"Although wrong, it is still correct."
On the walls of the corridor connecting the work hall of the Trial Court and the training area, one side had "Humankind's interests take precedence over all else" while the other side had this sentence written.
Beneath the sentence was a row of silver picture frames. The first picture frame was blank, but further along, the second picture frame held a black-and-white photo depicting an officer around thirty years old with handsome and symmetrical features. He was dressed in the Arbiter's uniform, and the dates of his birth and death were engraved upon the wall beneath the picture frame. He died seven years prior, at the age of thirty-six.
At the next picture frame, there was also a black-and-white photo with dates of birth and death. An Zhe walked forward, and the next photo and birth and death dates were similar. The years in which they lived gradually went back in time. Thus, An Zhe knew that these were photos taken to commemorate successive Arbiters, and the blank picture frame on the very end was undoubtedly left for Lu Feng.
With that thought, An Zhe's pace slowed slightly, and an indescribable weight pressed down upon his heart. If it was possible, he hoped that Lu Feng's photo wouldn't be hung up so soon—just like how tonight, the moment Lu Feng boarded the plane, he hoped that this person could remain here in a safe place.
But Lu Feng had his own choices to make.
Following Seraing, he continued walking forward, and at the end of the photo gallery, a strange spectacle appeared.
On the light gray wall, there was a rectangular area that was whiter, the same size as a picture frame. There were nail holes at the four corners of the white area. It looked like this place also had a picture frame once, but it had been taken down. And below it, the place that originally was engraved with the name and birth and death dates had also been scraped off, leaving behind only a few mottled marks. An Zhe tried to make it out, but he could only see that it was a string of letters beginning with a capital P.
Seeing that he had stopped here, Seraing explained, "It's said that this was the first Arbiter and the person who proposed the 'Arbiter's Code' and established the Trial system."
An Zhe asked, "Was his photo taken down?"
"Mm-hm," Seraing said. "In the end, he questioned the rationality of the Arbiter system and betrayed the base."
An Zhe nodded. Human minds were difficult to figure out. He didn't inquire more deeply.
Seraing got him settled in a break room. The geomagnetic field had disappeared, and everything had become chaotic. The Logistics Division and Emergency Response Department were presumably in great tumult, and the base's other residents were panicking, only able to sleep and wait for the military's upcoming shelter arrangements.
There were numerous footsteps upstairs. Next door, Seraing was contacting someone, seeming to be arranging the Trial Court's follow-up work.
In the pitch-black room, the outside wasn't visible. An Zhe could only hear his own heartbeat. Strangely, as if having some odd feeling, he lifted his head and looked into the depths of the darkness. That feeling was strange to describe —he seemed to have felt some massive wave. He, Seraing, everyone, the entire human base, along with everything in this world were all trivial parts of that indescribable wave, trembling and changing in its wake and generating minute ripples. In the younglings' textbook, there was a saying called "the current of fate", and he thought it was very fitting. The only part that wasn't fitting was that the wave seemed to exist around the entire world and wasn't an empty metaphor or imagining.
Right at that moment, his communicator rang. It was a call from the doctor.
The doctor asked him, "Lu Feng has taken off. Where are you?"
An Zhe truthfully told him.
"As long as you're safe," the doctor said. "I just finished the Lighthouse's emergency meeting, so now I'll be heading back to the laboratory to rest for a night. You get some good rest as well."
"Okay," An Zhe replied.
The doctor seemed to be climbing a set of stairs. Only after a while had passed did he say, "I was thinking about Si Nan's behavior this morning. He warned Lily to go back to the Garden of Eden. Could it be that he predicted the disappearance of the magnetic field? Different species have different sensory organs, and some organisms are sensitive to magnetic fields."
An Zhe said, "Perhaps."
After some thought, he said, "But it's so far."
Of course he knew every single species was different. In the Abyss, some monsters had extremely keen hearing, and some could detect the scent of prey from thousands of kilometers away. But if they were to say Si Nan sensed the xenogenic invasion of the Underground City Base all the way on the other side of the globe from the Northern Base, it seemed a bit unreasonable, for xenogenics did not have long-wave communication technology.
