Eaten Ch.34

Chapter 34: Poppy

Wu Heng had eaten far too much in one go that morning, and now he needed time to digest.

He lay sprawled across the desk, staring blankly out the window.

Only at night—when everything outside was shrouded in darkness—did the cruelty and brutality of the apocalypse seem to retreat into hiding, as if they had vanished.

But that was nothing more than self-deception.

Wu Heng spread out his hand and lowered his gaze to his palm. The black poppy flower nearly covered his entire palm.

Perhaps because it was full, the edges of its petals were tinged with a faint, blurry shade of blood.

Footsteps approached. Wu Heng curled his fingers into a fist and looked toward the newcomer.

“Class Monitor.” He sat up.

Xie Chongyi placed the cookies and juice in his hands down in front of the boy.

Wu Heng could tell they were meant for him, but he pushed them back. “I’m not hungry. You eat.”

“Turning all considerate now, are you?”

“……”

Seeing that he truly wouldn’t eat, Xie Chongyi tore open the cookies and sat opposite Wu Heng, eating piece after piece.

The buttery sweetness and the tang of strawberries gradually spread through the air.

“I’ve already spoken to Xue Shen and Xue Qi, told them not to mention your ability. If anyone asks, they’re to say you don’t have one.”

“Thanks.” Wu Heng remained in standby mode, dazed.

“You’re a plant symbiote, aren’t you?” Xie Chongyi suddenly asked.

Wu Heng lowered his head, saying nothing.

Xie Chongyi bit into a cookie. There was rarely a clear smile in his eyes, but the natural upward curve of his lips always gave others the illusion that he was a good-tempered person—just a bit cold by nature.

This time was no different. The depths of his peach blossom eyes seemed to hold two blocks of half-melting, chilling spring ice.

He looked at Wu Heng before him, standing amidst the lively crowd. The few moments of vividness Wu Heng had occasionally shown before seemed to have never existed at all. In such a short time, it was as if a layer of dust-laden gauze had been draped over him—his whole being dull and lifeless, blurred and indistinct—like an old photograph pressed at the very bottom of an album.

“You know about symbiotes?” Wu Heng glanced at Xie Chongyi, then lowered his eyes again.

“Xue Qi is a symbiote,” Xie Chongyi said.

After returning to school, Xue Qi had told Xue Shen and Xie Chongyi in full detail about everything that had happened over the past week.

When the sun came out outside, they had been on the basement level, completely unaware of what was happening in the world above.

So even when he was bitten by the spider and then chased and bitten by the store manager, Xue Qi didn’t think much of it—until he looked at his phone. He hadn’t been looking for even two minutes before the blue spider’s venom took effect and knocked him out.

When he woke up, not only had the gecko spider he’d been feeding every day grown tens or even hundreds of times larger than before, but Qu Yan was hanging right in front of him.

Qu Yan said that the two of them had both mutated, and were no longer human.

“Pseudo-humans?” Xue Qi blurted out immediately.

Qu Yan’s lips twitched twice. “Perhaps we can become the new rulers of this world.”

Xue Qi had always had a chuunibyo-style dream of saving the world since childhood, but what he wanted was to save everyone, not trample them underfoot. So he said, “Go be a piglet yourself.”

“And then he nailed me inside a cabinet. At first I thought he hated me for calling him a piglet, but later I realized he wasn’t thinking the same way I was. I thought maybe he was jealous of me. Then I overheard his conversation with Wu Heng, and only then did I understand—he wasn’t jealous. He just couldn’t become the person he wanted to be, and so he went mad.”

“I’ve thought about it. To become a symbiote with plants or animals, the host must have an extremely strong obsession. That obsession could be the will to survive, or something else. Only when a human’s obsession outweighs the consciousness of the mutated creature can they avoid being devoured, and ultimately become a symbiote.”

“What’s your obsession?” Xie Chongyi asked, somewhat curious.

“Of course it’s to become a savior. I’m basically Spider-Man already—doesn’t that say it all?” Xue Qi braced both hands on the armrests of his wheelchair, trying to stand but failing, crashing back down heavily. Then he cried out, “Damn it, is this some kind of test?!”

“……”

After listening to Xie Chongyi’s explanation, Wu Heng looked a bit more straightforward. “Then I might really be a symbiote.”

But Xie Chongyi, chewing on a cookie, leaned in close to Wu Heng as if to whisper a secret.

Wu Heng instinctively leaned a little closer as well.

“Wu Heng, what’s your obsession?” Xie Chongyi asked softly.

Not far behind them, a few candle flames flickered. The shadows of the two leaning in to whisper spilled across the desk, like they were kissing.

Wu Heng pulled back, widening the distance again. “Just… to stay alive, nothing more.”

Xie Chongyi studied him and said, I don’t believe you.

