Chapter 29: “I don’t like sleeping with others”
“That? What that?” Xue Qi didn’t seem to understand, but that unfamiliar boy clearly did.
How come he could understand Xie Chongyi? Xie Chongyi, this guy—his thoughts weren’t actually that deeply hidden, but it wasn’t like he wore them on his face either. He was more of a fickle type. And it was precisely because he was fickle that Xue Qi couldn’t figure him out, nor did he bother trying. Even if he guessed right, Xie Chongyi could still suddenly change his mind because he didn’t like your face or for some other random reason. In short, he just wasn’t a good person.
No one paid attention to Xue Qi.
Wu Heng said, “Not realistic.”
Even if Lin Mengzhi were here, wanting to burn down the entire shopping mall with a fire was still unrealistic. Setting fire to the reptile house might be doable, but no one knew what the situation inside was like. What if it actually caused the mutant bugs to swarm out in full force? The few of them might all end up losing their lives here.
“Use poison,” Wu Heng said. He stood up from the steps and started walking down. Suddenly, he looked at Xue Qi. “Are you still planning to go back now?”
“Yes,” Xue Qi swallowed hard. “I figure in a few more minutes, the shopkeeper will send bugs to look for me.”
“What’s your name?” He thought the delicate-looking boy in front of him seemed pretty decent—way better than Xie Chongyi.
“Wu Heng.”
“Wu?”
“Wu as in crow.”
“This is the first time I’ve seen that surname.” Xue Qi stretched out his filthy hand. “I’m Xue Qi. Xue as in Xue Pinggui, Qi as in mountain and self—‘qi’.”
Wu Heng lowered his eyes to that hand, so dirty its original color could hardly be seen anymore. He paused, then said quietly, “No need for a handshake.”
At this moment, Xie Chongyi straightened up and walked toward the exit. “Wu Heng, let’s go.”
Wu Heng left him with a final sentence: “We’re leaving first—be careful on your own,” then followed after.
Xue Qi stared at their departing backs for a while before slowly turning around. A massive blue spider appeared in the stairwell. It leapt onto the wall in a few bounds and nimbly landed at the entrance to the basement level.
A lizard came up to sniff at him, its eyes glinting with hunger.
“Looking to die? Go eat your aphids!” The blue spider used its sharp, saw-like mandibles to snip the curious lizard’s head clean off.
The lizard’s head rolled to the spider’s feet. The spider nudged it, scooped it up, and buried its fangs inside, sucking it completely dry. Meanwhile, the nearby lizard’s body was still twitching.
Once Xue Qi had eaten and drunk his fill, he tossed the empty skull away. The basement shook violently as mutant insects surged out like a black ocean, swarming from all directions toward the lizard’s head. The lizard’s corpse was soon torn apart and devoured.
—
Inside the shopping center’s supermarket.
Wu Heng hesitated between picking vinegar and garlic, unsure whether mutant bugs were still afraid of such things.
“Try pesticide,” Wu Heng suggested, looking at Xie Chongyi.
Leaning lazily against a shelf, Xie Chongyi replied, “Natural enemies of insects—we’ve already got one right here, don’t we?”
He was staring at the bird perched on Wu Heng’s shoulder.
X had been dozing, but the moment it met Xie Chongyi’s thoughtful gaze, it instantly perked up, feathers fluffed in alarm. It rubbed against Wu Heng’s cheek as if to say: it was far too small, not even enough to fill the gap between those spiders’ or lizards’ teeth.
“It’s too small,” Wu Heng thought for a moment, then told X, “Go bring Mengzhi inside.”
Xie Chongyi added, “And Xue Shen too. He’s the one with glasses—if you see him, bring him along as well.”
X flew out of the supermarket.
At the entrance, Lin Mengzhi and Xue Shen were just about to head inside.
“Do you really need to go in there?” Lin Mengzhi asked mockingly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s already the third day. Your companion is most likely dead as a doornail by now. My advice? Turn back the way you came!”
Xue Shen was momentarily stunned, then he smiled. “That’s none of your business. Even if I died a hundred times, my friend still wouldn’t die.”
