An Zhe stood in place.
The evening wind lifted up his hair.
He saw a silver car bearing a Garden of Eden logo make a screeching turn before stopping in front of them. From inside, a man in white overalls rushed out, and he took the girl from Lu Feng. "Thank you for your help."
The expression in Lu Feng's eyes was flat. "Be more careful in the future."
The man got back into the car. "This time was an accident."
Without any further words, the man pulled the door shut, and the car swiftly started up and sped towards the Garden of Eden.
Lu Feng turned back.
An Zhe felt a little angry.
Then he saw Lu Feng give him a flat look before saying evenly, "I'm a good person?"
An Zhe finally knew how he should describe his own mood.
He thought that Lu Feng had deceived his feelings, if mushrooms also had feelings.
He didn't want to acknowledge this man anymore, so he turned around and walked past him onto the road.
Before he had taken many steps, Lu Feng had pressed down on his shoulder.
"Lead the way," Lu Feng said. "I don't know how to get back to the residential area."
An Zhe was confused.
He asked, "Don't you know your way around?
"I haven't come back in many years," Lu Feng replied.
An Zhe thought for a while. What he said made a bit of sense. If the Colonel was not in the Abyss, then he was at the city gates, so he may not have stayed in the Main City for at least seven years. Whereas he himself had already stayed in the Main City for a month, so he was familiar with the way back.
Thus, he asked, "Where do you live?"
Lu Feng seemed to think for a while before taking out a blue ID card from his chest pocket and handing it over.
An Zhe accepted it. Even the decorative pattern on the Colonel's card was different from his.
He looked down and saw that the back of the card had a string of numbers printed on it in gilt.
3124043701.
Recalling his own new ID number, An Zhe expressionlessly said, "I'll take you there."
The Colonel seemed to have noticed his expression. "You aren't willing to?"
"I'm willing."
Thus, with Lu Feng in tow, he sat down on the Main City's free shuttle. There were seats on both sides, and the seats were arranged in connected pairs. He sat down at a window seat, and Lu Feng sat down next to him. Lu Feng was a good-looking man, and coupled with the imposing and tidy Trial Court uniform, he was very conspicuous amongst the crowd. As a result, when they boarded, all the people inside looked at them.
An Zhe said, "Get off at the last stop."
"Thank you," Lu Feng said. "Where do you live?"
"I live near you."
"All right."
The original residential area for the Garden of Eden's workers was nearby, but An Zhe was a late addition, and the military residential area he had been assigned to was far away. The shuttle stopped and went, and almost forty minutes passed before it reached the last stop, where he had to get off.
The Garden of Eden's younglings looked very well-behaved, but they actually were not, especially when they asked about this and that. At the end of the day, An Zhe would be lethargic for a while—such as right now.
In the past, he would choose to lean against the vehicle and nap for a while, but Lu Feng was beside him today, so he felt that it was better to stay awake.
Thus, An Zhe chose to rest his chin in his hand and look at the scenery outside, such as the Twin Towers, Garden of Eden, and other various buildings and structures. It had been two months since he'd started living in the human city, but he still felt like he was dreaming.
As he looked, An Zhe's eyelids gradually drooped.
And after that, he lost consciousness.
———
The gentle robotic announcement played. "We have arrived at the last stop. Passengers, please get off in an orderly manner, and we will see you next time."
Lu Feng looked at An Zhe, who was leaning on his shoulder.
The glow of the setting sun spilled in through the window, and a golden sheen suffused the ends of An Zhe's eyelashes. His sleeping appearance was very quiet, with the gentle rise and fall of his breathing the only movement. He looked like he had no aggressiveness whatsoever nor any vigilance or caution against everything outside, just like a child who had not grown up. Lu Feng thought that it wouldn't be bad if he kept sleeping like this.
But immediately, the shuttle slowed down and came to a gradual stop. The people on board stood up one after another, and their footsteps sounded in the aisle.
An Zhe opened his eyes.
He discovered that he had slept more comfortably than any other time before.
His gaze slowly, slowly traveled to the side, and he saw black fabric and a silver badge.
With a start, he straightened up and saw Lu Feng watching him with a gaze that was by no means cold; it seemed that he hadn't gotten angry because of what happened just now.
Lu Feng said, "Let's go."