The doctor did not respond to him. From the other side there only came uneven breaths, and An Zhe thought that perhaps he was walking.
But three minutes later, the doctor still did not respond. There was only the sound of his breaths speeding up. With this sound playing in the darkness, An Zhe felt an inexplicable uneasiness.
"Doctor?" An Zhe called out.
Still no response.
He frowned. Right at that moment, he heard the doctor quickly say from the other end, "Have Seraing pick up."
An Zhe swiftly walked out of the break room. Seraing accepted the communicator, and after calling out "Doctor", he frowned deeply and swiftly said, "I'll be right over."
Then he immediately picked up the gun on the table, called a few men, and strode out!
An Zhe took a look at the direction he went in and chose to follow. But their speed was too quick, and his own speed climbing the stairs was too slow, so he was a step behind.
By the time he arrived in the corridor where the doctor's laboratory was, he heard a gunshot from the depths, immediately followed by the sound of a body falling to the ground.
The doctor was standing in the middle of the corridor, and An Zhe walked over to him.
"I... I saw that his walking posture wasn't quite right from far off." The doctor gasped for breath, his pupils dilated and face pallid, the very picture of someone who was badly shaken. An Zhe looked forward and saw Seraing put away his gun. The person who fell to the ground was the doctor's assistant. Just this afternoon, he had been working with the doctor, helping him repeatedly check the footage of Si Nan.
Seraing said to the doctor, "Infection confirmed. Was it exposure to an experiment?"
Infection?
An Zhe promptly thought of this place's sole source of infection, Si Nan.
"Impossible," the doctor said. "He didn't have the authority to open the glass cover, so he couldn't come into contact with the xenogenic."
Seraing said, "I'll go inside and take a look."
"Don't." The doctor abruptly raised his voice. "Don't go over there."
Seraing stopped walking and looked at the doctor.
"Do you remember how I once said if there was a day where we wouldn't need to come into contact with xenogenics at all to be infected?" The doctor's voice shook. "It's too abnormal... We must prepare for the worst."
Seraing frowned. "How will you prove your view?"
"There's no way to prove it." The doctor shook his head. "However, you all also know that after injecting a monster's interstitial fluid into the test animal's tail, genetic changes can be observed in the animal's head at the same time.
Those interstitial fluids haven't participated in body fluid circulation at all, yet the genes throughout the animal's body have already changed. Since even this kind of thing can happen, then why can't infection occur even without coming into contact with a monster?"
With those words, a shudder ran through his body.
"Seraing," he said, his voice completely hoarse, "do-downstairs are all live xenogenic samples, and there are at least a hundred staff members there."
Seraing's expression was heavy. "I'll go down right away."
"Protect yourself," the doctor said. "Within the effective range, the further away you can stay from all the living things there, the better."
He didn't say xenogenics, nor did he say humans, but rather "living things".
Seraing nodded. With speedy movements, they dispersed downstairs.
In the silent corridor, only An Zhe and the doctor remained.
Seeming to have lost his strength, the doctor leaned against the ice-cold wall, and An Zhe supported him.
After a silence, the doctor suddenly spoke.
"You aren't afraid?"
He shook his head.
The doctor looked at him.
"On you, there seems to be a kind of... something that people of this era don't have." the doctor said.
Saying nothing, An Zhe quietly listened to him continue.
His gaze lingered for a long time on An Zhe, and then he took a soft breath, lips trembling slightly, as if he obtained some extraordinary inspiration. Then he said, "You're so innocent... that it's like you're a bystander."
He said, "Everyone lives in terror, but you're very calm, standing out from everyone else."
With those words, he seemed to smile. "I know why Lu Feng likes being with you."
An Zhe looked at the doctor. The doctor's youthful face showed a faint haggardness. He seemed to be a bit tired. An Zhe asked, "Is there something I can help you with?"
