"Mr. Hubbard, it's me, Scott Shaw."
When Mr. Shaw sent the message to Hubbard, An Zhe was holding a headand practicing how to implant eyebrows.
The heated needle pricked a tiny hole in the silicone rubber skin into which a fiber simulating human hair was then planted. Once the softened silicone rubber cooled again, the eyebrow hair would be securely rooted in the doll's skin. Mr. Shaw's eyes had gone bad, so it was very difficult for him todo this kind of work well again; An Zhe guessed that this was one of the reasons why he was anxious to find an apprentice.
After putting down the communicator, Scott Shaw took the mannequin out of the display and placed it on a chair in the middle of the room. All of the mannequin's joints could rotate easily. He crossed its legs, rested its hands on its elbows, and finally twisted its head so that it was slightly bowed. The light cast shadows as it passed through the eyelashes. It was a commanding, yet slightly melancholy posture.
An Zhe lifted his head to look in that direction. The dim lighting cast uneven shadows on the mannequin's face, neutralizing all the subtle differences between silicone rubber and human skin. It seemed entirely like a silent living person.
The excessive silence—the display window and containers the things that may be considered obscene to humans also became strange in this atmosphere.
The sound of a door being pushed open broke the strange atmosphere. White light from outside shone in, lighting up half of the mannequin's body. Squinting, An Zhe looked at the man who appeared in the doorway.
Lit up from behind, he had a tall figure, shoulder-length curly black hair, brown eyes, and chilly facial features. An Zhe could imagine what he looked like walking around in the wilderness with a gun in his hand.
An Zhe waited for him to enter, but he only stood in the doorway. With his gaze resting on the mannequin in the middle of the room, he didn't move at all for a long time, as if he had become a mannequin himself.
It wasn't until Mr. Shaw coughed and said "please come in" that the man appeared to wake up from a dream and moved a bit. He strode into the room, but when he came close to the mannequin, he abruptly slowed down. An Zhe watched him move to touch the mannequin's face, but his fingers hung in the air without making contact for a long time. In the quiet room, there were only the sounds of this man's very soft, trembling breaths. Perhaps there was a butterfly perched on the mannequin's eyelashes that he was afraid to disturb.
In the end, he withdrew his right hand and said while looking steadily at the doll, "Thank you."
"Don't thank me." Mr. Shaw walked over, looking at Hubbard with his gray-blue eyes. "I have to thank you, Mr. Hubbard, for giving me sufficient data."
Hubbard smiled, but his eyes were still downcast.
Mr. Shaw pointed to a human-sized case nearby. "Shall I?"
"I'll do it."
Hubbard's fingers finally landed on the mannequin's shoulder. He slowly leaned down, picked up the mannequin in his arms, and put it into the case.
Standing to one side, Mr. Shaw said, "I didn't know you were such a sentimental person, Captain Hubbard."
"There were some things I didn't get to say in time." As Hubbard knelt on one knee, he slowly closed the lid, and the knuckles of his fingers that were pressed against the lid turned white. A long time passed before he got back up.
Mr. Shaw crossed his arms. "The doll needs maintenance every two months. When the time comes, just deliver it here. If there are any new techniques, I'll use them."
Hubbard said, "You never run a losing business, Scott Shaw."
Mr. Shaw laughed happily.
"Captain Hubbard is infinitely resourceful. I'm no good," he said.
"What do you want?" Hubbard asked.
"I received a big order a few days ago. That person's data isn't easy to find, so I wanted to request your help."
"There's data that you can't get, Mr. Shaw?" Hubbard asked.
Mr. Shaw grinned, then lifted his arm and made a shooting gesture at
Hubbard. Hubbard's lips curled up in a smile, and he turned around and walked to the doorway while pulling the case's handle.
"Please wait," An Zhe blurted out.
Hubbard turned back.
An Zhe quickly walked over to him, undid the first button of his shirt, and took out the bullet case hanging from his neck.
"Mister," he said, "do you know where this is from?"
Without saying anything, Hubbard took the brass bullet shell, then turned it over to examine it beneath the light.
An Zhe's heart thumped hard.
"This model can't be found in the supply depots or the black market." A minute later, Hubbard let go, and the bullet shell dropped back down to An Zhe's chest. Hubbard turned and left, leaving only one sentence behind.
"It's the military's."
His figure receded into the distance. An Zhe put a hand to his chest and held the bullet shell, slightly lost in thought.
In the quiet room, Mr. Shaw let out a laugh.