An Zhe rubbed his eyes. He fell asleep quickly and woke up quickly as well. He followed Lu Feng off the shuttle, and the evening wind brought with it a slight chill. He pointed towards a building up ahead. "Building 24 is there."
Lu Feng uttered a short word of thanks, then walked in that direction.
An Zhe followed.
Halfway there, Lu Feng said, "It's enough to bring me to this point."
Saying nothing, An Zhe continued following him.
At Unit 04, Lu Feng pressed the button for the thirty-seventh floor, and so An Zhe went up to the thirty-seventh floor via the elevator as well. Naturally, the kind of simple choice between No. 01 and No. 02 did not need another's directions.
An Zhe looked at the remains of the seal that had just been torn off from the door of No. 01 last night, thinking that even now, this Colonel was still unaware that his abominable conduct had been seen through long ago.
The seal on the door of his neighbor across the hall, No. 01, had been torn off a month ago. He had personally witnessed it. It meant that Lu Feng had stayed here for a night back then, so there was no possibility that he didn't know the way.
And Lu Feng made the false claim that he didn't know the way at all and wanted him to lead the way. This meant—Lu Feng was completely making fun of him, making him expend worthless and unnecessary labor.
Unfortunately, when he saw Lu Feng's ID card, the man's lie collapsed.
At that very moment, he heard Lu Feng say, "You're very conscientious."
This man truly thought he was conscientiously doing his best to lead the way —with this thought, An Zhe's expression became more merciless. He looked at Lu Feng, and Lu Feng looked back at him.
Mimicking Lu Feng, An Zhe indifferently turned and came to the door of No. 02, then placed his blue ID card on the sensor.
The sensor let out a crisp "beep" and lit up with a green light. Then there was a "click" as the door lock automatically opened.
An Zhe turned back and looked at Lu Feng.
Lu Feng was briefly stunned before saying, "What a coincidence."
An Zhe's face was blank.
"What is it?" There seemed to be a slight questioning in Lu Feng's eyes, but merely one second later, he seemed to understand everything. The expression in his eyes changed completely into a smile, and the corners of his lips lifted as well.
"I didn't lie to you," he said. "I had a night-long prewar meeting in the Main City one month ago right before leaving for the Outer City."
"The seal," An Zhe said.
"The military knew I had returned to the Main City, so they sent people to come tidy up," Lu Feng said.
"Oh."
But An Zhe had no plans to believe this man again.
He turned around and returned home. Right at that moment, Lu Feng's door suddenly let out a piercing and hurried "beep—".
He turned back and saw Lu Feng swiping his card, but although the correct card was clearly placed against the sensor, it glowed red.
Lu Feng frowned.
An Zhe looked at him with suspicion.
Then he saw Lu Feng dial a number and briefly describe the current situation.
The sound of an explanation came from the transmitter on the other end.
After hanging up, Lu Feng looked at An Zhe and said, "Three years ago, the Main City's ID cards were upgraded, but mine wasn't upgraded in time."
An Zhe thought that he may truly have unjustly blamed Lu Feng.
But, but—
The Main City's roads were not complicated at all, and the buildings all had conspicuous numbers. Once on the shuttle, even a mushroom like him knew when to get off.
For a moment, he wavered. But in the end, for the sake of his spore, he still said, "Then would you... like to come to my home for now?"
Lu Feng readily accepted.
After inviting the Arbiter to sit down on the sofa and then turning on the TV for him, An Zhe went into the kitchen.
Before entering the kitchen, he asked, "Have you eaten?"
Lu Feng said that he had not.
An Zhe's original intention for saying this was to hint that he could go downstairs to the communal dining hall to eat, but Lu Feng's reply had a hidden meaning—it meant that he had to cook for two today.
An Zhe chopped two additional potatoes. The Main City's communal dining hall provided both food and raw materials. In this month, he had gradually gotten accustomed to cooking his own soup—it would be thicker and more delicious than that of the dining hall.
After putting the potatoes and bits of smoked pork into the pot, pouring in water, and adding milk, he turned on the heat, covered the pot, and returned to the living room.
The news announced that the restoration work of the Dispersion Center was proceeding smoothly.
Lu Feng was on the sofa and looking at his textbook, seemingly in a good mood.
When this man was in a good mood, he would bully others. When he was in a bad mood, he would not acknowledge others, such as that time a month ago on the train when he seemed to be completely unwilling to talk to An Zhe.