But he didn’t press further. He left the cookies and juice behind, turned around, and walked away without looking back.

Wu Heng watched the boy’s retreating back. The moment he stepped toward the group in the middle, Du Yaoyuan immediately shouted, “Brother Xie!” and hurried to make space for him.

As soon as Xie Chongyi sat down, food automatically piled up in front of him, as if everyone was afraid he’d go hungry.

Wu Heng glanced over for a while, but when he heard them say they were going to play Truth or Dare, he laid back down to rest.

He didn’t know when they finished dinner—he’d been asleep the whole time.

Until Ruan Silian’s soft voice woke him.

“Wu Heng, go sleep in the classroom next door.”

Her long hair fell loosely over her shoulders, dark and silky, carrying with it a gentle yet steady air—an indescribable sense of calm that came naturally to someone in the role of a caretaker.

“Next door?”

“Mm. Boys and girls rest separately. This is our original classroom—we use it for meetings and meals. The two classrooms next door are for resting. Boys in the left room, girls in the right. Don’t worry, we’ve laid out bedding.” Ruan Silian placed a candle on Wu Heng’s desk. “Go on, Wu Zhi can just follow me.”

Wu Heng glanced at Wu Zhi, who looked as if she wished she could stick to Ruan Silian like glue. “…Thanks for the trouble.”

“Good night, brother. See you tomorrow, brother.” Wu Zhi reluctantly waved at him.

—

Wu Heng didn’t sleep well. He leaned against the window. Beside him was Lin Mengzhi, and somewhere near Lin Mengzhi, someone was snoring—loud as thunder.

After lying there for a while, Wu Heng sat up. He stepped outside the classroom and headed downstairs.

But he hadn’t expected to run into Xue Shen on the stairs of the first floor.

Hearing footsteps, Xue Shen turned around from where he sat on the steps, looking surprised. “Why aren’t you asleep yet?”

Wu Heng frowned. “Someone’s snoring.”

“Snoring? That must be He Siyu—he’s got rhinitis.” Xue Shen understood immediately. “At first they wanted to kick He Siyu into another classroom to sleep alone, but given the situation, it’s not safe to be by yourself. You’ll just have to bear with it.”

Wu Heng nodded, saying nothing more. “And you? Why aren’t you asleep?”

Xue Shen drew his gaze back in, smiled faintly, and looked out into the distance. “Xue Qi’s legs hurt too much for him to sleep.”

Only after stepping out of the teaching building did Wu Heng see Xue Qi—he was slowly wheeling himself along the track.

The moon overhead was clear and gentle, entirely different from the eerie purple moon at the start.

Xue Qi hung his head, looking utterly dispirited and dejected.

Wu Heng hesitated for a moment, then turned and walked in the opposite direction from Xue Qi.

If they bumped into each other, he would inevitably have to exchange a few words and even comfort the other boy—what a hassle.

His thin figure looked desolate as he strolled aimlessly. He hadn’t gone far when he saw the lush, sun-blocking clusters of weeping jasmine and banana trees at the school gate.

Glancing back at the teaching building, he compared them briefly and realized that, given time, these two plants might well cover the entire building.

The weeping jasmine had already bloomed—white petals hung in clusters from the branches, swaying with the breeze, beautiful beyond words.

Entangled with it, the banana tree had also flowered. Unlike the jasmine’s light and lively blossoms, its flowers grew close to the trunk, solid and heavy, resembling bananas. And in the center of the tree, several pale-white human skeletons stood upright.

Wu Heng not only looked—he began walking toward them.

“Wu Heng, don’t go over there,” Xue Qi’s voice suddenly called from behind him. “My brother said they kill and eat people.”

Wu Heng paused mid-step. He turned around, his gaze dark and calm.

Meeting his eyes, Xue Qi instinctively turned his head aside, uncomfortable. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Couldn’t sleep. You?” Wu Heng asked deliberately, fishing for small talk—otherwise, he wouldn’t know what else to say.

“My legs hurt like hell, there’s no way I can sleep.” Xue Qi leaned back in his wheelchair. “Damn it, I should’ve stabbed Qu Yan a dozen times during the day!”

“The first time I met Qu Yan with Class Monitor, he said a spider’s legs can regenerate. Why is it your legs can’t?” Wu Heng asked in confusion.

Xue Qi cursed again, then explained, “As long as there are still two good legs, injuries to the others won’t affect the human form’s legs. Qu Yan knew that, which is why he hammered a nail into every single one of my legs.”

After hearing this, Wu Heng took two steps forward. “Can I… take a look at your legs?”

Xue Qi froze. “You sure?”

“Mm.” As he spoke, Wu Heng was already crouching down in front of Xue Qi.

Xue Qi’s expression was complicated, but he still bent over and rolled up his pant leg on his own.

