"Preliminary infection, infection progress twenty units, thirteen animal-type targets, which points to arthropod mutation." The doctor walked over while carrying a thick report, then put them in front of Lu Feng. "How is it that wherever you go, there will be xenogenics?"
Lu Feng picked up the report.
The doctor crossed his arms and said, "I'm surprised you didn't shoot him on the spot."
"I'm not familiar with the infection characteristics in children," Lu Feng said.
"Then don't kill him. Leave him for me to use as a sample."
"As you like."
"With arthropod mutations, there's not much to say." The doctor looked at the report in his hands. "Why don't you go ahead and prepare for the meeting now? Since an infection has occurred in the Main City, and a child of Eden at that, I've already reported it. It's no small matter."
"Arthropod," Lu Feng said. "Does it have any connection to what happened before in the Outer City?"
"The final investigation results of the Outer City's insect swarm just came out today. It was determined to have been a one-time collective action of mutant insects under the pressure of the breeding season." The doctor's voice was very soft, and his expression was solemn. "But we don't know exactly what method they used to become connected, nor if there was a commander role."
"But... The Main City is impregnable from top to bottom, so things from the outside can't get in." He took a deep breath, then thought with his eyes closed as he said, "Even if an accident did occur in the Main City, it should have been the escape of one of the Lighthouse's xenogenic samples. Why was it a child from the Garden of Eden?"
Lu Feng looked over the report once, then looked at An Zhe.
As Si Nan's teacher, An Zhe bore the responsibility of going to the Lighthouse with them.
"What places has he been to?" Lu Feng asked.
"He's been with the other children the entire time," An Zhe said. "When I got off work yesterday evening, they were either watching the news or sleeping. This morning, they were taking an exam in the classroom, and in the afternoon, they were at the base."
Lu Feng said, "Contact his teacher and dormitory teacher."
An Zhe gave an affirmative reply.
After calling Lin Zuo and explaining the situation, he thought for a while, then said, "I can go ask him... He's very smart."
Lu Feng hummed in response.
Thus, An Zhe walked up to the sealed glass door—as one of the infected, Si Nan was isolated from other people, and his current location was a silvery-white laboratory.
Within the laboratory was a very small figure. Si Nan sat alone on a silvery-white dissection table, his head slightly bowed. He still had that same expression on his face, as if everything that happened outside had nothing to do with him.
A sound came from behind An Zhe. Lu Feng's communicator was ringing frantically, showing the seriousness of the situation. In merely these two or three minutes, already three groups of people had come here to find him. Lu Feng said something to the doctor, then got up and walked out into the corridor.
There were audio devices inside and outside of the door. An Zhe picked up the handset. "Si Nan."
Si Nan looked at him.
"Are you aware of what happened to you?" An Zhe asked.
Si Nan nodded.
"Then do you know the reason for it?" An Zhe asked. "In the Garden of Eden, did you come across anything strange?"
Si Nan looked straight at An Zhe with his jet-black eyes, that gaze seemingly wanting to pierce through him.
In that instant, An Zhe suddenly understood why xenogenics and humans had differences that could be distinguished with the naked eye—that kind of gaze was like a... a... something that was different from humans. If a pair of eyes like this existed on a monster of the Abyss, he would not feel the slightest bit of incongruity.
After a minute of silence, Si Nan said, "No."
"Think a little harder." An Zhe strove to guide this youngling. "What did you do yesterday? Were you with your classmates the entire time?"
Si Nan only looked at him with that dark gaze. No matter what An Zhe asked, he said nothing more.
Just as they entered a stalemate, the doctor's communicator rang as well, and An Zhe looked over.
The doctor pressed the hands-free mode button, and Lin Zuo's voice came out. His tone of voice was very steady, but he spoke quickly. An Zhe knew this was the behavior of humans when they were forcing themselves to keep calm.
"We've retrieved all the footage from the past three days, and he's always been with others. He'd leave the scope of surveillance when using the restroom and during the occasional free time, but that is normal. The longest duration he was away was no more than three minutes, and he could only move about in the corridor on our floor," Lin Zuo said."There are no abnormalities in the Garden of Eden whatsoever. Could he have been infected on the way to the training base or at the training base itself? I heard that the speed of a child's infection outbreak is much faster than that of an adult."
"I'm very sorry, Mr. Lin. Although children are infected more quickly than adults, based on the degree of morphological change in his tissue cells, he was infected at least fifteen to twenty hours ago."
