Lim Hock Chong had survived two air strikes that had killed his parents. He had narrowly missed being shot in a beachside massacre, lying underneath the bodies of less fortunate Chinese men. But the fear these events had evoked in him was nothing compared to the terror he felt the evening he returned to his attap house and found that Bee Leng was not there. He dashed out into the kampong, yelling her name. Neighbours peered out, but kept to their rickety thatched houses. He could not blame them. The village was full of new settlers like the Lims, people who had moved in when their previous houses were seized by the Japanese. Hock Chong and Bee Leng had become residents not six months ago. Besides, the Occupation had changed people. Most kept to themselves these days. It was easier to avoid being asked whether you had food than it was to turn someone down. Makcik Hafizah, who alone in the village had welcomed them the day they moved in, was again alone in offering him help. She promised to scour the kampong for Leng and to give her signal—an ear-splitting whistle—should her search be successful. This left Chong free to search beyond the kampong. He sprinted towards the dirt road outside, but had barely reached it when a shrill whistle echoed about him. Weak-kneed with relief, he staggered back. And there Leng was, next to Makcik Hafizah, both of them walking out of the forest that surrounded the kampong. Panic returned when he saw that her clothes were torn and hanging off one shoulder, and that she seemed hardly able to stand, with Makcik Hafizah having to steady her. Her visage worsened as he drew nearer: Leng’s face was pale apart from a bloody scratch running along one cheek. He took her into his arms. She was trembling uncontrollably. “Are you hurt anywhere we can’t see, Leng?” Makcik Hafizah asked in a hushed voice. Leng shook her head, clinging on tightly to Chong’s arm with cold fingers. “Alhamdulillah. Take her home, Chong, quickly.” “Terima kasih, Makcik,” said Chong. Their neighbour waved her hand and shook her head. From old photos she had shown them, Makcik had once been prosperous of face, but months of hunger had hollowed out her cheeks. “Come over if Leng needs any help,” she said, disappearing into her attap hut. Horror resurfaced again when Chong learnt, after Leng had calmed down enough to speak, that she had been accosted by a couple of Japanese soldiers on her way home from selling tapioca in the nearby village. She had struggled, and been dealt a stinging slap with the back of a bayonet that split her skin open. Then the men had spotted two other girls a distance away. Prettier ones. With comelier bodies. And so Leng had been cast onto the dirt road with a few well-aimed kicks. Panic drove her straight into the nearby forest, where she had followed the general direction home just out of sight from the road, making a few detours so she could stay under cover of the trees. As he rocked the silently crying Leng in his arms, Chong vowed that their days as tapioca sellers were over. He needed a job that paid better, if she was to remain safely ensconced in the kampong. Purely by chance, he found one in a matter of days after this incident: an old school friend he met while selling tapioca got him a job at his workplace at Outram, where a position had opened. “Epidemic prevention?” Leng repeated, when he told her about it. The cut on her cheek had been healing, but she had purposely peeled the scab off early, all the better to scar herself. (“It’ll keep me safe,” was all she had said when Chong had exclaimed at the wound.) “Vaccines for the plague? But you’ve never worked in a lab before.” The shadow of Chong’s old job as the second-generation owner of his father's now defunct trading company loomed over them. The whirlwind war had left a destructive trail, and no one was ready to speak of the painful wreckage that remained: a ruin that was still evolving with each passing day of the Occupation. “He says I didn’t have to, the work is easy enough,” said Chong, careful to keep his voice light. “With the pay, you could stay here in the kampong and tend to the tapioca plants all day. And the lab is just a short walk away, so I can come home quickly to you.” He leaned in and kissed her temple. She pulled away. “But you’ll be working with them?” There was no need to clarify whom she’d meant. “Yes,” he said. It was something he hadn’t wanted to think about too deeply. “But they created this department to develop vaccines for the good of the public, so they can’t be that bad.” It became a refrain of his in the coming months. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘣𝘢𝘥, he would think whenever he was struck across the face by a superior for not carrying out a task just so. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘣𝘢𝘥, he would say to his old school friend each time they were made to stay overnight to finish what had just been assigned that very day. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘣𝘢𝘥, he once scrawled absently in his notebook. He had been too shaken to focus on work after seeing, from a second-floor window in the Dai-shichi laboratory, some Japanese researchers kicking a child, the boy having committed the crime of not bowing to them when he walked past. Then, horrified by his own daring, Chong had spent the next fifteen minutes conscientiously scribbling out the words, shredding the page, and feeding the pieces to the flaming tongue of a Bunsen burner. At least the work itself was manageable—unpalatable, but well within Chong’s abilities to execute despite his lack of experience. His old friend had shown him the ropes the first day he’d reported to the premises, a building achingly reminiscent of the bygone colonial age, with neat Doric columns that must have been white once, but were now smeared grey with dust from the war. “Here’s how we feed them,” his friend had said as they stood in front of a tall glass enclosure filled with rats. Their Japanese laboratory supervisor, a man who wore his hair slicked back like a shiny helmet, lingered at the doorway of the room, narrow eyes watchful behind silver-rimmed spectacles. Chong nodded. A distant school memory reminded him that the bubonic plague was linked to rats, and the enclosure before him crawled with them. Most limped or stirred feebly; others did not move at all. “What do we feed them with? Food waste?” “Not the rats,” said his friend, and brought up a sealed jar from the floor. “Them.” He pulled off the lid, and torrents of small black specks poured out of the jar. After a moment, Chong realised what they were, and he finally understood why, despite the sweltering heat in the lab, they had been issued coats with long sleeves tucked into gloves. His skin crawled as the army of fleas leapt towards the infected rats. In a matter of seconds they had all disappeared, hidden under the fur of the rodents. When his friend judged that enough time had passed, he showed Chong how to collect the engorged insects: shining light from a torch to chivvy the fleas to a corner, and then gathering them in handfuls and dumping them back into the jar. Again, Chong’s body itched at the sight of the fleas hopping en masse towards the corners. In his peripheral vision, he saw the Japanese supervisor walk out of sight. “Then we check the fleas,” his friend explained, beckoning Chong to follow him as he brought the filled jar to the next room, where two microscopes sat on a table. The turgid body of each flea, he instructed, was to be placed on the stage of the equipment, and checked for signs of infection. The successfully infected insects were then collected in another glass jar. “What do they do with the fleas?” Chong asked. His neck and shoulders ached after an entire afternoon of peering down the microscope. The infected fleas had all been contained in a jar, and the ones that had not caught the plague had either been placed in a separate container for further monitoring, or housed with the diseased ones for cross infection. They’d then burned the dead rats in an incinerator, and were now supposed to disinfect their gloves with soap and a pail of scalding water. Chong had already soaped his gloves while wearing them, but his skin was still prickling from having dealt with the insects and rodents, and he was loath to divest himself of the added layer of protection. “They send them overseas. Thailand, I think,” answered his friend, who had already peeled off his gloves and begun dipping them in the pail. “They’ve got scientists in Thailand researching the plague?” His friend shrugged, gloves steaming as he hung them on a rack to dry. “Who knows. I just know we don’t do it here in the Dai-shichi lab.” He clapped Chong on the back. “Don’t ask so many questions, Chong. We just do our work, keep our heads down, and get home safe. I’m off.” He suited action to the word, and as Chong sanitised his gloves, he could hear his friend bidding the Japanese caretaker a very polite goodbye, doubtless coupled with a deep bow. Chong soon grew used to the work. He mastered the chores just in time, too, for his friend was eventually transferred to the Dai-ni lab, which was purportedly making good progress on a potential vaccine for tetanus. The news was bolstering, a reminder that a vaccine, too, was the end goal of the Dai-shichi lab. And so— 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘣𝘢𝘥, he said to the new employee, when the Japanese laboratory supervisor with his slicked-back hair demanded to know why the production was so slow. “Don’t you know what you’re here for? How can we fight the plague if there’re so few infected fleas to work with? Make more of them, or you won’t want to know what’s coming,” he said, small eyes flint-like behind silver spectacles. He spoke in his mother tongue; the Japanese hated speaking English. Since the Occupation started, Chong had been learning Japanese through lessons on the radio and books he pored over in the evenings, and he understood his superior. He bent double, his eyes trained on the supervisor’s glossy leather shoes, and said the first Japanese phrase his school friend had made him memorise: “Moushiwake arimasen.” 