Eaten Ch.123.2

Chapter 123.2: “Thank you” and “I like you”

Xie Chongyi slumped listlessly back into his seat, while Dou Lu in the back kept sobbing.

“Enough already. Anyone who didn’t know better would think you’d just gone through a breakup,” Xue Shen said.

“You don’t understand. A friendship falling apart is even more heartbreaking than love. With love, you can still comfort yourself by saying men are just trash—but what about friendship? She was genuinely that good,” Dou Lu said.

As she finished speaking, a dark shadow suddenly swept past the window. She jumped in fright, afraid it might be some mutated creature, and hurriedly focused her mind, looking outside.

X’s enormous form was nearly the size of an airplane. It was flying even faster, rising and dipping, keeping pace with their aircraft.

When had it caught up?

But at this moment, there was no way to open a window and shout at it.

“Feels like it’s just trying to give us some entertainment. Nothing Wu Heng raises is ever normal,” Xue Shen commented objectively.

X had no idea what they were saying. It slowed down, circled from behind the plane, and came alongside the co-pilot’s side.

Xie Chongyi glanced at it—then froze.

Held in the massive bird’s beak was a fully bloomed flower.

X urged the people inside the plane with its gaze.

“Find some flat ground. Land.”

On a sloped stretch of terrain, the plane couldn’t land. Xie Chongyi jumped straight out of the aircraft, and almost at the same moment, X touched down in front of him. Still holding the flower, it quickly walked up to Xie Chongyi.

Xie Chongyi reached out his hand. X lowered its head and carefully opened its beak.

The cool stem settled lightly into his palm. At its tip, a poppy was in full bloom, petals completely unfurled—layered like drifting clouds of smoke, light and airy. The edges were tinged with purple, deepening toward the center, like the reflection of the entire world, an oil painting lost on some night.

Xie Chongyi gently traced the irregular edges of the petals with his finger. Their texture was like sheer gauze—soft and light, yet astonishingly resilient.

He slowed his breathing, because it felt like a butterfly resting in his palm—one careless moment, and it might fly away.

“Tell Wu Heng ‘thank you,’ and ‘I like you,’” Xie Chongyi said as he tucked the poppy’s stem into the pocket over the left side of his chest. “If you pass it on wrong, just wait till I come back next time and deal with you.”

X clicked its tongue, shook its wings, and flew off.

Beneath the enormous gray shadow of the giant mutated bird, the lush forest spread inch by inch in every direction. The rain mist had not yet fully dispersed when a second round of rain fell onto its wings.

It returned to where it had set out from and landed in front of the boy. Shaking the water off its body, it chirped noisily, “Thank you, thank you.”

There was something else—something missing. It spun around anxiously on the spot.

“Thank you,” it repeated.

But somehow, the number of times it opened its mouth didn’t feel right.

Wu Heng couldn’t be bothered to deal with it and turned to head back toward the rain shelter.

X spread its wings and chased after him.

“Thank you, thank you…”

Lin Mengzhi cut in, “No need to thank us.”

X was about to lose its mind. It flew up and pecked Lin Mengzhi hard twice.

“I like you,” it said.

Lin Mengzhi grabbed its beak. “Well, I don’t like you, you stinky bird.”

X lifted its foot and kicked him twice. After booting Lin Mengzhi away, it chased after Wu Heng again.

“I like you. I like you.”

Only then did Wu Heng pause. That sentence wasn’t in X’s vocabulary—it had mostly learned from Dou Lu and Lin Mengzhi, and he had never heard it say this before.

“Did the class monitor tell you to say that?” Wu Heng asked it.

X shook its wings, giving an affirmative answer with its eyes.

Wu Heng curved his lips slightly. “Then go tell him—I feel the same.”

“……” X’s head tilted farther and farther to one side.

It cocked its body, staring at Wu Heng in utter disbelief. After a long while, it cursed him as a lunatic, hopped over to Shukui’s side, lay down, closed its eyes, and went right back to sleep.

They had barely rested at all. Outside, the rain started up again—the patter of raindrops, the sound of wind, and faintly audible beneath it all, the sound of plants growing.

The supplies gathered in Hanzhou were finally coming in handy. Wu Heng slept on a soft mat, covered with a warm blanket. Shukui lay back-to-back with him, and X lay on its back atop Shukui.

After daybreak, Wu Heng’s scalp started itching. Half-asleep, he scratched at it a few times.

X was startled awake by the movement. It walked over and used its claws to give him a good, hard scratch—only to be whipped far away by a vine from the poppy.

“A’Heng! Get up—your hair!”

No one knew how much time passed before Ruan Silian’s terrified voice suddenly woke everyone up.

“I’m sleeping a bit more,” Lin Mengzhi muttered, grabbing the blanket and pulling it over his head—only to realize the blanket was moving.

What the hell is this? He opened his eyes and discovered that what he was holding wasn’t a blanket at all—it was hair!

“WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH——!!!”

He scrambled and rolled away, dragging along a leg that barely worked, and moved toward Wu Heng—only to make an even more shocking discovery.

