Axolotl Translations

After the torrential downpour… came an even bigger one.

The sky seemed to have split open; a deluge of rain poured down in waves, more violent and relentless than the day before. Forget going up the mountain—simply stepping outside was a struggle in this weather.

Stuck out on the lake and unable to contact their employer, both the Windwing and Heng Rong Shen teams made a perfectly silent, totally synchronized decision: skip work.

After all the exhaustion from yesterday, Gu Mengran finally let himself indulge in a deep, uninterrupted sleep. By the time he woke up naturally, it was already noon. Sure, the whole morning was gone for no good reason, but at least he felt refreshed. As soon as he opened his eyes, he threw off the blanket without even a second of lingering in bed. His stomach growled.

After washing up, Gu Mengran stepped out of his room, intending to grab some breakfast—but as soon as he entered the kitchen, a rich, meaty aroma hit him square in the face. That was enough to make him forget all about breakfast. He bee-lined to the stove and stood behind his grandfather, practically drooling.

“Grandpa, what’s in the pot? Smells amazing.”

The rain pounded outside with a whoosh, and the pot inside bubbled with a glug-glug. The kitchen was noisy, so Grandpa hadn’t heard his footsteps. Suddenly hearing a voice right by his ear, he jolted in shock and reflexively swung the ladle behind him.

“Whoa—!” Gu Mengran yelped. Luckily, he was young and quick on his feet. He dodged just in time—if he’d been even a second slower, that ladle would’ve smacked him square in the forehead.

The old man’s hand trembled from nearly clobbering his beloved grandson, but he didn’t let it show. Instead, he barked in righteous indignation, “What’s with the sneaking around? Can’t you make a sound when you walk? Jumping out like that at noon—trying to scare someone to death?”

“You really believe in striking first, huh?” Gu Mengran stepped back, still recovering, and muttered under his breath, “It’s just me… in our own kitchen. Who else would it be?”

But he stopped grumbling when he saw his grandfather’s face darkening. Before the old man could explode, Gu Mengran quickly plastered on a grin and scooted closer. “Let’s not argue! You still haven’t answered me—what are you cooking, Grandpa? When’s it ready?”

“All you do is sleep and eat—how are you any different from a pig?”

“There is a difference,” Gu Mengran said seriously. “Pigs can’t talk.”

The old man couldn’t help but laugh at that. His expression softened as he pointed to the cabinet above the sink. “Lunch will be ready soon. Don’t just stand there. Restock the pantry—there’s no more meat, veggies, anything. The fridge is practically empty. If we don’t resupply soon, we’ll be starving.”

Gu Mengran looked around—he was right. The chili and peppercorns were mostly gone, oil and sauces nearly finished, and the fridge? Empty as a desert. Yikes. He really had forgotten.

Without wasting another second, he got to work. Oil, salt, sauces, vinegar, rice, flour, meat, and vegetables—he started refilling everything bit by bit. But even after restocking the kitchen, it didn’t feel like enough. Everyone was out working every day, and if he forgot again, they’d really be in trouble. So, just to be safe, he hurried over to the storage room next to the cockpit to stock up even more.

Gu Mengran pulled out several shelving units from the storage space and set them up neatly, stacking them with a generous supply of long-lasting rice, flour, cooking oil, all kinds of seasonings, and dried goods. Then he brought out a few freezers one by one, storing away a stash of fresh meat and meatballs.

It really wasn’t ideal for an entire boatload of people to rely on one person for their food supply. Gu Mengran made up his mind—he’d need to restock the warehouse regularly from now on.

……

“Tsk tsk tsk—come here, Xiao Huang! Come here and let Grandpa hug you.”

“Jeez, Liang Zhao, what’s the fun in totally destroying someone? Can’t you go a little easy?”

“Scrubs need more practice.”

……

The living room was buzzing with noise. After lunch, everyone finally had some real downtime. The old man sat by the window, playing with the dog. Liang Zhao and Zheng Yijie were on the couch, controllers in hand, locked in a fierce console fighting game.

Well… it was fierce for one of them. One played. One got steamrolled. Laughter echoed around the room. Gu Mengran sat cross-legged on the couch with half a can of Coke in hand, letting out the occasional burp as he drank. His mood couldn’t have been better.

Technically, there was still unfinished work on the ship. The soil they’d brought out from the storage space yesterday wasn’t too dry or too wet—perfect for planting. But Gu Mengran figured that if this was going to be a real experiment, he should test the space-soil and the outside soil side-by-side. Only then would the results be accurate.

The experiment had nothing to do with outside soil, of course. But… whatever. That was just an excuse. The truth? He was being lazy. He just wanted to kick back and chill.

And honestly, lying flat felt great—especially with the storm raging outside. While the wind howled and rain poured down, he was tucked away in a cozy little home with his family. Even doing absolutely nothing felt like peak happiness.

But the peace didn’t last long. At some point, the old man stopped playing with the dog. He turned to the window, staring out in silence. Something unpleasant seemed to cross his mind, and his head slowly bowed, his whole posture slumping with quiet melancholy.

Gu Mengran set his Coke down on the coffee table, slipped off his slippers, and padded across the couch to sit beside his grandpa. He reached out and gave his shoulder a couple of playful squeezes.

“What’s wrong? Our mighty Grandpa Meng not into Xiao Huang anymore?”

But Meng Gaoyang didn’t feel like joking. He didn’t say a word—just let out a quiet, worn-out sigh.

