The praise of the “King of Sugartomatoes” over the radio had barely faded when the stench of rot and mold closed around Lin Wanwan’s throat. The truth cut to the bone: all that supposed glory had been nothing but a desperate dream muttered by a captive. The secret place deep in her lower abdomen, where the source of the tomatoes was nurtured, known as the “Tomato Gate,” was her grandmother’s real target. After that, she was passed from hand to hand and sold like a rare commodity. The lights above the operating table and the probing instruments were all part of a delusion meant to locate and forcibly activate this flesh-and-blood sanctuary. It turned out that even this endless torment was a data nightmare injected by a laboratory to drain the potential of the “Tomato Gate.”
When she finally transformed into a walking, glowing Sugartomato source, her craving for life drove her into the polluted city. Beneath the spotlights, she opened an invisible passage and drew in a flood of life force, which poured without end into the secret gate forged from flesh and blood. Her greed finally brought a backlash: a sharp crack from deep within her abdomen shot through her entire body! The swelling power tore apart her “Tomato Gate,” and her source suddenly collapsed. To repair this foundation of her very existence, she plunged into a dream that had endured since time immemorial, where she faced a hundred trials. Each trial sought to remake the bloodied wound. When the embers of the final nightmare faded at her feet, her trembling hand touched her lower abdomen. Where the once-full “Tomato Gate” had nurtured its radiance, there was now only a deep, sunken void, with faint specks of light drifting within it like dust. Her fingertip reached into that hollow glow. There was none of the cold stillness she had expected. A primal, immense pulse, carrying the ache of creation, suddenly burst from the heart of that seemingly shattered void. Like a heartbeat, it shook her marrow, bringing a rhythm of new life unlike anything she had ever known.
