Content Warning: Suicide, graphic depiction of animal violence

Word count: ~11200 | Est. read time: 56 mins

Main text:

After the two-day trip, people left Dolphin Island, one by one. To most, it was just a small stop along their Pacific tour. Swimming with the dolphins in the shallows was a pleasant distraction, but not enough to make them stay.

Soon, I was the only one left, the other tourists having since departed. I wasn’t here for vacation—I was here for an interview I had been anticipating for months, one that could shape my PhD thesis. I sat down at the dock’s edge, dipping my feet into the cool water as I tossed minnows into the waves. The dolphins circled around me with glee. Dolphins are incredible, I thought. They’re the most intelligent species on this planet, perhaps second only to humans.

“They like you.” I turned to see the researcher I was about to interview standing there, a small cup of coffee in her hand.

This woman had spent over a decade alone on this isolated pacific island, with the dolphins as her only neighbours. She had long legs and an upright stature. Despite the wrinkles on her face, the skin on her arms and legs still had a smooth, youthful quality. I imagined that, thirty years ago, the young boys on the tour might have stayed behind to swoon over her.

“Oh, sorry. I lost track of time,” I smiled sheepishly, “I just love these dolphins so much.”

I grabbed my backpack and hurriedly shook the water off my legs, preparing to head back to shore.

“It’s fine. We can talk here,” she said, sitting down beside me, slipping off her shoes and dipping her own feet into the water.

“Here?”

“Don’t you like it here?”

“Well, yes, of course, if you’re okay with that,” I replied, feeling more at ease with her consideration.

I pulled out my tablet and pen, getting ready the outline of questions I had prepared. But it was taking a while to load—my device was a bit laggy, and the internet connection wasn’t the best on such a remote island.

“How have things been at Dolphin Island?” I asked, trying to fill the silence.

“We’re running short on funds,” she answered calmly, “I’m still trying to raise more.”

“Is the money from tourists not enough?”

“It covers a small portion of the expenses. But most of it comes out of my own pocket.” She followed that with a small, knowing smile, “You’re still a student. Don’t worry about me. I have my ways of managing.”

As she spoke, my document of questions finally loaded.

“Make yourself at home. I already agreed to this interview, so feel free to ask me anything.”

“Ah … Thank you, Dr. Qin. I will.”

Her name was Qin Su. She was a marine biologist who specialised in dolphin research. Her research made the headlines about thirty years ago, but now, she’d been long forgotten by the public. I first came across her name in an old, obscure paper. The content was so strange and captivating that it had sent me down a rabbit hole, reigniting my dissertation after I’d hit a wall. That was when the idea hit me. Perhaps an interview with her would provide fresh inspiration.

She had responded to my email quickly, inviting me to the island. Naturally, I was glad to oblige.

“Then … shall we begin?”

She nodded.

“Your paper was about how the employment of dolphins by oil companies led to the dolphins forming an intelligent civilisation, right?” I couldn’t wait to ask.

“Yes. It caught some attention of other scholars at the time, but became irrelevant soon after,” she replied.

“What was that all about?”

“Is that really how you’re supposed to ask in an interview, young lady?” She answered with a question.

“Ah, excuse me … I mean, do you mind elaborating?”

“I don’t,” she said. “But I’m sure you’ve heard about how the marine oil extraction industry used to employ dolphins, yes?”

“I have, but I’d like more details.”

She moved my backpack aside and casually laid down beside me, looking up at the blue sky. She seemed rather carefree, maybe because it was just the two of us here.

“That was a long time ago. Was it 2041 … or 2042? Ah, I think it was 2042. A lot had happened that year … ”

Closing her eyes, she started recounting.

Chapter One

July 2042. I was twenty-six, fresh out of Ocean University with a PhD, and had just landed a job at the Institute of Marine Biology. Jobs were scarce in those days, and the economy was in shambles. The pay wasn’t much, but it was a relatively stable job that put food on the table. I stayed at the institute for two years and published a handful of papers, all of them about dolphins. Most of my time was spent testing dolphin intelligence, trying to figure out which human jobs they would be able to take over. Obviously, nobody cared. Research like mine was just filler, the kind of slop churned out to meet quotas. AIs replacing humans was all anyone cared about back then—why think about dolphins when we had robots? That’s why I was utterly unprepared when Longshi Energy Corp’s recruiter showed up at my door, less than two months after my papers were published.

“We are interested in your research. Would you, by any chance, like to come work for us?”

An invitation. I thought to myself: I studied the ocean—oil extracting was nowhere near my field of research. Why would an oil company want me? But their sincerity seemed genuine, and the salary they offered—can you imagine? It was a hefty sum: a single month’s pay was as much as what I made in a year. So what did they want me to do? I asked, to no avail. Said they couldn’t tell me. Corporate secrecy.

In the end, I said yes. I was too young to care much or to ask the right questions. Back then, that much money felt like the answer to everything. It was only later, with time and hindsight, that I understood they were paying me a fraction of what they owed the dive technicians.

Not until I signed the contract and finished onboarding did they reveal my task.

“Train the dolphins to swim along the pipes. Make them swim back and forth without going anywhere else. We need them to swim whenever we ask them to.”

They gave me three dolphins, a big pool, and plastic pipes built at the pool’s bottom.

I didn’t think much of it and started working immediately. It didn’t seem difficult—dolphins are bright, easier to train than dogs and cats. Within two weeks, they were swimming on command. I only had to throw them fish treats every time they did as I told.

A new request was made immediately after I finished my first.

“Now, can you make them swim without using verbal signals or treats? Imagine we need them to perform the same task, but this time the plastic pipes are laid 250 metres below the water surface.”

This put me in a quandary. How was I supposed to set the dolphins in motion without food incentives and verbal signals? I told them to hire someone else if they wanted a wizard. But to my surprise, they seemed to have anticipated my reaction. They just handed me a stack of papers on dolphin brain science and said, “We didn’t hire you for nothing.”

I flipped through the papers and immediately understood what they were after.

They called it “soundwave candy”.

The term may not make sense to you at a first glance. Simply put, it means putting headphones on dolphins so they can listen to music. You see, humans love music, classical, pop music and everything in between. But dolphins hear more than we ever could, detecting various frequencies we can’t imagine. They can hear all kinds of sounds in the ocean. Some sounds bring them joy, while some others cause discomfort. Certain key frequencies and tunes stimulate their brains, and bring a sense of pleasure. A pleasure that far exceeds what humans can experience with music. Their brains produce pleasure chemicals at this, like candy for the ears.

I understood the concept, but unease nagged at me.

“Could the dolphins become addicted to soundwave candy?”

“No,” they said, their confidence unwavering. “Don’t overthink it. We brought you in to find a new approach.”