Seeing that, Gu Mengran stopped fooling around. He took his grandfather’s hand gently and gave it a pat. “Seriously, what’s going on, Grandpa? Why the sudden mood drop?”

“It’s nothing.” The old man gave his hand a soft squeeze, his expression touched with a hint of sadness.

“No way it’s nothing,” Gu Mengran pressed, refusing to back down. “Look at you—do you look like someone with nothing on their mind? You’re acting like you lost your wallet or something. Didn’t you always say not to bottle things up? That it’s better to talk things out?”

“You and that mouth of yours…” The old man gave a helpless smile, then turned his gaze back to the rain cascading down the window. A hint of sorrow flickered in his eyes. “It’s really nothing… Just watching this rain come down nonstop, it’s hard not to feel some kind of way.”

That one phrase—“some kind of way”—hit Gu Mengran hard. He understood in an instant.

They’d been through the apocalypse once already. Gu Mengran had seen Earth turn into a planet of water—he no longer flinched at the thought. Liang Zhao had glimpsed it in his dreams. As for Zheng Yijie… he’d probably never even taken it seriously. But his grandfather? He was different. He’d lived through decades more than they had. He’d grown up on this land.

And now, in the twilight of his life, he was being forced to leave it behind.

They knew what was coming. Every drop of rain meant another patch of land swallowed up. Outside, the wild storm roared like a monstrous beast, devouring Earth inch by inch, chewing away at everything humanity once called home.

In just a few years, the land Meng Gaoyang had lived on for most of his life would be gone. And then he’d be like a drifting leaf on the water—cut off from where he came from, and with nowhere clear to go.

He’d lived over sixty years. He had witnessed history with his own eyes. Of course he felt heartbroken. Of course he couldn’t let go. And there was nothing he could do.

Gu Mengran knew why he was sad. He just didn’t know how to comfort him. After a long silence, he gripped his grandfather’s hand tightly and said, with rare seriousness, “Don’t worry. Don’t be sad. So what if the land disappears? As long as we’re alive, we’ll keep going. You still have me—and Liang Zhao, and Zheng Yijie. We’re all here. We’ll always be here with you.”

“I’m lucky to have you all.” Meng Gaoyang murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. His clouded eyes brimmed with a sadness he could no longer hide. “All the old ones, all the young ones… they’re gone. Your grandma. Your mom. And now, even our home. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have had the strength to keep fighting. Honestly, I’d rather be down there with them already.”

“Don’t say that!” Gu Mengran’s chest tightened. He clutched his grandfather’s hand harder. “You’re not allowed to think like that.”

“Alright, alright…” The old man patted his hand gently with the other.

Gu Mengran shot him a glare and grumbled, “No more of that kind of talk, you hear me? I mean it. If you keep saying stuff like that, I’ll really get mad. Rain falls. Brides marry. Some things are just beyond our control. As long as we’re together—our family’s still standing—there’s nothing we can’t get through.”

“Got it, got it.” The old man finally let out a faint chuckle.

The mood was heavy, and he didn’t want to dwell on it any longer. His eyes drifted to the dark sky outside, the rising lake levels just visible beyond the glass. After a pause, he asked quietly, “When the time comes… when we leave here… where would you want to go? Yinan? Or somewhere else…”

Gu Mengran held his grandfather steady and said lightly, “Once the land’s gone, it really doesn’t matter where we are. We’re living on a boat anyway. If you don’t feel like leaving, we can just stay here as long as we want. But if you ever get tired of this place and want to see the ocean, we can follow the Huang River all the way to the East Sea.”

“The ocean’s cleaner than the ruins of these old cities,” he added. “Fewer people, more resources. Sure, there’ll be risks—tsunamis, typhoons and the like—but that’s no big deal. With my space ability, we can go wherever you want, Grandpa.”

No need for forced comfort—just chatting about the future, casually and simply, lifted the old man’s spirits on its own. Of course, it probably also had something to do with how boldly Gu Mengran was talking, like a proper overbearing CEO. Go anywhere you want in the apocalypse? As freely as someone swiping a platinum card in peaceful times? That kind of talk could warm anyone’s heart.

The old man squeezed Gu Mengran’s hand, the dazed look in his eyes slowly fading. Instead, a glimmer of hope lit up his face. He smiled and said, “Now that you mention it, I really would like to see the sea again. I guess you could call it my second home.”

“Ahem.” Just after his big speech, Gu Mengran let out a dry cough. He rubbed the tip of his nose, suddenly awkward. “I do want to take you there, Grandpa. But not right now. Right now, there are probably landslides and flash floods everywhere. It’s way too dangerous. And it’s not like we can just fold up the Windwing and carry it overland—we’ll have to wait a bit longer.”

“How much longer?”

“About a year, give or take.”

The rain kept falling. With the glaciers melting, sea levels were rising faster than anyone had expected. In a few months, the lower and coastal regions along the Huang River, plus any low-lying land, would be completely submerged.

Ironically, that kind of flooding made it harder for boats to travel. With everything underwater, it was impossible to tell river from land. The water varied in depth, and one wrong turn could land them on what used to be solid ground. If the water wasn’t deep enough, the boat could get stranded or even damaged. So if they wanted to sail smoothly—and safely—they’d have to wait at least a year.

What would Earth look like a year from now? Gu Mengran wasn’t quite sure anymore. All he remembered was… anything not over a thousand meters in elevation would be gone, swallowed by the sea.

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