It is said to be the most exquisite delicacy in the world—why else would the Emperor himself demand it while lying on his deathbed?

As the shuttle whistled and slowed while entering the thick atmosphere of planet Yan, Ding Jie instinctively shrank his neck backward.

If it weren’t for His Majesty’s outsized appetite, nothing would have induced him to leg it to this land of bitter cold. Legend had it that in this place, even voices froze in mid-air, making normal conversation impossible. Ding Jie snorted. A corny joke for a punchline of a place.

But it simply couldn’t be helped. Planet Yan posed the most insurmountable challenge in the entire history of the terraforming industry. No sensible boss of any geological transformation company would take the huge risk to gamble on what was obviously a terrible hand.

And that’s how this remote, desolate and barbaric land became the most notorious place of exile.

Anyone who displeased the Emperor could be stripped of their identification number, sent into exile on the secret “tiger or wolf class outlaw” ships, and be disappeared forever from the civilized world, spending the rest of their life in the eternal tundra of planet Yan.

Ding Jie never thought he would have had anything to do with this place.

As a Stranger, he had always taken extra caution when operating within the Empire’s borders. The Stranger Expulsion Edict passed more than ten years ago had made a searing impression on his young mind, and even the slightest whiff of such a movement against his kind would paralyze him with fear. Every time he thought of planet Yan, a slight chill would creep up his spine.

Now that he had attained the status of Royal Cai Wei Procurement Officer, the chill of fear that ran down his back had, ironically, grown even stronger.

Royal Cai Wei Procurement Officers scoured the universe for the rarest and most exquisite delicacies for the Emperor’s discerning palate, and were jokingly referred to as “worker bees.” Now, one of these little worker bees had been cast out into the frostiest of wastelands.

He arched his back, and his stomach went into waves of convulsions.

The shuttle swayed, signaling that it had accomplished its directive.

The hatch opened and the cold wind blasted his face. Ding Jie arranged his face into as natural a smile as he could manage for the sake of the squadron of soldiers that stood before him, stiff and bright under the pale sunlight as sculptures carved out of ice.

Sadly, he failed.

“Silver Rats, eh? You’d better make sure this was worth it.” He muttered in a small voice as he followed the carrier droid into the snow and ice of planet Yan.

Although the military outpost was heated, the cool tones and harsh geometry of the architecture were oppressive, preventing the place from exuding even the slightest hint of warmth.

The stomp of boots resounded across the metal floor, the airtight door slid open, and blinding light from the corridor outlined the silhouette of a man at the entrance, bringing with him a deep sense of oppression.

Ding Jie had just happened to be sitting facing the door, and he automatically tried to bow his head, but was prevented by the pain in his stomach, which stabbed him afresh.

A hand clapped on his shoulder and squeezed it hard.

“Far too skinny! I’m afraid if I chewed you up, you’d taste as dry as firewood.”

Ding Jie raised his head, a gesture that belied his bewilderment, then his bewilderment melted into surprise. He got up in an attempt to embrace the officer before him.

The officer was much more tan than he remembered, and the expression in his eyes was not as gentle as before. But no matter where or when it was, Chen Guang would always be Ding Jie’s best friend.

In the time of the Stranger Expulsion Edict, the two of them had wrestled each other for space on the crowded cargo ship filled with fleeing refugees, and then turned into brothers in arms. They’d fought back-to-back to fend off hooligans who’d fought to grab their food, and even hugged each other to keep warm in the depths of the cargo container…

They were fellow Strangers within this sprawling and prosperous Empire, and had no choice but to cling to each other for safety.

Chen Guang stepped backward, so that Ding Jie’s arms were left hanging in an attempted hug. For a few seconds, acute embarrassment filled the air.

“Is our young master still so sentimental?” His signature bad boy smile crept onto Chen Guang’s angular face again, and his fist reached out to hit Ding Jie’s chest playfully.

Only then, in that moment, did Ding Jie feel the warmth of welcome in this military outpost. After ten years of separation, a little awkwardness hardly counted for much, especially now that it had dissipated.

“Damn it, son, why didn’t you hit me up before, and give your old man a heads up you were coming, eh?” Ding Jie’s thin shoulders were swept up by Chen Guang, his strong hand forcing him to lower his head in apology.

“You can’t seriously expect that, goddammit...” Ding Jie knew this bit with Old Chen was all but unavoidable.

“Hey, are you pulling rank on me as a Cai Wei Officer, or something?” Chen Guang took his hand off his friend, and regarded his old buddy with a squint.

