The moment Lu Feng wrapped his arms around him, An Zhe began to tremble violently.
Slumped against Lu Feng, An Zhe's forehead was pressed to his shoulder. He was completely unable to describe his emotional state in that moment, only feeling like a hand had curled around his heart and tightened its grip. Fierce pain inundated him, and fat droplets of a warm liquid gushed from his eyes. He knew that he was crying and that those were tears, something that only humans had, but this was his first time experiencing this sort of feeling—the feeling that his heart was being torn to pieces.
Why did things become like this?
He thought, if Lu Feng hadn't spared him two months ago, had his identity as a xenogenic been revealed and had Lu Feng taken him out, then he wouldn't feel so sad about betraying Lu Feng's trust.
If he and Lu Feng had not established something akin to friendship over these past several days, then when facing the muzzle of Lu Feng's gun, perhaps he would not have been so afraid.
And if, supposing Lu Feng hadn't held him in the end, perhaps he would not have felt… so hurt.
Why Lu Feng put down the gun, he did not know. He had never before experienced such intense emotions that he was even unable to take care of other matters.
He understood nothing at all, but just like that, he cried for a very long time. Even when no more tears came out, he was still sniffling sporadically.
The night deepened, and after finally calming down, An Zhe noticed that their surroundings were silent as well. It was like there was nothing left but the two of them in thisworld. He buried himself in Lu Feng's shoulder. Chest against chest, the slight tremor of heartbeats was transmitted through the fabric, though who it came from was indistinguishable.
They were both still alive.
He rubbed his eyes and asked in a slightly hoarse voice, "Why did you fall?"
"Engine breakdown," Lu Feng said. "I'm going to get the black box."
An Zhe hummed in response and let go of Lu Feng. This hug seemed to have lasted too long. When they separated, the wind of the wilderness filled the space that had been intimately seamless, and it was very cold. An Zhe gently shivered. Lu Feng draped his coat over An Zhe, then got up and walked toward the wreckage of the plane. It was a small fighter plane, so the wreckage was by no means large. An Zhe watched as Lu Feng pried open the tail of the plane with the parts scattered on the ground and fetched a bright orange box from within.
He thought about the various things that had happened today and said, "I saw many planes fall."
Lu Feng hummed flatly in response.
Even though An Zhe was only a mushroom, he also knew that it was very odd for engine failures to occur in so many planes at the same time. He asked, "Why?"
"I don't know. It can only be analyzed after getting back to the base." Lu Feng put the box away and walked over to him. "Where are you living?"
"On the ground," An Zhe said.
Lu Feng raised his eyebrows.
An Zhe promptly shut his mouth and said nothing more. This phrase "on the ground" was really not like what a human would say.
But Lu Feng very quickly noticed the only unusual things upon this patch of wasteland—the black bee and the backpack on the ground—and walked in their direction. An Zhe followed, but pain lanced through his lower leg, for he had knocked it against something earlier.
Lu Feng turned back to look at him. An Zhe bit down on his lower lip, then limped after Lu Feng.
Then, Lu Feng picked him up in a piggyback carry.
Since this was the second time he was carried by the Colonel in such a manner, An Zhe comfortably settled in. They were very close, the distance unlike what humans and xenogenics should maintain.
But just for tonight, the Colonel did not seem to be the Colonel, and the xenogenic did not seem to be a xenogenic.
While hugging Lu Feng's neck, An Zhe vaguely felt the line of a thin cord. His fingers moved slightly downward and encountered something cool to the touch.
A hard pendant hung from Lu Feng's neck as well.
Escaping from death by Lu Feng's hand seemed to have given him a significant increase in courage. Moreover, the pendant's shape was also far too familiar. With his fingers pressed against Lu Feng's neck, he fished the object out, and Lu Feng himself said nothing, seeming to tacitly allow this action.
At the end of the silvery metal chain, a brass-colored bullet shell gleamed with a dull light beneath the aurora.
His own bullet pendant represented his lost spore, but why did Lu Feng also have one? An Zhe did not know what this meant, so he made a soft questioning noise.
He heard Lu Feng say flatly, "My father."
An Zhe said nothing. After approximately three minutes, he stuffed the pendant back beneath Lu Feng's shirt, docilely rested his head against Lu Feng's shoulder, and drew in his arms, no longer squirming around.
Through the clothes, Lu Feng felt the boy on his back initially tense up a little with anxiety, then gradually relax until his entire body was hanging off him. After the day's events, An Zhe was still able to lean on him without the slightest bit of caution. This boy would always act in ways that exceeded his expectations.