“To what end?”

“For the good of mankind, of course,” one of them replied.

“The good of mankind?”

“Think about it. Human divers have to maintain these pipelines thousands of meters below the ocean. It’s dangerous work—one wrong move, one accident, and a family loses everything. We’re doing this to protect our human workers.”

I was so naive back then. I believed what they said. Deep-sea diving was dangerous indeed, I thought. If dolphins could do the heavy lifting instead, wasn’t that a good thing? For them, diving is natural, just a swim through the deep. It was hardly different from what they already did daily, only with a designated route.

I then started trying to figure out how to put the soundwave candy device on the dolphins’ heads, and how to get them to do what they were told. The experiment went much smoother than I thought it would. I simply stood next to the pool, neither feeding them nor blowing a whistle. Each time they completed the task, I’d give the knob a little twist, and that was all it took for the dolphins to voluntarily start swimming along the pipe.

I got the new task done and they updated their request.

“We need the dolphins to help us with finer operations,” he told me.

“Dolphins don’t have hands. All they can move is their heads,” I replied.

“Then we’ll attach mechanical limbs to them. That will get the job done. By the way, one of our long-time divers will start working with you next week.”

What a whimsical idea, I thought. Dolphins? Perform delicate operations? But then, when I saw the precision of the machine limbs fitted to the dolphin’s lips and fins, I realised just how much thought had gone into the program. That’s how new technology is born—the risks and feasibility have to be fully evaluated first. Only then can it be put forward for implementation. By the time they brought me on board, the groundwork had already been done.

My new coworker was a middle-aged man in his fifties. His last name was Guo.

Old Guo was a honest but quiet man. When we first started working together, he seemed to always keep a distance from me.

Old Guo had been diving for nearly twenty years, maintaining underwater oil pipelines at depths of 250 metres. The job required him to descend in a pressurised diving chamber, then step out into the water to fix the pipes.

“Scientific research is good. My daughter’s going to be a scientist someday,” he said. It was something he repeated often, like some kind of catchphrase. “I don’t want them to end up like me. I could die any day doing this, and the work leaves you with all kinds of body issues.”

Old Guo had two daughters—the older one was nearly in college, and the younger was still in middle school. He was talking about the occupational conditions as a diver. The human body doesn’t handle the rapid shifts between high and low pressure well, and years of diving wear a person down.

“Let me show you how it’s done. First, you locate the fault with a radar. Once you’ve found it, you’ll need to replace the pipe … ”

Guo donned his thick diving suit and slipped into the water, swimming like a fish. Watching him, it was clear how familiar he was with the job—every motion efficient, no energy wasted. Training the dolphins to do the same, however, was a completely different story. After all, Old Guo was human, and dolphins were just animals. Every time they fumbled with something as simple as screwing in a bolt, I’d catch the faintest glint of pride in Old Guo’s eyes. Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but feel a little frustrated.

“Don’t worry. Research takes time. We’ve been at this for years—those dolphins can’t catch up to us so quickly,” he said with a reassuring smile.

Old Guo was only told to come assist me with the research, and naturally he was happy to oblige: diving in a swimming pool was much easier and safer than working in the ocean. Ah, he was always so kind. Bought me expensive fish maw to eat because he knew the toll diving would take on skin.

“I’m a guy and it don’t matter how my skin looks. But you’re not married yet, you gotta take care of yours.” He’d say things like that and then pull out his daughters’ report cards, proudly telling me how well they were doing in school and how they’d make it into top colleges.

That was Old Guo. A kind, ordinary man.

“Do you get scared when you go diving in the ocean?” I once asked him.

“Of course. How can I not be? The deep sea is pitch black, especially at night. There’s no light at all! Each time before I go down there, I pray to Buddha for a safe return,” he replied.

“Then why don’t you quit the job?”

“I need the money,” he said simply. “It’s not like I can become a researcher like you; I didn’t spend enough time in school. I do this so my daughters won’t ever have to.”

And so, we worked together, training the dolphins bit by bit. After about two months, the dolphins finally began to understand what was expected of them: what earned them soundwave candies, and how to succeed or fail at a task. We presented our latest results to the higher-ups, and they approved the next stage—taking the dolphins to the ocean. We did more training there, the dolphins worked while Old Guo stayed in the pressure-proof diving chamber to supervise.

“These dolphins are so smart!” Old Guo praised over the microphone. “Good dolphins. We won’t have to go into the water ourselves anymore.”

I was happy too.This is how it’s supposed to be, I thought, dolphins doing the dangerous work while human divers supervise them. The sea was their natural habitat, after all. As long as we kept the sharks away, the dolphins would be totally safe—much safer than human workers in the deep sea. For the next year, we trained more dolphins, including some wild ones. Human divers only had to oversee the operations.

“The dolphins are getting better at this every day,” Old Guo told me one day, his tone flat and emotionless. For the first time, he wasn’t smiling.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked him. “Your work won’t be dangerous anymore.”

He didn’t say anything. Looking back, I realise now that he must have already heard the news.

Not long after the number of working dolphins came to two thousand, Longshi Energy Corp laid off all of its divers.

I didn’t know. Never saw it coming. I only wondered why Old Guo had stopped showing up. Was he sick? Was something wrong? I got worried and called him—and that was when I learned the news.

“But why would they do that?” I asked, genuinely confused. What a stupid question I had asked.

“Dolphins … dolphins are cheaper than we are,” he said, “We make twenty thousand a month diving down there. And if something happens to us, the insurance has to pay out millions. But dolphins … how little do they cost … ”

On the phone, his voice trembled like leaves clinging to a branch. I tried asking more, but he wouldn’t answer. Feeling a mixture of guilt and sadness, I decided to visit Old Guo.

I combed through our previous messages to find his home address. The family was huddled in a small house. His two girls were already grown, but they still had to share one small bed. A simple curtain separated the girls’ bed with another, where a woman was leaning on the headboard, her legs curled up. The woman … she looked extremely unwell. I didn’t dare ask. As soon as Old Guo saw me there, he immediately pulled me out.

“What brings you here?” he asked me.

“I was worried about you,” I said.

“Go, go, let’s go talk somewhere else.”

Old Guo was still trying to hide it, but I was insistent. He eventually gave in and told me about his family’s finances.

Money for his wife’s treatment, money for his children’s schooling, money for his retired parents … plus medication bills from the hospital. Treatment for his occupational conditions.

It all depended on him working in the water to make up for it.

I couldn’t help but cry as I listened. How could this happen?

It was then that I realised why they were training dolphins.

Without a word, I took out my phone and wanted to transfer money to Old Guo. I realised the company was just paying me with wages stolen from them.