“It’s a matter concerning the Sacred Body; as a Cai Wei Officer, I must maintain secrecy.”

Chen Guang’s feet snapped together in an automatic motion, like a conditioned response. Ding Jie clearly saw his larynx move a little, betraying the fact that his friend had just swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

“Long live the Emperor!” The Chen Guang he had known, Chen Guang the rebellious, who had once feared neither sky nor earth, was now an obsequious minion.

“Okay, okay. Relax. There are no outsiders here.” Ding Jie sighed a little. What could he say? Had the military changed Chen Guang, or had the Emperor changed Ding Jie?

Chen Guang’s tone grew playful again. “Hurry up and follow your old man! By the looks of this shitty freezer of a place, you’d never guess there was an excellent hot spring hidden just around the corner. Your old man just so happens to have an unopened bottle of imperial wine. We can fall asleep in the hot spring tonight…”

He talked as he walked on, but when he turned around, he found that Ding Jie was not following him.

“Or maybe we’d better…” the Cai Wei Officer said, “Maybe we’d better just see the Silver Rat first. After all, duty calls—business before pleasure, right?”

Chen Guang peered at him like he was some exotic creature for a few seconds, then shrugged and conceded defeat. “Oh, all right, you win. What do I have to do to get you to put aside the Emperor’s business—must I line up a few hot chicks to join us first?”

“Fuck off!” Ding Jie appeared relaxed on the surface, but deep down he knew that it would be hard for him to really let loose before he completed his mission.

Would the tongue of the Silver Rat from planet Yan really make for a fitting tribute?

Finally, in the depths of the dark dungeon, Ding Jie got to see for himself the source of the delicacy that had been praised to the heavens by the crown prince.

It was shaped very much like a rat, but was the size of a Siberian husky. The fur that covered it gave off a silvery glow, reminiscent of the ice and snow that sparkled beneath the winter sun.

It lay motionless on the ground, as though frozen to death.

It was only when Chen Guang gave the manganese alloy cage a vicious kick with his heavy military boot that the huge rat-like thing popped up from the ground.

It blinked its eyes and curled up in a corner of the cage, shivering pitifully.

“The bloody thing is smart enough to play dead, see?”

Ding Jie, however, did not seem to hear his old friend. It was as though his mind and spirit had been hypnotized by the eyes of the Silver Rat. The tiny pupils glowed with the brilliance of finely-cut jewels. It had only been a flash of a split second, but it left an indelible impression on Ding Jie.

With just that single glance, it had impressed on him that creatures such as itself should not be treated like animals. In that look he had glimpsed something of a soul.

When he was knocked back to his senses by Chen Guang, Ding Jie hesitated, before asking, “This strange fellow, has the prince really eaten its tongue before?”

“That was back when Yan had just been slated for development. The only thing here aside from the lumps of ice were these critters, running around everywhere. The mountains were full of them. I don’t know who tasted it first, but it wasn’t long before it became super popular to eat Silver Rat meat on Yan. One Silver Rat can go straight into a big pot, and that pot can feed a whole bunch of rubes who have no time for tickling their palates with fineries. As for the Rat’s tongue, no one really paid it any attention at the time. But then, one cursed, benighted day, somehow Crown Prince Fusu accidentally had a taste of a raw Rat’s tongue. And from then on, the whole planet Yan became obsessed when they realized that this tiny sliver of meat is the most delicious, melt-in-your-mouth little morsel in the world.”

“It’s eaten raw?” Ding Jie’s heart trembled.

“Yup. It’s best if it’s freshly cut and still hot with the breath of the thing…”

Ding Jie stole another look at the beautiful creature trembling in the corner, and it was like looking at himself in the moment he had been arrested in a raid. Back then, the soldiers of the Empire were wielding swords and guns, while he was backed into a corner, too scared to even draw a single breath.

Now, he was the one wielding the weapons.

“You’re not going to do it now, are you?” Ding Jie’s stomach twisted, and acid rushed up to his throat, flooding his mouth with a sour taste.

“No, no, no, young master. That joke is not permitted.” Chen Guang suddenly grew serious, “All the tongues that are still growing on the live Silver Rats are not to be eaten.”

“What?!” Ding Jie nearly yelled with shock. He didn’t know whether to feel relieved for the Silver Rats or worried about his mission.