"Since Hubbard said it's military issue, it definitely is." He closed the door, and his eyes narrowed into a squint as he smiled. "What, did you get into bed with someone from the military? The scope of Doussay's business is really broad."
An Zhe slowly shook his head.
If it was the military's, what should he do?
"Tsk," Mr. Shaw said. "Have you lost your spirit too?"
An Zhe said, "I want to find its owner."
"What, did this person not pay you?"
An Zhe felt that Mr. Shaw's way of thinking was very odd.
He explained, "That's not it."
"If it's the military's, people from the military will definitely be able to recognize its type. I'll teach you a way," Mr. Shaw said with sincerity.
"What way?" An Zhe asked.
Mr. Shaw said, "You can't reach them in the main city or the wilderness. Within the outer city, the City Defense Agency and the Trial Court are both military territories. Go wander around there in the middle of the night and seduce one. Although the military is very strict, it's inevitable that there will be members with corrupt morals."
An Zhe was speechless.
He thought for a while, then asked, "Which people from the military will go out into the wilderness?"
Mr. Shaw flicked him on the forehead without warning. "Who do you think drew the map of the wilderness?"
Having been hurt, An Zhe bit his lip.
"You're actually feeling wronged?" Mr. Shaw said. "Even the Arbiter is gone from the base for almost half a year every year. What do you think? All members of the military go out there."
With nothing left to say, An Zhe lowered his head and continued to implant eyebrows. He realized that he may have to stay at the base for a very long time.
A day of implanting eyebrows ended. Very satisfied, Mr. Shaw let An Zhe off work.
An Zhe wanted to drink the potato soup from the entrance of the black market's first floor. Today was his third day working for Mr. Shaw. Mr. Shaw paid him a month's worth of wages in advance, so his ID card now had 60R.
But right as he went to the aboveground floor, he suddenly felt that something was clearly amiss—the previous bustle was gone, everyone looked to be in a hurry, and there were few people near the exits.
He was a bit confused, but the temptation of the potato soup was even greater, so he still walked over.
Just as he got close to the potato soup, An Zhe's body suddenly froze up.
He stood motionless for a second, then turned around and retraced his steps.
"Get back here." A voice traveled over, as cold as the icy snow on a mountain peak.
Resigning himself to his misfortune, An Zhe turned around again, took a few steps forward, and met the Arbiter at the doorway.
The Arbiter did not come alone. Next to him were three young-looking Judges in simple clothes.
He had run right into the Trial Court's daily city patrol.
He heard Lu Feng say, "Stiffness in body movements, moving to evade. Mark one point."
The young Judges behind him were holding pens and paper. Following his voice, they carefully looked at An Zhe, then lowered their heads and scribbled something down on their papers.
An Zhe looked in their direction but ran straight into Lu Feng's gaze, and he promptly averted his eyes.
"Avoidant gaze. Mark one point." Lu Feng's voice didn't change whatsoever, and the young Judges behind him continued to take notes.
An Zhe felt that this scene was a little similar. After some thought, he confirmed that the mighty Arbiter was not simply performing his patrol responsibilities. He was training newcomers, just like Mr. Shaw training his apprentice. But Lu Feng was obviously not as good at patient guidance as Mr. Shaw. With his brusque instructions, he did not count as a qualified supervisor.
He awaited the next point deduction.
But he discovered that although Lu Feng's instructions were very brusque, his attitude could not be considered half-hearted, for he began to quiz them. "The results?"
"Yes, Colonel," one of the young Judges said. "All biological signs indicate that the person being tried is human."
"The reason for the indications of abnormality?"
"Fear of you."
The corners of Lu Feng's lips curved up.
It was the first time An Zhe had seen Lu Feng smile, although they had only met once, and although the smile was nigh imperceptible.
But within this nigh imperceptible smile, An Zhe could still see that the Arbiter wanted something from him today.
After that tiny smile disappeared, Lu Feng went back to his expressionless self. Only his slender and cold white fingers played with the jet-black gun, the motions filled with danger.
An Zhe tentatively asked, "May I go now?"
Expressionless, Lu Feng asked, "What are you doing here?"
An Zhe replied honestly, "I work here."
"The first floor or second floor?"
"... The third floor."
"Oh."
Following that was another long silence until the scratching noises of the young Judges' note-taking stopped. Then he said, "There are no abnormalities in the verbal interrogation, proving the judgment that the person being tried is human."