"Thank you." The doctor looked into his eyes, and there was a slight quiver at the end of his sentence. "Just... live safely, that's enough."
An Zhe thought for a while, then said, "I'll try my best."
He didn't say anything else. In the corridor, the doctor's words echoed as he talked to himself. "No physical contact, and no aerial transmission. Can such a thing truly happen?"
Nobody replied to him.
However, a clear gunshot came from downstairs.
Then there came a second sound.
A third sound.
The sounds didn't stop, reverberating for a long time in the building.
In the wake of one gunshot after another, the theoretical framework humans used to explain the world was declared to have utterly collapsed.
The doctor's hand clutched An Zhe's arm, and his fingers were trembling.
"... Why?"
———
The gunshots stopped, and a scattered few people walked upstairs, with Seraing bringing up the rear.
"These are the ones who haven't been infected?"
Seraing replied, "Yes."
An Zhe heard the doctor ask the survivors about their whereabouts today.
There were no issues with eating, drinking, or breathing, for everything was uniformly supplied by the Lighthouse. Even the air was brought in by the ventilation system. If there was an issue with any one amongst these three things, the entire Lighthouse would fall. But they had one thing in common.
During this period of time since the magnetic field disappeared, none of them had been in close contact with the experimental subjects. Some had been in the office sorting records the entire time, while some had gone to other floors to participate in meetings and just returned—such as Dr. Ji himself.
And the staff members who had been infected also had one thing in common.
They were all people who had been in close contact with the xenogenics— though this kind of contact was not necessarily true contact, but rather spatial proximity with monsters or xenogenics. For example, one researcher's assistant had spent the entire afternoon in a small office immersed in writing code, adapting a certain data model, but he was still judged to have been genetically infected—the only suspicious thing was that two reptile monsters were being raised in the laboratory on the other side of the wall from him.
Seraing requested guidance from the military. Using the floor where the xenogenic research center was as the axis, closed-style checks had to be carried out on the three floors above and below, and all personnel were prohibited from entering.
"Water, food, and air may all be the sources of infection." In the Trial Court's break room, An Zhe and the doctor shared a room. The doctor said to himself while facing the white wall, "If only that was it, but it just isn't."
"Is it radiation?" he then said. "If every monster was a source of radiation, at the very beginning, the radiation was very weak, so only those who were heavily injured would get infected. Later, infection would happen with even minor wounds, and then the radiation strength gradually increased... So long as one stays near a monster, their genes will experience instantaneous change because of the radiation."
An Zhe thought that what he said made a lot of sense, but right away, he saw the doctor bury his face in his palm and take a deep breath, his bearing that of a man on the verge of a breakdown. "But our instruments cannot detect it."
An Zhe thought that the doctor was about to go mad. Putting himself in the doctor's shoes, he understood the source of his madness.
Regarding the research—the research of monsters—what made researchers suffer wasn't how complicated it was, how many resources it needed, or how dangerous it was, but rather that even now, they didn't know exactly what they were facing. Like a man walking in the dark, having lost even his last crutch, he knew that the cliff edge was not far away, but he didn't know exactly when he would lose his footing.
He saw the doctor slowly lift his head, his blue eyes slightly unfocused and the muscles in his face trembling. That was a kind of despairing dread and terror, as if he were facing some massive, frightening, and indescribable existence—in front of him was a blank white wall. The scariest thing in the world was the unknown.
An Zhe poured out a cup of water for him. The doctor drank it and forced a smile.
"Thank you," he said. "I don't know how many more days the base's water supply can last."
The doctor's words weren't wrong. From the night when the aurora disappeared, the entire base entered a state of emergency shelter. Outside was the solar wind and radiation, so nobody could leave the buildings, but the heat outside traveled in through the thick walls. The temperature indoors was at least 30 degrees Celsius, and there were no methods of temperature control. It was frighteningly dry, and electricity was only used to keep the basic equipment running. Every day at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., the base would regularly distribute a piece of hardtack or a packet of nutrition tablets along with a bottle of drinking water.