“The first incident of poisoning happened three months ago, when the news from Prince Fusu’s official field report had already spread through the Royal Palace,” Chen Guang said, as he punched in the code to open the safe. “That particular freshly-harvested Rat’s tongue was tinged slightly black, unlike the pure bright red ones from before. But nobody gave a shit, since the captain of the hunting party is always entitled to take the first bite—this is the rule among the Rat hunters. So here was the captain basking in the sensation of his usual share of melt-in-the-mouth rare Rat’s tongue, his wobbling fat swaying low in his rocking hammock… by the time his team found him, he had long lost consciousness. The autopsy report said that a highly toxic substance was found in his stomach, and naturally, the toxic substance was traced to that Rat’s tongue. The other Rats that had been captured in that same batch then had their tongues plucked out and tested in the laboratory, and all of them had the same slightly blackened appearance and also tested positive for the toxin. Since then, no more jewel-like bright red Rat’s tongues have been found anywhere. Just like this.”

Chen Guang opened the palm of his hand as he said this, revealing a red strip of flesh the width of a finger. The tongue had dried out, so that the surface appeared dense and concentrated, more like a slab of ruby than a piece of flesh.

Ding Jie took a look at the “ruby.” He dared not reach out to take it.

“Don’t worry, this is an item from older stock. It has no poison in it. The taste is naturally not as good as the fresh ones, but after you taste it, you will find that everything you once thought delicious is all fucking shit, compared to this.”

The slender “ruby” landed in Ding Jie’s hand, rolling back and forth between his long fingers. He took one look at the bright red tip, and it was as though he were looking straight into the Silver Rat’s frightened eyes once more.

He opened his mouth and bit into the tip of the tongue.

Suddenly, the whole busy world before his eyes grew dim.

The taste skated across his consciousness and melted a little in his stomach.

He was overwhelmed with the feeling that nothing he could remember that came before this amounted to anything, and his very life appeared barren and meaningless, reduced to something absurd. He thought back to the magnificent fireworks bursting over the roof of the Royal Palace, the most splendid of skies he had ever seen, and they all those memories seemed strangely leached of color. Even the most complex, most spectacular and intricate architecture he had seen in the Afang palace, dating from the Qin dynasty, its exquisite beauty beyond anyone’s imagination, now seemed boring and monotonous in comparison.

Every single taste bud in his mouth exploded simultaneously, like a singularity bursting and expanding into infinity.

This extraordinary taste had flown beyond all description.  Could this thing still be considered food? Or was it rather, a vast epic rushing through the tongue and vaulting past the stomach walls, a mighty poem redolent of ancient song?

Tears welled in his eyes, and Ding Jie felt as though he were a tiny grain of sand buoyed on an ocean of flavor, and that ocean was as vast as the entire universe. Folded into the arms of that universe, he found himself drifting off to sleep.

When he came to his senses again, Ding Jie’s face was stained in tears, and through the blur of his tear-filled eyes, he saw Chen Guang standing in the shadow of a lamp, chugging down mouthful after mouthful of wine.

“And this taste is no more? There’s none left in the whole wide world?” When the words had slipped out of his mouth, Ding Jie realized that their tone was like something said in a daze or dream, that they sounded like the height of foolishness, an idiotic, momentary lapse.

“None. There is no more.” Chen Guang shook his head.

“But why...?” involuntarily, Ding Jie uttered another silly sentence.

“Well, now it’s up to you, isn’t it?” Chen Guang put down his wine glass, folded his arms across his chest, and fixed Ding Jie with a stare. His eyes were already twitching and bloodshot—he was obviously more than a little drunk. His gaze was deliberately meant to provoke Ding Jie, yet it was filled with arrogance and self-regard.

His meaning was obvious enough. After all, a Royal Cai Wei Procurement Officer’s reason for existence was to procure the imperial kitchens’ rarest ingredients for their royal cuisine. Surely the matter of obtaining a little Rat’s tongue was simple enough for such as him. Right, old friend?

The way the Silver Rats galloped across the icy tundra on their skinny little paws was yet another ironclad proof of the theory of evolution—they were so well-adapted to the environment of the frozen planet Yan that they seemed one with Nature here, a natural bounty of the land ripe for the picking.

Through the Silver Rat’s jewel-bright eyes, Ding Jie gradually perceived the dome of an igloo in the distance. The hemispherical ice dwellings emerged one by one, gradually filling the entire field of vision.

In the distance loomed a spire, several times the height of the igloos, far beyond reach beneath the sun, wavering in the air, a mirage etched in light.