An Zhe saw Lu Feng cast a flat look in the direction of that young Judge— but no matter how he looked at it, it didn't seem like an expression of approval.
He asked once again, "May—"
"You may go now."
"Thank you." An Zhe swiftly turned around and went deeper inside from the entrance to sit at the shop selling potato soup. He truly did want to drink it very much today.
The price of the potato soup the base supplied at the residential area was 0.3R, while the price here was 1R. The differences between the two were very clear. Here, the thickness of the soup was at least three times greater. Apart from the potatoes that had been nearly boiled until they fell apart, fine bits of ground pork had also been added into the soup, with perhaps a bit of milk as well. The fresh and sweet aroma of protein drifted through the air.
The spoon was white. An Zhe took it in hand, scooped up a mouthful of soup, blew away the white steam, then put it up to his mouth and swallowed.
Within the steam that wafted into his face, he squinted, feeling very satisfied —if the figure of the Arbiter was not in his peripheral vision, it would have been even better.
An Zhe ate very slowly but very earnestly and very quietly, making no noise at all. Approximately twenty minutes later, he finished eating and began to adjust his mentality, preparing to pass by the mighty Arbiter and leave this place.
At the moment he left his seat and turned towards the doorway, there came a harsh beeping sound—Lu Feng pressed down on his communicator.
When An Zhe passed by him, he only heard Lu Feng coldly say one word into the communicator.
"Trash."
An Zhe jumped out of fright, then increased his pace and left the black market.
It was currently evening. The sun had already set, the western sky was a boundless expanse of gray-blue, and the wind had begun turning cold. In two hours, the base would cut off the power. The supply depot across from the black market had also reached closing time and was spitting out a continuous stream of people.
The buildings of the supply depot, the black market, and the train station formed a triangle, and in the middle was a spacious public square. At this moment, people coming from all directions were swarming the public square like migrating ants and flowing towards the train station.
The trains ran from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., one per hour and always on time.
When the time on the timetable approached, a slight roaring sound traveled from afar and gradually became louder. After a short and violent shudder, the train stopped on the rails like a silvery-white snake. On one side, a dozen or so coach doors slid open, and some of the people inside poured out. Among them were those who had come from other parts of the city back to their own residential areas and those who had just returned from the wilderness.
At that very moment, the sound of a lovely, robotic female voice was broadcast from the arrival area. "To all passengers, a mechanical failure has occurred. Please immediately deboard and wait. Passengers waiting for the train, please do not board for the time being. Please spread out and wait."
As the robotic instructions played on repeat, the people who heard them were initially puzzled and began moving at a pace neither fast nor slow. However, some people's expressions drastically changed, and they yanked at their peers to swiftly get up from their seats, squeeze their way off the coach, and sprint away. These movements affected the rest of them, and no more than three minutes had gone by before the frightened atmosphere spread throughout the entire train station and everyone started running towards the public square.
An Zhe, who had been waiting to get onto the train, was suddenly caught up in a tumultuous crowd. Although he didn't know what happened, he knew the rules of communal human life, and he turned around on the spot with the intent to spread out along with the rest of the crowd.
But the crowd pushed and shoved, causing him to stumble, and someone bumped into him from behind. The sound of high heels tapping on the ground rang out. An Zhe turned his head, smelling a familiar scent, and discovered that it was Doussay, the Madam D. of the third underground floor. It looked like she had just gotten off the train. Their eyes met, and Doussay recognized him as well. In a move that seemed unconscious, she promptly seized his wrist and pulled him along as they ran.
In the public square, the sounds of people falling and the screams they let out when they were trampled mixed together. On the other hand, Doussay took him through the crowd as if she had experienced this thousands of times before until they had come to the forefront with the people who had run the fastest to the edge of the public square—where they stopped.
Black light armored cars were parked in a neat line at the edge of the public square, one car every ten to twenty meters, and there were silver shield emblems on the car bodies. After reading the Base Handbook, An Zhe knew that this represented the City Defense Agency, the full name of which was the Base Outer City Defense Agency. Soldiers carrying loaded guns were getting out of the cars and sealing off all the exits.
An Zhe still didn't know what had happened. He was a bit out of breath from having run too fast. Nearby, Doussay bent over and violently gasped for breath, coughing a few times.
An Zhe patted her on the shoulder, and Doussay seemed to manage to recover only after approximately half a minute passed. The public square was still a scene of chaos, for people running like they were fleeing for their lives came to the edge of the public square and were stopped by the human wall consisting of the City Defense Agency's soldiers.