Lin Zuo was silent for a while before he said, "If that's the case, then he was indeed infected in the Garden of Eden—but the Garden of Eden's other children and teachers are all very normal, with no signs whatsoever of infection."
"Please do not panic," the doctor said. "We're currently awaiting further orders from the higher-ups. At three o'clock at the latest, the Lighthouse will ally with the Trial Court to screen for infection amongst the children who were moving about on the sixth floor during that period of time. Please get ready to cooperate."
Lin Zuo said, "Okay."
"Thank you for understanding. If there's nothing else..." the doctor said.
"Wait," Lin Zuo said.
"Do you have other clues?" the doctor asked.
"It's not a clue, but I hope it may be helpful to you," Lin Zuo said. "Si Nan has always been a very strange child... His IQ is very high, but his state of mind has always been very... dissociative. I watched him grow up, and I'm sure that there are differences in either his way of thinking or his senses compared to the other children."
"Thank you for informing me. I will look into it," the doctor said. "The Arbiter has returned. We're about to set out, so let's discuss in greater detail after meeting up."
Lin Zuo said, "All right."
Lu Feng walked back into the room.
"How is it?" the doctor asked.
"The Garden of Eden and training base have already been placed under martial law," Lu Feng said. "We're currently counting the number of people and will set out in ten minutes."
"Okay," the doctor said.
Lu Feng looked up at Si Nan, who was in the laboratory. "How are things on your end?"
The doctor shrugged.
Lu Feng walked forward and stood next to An Zhe.
Si Nan's eyes slowly turned towards Lu Feng, and at that very moment, An Zhe noticed that his black eyes, which originally had clear borders, were slowly diffusing outward radially, resembling threads of spiderweb extending outward.
Lu Feng said, "Ten hours."
An Zhe was stunned. He knew what Lu Feng meant—within ten hours, Si Nan would completely change from a human youngling into an irrational monster.
He called out Si Nan's name again in an attempt to produce a bit of communication.
But he saw Si Nan's gaze fixed unmovingly on Lu Feng, and Lu Feng returned the look.
Si Nan opened his mouth.
The child's voice was youthful, but he spat out five words in an ice-cold tone.
"All of you will die."
Lu Feng smiled.
He took the handset from An Zhe.
"There's no person who will not die," he said. "Humankind will survive."
With that, he hung the handset back up, then turned and left.
An Zhe compared them. In terms of ice-cold expression and tone of voice, the Colonel was still superior.
A few researchers took control of Si Nan, and the partition door rose. The doctor said, "This child is very strange."
"I'll transfer people over for questioning," Lu Feng said.
"Thank you for your hard work," the doctor replied.
Right at that moment, the windy noise sounded in An Zhe's ears again. He looked around and saw a similarly hidden round hole at the junction between ceiling and wall.
"Lu Feng," An Zhe said as he gently tugged on Lu Feng's sleeve, "what's that?"
Lu Feng followed his gaze and looked up at the ceiling, then said, "It's a vent."
An Zhe blinked.
"You haven't seen one before?" the doctor asked. "The Outer City doesn't have them because it was constructed later."
The doctor was always willing to explain knowledge to others, so An Zhe continued asking questions. "What does it do?"
"It supplies air." The doctor's reply was very simple. Then he explained, "When the Main City was constructed, the magnetic field had not yet disappeared entirely, and humankind's industrial capabilities were still at their peak. To construct a base that was capable of resisting cosmic radiation and solar wind to the maximum extent, the walls of all buildings were four to five times thicker than those of ordinary buildings, and the materials are special. They're completely closed off and rely on the ventilation systems to provide clean air."
"For the Main City to have been able to survive, the ventilation system can receive at least a First-Class Merit award." He smiled. "After the artificial magnetic poles were built, various mutations began. Before the disperser was invented, there were insects everywhere, so the Main City added three-layer filtering and strangulation systems at the air inlets and outlets of the ventilation system to ensure that not even a single bug could fly in."
"In other words, no matter what, as long as we control the ins and outs at the city gates, the Main City will be absolutely safe." As he typed out an email on his computer, he talked almost to himself. "Why exactly would an infection incident happen? This doesn't make any sense. Moreover, the Garden of Eden's other children are all fine."
At that point, his movements stopped, and then he looked at Lu Feng. "I heard that a girl escaped from the Garden of Eden yesterday."
"I've asked," Lu Feng said. "That girl is completely normal."
The doctor frowned even more deeply, and he typed out some information on the keyboard.
