Stranger at the Wedding

Chapter 7 The Other Side of the Sea

The cliff coastline of Cornwall is at the westernmost tip of the United Kingdom's map, resembling an outstretched arm trying to grasp the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

When Ai Mili parked the car in the parking lot on the cliff edge, it was already nine o'clock in the morning. The sun had fully risen, spreading a layer of broken silver on the sea. Seagulls circled in the sky, emitting cries like those of infants. The air carried all the scents typical of a seaside - salt, seaweed, and a certain indescribable, free scent.

Anna stood on the edge of the cliff, with the wind blowing her long black hair like a flag.

She spread her arms, closed her eyes, and faced the sun with her face.

"I've lived for twenty-six years," she said, "and I've never felt the wind so strong."

"That's because you've been in the basement all this time." James walked up to her, took off his own coat, and draped it over her shoulders. "The wind is strong by the sea. Don't catch a cold."

Anna didn't refuse, but she didn't say thank you either. She pulled her coat closer and then started walking down - there was a winding stone staircase leading to the beach below, reinforced with planks and ropes, snaking down a steep slope.

"Slow down." Ai Mili followed behind her, "The stone steps are slippery."

Anna is not slow.

She walked in a hurry, even staggering a bit, like someone afraid of missing something. She wanted to reach the place she had never been to before—the sea—in the shortest possible time.

The sound of the waves is getting closer.

Anna's footsteps quickened.

On the last few steps, she almost ran down.

The moment she stepped barefoot onto the beach, she stopped.

The sand was golden, very fine, and overflowed from between her toes. The cold seawater rushed up, covering her ankles, then receded, leaving behind a trail of tiny bubbles.

Anna lowered her head and looked at her feet.

Her feet were very white, as white as marble, as white as if they had never seen sunlight. Against the backdrop of the sea and sand, that whiteness was especially glaring—it was a color that did not belong outdoors, a color that only belonged in basements.

"My feet are blue." Anna said.

Ai Mili walked up to her and looked down. It wasn't blue, but a bluish-white color. The blood vessels showed through the thin skin, presenting an unhealthy bluish tint. But in the sunlight and in the sea water, that bluish-white seemed to be gradually changing.

"That's because it's your first time stepping on sand barefoot," Ai Mili said. "After walking more in the future, it will turn back to its normal color."

Anna looked up at her.

"In the future?"

"Yes. Later."

Anna didn't refute.

She didn't say the words that both of them knew well—"I have no future."

She just smiled and then walked towards the sea.

The water rose above her knees, above her waist, and above her chest. Her white nightgown was soaked through and to her body like a second skin. She turned around and looked at Ai Mili and James on the beach.

"Aren't you coming?"

Ai Mili and James exchanged a glance.

Then they ran into the sea simultaneously.

Three people stood in the shallow sea, with the water up to their chests, the sun shining on their shoulders, and seagulls crying in the sky. At that moment, Anna felt like a person—not an experiment, not a donor, not a spare part, not a d**g. Just a person.

She burst out laughing.

It was a kind of laughter that no one could hold back - the kind that bursts out from the chest, carrying the saltiness of the sea, and is like a child's laughter on seeing snow for the first time.

She turned her face and looked at Ai Mili.

"Sister, do you know what the most regrettable thing in my life is?"

"What?"

"It's not that you stole my life. It's not that they didn't let me see the sun. It's not my illness." She paused, her laughter stopped, and the light in her eyes dimmed a bit. "It's that I didn't meet you earlier. For these twenty-six years, I was alone in the basement, thinking I was the only one. You didn't know I existed, and I didn't know you existed either. We both thought we were alone."

"I'm not lonely anymore."

"I'm not lonely anymore." Anna repeated, smiling again, this time with a bit more relief in her smile. "So I don't think my life has been a waste. At least in the end, I learned the truth. At least in the end, I saw the sea. At least in the end, I met you."

They hugged in the sea water.

James stood a few steps away, watching them without disturbing.

His phone rang.

He glanced at the caller ID, and his face changed slightly.

"What's wrong?" Ai Mili let go of Anna and saw his expression.

"Samantha," he said. "She got out."

"What?"

"Someone helped her. Not our people, nor Mora's. It's a third party."

"William's people?"

"I don't know. She only sent a message: 'They're waiting for you in Geneva. Don't drive, don't take the train, don't fly. Go by sea.'"

Ai Mili looked at the sea in front of her.

Beyond the sea lies France. Beyond France lies Switzerland.

"By sea," she said. "She told us to go by sea."

"Are you going?" James asked.

"Don't seek revenge," Ai Mili said. "Go negotiate. Give William whatever he wants. As long as he spares Samantha and Veronica, and as long as he promises to stop tracking Anna."

"He won't agree."

"Then let him name his price."

Anna walked out of the sea, her nightgown soaked and clinging to her body, shivering with cold. But instead of putting on clothes, she stood there, barefoot, facing the sun, looking in the direction of the sea.

"I don't want him to spare me," Anna said. "I want him to watch me die."

Ai Mili was stunned.

"If he knew you were dying --"

"He will want my organs," Anna said calmly. "The organs of M-17-2 are his most precious collection. My heart, my liver, my kidneys, each one has experimental value. He won't let me die until he has taken everything he can."

"So you --"

"So I won't let him take it," Anna said. "I'll end it myself in a place he can't find. Then his experimental data will always be missing a page. He'll never know what the organ failure process of M-17-2 is like. He'll never know how long his 'backup body' can actually survive. That's the greatest punishment he can receive - incompleteness."

The sea breeze was so strong that it made Anna's nightgown flutter noisily.

Her body is thin and small, but when she said these words, she was like a mountain.

Ai Mili looked at her and suddenly realized one thing - her younger sister, this woman who had been imprisoned for twenty-six years, never attended school for a single day, and never seen the sun for a single day, was stronger than all of them.

Because she has nothing left to lose.

When a person has nothing left to lose, no one can hurt her.

"Okay," Ai Mili said. "We're not running away. We're going to find him. But not to negotiate, not to surrender, not to throw our lives away." She took Anna's hand. "We're going to tell him he lost. He created fifty-six children, trying to create a perfect new human. But the most perfect person he created wasn't the healthiest one, wasn't the smartest one, but the bravest one."

She looked at Anna.

"It's you."

Anna didn't cry.

She just hugged Ai Mili tightly.

Seagulls are calling in the sky.

Waves surge beneath one's feet.

The sun shines overhead.

They stand at the end of the world, ready to return and face those who created them.

The creator believes himself to be God.

But he didn't know that what God fears most is not the rebel.

What God fears most are those who no longer fear.