An Zhe helped Doussay over to a corner with slightly fewer people.
He asked, "What's the matter with them?"
"This sort of thing used to happen often." Doussay straightened up and looked at the crowd in the public square, saying, "A xenogenic sneaked in."
After taking a breath, she continued, "There must have been a xenogenic on the train. It'd take too much time to get onto the train and investigate. When the xenogenic attack starts, it'd be too late to kill it and several coaches of people will die. Spreading out makes investigation easier."
"This sort of thing hasn't happened in a long time," she said. "The Arbiter didn't recognize it?"
"He was on patrol today," An Zhe said.
Not only that, he heard Lu Feng receive a communication and coldly rebuke someone with the word "trash". Come to think of it, it must have been that he had received the news of a xenogenic sneaking into the base.
An Zhe felt the hand she was holding him with tremble slightly.
"He's here?" She asked.
He made an affirmative sound.
As if confirming his words, a dull "bang" sounded and a bright white streak of light lit up in the air. The streak of light had come shooting down from high above, resembling a bolt of blinding lightning as it instantly sliced through the evening sky and landed right on the shoulder of a person not far in front of An Zhe and Doussay.
An Zhe whipped his head around to look at the streak of light's origin point and saw that on top of the light gray main body of the black market building, looking down from the peak, was a tall and lean figure. It was Lu Feng, clad in a black uniform. At that moment, he was slowly putting down the black weapon in his right hand. In his left hand was a pair of binoculars, which he handed to one side, and the young Judge following him accepted it.
"Position has been marked by the magnesium light bullet!" In the following moment, a terse order came from the direction of the City Defense Agency's troops. "Ready!"
Just as the voice finished speaking, a sharp sound came from an armored vehicle that was extremely close by, and a harsh scream rang out in the public square. An incendiary shell trailing thick smoke had been fired at the spot marked earlier by the streak of light from the magnesium light bullet.
Everything happened in an instant.
The acrid smell of burning traveled over. Amidst the crowd, one person fell heavily to the ground, and smoke emanated from his body with a hissing sound. The sound of his shrill cries instantly resounded through the entire public square.
An Zhe suddenly felt Doussay's grip around his hand tighten.
"That person was sitting right behind me," she said.
"But he didn't attack anyone. I'm fine." She seemed to sigh in relief. "That was a white phosphorus shell... He should be completely dead."
She lifted her head to look at the top of the black market building.
Lu Feng's figure had already disappeared from the roof, but she still kept looking in that direction. An Zhe looked at her. In the twilight, Madam D.'s attractive, mature face suddenly showed an unusual tranquility.
A minute later, the screams near them gradually weakened. On the open space left from people spontaneously backing away, the blackened and twisted limbs had stopped convulsing and struggling, no longer moving at all. The other people in the public square seemed to all sigh in relief, but the City Defense Agency's blockade did not loosen up at all.
"Five years ago, the Colonel saved me once." An Zhe suddenly heard Doussay speak up. "At the city entrance. It was about the same as right now."
He didn't say anything, feeling the atmosphere gradually calm down. That day at the city gate, he understood why some people bitterly hated Lu Feng. Today, he also understood why some people didn't.
Three minutes later, the soldiers of the City Defense Agency forced open a path in the crowd, and Lu Feng swiftly walked over to the four bodies with his men in tow. Because of their location, An Zhe and Doussay were very close by.
He put on snow-white gloves, got down on one knee, pulled aside the human body in the very middle, and said curtly, "Knife."
The Judge next to him handed over a shining dagger.
Then he saw Lu Feng expressionlessly cut open the corpse's abdomen. The blackened body gave off an acrid smell. However, the interior revealed after the abdomen was opened didn't have the organs that humans ought to have, but rather small and plentiful yellowish and translucent things, thousands upon thousands of them tightly packed together.
Striving to look, An Zhe felt that they resembled insect larvae—something akin to spiders, and they were still wriggling slightly.
He saw Lu Feng frown, and the knife in his hand neatly sliced upward to cut open the body's entire esophagus and throat.
Similar things continuously fell out.
"Parasitic species, high degree of proliferation possible." Lu Feng stood up, then took off his gloves and dropped them on the body. A Judge promptly handed him a fresh pair.
"All personnel, investigate," he said.
Doussay's entire body went soft, and she fell forward.
An Zhe abruptly recalled what she had said a few minutes ago.
She had said that that person was sitting right behind her.