That hair… was Wu Heng’s!!!!

Wu Heng sat up, seated in the middle of a black ocean. The entire rain shelter had been filled by wildly proliferating hair. His face was pale, and his expression carried the serene, satisfied calm of someone who had slept well.

He tilted his head, bit off his overgrown fingernails, and a vine swept across at waist height. The writhing strands of hair instantly lost all vitality and collapsed to the ground in a thick layer.

“Why did this happen?” Lin Mengzhi grabbed a handful of hair at random. It was heavy in his hand, and a chill ran through his whole body.

“Sleep first, talk later,” Wu Heng said with unusual calm. No wonder his head had been itching last night.

Shen Ping’an used vines to bundle the hair into neat piles and stacked them in a corner.

“When we leave, Lin Mengzhi, set a fire and burn it all.”

“Why?”

“So no one can take it and curse the owner of the hair or something like that.”

“You actually believe that?”

A few hours later, Wu Heng’s hair had grown a bit more, but it wasn’t nearly as terrifying as before. Shen Ping’an trimmed it back to its original length.

“It never grew like this before. Mine didn’t either,” Shen Ping’an said, putting away the scissors. Looking at the hair—which had grown another two centimeters—he rummaged through his bag and found a few hair clips. “Do you mind using these to pin your hair back?”

Wu Heng took the clips himself and pinned his bangs into a neat side part.

“Looks like a little girl,” Lin Mengzhi said, draping an arm over Shen Ping’an’s shoulder.

Wu Heng looked at X and Shukui, who were both studying him intently. After a moment, he spoke slowly, “It’s probably because the Wood and Light elements are acting simultaneously, combined with the change in climate.”

“That should be it,” Shen Ping’an agreed. “Since yesterday, I’ve also felt my energy in the body more abundant and active than usual.”

“Then why don’t you grow hair?” Lin Mengzhi turned his head toward him.

“I don’t have dual-element abilities.”

While they were chatting, Wu Heng quietly pulled out the scissors Shen Ping’an had already put in his bag. He trimmed what seemed to be overgrown eyelashes by half and then lowered his head to carefully tend to his nails.

After finishing this series of grooming tasks, he handed the scissors back to Shen Ping’an.

“We can go.”

The rain shelter above them loosened, exposing the sky. It returned to its original height, blending back into the pasture.

The rain continued to fall in a soft drizzle, mist swirling around the mountains. No need to dwell on the past—this moment was the best time to enjoy spring and the rain.

“Are you coming with us?” Wu Heng stopped Meisida, who was about to climb into the vehicle.

“Liuying is a sad place. I’m not going back there—wherever I go, it doesn’t matter,” Meisida said, lowering his eyes in dejection.

Wu Heng climbed into the vehicle and leaned back against the seat.

“Then go somewhere else.” He then took back the hope bracelet from Meisida’s neck. Their original agreement was supposed to end once they obtained the stone core, and Wu Heng had even provided Meisida with food for two days.

Hearing the refusal, Meisida panicked.

“Why?”

“You ate my food, drank my water. I raised a dog like that, and it still knew to wag its tail at me. But someone says it’s the same everywhere—what do you think?” Wu Heng countered, looking at Meisida standing outside the car.

Meisida opened his mouth, stammering, “I… I didn’t mean it that way.”

“You’re still upset. Once you’ve sorted your emotions, you can come to Yaozhou to find me.”

With that, Shen Ping’an closed the car door, walked around to the driver’s side, got in, and started the engine.

A bag of lamb pancakes was tossed from Lin Mengzhi’s seat, and the boy grinned as he called out, “Stay safe on the road!”

The jeep pressed a smooth path through the pasture. The jungle was even denser than yesterday, and droplets of water kept falling from the tall plants.

Lin Mengzhi kept glancing back until Meisida’s figure was obscured by the rejoined grass. He couldn’t help but ask, “Why didn’t we take him along? He just went through a breakup.”

“Someone who’s heartbroken is even less rational than someone in love,” Shen Ping’an said, keeping his eyes locked on the road as he steered. “Until he calms down, it’s best not to engage with him too deeply. If an alien were to tell him that killing us could get him back with his ex, he would have no hesitation in wiping us out completely.”

“Everyone can have obsessions, but if the obsession is love, that can get messy.”

Lin Mengzhi hugged Wu Heng, rubbing his face against the boy’s long hair. “But my obsession is love.”

“Your obsession is long legs, big chest, and wavy hair—not love. And it doesn’t even have to be a woman,” Shen Ping’an glanced at the rearview mirror and said coldly.

Ruan Silian snickered.

In Lin Mengzhi’s mind, Liu Ning’s face flashed, along with… that thing. He immediately sat up straight.

Hours into the drive, Lin Mengzhi’s anguished wails echoed through the forest.

“A’Heng—I think I’m heartbroken too——!”

—

Long after the jeep had left, Meisida slowly started moving his stiff legs. He shuffled forward but didn’t know where to go.

Turning around, he saw a white-haired girl squatting on the ground, nibbling on one of the leftover pancakes.