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘦. His junior echoed the same. “They need more fleas so they can run more experiments,” he said to his junior, as they left the laboratory for the day, their backs sore from maintaining obeisance until the supervisor had dismissed them. “Designing a vaccine probably takes many tries.” “More than the thousands they’ve received from us?” He had no response. But then, he told himself after they parted ways, he was no scientist. One day, when Chong was a year into the job, the supervisor actually smiled at him—a landmark moment. Even more unprecedented was his approaching them during lunch hour. The caretaker followed, holding a tray with two bowls of noodles, which he set down on the table some distance away from the microscopes. Chong glanced at his junior. Judging by the worried eyes gazing back, it seemed that poison was on his colleague’s mind as well. “Yoku yatta. Kui,” the supervisor said genially. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥. 𝘌𝘢𝘵. An order, but then the praise helped allay their fears. They set to it. The noodles were made of tapioca, as were most things these days, and Chong already knew they would be tough to chew. What he did not expect, however, was the coldness of the broth. He nearly choked on his first mouthful, but managed to keep his food in, and swallowed with difficulty. “Oishii,” he lied, and got another smile in return, along with the explanation that it was soba—or as close to soba as they could get in this dratted land. There was no hope of feeding the 𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘥 noodles to the rats, for both the supervisor and the caretaker lingered till their bowls were clean: the supervisor walking around the room and examining papers and notes, the caretaker sitting on a stool in a corner. “What was that about?” muttered his junior, when their Japanese masters were gone. “No idea,” said Chong. He found out later, when he was walking home at the end of the day (the noodles, as it turned out, were disgusting, but not dangerous). Following the path around a tall bush, he saw his supervisor and another laboratory head under a tree, smoking as they flirted with some Japanese nurses from the nearby hospital. Heart pounding, he ducked back behind the bushes again. None of them had seen him, thankfully, and he remained crouched for some time, mentally mapping an alternative route home. Then a burst of raucous laughter caught his attention. “How many died, again?” said the other lab head, chuckling. “They didn’t say exactly, but thousands of those Chinese dogs.” A smirk was discernible in his supervisor’s voice. “Congratulations,” chorused the nurses. “The Dai-shichi lab did well. Buy me dinner when you’re promoted?” “Why don’t all of you come over for some sake tonight instead?” A chorus of yeses, accompanied by consenting squeals from the ladies. The men ground their cigarettes beneath their shoes and the party traipsed off, laughter trailing in their wake. Chong didn’t know how he got home. He found himself at the doorway of his attap hut, Leng taking his briefcase from him. “You’re back early.” She smiled, but it did little to erase the frown line etched by the Occupation. And now, the Occupation had given her face another keepsake: the greyish scar on her cheek. Chong made it a point to kiss that exact spot when he returned every day, to celebrate finding her safe at home. Today, however, he merely sank to the floor at the threshold and sat there, leaning against the wall. The Dai-shichi lab had done well. It had killed thousands. He had worked hard. He had helped kill thousands of the Chinese. People in his ancestral motherland. Fighting the plague, indeed. Wilful ignorance no longer had any purchase. They never needed infected fleas for vaccine development. They would have needed infected rats, if anything, as animal models. He heaved. The tapioca noodles showed up again in the spittoon that Leng fetched. She patted his back as he retched. When he was spent, she held him as he shivered, her embrace warm and comforting. And he remembered why he was doing what he did. “You all right?” Leng asked quietly. He wiped his mouth on his handkerchief and nodded. “Better.” Better the thousands of faceless folk than his wife. The Occupation had changed him, too, it seemed. That night, he forced himself