Old Guo held down my hand and resolutely declined, “Keep that hard-earned money for yourself. You earned it through your own acquired knowledge. How can you give it to me?”

“If it wasn’t for me, you guys would have kept your jobs.”

“This has nothing to do with you. Don’t overthink it.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll figure it out. I’m a grown man. I’ll find a way somehow.” Old Guo smiled.

I stopped crying, naively believing his words, thinking he must have another way out as a skilled worker. He waited until I wiped off my tears, and invited me to his home for dinner. His two girls were very happy to have guests, and they called me big sister. Old Guo introduced me to them, saying that I was a top student in my class, and that they should look up to me. I was flattered to the point of feeling embarrassed.

*

That was when Professor Qin abruptly stopped talking.

“And then? How did it go for Old Guo?” I asked.

She wiped her eyes and looked over at me, “Do you want to hear it?”

“Yes, if you want to tell me, Professor Qin.”

“That was the last I saw of Old Guo,” she said.

As she spoke, the sun had almost set. Its afterglow scattered on the surface of the sea, illuminating the sparkling waters.

“Huh? What happened? Did something happen to Old Guo?” I asked.

Her brows furrowed.

After a moment of silence, she finally spoke up, as if she had made up her mind.

Chapter Two

The next time I heard news about Old Guo, it was from the mouths of the Coastal Rescue Team. They searched for him out at sea, in their orange jackets. Over and over, they went in circles. They found nothing. But the surveillance camera had caught him. The platform—that’s where Old Guo jumped from. Within an hour he was gone. The sea swallowed him whole, leaving nothing behind.

Why did he jump? I didn’t know. No one was allowed to ask, and no one dared to tell. I still remember Old Guo saying that the depths of the sea were dark, with no light at all. He told me how afraid he was if he wouldn’t be able to come back up. If he was so afraid, why did he jump down? Later, a few more diving maintenance workers jumped, too. Longshi only ever hired about two hundred divers, and three of them had jumped. Their families demanded answers. I heard among them were two young girls. I was told I’d be sued if I revealed anything. At the time, I chose to stay silent out of fear.

But now … if they asked me now … I’d make a different decision.

What the company claimed was simple: the labour contract was long over by the time those people jumped. They had the evidence to back it up—the old labour contract voided with a new supplement. The company’s legal department was ruthless, and the law was on their side. When Old Guo jumped, they said, he was no longer their employee. It was a “voluntary agreement” to terminate the labour relationship.

*

“Did Longshi pay out?” I asked.

“No, they wouldn’t.”

“Why not? They’re running billions a month.”

“They believed if they paid the first few families, more would follow.”

“And after that?” I pressed, reluctant to believe that was the end.

“There is no after,” she replied flatly. “Ah, I mean, the dolphin programme continued, but that was the last I heard of Old Guo. I never saw his daughters again. They moved away; I don’t know where. Longshi stopped employing diving maintenance workers. And slowly, divers disappeared from the payrolls of other oil companies, too.” Her voice turned low as she added, “They disappeared without a trace, like dew vanishing from leaves when the sun comes up.”

I sat there, in saddened silence, unsure how to comfort her.

Knowing what happened to Old Guo caused a dull ache in my chest. But isn’t this the way of the world? I couldn’t help but think. It’s been the same with many other industries. After the invention of the automobile, the carriage drivers disappeared. In recent decades, the cab drivers are vanishing, too.

I stopped myself from continuing down that line of thought. It wasn’t what I came here for.

“Did you continue working for Longshi after that?”

She nodded, “Yes, I did. Then something magical happened to the dolphins. Come, let’s go indoors and talk.”

She took a deep breath and sat up, rubbing her eyes. I picked up my backpack and silently followed.

We sat down in the living room and turned on the lights. She poured two cups of hot water and continued talking.

*

I kept working for Longshi because my contract hadn’t expired—and because I was worried about the dolphins. If they could treat human workers the way they did, I dreaded how they might treat animals. If I stayed, I could at least hold off some of it. Since the dolphin programme had succeeded in replacing the workers, the company gave me a raise—and even a trophy. They called it the Technical Progress Award. You’ve probably heard of it. It’s an old thing now, but back then, it was a big deal. A lot of people started reaching out to me, eager to explore new ways for humans to use animals in labour. But I didn’t have the heart for that. I stayed focused on the dolphins. They loved our soundwave candy, but I knew it required careful control.

During that time, I was under constant stress, worrying about the dolphins and blaming myself for everything that had happened.

Have technological advances really made people happier? This question nagged at me every day, and I couldn’t stop doubting. The more I doubted, the more I buried myself in research, hoping to escape those thoughts. Eventually, my research led to a breakthrough: the social patterns of the dolphins were changing because of their employment.

At first, it was subtle. Dolphins that worked with humans began to hold a higher status within their pods. The soundwave candy, though physically attached to their bodies, emitted sound waves that travelled through the water, capturing the attention of dolphins without it. Those without candy would swim around those with it, hoping for a chance to share the music. The candy-bearing dolphins noticed the pattern and started trading the candy for food—and even for mating opportunities. After all, like humans, dolphins too can derive pleasure from sexual behaviour.

I trained the dolphins while carefully recording and studying this fascinating shift.

Their social dynamics were evolving.

In the past, the differences among dolphins were only biological—in strength, intelligence, or hunting skill. But now, humans had introduced something new. The difference between them became whether or not they could produce music that pleased others. Weaker dolphins, unable to compete in traditional ways, began labouring for longer hours for more music. “Music hours” became a new social currency, bringing them food and mates.

Longshi had assigned me to a small, isolated island surrounded only by dolphins, leaving me without coworkers or friends. My goal was simple: to make sure the dolphins were safe and healthy. I knew the soundwave candy was a human design that disrupted their natural behaviours, but I believed that as long as I monitored them, nothing would go wrong. I was naive like that.

Then Mr Lin showed up.

Mr Lin was at least six feet tall, with glasses and a polished, well-educated look that made him appear younger than his forty years. At first, I thought he was a colleague, but I soon realised that Longshi had used my research to attract new investments. A mysterious fund—one I still don’t know the source of—was interested in the changing social patterns of the dolphins.

“Do you know? Dolphins own private property now.” Those were the first words he said to me.

“What? Private property?” I asked incredulously. “It’s not like the oil company pays them salaries.”

He laughed brightly and introduced himself. “Haha, I expected that question from you. I’m an associate professor of economics at Northern University. You’re an oceanologist. I’m a sociologist. We see private properties differently.”

“Private property, in terms of economics, isn’t just about money,” he explained. “From the dolphins’ perspective, the soundwave candy is a product of their labour. Because it can only be earned through work, it has value. Beyond that, the candy provides happiness in its own right—what we call use value. And since the candy’s effects can be shared by proximity, it also carries exchange value.”

