Eaten Ch.121.1

Chapter 121.1: Wu Heng’s New Abilities

At three in the morning, Xie Yi ended the meeting.

“It’s all been in vain.”

“Bullshit! We’ll wait and see what the real end of the world looks like!”

The meeting room descended into chaos. Tables were slammed, files were thrown. Faces flushed and necks strained as everyone argued, just short of coming to blows.

The guard followed behind Xie Yi down the stairs. Beneath the streetlight outside the courtyard, a tall, slender figure came into Xie Yi’s view.

He must have grown bored from waiting. With his palm turned upward, he trapped several moths inside a small, fabricated pocket of space. He brought them up before his eyes, his face tilting slightly upward. Light traced his features, sharpening them, just like when he was a child.

Sensing someone approaching, he turned toward the gate. The faint curve of his lips fell away, leaving a look that was cool and defiant.

When he saw Xie Yi walking toward him, he released the moths and gave a salute edged with mockery. “Colonel.”

Xie Yi stopped in front of him and returned the salute, her eyes faintly red. “Have you eaten?”

一

At that moment, in Yunling, the moon was dark and low, with birds calling and beasts stirring.

The jeep was parked in a pasture beside a stand of fir trees. Grass had grown wildly to waist height. Shen Ping’an dragged a tent out of the trunk.

Meisida looked even more astonished than he had at noon. “How do you have everything?!”

“If we’re traveling far, we prepare in advance. Any problem with that?”

“No problem, but this is the apocalypse. This isn’t living a normal life.”

“Hold this for me.”

“Got it.”

Wu Heng leaned weakly against the car window, watching the three of them. One was pitching the tent, another cutting grass. X leaned against him, and the greyhound curled up at his feet.

The wound on the greyhound’s abdomen had already closed, and the other injuries on its body had scabbed over as well. Wu Heng watched for a moment, then cautiously placed his palm against it.

He was still badly injured. A gentle white light flowed out, and a dense, prickling pain spread, growing more pronounced as it traveled from his heart.

He healed all the wounds on the dog and the bird in one go. It was as if he had been rinsed in sweat from head to toe, even his hair left damp and clinging.

The greyhound lifted its head and, listlessly, licked Wu Heng’s fingers with its tongue.

Wu Heng’s brow twitched.

He hated dogs.

Suppressing the urge to throw it out through the open car door, he clenched his fingers around the edge of the seat. “Your owner was the one who died earlier. We’re in a cooperative relationship.”

“Your name is Shukui?” Wu Heng groped under the seat and pulled out a water bottle. He poured the water straight into the cap, bent down, and held it to the greyhound’s mouth.

The greyhound must have been parched. It started gulping immediately.

X squatted on Wu Heng’s leg, glaring at it with undisguised resentment.

“How old are you?”

Only silence answered Wu Heng.

He poured another capful of water for the greyhound. Looking into its glossy black eyes, clear and clean, it seemed far less scheming than the parrot, but he still preferred creatures that could talk.

Wu Heng handed out several large chunks of raw meat, dividing them between X and Shukui.

X was fine. Following the boy, it had rarely gone hungry. No matter how hard or bitter things got, it never ate in a rush, and it was picky too.

The greyhound was completely different. One or two jin of raw meat went straight down its throat, swallowed whole, as if it had eaten nothing at all. It looked at Wu Heng again.

Wu Heng did not know how many times he refilled it. Awakening an ability was something worth being happy about. Even though he had nearly died from it, as long as he was still alive, then even if death might come in the near future, for now the benefits outweighed the costs.

He was in a good mood and fed the dog and the bird without the slightest impatience. X ate until it felt nauseous, gagged twice, and slipped out through the window. The greyhound, seemingly unaware of hunger or fullness, ate until it could barely open its mouth.

“Hm? Open up. You’re not eating anymore?”

Shen Ping’an was squatting directly across from the car door, setting up the tent. When he turned his head, what he saw was Wu Heng teasing the dog. The boy was very thin. Even at a glance, one could tell his bones were lighter than most boys’. Whatever he wore took on a languid, somber air on him, carrying a strong sense of something untamed and uncontrollable.

At that moment, the corner of his mouth curved into a barely perceptible arc. Strangers might not notice it, but anyone who had spent a long time with Wu Heng would know that this was a sign that he was in an exceptionally good mood.

