American comic: From Beijing with Love, starting with a mutant.

Mortimer, the toad-man, stayed in Tiankeng Village for three days, and Stephen Chow stayed with him for three days as well.

The first two days mainly focused on resolving the cafeteria's survival crisis.

That noon.

In the open-air courtyard of the construction site canteen, the aroma of stewed potatoes and meat bubbling in a large iron pot filled the air.

Mortimer ate eight large bowls of white rice in one go during his first meal, even licking the broth from the bottom of the pot clean with his tongue.

This appetite left Old Wang, the cafeteria chef who was tossing the food, speechless.

Old Wang, carrying a large ladle, walked up to Stephen Chow, who was picking his teeth with a toothpick in his mouth:

"Comrade Zhou, your brother from the Northwest... your appetite is a bit too voracious, isn't it?"

"I steamed a pot of rice for sixty strong men, but he ate enough for eight people by himself!"

"The other workers are still hungry and waiting for the second batch!"

Stephen Chow paused in his teeth-picking motion, then waved his hand grandly and said:

"I'll apply for the fees later!"

Old Wang pointed to the winding dirt road:

"It's not about the money. Transporting grain to this place is very troublesome. If it rains or there's a landslide, we won't be able to get rice for ten days or half a month. If he eats like this, our construction site's granary won't be able to hold up."

Stephen Chow stroked his stubble and a brilliant idea struck him:

"Old Wang, that's easy, he eats bugs."

"What the heck?"

Old Wang suspected he had misheard.

"Old Mo has a skin condition, and the doctor specifically told him that he needs to supplement his diet with high-protein foods and can't eat too refined foods."

"Grasshoppers, crickets, big black spiders—locusts are the best!"

"In these mountains of Yunnan and Guizhou, we may not have much else, but we have so much of this that we could cook a dish with it."

"Let him catch it himself in the bushes after work; consider it dessert, and it'll save you food!"

Old Wang turned his head with some doubt and glanced into the distance.

Mortimer was squatting in the sun, his legs crossed in front of his chest and his hands hanging down.

Even more outrageous, just as a fly flew past him, a flash of red light appeared in the air, and with a snap, the fly was gone. Mortimer smacked his lips in satisfaction.

"...Fine, if you say it's a skin disease, then it's a skin disease."

Old Wang swallowed hard, picked up his ladle, and slipped away.

On the third day, Mortimer, having completed his training, officially started working.

Zhou Xingxing stared at it all day, with a notebook in his hand taking test records.

At six o'clock in the morning, before the mist had even dissipated, Mortimer went to work with the other workers.

The construction of the cliff section is extremely difficult, requiring rows of anchor holes to be drilled on the vertical rock face to fix the reinforcing bars.

Under normal circumstances, ordinary workers have to be tied with safety ropes and suspended in mid-air. When the storm machine shakes, the whole person shakes in mid-air. At most, they can only drill twelve holes a day, and their lumbar discs will protrude two inches.

Mortimer doesn't need a rope at all.

He lunged at the cliff face, the powerful viscous fluid secreted from his limbs firmly holding him to the vertical precipice.

His lower body was firmly wedged into the crevice in the rock, while his tongue moved nimbly through the air.

He rolled up a pneumatic pick weighing dozens of kilograms, punched a hole on the left with a few quick thuds, didn't even need to bend his waist, and flicked his tongue to punch another hole on the right.

In the brief pause between breaths, he could even casually roll up a wrench with his tongue and hand it to his coworker.

By evening.

When Stephen Chow went over to take a look, he saw that there were thirty-seven holes drilled densely on the cliff face.

Project manager Lao Liu stood below, extremely excited.

"Comrade Zhou..."

Old Liu grabbed Zhou Xingxing's sleeve:

"I'm open to anything: a temporary assignment, a long-term affiliation, or even a buyout!"

"You have to keep him here, even if it means death!"

"Don't worry, he's not going anywhere."

"A three-year labor contract was signed, it's in black and white and stamped with the company seal, there's no way he can run away."

"And what about you?"

I'm leaving first thing tomorrow morning.

As he spoke, Stephen Chow pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, on which a page of text was written.

"This is Lao Mo's special user manual. I stayed up all night writing it by hand, so you have to keep it to yourself."

Old Liu carefully took it and examined it in the light of the setting sun:

Article 1: He must ensure a daily intake of 6,000 calories. You can also grant him a half-day off to catch insects as a snack.

Article 2: Rinse his whole body with clean water twice a week. He has a special skin condition that causes him to secrete mucus. If he doesn't wash, the blankets will stick to his body and he won't be able to tear them off.

Article 3: He is very afraid of dryness, so buy a large plastic basin in the shed and fill it with water so that he can soak his feet in the water before going to bed at night. Don't be stingy with the water bill.

Article 4: If any problem arises that cannot be solved, or if he has been wronged, he can call this number 24 hours a day.

Below the phone number were three large characters: Zhou Xingxing.

Old Liu read it carefully, folded the paper into a small piece, put it in his pocket, and patted his chest:

"Don't worry at all. On my construction site, as long as a brother is willing to work hard, I, Lao Liu, will treat him like my own brother!"

"If anyone dares to utter a single insult to him, I'll smash their front teeth with a jackhammer!"

Late that night, the mountain wind howled.

Stephen Chow gives Mortimer his final farewell instructions.

"I'm leaving first thing tomorrow morning. From now on, you'll be working for Manager Liu."

"I don't need to teach you the work; you're better at infrastructure than anyone else in the world."

"But there are a few hard and fast rules that you need to memorize."

Mortimer perked up his ears upon hearing this.

"First, study Chinese well; you must memorize twenty new words every day."

"I installed an app on your phone; learn from that green bird!"

"Next time I'll test you, and if you fail the pinyin test, I'll deduct your performance bonus for the month, understand?"

Second, don't fight.

Stephen Chow stared at him:

"You're not a wanted criminal in the US anymore. You're a legal person. Fighting will get you to the police station, and in serious cases, you could go to jail!"

Mortimer memorized each point, his yellow eyes reflecting the image of Stephen Chow.

His lips moved as he struggled to pronounce the unfamiliar syllables in his mouth with his tongue.

"where you go?"

"I'll find you a colleague."

"colleague?"

"Yes, there are also cross-river bridges and tunnels through mountains. Guizhou has finished building them, and there's Yunnan next door, and Sichuan above."

"This area is huge. Even if you lie on the cliff every day until you retire at sixty, you still won't be able to finish this job."

Mortimer asked in a muffled voice:

"Other mutants?"

"right."

"Are they... willing to come?"

Mortimer recalled the days when he was hiding in the New York sewers from SWAT officers.

Stephen Chow gazed at the night view outside the window:

"I'm asking you, would you rather sleep under bridges every day and be chased and beaten by SWAT teams?"

Mortimer shook his head.

"That settles it. Anyone with a brain full of water would want to come, right?"

"Alright, keep up the good work and become a municipal-level model worker."

"At the end of the year, I'll submit a report to give you double pay and buy you two pounds of top-quality imported locusts as snacks."

He turned and strode to the door.

"Ah Qi!"

Mortimer suddenly called out from behind.

Stephen Chow stopped and turned around.

Mortimer gurgled in his throat for a long time before finally managing to utter three awkwardly pronounced Chinese characters:

"Write something to thank you."

Stephen Chow paused for a second.

Looking at the toad in front of him, abandoned by the whole world, his throat moved slightly.

But he was never used to such sentimental scenes, so he waved his hand and walked into the night without looking back.