Three days later, bottles of water were distributed only in the mornings.
And this was the Twin Towers, the place where the military command center and scientific researchers were. Sometimes, An Zhe would think, if the Twin Towers' resource supply had already been reduced to this point, what would it be like in the ordinary residential buildings outside?
"The 1109 fighter planes need twelve hours to fly from the Northern Base to the Underground City base, and the return trip likewise needs twelve hours. A hundred and twenty hours have passed, and we still haven't received any news whatsoever," the doctor said to him while calculating some complicated formulas with paper and pen. "Emotionally I believe in Lu Feng, but now we must prepare for the worst."
Five days later, the nutrition tablets were gone as well.
The elevators stopped. An Zhe quietly slipped out of the Trial Court, and when he climbed up the stairs, he encountered at least three couples kissing in various corners—perhaps they weren't lovers either, but at least they were difficult to tear apart now.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil."
"For You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."
"Certainly goodness and faithfulness will follow me all the days of my life."
"And my dwelling will be in the house of the Lord forever."
On the thirteenth floor, he passed a meeting room inside which over a dozen white military officers and researchers had gathered and were reciting the Bible.
Inside, at least half of them had tissues stuffed up their nostrils, for the high temperature and dryness made humans get nosebleeds very easily.
Actually, high temperatures and dryness were even more unsuitable for a mushroom's survival. These days, An Zhe hadn't ever slept well. Sometimes he would feel himself bobbing up and down in the current of fate, and sometimes he would feel like he was being laid out in the sun, about to be baked dry. It was difficult to wake up, and he would also feel very hungry.
But he could wait, for it didn't matter. Just this morning, the doctor had said to him, "Although the situation is becoming more and more dire, you seem to be becoming more and more calm."
An Zhe was indeed not terrified. He was a calm mushroom. These past five days, he quietly stayed in the Twin Towers, going in and out with the doctor and Seraing, so many people got accustomed to the sight of him.
He observed the dim red light that indicated the operational status of the surveillance cameras and pricked up his ears to listen to each announcement.
Just yesterday, that light dimmed.
And just this morning, the doctor was informed that because of insufficient energy, all research activities were terminated.
An Zhe softly took a deep breath as he stood in front of the door to the laboratory D1344. It was silent on the other side of the door, with even the beeping sounds of the machines' operation having stopped. He had finally waited until those researchers had left.
The laboratory door was tightly shut, and the sensor at the entrance flashed with a weak light.
He took out Lu Feng's ID card.
———
The Underground City.
Upon the open ground, the upper half of the artificial magnetic pole stood.
On a patch of sandy yellow soil, it resembled a grand tombstone.
This place's geographical location was excellent, for there were tall mountains on all sides that blocked windstorms and cold waves. In the middle was a flat plain, and the geological structure was stable and solid, sufficient to support the construction of unimaginable underground fortifications. The underground city's surface area and volume was comparable to the metropolises from the time when humankind was at its zenith.
In the beginning, when humankind's four bases were taking shape, some people predicted that if there came a day where humans could not hold out, then the Underground City Base would definitely be the last one to fall.
But right now, this open plain was covered with blood. Blood from monsters, from xenogenics, and from humans. On top of the bloodstains were dismembered limbs, cut-off hands, and the remains of heavy weaponry.
A black fighter plane flew over the ground, dropping several powerful bombs. Dull explosions sounded, and the monsters howled deafeningly, but they were soon drowned out in the billowing smoke.
The fighter plane increased its elevation and steadily circled in the air. Lu Feng, holding a walkie-talkie in his hand, said, "The monsters on the ground have been eliminated."
Next to him was Hubbard. This legendary mercenary team captain from the outer city looked at the nearby entry passageway to the Underground City and said, "The inside will be difficult to deal with."
