死亡

under construction

zapping until Siwang is an Experiment #2579!

It's an unlucky name, Siwang. Death. He has a better name, a good birth name that the old Chinese ladies on the street aren't reluctant to say, but Grandma renamed him - out of grief and fear, of course, but he keeps it out of respect. And it was appropriate: there he was, six years old and crying, surrounded by shriveled potted plants and Grandma's grumpy Persian cat dead on the ground in front of him, all because he touched them. Grandma screamed at him that godsforsaken name and rushed out to the local Buddhist center for cleansing.

He'd already learned how not to kill things with a touch long before university - otherwise, taking the subway to campus would be a true daily adventure. Grandma still isn't sure if he is a bodhisattva or a demon that needs to be sent back to the hell realm, and is nearly a Buddho-Daoist scholar by now in her attempts to understand Siwang's nature. Then came the morning, the most fateful since he killed MiaoMiao as a child:

"Nainai. You killed the 盆景 tree." He squinted at the tiny tree from over his coffee. Grandma bustled over, gasping when she saw the plant's withered leaves.

"Did you touch it, Siwang?" She grabbed at the leaves and they cascaded down into the porcelain pot. Not waiting for an answer, she turned away. "I trimmed the roots too short. Go dump it outside."

A nagging sadness took hold in Siwang's chest - this 盆景 tree had sat quietly in their living room since he was a child; they had decorated it for holidays and even brought it to the Buddhist center for blessings. "对不起， little guy," he said, and placed a hand on its trunk.

His fingers burned - an energy just like the ache of dragging the life out of a being - and the tree blossomed back to life, tiny white flowers budding on the branches.

Siwang jumped back, clenching his fist. The tree stayed green after he let it go, just as everything living stayed dead after he let it go. Then - "Nainai!"

species change log: swampie, glacier anyu, nuclear mallard, experiment #585, field chai, cream fester, bloodred keeto, bloodred archan, #1102, #6789, #188, #5162, #164, glade pherret, golden warador, dawn warador, spectrum dragarth, sun magnus, #886, nightmare charlie, marsh aenoid, glacier cadogre, lilac celinoth, several unlisted, #188, marsh rreign, #1107, #8001, #104