Lu Feng looked at the computer screen. "Are you contacting the Underground City Base?"
"Because of the series of events that have happened recently, I'm a little...afraid." The doctor took a deep breath. "I want to know to what extent the monsters in North America have evolved. However, the emergency channel between our bases has always been subject to the vagaries of fate, and it's almost certain that we won't be able to get a result."
With those words, he clicked send, and An Zhe saw him send an identical email to another recipient labeled "Research Institute" at the same time.
"All right." The doctor closed the interface. "I'm going to go calibrate the instrument."
"I'll go to the Garden of Eden first," Lu Feng said.
The Lighthouse's corridor was long and white, lit by a cold light. There was a break room in the corridor, and when they pushed the door open and exited, two researchers in white coats were kissing in the break room. After hearing the sound of footsteps outside, one of the researchers grabbed the other and turned, and their figures disappeared into the depths of the break room.
This spectacle seemed to pique Lu Feng's distaste, for he frowned slightly. "What happened to your discipline?"
"It can't be helped," the doctor said. "The more we research, the more we despair. Right now, the Lighthouse is suffused from top to bottom with an air of carpe diem. You can't ask for the military's discipline from us. I myself also feel hopeless sometimes."
Lu Feng didn't say anything. At the corner, he took An Zhe in a different direction from the doctor.
That afternoon, An Zhe blindly followed Lu Feng. The reason was because he didn't know where he ought to go—he could only be considered a temporary worker in the Garden of Eden, so he hadn't received any other orders or instructions. However, despite being followed, Lu Feng didn't seem to feel displeased. When this man examined the Garden of Eden's children one by one, he even had An Zhe go to the main hall to rest for a while.
Thus, An Zhe read a book while on the sofa in the main hall, and upon the wall in front of him was the blood-red "humankind's interests take precedence over all else" slogan again. At 4 p.m., the doctor brought others to the Garden of Eden. He was a bit dispirited as he led several subordinates in starting up the detection instrument in the hall.
Seraing had been sent by Lu Feng to cooperate with the doctor's work.
The young Judge saw the instrument in the center of the hall and frowned slightly. "There's only one of them?"
"What else?" the doctor said. "The other one was left at the entrance to the Main City, receiving the returning mercenaries who were originally from the Outer City."
"In other words, the entire base currently has only two instruments?" Seraing asked.
"Darling, aren't you misunderstanding something about our current industrial production capacity?" the doctor said. "For high-precision large instruments such as these detectors, two units is already the limit."
"My apologies," Seraing said.
"It's fine," the doctor said. "You all go over things once first, and we'll use the instrument to screen slowly."
Seraing said earnestly, "The Trial Court has not conducted special training focusing on children."
The doctor said, "I believe in the Arbiter's eyesight. He'll definitely be able to ferret out other infected bodies."
While they were talking, the sound of Lu Feng's footsteps came over.
"The investigation of the fifth, sixth, and seventh floors is complete," Lu Feng said into his communicator. "No suspected infected ones have been found."
An Zhe saw the doctor's hand trembling as he adjusted the instrument's control stick.
Lu Feng walked past him. "This side will be left to you all."
The doctor's face was a little pale for some reason as he said, "All right."
After that, he also said, "The Lighthouse has many xenogenic samples. Since infection has occurred in the Garden of Eden, I'm afraid of an accident happening in the Lighthouse as well. Could you apply for a temporary stationing of the Trial Court with the United Front Center?"
Lu Feng asked, "What's my level of authority?"
The doctor said, "The same as mine."
"All right."
He walked to the elevator entrance.
An Zhe silently watched him go.
And then he saw the man turn back and look at him.
In that gaze was written a command.
Come here.
An Zhe put down the book in his hands and obediently followed him.
Right at that moment.
"Lu Feng," the doctor suddenly said.
Lu Feng didn't turn back. "What is it?"
An Zhe turned slightly and saw the doctor looking in their direction. There was a lost look in his azure eyes, and their rims were slightly red.
"A hundred years ago, after people were wounded, there was only a thirty percent infection rate, and slight scratches or pricks wouldn't result in mutations at all. But these past few years, the situation has been constantly deteriorating. Especially this year, the infection rate has skyrocketed. You know as well that even a wound the size of a needle's eye can result in infection. I've always been thinking whether or not there would be a day like this when we do nothing at all and our genes will become disordered regardless, turning us all into xenogenics."
Lu Feng neither moved nor spoke. With a ding announcing the elevator's arrival, the silver doors smoothly opened.