“On the contrary—Wu Heng is so frail and delicate. Are you sure it’s even worth going back for him?”
“Same goes for me. Even if I died a hundred times, my childhood friend wouldn’t die either.”
The two of them bickered as they walked, until X appeared.
“Holy shit…” Lin Mengzhi ran over and grabbed it down. “You found A’Heng?”
“Gah.” X struggled out of Lin Mengzhi’s grasp, circled above his head once, then circled over Xue Shen’s head, before flying back the way it had come.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Xue Shen had never raised a bird before, so he had no clue what that oversized parrot was trying to say with its gestures.
Lin Mengzhi shot him a sideways glance. “A’Heng’s with your friend. X found them.”
The two followed X and soon arrived at the department store’s supermarket, where Wu Heng and Xie Chongyi were.
When Lin Mengzhi saw Xie Chongyi, he froze for a moment. Why him?
But now wasn’t the time to worry about that. He stepped up in front of Wu Heng. “I knew you’d be fine.”
“Old Xie,” Xue Shen called out to Xie Chongyi, “you alright?”
Xie Chongyi was gnawing dry on a brick of instant noodles. He tossed a pack over to Xue Shen. “Have some.”
Xue Shen caught it, tore it open. “Later, let’s haul two boxes of instant noodles out of here. We’ve got plenty of water anyway.”
“What about the others?” Xie Chongyi asked.
“I sent them back to school first. With Shen Ping’an and Dou Lu there, the trip back shouldn’t be an issue. Oh right—there was also a little girl. I had them take her along too.”
“A little girl?”
When Wu Heng heard the words “little girl,” he looked toward Lin Mengzhi. “Wu Zhi?”
Lin Mengzhi nodded. “Yeah. Xue Shen and I had to come back to look for you two. It wasn’t safe to bring her along, and it was dangerous for the others to just wait outside, so we had her go back to school with them first.”
After saying this, Lin Mengzhi glanced at Xie Chongyi, only to notice the other man was also looking at him. He immediately pulled his gaze back and muttered under his breath: “You mentioned before that you were planning to go to Jingzhou with Xie Chongyi—doesn’t this just work out by accident?”
“But let me tell you, I already thought Xie Chongyi wasn’t simple. And Xue Shen’s a water-ability user, way stronger than me. Your classmates don’t look like good people either. If I’d had any other choice, I wouldn’t have put Wu Zhi in their hands. Are you sure we should really be traveling together?” Lin Mengzhi had never racked his brain this hard even when he was in school.
Wu Heng simply replied, “I won’t let anything happen to you or Wu Zhi.”
“Hey, is that what I meant?” Lin Mengzhi was so exasperated that his hands started waving, almost scratching out a streak of flame across Wu Heng’s face.
“Lin Mengzhi.” Xie Chongyi bit into his block of instant noodles with a crunch. “Lin Mengzhi, right?”
To be honest, Lin Mengzhi didn’t feel like Xie Chongyi was putting on airs deliberately. But he’d worked at a big hotel before, and he knew: some people are just born extraordinary. They don’t need to act haughty, because the moment they appear, their very presence already tells everyone—they are the haughtiness.
“So what if I am?” Lin Mengzhi’s tone wasn’t great. He didn’t want anyone thinking he and Wu Heng were easy to push around. Anyway, now that it was the apocalypse, money and power weren’t nearly as useful anymore, so there wasn’t much to be afraid of.
“Fire ability?” Xie Chongyi asked again.
“So what if I am?”
Xie Chongyi looked at Lin Mengzhi for a while, then let out a small laugh, thinking that one’s personality more or less influenced the type of ability they awakened.
Wu Heng nudged a few bags of Sichuan peppercorns on the floor with his foot. “Light these up later.”
“Peppercorns?” Lin Mengzhi grabbed a handful and examined them closely. “These are from Hanyuan—big, plump grains, numbing without bitterness. Whether you’re making spicy chicken or hotpot base, this is considered one of the best choices…”
As he spoke, the surroundings grew quiet. Even the two gnawing on dry noodle bricks stopped chewing and stared at him.