I remembered learning those terms when I was younger, but had long since forgotten them. Mr Lin didn’t seem to mind my questions, patiently explaining each concept. His eyebrows would unfurl slightly as he spoke, his pretty eyes meeting mine, shining with a sly glint that reminded me of a fox. I was very young then; when he looked at me like that, I could feel the flutters in my chest.

“You mean…the dolphins have money now?” I asked him, lowering my gaze away from his eyes.

“You could see it that way,” he said. “If everything you’ve recorded is true, then the dolphins did not only own money—they are earning it through labour. If this continues, they could even develop their own society, and progress through classical, feudal, and industrial periods. Eventually, they might develop capitalism.”

His voice rose slightly when he said “capitalism,” and a faint smile curled at the corners of his lips.

I found it amusing: I knew dolphins all too well. They were like little children compared to humans—no older than six or seven in terms of intelligence. How could they develop capitalism? To me, Mr Lin sounded like one of those dusty scholars who buried themselves in hypotheticals.

“No way,” I quipped, “Dolphins can’t do that. They’re like ten-year-old children at best.”

“Well, so were our ancestors. The southern apes five million years ago were nowhere smarter.”

“It doesn’t sound like your ‘eventually’ is happening any time soon.”

“It won’t be that long for the dolphins when they have human help,” he said. “Have you ever wondered what set humanity on the path to intellectual evolution? What was the key? The initial push?”

“Natural selection.”

“No. It was the ownership of private property,” he corrected. “In the case of dolphins, those willing to labour are the smarter individuals. Over generations, their willingness to work will result in smarter offspring. Gradually, more dolphins will labour, and more will grow intelligent. Private property will change how natural selection shapes dolphins.”

“Is this your academic opinion?”

“Yes, though there isn’t much support for it yet. Most people think private property comes after civilisation, not before.”

“The idea that private property drives intelligence is pretty novel.”

“The dolphins will show us whether this ‘novel’ opinion will turn out true. This is why I’m here.”

After that conversation, Mr Lin asked me to show him the dolphins. I led the way as the sea breeze blew past, first catching his sleeves and then brushing against me. “Wasn’t it some time ago that a worker jumped from here?” he asked softly, looking out at the waves.

I remembered Old Guo and felt a familiar pang in my chest.

“That’s what we’re trying to solve,” he said. “When humans gained private property, it widened the gap between the strong and the weak.”

“Isn’t that the inherent flaw of capitalism?” I shot back.

He smiled but didn’t answer me directly. “If we can figure out how private property influences the emergence of civilisation, we might solve this problem.”

Then he turned back, his gaze lingering on me, “Biologists like you figured out long ago that humans are made of cells, while us economists are still debating over theories. Neoclassicists and Marxists have argued for centuries, and neither side can convince the other.”

I didn’t understand him then. I only thought: This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Why did training dolphins cost Old Guo his job? Why did technological progress leave so many people behind? It didn’t align with anything I’d learned.

Feeling utterly lost, I turned to Mr Lin, pinning my hopes on his theories.

And in time, his predictions about the dolphins came true.

He predicted class divisions in dolphins. At first, it would be the dolphins that laboured and gained private property who rose to higher social status. But soon, he said, there would inevitably be dolphins who, without labouring, would still amass property—because they had mastered violence.

“We have to understand how civilisation came to be before we can change it.” Mr Lin said that often.

Fascinated by his ambition, I started teaching him how to dive and interact with the dolphins; or, in his words, to touch a civilisation in its cradle, as it was growing in real time. We were the only researchers on that island. Inevitably, I fell in love with him. I had never been in love before, never knew it could outshine even nature.

Chapter Three

“So you became a couple?” I asked.

She smiled and nodded, “We’d go skinny dipping in the shallow waters as the dolphins circled us. We were as naked as they were, jumping into the arms of Mother Nature the way we were born.”

Hearing her description, I imagined it and immediately blushed. I shook my head off, mentally telling myself what I had come for.

“And what happened after that? Did the dolphins develop as Mr Lin hypothesised?”

She dropped her smile at my question and started recounting again.

*

Mr Lin and I became a loving couple, diving daily and conducting our respective research. I poured my heart into loving him, dreaming of a sweet, eternal love and an ideal utopia: one where technology brought progress without leaving anyone behind.

Now, looking back, it was nothing more than a young girl’s childish fantasies.

We tagged the dolphins we already had and began keeping records of the wild ones, lured in by the soundwave candy. Gradually, the newcomers had to hunt more fish to earn the favour of the hired dolphins and stay close to them. Originally, the dolphins spent much of their time playing, but now they had to hunt more to earn the soundwave candy. The same was true for the hired dolphins: all of them had to work harder for longer music hours. Soon we noticed dolphins lying on the pipe to rest instead of leaving their posts, despite being too tired to swim. Other, smarter dolphins learned to slack off, pretending to work while actually playing. We documented all of this in our co-authored paper.

But those were merely side discoveries. Most importantly, we discovered that the dolphins had formed social classes. Can you imagine dolphins we didn’t hire receiving services from others? Or dolphins with soundwave candies who were somehow still unpopular? All of these had really happened. Just as we theorised, dolphins were forming their own tribalistic society with distinct roles. We named them workers, farmers, middlemen, commanders, and warriors.

I’m sure you’re wondering now, why are there dolphin warriors?

Warriors emerged after a murder.

I still remember the first victim. Number A3076. Its murderer, we later learned through genetic sequencing, was none other than one of its own kin. They were two dolphins sharing immediate bloodlines.

That night, A3076 went still on my radar. It lay on the surface of a submarine pipe, motionless for hours. That was very unusual for dolphins. They don’t sleep like humans; instead, their left and right brains take turns controlling the body while they keep swimming all day. Alerted, Mr Lin and I decided to go inspect the situation underwater. We were stunned beyond words.

A3076 had a large gash cut into the side of its head, blood seeping into the water. We freaked out, thinking that some other predator had come into the dolphins’ habitat. But upon closer inspection, we realised the wound was a long, thin hole—it was not from a predator’s teeth. We brought A3076’s body back and, upon closer examination, discovered the wound had been inflicted by a robotic arm.

We made robotic arms for dolphins to overhaul pipes, but now they were being used as murder weapons.

I was stunned and very frightened. I couldn’t fathom that a creature as intelligent and kind as a dolphin would murder one of its kin. But Mr Lin was excited. He told me that this was a sign of the evolution of civilisation.

I still remember his words, how utterly thrilled he sounded.

“It’s a civilisation! A civilisation has been born! What we just witnessed—it’s like Eve eating the apple, Cain killing Abel!”

I stood there, mind blank, watching his eyes sparkle with joy. The man I thought I knew so well now seemed a stranger.