In the military outpost dormitory, Ding Jie almost jumped out of his chair with a start. After spending several days experimenting and observing with nothing to show for it, he had finally decided to release the little guy in the cage. But not, of course, before he had implanted a mind reading device in its brain.

Only by gathering first-hand information could they learn the truth about what had really happened to the Silver Rats.

Now, although there was no concrete proof, at the very least here was a clue that confirmed one of his guesses—no, it wasn’t even a guess—one of his hunches, one of his suspicions: that Silver Rats were a sentient, intelligent species.

This should have been a revolutionary discovery. It was a pity that the Empire could barely even accept a Stranger like himself. As for an alien species? It would doubtless be classified as no different from animals. It wouldn’t matter if it were sentient or intelligent, neither would prevent it from being slaughtered.

But still, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of happiness, like a child discovering a new toy. He couldn’t resist sending a message to Chen Guang.

Hey there, big buddy. Guess what I found…

But the words braked abruptly even as he formed them.

…your imperial wine hiding place is not exactly secure.

Of course, this was flagrant nonsense. Ding Jie couldn’t explain it to himself, but he just had a gut feeling that the news needed to be kept secret a little longer.

When he started receiving signals from the Silver Rat again, he was already ensconced in the dreamy world of ice.

From a distance, it appeared as though they were just round igloos, but when seen close up, they were full of significant details. Their surfaces showed a rudimentary, primitive script expressed through ice sculpting, and although these were formed by skinny little paws scrabbling at the ice, the script was composed of lines that showed steely determination and cold, dramatic twists.

Just as Ding Jie’s mind was preoccupied by these strange igloo ice carvings, a second Silver Rat approached cautiously.

The two Silver Rats rubbed their noses together, then they opened their mouths, and their nimble, flexible tongues tangled themselves together.

Ding Jie laughed, and even felt a little embarrassed. But he quickly realized that something was wrong. As the delicate texture of the other Rat’s Tongue came to meet the surface of his tongue, another memory flashed in him like lightning, and vanished just as quickly. A jumble of memories from different parts of Ding Jie’s life flashed and vanished, flashed and vanished, as a mess of seemingly unrelated words seemed to pop up in his mind. For a moment, he seemed to see his own body standing outside the cage through a pair of frightened eyes. That must have been one of the captive Silver Rat’s memories when it was in the cage. But why did it rise to the surface now?

In his mind, a strange notion began to form, but he could not explain exactly what it was.

It was only that night, when he was going through the brain map analysis, as was his routine, that his idea gradually crystalized.

As a Royal Cai Wei Procurement Officer, it was an essential part of his job to do precise analyses of various subtle flavors. Unlike his ancestors of old, it was not enough for him to rely on the sense of taste alone; to be able to conduct a thorough analysis of taste through mind-reading sensors was now a basic tool in the skillset of any self-respecting modern Officer.

Ding Jie, on the other hand, had long since made a habit of reviewing the day’s brain map analysis, poring over the report every night before going to sleep.

It was most curious. After the Silver Rat had returned to its city, it had spent the vast majority of its time licking the tongues of its companions. But according to the brain map analysis, in Ding Jie’s own brain, it was the language center, rather than the taste center, that had been the most active.

Sour, Sour, Sweet, Sweet, Bitter: You

Bitter, Bitter, Sour, Spicy, Sweet, Sweet: Pass—

Sweet, Sour, Spicy, Bitter, Salty, Salty, Sweet, Sour, Bitter, Bitter: Igloo

His translation table kept on expanding. The various flavors combined to encode this language, but it wasn’t just the permutations that had meaning. The geometric arrangement of the flavors on the tongue also conveyed different meanings and contexts. It was as though every taste bud were a pixel, and several pixels in different locations formed a word when combined.

It may be possible to graph these out for further analysis, Ding Jie contemplated in secret.

Once again, his breath was taken away by the subtle ingenuity of evolution. The taste buds of the Silver Rat could not only perceive flavors, but also release them. As a result, the slender tongue itself became a kind of kinetic image display, but for flavor.

When their tongues met and entangled, the Silver Rats were, in fact, talking, not making out. They were using a language of taste.

That tongue of theirs was not only a rare culinary delicacy; it was also a miracle of biology. The Silver Rats could be called artists, or grand masters of biosynthesis among all living creatures, able to command so many flavors to flash and change with the dance of their tongues.

Wait a minute… biosynthesis... highly poisonous toxins...