He tried hard to prop Doussay up, but her motions were too big, and Lu Feng had already looked in their direction.
Lu Feng's eyes stopped on her face. Following his gaze, An Zhe looked there as well.
In the chaos earlier, he hadn't carefully looked at her face, but now that he was taking a closer look—on her forehead, there was a small blister-like thing emitting a crystalline light, and something inside of it was wriggling slightly.
"I..." As if she felt something, Doussay slowly reached up to touch that spot. Trembling, she stared at Lu Feng, and two streams of tears fell as she took a few steps towards him.
This was the first time An Zhe had seen such an expression in a human's eyes. He couldn't tell if Doussay's expression was one of love or hate. Perhaps the majority of it was despair.
A gunshot ran out.
She fell forward, and An Zhe wasn't able to grab onto her. After a dull sound, the human's body landed on the ground.
At that moment, An Zhe was only a short distance away from Lu Feng, and he met the other's gaze.
That pair of cold green eyes, the eyes that seemed like they had nothing—
Lu Feng suddenly reached out a hand towards him.
An Zhe shrank away.
But the Arbiter didn't move to pull the trigger. That wasn't the hand holding the gun. His fingers landed on the side of An Zhe's face and rested there for a moment. An Zhe recalled that when Doussay fell, some of her blood had splashed onto his face. It was warm at first, but it had very quickly turned cold.
The cold liquid was wiped away, leaving a smudge of red on the snow-white gloves, and the warm sensation of the touch lingered briefly on his cheek.
A slight shudder ran through An Zhe's body, and he closed his eyes.
Perhaps it was three seconds, or perhaps it was four. Lu Feng's fingers lefthis face, and that hint of warmth faded almost instantly in the evening wind before it swiftly disappeared altogether.
An Zhe opened his eyes again and saw his departing figure, which was identical to what he saw that day at the base's city gate.
At that moment, a bright white light suddenly came to life in the public square.
An Zhe squinted. In his field of vision, Lu Feng's figure was blurry. Once his vision cleared up again, that black figure had already been lost in the vast sea of people. Soldiers from the City Defense Agency came forward and carried away Doussay's body. A honey-like luster flowed along her long, brown hair beneath the lamplight. With her eyes closed, her expression looked very peaceful. What she had been thinking in her final moments, An Zhe didn't know. Perhaps he would never know.
Many people were looking in his direction. When the City Defense Agency soldiers had gone away, they began to whisper amongst themselves. An Zhe had good hearing, so he was able to catch a few snippets of conversation. Many people knew this mistress of the black market's third underground floor. Some of them mourned the departure of a beautiful woman, while a greater number of them feared being infected by monsters themselves.
Soon, the robotic female voice began giving instructions.
"Everyone, please spread out and wait in place. In thirty minutes, the Trial
Court will begin inspecting people one at a time." The voice was very lovely, but nobody was in the state of mind to appreciate it. The people first looked around at each other briefly, then quickly came to the realization that right now, nobody knew whether the people next to them were truly human. The crowd of people began squirming like a colony of ants. Every single person tried to separate from the people near them as best they could, no matter if they knew them or not. In the end, the chaotic crowd turned into a scattered grid. An Zhe stood at the very edge, next to the bloodstain Doussay had left behind. His gaze swept over the fearful, trembling expressions on the nearby humans' faces. Fundamentally, there were no differences between the human base and the Abyss.
A shrill voice suddenly rang out from somewhere in the distance. "There's something on his face!"
It was followed by the sound of movements. It seemed that some people had begun to fight, which was then followed by a noisy quarrel. Thirty seconds later,
a gunshot ended it all.
A deathly silence. The deathly silent atmosphere shrouded the public square. Even the sound of breathing had quieted down. If someone had told An Zhe
right now that where he was currently was actually a cemetery and that the surrounding humans were actually a multitude of gravestones, he would not have doubted the authenticity of the statement.
He looked around, wishing to know where Lu Feng was, but there were too many people, so he couldn't find him. In the end, An Zhe retracted his gaze and looked at the marble floor, which appeared pale in the light.
Suddenly, his eyes stopped moving.
Around five meters in front of him, at a man's foot, there was a brassy glimmer.
His first thought was that the bullet shell hanging around his neck had fallen off, so he swiftly felt around his shirt collar. Through the layer of his shirt, the little cylindrical object pressed against his hand—he hadn't lost it.
Staring at the ground, he took a few steps forward—the man next to him let out a curse and pulled away.
