Chapter 127: “…learn to like yourself first”
Far away, nearly a thousand miles off in the East Sea, the vault of the sky pressed down upon the ocean. Sea and sky merged at the horizon; heaven and earth turned into a single, murky gray with no seam to be found.
The sea level had risen by a large margin compared with before. Bitter cold followed by extreme heat, then the rainy season—like a death road preprogrammed for humanity in advance.
The Northern Base was vast in scale. Losing a few small coastal outposts posed no real threat to its foundations.
Yet a homeland that had only just been rebuilt was gone again just like that. A hidden despair and dejection spread without leaving a trace, like an incurable plague.
Xie Chongyi was dressed in a black team uniform, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, moisture still clinging to his hair. Calm and unhurried, he squatted with a group of people inside a survivors’ tent. Beneath a hastily erected iron mesh, a cluster of flames burned; on top of the mesh, seafood sizzled, oil and smoke rising.
“It’s really cold by the sea,” Dou Lu said as she led two little girls into the tent. She pushed the children inside and stayed at the entrance herself, pulling off her boots. Clinging tightly to the sole of her foot was a brownish-red octopus, several tentacles cinched around her calf so tightly that it was both engorged and deprived of blood.
She peeled the octopus off and flung it straight onto the iron mesh.
Xie Chongyi raised a hand and knocked the octopus out of the air. “I’m a clean freak.”
“Drink some hot water quickly,” said the grandmother who had been boiling water the whole time, handing a mug of hot water to Dou Lu. Seeing Dou Lu gulp it down, she couldn’t help reaching out to touch Dou Lu’s arm, then giving her hand a squeeze. “You’re still not grown yet.”
Before the last note of the old woman’s words had even fully left her mouth, her figure suddenly dropped a full head shorter than Dou Lu. Reacting instantly, Dou Lu grabbed the woman’s arm. Beneath the old woman’s feet, a tentacle as thick as a bucket had already coiled around her legs. Her lower body sank into the sand, and seawater surged up after it.
Dou Lu tightened her grip on the old woman’s arm and shouted toward the people inside the tent, “Run—now!!!”
The scene descended into complete chaos. The tent was ripped open outright; the fire used for warmth vanished in an instant. The concrete ground beneath their feet collapsed in chunks, soft sand mixed with seawater surging up onto the surface. It was like humans casting nets to fish in the ocean—only now the roles were reversed.
Children were like shrimps: sift them a bit and maybe some would slip through the mesh. Women were flavorful, rich with juices; men had firm, chewy muscle. The elderly were at the end of their strength—before the monster even opened its mouth, many were thrown to their deaths, trampled, or drowned in the turmoil.
Seeing the despair and terror etched across the old woman’s face, Dou Lu plunged her other arm into the sand. With a loud crack, she didn’t know how large the octopus really was, but once the tentacle was severed, the old woman was finally saved.
Xie Chongyi had already made it outside the tent. On the surface of the sea, a half-rounded head bobbed up and down with the waves; beneath the water, several tentacles flickered in and out of sight.
Most of the base’s guards were probably still rushing over. Those nearby were either doctors or psychological counselors—offensive abilities were virtually nonexistent.
Xie Chongyi crouched down. Seawater submerged the back of his hand. An invisible wall of air extended upward to the vault of the sky and downward several meters into the earth; mutated sea creatures crawling and swimming through the sand were crushed under the pressure, bursting into fragments.
In places no one could see, tentacles slammed violently against the obstructing wall. Waves surged to the height of buildings and crashed savagely into the shore. Seaweed carried ashore by the water lashed out like sea snakes, cutting anyone they touched until blood flowed freely.
Unable to break through the air wall, the octopus finally revealed its full form. Its tentacles withdrew from beneath the ground, and the sudden, massive void caused the entire surface to cave in. Survivors who hadn’t managed to evacuate in time were dragged one by one into the vortex formed by sand and seawater.
Xie Chongyi remained expressionless, continuously pouring out energy and expanding the air wall to encompass the entire underground, propping up the collapsing ground.
Only after the survivors had mostly evacuated did he withdraw his power.