Timidly, I asked, “Should we stop this?”

“Don’t kid me, darling. How can we stop now? We’re so close! Soon we’ll see the birth of civilisation with our own eyes.”

“So what if we do?” I asked.

“Why are you asking such silly questions again?”

With that, Mr Lin simply put on his wetsuit and left, eager to investigate the murder. I didn’t follow him. Instead, I sat there, thinking about everything that had happened. Was it humans who had given dolphins private property? And in doing so, had we sparked the rise of their civilisation, only for evil to surface alongside it?

Mr Lin returned shortly after. He recounted to me the entire process, as captured on the monitor:

A3076 was a hardworking dolphin. It had earned longer candy hours through its labour, and in doing so, it had attracted a mate. But that mate, a female dolphin, had originally been paired with B3099. B3099 had suffered a minor illness and hadn’t been able to work as effectively, so its candy hours had dwindled. It was during this time that A3076 had taken its partner.

The murder happened swiftly. Normally, dolphins kept their robotic arms close to their bodies when not in use, but B3099 didn’t retract its arm as it left the pipe. It swam slowly, awkwardly, and deliberately toward A3076. While A3076 was working, B3099 seized the moment, thrusting its robotic arm into A3076’s head in one swift motion.

That video still haunts my nightmares. I can still see B3099’s calculated movements, the victimised dolphin struggling as its brother drives the robotic arm into its head. And the more A3076 thrashed, the more B3099 seemed to revel in it, wiggling its tailfin and churning the arm deeper into the wound. Blood and pale tissue drifted into the water, spreading like a cloud. B3099 waited until A3076 was completely still before finally swimming away.

It left me trembling in fear.

I recognised dolphin B3099. It was one of the first dolphins we trained, a skilled worker among them.

Do you know how it used to smile? I remember it all too well. Its mouth would open, eyes squinting, as I threw minnows into the pool and played with it. It was like a child, full of joy. But in that surveillance video, it made the same smile—mouth open, eyes squinting, bubbles spilling out—as it expressed the same pleasure in the act of murder.

I’ll never forget that smile for the rest of my life.

It was then that I realised the full extent of what we had done. How we just pushed a naturally primitive life form toward civilisation. Such a murder was a first, but definitely not the last. Private property had brought with it an evil that was never meant for dolphins.

I grabbed Mr Lin’s arm and begged in a hushed whisper, “No, let’s stop here. Let’s tell Longshi the dolphins are being harmed. If… If they won’t let us stop, we’ll go to an animal protection organisation. There has to be something we can do…”

Mr Lin was silent, his face emotionless. “The evolution of dolphins must continue,” he said coldly.

“What?” I pushed him away and pointed at the screen. “Didn’t you see that? That was a horrific murder!”

“Lions kill their own kind,” he replied calmly. “Orangutans eat offspring that aren’t theirs.”

“Dolphins are different!” I yelled hysterically, my voice breaking. “They’ve always been kind and intelligent creatures!”

He seemed clearly tired of me as he turned off the light. “It’s late. You should go to bed.”

How could I sleep? All I could think about was B3099’s smile. Were we going to call it evil by nature? Was this how we’d absolve ourselves of responsibility? I lay trapped in the darkness, drowning in self-blame. It felt as if the shadows were seeping into my heart, burying me in their lightless depths. I closed my eyes, only to jerk awake at the image of that dolphin’s smile, burned into my eyelids.

Eventually I crept out of my bedroom and asked, “I’m scared. Could you stay with me?”

But Mr Lin was still sitting there, watching the video that terrified me over and over again.

“Civilisation was born with evil,” he muttered, still staring at the screen. “Private property doomed us. A nest of capitalism, chewing through its own wings. This is the relationship between private property and civilisation’s birth … ”

I whispered his name, louder each time, until I finally got his attention.

“Don’t distract me. I’m thinking.” That was all he said.

At that moment, something brittle in my chest finally shattered. Not just a love lost—this was the collapse of a delusion, a glass shard of truth cutting through the sweet fairy tale I had spun for myself. The dolphins’ murder case wasn’t just about them. It was us. It was the same question that has haunted the human world: why do we leave our kin to die? Do we have a solution for that with technological advances?

I lay in bed, trying to calm down, to no avail.  I pressed my palms over my eyes, but the footage still played in my mind: dolphin smiling as it ripped flesh, Old Guo’s death, the dark gulp of the sea. I wondered how he had voluntarily jumped into the cold ocean, and what kind of fear he had faced as he died.

Was that not murder too? All this time, a group of humans have been killing another group of humans.

In the not-too-distant future, dolphins would kill like us. They would no longer be creatures of instinct, but something monstrous. A new species.

At dawn, my tears dried into resolve as I started to calm down. No more crying. Only action. I downloaded the footage and gathered every file. I first reported it to the government, even though I knew it was useless as the law was only concerned about human murder, but it was necessary. Immediately after that, I contacted animal protection organisations and journalists, and sent out the videos. I spoke up as a Longshi employee and leaked everything: from the divers’ suicides to the dolphin murder case.

I was scared. I didn’t know what a large multinational company like that would do to me. But I knew that I was doing the right thing. All human interference with the dolphins had to stop.

Chapter Four

“Is that what caused the uproar back then?” I asked, jotting notes.

“Yes. I guess there is little record to be found now. The internet moves on fast these days. People forget things from five years ago, let alone thirty.” She shook her head, “Longshi’s PR team buried stories with petty cash. It was clear to me that I couldn’t fight them, but what else could I do? Those dolphins were my children, and I couldn’t just abandon them.”

“This reminds me of God and Satan.”

“Hmm … care to elaborate?” She smiled faintly.

“Well… You’re God, and Mr Lin is Satan. Satan tempts Adam and Eve with knowledge, they leave Eden, start civilisation… and evil begins. The dolphin civilisation mirrors this. When they developed private property and labour roles, envy followed … Oops, sorry, I’m running my mouth again. The thought just occurred to me …” I was struggling to get my point across.

“It’s okay. That analogy shows that you got it.”

“Well, did I? I’m not so sure about that,” I said with a smile.

“Then I’d love to hear more from you. Take your time.”

I took a moment to gather my thoughts. “So, the two of you believe that civilisation was born alongside evil, that Adam and Eve could only leave the Garden of Eden by eating the forbidden fruit. In your view, human civilisation began outside Eden. The rise of the dolphin civilisation mirrors this process. When the dolphins gained private property, divided labour, and formed their own society, it inevitably sparked envy and evil. And you believe this evil is an inherent part of civilisation, something that can never be undone. Humanity’s technological progress will only repeat this cycle. Tragedies like Old Guo’s death are an unavoidable consequence of civilisation.”