What Wu Heng saw were two calves as thin as withered branches. Above the knees, the skin tone was still normal, but below the knees, the flesh had already turned a purplish black. Just beneath both knees was a nail hole as thick as a chopstick.

Wu Heng’s palms itched slightly. Lowering his gaze, he saw a small cluster of vine shoots stretching and clawing toward Xue Qi’s calf—more agitated than they had been earlier when he had merely brushed against him.

“……” What the hell? Hungry again?

The boy glanced toward the entrance of the teaching building. At some point, Xue Shen was already standing on the cement steps outside, watching him and Xue Qi. The lenses of his glasses reflected the moonlight, making his expression hard to read.

“Xue Qi, do you trust me?” Wu Heng looked up and asked softly.

Xue Qi lowered his head. The boy’s indifferent yet intensely focused eyes burned into his own.

He suddenly remembered the afternoon in the reptile house, when he had been frightened by Wu Heng’s sinister and frenzied demeanor. Later, when he collapsed into the other’s arms, there had been such warmth—accompanied by a faint, ethereal floral fragrance.

His instincts reacted faster than his mind. He blurted out, “Of course I trust you!”

Wu Heng pressed his palm gently against Xue Qi’s knee.

A searing, stinging warmth pierced through Xue Qi’s skin in an instant, spreading along his calf and through his whole body.

Xue Qi’s hands gripped the armrests of his wheelchair tightly. His back arched as he clenched his teeth, large beads of sweat rolling ceaselessly down his face.

“Don’t make a sound. Don’t let your brother find out.” Wu Heng caught the muffled groans spilling from Xue Qi’s throat and glanced up at him.

Xue Qi managed a difficult nod, his expression twisted with pain.

From Xue Shen’s angle, nothing seemed unusual—he assumed Wu Heng was simply checking on Xue Qi’s leg injury.

Wu Heng, however, could sense that the poppy’s emotions were not quite the same as usual.

It wasn’t attacking, nor was it feeding. The force and speed of its sting could only be described as unprecedentedly gentle.

He wanted to know what the creature was trying to do.

As the seconds ticked by, Xue Qi’s grip on the wheelchair armrest gradually loosened. The initial sting of pain grew weaker and weaker, until finally the sensation disappeared completely. In its place, a warm, soothing current coursed lightly through his calf—ticklish, slightly numb.

Xue Qi’s eyes widened in disbelief. “My leg doesn’t hurt anymore!”

He immediately wanted to call out to Xue Shen, but then Wu Heng’s earlier words came to mind. He turned instead to stare at Wu Heng, his expression alight with excitement. “My leg doesn’t hurt anymore! How did you do it?”

“Do you have healing powers? Can my leg actually be cured?” Xue Qi’s eyes grew brighter and brighter, glued to Wu Heng without a single flicker of distraction.

Wu Heng withdrew his hand, lowering his gaze to his palm. After a moment, he rose to his feet. “I don’t have healing abilities, and I can’t cure your leg.”

Xue Qi froze. “Then… why—”

“It’s just the plant that coexists with me. It might have some sedative and analgesic effects.” Wu Heng finally recalled that the corn poppy belonged to the Papaveraceae family. “It’s only temporary.”

Extracts of the poppy had long been used in medicine. As a subspecies of poppy, the corn poppy more or less shared those properties. Before the apocalypse, its effective content was so minimal that it was negligible—otherwise it wouldn’t have been approved as an ornamental plant. But now that it had mutated, its capabilities had evolved across the board, so having sedative and pain-relieving effects was no surprise.

No wonder he’d been so eager to show off earlier—it turned out he’d run into his area of expertise.

With this unexpected discovery, Wu Heng’s foul mood—brought on by being kept awake by his classmates’ snoring—lifted somewhat.

Xue Qi, however, didn’t share his cheer.

The boy’s shoulders slumped.

“It’s fine,” Xue Qi quickly consoled himself, then looked at Wu Heng with bright eyes. “Then if I can’t sleep from the pain again, you’ll help me numb it, right?”

Wu Heng thought for a moment, then nodded. “Alright.”

“But don’t tell anyone else.” This was just an incidental ability of his plant—he didn’t want others to know.

“Don’t worry, I won’t say a word. I won’t even tell my brother. This is our secret, just between the two of us.”

Xue Qi maneuvered his wheelchair, preparing to head back. “Come on, let’s go to sleep. Otherwise, I’m afraid the pain will return any minute.”

But just then, a chill crept down the back of Wu Heng’s neck.

Someone was watching him.

The heightened sensitivity of his mutated plants quickly directed his gaze to a window on the third floor of the teaching building.

At some point, Xie Chongyi had appeared behind the glass. Though the corners of his lips curved faintly upward, Wu Heng sensed that his mood was as foul as it could get.

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