Without the slightest hesitation, he slit his wrist. Black motes instantly flooded the air, drifting gently toward the octopus that towered several stories high. The octopus, floating on the sea surface, sensed the threat—but had no idea what that threat was.
The motes clung to the octopus’s moist, slick skin and rapidly aggregated. Out of the sea fog emerged a gigantic black beetle, large enough to swallow the octopus whole in a single bite. Its scythe-like forelegs deftly split the octopus’s rounded head in two. As for the tentacles coiling around its body, it treated them as nonexistent—at the slightest touch, they snapped off.
“Honestly, I’d still advise you to use the virus as sparingly as possible,” Sheng Jiang said as he landed beside him. His form was composed of countless flickering blue signal points; his true body was not here.
“Convenient,” Xie Chongyi replied flatly.
“I get that,” Sheng Jiang said in understanding. “In that case, you can start looking for Wu Heng’s next successor now. Your taste—I trust it.”
“……”
Xie Chongyi smiled and turned his head. The outline Sheng Jiang had fabricated dissipated in the blink of an eye.
The moment Sheng Jiang’s energy vanished, the corner of Xie Chongyi’s mouth stiffened slightly. He slowly lowered his head and looked at his palm.
From the lines in his hand, black viscous liquid welled up, boiling like rolling water.
Realizing that Wu Heng was once again outside, fighting with someone and had even been badly injured because of it, Xie Chongyi couldn’t help letting out a soft laugh. He knew it—Wu Heng never took his words to heart.
As the fog dispersed, the insect’s massive body faded with it. The giant octopus’s severed remains bobbed endlessly across the surface of the sea.
He spotted Dou Lu—she had just crushed a half-human-tall hermit crab under her foot. After a brief pause, he contacted her over the communicator. “The octopus isn’t poisonous. It can be salvaged and used as food. The ones that’ve been stepped on—don’t.”
He cut the call promptly and then dialed Sheng Jiang.
“I need to talk to Wu Heng.”
The moment he finished speaking, Sheng Jiang cut the connection.
—
Ruan Silian got up and tied Wu Heng’s hair into a half-up style. She was quite pleased. “That way it won’t keep slipping down all the time.”
Lin Mengzhi sneaked a glance at Wu Heng, then hurriedly pulled his gaze back.
Wu Heng lowered his eyes. “I’m a guy. Don’t look at me like that.”
Lin Mengzhi’s face immediately flushed red. He rubbed his face and circled the fire pit twice, then thumped the nearby tree trunk a couple of times with a loud bang bang. Standing amid the falling leaves, he shouted, “I’m straight! I’m straight! I’m straight!”
Wu Heng ignored him and had Ruan Silian sit down first. “Once Doctor Chen finishes checking Shen Ping’an, he’ll take a look at you.”
“Good thing I’ve had experience treating Lin Mengzhi before…” Doctor Chen muttered as he kneaded Shen Ping’an’s lungs by hand, sneaking glances at the three newcomers, saliva practically dripping.
The three of them were already stiff all over. They had never seen zombies before—not even zombie-related films or TV shows. At most, they had watched Lam Ching-ying’s old hopping-vampire movies, but zombies didn’t look like this.
So what those young people had said was all true—not just the mutation of animals and plants, but zombies too. Zombies… dear heavens!
Shen Ping’an coughed and woke up. He took a breath, and what filled his nose was the dense stench emanating from Doctor Chen. He bent over and immediately vomited his guts out beside him.
“Have some respect for the doctor, will you?” Doctor Chen said, his expression darkening, clearly displeased.
“N-no… I’d rather eat shit,” Shen Ping’an shoved Doctor Chen a little farther away. “But still—thanks.”
Only then did Doctor Chen feel somewhat satisfied. He left Shen Ping’an and squatted down beside Ruan Silian.
He merely leaned in and sniffed at Ruan Silian before asking, “You’re pregnant?”
The entire scene fell silent. Even Wu Heng stopped poking at the flames with his stick.
When Ruan Silian had been dragged away and attacked by the female snake, they had all still been conscious. They had seen it happen—but they didn’t know exactly what had occurred afterward.
Only Wang Meixia asked innocently, “Then where’s your boyfriend?”
