A growth epic rooted in China's fourth- and fifth-tier small towns, it uses science fiction to deconstruct the myth of the mother body. Qi Ming bears the birthmark of a snail and awakens in the dust of demolition and family secrets - her uterus has been transformed into the perpetual core of the cloning experiment, and her menstrual blood draws a blueprint for engulfing the old city. When seven hundred clones wake up from the formalin solution, and when the motorcycle of his childhood sweetheart crashes through the biogrid, Qi Ming must dismantle his own ribs and rebuild the umbilical cord star chain connecting three generations of women in the calcified uterus.