“You’re smart. You do get it.”

“But I disagree.” The conversation had drifted deeper, so I didn’t shy away from pressing on and expressing my opinion, “Technology can fix this.”

“Ah, you’re a techno-optimist.” She laughed.

“Yes, I believe in Marxism. With a great abundance of productive forces, capitalism will surely progress into communism, and in a communist society, no one gets left behind. Old Guo’s tragedy is a consequence of capitalism—capitalists are cold-blooded, and they’re always profits over people.”

“So when does capitalism end?”

“When productivity peaks.”

“No, I’m asking for a specific event. A watershed moment.”

“An event?”

“There has to be an event, like the invention of steam engine marking the start of the industrial age.”

“I can’t predict that.”

“If capitalism survived even the Great Depression, when?”

Her rhetorical question left me speechless. I shifted, defensive, “History doesn’t dictate the future. Technology will change the future, and mankind will find a new way.”

Seeing that I was agitated, she merely smiled and sipped her hot water, unruffled. “Maybe you’re right. The dolphin civilisation was shaped by humans, while ours evolved independently. They’re not the same.”

“Is this your… endorsement of my point of view?” I blinked, taken aback. I had already prepared more arguments in my mind, ready for debate. But now, I realised our conversation had long since moved beyond a simple interview.

“So far, at least, human history has been one of constant abandonment. Carriage drivers were replaced by automobiles, and rickshaws disappeared from the streets of Shanghai. In our time, painters and drivers have become nearly obsolete. These people vanished, but no new jobs were created for them. Their livelihoods were lost. Their voices were silenced.”

“But the jobs of carriage drivers were replaced by taxi drivers, and painters became chip engineers. New roles emerged.”

“In the same numbers? How many painters and drivers do you think are now coding chips?”

I hesitated, scrambling to counter. Surely, the benefits of technology should have lifted everyone up, including those who were replaced—

Before I could finish the thought, she interrupted.

“Relax. This isn’t a debate. You don’t have to figure out how to win an interview,” she said.

“Right. Sorry,” I replied, embarrassed. I tapped the screen, reactivating the screensaver. “Then … what happened next? How did you end up on Dolphin Island with these dolphins?”

She leaned back on the couch and seemed a little weary. With a sigh, she continued recounting.

*

I certainly couldn’t fight their team of lawyers. I was too weak.

Longshi’s actions were by all means legal. The public saw them as champions of technological progress, driving efficiency and profitability. As for the dolphins, only a small number of people continued to care. I received donations and messages of support—some opposed human interference in dolphin society, while others simply wished for the dolphins to return to nature, free from human influence. But the encouragement was drowned out by hostility. People cared more about oil prices; millions drove cars daily, and a third of those cars still ran on fossil fuels. Some influential internet figures warned that without dolphin labour, oil prices would rise, fuelling hidden profiteers. Maybe Longshi paid them, or maybe they didn’t need to be paid to side with the majority against me. They cast doubt on my intentions, suggesting that I had ulterior business motives and didn’t really care about the dolphins.

I thought my spirit was strong, but as it turned out, I didn’t last long. It was the most painful time of my life. I clung to supportive messages to keep going. But flashbacks of the dolphin’s smile, the verbal abuse, and the public’s constant doubt about my motives wore me down. I was on the verge of collapse.

Mr Lin wasn’t there for me during that time. He vanished from my life, but also refused interviews and never publicly supported Longshi. Perhaps that was his last act of tenderness toward me.

Eventually, as new controversies emerged, the old ones faded. The lawsuits ended, and the spotlight shifted away from me. I found peace again. The trolls and supporters alike forgot my name and the dolphins.

I returned to my old institute to study dolphins. They promoted me to a researcher immediately. The team supported me. On my first day back, a young girl—she was a bit younger than you—thanked me for protecting the dolphins with tears in her eyes. Those warm tears of gratitude reminded me I’d done the right thing, even if I’d failed.

I settled into a routine: work, home, eat, work out. I considered marriage, but after the ordeal with Longshi, I lost interest in intimacy. I put those plans on hold. Over time, the pain faded. Time, as they say, is the best medicine.

The same routine went on for fifteen years. Gradually, I stopped thinking about the dolphins—I didn’t want to remember. I had two potted plants by the window, an orchid and a waxberry bush. My small office at the marine research institute became a sanctuary, untouched by the outside world.

You were young then, probably in elementary school. You might not even have an impression of it, but another Great Depression happened, and the crisis swept the world. People lost their jobs, then their money, then their dignity. Desperation drove some men to exploit their wives, pushing them into sex work. Our institute laid off a lot of people. I never saw them again. Instead, I saw a lot of people holding signs, looking for work, or placing stickers with their phone numbers on footbridges. Then within minutes, cleaning robots would come to tear those stickers down, sweeping them into garbage bins. I couldn’t think about those things. I had to block them out. To cover my ears and eyes. That was the only way I could keep going, by deceiving my own conscience.

Another fifteen years passed. I’d almost forgotten about the dolphins and Mr Lin.

Then, one night after work, he was there, waiting for me.

I recognised him at once. He stood as erect and lean as ever, but his face had aged dramatically. I remembered Mr Lin as young, spirited and strong, with energy that seemed inexhaustible. But this time he looked like an old man. The grey hairs at his temples were unmistakable. When he saw me, a flicker of panic crossed his eyes before he regained his composure, settling back into a worried, sad expression.

We found a table at a small restaurant. As soon as we sat down, he spoke.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“An apology. Is that all today?” I asked.

“I … need your help,” he stammered.

I assumed he was in trouble and needed to borrow money or something. It saddened me a bit. In those days, any relationship, romantic or not, boiled down to money. Perhaps Mr Lin and I were no exception.

“The dolphins are being replaced,” he said, his brows furrowing.

I just stared. That wasn’t on my list of things he might say.

“Longshi is switching to underwater robots. It was inevitable, they cost half as much to maintain. But those dolphins…” he hesitated, as if those words were weighing down in his throat and he was struggling to spit them out, “their civilisation has already evolved.”

“I know … I should’ve listened to you back then. I was so obsessed with economic modelling that I accelerated their progress. Now, the oil company doesn’t need them anymore. No more soundwave candies for the dolphins. So I’ve come to ask for your help. But don’t worry, you won’t be doing it for nothing. I’ve saved up some money over the years, my salary and research rewards. I’m giving you all of it. Just … please help me. We need to get all 1,365 of those dolphins out of civilisation and back to the wild … Back to their natural way of living.”

His words stunned me. I immediately understood what we had at hand.

The dolphins were losing their jobs too!