“It’s not her boyfriend,” Doctor Chen snapped, turning back to glare irritably at Wang Meixia, displeased by a layperson’s wild speculation at such a moment. After startling Wang Meixia into a flinch, he looked back at the patient. “It was a snake. You carry the scent of a female snake.”
“If it was a female snake, then how could she be pregnant?” Wu Heng asked calmly.
“Fostering behavior in the animal world—if it weren’t her, it would be someone else. Just like how some birds lay their eggs in other birds’ nests,” Doctor Chen said, referring to Wang Meixia. “Since it was choosing a vessel, it would naturally pick someone younger and in better physical condition—the embryo’s chances of survival would be higher.”
Wu Heng inexplicably recalled the way the female snake had looked at him before.
Doctor Chen also stared at Wu Heng for a long while. “It probably considered you too. You’re a plant; you also emit female pheromones. And you happen to be in your flowering season. If you were truly female, there’s no doubt this embryo would be in your belly instead.”
A chill ran through Lin Mengzhi. He strode over to stand behind Ruan Silian, cupped her icy cheeks in his hands, and thrust her toward Doctor Chen. “She’s human—human. And you’re saying there’s a snake egg in her belly? Are you a lunatic or a quack doctor? Which is it?”
When test results surface, it is common—and reasonable—for patients and their families to react emotionally. Doctor Chen forgave the family member’s slander and insults toward him, simply correcting him calmly. “Not a snake egg. A snake.”
“What’s the difference?” Ruan Silian’s voice was hoarse, her eyes trembling. “Aren’t they both snakes?”
“Snakes can be viviparous or oviparous. Yours…” Doctor Chen placed his stark white, bony fingers against Ruan Silian’s abdomen. “Is both oviparous and viviparous. You’re lucky.”
“Lucky?!”
“This species doesn’t have a single reproductive method. It’s not purely oviparous—the embryo develops into a young snake before being expelled, so there’s no need to lay eggs outside the body. Psychologically, that’s easier to accept. And it’s not purely viviparous either—it won’t draw on and squeeze your maternal body’s energy. The impact on your health won’t be as severe as true viviparity. That’s why I say—you’re lucky,” Doctor Chen explained.
Lin Mengzhi looked even more unable to accept it than Ruan Silian. “Who wants to give birth to a snake? Abort it—abort it. Right now.”
“Unless you remove the entire reproductive system—and that’s only on the premise that the body isn’t already hosting parasitic offspring. Right now, we don’t know how many embryos there are, nor their dispositions. If they retaliate against the mother during removal, the patient will die on the operating table!” Doctor Chen was growing agitated.
At that moment, Wu Heng stirred. Vines sprouted from his palm and gently crept onto Ruan Silian’s abdomen. “If we kill them first, then expel them—would that be feasible?”
“Them?”
Wu Heng said, “Under normal circumstances, a single litter of young snakes numbers more than one.”
Doctor Chen emphasized again, “She’s not an ability user. She can’t withstand you people messing around.”
“And let the patient make the decision herself.”
Ruan Silian looked at each of them, smiled, forced the tears back into her eyes, and finally turned to Wu Heng. “I want some quiet, but I might not be very safe on my own. A’Heng, will you walk with me nearby?”
Wu Heng touched the ring, hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
—
The vegetation of Shenjiandi was completely different from that of Yunling; the view before them felt entirely new.
The mountains here were taller and more majestic, the forests older and deeper—and quieter as well.
By a stream veiled in thin mist, Ruan Silian stopped. She raised an arm to cover her eyes and began to sob softly.
Wu Heng stood beside her for a while, then plucked a leaf and offered it to her.
Seeing the green leaf tentatively held out to her, Ruan Silian couldn’t help laughing. She looked at Wu Heng. “If it weren’t for everything going on at home, you’d be incredibly cute—though you’re already very cute now.”
Wu Heng didn’t particularly care how others described or viewed him. He looked at Ruan Silian. “What are you planning to do?”
The smile on Ruan Silian’s face slowly faded. She gazed ahead, her voice light but exceptionally firm. “Give birth.”
‘Dismember them piece by piece,’ she thought.
Wu Heng studied her eyes, then looked away. “And then kill them?”