to finish his food. More tapioca noodles, though these were admittedly easier to stomach given the warm, lightly herbal broth they sat in—a ghost of the thick, rich bak kut teh that had been prevalent before the war. But sleep could not be forced. He lay awake for most of the night, staring at the dark underside of the attap roof, where weak light from the waxing half-moon trickled through the spot that would leak when it rained. At the cock’s crow, red-eyed and weary, he headed to work. He did so again the following day, and the day after that. On the seventh day, returning from work, a terrible keening rent the air as he came to the small road just outside the kampong. He halted, flesh creeping. The sound was not intelligible; indeed, it was not even recognisably human. But there was no mistaking the emotion. Devastation. His pulse quickened. Stumbling into the kampong, he saw the source of the unearthly cry: the middle-aged woman who lived in the attap house closest to the entrance. She crouched over—Chong squinted, and realisation came with a thrill of horror—a body. The limp form of her husband was stretched out on the ground, surrounded by a dark, spreading puddle. Strewn about them were woven baskets and household items. Uprooted tapioca plants lay limp on the soil, and their front door had been entirely torn from its hinges. The inside of the hut, from what little he could see in the failing light, was just as disordered. There was no sign of their daughter, a young girl not yet fourteen. He whirled around. Chaos surrounded him. Suddenly, he became aware of other wails and moans, sounds so steeped in pain and anger and grief that they were almost animalistic. One emitted from an elderly man, nearly unrecognisable from the bruises around his eyes and the blood dripping from his broken nose; Chong knew him only by the hut he was slumped against. Another came from a small boy whom Chong did recognise; the child was limping towards the depths of the kampong, crying for his mother—a young woman of twenty, who was nowhere to be seen. Then his eyes fell on his attap hut. Its door was gone, too. No lamp lit it from within. Air molecules seemed to cling to him, slowing him down. He could not reach the hut fast enough, and when he did, he saw what a pointless exercise it was. She was gone. He did not hear the sound his lungs made. He did not feel the ground as his knees met it. He felt only the coldness of the evening, the absence of her. Then a warm presence materialised at his side. “I’m here,” a voice said shakily. It sounded marvellously like his wife. “I’m all right.” He looked around, blinking away tears he had not known he was shedding. And there Leng was, next to Makcik Hafizah. Both were clad in tudung. He launched himself at his wife, not letting her go even as she told him what had transpired. While Leng was at Makcik Hafizah’s hut, Japanese soldiers had arrived, hunting for Chinese girls to enslave as comfort women. The youngest daughter of the neighbours in the first hut had been taken, alongside others; her father, who had fought for her, had been deemed a Mainland Chinese sympathiser and badly injured. “Makcik helped me put on the tudung,” Leng said. “She gave them food and told them I was her adopted child. She saved me, Chong.” Makcik waved her hand and shook her head. Yet accompanying this dismissive gesture was the quaking of her fingers; the trembling of her lower lip. “I should have saved them all,” she said, drawing a shaky breath. Chong saw that she was looking at the young boy who had been screaming for his mother. The child was now in the arms of his grandmother, an elderly lady whom Chong greeted from time to time. Her silver hair seemed to have turned white in the course of a single day, and she wept as she held on to her grandson. “Maybe he would still have his mother with him.” “Do 𝘯𝘰𝘵 blame yourself, Makcik,” Leng said sharply. “It was all so sudden. You did all you could. You did 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 than could be asked.” She made to take Makcik Hafizah’s hands in her own, disengaging herself from Chong’s embrace. But Chong’s arms had already gone slack, and they fell to his sides at the gentle push from her hands. From the corner of his eye, he saw Leng turn towards him questioningly, but he could not look away from Makcik's hut—specifically, the person emerging from it: Makcik Hafizah's youngest child, a boy of six, who now trotted towards them while rubbing his eyes. “Selamat petang, Pakcik,” he said to Chong, before turning to his mother. “Mak… I’m hungry.” Makcik scrubbed the tear tracks from her cheeks and pressed her son’s face to her side, preventing the boy from looking closely at the devastation around them. “Yes, sayang, but we have to wait for your Pak.” She attempted to sound brisk, but the effect was unconvincing. “This boy slept through the whole thing, Alhamdulillah.” Chong could not move. Makcik Hafizah had ten children, two of whom had died in battle before Singapore had fallen to the Japanese. Five still lived with her. He could see four tousled heads poking out from the doorway. Ridiculously, a Japanese phrase came to mind. 