Chapter 58: The Elysium Group
Wu Heng stepped outside. The snow came up to the middle of his calves.
“Brother!” Wu Heng didn’t know when Wu Zhi had appeared at the doorway. All her spirit and liveliness were gone — she looked like she had shrunk, dry and small, staring at Wu Heng as he was about to leave. “Will you come back?”
Wu Heng paused for a moment. “I will.”
“Then… come back soon.” Wu Zhi’s fingers dug hard into the doorframe. When she saw Wu Heng turning to leave again, her face tightened, and she spoke in a rush, “Brother, can I go with you?”
Wu Heng tightened his scarf. “No.”
As he spoke, he was already turning away, and the people beside him quickly followed.
Those going out with him included Lin Mengzhi, Dou Lu, and Du Yaoyuan. Lin Mengzhi slung an arm over Wu Heng’s shoulder. “Your silly little sister’s acting weird. Normally at this hour she’d be shouting that she’s hungry.”
Wu Heng said he didn’t know.
So Lin Mengzhi switched topics. “An hour ago, while you were still sleeping, we took the class rep’s suggestion and formed a study group. I’m the leader, Dou Lu’s the deputy leader, and that idiot Du Yaoyuan is a member. Guess what we named our group.”
Seeing Lin Mengzhi’s excited expression, Wu Heng changed the “Not interested” that was already on his lips into, “I don’t know.”
“It’s Elysium! The Elysium Group!” Dou Lu couldn’t hold it in anymore. She jumped to the front, her chin-length hair swinging as she spun around. “One thought leads to heaven, one thought leads to hell! We’ll be the righteous crusaders of justice! Doesn’t that fit us perfectly?!”
Wu Heng swallowed back the “It doesn’t fit, it’s strange, it’s average, I don’t get it” that rose in his throat.
The boy only tilted his head back and looked up at the sky.
He stopped walking, and the three members of the Elysium Group also stopped with him.
Thick clouds pressed down from above. Sparse snowflakes drifted through the air. He lowered his gaze and turned his head slightly toward the “X” on his shoulder.
“Go see where there’s food,” he said. “Come back and take us there.”
X let out a piercing cry. As it soared above their heads, its body expanded rapidly — when its wings fully unfurled, their span cast a shadow that covered all four people below. As it took off, the rush of air it left behind swept across everyone’s faces.
Once they left the village, all that lay ahead was dense forest. After the apocalypse, the terrain seemed to have risen in elevation; the trees had grown so tall that not only did humans look tiny among them, even X — once it plunged into the forest — was swallowed up in an instant.
“Holy shit, that’s awesome!” Du Yaoyuan shouted from the heart.
Dou Lu, carrying her chainsaw, stood there blankly. “I swear it wasn’t this big just a couple of days ago—”
Wu Heng’s expression turned serious. “We can measure it tonight when we have time.”
On the way out of the village, a few children trailed behind him — their clothes were dirty but warm. They were the same ones from yesterday.
Lin Mengzhi asked, “What are they doing?”
Wu Heng glanced back twice and recognized the kids who had been building a snowman outside the window the day before. His steps slowed slightly, but he didn’t stop.
As they neared the village wall, the oldest of the children jogged ahead. He was the only one who had spoken to Wu Heng before. Catching up, he tugged lightly on Wu Heng’s sleeve. “Are you going out?”
Lin Mengzhi replied cheerfully, “Yeah, we’re going hunting. You wanna come with us?”
The boy pulled his hand back immediately — quick as lightning.
But he didn’t back away. Looking up at Wu Heng, he said, “Dad said it’s dangerous outside. There are man-eating monsters… and wolves.”
No sooner had he finished than footsteps approached from ahead — it was Zhao Mingxiang. He was bundled up so thickly that only his eyes showed. After glancing over the group, he said, “You’re leaving now? The snow’s still deep out there. I suggest you wait until it stops and melts a bit before going.”
“We’re not leaving,” Du Yaoyuan said without a hint of embarrassment. “We’re just going out to find something to eat — we’re starving.”
Zhao Mingxiang finally nodded. “That’s good, then.”
Lin Mengzhi looked at him and said, “Don’t worry, we’re not freeloading. We’re going out to find something to eat. If we manage to get anything, we’ll bring it back and share it with everyone — consider it payment for our stay.”
Zhao Mingxiang raised an eyebrow. “Going out to find food?”
A moment later, a trace of mockery appeared on his face. “Then I’ll give you the same advice — stay put in the village. The terrain here’s already been reshaped by earthquakes. Not to mention outsiders, even us locals might not be able to find our way back down once we’re in the mountains. Getting lost would be the least of your problems. You have no idea what kind of dangers are lurking up there now. Going out so recklessly — you’re far too confident.”
