defects of their inborn genes caused illnesses that couldn't be cured with simple treatment: severe deformities, premature aging, and other congenital conditions. Hena, Xilin's former girlfriend, had had a G-class Gene Type. Premature aging, congenital diseases, and poverty had kept the lovely girl from living out the best years of her youth.

The children of people with superior genes and superior Gene Types would be no worse; in fact, they might be even better. The children of people with inferior genes and inferior Gene Types were the opposite. The divide between the two extremes grew ever wider, so more people with low Gene Types tried gene transformation. But very few succeeded. Aside from the enormous cost, gene transformation had always had an extremely low success rate. The higher one aimed, the harder it became. That was why those with high Gene Types were so proud of themselves. Thirty years ago, that screen idol had become a thing of the past after a failed gene transformation...

People were born unequal. They simply grew numb to it.

"Hey, Xilin, Old Daiwen hasn't shown up for days. Still not back from his blind date?" someone called out.

"Yeah, his chances of success should be pretty good this time," Xilin replied with a smile.

"Yeah, right." The others scoffed and started recounting Old Daiwen's history of failed dates.

Xilin just smiled and listened, without commenting. He didn't tell them that Old Daiwen had actually hit the jackpot, gotten rich overnight, and gone off to fulfill his dream.

Old Daiwen's dream was to find a woman with an E-class Gene Type who wasn't too young or too old, retrieve the sperm he'd stored in a sperm bank years ago, and hopefully have a child with an E-class Gene Type. Then he wanted to open a little shop in the city and live a peaceful life. As long as he had money, he wouldn't have trouble finding a woman with an E-class Gene Type, even though he himself had the lower F-class Gene Type.

The annual land, sea, and air competition was a major event that people across the planet followed closely. It was also the event gamblers looked forward to most because the prizes were huge. Even if they didn't get every bet right, hitting a certain mark could still make a poor person rich overnight. Old Daiwen had escaped poverty thanks to winning the competition's grand prize.

Of course, he'd probably won because of Xilin. Every time Old Daiwen placed a bet, he asked Xilin for advice before daring to put any money down.

Old Daiwen was greedy for money, but he treated Xilin well. Otherwise, Xilin wouldn't have helped him. And Old Daiwen had transferred Xilin his share of the winnings that very day.

As night deepened, the customers gradually left.

Xilin took a shower, changed clothes, and sprayed himself with a special solution to remove other scents. Then he locked the shop door. He looked up at the black sky, where tiny points of light flickered like stars.

The weather forecast said there would be steady moderate rain for an hour starting at midnight. It was now forty minutes before midnight.

Forty minutes... That was enough.

Thirty minutes later, Xilin made his way to an industrial zone, sheltered by protruding eaves and awnings. He nimbly and expertly avoided the outer scanners, took out a magnetic card he'd prepared earlier to open the main gate, and slipped silently into a staff dormitory beside a warehouse. After all, this wasn't the central district, and the Defense System in a small place like this was neither sophisticated nor complicated.

The person lying on the bed seemed to sense something. But before he could react, he lost consciousness, as though he'd fallen asleep again. Three black, slender needles had soundlessly embedded themselves in spots behind his ear and on his neck, hidden beneath his hair.

Xilin swept a hand lightly over the spots and retrieved the needles. After making sure he'd left no other traces, he slipped away just as he'd come, sheltered by the eaves and awnings.

There were Sky Eyes in the sky, and thermal weapons could be detected by the local sensor network. If you wanted to resolve things without anyone knowing, quietly and without a sound, you had to use old-fashioned methods. They produced no energy fluctuations.

As a Hunter, Xilin had had a difficult path. Because of his age and Gene Type, he couldn't become a Hunter openly. More accurately, he was a Shadow Hunter. The term referred to people who worked with Hunters but stayed in the shadows, people with sensitive identities who couldn't operate in the open.

Xilin had been a Shadow Hunter for nearly three years, ever since he was fourteen. At first, he'd chosen to become a Hunter because of Hena's illness. After Hena died, he'd kept up the work. He needed a lot of money to leave the planet safely.

Five minutes after Xilin left, another shadow slipped in, took the person Xilin had dealt with away to collect the reward, and then split it.

Over the nearly three years they'd worked together, the Hunter had never learned the identity of his "shadow." Of course, the Hunter didn't care. As long as he could capture his targets and collect the reward, nothing else mattered. Xilin was also confident that the Hunter he'd chosen wouldn't waste much effort investigating the "shadow's" identity. Before choosing a partner, Xilin had already gone to great lengths to analyze all the possibilities from every angle.

For Hunters who weren't particularly capable, they couldn't complete their missions or earn money without a "shadow"—and they might even lose their lives. In a sense, Hunters and shadows were mutually dependent. Top Hunters, on the other hand, had no need for shadows. Hunter groups were an exception, of course. They were a special kind of organization.

The Hunter would never have guessed that the "shadow" working with him, a man with a D-class Gene Type, had an F-class Gene Type. No one would believe it if he told them.

At midnight, a soft patter rose. Xilin sat inside an abandoned building and watched the raindrops grow heavier outside. The rain washed away his lingering scent and the faint traces he'd left behind. That was one reason he'd chosen to act at this time.

Xilin didn't know what natural raindrops looked like. He'd only seen them on television. There was no such thing on this planet. Instead, the weather stations controlled the weather with precision: precise sunlight, simulated wind, rain, and thunder. Everything was man-made.

A gust of wind blew through a crack in the wall. Xilin caught the scent of cement and mine tailings, along with another unexpectedly familiar smell...

Xilin raised an eyebrow and carefully made out the scents on the wind. Once he was sure, his expression turned strange. He hadn't expected anyone to still use that in this day and age...