𝘔𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘸𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘯. I have no excuse. “Thank you, Makcik,” he said, shame washing over him. “We owe you everything.” “You owe me nothing,” Makcik Hafizah said. Her mouth was pulled taut. “I wish I could have saved everyone. Come back inside, sayang.” Putting her arm around her son, she led him back towards the house. At the threshold, she turned around. “I’m boiling soup with the vegetables Leng gave me. Will you both help me bring some around to the neighbours?” “Of course, Makcik,” he said. “Boiling. That’s a great idea.” Leng shot him a strange look, but he shook his head. With bowls of soup to distribute and assistance to administer to the injured, there was no time to talk to her just then—nor, truthfully, did he want to. Much later that night, when they both lay on the cool rattan mat and he had promised himself that he would speak, his mouth would not open. Coward that he was, he waited for the deep, even breathing that indicated Leng had fallen asleep, then got up. By the light of the full moon streaming in through the hole in the roof, he pulled on his darkest clothes. After a long look at Leng’s sleeping form, he left, replacing the broken door against the frame with a gentle thud. Given the curfew, he kept close to the forest by the road, ready to plunge into the trees at a moment’s notice. But even the periodic look over his shoulder failed him: he was halfway to the laboratory when someone grabbed him from behind. His heart missed a beat. Involuntarily, he yelped. A small hand clapped over his mouth and Leng’s voice spoke in his ear: “It’s me.” The nape of his neck prickled with horror. The thud of the door. It must’ve woken her. He had not imagined that she would follow him. “What’re you doing?” he hissed as she pulled him into the forest, stopping only when they were a distance from the road. “What are 𝘺𝘰𝘶 doing?” she shot back, breathing heavily. When his eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight filtering through the canopy, he saw that she’d changed into a dark outfit as well, but her hair, usually tied in a bun, still fanned out around her face—mussed from sleep. “There’s something I need to do at work,” he said carefully. 𝘊𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥. “Something unauthorised?” He froze, and she shook her head. “It was obvious, the way you crept along—you haven’t got a curfew pass.” Leng had always been nimble of mind. It was what he loved best about her. “Well? Tell me,” she said, eyes gleaming. At the admiration on her face, shame burned in him all over again. She thought him brave. He had to confess. “Leng.” His voice was harsh against the gentle chirping of the crickets around them. She slipped her hand into his, looking at him eagerly. “I’ve done something terrible.” So that he wouldn’t see her face fall, he stared at the ground as he explained his role in the Dai-shichi laboratory. Her continued silence terrified him. He made sure not to close his hand around hers, so she could withdraw it if she wanted to. But she held on, even when he said wretchedly, “I knew, and I went back. I’ve known exactly what I’ve been doing for a week now, and till today, I continued to do it willingly.” She held on. It was more than he could have asked. Then she squeezed his hand. “I’m worse,” she said, her voice low. “You remember, that day when—the time I was caught by them—” She swallowed, her nails digging into the back of his hand. “When they went after the two other girls instead, I was so relieved. I didn’t think of trying to help them, not for a second—” He glanced over, but she, too, was looking down. “You couldn’t have done anything.” “I could’ve called out to them to run away,” she said. “Given them a fighting chance.” “You would’ve been risking your own life.” “Like how Makcik Hafizah risked her children’s lives for me?” Her voice was brittle. Then she looked up at him, and her tone softened. “But you appreciate that already, Chong, don’t you? That’s why we’re here. Tell me—what exactly are you doing?” “I’m going to get rid of the infected fleas.” “How?” The fragmented beginnings of a plan had come to him when Makcik Hafizah mentioned that she was boiling soup. Boiling, like the water they used to disinfect tools in the lab. Fleas could not survive high temperatures. He had learnt that the very first day on the job. “They’re flying the next batch of infected fleas to Thailand in about two months. I’m replacing them with