Wu Heng didn’t want to linger any longer. He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked straight ahead.
Lin Mengzhi followed without hesitation. Du Yaoyuan didn’t want to look like a coward at the last second and shouted as he ran after them. Dou Lu paced in place a few steps, then turned to Zhao Mingxiang and said, “Don’t worry, big brother. If we don’t come back, that means— we’re not coming back. Bye-bye.”
“Hey! Wait for me, damn it!”
Since those outsiders were determined to seek death and volunteer themselves as food for the mutant wolves, Zhao Mingxiang naturally saw no reason to stop them again. He said nothing more and turned back toward the village.
By then, Wu Heng and the others had reached the gate at the base of the wall — the same auntie from yesterday was still guarding it.
Having already been blocked by Zhao Mingxiang once, Du Yaoyuan this time simply told the woman they were going to fetch something from the car. The auntie told them to hurry and come back soon, then opened the iron gate. But before she even had time to sit back down, she saw the group sprinting straight toward the mountain opposite the village. Her dull, lifeless eyes suddenly widened, and she shouted after their retreating figures,
“Where are you going?! You can’t go up the mountain! Come back! Hey!”
Her cries had no effect at all — the silhouettes of the few teenagers had already vanished into the endless expanse of white snow.
After they climbed up the mountain, the path turned relatively flat. The snow reached up to their knees, and though the trees were tall, the forest couldn’t really be called dense.
Wu Heng was breathing heavily. He looked up at the sky, but there was still no sign of the great bird anywhere in sight.
“I’m starting to think there’s no food up here at all. And wolves? Where the hell are the wolves?” Du Yaoyuan trudged forward, sinking with every other step.
Dou Lu shifted her chainsaw from her left shoulder to her right. “If you jinx us with that damn mouth of yours, I swear I’ll saw you in half!”
All around them was the snowy forest — an endless sea of white. It was the kind of scene they’d only ever seen in movies or nature documentaries before. Through a screen, it was breathtakingly beautiful — the soft snow, the fluffy little animals hunting delicately in winter — adorable, almost dreamlike.
But being in it for real was another story. The snow’s beauty had long since lost its charm. The struggle of animals trying to survive the winter had now become their own urgent problem to solve — they had no room left to appreciate anything else.
Lin Mengzhi lengthened his stride to catch up with Wu Heng, studying him carefully. “A’ Heng, you look like… you’re really feeling the cold now?”
Half an hour later, Lin Mengzhi noticed that Wu Heng’s eyes had turned faintly red. His worry deepened. “Maybe we should head back first — warm up a bit, then come out again?”
“No,” Wu Heng finally spoke. His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed, his voice hoarse. “I’m hungry.”
“Hun… hungry…” Lin Mengzhi’s gaze met Wu Heng’s — those red, almost black eyes — and he instinctively took a step back, a chill running down his neck. “Hungry, right, yeah, then w-we should definitely… eat… something.”
“Eat… something…” His teeth and tongue fumbled over the words, unable to form a complete sentence. At last, he realized — his childhood friend couldn’t stand hunger. Once he was starving, he turned into someone else entirely.
“We…”
Lin Mengzhi racked his brain, but in this endless sea of snow, he couldn’t think of anything they could eat to fill their stomachs —except for himself, Dou Lu, and Du Yaoyuan.
Maybe… they could start with Du Yaoyuan.
Wu Heng yanked off his scarf. His face was flushed from his own breath, and he looked around, saliva pooling in his mouth faster than he could swallow it.
He was so hungry that his muscles were growing weak. When his knees gave out and he fell into the snow, Lin Mengzhi reacted quickly and caught him.
“Shit, shit, what do we do?” Lin Mengzhi panicked, thinking Wu Heng might actually starve to death right in front of them. He quickly shifted his grip, supporting Wu Heng with one arm while thrusting his other arm in front of him. “Or— or you could take a few bites of this first, just to hold on a bit?”
Wu Heng shook his head.
The next second, his eyelids twitched faintly.
There was something underground.
He reached into the snow and felt around — his palm brushed against the hard, icy surface below. Instantly, the vines shot down like knives through tofu, silently burrowing deep into the underground passages. Their tips spread out flexibly, probing through the web-like tunnels beneath the ground. Finally, they split into two, darting off in opposite directions like lightning.
Dou Lu and Du Yaoyuan saw Wu Heng and Lin Mengzhi stop. They were trudging through the snow toward them when, suddenly, two sprays of snow exploded a few meters away. Snowflakes burst high into the air, and with them appeared two huge, round, ball-like creatures. They let out sharp squeak-squeak-squeak-squeak cries — shrill and panicked — then plunged headfirst into the snow, trying to flee.
