The Creatures That We Are

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The first thing Wu Dahai did—which surprised no one—was sweep his hands through his floppy hair. He didn’t even have to put on hairspray to set his hair into the usual broom shape. As expected of a man with digital perms for hands.

Wu Dahai walked to the left side of his office. There was a circular two-meter wide pattern on the floor. Gao Yang could make out the drawings of the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac Signs, only in more abstract forms.

Wu Dahai waved them over. “Come on.”

Gao Yang, Qing Ling, Officer Huang, and White Rabbit walked up to him, standing inside the circular pattern. 𝑓𝓇ℯℯ𝓌ℯ𝑏𝑛𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Click.

Wu Dahai snapped his fingers, and a second later, the circular pattern under their feet revealed itself to be a moving platform, descending slowly while rotating, coming to a steady halt the moment it finished a full circle. They found themselves in an enclosed chamber.

They got off the platform and looked around. The room was in the shape of a polygon. At a glance, it seemed to be about two hundred square meters in size, and the walls and ceilings were built with fine ivory white rock.

Gao Yang counted. There were twelve walls in total, each etched with an abstract, solemn-looking relief. Starting from his one o’clock, there was a mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, lamb, chicken, monkey, dog, and pig on each wall—in the order of the Zodiac Signs.

Under every relief was a metal table that looked both archaic and advanced, and different numbers of animal masks could be found on them. The masks varied in types, styles, and degree of wear and tear, and they were all kept in airtight glass cabinets like antiques being put on display.

Gao Yang walked up to the relief sculpture of a mouse. On the metal table were three airtight glass cabinets, each housing a mouse mask and marked with years.

The first was a cheap plastic one that looked like it would be sold on the street for a few yuan, marked 1965 to 1980.

The second was a punk style rubber head mask. However, only the upper half remained, while the lower half seemed to have been cut off by something sharp, and there were large blotches of dark crimson. The years were 1983 to 1984.

The third mask was in the worst state. All that remained were pieces of metal shards that couldn’t be pieced back together, and they seemed to have been burnt at a high temperature. It had likely been a metal mask. The years were 1993 to 2010.

Like Gao Yang, Qing Ling and Officer Huang were also curious about the masks. They walked around the different sculptures and browsed the masks like they were visiting a museum.

After a quick tour, Gao Yang realized that all relief sculptures were displayed with at least one and at most six masks—except for the dragon one. There was no mask there. freewe(b)novel

“Are you curious? About why there isn’t a dragon mask?” White Rabbit moved up to him from behind and looked up at the dragon relief with him.

“A little.”

“The organization was founded 57 years ago. Over the next three years, the Twelve Zodiac Signs came into being, and the organization only ever sought out the right recruits when there were vacancies to fill. That’s why the Twelve Zodiac Signs rarely have more than twelve members. You can consider each spot a legacy.”

White Rabbit’s expression turned serious. This wasn’t something to take lightly for her. “Every member may customize their own mask. To differentiate the different generations, the code names are appended with a descriptor starting from the second generation. For example, the first-gen mouse was simply known as Mouse, while the second was Year Mouse, the third was Shadow Mouse, and the fourth—Wu Dahai—picked Electric Mouse for himself based on his Talent, Lightning.”

Gao Yang said without missing a beat, “So all these masks belonged to your predecessors who have died.”

“Yeah, Wu Dahai’s the fourth-gen Mouse.” White Rabbit’s gaze was filled with respect. “I’m the third gen, while Lovely Lamb is the seventh gen. Things have been difficult for her predecessors. That’s why she’s our most precious member, and we’ll all rather sacrifice ourselves than let her die. But well, with her Talent, it would take a lot to kill her.”

Gao Yang was surprised. “Then the current Dragon...”

“Yeah, the first Dragon still lives, so he’s simply known as Dragon. That’s our captain and the founder of the Twelve Zodiac Signs.” White Rabbit adopted the tone she usually talked about their captain with again. “Life hasn’t been treating him well. He’s lost all his original teammates, leaving only him and us useless newbies.”

Gao Yang wasn’t sure what to think. “You said we might as well be long lost brothers. I assumed...that he would be young.”

“He is young, and really handsome!” White Rabbit smiled with adoration. “You’ll understand in the near future.”

“Alright.” Gao Yang didn’t press. Instead, he asked after thinking for a moment, “Is your vice-captain Tiger?”

White Rabbit was surprised. “Whoa, how did you know? Did Wu Dahai tell you?”

“He didn’t. It’s just that there’s only one tiger mask here, the least among all zodiac signs outside of Dragon. That means they must have been around for a long time.”

White Rabbit gave him a thumbs-up. “You’re clever, and I like clever people. Vice-Captain is called War Tiger. He won’t be joining us at the welcoming party since he’s away for a mission.”

Then from behind them came the sound of the platform descending. White Rabbit looked over Gao Yang’s shoulders, her eyes lighting up. “Ah, the others are here.”

Gao Yang turned to see a small group getting off the platform.

Heavenly Dog took the lead. He was still wearing the same mask, and sitting on his shoulders was Lovely Lamb. She was dressed in a light green traditional dress, her hair tied into a cute single braid rather than a pair of buns like the last time they met. She raised the hand holding a skewer of candied fruit and waved at him. “Nice to see you again, Brother Gao Yang!”

“Nice to see you, Cute Little Lamb.” Gao Yang was happy to see her as well. Not only had the little girl saved him before, she also felt like a little sister to him.

“You’ve all arrived.” Dead Pig chuckled. When he got off the platform, everyone could feel the floor tremor slightly.

Behind him were two men and one woman. They wore a mask of horse, monkey, and chicken respectively.

“I’ll introduce you. These three are our new recruits, Gao Yang, Qing Ling, and Officer Huang Qi.” White Rabbit walked up to her teammates. “And these are Ghost Horse, Mischievous Monkey, and Songstress Chicken.”

The man called Ghost Horse didn’t quite look the part. The cynical and tired look of his horse mask made it seem like the horse had depression.

He took off the mask, revealing himself as a middle-aged man with pronounced brows and wide chin. Deep creases lined the sides of his nose to the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were rimmed with large shadows. Dressed in a typical dark blue suit and holding a black suitcase, he looked like an office worker who had been doing overtime for three whole days.

Ghost Horse offered a hand politely and said in a gloomy voice, “Hello.”

“Hello.” Gao Yang shook his hand. His palm was so cold it felt like the hand of a dead body. Then Ghost Horse went on to shake hands with Qing Ling and Officer Huang.

After that, he took out three name cards from the pocket of his suit jacket. “Please.”

The three of them exchanged a look before taking the name cards, feeling awkward.

Gao Yang took a look. He was surprised to find that Ghost Horse was a lawyer at a law firm.

The man backed away. Then Mischievous Monkey stepped forward. He was wearing a mask of the Monkey King—the kind that one would see in a traditional play—and it seemed from his silver hair and white Tai Chi clothes that he was an elderly man.

He took off his mask, and Gao Yang was stunned when he saw the man’s face.

It’s him?!