Lu Feng looked over there as well. He didn't say anything, tacitly agreeing with Hubbard's viewpoint. Over these past few days, he and the captain had coordinated command of the aerial operations and established sufficient tacit understanding—moreover, they were originally the kind of people who went the deepest into the frontlines of the Abyss, so nobody understood better than they the habits and lethality of those things.
The Underground City was easy to defend and difficult to attack. It was a sufficiently safe and formidable bastion, and it naturally had the advantage of guarding against radiation. But its structure also destined it to one thing: once xenogenics breached it, the interior would inevitably be a field of chaos.
And now it had been breached.
"What they're most lacking in is firepower. Their birthrate can't keep up and so they are short of soldiers. Thus, they can only increase their expenditure of armaments. They overdrew in advance, so now they have no way of effectively defending." Hubbard's hawk-like eyes narrowed slightly. "We've brought enough and arrived on time, so we have a decent chance to win."
Right at that moment, a voice came from the walkie-talkie.
"The Underground City thanks you for your generous support." The operator's voice was trembling. "However, out of the principle of humanitarianism, we must inform our compatriots from the Northern Base: at present, contactless infection has already been observed within the base, and unpredictable infection may occur at any time and place..."
"The Northern Base has received it," Lu Feng said, interrupting the operator.
"Please prepare for ground support."
Hubbard frowned deeply.
Lu Feng said, "Have the flight formation hover for now. I'll lead some men down."
"I'll go," Hubbard said. "By the sound of what they're saying, the inside is more dangerous than we imagined, and there may be no coming back after going down."
"You don't have this obligation."
"But I don't really have any worries."
Lu Feng's tone was flat. "I don't either."
But Hubbard smiled and asked in return, "You don't?"
Lu Feng met his gaze. No emotion whatsoever could be seen from his cold green eyes, but this time, he said nothing.
"Sometimes you'll look out the porthole, and when you do, you look for a very long time," Hubbard said.
"I left behind a person at the base." Lu Feng leaned against the porthole, his arms crossed. "A bullet I killed someone with hangs around his neck."
"What person of his did you kill?"
Lu Feng didn't reply.
"Putting it like that, he bears enmity against you," Hubbard said, but he seemed to recall something. "I met a boy who had one of your bullet shells and asked me if I knew its origin."
The corners of Lu Feng's lips curved up.
Hubbard said, "Then the relationship between you two is very complicated."
"Perhaps." Lu Feng walked towards the exit. "My relationship with everyone is very complicated."
His voice was cold as he said to the pilot, "Prepare to taxi."
Hubbard didn't stop him this time. He looked at Lu Feng's back, deep in thought.
Under the massive and blood-red sunset on the western skies, the flight formation landed and the cabin doors opened. Lu Feng walked out of the PL1109 and towards the sprawling and blood-soaked city under the ground.
———
The Northern Base.
Right when An Zhe was about to put the ID card up to the sensor, he heard footsteps behind him, and he turned around. It was soldiers on routine patrol, led by a familiar-looking Judge.
That Judge looked at him and said, "How come you're here?"
He dropped his gaze slightly. "I'm getting something for the doctor."
"The doctor is still doing research?" the Judge said.
An Zhe made a soft affirmative noise and said nothing else. That Judge didn't ask further. Instead, he said, "Go back soon, the military has work to do today."
He said, "Thank you."
They walked past, and An Zhe took a deep breath and pressed the ID card to the sensor. Fortunately, the access control system had not yet been shut off. With a click, the door unlocked.
An Zhe entered. The door hinge squeaked because of friction, and after he walked in, he promptly closed the door. In the dim lighting, the ark shadows of the massive instruments flickered, and in the center of the room, the cylindrical tank stood quietly. A faint light beneath the tank illuminated it, and a cluster of small bubbles had just emerged from below and was floating to the top.
An Zhe held his breath. Before opening the door, he had prepared for the worst: getting caught, the spore having already been transferred, other people being present in the laboratory... Now, his heart just about stopped beating entirely.
Until his gaze passed through the glass tank and through the pale green culture solution, and he saw the small white mass suspended all alone in the middle.