After the impulsive emotion of being lied to subsided, An Zhe calmed down. While he was chopping potatoes in the kitchen, he earnestly contemplated the relationship between himself and Lu Feng.
The key to finding his spore lay in establishing a good relationship with Lu Feng.
The premise upon which establishing a good relationship with humans rested on understanding his preferences.
Thus, An Zhe sat next to Lu Feng, and he saw that Lu Feng was looking at a poem in the textbook that described autumn's scenery.
"You teach this?" Lu Feng asked.
"I'm still learning," An Zhe said.
Lu Feng's unprompted question made An Zhe even more convinced that the man was in a good mood.
Thus, he said, "Colonel."
Lu Feng put down the textbook and looked at him. "What is it?"
"Before, on the train..." An Zhe murmured, slowly dropping his gaze, "You seemed unwilling to acknowledge me. Did I do something wrong?"
Lu Feng looked at him with a deep gaze.
"No," he said. "It's my problem."
"So that's what it was."
"Were you very bothered?"
"... Mm."
After a short silence, Lu Feng reached out a hand.
His fingers lingered briefly on the skin at An Zhe's neck, then traveled down and pulled out the bullet shell hanging around his neck.
An Zhe lifted his head to look up at Lu Feng, slightly panicked. At what point Lu Feng discovered the existence of the bullet shell, he didn't know.
"I killed the black market's mistress. At that time, you were by her side. Did you work under her?"
An Zhe shook his head. "I only followed Mr. Shaw."
"3260563209, at the city gates." Lu Feng continued. "Was he your teammate or boyfriend?"
"My friend."
Holding the bullet shell at his neck, Lu Feng asked, "Who was this?"
An Zhe said nothing. He couldn't say it, but silence was also a form of answer.
After the silence, Lu Feng did not ask further and simply stuffed the bullet shell back beneath An Zhe's collar.
"I've killed many people. However, for the most recent mass killings, you've always been present," he said. "Under these circumstances, the fact that you're still able to say I'm a good person surprises me greatly."
An Zhe thought back and discovered that things were indeed so.
The first time they met, Lu Feng killed Vance. The second time they met, it was Doussay. That night, xenogenics had invaded the city, and he had also killed seventy-three other people.
One month later, An Zhe stood within the isolation wall and witnessed Judgment Day being carried out with countless gunshots.
Finally, on the train leaving the Outer City, at his side, Lu Feng issued the order to bomb District 6.
Lu Feng had killed many people he had connections to.
However, this by no means impeded him from thinking that Lu Feng was a good person. Firstly, he knew Lu Feng was very accurate in distinguishing xenogenics. Secondly, even if he was recognized as a xenogenic by Lu Feng and killed, or when District 6 was bombed, he was one of them, and it seemed there was nothing to say. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. He had come to the human base, so he had to accept human rules.
But Lu Feng was the person who carried out the death sentences.
"Are you... sad because of this?" An Zhe asked.
"No." Lu Feng said while looking at him. "I know what I'm doing."
"Then..." An Zhe only managed to say that one word.
Was that because of some sort of emotional fluctuation?
But Lu Feng seemed to see what he was thinking.
"I haven't violated the principles," he said, "but nobody will come to determine whether I'm right or wrong."
An Zhe remembered what the young Judge Seraing said to him. He asked, "You aren't certain whether you've killed people correctly or not?"
"No, I am certain." Lu Feng looked out the window. His green eyes were like icebound lakes, containing an empty and distant stillness. "I'll just sometimes think about... the choices I made. Just what am I judging, and who will judge me in the end?"
An Zhe didn't fully understand his words. When humans have gone mad, perhaps they would say some nonsense that others did not understand.
But he also felt that he did understand.
As he looked at Lu Feng, he said, "I don't hate you because of those things."
After a pause, he added, "You haven't done wrong."
Lu Feng looked at him, and there was a long silence. It was so long that An Zhe felt an illusion—within that pair of eyes were not icebound lakes, but rather gentle cold water.
Twilight slowly descended upon the room. Lu Feng reached out with his right hand and ruffled An Zhe's hair.
An Zhe lowered his eyes slightly. The feeling of being patted on the head by the Arbiter was very wondrous. He felt that Lu Feng was now very soft.
If it was because his previous words comforted this man, he would feel rather happy.
Thus, he smiled at Lu Feng.
Then he saw Lu Feng's gaze turn malicious, and the fingers that had been patting his head moved downwards and pinched his face.