Lin Mengzhi put the peppercorns back, patted his hands clean. “Alright then, what’s the point of burning these?”
“Throw them into the reptile house.” Wu Heng pointed at a few boxes of pesticide nearby. “Class Monitor, these are yours to handle.”
Xie Chongyi nodded.
“You guys… what are you planning?” Lin Mengzhi instinctively exchanged a glance with Xue Shen—after all, only the two of them were completely in the dark about the situation.
Xie Chongyi finished his noodle brick, folded up the packet, and stepped into the middle of the group. In a calm voice, he said: “Best case, we get all the energy cores from the mutant reptiles in the reptile house. If not, we still can’t leave such a hidden danger here in Hanzhou.”
“Just as ability users can grow stronger, they’re no exception. Once the basement can’t meet their needs anymore, they’ll leave the reptile house—and then leave the shopping mall.”
Wu Heng had no interest in being a righteous person or doing righteous deeds. Listening to all this felt like hearing a sermon in a foreign tongue.
If not for the energy cores, he would most likely already be on his way back to the school by now.
Even if Hanzhou turned into a nest swarming with bugs, it wouldn’t stir him in the slightest.
“Xue Shen, Xue Qi is downstairs,” Xie Chongyi finally added.
Xue Shen froze, his expression hovering between tears and laughter. “Are you serious?”
“Really. Wu Heng saw him too.” Xie Chongyi glanced at Wu Heng, who was lost in thought.
Wu Heng came back to himself and nodded. “He’s being held by a mutant spider-man. That spider is the leader of all the mutant insects here.”
Faced with the great news that his younger brother was still alive, Xue Shen seemed stunned as if struck dumb, unable to react for a long time. When he finally did, he spun around and kicked over an entire shelf.
Wu Heng’s reflexes were quick—he quietly used vines to prop the shelf back upright, even setting the toppled soy sauce bottles neatly back in place.
“I told Mom and Dad ages ago there was no need for part-time jobs. If he wanted to raise bugs, just buy him a whole apartment for it. Now look—he’d be better off dead, save all of us the trouble!”
Xue Shen yanked off his glasses, gasping for breath, looking on the verge of going mad with anger.
Wu Heng didn’t remember the faces of his classmates clearly, but in his impression, the class committee members—the study monitor and the life committee rep—were both known for their good tempers. Since Xue Shen was the study monitor, seeing him lose it like this was probably the first time.
“Don’t worry. He’s relatively safe for now,” Xie Chongyi said coolly. “Rest for a while. At three o’clock, we move.”
“Why three?” Lin Mengzhi asked.
“Three is when that spider-man takes its nap,” Wu Heng answered.
Lin Mengzhi: “…The hell, even a damned spider keeps a routine?”
“Then we sleep too.” Lin Mengzhi glanced around. “Wait here, I’ll grab a couple goose-down duvets. We’ll lay them out and sleep. I seriously need a nap—I even dreamed about fighting lizards last night.”
Xue Shen put his glasses back on. “We’ll take turns resting. I’ll go keep watch outside—switch every three hours.” With that, he turned toward the entrance of the department store. Passing the checkout counter, he casually grabbed two packs of chewing gum.
Wu Heng and Xie Chongyi stood face to face in silence.
Until Lin Mengzhi came back cheerfully, carrying two goose-down duvets in his arms. “I grabbed the most expensive ones—over twenty thousand apiece!”
“Talk about good timing. Normally I’d never get to sleep under something this pricey.”
“…”
Wu Heng shifted aside to make space. Lin Mengzhi eagerly tore open the duvets and laid them out. He spread out two and left one for Xie Chongyi, suddenly feeling generous. “You sleep too.”
“I don’t like sleeping with others.”
Lin Mengzhi let out an “ah,” his expression souring. He was just about to snap, ‘Do you think this is the time to be picky? Keep it up and you can roll out on your own.’
But then Xie Chongyi added, “Wu Heng, you sleep in the middle. I’ll sleep next to you.”