H's breath trembled, the corners of his lips curled up, and his heart thumped hard. He wanted to throw himself over there right away, but because of his excessive mood swing, he was practically unable to move.
Within the liquid beneath the dim lighting, that snow-white little thing seemed as if it were wandering about on the deep-sea floor. An Zhe looked at it without blinking.
At that very moment, he saw the spore, which had been quietly floating, pause. Then the hyphae abruptly stretched out, or perhaps using 'exploded' to describe it would be more fitting.
Then—it floated towards him at a speed that definitely could not be considered slow before suddenly pausing at the glass wall, as if it had struck it.
An Zhe took large strides over to the glass tank, pressing his hands and then his whole body against it.
His spore was also firmly pressed against the glass wall, and the hyphae touched him uneasily through the layer of glass, the movement clearly showing that it wanted to get closer to him.
An Zhe couldn't resist smiling. When Lu Feng was near, it seemed just like this spore didn't see An Zhe, but now it recognized him. Reluctant to even blink, he watched the spore extend its slender and fragile hyphae towards him, yet due to the glass obstructing it, it could only try even harder to press itself in his direction, practically turning into a small white pancake on the inner side of the tank. Every single hypha was emphasizing how much it wanted to get close to An Zhe.
An Zhe leaned against it. A long-lost comfort surrounded him, but it was also separated by a layer of unbreakable film.
He had to rescue it from the tank. An Zhe tore himself away from the tank with difficulty and came to the side, where there was a console. Based on the common rules of human machines, he tried pressing the biggest round button.
The console screen lit up as expected, and the indicator light of the card slot on one side lit up. He swiped Lu Feng's card again, and the indicator light turned green. Throughout the entire base, this man's authority was virtually unchecked.
But right away, facing the buttons that were identically shaped and only had some complex symbols on them, An Zhe fell into a daze.
How could he open the tank?
His fingers hovered over the console. At last, he steeled himself and pressed the button in the very center.
Three seconds later, the water in the tank began to surge, and the spore was helplessly swept here and there by the current before finally spinning in the middle of the tank. Looking at that helplessly-spinning little mass, An Zhe felt his own head also tumbling around and around. He clutched at his heart and pressed the first button.
A red laser lit up at the very top of the tank. Even An Zhe, who was standing nearby, felt the heat. The spore's hyphae exploded, and then it feebly sank down, seeming as if it'd be dried out in the next second, and then it exploded again after a while.
He suspected that it was silently screaming. He frowned in distress—was this sort of torment what the spore underwent in the human laboratory every day?
But he had no time to think about anything else, and he pressed another button.
The red glow changed into pulses of light, and the spore helplessly exploded again and again.
An Zhe swiftly pressed a button far away. This time, the red light disappeared, and he sighed in relief. But in the following moment, a buzzing noise sounded, and blue ion sparks flared to life in the tank. Then the surface of the water began to tremble slightly—and the spore also trembled in the water as if it had gone mad.
He was taken aback.
He had electrified the water.
Flustered, he pressed one button after another, and finally with a loud noise, the pale green culture solution slowly drained out of the container. An Zhe pressed a button next to it, and with a click, the lid on top of the tank opened.
The tank was too tall, so he moved a chair over and stood on it, then finally reached the top of the tank.
But more than half of the culture solution had drained out by then, and the spore had no way of floating to that height.
Then he saw the spore press against the glass wall and slowly crawl upwards along it. It slipped down as it climbed, and after sliding down a bit, it continued climbing up.
The little thing was not yet fully mature, yet it had inherited his ability to move independently. An Zhe reached out, and his arm and fingers turned into fluttering snow-white hyphae that descended along the container's inner wall and came into contact with the spore.
At that exact moment, it was like an electric current ran through his body and he had been reborn. He had taken back a part of himself, so there must be a strange wave enveloping him.
Holding that mass, he carefully fished it out, and all of the spore's hyphae that were scattered outside were obediently tucked back in, and the spore rolled over amidst his hyphae.