Her eyes were huge—so large it was intimidating. The rings around her pupils were entirely white. If she wasn’t a ghost, there was no doubt she was an ability user.

Why had she suddenly appeared here? Meisida froze. As a hornet, he was like clay in the hands of most ability users, even if he was venomous.

“Who are you?”

“What’s your name?”

Wu Zhi bent down to pick up several things from the ground, stuffed them into her bag without even glancing at Meisida, and strode off in the direction the jeep had driven.

—

Most of the roads in Yunling were destroyed. Mountain faces were split, plants grew wildly, and many large beasts had left their tracks. Driving through such mountains wasn’t just difficult—it was dangerous.

Along the way, they saw numerous mutated birds and insects: several colored mountain tits, a woodpecker that scared itself into flight after pecking over a small tree, and a crimson-bellied pheasant glowing like fire—strikingly conspicuous in the forest.

The insects were even more varied: blue-bodied, gold-winged dragonflies, bright yellow caterpillars covering entire giant trees, and red-winged beetles bigger than a fist.

By coincidence, they even came across two stone lizards fighting—actually two huge ones. Before the apocalypse, stone lizards were only thumb-sized; these two were as tall as the front of the vehicle, their long mouths and sharp claws clashing violently.

“Too bad there’s no camera. I think the world now is even more worth recording,” Lin Mengzhi sighed.

“The only meaning is blood and suffering,” Shen Ping’an said coldly.

“I suggest you don’t speak like Teacher Ying. I don’t like it,” Lin Mengzhi ordered.

Following the directions on the map, they headed south—steep peaks, jagged ridges, and boulder-strewn ravines. From the mountaintops, they could see how utterly the world had been overturned; after the rain, it was even worse.

In the afternoon, they came to a flat road—and on both sides, there were houses!

Many had collapsed, but some still stood. Though they were mostly tile-roofed mud houses, the furnishings in the yards showed they were inhabited!

“Mountain village…” Lin Mengzhi pressed against the car window, staring at the darkened windows. “Old corpses…”

The wind blew, scattering petals from a peach tree.

Everyone in the car instantly got goosebumps. Lin Mengzhi shouted, “Run! Quickly!”

At that moment, in one of the houses, a disheveled, scruffy man suddenly pushed open the door and stepped out. When he saw the vehicle, his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He didn’t even bother putting on his straw sandals or noticing the step—he leapt straight down and tumbled into the rain-soaked courtyard.

“Wai…wait a minute!” he shouted, scrambling to his feet and chasing after the jeep, yelling as he ran, “Stop! Stop! Hey! Stop!!”

“Looks like a person,” Lin Mengzhi said after watching for a while.

Ruan Silian glanced back and saw that the man’s face was streaked with tears. She couldn’t help but suggest, “Anyway, we’re going to rest and eat for a bit. Why don’t we just stay here?”

“Wu Heng?” Shen Ping’an asked, looking in the rearview mirror. The boy’s hair had grown down to his waist at some point.

“Either way is fine,” Wu Heng said, holding X and keeping his hand tucked under its wings—it was warm.

The jeep came to a stop. Shen Ping’an told them not to get out yet and stepped down alone.

As soon as the car door closed, the stranger lunged at Shen Ping’an and hugged him tightly, looking at him like a savior, tears brimming in his eyes.

“Oh! Oh! Finally, someone’s here!!!”

This was clearly someone who had a ton to say; there was no need to ask questions—he would spill everything on his own.

Sure enough, seeing Shen Ping’an’s confused expression, he started talking immediately:

“My friends and I had planned months ago to come to Yunling together for a trip. We stayed here for more than half a month, crisscrossing the mountains in every direction. But once we got here, we couldn’t get out. The paths we came from were blocked—trees and grass completely cut us off—and the weather kept swinging between hot and cold.”

“We tried calling the police, but no one answered. We tried calling our families, couldn’t get through. Eventually, we lost all signal!”

“During that time… it was miserable. We ran out of food, ran out of water, and had to scavenge in the nearby forests for anything edible. All the while, we had to watch out for wild animals.”

“You have no idea—here in Yunling, the pandas have grown huge! They’re even bigger than your jeep, fat and healthy. I even took some photos—once I post them online, they’ll get tons of views.”

The man looked very pleased as he continued, “And it’s not just the pandas. The birds, the snakes—they’ve all grown really well. I’ve always said, animals should be raised in the mountains. In zoos, they never get this healthy.”

Shen Ping’an’s expression grew increasingly complicated as he listened. Watching the man’s innocent enthusiasm, he cautiously asked, “So… you’ve been stuck here this whole time?”

Tears glimmered in the man’s eyes. “We’ve been waiting for rescue! I believe the country won’t abandon us, and fellow travelers won’t abandon us either!”

“…”

At that moment, the jeep’s rear window slowly rolled down. A striking yet inexplicably moody face appeared in the man’s view, and his mouth fell open in both shock and awe.

“Whoa! A boy and girl!”

“Wait… you guys in the anime world have even made it to Yunling?”

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