The Colonel's living quarters seemed like quarters nobody lived in.
It was just like his nap room in the Outer City's City Defense Agency.
As for why An Zhe knew how the Colonel's room looked, it was because at the very moment the elevator door opened, he felt that the surroundings were overly chilly.
After turning around again, he met Lu Feng's gaze.
The Colonel leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed. "Get back here."
An Zhe pressed his lips together into a flat line.
In truth, he was by no means close with Seraing. When he pressed the elevator's down button, he even thought that if Seraing was not at home or showed reluctance at his request, he would only be able to awkwardly request Colin's help instead.
He looked back at Lu Feng and was suddenly a bit distressed—he felt slightly wronged. This man clearly knew he didn't have any friends at the base.
Lu Feng also saw that something was amiss with him. "What is it?"
An Zhe lowered his eyes but didn't know what to say. He actually wanted to speak up and stay in Lu Feng's room, but he feared the Colonel's rejection.
He heard Lu Feng let out a soft laugh.
"I was just teasing you." Lu Feng walked over and pulled him into the elevator. "Let's go eat first. At night, you'll sleep with me."
They ate dinner at the communal dining hall. This dinner was by no means tasty, and what's more, Lu Feng's order was a portion of mushroom soup.
But if he were to sleep with Lu Feng... Of course it would be a bit better than sleeping with Seraing, and it would be much, much better than sleeping with Colin. An Zhe attributed this to the fact that he was only familiar with Lu Feng after all, and moreover, they had stayed overnight at each other's quarters twice before.
After bathing in the Colonel's bathroom, he wiped himself dry, then quickly got into bed while wrapped in a big, snow-white towel. Holding the quilt in his arms, he sat on the innermost side of the bed—he didn't have pajamas.
In the Colonel's room, all the appliances seemed to be more perfect than the ones in his room, which may have been special treatment the military gave to him.
However, no matter how special the treatment, there would be no extra quilt, nor would there be an extra pillow either. He voluntarily moved the pillow from the middle of the bed to the outer side.
At that moment, a bouquet of red at the head of the bed caught his eye.
There was a simple glass bottle there, and within the bottle was three bright red flowers with thorny stems and dark green leaves. Two of them were already in full bloom, while the last one was still a plump bud.
This was the first time An Zhe had seen plants inside the human base. This city made of iron and steel seemed to prohibit the existence of any living thing besides humans.
The flowers' fragrance drifted through the air. Just then, Lu Feng, who had been listening to his subordinates report the state of work affairs, ended the call and returned to the bedroom.
At that very moment, Lu Feng noticed he was looking at the bouquet.
"My mother's," he said.
"Madam Lu?" An Zhe asked.
"Mm-hm," Lu Feng said.
His gaze also lingered on those three flowers. After a very long time, he looked outside.
The night sky outside the window was very dark, with shadows flickering, and the hexagonal Garden of Eden stood tall next to the artificial magnetic pole.
Following his gaze, An Zhe looked down as well. In this manner, the Garden of Eden really did look like a beehive. A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he looked back at the three bright red flowers at the head of the bed. He was a little familiar with this kind of color and shape, for it came from An Ze's memory of a picture album from a long time ago. It was a commonly-seen plant from when human civilization was still flourishing.
"Roses..." he murmured.
"They are roses," Lu Feng said.
When the children in his class had free time, they would play games of house and pretend flower planting, using colored paper of various hues as flowers. However, it looked like the Garden of Eden had real roses.
"Does the Garden of Eden plant roses?" he said.
Lu Feng's reply was very concise. "No."
Just as An Zhe thought his response would stop there, Lu Feng spoke again.
"She likes plants, but the base doesn't have any." His voice was very calm. "When I was sixteen, I was training out in the wilderness and collected some seeds. After the Lighthouse confirmed that they were safe, I gave them to her."
"Then the Madam planted them?" An Zhe said.
Lu Feng said, "Mm-hm."
An Zhe suddenly recalled the sealed plant seeds he saw in Lu Feng's office cabinet a month ago. He thought that Lu Feng must greatly value his mother. At the Lighthouse today, Madam Lu had gone to submit some reports. She looked like she was a scientific researcher. So he asked, "Is Madam Lu a scientist?"
Only after some time had passed did Lu Feng reply to him. "More or less."
At that moment, Lu Feng suddenly said, "You knew the girl from the Garden of Eden."
An Zhe nodded. Lu Feng had already seen Lily, so he didn't have anything to hide.