An Zhe felt that it was better when this man was in a worse mood, because at least then he wouldn't randomly bully others.
He escaped from Lu Feng. "I need to go check on the pot."
"Uh-huh."
An Zhe returned to the kitchen and discovered that, as expected, the water had already started boiling, with the foam surging up and almost bursting through the pot lid. These days, he had grasped a sufficient number of cooking techniques. He lifted the transparent pot lid, and the white steam evaporated and the bubbles swiftly vanished. The smoked pork had been soaked through by the boiling water, and the edges of the small pieces of potato had also become rounded. The small amount of milk made the soup slightly white, and in the fresh and salty scent that wafted up, there was a subtle hint of a tender and lingering sweet fragrance. It was a smell An Zhe liked very much.
He picked up a nearby ladle and used the bottom of it to mash the softened pieces of potato. As they were stirred and mashed, the small pieces gradually dissolved into the soup, and the pot of potato soup became visibly thicker.
Lu Feng had also come into the kitchen at some point. Leaning against the doorframe, he asked, "Do you want me to help?"
An Zhe naturally didn't count on the mighty Colonel to be familiar with kitchen work, so he said, "No."
But Lu Feng didn't leave. He only stayed there and watched An Zhe. Then his gaze shifted to the kitchen, looking around the small space.
Finally, his gaze stopped on the silver faucet over the sink. "Does it leak?"
"Mm-hm," An Zhe said.
Since the first day he moved in, the kitchen faucet leaked. No matter how tightly he turned it, water would drip. In the daytime, the sound was not obvious, but in the profound quiet of the night, when even the lights of the distant Twin Towers were extinguished, the repeated sound of dripping water echoed throughout the rooms and would sometimes disturb his sleep—though disturbing his sleep came second. More importantly, with day after day of this, he was afraid he would have to pay a bigger water bill.
But then he saw Lu Feng take off and put aside his coat, roll up his uniform shirt's sleeves, and lift his hand to close the black valve up on the water pipe— that was a place someone of An Zhe's height could not reach.
Then he unscrewed the faucet.
An Zhe silently watched his movements. He felt that Lu Feng's activity had only two possibilities: one was wanting to utterly destroy his faucet, and the other was wanting to help him repair it.
Rationally, he felt it was the former, but emotionally, he was more willing to believe the latter.
At that exact moment, someone knocked on the door.
Lu Feng was taking apart the faucet. Without even lifting his head, he said, "Go."
His manner of speaking was as self-assured as if he were the owner of these living quarters.
An Zhe, the true owner, put down the ladle, walked over to the entryway, and opened the door. It was a soldier clad in a military uniform.
The man looked around the living room and said, "Colonel Lu had me come here."
His voice was very loud.
Lu Feng's calm voice came from the direction of the kitchen. "Over here."
The soldier walked to the doorway, then clicked his heels and saluted. "Colonel Lu, I'm with the logistics service. Neglecting the issue with your ID card was the fault of our operating—"
His words suddenly cut off, and his gaze turned towards the faucet parts in Lu Feng's hand. With an expression like he'd seen a ghost, he then continued. "... For this, we sincerely apologize and—"
"Cut the chatter," Lu Feng said, coldly interrupting him.
The soldier said, "... I'm here to deliver your new ID card."
"Thank you." Lu Feng didn't even look at him as he put two parts back together with both hands. "You can put it down."
Potato peels lay piled up next to the sink, and next to them was the kitchen knife.
In the sink was water.
In the Colonel's hands were faucet parts.
The soldier held the ID card, momentarily unsure where he ought to put it.
An Zhe could only say in a small voice, "You can give it to me."
After taking the ID card, next was seeing the visitor off.
At the entrance, the soldier once again glanced at the Colonel in the kitchen, then looked at An Zhe. He deliberately lowered his voice, but because his voice was loud in the first place, it still wasn't quiet after he lowered it. "... What is the Colonel doing?"
"Fixing the faucet."
"The Colonel knows how to fix faucets?" The soldier looked at him with suspicion. "Then you and he are..."
"Right now, we're neighbors."
"What about before?"
"Before..." An Zhe recalled how they had slept in each other's beds. "Friends, I suppose."
The corners of the soldier's mouth twitched unnaturally. "... Ahaha."
He seemed to not believe An Zhe.