An Zhe's warm breath puffed against his shoulder. On his back was the normal weight of a boy his age, but to Lu Feng, it was by no means heavy. He stuck to Lu Feng like cotton, lacking any vigilance whatsoever, as though the dangers and terrors of this world ought to have nothing to do with him.
Lu Feng remembered when he joined the Trial Court.
He did not have any particular reason for entering the Trial Court. Sometimes, he wanted to protect everyone.
But in reality, he had protected some people and hurt many others. Though he had not originally intended to, he had already become the target of everyone's hatred.
As he walked, An Zhe's breathing became lighter and more even; he had cried for a very long time today, so it probably tired him out. Just like all other innocent little things, perhaps this small xenogenic was about to fall asleep.
Lu Zhen also remembered that one month ago, on the afternoon when insects were wreaking havoc in the city, he had received An Zhe's phone call. His voice was soft, like he was afraid. That was his seventh year of being the Arbiter. In these seven years, it was the first time he had been asked for help. Nobody else would do such a thing.
In this kind of age, protecting everyone was nothing but a fantasy doomed to be broken, but he thought he could at least protect a certain person—at least, the moment he was asked for help, this fleeting hope arose in his heart.
When he was put down, An Zhe was on the verge of falling asleep. Lu Feng used his own coat as a blanket to cover him with, but he clearly did not know how to take care of others, for the badge on his chest scratched An Zhe again. Half-awake, An Zhe detached it and discovered that it was the exact one he had always been carrying around while at the base. When he escaped in hyphae form, everything on his person, including this badge, had probably fallen to the ground, but now the badge had returned to Lu Feng.
Grasping it, An Zhe became significantly more awake, and he cautiously asked, "Did the doctor say anything to you?"
Lu Feng looked down at him. "What is it that you want to say?"
An Zhe said in a small voice, "… Nothing."
Lu Feng did indeed plan to explain to him in all seriousness, but then he saw the little xenogenic curl himself up into a small ball with the backpack in his arms. In the moonlight, a pair of jet-black eyes looked at him earnestly, as though it were easy to produce surges of emotion.
So Lu Feng let out a scornful laugh and said, "You think you have such great capabilities?"
An Zhe rolled over, turning his back to Lu Feng.
An Zhe did not accept Lu Feng's evaluation. He thought that Lu Feng was emphasizing how weak he was again, for this was not the first time he had said such a thing.
Although he truly could not cause the infection of the entire Garden of Eden. He could not infect even a single person.
But he could not accept that the reason for his lie being seen through was because of his own weakness, rather than because the lie was not clever enough. He could only comfort himself by thinking that perhaps only Lu Feng did not believe his words.
Only Lu Feng was hateful.
He said, "You aren't allowed to sleep here."
"Hm?" Lu Feng said.
An Zhe mumbled, "You aren't allowed to."
"Why not?" Lu Feng asked.
With his back turned to Lu Feng, An Zhe buried himself in the coat. He had originally wanted to say nothing at all, only wishing to resolutely drive out the Colonel from his territory, but after internally debating with himself, he nevertheless sincerely explained the reason. "You may experience contactless infection."
"Oh." Lu Feng's voice was very low. "The bee is alive."
An Zhe was silent.
Then he heard Lu Feng ask, "It's alive, so why is it unconscious?"
This time, even if An Zhe was beaten to death, he would no longer say anything. With this Lu Feng person, provided that you revealed to him a scrap of information, he would be able to guess the situation with crystal clarity.
But tonight's Colonel did not give him a hard time. He said, "I'll take the night watch."
An Zhe made a small sound of acknowledgment, then asked, "Are you cold?"
Lu Feng said, "No."
Only then did An Zhe close his eyes. Holding the badge in his hand, he curled up. Tonight, his emotions had been overtaxed, so he fell asleep especially quickly.
However, midway through his sleep, he was woken up by the cold.
Over the past few days, the failure of the magnetic field led to the solar winds wreaking havoc. The atmosphere had thinned out, and the temperature differences between day and night had reached a frightening extent.
An Zhe felt cold all over. He opened his eyes, sat up, and unconsciously looked around, searching for Lu Feng's
figure.
He very easily spotted the Colonel not far away. Lu Feng was leaning against a rock that had been eroded into a strange shape by the wind, and in front of him were some branches of shrubbery piled into a conical shape.
An Zhe rubbed his eyes. Then, holding Lu Feng's coat in his arms, he walked over. The Colonel had draped his jacket over An Zhe, so his own upper body was only dressed in a uniform shirt.
An Zhe held out the coat and asked once again, "Are you cold?"