How about such toxins? What exactly did they represent in the language of the Silver Rats?

Softly, Ding Jie caught the glimpse of his salvation in this paradox. It might still be possible to present the Rat’s tongues as tribute.

He shuddered, not daring to imagine the Emperor’s face, filled with ire and disappointment. How could he fail to obtain such a trifle, such a small dish?

The Grand Master, who appeared to be the spiritual leader of the Rats, seemed to have noticed that Rat Jie, the Silver Rat that Ding Jie was controlling remotely, carried a second consciousness. The Silver Rats were not only an intelligent species, but even smarter than I suspected, thought Ding Jie. When he pondered this, his mind had already seen the majestic spire of the Spirit Tower through the eyes of Rat Jie.

He’d spent the last few days nestled in his cramped quarters. All the soldiers were wondering what the heck he was up to, and even Chen Guang couldn’t stop smacking his lips in anticipation.

And in the Silver Rat City, all kinds of wild rumors were flying around. After all, the wily prisoner who had escaped the devil’s captivity was now being summoned to the Grand Master’s high Spirit Tower every day. Rumor had it that any day now, he would be named as the Grand Master’s new favored disciple and possible successor.

Outside the tower, snow fell as the Silver Rats crouched on their front legs in postures of reverence, as though they were worshipping in a grand ceremony.

Inside the tower, on the other hand, was the world of the undead.

Throughout the ages, every Silver Rat, or more properly, every Yanling in the city, would leave their soul in this place.

Though their lives were over, their souls lived on there. The true nature of the Rat’s tongue was that it existed in the veil between life and death, and only the Grand Masters knew the occult ritual of how to awaken them.

According to the sayings of the Yanlings, the Grand Masters speak to the spirits of the dead.

When Rat Jie had first met the Grand Master, the Grand Master had been pacing the floors, deep in meditation.

His tiny paws crept forward with light steps, not daring to interrupt the Grand Master’s solemnity.

The Grand Master opened its eyes. Its senses had been some of the sharpest to begin with, and the long years of meditation had only endlessly heightened them further.

Rat Jie took a few steps forward, and enclosed the Grand Master’s curling, exposed tongue. This was a Yanling gesture that invited further conversation.

Their tongues tangled together. Although this still felt awkward from the human point of view, nevertheless, Ding Jie enjoyed talking to this venerable elder, who was full of ancient wisdom.

“Taste has a life of its own, but you people only taste the most superficial layers in all things.”

“There is a soul dwelling in flavor,” Rat Jie repeated the ancient Yanling proverb mechanically, without understanding its deeper meaning.

The intertwined tongues parted, and the Grand Master fell to the ground dead, its twig-like front paws flipping upward. Rat Jie immediately followed suit, somehow knowing that this was the most ancient, time-honored ritual.

The moment of passing on had come.

A dark, secret compartment, which had been sealed for eons, suddenly opened. And between thousands upon thousands of secret compartments, a bright, mystical substance like that of a soul—a soul gathered but not broken—drifted as a ball of light.

Within this drifting light, Rat Jie slowly lifted his head, and beheld with great clarity: lying in the middle of the Grand Master’s front paw was a single, bright tongue.

A bright red tongue, its surface covered with a white layer of frost.

Ding Jie thought back to that slab of precious “ruby” that he had tasted. Could this one taste the same?

The tongue offered by the Grand Master was a little dried out, and neither as strong nor as energetic as Rat Jie’s. The tongue was filled with a uniquely strong, bitter taste. Rat Jie knew that it consisted of three different kinds of bitterness, lined up in the shape of a triangle, and was meant to convey absolute awe.

In the V-shaped groove formed between the two tongues, one old and one young, the Grand Master solemnly laid down the “soul.”

The smell of decay reached deep into his consciousness, causing Ding Jie to nearly break out in a violent fit of retching.

Fortunately, he was able to hold it back, and the other Silver Rat only trembled slightly at its end.

And then the smell of death and decay opened up, giving way to what seemed like a vista, as though it were conveying an ancient mirage of mist. The Grand Master’s lifetime of memories flooded into his mind.

First, there was endless, all-encompassing darkness, then came a ray of light, as though the curtains were being raised on a human life, as if a newborn baby had just opened its eyes for the first time...

The gale-force winds whistle around him, and the sky is dotted with sparkling crystals. It turns out the world is not confined to just the little igloo, but also has rolling hills that rise and fall in the distance and icy fields of snow-covered earth. But oh, how cold it is! He cannot keep himself from grabbing the loose fur on the back of his mother’s neck, and his body sinks deeper and deeper into her furry back. The trees fly backward, away from them, and home is getting closer and closer...