They moved fast, so fast that they were nothing but blurs.
A heartbeat later, two vine whips as green as snakes shot through the snow — pfft, pfft — two clean sounds, and then everything went quiet again.
Moments later, two bright splashes of red began to bloom in the snow not far away — the color spreading wider and wider.
“Wait here.” Lin Mengzhi pressed Wu Heng down and turned to run toward the fallen prey.
Moving quickly through snow that deep wasn’t easy, but he was in such a hurry that his ability responded to his will — before the snow could even touch his body, it melted into water around him.
When he reached them, what appeared before his eyes were two enormous field rats — each larger than a thirty-kilogram dog. The vines had pierced straight through their hearts; they were already dead, their large front teeth still exposed, limbs thick and sturdy. Their hindquarters, especially the part where the legs met the haunches, were round and plump, like two grayish-yellow pumpkins.
Lin Mengzhi grabbed one in each hand and dragged them back, tossing both giant rats down in front of Wu Heng.
He crouched beside him. “If we diced these up with chili, they’d taste amazing. Are you sure you want to eat them raw?”
“Yeah. I’m hungry.”
Wu Heng pressed his palm to one of the rats’ bellies, and vines immediately went to work, hollowing out both creatures’ abdominal cavities in a blink.
Behind him, Dou Lu and Du Yaoyuan stared, mouths agape.
“Holy crap, those are huge rats!” Dou Lu’s face had gone pale. “I’m scared of rats!”
Lin Mengzhi looked closer. “They’re not rats — they’re field voles.”
“How do you even know that?”
“I used to be an apprentice in a restaurant kitchen. My master told me before — they’re all rodents, but not the same kind. Field voles are bigger, sturdier, and they don’t eat as much garbage as city rats. The biggest difference’s in the texture of the meat.”
“Which one tastes better?”
“Field voles. But I’ve never eaten a wild one — they’re hard to catch. They like digging holes.”
“Can field voles really get this big?” Dou Lu, relieved it wasn’t a sewer rat, came closer with her chainsaw. She was still stunned. “Look at those teeth — they’re huge!”
Du Yaoyuan used his ability to extract the energy cores from both voles. The crystals, translucent and glassy, glimmered faintly with a soft red light.
He handed the energy cores to Wu Heng.
Since Wu Heng couldn’t use fire-type energy, he gave one to Lin Mengzhi and slipped the extra one into his own pocket.
Seeing that, Lin Mengzhi glanced at Dou Lu and Du Yaoyuan, an uncharacteristic spark of thought flashing through his head. Bracing his hands on his knees, he stood up and looked around. “Field voles breed fast — there must be more than two around here. Next up, it’s our turn to put on a show!”
Du Yaoyuan immediately perked up, excitement lighting his face. Dou Lu, however, looked around nervously. “But… how are we supposed to find the other ones?”
Lin Mengzhi decided to melt the surrounding snow first.
He thought it — and then he acted. The moment his palm touched the ground, fire roared to life beneath it with a boom, spreading outward in a blazing circle.
But using his ability that way meant everything within range — living or not — was likely to get scorched.
Wu Heng had already anticipated this. One of his vines stretched out instantly, forming a makeshift shield that blocked the incoming flames.
Dou Lu and Du Yaoyuan, caught on the edge of the blast, jumped around wildly, yelping.
“F— f— f— freaking hell, Lin Mengzhi!!!”
“The soles of my boots are gone!!”
When the snow finally melted away, both of them collapsed onto the ground, tugging at what was left of their shoes. The soles had completely disintegrated, and blisters were already bubbling up on their feet.
Lin Mengzhi scratched the back of his head. “Alright, alright — next time, you can ‘accidentally’ hit me once too, okay?”
Dou Lu stood up, wincing in her half-melted boots. Despite the pain, she waved a hand. “It’s fine, team leader. According to our team rules, rule number one: no internal slaughter. So it’s fine, it’s fine — let’s get back to catching those squeaky things.”
Tears welled up in Du Yaoyuan’s eyes. “No internal slaughter, huh? Then what the hell do you call this?” He pointed at the blistered soles of his feet.
Dou Lu: “If you don’t fight back, it doesn’t count as m*rdering each other, right?”
Wu Heng watched them bicker with an indifferent expression. He didn’t think much of it — as long as nobody died, this trip out of the village could count as a short, small training exercise.
He didn’t particularly dislike Du Yaoyuan, and he felt nothing special toward Dou Lu. He liked watching them run and jump — like watching the pigs he raised, growing sturdier and more lively each day.
He narrowed his eyes, satisfied, tore off a leg from one of the field voles, and shoved it into his mouth, chewing.