Shen Ping’an could not help but smile as well.

Over there, Meisida was hacking away at the grass, carving out a small clearing. It made it easier to pitch the tents, to sleep, and to build a fire for cooking, and it also prevented an accidental blaze from setting the entire pasture alight.

In short, no matter when, forest fire prevention was everyone’s responsibility.

“This grass… hey, if I keep cutting it by hand, how long will this take?”

Meisida tossed the knife aside and planted his hands on his hips. Seeing no one else around, something shifted along his lower back beneath his clothes. Two pairs of translucent bee wings suddenly sprang out, lifting his body off the ground.

His legs were replaced by a spindle-shaped abdomen, mottled brown, yellow, and black. Several pairs of bee legs hung beneath it, each tipped with coldly gleaming stingers. His head shrank, and an oval set of compound eyes, made up of thousands of tiny facets, took up nearly two thirds of his skull. The human traits on his body diminished, dwindled away, until he became a completely enormous hornet.

Meisida beat his powerful wings and plunged headlong into the grass. A loud buzzing filled the air, and the tough, hard-to-cut grass toppled in swathes.

“Do you think we could open a zoo at this point?” Ruan Silian’s voice sounded by Wu Heng’s ear, teasing. When Wu Heng did not respond, she grew worried. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Wu Heng patted Shukui on the head. “Go digest your food.”

The greyhound was already lean to begin with, yet now its belly was visibly swollen. Even so, it moved with the same agility as ever. It jumped down from the car and vanished in a flash.

Wu Heng braced himself against the seat and shifted. Seeing this, Ruan Silian offered him her arm.

After getting out of the car, Wu Heng leaned against the door. Something seemed to occur to him, and his expression tightened. “On my head…”

“It’s still there,” Ruan Silian answered before he could finish. “The bud is still there. It just doesn’t look very lively.”

Wu Heng lowered his head. His lips were pale, and once the color drained from his face, his whole presence seemed to thin out. Yet it also became sharper, with no hint of softness returning at all.

“Don’t overthink it,” Ruan Silian said. “Because knowing your personality, you wouldn’t keep something like this on your head if it weren’t special. More importantly, it exposes your identity. Yet you’ve kept it all this time, so I think it must be important to you. That’s why I’ve been keeping an eye on it for you.”

“…Thank you.” Wu Heng still felt uneasy and reached up to touch it. Had it drooped?

He pressed his lips together and fell silent for a moment. “Help me tie it up.”

“Hm?”

A few minutes later, following Wu Heng’s instructions, Ruan Silian found the materials he mentioned. They were just a few thumb-length pieces of dried grass stalk.

Wu Heng sat down against the car door. Ruan Silian carefully parted his hair, set the grass stalks upright around the stem of the bud on his head, and gently propped the bud up.

“What should we use to tie it?” The stalks and the bud needed to be bound together.

Wu Heng’s fingers reached over tentatively. From his fingertips, vines slipped out and climbed along the grass stalks and the bud, binding them tightly together and even tying a neat bow.

“…”

Ruan Silian stared at the bizarre scene. She walked around to face Wu Heng, took two steps back, raised her hands, and said, “Are you sure you want to pile this much stuff on your head?”

Even Shen Ping’an, who almost always supported Wu Heng without reservation, froze for a long while when he came over to grab something and saw it.

“This doesn’t look good,” he said.

X squatted on the roof of the car and shouted that it was ugly beyond words.

For the first time, Wu Heng was rejected by so many people at once. Irritated, he climbed back into the car, lay down on the back seat, and did not say a word.

“Call me when it’s time to eat.”

The energy within his body was merging at an unusually slow pace. The plant symbiont and the wood element seemed to get along the moment they met, merging and digesting each other quickly and smoothly. Light-element energy, however, was far slower.

Wu Heng did not sleep. In the dark back seat, he looked at his left and right palms. One glowed with green light, the other with a warm white radiance.

Light corresponded to darkness. He had already tested it on Shukui and X earlier. It had healing properties. Recalling how those people on the mountaintop had turned to ash simply by drawing near, it was clear that it also possessed offensive power.

Then there was the wood element. Fire generates earth, earth generates metal, metal generates water, water generates wood, wood generates fire… wood generates fire…

He suddenly sat upright.

Coughing, Wu Heng appeared inside the space. He casually wiped the blood he coughed up from his palm and fed it to the poppies growing along the wall, then walked over to Lin Mengzhi.