He arched his back and flashed his sharp forepaws. No one could insult his father and live, no one. He had been bullied often in the past, but he had never been as angry as he was today. For the first time, he had charged back at the three big guys surrounding him.

What a cute little guy! His tongue is so soft and tender, and tastes all fragrant and sticky. This is my son! My son…

Where the heck am I? Oh right, just a moment ago, he and that kid from a nearby city brought his ass over here for the secret ambush. Then we fell off the wall. Now, let me see, it seems he’s been reduced to a ball of pulp. And I’m not looking too good myself, I have at least three broken bones…

Well, if you ask me, there’s nothing wrong with being lame. Ordinary people who have no trouble walking have trouble seeing that the world is all out of whack, and at least I can see it that way. I can see it every single time I walk. Well, better put my medal for bravery away or it’ll be taken and hidden by the grandkids again…

Gone, they are all gone, even the last of them. Now, I am the only one from that battle left standing. My bones are old now, no use to anyone anymore...

Why did they all start crying? And who are those people rushing in all of a sudden? Is that my oldest grandson? Why is he crying so hard? What a bunch of useless kids, to have to still rely on this old bag of bones. My body doesn’t even hurt anymore, so I guess maybe I’m on the mend. I’m old now, so old, and yet I’m still the backbone of the clan. It goes without saying that I was their pillar when I was young. Ah, back then…Oh, how I long to walk the paths of that great mountain again! Ah, to challenge those thugs from the neighboring city to one last fight! All gone… all gone…

The bright light scatters away as the taste, too, fades in their mouth. The Grand Master has long since left this realm, that ancient tongue now completely contained in Rat Jie’s mouth. For quite a while now, it had become warm and soft, as though returned to life, just like the awakened memories that had surfaced.

So, evidently, for Yanlings, their entire life’s memories were contained in their tongues. And in those memories reside their souls.

The surface of the tongue is used for communication, and the inner layer is used for storage. To use an inexact and irreverent analogy, the surface of the tongue is equivalent to the computer memory and display, while the inner body is the hard drive that stores long-term memories.

Rat Jie finally knew what they were really tasting. When they understood it was the taste of that nameless Yanling’s entire life, they found their face drenched in tears.

That night, Ding Jie was awakened by a nightmare.

The dream was filled with a peculiar taste.

When the Yanling’s “soul” had been transferred that afternoon, the tongue had returned to its former state of being covered with frost.

Then, the Grand Master gave him another Rat’s tongue, also covered with frost, but black on the inside.

Rat Jie remembered the murderous toxin, and stopped his paws halfway from their mouth. It was not until the Grand Master had himself put the black Rat’s tongue into his mouth that, assured, he slowly lifted it into his own.

It was neither sour, sweet, bitter, spicy nor salty, but rather, experienced as a stabbing pain in the body, like a knife slashing the tongue.

Kill them! … Kill those devils! Not only do they slaughter us, they want to harvest our souls as well! … Quick, run! … Oh, how the hell can we kill them all?!

At first, Ding Jie thought he could get rid of the awful taste by spitting out that tongue, but no, it had long permeated the depths of his consciousness, and now was even manifesting in his dreams.

For the first time, Ding Jie understood why the Yanlings called their method of communication “the mingling of souls,”

“There is a soul dwelling in flavor,” Ding Jie repeated the ancient proverb, as he wiped away his cold sweat.

And hatred, it seems, has its own unique taste. When that taste reaches its target’s mouth, it turns into poison. The most deadly poison in the world.

Ding Jie sat down at his cramped little desk, and using his own DNA signature, signed the authorization for the Rat’s tongue to be sent as a royal tribute.

He would enclose a detailed report. Once the Emperor learned the truth, he would have to completely forbid the slaughter of Silver Rats. Even if this were not done out of compassion, it would still be worth it just to preserve that exquisite taste, for it to still be preserved somewhere in the universe. Hopefully, in this way, the long-standing hatred might dissipate. A few souls could be sacrificed every year in exchange for the lives of the living. It may be considered an economically worthwhile exchange. As for those who poached the Silver Rats illegally because they coveted the tribute, sadly, there was nothing that he could do about them.

Maybe, just maybe, this was the best option.

He certainly knew what the Grand Master was planning. But he had no plans to follow his will.