"I'm sorry," An Zhe said. "I dropped something."
After passing by a few people and taking a few steps, he came to that place, crouched down, and picked up a brassy, cylindrical bullet shell.
The moment he held it, his hand trembled slightly.
Its weight, decorative pattern, and size were all very, very familiar. As he held the bullet shell, he was unable to discern any difference between it and the one hanging from his neck.
With his heart giving a few violent thumps, he tightened his grip around the bullet shell and stood up.
He thought back to five minutes ago, when Doussay touched the blister infected by bugs on her forehead and realized that she couldn't possibly live, that she was undoubtedly going to be executed by the Arbiter. But while she was afraid, she also seemed to want to get closer to the Arbiter, so she had taken a few steps in his direction. But before she could reach Lu Feng as she had wished, the bullet had already pierced through her body.
At that time, where had Lu Feng been standing?
An Zhe looked at the dark bloodstain on the ground nearby. At that time, Lu Feng had been standing where he was currently standing, or not far away, when he had opened fire.
What was a bullet shell? It was the jacket of a bullet, he knew. There was similar knowledge in An Ze's memories. When the bullet leaves the chamber and is fired, the bullet shell will be ejected in the other direction and land on the ground.
There was no doubt that this bullet shell he picked up belonged to Lu Feng, and Lu Feng was the master of the Trial Court. Then what about the identical bullet shell he picked up in the wilderness where he had lost his spore? Was it also connected to the Trial Court?
An inexpressible sensation welled up in An Zhe's heart, and he felt a fear that could be precisely described. If his spore and the Trial Court were connected, then he could only imagine how difficult it would be to get back his spore. He couldn't directly ask, because asking about the spore was tantamount to admitting that he was a mushroom.
While he was in the midst of such fanciful thoughts, thirty minutes passed. The robotic female voice rang out again. "The buffer time has ended. Please line up in an orderly fashion and accept the infection inspection. After passing the inspection, please leave."
After the order was broadcast on repeat a few times, a large light lit up across from the public square, and people began to slowly move in that direction to be examined.
The people standing next to An Zhe seemed to be a father-and-son pair— they seemed to be father and son, because one of them was slightly older and growing a beard, while the other was a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boy.
He heard the boy ask, "Why do we have to wait thirty minutes?"
"It's not like the Arbiter is a machine who can tell that you've been infected as soon as you've been bitten by a bug," his father said in a low voice. "The Trial Court says that they're able to pass judgment after thirty minutes have passed. You haven't gone to the city gate. At the gate, there is also a thirty-minute wait in line."
"Oh," the boy said.
But then he asked, "So how exactly do they tell?"
"Don't ask me," his father said. "How am I supposed to know that?"
"I heard that they kill whoever they—"
"Shut up." A trace of fear was present in the father's terse voice. "Do you want to get shot right now?"
As if to prove the father's words, the sound of a gunshot came from the direction of the public square.
They promptly stopped talking.
The Arbiter inspected people at a quick rate, and the intervals in between each gunshot made people tremble. For a while, it was very regular. Every ten minutes, there was at least one gunshot, and sometimes there were several in quick succession. After these gunshots, there were long spans of time in which the Arbiter did not shoot again. The father near An Zhe said, "They're pretty much done killing, I think."
Right as he finished speaking, the sounds of gunshots rang out again, and the boy with him shivered.
People judged to be infected were shot on the spot, while people judged to be safe left through the openings. As the number of people in the public square decreased, they spontaneously formed a haphazard line and slowly moved forward. An Zhe, standing at the very end of the line, counted the sound of each gunshot. By the time he got close to the exit himself, he had already counted to seventy-three. He saw a stone pillar near the exits and Lu Feng leaning against it, his contours slim beneath the light. Two Judges stood next to him. Further out along both sides were heavily-armed City Defense Agency soldiers, and blood covered the ground in front of them.
No, not only blood. There were objects scattered on the ground in no
discernible pattern, all brassy bullet shells.
The father-and-son pair up ahead passed through safely, and it was then An Zhe's turn. He took a few steps forward and stopped in front of Lu Feng.
Lu Feng was taller than him, so he had to tilt his head back to meet Lu Feng's gaze—and then he felt Lu Feng examine him once from top to bottom.
"What's in your hand?"
An Zhe didn't think that even such a small object in his hand would be noticed. In the face of the Arbiter's commanding and aloof gaze, he could only lift his hand, uncurl his fingers, and reveal the bullet shell lying in his palm. Just like those bullet shells scattered on the ground, it represented a human the Arbiter had executed.