The doctor's voice was slightly tremulous. "The Garden of Eden doesn't have monsters or xenogenics. This child's infection happened without any rhyme or reason, and we still don't know what causes infection or how it spreads. The Lighthouse cannot capture that virus and does not know how to defend against it. If those things have already crawled their way to our insides like an epidemic... The weakest children will be infected first because of their individual constitutions."
He gasped for breath. "Then what exactly are we to do?"
"Dr. Ji." Lu Feng's voice was cold. "You're wavering."
With that, he rested his right hand on An Zhe's shoulder and steered him towards the elevator without even a backwards look.
———
After reaching the residential building and getting out of Lu Feng's car, An Zhe said, "Thank you."
"No problem," Lu Feng said. "What are your meal plans?"
"I'll cook," An Zhe said.
"Potato soup?"
"Mm-hm."
"You like it?"
An Zhe earnestly pondered for a while.
"I do," he said. "But I also don't have money to buy anything else."
"I can see that," Lu Feng said. "Tonight, I'll treat you to something else."
"How come?" An Zhe asked.
Lu Feng said, "To thank you for helping me discover a xenogenic."
These words sounded correct. It was only because of him that Lu Feng noticed Si Nan.
Thus, An Zhe received the opportunity to pick and choose from the ingredients area. Referencing the menu given by the base, in the end, he bought tomatoes, potatoes, and frozen beef. The price of the beef was very high, and it was specially marked with a label next to it indicating that its production was about to stop. He was undecided for a while on whether to buy it or not, but while he was undecided, Lu Feng had already swiped his card. The balance displayed on the card machine made An Zhe feel the differences between people.
Next to the ingredients were simple usage instructions. An Zhe didn't know anything else, so he still made soup.
As the soup cooked, An Zhe discovered something.
He stood in place, silently watching the slightly turbulent surface of the water in the pot.
The soup had become very thick, and the potatoes had completely softened as well. The soft sweet-sour aroma of the tomatoes and fragrance of the beef mixed together, forming a smell different from that of potato soup. It was very delicious.
However...
Lu Feng looked at him. "What is it?"
"I..." An Zhe lifted his head to look at Lu Feng.
But Lu Feng returned the gaze with his green eyes, and through a layer of white steam, they didn't seem very fierce.
"I..." An Zhe said. "I seem to have made too much."
"Too much?" Lu Feng walked over to him, leaned over slightly, and looked into the pot.
It truly was too much, An Zhe knew.
He had added too many ingredients and too much water.
When he made potato soup, in order to make the potatoes a bit softer and the soup a bit thicker, he liked to add a lot of water and then slowly reduce the large quantity of water into a very small amount of soup.
However, the principles of this soup seemed different from those of potato soup—if he continued to reduce it, the ingredients would fall apart, and then it would become a pot of mysterious things mixed together.
He estimated that even if this soup was divided into portions for three, it would be more than enough.
Lu Feng said, "It is too much."
An Zhe thought hard and finally arrived at a corrective measure. "I can invite Colin up to eat."
Lu Feng turned and gave him a flat look.
From that flat look, An Zhe astutely picked up on a hint of Lu Feng's feelings. It seemed that making too much soup had become a severe mistake.
Lu Feng said, "Seraing lives in No. 3202. Go give him a portion."
After ringing No. 3202's doorbell, Seraing opened the door very quickly from inside.
"It's you?" He seemed slightly surprised.
An Zhe handed the thermos to him. "I made soup. Here's a portion for you."
"Wow," Seraing said. "Thank you. I was just about to go out for dinner."
An Zhe gave him the soup and said, "You're welcome."
Seraing spoke up again. "Why... Did you give this to me? Perhaps the Colonel will like it."
An Zhe was momentarily unsure how to respond.
In the end, he said, "The Colonel has some too."
Seraing smiled. "That's what I guessed. So it was the Colonel who told you that I live here?"
An Zhe nodded.
Seraing brought An Zhe inside and, after putting the thermos on the living room table, took out something wrapped in pink from a drawer—by the looks of it, it seemed to be a human snack.
He stuffed it into An Zhe's hand, saying, "I'll treat you to some candy."
An Zhe said, "Thank you."
Seraing said, "Have you gotten used to living in the Main City? Which floor do you live on?"
An Zhe said, "I'm in No. 3702."
"My God." Seraing smiled. "What a coincidence."
Wild gales blew outside, and the wailing sound of the wind in the pipe was coming from Seraing's room as well.