Lu Feng was playing with a lighter in his hands.
"You can wear it," he said. "I thought you could still sleep a while longer."
"… Huh?"
Lu Feng tossed the lighter into his arms. "Come gather firewood with me."
In other words, the Colonel had already known that he may be woken up by the cold and had planned to start a fire.
And as for him saying "I thought you could still sleep a while longer"—An Zhe translated the Colonel's rare roundabout phrasing and finally understood that what the Colonel actually wanted to say was "How could you be even more fragile than I thought?"
An Zhe said nothing.
He followed Lu Feng. For a time, there was only their footsteps, the sound of the wind, and the faint howling of distant monsters in the air. They walked outward. In the wilds were sparse growths of shrubs that had been killed and baked dry by the solar wind's assault, making them suitable for burning.
An Zhe asked, "Have you been looking for branches the entire time?"
"No," Lu Feng said flatly. "There are monsters, so I couldn't go too far away."
"Oh," An Zhe said softly. He wanted to tell Lu Feng that in fact many monsters had no interest in a mushroom like him, but then he realized that Lu Feng was protecting him. At that thought, he felt a bit of happiness well up within him.
The sand of the desert was soft beneath their feet, and their footsteps produced only soft, subtle sounds. An Zhe's leg still made walking a little inconvenient. Lu Feng did not have him follow closely, but rather ensured that he stayed within his line of sight, then collected nearby branches and gave them to An Zhe to hold on to.
When the branches in his arms increased to the point where he was somewhat unable to hold them, Lu Feng said, "That's enough."
So they walked back side by side. In the moonlight, the rolling sand dunes resembled snowdrifts, and the distant airplane wreckage was rooted in the ground like an ugly tumor.
Suddenly, Lu Feng's footsteps paused.
An Zhe promptly stopped as well.
A strange instinct sent a chill up his spine, and he heard a noise.
In the quiet wilderness, there suddenly came a noise that was impossible to accurately describe, and he knew Lu Feng had heard it as well.
"Rustle."
"Rustle."
"Rustle."
The eerie noise resounded irregularly in the wilderness. It was very low, yet also very clear, as if it were right in their ears. The first two intervals were extremely long, and the last one was very short.
"Rustle."
When the noise sounded again, Lu Feng pressed down on An Zhe's shoulder, and the two of them lay flat on the sand, hiding behind a shrub.
"Rustle."
Beneath the aurora, a massive black shape appeared at the boundary of the rolling sand dunes. It was roughly oval in shape, the structure of its body nebulous, and its skin was uneven, just like a mass of decaying meat that had been roughly pinched together. A smooth lump of flesh bulged out from the middle of its body, with eyeballs large and small covering its surface. That was its head. Beneath the body of this black shape were countless feet, some thick and some slender. Some of them resembled reptile legs, some of them resembled insect pincers, and some of them resembled human arms.
The legs swarmed, supporting it as it lumbered across the uneven ground and left a wavy trail more than five meters wide on the sand-covered ground. In this manner, its posture strange, it came to the wreckage of the airplane crash. Every time it moved a certain distance, the rustling sound was emitted from its body surface, diffusing evenly outward. Perhaps that was its vocal organ.
Holding his breath, An Zhe watched as a gap split open in the middle of the indescribable monster, revealing densely packed tusks and fangs within.
"Crunch—"
The piercing sound of metal being scraped came, followed by the chaotic sounds of metal being struck, fractured, chewed, and swallowed.
It was eating the wreckage. Even after having lived in the Abyss for so long, An Zhe had never known that there were some monsters that could feed on metal. In the Abyss were many armored vehicles that had lost their owners, along with the fragmented parts of guns, but no monsters paid them any heed. Or perhaps the objective of this monster before their eyes was not the metal, but the bodies of the two pilots in the wreckage. One could imagine that, to a strange creature capable of biting apart and swallowing alloys, human flesh and bones were as soft and easily chewed as slush.
Instead of enjoying the giant explosion and burning wreckage, it just ate fewer than five bites.
"Rustle."
When that mouth closed, the sound was emitted again. It turned in a certain direction, and a hundred meters in front of it was the still-unconscious black bee.
"Crunch."
The entirety of the black bee's head disappeared into its body. An Zhe opened his eyes wide and watched as one end of the monster's body stretched out. A pair of translucent, metallic wings dropped out and vibrated a few times, making the same kind of noise as leaves shaking in the autumn wind—the parts that once belonged to the black bee appeared now on its body.
"Rustle."
In the following second, all of the eyes on its head looked in An Zhe and Lu Feng's direction.