The silence between them was drawn out.
After a long time passed, An Zhe heard Lu Feng say, "Get going."
The late-night wind was so powerful that it even broke up the sound of Lu Feng's voice, so when it came to his ears, it was softer than usual.
An Zhe silently turned and walked into the deep night.
———
"At 7 p.m. on May 17th, a parasitic monster invasion occurred at the supplydepot public square in the outer city via a new parasitization method. The Trial Court has implemented additional Trial conditions in response to the new parasitization method. At present, the danger within the base has been eliminated. Residents, please be at ease when moving about."
"To improve the accuracy of the Trials and ensure that the Arbiter is present throughout the entire process, the operation of the city gates will be reduced to the hours of 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. today. Please pay attention when you return to the city."
"According to the Lighthouse's observations, the breeding season of arthropod-class and parasite-class monsters has begun early. To prevent airborne invasion, the operating strength of the base's ultrasonic dispersion device has been raised to level III. The danger levels of Flatland 2, Basin 6, and the Southwest Ravine have been updated to four stars. Please pay attention to personal safety in the wilderness and protect your entire body. The same information has been communicated to all teams out in the wilderness."
"At 7 p.m. on May 17th, a parasitic monster invasion occurred..."
The three announcements played on repeat. Mr. Shaw lifted a hand and switched it off, then lowered his head and continued polishing the mold.
An Zhe was still implanting eyebrows in the corner, but this time it wasn't ordinary eyebrow implantation, for Mr. Shaw had drawn the specific shape and direction on the mannequin's blank face with a gray pen. He was practicing implanting eyebrows for the Arbiter's mannequin.
Doussay was dead, but they still had to proceed with the order she had referred to them because Mr. Shaw already received half of the money—the delivery time they had previously agreed upon was one month later. They were to deliver the goods to a room in District 6's Building 13, and at that time, the commissioner was to hand over the other half of the payment.
The color of Lu Feng's eyebrows and hair were the same, both pure black. It was a very distinctive color. The long eyebrow slanted upwards slightly, forming a sharply contoured peak, then gradually narrowed into a thin and sharp end. Mr. Shaw had spent an hour drawing just these eyebrows. After receiving the mannequin's head, An Zhe not only had to strictly follow the guidelines while implanting the eyebrows, he also had to lift his head from time to time to look at the profile-view photo of Lu Feng on the tablet computer propped up in front of him and check if there were any errors.
The phone-selling youth clad in black had delivered the tablet computer at seven o'clock this morning, saying that it was a gift from Hubbard to Mr. Shaw.
After delivering the gift, he glanced at An Zhe. "Whoa, you've found a nice gig. Do you have money to buy a cell phone from me now?"
An Zhe felt very apologetic. His wage was only enough to buy potato soup, so all he could say was "no". The youth sighed in disappointment and left.
Several close-up photos of Lu Feng were saved in the tablet computer he delivered. Most of them were from when he was patrolling the black market yesterday. The angles were very reasonable, and one of the photos even contained An Zhe. However, the focus of the photo was on Lu Feng, while everything else was very fuzzy. He was just a white smudge in one corner of the photo, and in front of him was a bowl of potato soup.
Mr. Shaw made a pleased sound, saying, "Hubbard has ways of getting what he wants out of the black market. It really isn't a trivial matter to get photos of the Arbiter. Although there's no exact data, the photos were taken well, so they'll suffice."
With those words, he swiped back and forth through the photos several times and said, "This face can really make women go crazy. Do you like him?"
According to the biological sexes of human bodies, An Zhe wasn't a woman, so he didn't go crazy. He only felt very uncomfortable. He felt a bit of visceral fear towards this Arbiter. In this human base, only Lu Feng suspected that he wasn't human. An Zhe thought that, supposing he died one day at the human base, it would definitely be at the end of the Arbiter's gun.
He said, "I don't like him."
"Then you're part of the opposition party," Mr. Shaw said. "I hate the opposition party the most. My last apprentice was one of them."
"How come?" An Zhe asked.
Mr. Shaw said, "He took the pay I gave him and actually had the cheek to ask for half a day off every week to participate in demonstrations."
"... I'm not part of the opposition party either," he said.
"I don't care if you're part of the opposition party or the supporting party," Mr. Shaw said with sincerity. "Just don't ask for time off."