Yes. It was only natural that it would happen. Those dolphins, the lovely fairies of the ocean, were bound to face unemployment the moment they were hired. They were like farmers who had left their land to work in factories—only to be cast out again when the factories no longer needed them. Between the dolphins and the unemployed people on the streets, who were more miserable? The foundation of the dolphin civilisation was soundwave candy, it was the fruit of their labour, their private property. And humans were about to take it all away. What should the dolphins do? Progression can be accepted, but what about regression? There is nothing more terrifying than that.

“The dolphin civilisation… how advanced is it now?” I asked Mr Lin.

He pulled out a thick stack of papers from his briefcase and placed them in front of me. The pile was so heavy that I could barely hold on to it. I began from the top and quickly flipped through the pages. Though I only skimmed the introduction, summary, and table of contents, it still took me hours to get through all of them. The more I read, the colder I felt, and the heavier my heart.

I asked, “Have you published these studies? I haven’t seen them online.”

He shook his head. “It’s better if they don’t get published.”

“Why?”

“Because their conclusions are flawed.”

“You mean you made a mistake in your argument?”

“No, it’s not that. I’m a scholar, and scholars state facts and summarise observations. But I am also part of human society, and I know that some things are not meant to be understood, lest it does our society more harm than good.”

I understood what he meant.

Chapter Five

“What did those papers say?” I asked hastily.

“Do you want to read them?” she asked me back.

“May I?” My heart raced. What could be in these documents that had kept Mr Lin from publishing them?

“Of course. Mr Lin gave them to me because he no longer wished to continue his research and wanted to destroy them. I thought it was a shame, so I asked for the papers and preserved them. I’ll warn you in advance: they may not be entirely accurate. These are just Mr Lin’s personal findings.”

My palms grew sweaty. If I could read this material, my PhD thesis would be much closer to completion. But I also wondered: what could have kept Mr Lin from releasing them?

She got up and walked into another room, returning a moment later with a small stack of papers.

“It would probably take you months to get through the entirety of it. These are the key parts of what I’ve sifted through.”

I flipped through the papers, then put on my glasses and read carefully. The papers were focused on the development of dolphin civilisation and their economic behaviour. One article, titled The Formation of Dolphin Civilisation: The Role of Soundwave Candy as Private Property, stood out. It wrote, “The development of dolphin tribal civilisation supplements humanity’s unrecorded prehistory, offering insights into that lost period. This period, obscured because early humans lacked the tools to record it, has long been a mystery. Scholars could only speculate about it, piecing together fragments of evidence. But now, the early stages of dolphin civilisation have illuminated this foetal phase of societal growth, shedding light on how civilisations begin.”

As I read further, I was struck by the thoroughness of the evidence. Like Mr Lin, I studied economic sociology, and naturally I could appreciate the value of these insights. But as I dug deeper, I started to understand why he had kept this research private.

“One thing is certain,” the paper read, “the creation of language and writing is deeply connected to private property. Early dolphin language focused on the trade of soundwave candy: how it sparked conflicts and how those conflicts were resolved. As their language developed, new roles emerged, such as Co-ordinators, who organised trade, punished violent dolphins, and ensured order. Over time, Co-ordinators split into Judges, who decided punishments, and Police, who enforced them.”

“The Co-ordinators were not fair in their judgments. In fact, fairness did not exist in the dolphin society at all. From the beginning, the Co-ordinators favoured stronger individuals who could offer more soundwave candy. Weaker dolphins were merely kept from disrupting the existing order. This bias reflects the inequalities in human legal systems and governments …”

I read on. The paper continued to draw parallels between human and dolphin societies. Mr Lin’s analysis concluded that this social model was deeply rooted in biology, developed through shared traits ingrained in our nature. He developed a rigorous set of mathematical models connecting private property to these social structures, claiming that they were universally applicable to both humans and dolphins.

“Dolphins don’t understand how soundwave candies are made or how human industrial labour functions. To them, being rewarded with pleasure for completing tasks is perfectly natural, because the human reward system treated them with fairness. Our algorithm guarantees that dolphins who work more receive more rewards. Yet, within their society, it is the norm for those who work the most to receive the least, while those who contribute nothing receive the most. Paradoxically, this system boosts efficiency in producing ‘pleasure property,’ enabling the dolphin community to grow in size and sophistication. Their language and writing advance as a result. Some dolphins thrive in this system, but others become the ‘price to pay’ for civilisation.”

“Some efforts to correct these societal flaws, such as trying to alter the biases of Co-ordinators to create a fairer society, have ultimately failed. These efforts were like pushing a roly-poly doll: once the external pressure was removed, the system reverted to its natural state. When intervention stopped, the dolphins returned to a social order where the strong oppressed the weak. Paradoxically, when interference occurred, the society’s overall survival efficiency decreased—interestingly, it was never the stronger dolphins who suffered; only the weaker ones struggled for the already scarce resources.”

I took a deep breath and continued reading several more pages.

The information, evidence, and rigorous logic made it clear that this work came from a scholar more gifted than myself. His descriptions, summaries of experiments, and conclusions all pointed to the same argument, one that he might have been reluctant to admit:

The oppression of the weak by the strong in dolphin society was a necessary condition for the development of their civilisation. At the same time, the more dolphin civilisation advanced, the more multifaceted and entrenched this oppression became. This process resembles metabolism: a civilisation advances by shedding its weakest members.

By the time I reached the last page, it was already late at night. The clock struck midnight, and the lingering warmth of the day had vanished. The island’s temperature had dropped sharply, and I felt a chill. Professor Qin went to the kitchen, brought over an electric heater, and poured us both coffee.

I didn’t feel tired. I was as awake as I could be.

“I … don’t think human society will turn out like this,” I said. “Technology will solve … will solve those problems. Human society isn’t like dolphin society.”

“Maybe you’re right.” She smiled. “Humans are limited by their perceptions. Einstein told us the speed of light is insurmountable, but that’s just our understanding. Who knows? Maybe some advanced alien civilisations out there have overcome it.”

She asked, “Do you think the speed of light is the ultimate limit?”

“For now, yes,” I replied.

“Then do you think an alien civilisation could have broken that limit?”

“I can’t say for sure. Maybe there is. Who knows, maybe there’s a Creator?” I laughed. The topic of light shifted the mood.

“That’s why you don’t have to take this study too seriously,” she said. “Even if all the evidence points to a conclusion, that doesn’t necessarily make it true. As you said earlier, the past can’t determine the future. I won’t live to see how the far future will turn out for us human beings. Who knows what might happen?”

“You mean, can technology overcome civilisation’s fundamental flaws?” I paused. “Such as … the strong oppressing the weak?”

“That’s for your generation to figure out,” she said.

“Can we really work out such a difficult problem?”