Pull out its tongue, and the Silver Rat will die. And living on was more important than anything else.

This principle couldn’t have been more obvious, from the moment he and Chen Guang had huddled together, cursing the cold, in the ruined cargo container.

Chen Guang’s body was soaking in the hot spring, the wavering mists rising around him.

“Seems like, in the end, you still managed to figure it all out.” His tongue smacked as he savored the imperial wine in his cup, and he gave Ding Jie a thumbs up.

“In fact, now that it’s been figured out, it looks so obvious. Now that I think about it, maybe someone could have worked it out a long time ago.”

“Oh, come on. Which of these randoms would have the brilliant mind of a Cai Wei Officer like yourself?” Chen Guang had an evil grin on his face.

“You’ve got to be pulling my leg again, right? If you were just willing to spend the time yourself, you’d be better than ten of me put together.”

Suddenly, Chen Guang wiped the grin off his face, and a trace of bitterness replaced his affected indifference.

Ding Jie silently lowered his head. Chen Guang had always had great potential, and harbored serious ambitions. If he had not been born a Stranger, given how talented he was, he would have easily been a rising star in the Imperial court.

“I’m leaving tomorrow. You take care.” Ding Jie raised his wine glass, and gave a little smile. But it was a forced smile, and his stomach convulsed as he gave it.

“I’m afraid that tomorrow, you’re going exactly nowhere,” Chen Guang slammed his wine glass into the water, his face like ice, the crow’s feet on either side of his eyes creased with hostility.

“You already figured it out long ago, hadn’t you?” Ding Jie clutched his stomach with his hands, and bent his waist below the water.

“The only thing I was missing was that permit. Without the DNA signature you Royal Cai Wei Procurement Officers have, he would not accept it without suspicion.”

“You…” Ding Jie struggled to lift his head. Even up until this moment, he still had a hard time believing all this was true.

“How did I become like this? Is that what you’re wondering? I hate him. You don’t understand, right? So he unified six kingdoms and won the fealty of all nations. So what? What kind of life do we Strangers lead? Even if we sincerely yearn to be loyal subjects of the great Empire, are we given the chance? I am his own nephew, but just because my father was from the Kingdom of Chu, he was expelled from his home in Xianyang. You remember that, right? Ha! What kind of bloody ship was that? Full of outlaws, everything they ate or drank was robbed off someone else. So, it looked like I didn’t care on the surface, but do you know the humiliation I felt in my heart?”

Chen Guang stared at the face of his former best friend, eyes wide with anger. “I created the hatred and provoked the war with the Silver Rats. I also made the reputation of the Rat’s tongue famous throughout the galaxies. As long as that bastard pays attention, as long as that bastard is curious, one day, he will surely swallow a Rat’s tongue filled with hatred.”

Indeed, it turned out that hatred is the most deadly poison in this universe.

Ding Jie knelt in the water, the poison in the imperial wine coursing throughout his body. He could no longer speak.

He recalled once more the moment he had first arrived on planet Yan. A “worker bee” had been cast into the icy maelstrom.

The bee, however, did not freeze to death immediately; instead, it found a hidden crevice in the cold wind. This crevice helped shield it from the cold, but hiding in the crevice was a ravenous spider.

Chen Guang was still talking, on and on. “It’s not like I wanted to kill you, either. But your heart is too soft, you wouldn’t help me. In times like this, I really don’t know how someone as kind-hearted as you has survived this long. That bullshit Grand Master, you didn’t even try to defend yourself against him! Soul melding, my ass! Couldn’t you see the hatred in its heart? It voluntarily went to Xianyang and had its tongue pulled out in front of the Emperor.”

Had it? Had the Grand Master really taken this drastic step? Ding Jie slowly felt his eyes flutter closed. Chen Guang, oh, Chen Guang. You may know quite a lot, but you still don’t know everything…

“The ancient poem, Cai Wei, is not a song just for you food procurement officials! No, it belongs to all of us. It belongs to us, the generals who protect the territory and protect the people. As for those who sit high up in the temple, wearing jade and clad in finery, eating delicacies, pretending to have compassion for their own people… such an Emperor, such a Leader, I will cause him to perish by the sword!”

Chen Guang was still roaring his monologue, his angry voice carrying an unspeakable desolation. After an unknowable length of time, he too, fell to his knees in the hot spring, holding his dear departed friend in his arms and sobbing uncontrollably.

It was early Spring on planet Xianyang, where the imperial city stood.