Ruan Silian hadn’t expected Wu Heng to guess her intentions. A flicker of surprise crossed her face, but she didn’t deny or conceal it. Wu Heng had long known what kind of person she was.
“A’Heng, actually, we’re very much alike. No matter what happens to us, the first thing we do isn’t to cry; the second isn’t anger or demanding accountability. And in the end, we usually don’t ask why.”
“I would never think, Why me? or Why didn’t you protect me better? Compared to you and everyone else, what I’ve gone through, in my view, is merely something a bit extraordinary. It won’t change me, and it certainly won’t destroy me.”
She smiled. “To embrace contingency, to love one’s fate—that’s us. It’s all of us. And that’s the most fundamental reason I chose to follow you.”
“Then,” Wu Heng tapped her elbow lightly, “are you hungry? Let’s get something to eat.”
…
The others waited anxiously, only for two people to return looking utterly unruffled.
“What are you thinking?” Lin Mengzhi rushed up the moment he saw them.
There was no trace of gloom or dejection left on Ruan Silian’s face. She smiled at Lin Mengzhi. “Be a little gentler with a pregnant woman, okay?”
Lin Mengzhi froze on the spot.
Shen Ping’an was sitting on the ground. He turned his head, but his gaze landed on Wu Heng. “She’s really going to give birth? That’s a snake.”
“Compared to dignity, compared to personhood,” Ruan Silian said as she slowly sat down, “I’d still rather stay alive.”
This was Ruan Silian’s own decision. All they needed to do was digest it and accept it. Only Lin Mengzhi suddenly broke down beside them, crying so hard he could barely catch his breath. “It’s—it’s too humiliating, that venomous woman… that venomous snake.”
Ruan Silian looked at Lin Mengzhi with gentle, tender affection.
Shen Ping’an changed the subject. “Oh, right. We’re eating mule later.”
“Where’d a mule come from?”
“Looks like it used to haul goods around Shenjiandi before the apocalypse. After things went to hell, it mutated. No one managed it, so it’s been free-ranging in the forest ever since.” Shen Ping’an dragged a mule weighing around a thousand jin out from behind a tree and over to the group. Without drawing attention, he brushed off the thin layer of frost on it, careful not to let Wu Heng notice.
“Lin Mengzhi, stop crying and come help,” Shen Ping’an said as he drew a knife from behind his waist and slit open the mule’s belly. The organs were fresh and warm. Before Lin Mengzhi could even come over, Doctor Chen was already rushing in at top speed, muttering about “consultation fees,” “nutrition,” and “employee abuse.”
Wang Meixia and the others were so terrified by Doctor Chen’s feeding scene that their souls practically left their bodies. Luo Lei ran off to the side and vomited nonstop.
With no boiling water to scald off the mule’s hair, Shen Ping’an and Lin Mengzhi could only skin it whole. Under Doctor Chen’s pestering, the two of them cut off the mule’s head; Doctor Chen immediately stopped bothering them, hugged the mule’s head happily, and trotted off to the side.
The organs were given to the poppy. The rest was split in two: half for roasting, half for boiling in plain water. The spine was pried out and chopped into chunks, enough to make a huge pot of soup.
Seasonings were a luxury now, but Wu Heng had once swept up an entire sack of them in a hurry. They’d originally been tossed haphazardly into his space, yet when he took them out, they were neatly sorted into separate bags—peppercorns with peppercorns, chilies with chilies. It was probably Doctor Chen who had organized them inside.
The grill was also provided by Wu Heng, though there was no metal frame to support it, so they hastily cut a few sticks to prop it up.
Wang Meixia and Liu Dongfan, the husband-and-wife pair, bustled about nonstop, grabbing any task they could do.
“We hike outdoors a lot—at night we just pitch a tent, light a fire, and cook on the spot. We’re pretty good at it. People from Yaozhou all cook well,” Wang Meixia said as she sat on the ground, took Shen Ping’an’s knife, and bang bang bang chopped a dozen ribs into small pieces. She skewered them and set them on the grill.
“It’s mainly the seasonings—if the seasonings are good, then anything tastes good,” she muttered to herself. From several bags of spices, she grabbed a handful from each and tossed them into a bowl, grinding them hard with the knife handle, sweat pouring down her face.