“You should believe you can. Humans are powerful,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “Anyway, enough of this study. You can take these papers with you and go think about them. Pick them apart and figure out what’s right, what’s wrong, and where the logic might be missing.”

“Is it really okay?” I asked, excitement growing in my chest.

“Yes. I’ll grant you permission on Mr Lin’s behalf. He stopped working in the field a long time ago and has completely distanced himself from dolphin research.”

I didn’t hesitate. I shoved the papers into my backpack, wishing I’d brought a larger bag. Once the bag was full, I didn’t forget to pick up the interview from where we left off.

“So, what happened to the dolphin civilisation?” I asked. “The dolphins seem to be doing fine here.”

“Because you only get to see the happier ones.” She sighed.

“I’m helping them slowly move away from soundwave candy. It’s a long process, though. It may take much longer than it took for them to develop civilisation.”

She continued.

*

I didn’t agree right away. I just said that I would need to see the state of the dolphins. I took a long break and returned to the sea with Mr Lin. The journey was awkward. He was too embarrassed to speak, but finally, as we neared the island, he apologised again.

“I got too focused on the research,” he said. “I didn’t notice how you were feeling.”

“Do you remember what happened?” I asked. “I don’t even remember anymore.”

I said that to release any lingering weight, and he seemed relieved. He added, “It’s been tough on you, all these years.”

“I understand. You had your reasons.”

“The research didn’t go as expected,” he continued, “and I ended up with a conclusion that was complete opposite of what I had in mind.”

He went back to talking about the research, like he always did. After all these years, I knew his true love has always been economic sociology.

When we arrived at the island, we went straight to see the dolphins. They still lived near the oil pipelines, though some had been relocated. The dolphins had an organised society, complete with housing made by robotic arms and even some art. I’m sure you’ve never seen dolphin art. They resembled Scythian burial mounds. The dolphins collected sea creature skeletons from the ocean floor and interlocked them into solid, geometric shapes, which they placed on the seabed. These served as communal spaces where Co-ordinators adjudicated disputes and enforced order.

Mr Lin asked if I was still scared to watch videos of dolphins killing each other. I said I had been scared at the time but had long since gotten over it. He nodded and showed me another video. It depicted dolphins executing a murderer. Four dolphins were involved—three of them pinned the fourth so tightly it couldn’t move. Strangely, the pinned dolphin didn’t resist, accepting its fate. It was taken to the courtroom, the same place where sea creature skeletons were assembled. Soon, hundreds of dolphins gathered around. It was a spectacular sight, the dolphins stacked on top of each other. Did they all have that morbid curiosity, too? Soon, the execution began. The Executioner, using a mechanical arm, stabbed the condemned dolphin’s head.

Mind you, a dolphin’s head is large but soft, so the metal arm, like a chopstick, pierced through it easily. Immediately afterwards, the dolphin thrashed violently but remained immobilised. The metal arm sliced through, and within moments, the contents of the dolphin’s head spilled into the ocean. Then, it stopped moving.

Even though I was prepared, the eerie sight made me shudder. I took a deep breath and carefully asked, “Does this happen often?”

“Only dolphins who commit murder are penalised,” he said, “In terms of legal culture alone, it appears that the dolphins have reached a full-fledged tribal society. But that system is about to go up in smoke. The oil company no longer wants to provide soundwave candy. The dolphins have become a liability.”

He led me out of the chamber and asked if I wanted to see them in the water. I declined. I was scared. The dolphins had gone from beautiful creatures to cold-blooded killers—not by their own will, but due to human intervention. It took me a long time to overcome the psychological fear before I felt comfortable with them again.

“It’s not their fault,” Mr Lin said, his voice heavy. “They’re innocent. I’m the one to blame. I’m sorry.”

“What will happen if I don’t take over the dolphins? What do you plan to do then?” I asked.

“If you won’t,” he said softly, lowering his head, “I’ll have to hand them over to Longshi. I don’t know what they’ll do with them. I can’t see any better solution, so I’m begging you.”

My heart tightened. I immediately thought of Old Guo. What would happen if the oil company discarded the dolphins and sent them back into the wild? The collapse of their society seemed inevitable—chaos, death, and a return to the same brutal cycle. The dolphins might kill each other for devices that no longer produced the soundwaves they craved.

“Don’t worry about the money,” Mr Lin reassured me. “I’ll take care of it. These dolphins… they deserve a happy ending, at least.” His voice was shaky.

How could I say no to that? These dolphins were my children, and the sea was my home.

I didn’t hesitate. I just thought someone had to do it—otherwise, the dolphins were doomed. What happens after societal collapse has been demonstrated over and over again in human history. The process of dismantling the dolphin system would take time, but the decline had already begun. To this day, they cling to the remnants of their civilisation, right here on Dolphin Island.

You might have noticed the statue on Dolphin Island’s shore. The statue of a dolphin holding an oil drum in its mouth, with a plaque reading: “We must remember the dolphins’ contribution to the marine oil industry.” Longshi sponsored that statue. When it was built, the dolphins were still labouring hard beneath the sea. Despite that, the company still refuses to pay for their care. Probably because it’s much cheaper to erect a statue than to care for the dolphins.

Sixteen years later, the dolphins still haven’t realised they were abandoned long ago. Their fate was sealed the moment they were hired. The exploitation of dolphins by humans was an anomaly—we more often exploit and oppress fellow humans. It has always been the norm. Or, as those papers put it, it was the fundamental flaw of civilisation.

*

She fell silent again, staring at her phone. Moments later, an alarm went off.

It startled me—it was half past one in the morning. What could it be?

“Come. Let’s go see the dolphins’ prayer circle.” With that, she led me outdoors.

The moonlight was at its brightest when we arrived at the beach. I noticed a small whirlpool in the water not far from the shore. It was too far away to make out the details, so I went back upstairs for my binoculars. Looking down from above, I saw them. The dolphins, swimming head to tail in a perfect clockwise spiral, their bodies churning the water into a whirlpool. The current they created shimmered like a single, blinking eye in the waves, gazing up at the night sky.

“It’s a ritual,” she said quietly beside me. “They are praying for the Soundwave Candy God’s blessings.”

“They don’t know what’s happening to them yet.”

“No, and they never will. Why would the dolphins ever come to understand human industrial behaviour? Mankind has come so far down this road of progress—there’s no turning back for us now.”

“And now they’re abandoned. Was it really inevitable the moment their civilisation was born?” A pang of sadness settled over me, shifting something in my original beliefs.

Sensing my change in mood, Dr Qin pulled me back indoors, saying she was getting tired. I didn’t ask any more questions. I’d already heard enough that night. Later in my room, I closed my eyes, letting the steady tick of the clock fill the silence.

Tick-tock. The sound of time. The sound of civilisation’s footsteps.

This is civilisation.