"How much do you know?"
He guessed that the Colonel was asking him about his degree of understanding of the Garden of Eden. Recalling Lily's words, he said, "I know the 'Rose Manifesto'."
He saw Lu Feng look out the window, seemingly recalling the past.
Lu Feng said, "Allegedly when she was twelve years old, because of her intellectual gifts... the base believed that compared to giving birth, she would bring greater contributions to humankind by throwing herself into scientific research, so she was sent to the Lighthouse to study."
"That's so amazing," An Zhe said.
He was invariably curious about humans with superior intellect.
"But afterwards, she voluntarily applied to be transferred back to the Garden of Eden and bear the responsibility of birthing children while studying how to improve the technology of in vitro embryo culturing."
"And after that?" An Zhe asked.
"There is no after that," Lu Feng said. "It still holds true now."
An Zhe recalled Madam Lu's appearance. Even though she wore a mask today, showing merely a pair of eyes, the impression she left upon him was very deep. He said, "She's very beautiful."
Lu Feng said, "Thank you."
Upon recalling the situation from the daytime, An Zhe asked, "Do you have a bad relationship with her?"
"Yes."
An Zhe blinked. "Why is that?"
He felt that Lu Feng clearly cared about his mother very much.
"She had always thought I was at the United Front Center, but in fact, I chose to go to the Trial Court in the end." Lu Feng's tone was calm. "Perhaps I've killed too many."
"She can't accept it?"
"It was I who wasn't willing to maintain my relationship with her." Lu Feng picked up the pillow and tossed it to An Zhe's side.
An Zhe caught the pillow and looked at Lu Feng. Strangely, he understood what Lu Feng was saying.
In order to always be correct, always be clear-headed, and always be impassive, the Arbiter had to utterly exile himself—the word 'exile' abruptly appeared in An Zhe's mind.
"The Garden of Eden and the Trial Court are doing opposing things," he said. "Is it because you cannot waver?"
"Shut up." Lu Feng leaned over and yanked the pillow from An Zhe's arms, then lifted him up and put the pillow beneath his head. "You can't even keep your eyes open anymore."
Sinking into the soft pillow, An Zhe felt his consciousness gradually blur. He really was sleepy, and this night, he had been forcibly trying to stay alert the entire time.
Before completely falling asleep, he saw Lu Feng pick up a silvery-white case, which was something a staff member had given to Lu Feng when they left the Lighthouse. An Zhe didn't know what it was, and he thought that he didn't need to know either. The Colonel always had his reasons for doing things.
———
An Zhe's folded clothes had been set to one side, some light gray dust on the shirt collar area. Neither the training grounds or the Lighthouse had this sort of thing, but Lu Feng also knew that there was a small-scale disturbance in Garden of Eden's surveillance during that period of time, so there was no way of tracing An Zhe's whereabouts.
Lu Feng looked away from it, and his finger pressed the button on the suitcase. The silver suitcase opened, and wisps of white cold air escaped from within. Inside the refrigerated layer was a long and slender syringe, its contents an aquamarine hue.
Next to the suitcase was his gun.
After his gaze lingered briefly on the two items, he turned to look at An Zhe, his fingers resting on the gunstock.
Right at that moment.
An Zhe rolled over and gently leaned against him.
He was asleep.
Like a small animal curled up inside the snow-white quilt, he revealed a smooth and milk-white neck and shoulder, relaxed eyebrows, and slightly-curled eyelashes, his breaths rising and falling in an even and calm rhythm.
Part of his fingers showed from beneath the quilt, gently curled, but it was also a very relaxed demeanor. Not a single nerve was tensed up. As he slept here, without the slightest alertness or vigilance, it was like he was sleeping in a... place he wholeheartedly trusted to be safe. He believed that in this place, nobody would harm him.
Lu Feng suddenly recalled that day from two months earlier.
That day was the first time they met. An Zhe looked into his eyes and said to him, "He hadn't gotten wounded."
He had long ago gotten accustomed to the sight of disputes and denials, and interrogations and rage were things he had to encounter countless times every single day.
But that was his first time seeing a pair of eyes like that. He did not ask questions, nor did he fail to understand. There was only grief. Yet within the grief was an innocent calm, as if, so long as Lu Feng gave a reason, he would accept anything and forgive anything.
He had never paid attention to anyone's pleas before, but that one time, he lifted the white cloth covering the corpse to reveal that person's wound.
A person's wavering starts from the first time their heart softens.