An Zhe looked in the direction of the sound's origin.
"The ventilation pipes were originally closed, but in the summer when the wind is strong, they will be entirely opened for a period of time to prevent the insides of the pipes from getting too damp. During this time, it'll always make noise. When the sound is too loud, sometimes even those who have lived in the Main City since they were young will be unable to sleep because of it, but there's no need to be afraid." Seraing's tone of voice was very gentle. Once he was done talking, he gave another smile. "But the Colonel has probably reassured you already."
An Zhe felt confused.
Firstly, he didn't feel afraid, so he didn't need to be reassured, and secondly, Lu Feng had never reassured him before at all.
He said, "He hasn't."
"... Maybe he forgot."
An Zhe felt that Seraing thought of Lu Feng as too kind of a person and the relationship between the two of them to be too good.
He returned to No. 3702, where the Colonel had unexpectedly deigned to set the table himself—but unfortunately, even though a portion of it had been given away, there was still quite a lot of soup remaining.
A certain Colonel's ice-cold green eyes looked at him. "You can do it."
"I can't."
"You can't waste the base's resources."
An Zhe scooped up a small piece of beef with his spoon and strove to swallow it. After he had finished eating his own portion, he had been forced by Lu Feng to face the remainder in the pot, and now half of it was gone.
Lu Feng's tone of voice was flat. "Keep going."
An Zhe ate another piece of potato and a spoonful of soup.
He felt like he had reached his limit.
Humans' appetites had limits, even if this soup was very delicious.
He'd break.
He lifted his head and looked at Lu Feng.
But he saw this man looking at him, eyebrows slightly lifted and a hint of quiet joy in his expression.
An Zhe was speechless.
He should've already known. Lu Feng's objective wasn't to conserve the base's resources at all. The Colonel's happiness was built upon bullying him.
He frowned, slightly angry. This time, with a resolute attitude, as he said, "I'm not eating any more."
Lu Feng said, "Crime of wasting provisions."
An Zhe retorted, "Then you've committed it too."
Lu Feng looked at him with crossed arms, and after seeming to examine him once from top to bottom, he said, "You've gotten smart."
An Zhe understood what he meant.
He vowed that the next time this man came to eat, he would cut off a piece of his own hyphae and put it in to poison him. Planning to no longer acknowledge this man, he dropped his spoon.
But on the contrary, Lu Feng smiled. He reached out and put the remaining soup in front of himself. It looked like the Arbiter was going to exonerate himself. An Zhe observed his actions for a while, then decided to reduce it from one piece to half a piece.
After dinner, he saw Lu Feng out. The Colonel still had telephone conferences to attend at night.
At the doorway, Lu Feng seemed to suddenly recall something.
He took a small, translucent box from the front pocket of his uniform and tossed it to An Zhe.
"If you can't sleep, you can use that," he said.
After returning to his own room, An Zhe took apart the box. It was a pair of white umbrella-shaped rubber noise prevention earplugs.
He contemplated over and over, still wavering between whether Lu Feng was really a good or bad person, and in the end, he temporarily defined the man as a changeable person.
The wind outside continued picking up, and the sound inside the hole turned faintly shrill to a degree where it indeed made it difficult for humans to fall asleep—but he had no intention of putting in those earplugs, at least not for now.
An Zhe stood in front of his bed. This entire afternoon, he had been thinking of one thing.
If he couldn't move about freely within the Lighthouse, then when exactly would he be able to find his spore?
Once he felt that this was an insurmountable problem, but now he had a path he could walk. All of this city's buildings were linked together by the ventilation pipes.
He turned his head and looked at the window.
The window was very small, only about the size of two textbooks put together, and at its sides were two sliding metal shutters. He walked over to the window and forcefully pushed the sliding doors together. With a click, the shutters fit together perfectly. Like this, nobody could see into the room from the outside.
Hyphae.
Hyphae extended outwards from An Zhe's body. His clothes and the bullet shell necklace around his neck fell to the ground together, making a soft noise. At the same time, a ball of snow-white hyphae made its way out from the shirt collar and rolled under the bed, quietly facing the pitch-black hole.
When his body changed into a mushroom, An Zhe had a vague perception of the outside world. His senses of sight and hearing combined while his senses of smell and touch could not be distinguished from each other. They were no longer sights or sounds, but rather a peculiar feeling; there was no way to describe this kind of change with human language.
The hole had fine wire mesh—three layers of it—which was enough to block all insects big or small.
But it couldn't block a soft mushroom.