Perhaps it was that Lu Feng very rarely took apart other people's faucets. An Zhe calmly sent the soldier away.
As soon as he returned to the kitchen, he saw that the faucet had been reinstalled in its original place.
Lu Feng twisted open the valve.
The faucet did not leak at all.
"Wow," An Zhe said.
While looking at the faucet, he felt that the Colonel did not necessarily stay aloof at all times, refusing to acknowledge others, and also felt that this man seemed to know how to do everything.
He said, "You're really amazing."
His voice was still soft and very delicate. The aroma of the potato soup had already completely wafted out to fill the room with the dense steam. Without any hint of emotion, Lu Feng said, "You're not bad yourself."
After the potato soup was completely cooked, An Zhe divided it into two bowls and matched it with two packets of hardtack to serve as the staple food. Lu Feng looked to be in a very cheerful mood, but An Zhe had no appetite. He racked his brains, wanting to get some information related to the Lighthouse from Lu Feng, so he asked Lu Feng no small number of questions.
"What will you do next?"
"Wait for plans."
"Will you work in the Twin Towers?"
"Maybe."
"Does the Lighthouse and military often interact?"
"No."
"The doctor works at the Lighthouse... Do you know him very well?"
"No." Lu Feng was expressionless.
The blatant coldness made An Zhe give up the thought of continuing his questioning, but to stop there seemed more suspicious, so he continued. "That little girl today..."
In the following second, Lu Feng looked at him.
"Don't ask questions you shouldn't be asking," he said, "and don't talk while you eat."
An Zhe disappointedly shut up.
By the time dinner ended, he hadn't gotten anything related to his spore at all, but the Arbiter's attitude towards him seemed to have improved a lot.
An Zhe opened the door to see Lu Feng out.
Lu Feng said, "Goodbye."
An Zhe also said, "Goodbye."
He saw Lu Feng put the new ID card up to the sensor. The green light lit up, and the lock successfully opened.
Lu Feng pushed the door open.
Then he suddenly stopped moving, his entire person seeming to have come to a standstill.
For the Colonel, this kind of behavior was very seldom seen, so An Zhe surreptitiously stuck out his head and looked inside the room.
With that look, he froze as well.
The room was not empty.
Next to the sofa that directly faced the entrance was a huge opened suitcase, and on the sofa was an officer in a black uniform sitting upright. This officer had black hair and green eyes and was coldly looking at the doorway.
The Lu Feng standing in the doorway turned and looked at An Zhe with an identical gaze.
"... It wasn't me," An Zhe said.
It truly wasn't him.
Since his arrest, he had never seen the Arbiter's mannequin again, and he even assumed that the evil thing had been blown to bits along with District 6. Why would it appear in Lu Feng's home?
At that exact moment, Lu Feng's communicator rang. The other person's voice was very loud, for it was that soldier from the logistics department who had come earlier to deliver the card. "Colonel, have you returned to your living quarters? Can the new ID card be used normally?"
"It can, thank you," Lu Feng said. "But I wish to know, what is going on with the mannequin in my living room?"
"The mannequin?" The soldier on the other end was first a little uncertain, but then he suddenly had an epiphany. "Before, during the Trial Court's emergency evacuation, they were saving important documents and goods, and the soldiers responsible saw this and believed it may be an important military tool, so they brought it over. We didn't know how to deal with it, so we put it in your living quarters."
Lu Feng repeated a sentence. "Important military tool?"
"Indeed. Although we're in the Main City, we also know the Outer City has some reactionary groups opposing the Trial Court. We judged the replica mannequin to perhaps be one of the Trial Court's tools to bait the enemy. Moreover, its manufacturing cost looks to be very..." The man talked endlessly.
Lu Feng didn't say a word.
The other person finally noticed that something was amiss. "Colonel, did I say something wrong?"
"You haven't. Thank you." Lu Feng hung up.
After hanging up, he said to An Zhe, "Come here."
An Zhe felt deep despair. He had not been convicted in his previous case, and it was only because of a sudden worm attack that he was able to get out of prison. Now that the dirty goods reappeared, would the Arbiter bring up the past again and convict him?
He walked over.
Lu Feng carelessly picked up the mannequin from the sofa, put it back in the suitcase, then pushed the suitcase towards An Zhe. Uncomprehending, An Zhe pressed down on the suitcase handle.
"For you," Lu Feng said, leaving An Zhe at a loss for words.