An Zhe's eyes curved as he smiled at it. His hyphae connected to its hyphae, and he carefully fitted it into his own body. The spore's body also relaxed completely and melded with his body. A euphoric emotion was transmitted to An Zhe's mind, for it had finally returned to the place where it ought to be. The humans' culture liquid was useless; only with the nourishment of the adult would it continue to grow until maturity.
This time, there were no bastards to dig it out again, although he didn't know why the spore would get close to that guy of its own volition.
In truth, the spore not getting close to him that day was a good thing, for once it expressed an inclination to get close to him, it would be promptly observed by the researchers, and then his identity would inevitably come under suspicion. Thus, An Zhe was one-sidedly convinced that his spore had uncommon intelligence.
With the return of the spore, the hollow in his body was finally filled, and all uneasy things instantly settled like dust. That was a feeling that could not possibly be described, like being reborn. An Zhe walked over to the window and pressed the button, raising the metal plate.
Eye-watering light shone in, and he squinted.
Outside, at the end of the wind-blown sands, amidst the first golden rays of the dawn, a resplendent red sun burst forth.
An Zhe slowly turned his head to look back at the silvery-white laboratory.
Machines were arranged side by side, individual electrical cables were distinct from each other, and test-tube stands on top of the goods cabinet was arranged in a particularly neat manner. From this laboratory, he could imagine what the entire base looked like.
This was the humans' base. Its past, present, and future all had nothing to do with him.
His hand curled around the windowsill, his knuckles turning white, and he pushed open the transparent three-layered glass window with a burst of strength.
A gap the size of a finger's width opened, and scorching hot winds carrying grit blew in, followed by a prickling pain in his fingers. Within the wind and atmosphere outside was ubiquitous intense radiation from the cosmos. That colossal wave contained countless tiny ripples. He seemed to hear the Abyss calling him back.
He could leave now, depart from this place, go outside, and return to the Abyss. The outside was likewise cruel. He didn't know if he would be able to survive, but he had gotten his spore back, so he wasn't afraid of anything anymore.
... He wasn't afraid of anything anymore.
An Zhe gently pressed his left hand to his abdomen, rested his forehead against the windowsill, and closed his eyes. A slight shudder ran through his entire body.
He took back his right hand that was curled around the windowsill and exerted his strength in the opposite direction. With a gentle "thunk", the window closed again, and then the radiation-proof metal layer closed immediately after.
He took a few breaths, his forehead pressed against the metal sheet, and his fingers slowly curled up at his side, as if he had made a difficult choice.
As the radiation was blocked out, the prickling pain on his body also gradually receded, just like that night when Lu Feng held him and used his own body as a shield before rolling away from that area with the radiation. In truth, if it had been anyone else, Lu Feng would have done the same, but it was precisely because that was the case that he deeply remembered the image, as vivid as each memory of Lu Feng's departing figure.
He walked out through the laboratory door, and right as he did, two soldiers walked past in the corridor. The pair of patrolling soldiers from earlier had walked away, and now it was other people.
An Zhe met their gazes and gave a close-lipped smile in greeting, then turned and walked towards the staircase.
On the dim staircase, he could only hear his own heartbeat, one thump after another, faster than usual. When humans felt fear, their hearts would beat faster, but what exactly he was fearful of, he didn't know either.
He couldn't keep it hidden for long, he knew. Once order was restored and research began anew, it would definitely be possible to figure out the sequence of events of the humans' important laboratory losing something. He had to leave —the earlier, the better.
But he couldn't keep himself from taking a sharp, cool object out of his shirt pocket. It was the badge that Lu Feng had pinned to his coat, which An Zhe had taken off.
He held it in his hand, thinking that once the aurora lit up and he heard the news of the PL1109 returning, he'd leave then—if such a day came.
There wasn't anything good in this city. Only potato soup was quite nice.
If it weren't—if it weren't for his spore always wanting to get close to Lu Feng, he would have left long ago.