“Look, my little finger is healed!” Lin Mengzhi stuck out his pinky and showed it to Wu Heng excitedly.

Wu Heng squatted down in front of him. “I’ve awakened dual-element abilities.”

Lin Mengzhi did not understand. “What does that mean? What kind of abilities are dual-element ones?”

“…,” Wu Heng found it too troublesome to explain. He sat down on the ground and said slowly, “It means having two different abilities at the same time.”

Lin Mengzhi stared blankly for a long while, then his mouth fell open. “That’s insane! Don’t you already have a mutated plant? How did you get another one?”

“It doesn’t include the mutated plant. Aside from that, there are two new ones. Wood element and light element.” Wu Heng knew deep down that something this close to a gift falling from the sky would eventually have to be repaid by him. A human body could not possibly withstand such enormous energy.

“Aren’t plants just the wood element?” Lin Mengzhi grew more confused the more he listened.

For Mengzhi’s sake, Wu Heng soothed himself inwardly.

“Plants have the attribute of wood.”

“A’Heng, I still don’t get it.”

“The difference is this,” Wu Heng said, pressing a hand to his aching chest as he continued. “Before, I only had a single mutated plant I could use. Now I can control all plants, all lifeforms with the wood attribute, and also…”

“Enough, enough, stop talking,” Lin Mengzhi cut him off. “Your face looks terrible. I get it already. That’s amazing, that’s amazing!” To Lin Mengzhi, it felt as if his support had grown several meters taller again. He could not jump up to cheer for his childhood friend, so he could only shout.

“But what does the light element do? How did you awaken two at once? No wonder you look so weak. What exactly happened outside earlier?”

Wu Heng did not have the energy to keep explaining. He brushed it off lightly and told Lin Mengzhi to be quiet, then pressed both palms against Lin Mengzhi’s chest.

“Mengzhi, are you afraid of dying?” He lowered his gaze and asked suddenly.

Lin Mengzhi had no idea what his childhood friend was about to do, but his answer was resolute. “Yes!”

“I don’t know how much longer I can live. Professor Ye once said that no plant symbiont lives long, and I might not be an exception. Right now, even though I can use two abilities at the same time, they still haven’t accepted each other. As the host, I don’t know if I can make it through this stage.”

Wood gives rise to fire, light gives rise to all things. Two streams of gentle energy flowed from Wu Heng’s body into Lin Mengzhi. Lin Mengzhi’s wrinkled skin visibly smoothed out, and new bone and flesh began to extend outward from his heart.

Inside Lin Mengzhi’s body, it itched and hurt at the same time. His eyes went wide, his pupils trembling. His not very clever brain finally had a moment of clarity.

“Stop it! I don’t want you saving me! Dr. Chen can fix me!” His voice broke into a sob as he shouted, but he could not move at all. He could not even resist a single finger of Wu Heng’s.

Wu Heng’s expression was calm, his tone steady from beginning to end. “What are you doing? It’s not like I’m definitely going to die.”

Lin Mengzhi realized he could breathe properly again. He glared at Wu Heng, panting like an ox.

“But before that possibility is confirmed, I don’t want to waste the abilities I finally awakened,” Wu Heng continued. The words struck Lin Mengzhi like a blow to the head.

“Don’t overthink it. I’m not atoning for Wu Zhi. Once you’re better, whether you want to kill her or let it go is your choice. I won’t interfere. If you need help, I…”

“I don’t need it!” Lin Mengzhi roared, then deflated. “Wu Zhi isn’t some outsider.”

“When we were kids, I even hid stones in her food and chipped her tooth. She cried for a long time and still didn’t tell your parents on me. When they asked her why her front tooth was missing, she said she’d matured early and lost her baby teeth ahead of time.”

“Good thing she didn’t say anything. If she had, your dad would have beaten me half to death. If my grandma tried to stop him, he might have beaten her too.”

“…”

“And when you used to get beaten, she would always slip out of your mom’s hands and come to me for help. When I got beaten by my grandma, she even helped block for me. My grandma’s broom was no joke. One swing could leave my legs bruised for a week or more.”

“A’Heng, I’m really not the kind of person who holds grudges. If I were, Wu Zhi would probably have been tied to the back of my bicycle and dumped into a lake when we were kids.”

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