"I... won't ask for time off," An Zhe said.
Facing the amicable smile on Mr. Shaw's face that appeared after he said those words, An Zhe tentatively asked, "Can I live here?"
Based on his observations from these past few days, Mr. Shaw's shop wasn'tactually small. In a corner, there were some unused containers, and the space between the containers was enough for a person to live in.
Mr. Shaw asked, "What's the matter?"
An Zhe knew that the people of the base normally wouldn't move easily to a new home. They would all be assigned a residence at a very young age—of course, whether or not they lived there was another matter. The vast majority of mercenaries spent their lives in the wilderness, and the men and women of the third underground floor returned home very rarely as well.
But he truly did not wish to return to Building 117, for Josh's clinginess exhausted him.
"It's my neighbor," he explained to Mr. Shaw. "He always..."
Before he found the appropriate words, he saw Mr. Shaw wiggle his eyebrows understandingly. "He wants to bed you?"
An Zhe verified that there was only one thing in Scott Shaw's head.
"That's not it," he denied. "He just constantly wants to get close to me."
Mr. Shaw asked, "There's a difference between that and wanting to bed you?"
"There is." An Zhe earnestly thought back on Josh's actions. "We used to be very good friends."
There were some things that he couldn't say to Mr. Shaw, so he could only use "I" to substitute for "An Ze."
"I grew up together with him. We're neighbors. I submitted manuscripts to the City Affairs Office for small contribution fees, while he worked as a mercenary outside. Sometimes when I didn't have money, or when he didn't have money, we'd look after each other," An Zhe said.
"But afterwards, I wanted to take the exam for the supply depot, and he didn't want me to. He said... that it was too difficult, that he wanted to go out into the wilderness with me and do a bit of light work."
At that point, Scott Shaw let out a scornful laugh.
An Zhe looked at Mr. Shaw, wishing to receive his assessment. He couldn't understand why Josh would be like that towards An Ze. "Why would he be like that?"
Mr. Shaw held a mannequin arm, polishing it with a small file as he said, "After you pass the test for the supply depot and leave the civilian population, you'll stand out from the rest. What could he do? He'll just be a common mercenary for his whole life. Would you still spend time with him?"
Having spoken up to this point, Mr. Shaw lifted his head up to cast a look at
An Zhe. "In all likelihood, once you go, you'd be able to seduce one of the
supply depot's higher-ups. He wouldn't be able to hold on to you then."
But An Ze wouldn't do that.
An Zhe said, "I wouldn't."
"Even if you wouldn't, he'd think that." Mr. Shaw finished polishing a fingernail, sprayed on a layer of varnish, and switched to the next fingernail. "Who can tell? People are just this ugly.
"So, as for you, you best not get mixed up with these kinds of good-for-nothings—"
An Zhe dropped his gaze, feeling that Mr. Shaw was indeed a good person. A good elder would provide life guidance to young humans. On occasion, some social monsters in the Abyss would exhibit similar behavior.
But then he heard Mr. Shaw say, "As for you, keep a sharp eye out on the third floor and find a big mercenary team's boss, someone on Hubbard's level, to ensure that he'll take the long way around when he sees you. If he still dares to come to you, shout for your man to give him a beating. It's also fine if they aren't a man. AR1104's female captain will definitely like you when she sees you, but she looks like a gorilla."
An Zhe said, "The Arbiter's fingers are longer than this."
Mr. Shaw jumped from shock, then began to rework it while spitting curses. He no longer had time to provide life guidance to An Zhe.
As he watched Mr. Shaw, who had his head buried in the repair work, An Zhe smiled.
In this manner, he moved into the third underground floor.
Without Josh, the word became much quieter. An Zhe bought a folding bed with an advance on his wages and lived between two empty shelves in a corner of the shop. At night, with the lights off, the mannequin limbs, eyeballs, and heads could all keep him company as he slept. Sometimes when he went out, mercenaries would stop him and ask his price, but Mr. Shaw had taught him a very useful phrase—"I have someone". These three words could deal with almost all the mercenaries. According to Mr. Shaw, the reason why this sentence could take care of them was not necessarily because these people possessed the virtue of knowing to respectfully back down.
At the time, Mr. Shaw had a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he said, "With your good looks, you seem like the type to have a very powerful man. Tsk, I better find one for you quickly."
An Zhe said nothing. In truth, all he had was a mannequin that hadn't yet taken shape. This mannequin was still being crafted day after day, and it resembled Lu Feng more and more.