The Emperor squinted at the decaying animal.

“And this is what they call Snow Rat?” The proudest chin in the Empire wagged, seeming to indicate that the Emperor was in high spirits today.

“Yes, your majesty, it’s….” The chamberlain at his side came up but was interrupted before he could give the full name.

“It doesn’t matter, all we want is the tongue.”

When the shiny pincers pinched the bright red tongue, the Emperor and the alien animal looked into each other’s eyes. Instead of the fear he was accustomed to seeing, he saw a calm that transcended all things.

With that one glance, the fresh tongue was served up, making him feel more than a little uncomfortable.

Only when the soft, sticky tongue melted in his mouth did the Emperor find himself overwhelmed, plunged into an indescribable ocean of flavor.

It was as if he were sailing a small boat across a calm sea. The delicious taste slid along his tongue into his stomach, as though there was infinite depth and breadth to it.

The Emperor leaned back in his recliner, his body supine.

Suddenly, the whole world flipped upside down. The sea that was underneath him suddenly hung high above his head, and huge waves rushed over the calm surface of the sea. The boat was nowhere to be seen, and the Emperor was swept away by the raging sea.

Nausea, vertigo, the whole ocean was filled with an odd smell.

All around him was darkness, and he was no longer the Emperor, sitting on high.

It was in that almost suffocating ocean that the memories of his life slowly emerged.

According to the chamberlain’s recollection, the Emperor was unconscious for three whole hours, before he came to again.

His first decree upon opening his eyes was to have planet Yan blasted into pieces. But before that order was executed, the Emperor recalled it, after suffering a fit of dry heaving and fainting spells.

In the end, only the Officer of Planet Yan was executed, and the unlucky man’s name was Chen Guang.

In the year that followed, the Emperor’s right hand eunuch found that he displayed far fewer eccentricities, and his decrees grew more moderate.

When Spring came around a second time, the Emperor woke up from his nap under the warm afternoon sun. Feeling lazy and energetic at the same time, he gave his last decree before closing his eyes for the final time.

“Pardon them…Their world is different from ours…”

This unfinished edict was finally completed by Prince Fusu. “Pardon all Strangers in the universe, and let them return to their homeland.”

After that, he set out to prepare for the state funeral and his own ascension to the throne. No one except the aging eunuch had any idea what had sapped the Emperor’s brutality.

The answer was nausea.

Whenever the Emperor’s eyes grew wide with anger, he would be flooded with a wave of indescribable nausea.

The way he vomited always reminded the aging eunuch of the end of the world. Even the hard-hearted monarch could not fight it.

From time to time, the aging eunuch would think of the dead Silver Rat, and its indifferent eyes. Sometimes, the absurd idea that the Silver Rat had died on purpose, in order to deliver in its delicious tongue a curse that would afflict the Emperor, even crossed his mind.

But since this thought could never be expressed, for fear of being accused of sedition and getting blacklisted, he said nothing.

Regardless of the truth, the Emperor was dead, and now the Empire was stirring once again.

On distant planet Yan, the Grand Master was leading his kindred in a ceremony to worship his own former Master.

This Grand Master was the youngest ever, and you could tell his inexperience. But after a year of being in the position, he has already grown more calm and resolute. After all, it is hard to be as cheerful as before when you have to spend your days guarding ancient spirits. But he was also under a lot of pressure, as his own former Master was such a legendary saint. Now he had to fill the shoes of this saint.

When the devil manipulated him, the former Grand Master had been aware of it. He had not only taught himself to understand the language of the devil, but also learned how to speak it.

The former Grand Master had understood that the root cause of all his kind’s suffering lay with the particular Emperor that the devil served.

So he created a new language. A language that fused the language of his own kind and that of the devils.

Flavors can give rise to emotions, and ideas can be written into the subconscious alongside these emotions. Emotions, in turn, can also trigger and stimulate tastes.

Once the Emperor of the devils learned this language, his rage would be linked to a special taste sensation. Naturally, it would not be something that tasted good, but the good that would come out of it was that his soul would be saved.

“I could kill him with hatred. But that is not the right way.” These were the last words of the former Grand Master when he left, and the new Grand Master would treasure them deep in his soul.

He lifted his head to face the endless wind and snow of planet Yan. Suddenly, an ancient creation myth came to mind.

At the beginning of time, there was a giant rat that kept devouring souls. After a long period of ruminating and digesting, the universe was born. And when the giant rat has eaten the final soul, the universe will pass away.