the uninfected ones. Not right away, though—we’ve got a supply of uninfected fleas in the lab to experiment with other diseases, but I can’t use them all for the swap; people will notice if they suddenly disappear. So I’ll have to breed them. I’ll sneak some uninfected fleas home—a handful at a time, so they won’t be missed—and have them feed on the rats I catch in the kampong.” “Do fleas multiply quickly?” she asked doubtfully. “Very, because it’s warm and humid here. Though with the smaller quantities I’m bringing home, it probably won’t be enough to catch up to the number of infected fleas that needs replacing—so I’ll have to kill some infected ones from time to time, by boiling and incinerating them, to keep their numbers down. Then, closer to the shipment date, I’ll kill the remaining infected ones, and replace them with the uninfected fleas from home.” Leng tilted her head. “This will work just once, won’t it? When they check the fleas in Thailand, or when they attack another city in China and no one gets the plague, the game will be up.” “Yes, so I’ll have to figure out a permanent solution, too. Maybe seek out the anti-Japanese resistance—what’s left of them.” “And you’re heading to the lab now to—?” “To kill some infected fleas, and bring home uninfected ones in spare containers.” “Is it safe?” “Quite safe; no one’s there overnight.” “Surely there’re guards?” “Only the occasional night patrol.” He tried for an offhand tone, but Leng’s face showed that she understood the danger he was downplaying. “I’ll come with you.” He grabbed her shoulders. “You won’t. I won’t let you.” “You must,” she said gently, placing a hand on his cheek. “I want to make amends. I know this won’t help the”—she faltered—“those girls. But it feels like the right thing to do.” “I don’t want to lose you,” he said, voice cracking. “I don’t want to lose you, too.” She closed the gap between them and nestled her head in the crook of his neck. “If we work together, we’ll have a better chance of surviving, wouldn’t you say?” He was about to answer when, somewhere between them and the road, the foliage rustled. Leng tensed against him; she heard it too. As they watched, the shrubbery was disturbed by something of considerable size. A wild boar. Possibly. Or something much worse. From the way she’d started trembling, Leng had clearly arrived at the same conclusion. She gestured to a nearby tree, and they stepped behind the trunk. Dry leaves crunched beneath their feet. Chong winced. All the time, the newcomer continued prowling towards them. They clung to each other as a beam of light suddenly appeared. It illuminated a tree in front of them, and then moved to the spot where they had recently stood, before swinging away. A man's voice spoke, in Japanese: “See anything?” A brief silence ensued, during which Chong’s heart seemed determined to announce its presence. Another voice—also male, but much nearer—replied: “No. I definitely heard something, though…” “Let’s go,” said the first voice, sounding uneasy. “I’ve heard—stories…” “Shut up, grandma,” the other scoffed. More rustling, but he was retreating. Over the chirping crickets and clicking bats came the squeak of bicycle chains and whirr of wheels—sounds they should have heard approaching, had they not been talking so loudly. This time, they remained silent long after the soldiers had gone. Leng was still shaking when he finally pulled away. “You okay?” She nodded. “This is what we’re up against. I think it’s likely that we’ll both be caught and killed.” When she spoke, her voice was soft but firm. “I know. But someone has to defy them. Makcik did, when she saved me.” Wordlessly, he reached out, and she fell into his embrace. There she was: his whole world, in his arms. But there was another world outside. One he could no longer turn away from. He wiped her tears gently with his thumbs. “Ready?” he whispered. She nodded again, her mouth set. “You?” In answer, he took her hand and began walking towards the laboratory to execute a plan that could fail—that was, in fact, inclined to fail. Already, it had led to a brush with death. But then, as Leng had said, someone had to defy them. – 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿'𝘀 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲: 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘖𝘒𝘈 9420, 𝘢 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘑𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘶𝘱 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘑𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘖𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘣𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘧𝘢𝘳𝘦—𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘶𝘦-𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘴. 𝘏𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.