Watching her, Shen Ping’an suddenly thought of his mother, whose face had grown blurred in his memories.
He said, “Seems like today is my birthday.”
Wu Heng ate slices of raw mule meat, head lowered. “Then eat a bit more later.”
“What day is it today?” Lin Mengzhi had no idea at all.
“September twenty-third, Gregorian calendar,” Luo Lei spoke up suddenly. “I’ve been keeping track of the days these past few months stuck in the mountains. I don’t want to turn into a caveman.”
“Then my birthday’s next month too.” Lin Mengzhi looked at Ruan Silian. “When’s yours?”
“Already passed,” Ruan Silian said. “June.”
“I’ll make it up to you with a belated ‘happy birthday,’” Lin Mengzhi said with a grin.
After Wu Heng was about half full, he fed X and the greyhound as well.
Shukui still ate with frantic enthusiasm.
X hadn’t won a single battle and looked a bit dispirited, but it still ate quite a lot.
Watching the greyhound devour its food, Wu Heng’s ring finger suddenly throbbed with pain. He braced himself on the ground and stood up. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
Seeing him about to leave, the greyhound immediately tried to follow. Lin Mengzhi grabbed it and dragged it back. “Eat properly.”
The greyhound barked twice at Wu Heng’s retreating back, then snapped once at Lin Mengzhi.
—
“Where are you?” Xie Chongyi’s tone was the same as usual.
Wu Heng stood beside a clump of bushes and glanced around. “Shenjiandi.”
He thought Xie Chongyi’s next line would be ‘Do you miss me?’ He even rehearsed his answer twice in his head, ready for it.
But instead, Xie Chongyi broke convention. “Were you badly injured? Did something happen on the way?”
Wu Heng frowned slightly, thinking of the insect eye in his ear—how Xie Chongyi had said, when he bit it off, that it had been watching him through his eyes.
At the time, Wu Heng hadn’t paid it much attention.
There was no need to lie. Wu Heng told Xie Chongyi about running into the Yunling snake swarm a couple of days earlier.
Xie Chongyi was silent for a long time on the other end.
So silent that Wu Heng began to feel inexplicably uneasy.
After a while, Xie Chongyi’s voice finally sounded, helpless. “Brother, could you… please stop letting yourself get hurt?”
But hearing Xie Chongyi speak like this, Wu Heng couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable—an unease that seemed to belong to Xie Chongyi alone. He leaned against a tree, covered his burning ear, and realized he had never known that being in a relationship could feel this awful, so completely out of control.
The class monitor was seriously ill—he’d even reinvented himself—but ordinarily, they were both perfectly normal.
When he didn’t hear Wu Heng’s voice, Xie Chongyi continued, “Hmm? Brother, baby—please, I’m begging you.”
Wu Heng opened his mouth, his cheeks flushed red, and said softly, “Okay.”
Having exhausted all the gentle coaxing, Xie Chongyi laughed softly on the other end. When he spoke again, his usual faint arrogance returned. “If I were like you, what would you think?”
“…You’re too weak.”
“…,” Xie Chongyi was sitting on the beach. He lowered his head, slipped his fingers into the damp sand, and pulled out a razor clam that was still clamped onto a human finger. He pinched it into two pieces, four, eight, sixteen… “Any other thoughts?” he asked.
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m the same as you,” Xie Chongyi said. “Before you like me, I’d rather you learn to like yourself first.”
Wu Heng heard a trace of disappointment and hurt in his tone. He frowned. “It’s not that I don’t like myself.”
“For example?”
Wu Heng fell silent—but he was used to that.
Rummaging back and forth through the traces of his own life, he finally found one thing that could prove he had never mistreated himself.
“I eat until I’m full at every meal.”
The dissatisfaction and anger pressing on Xie Chongyi’s heart vanished just like that, replaced by a sour, aching softness beyond words. Wu Heng was like a little bird raised under ab*se—it thought hopping was everything, when in fact, it could also fly.
Forget it. Xie Chongyi pieced the crushed razor clam back into the shape of a single one and thought: even if he spelled out his demands to Wu Heng, the other wouldn’t know how to meet them. If Wu Heng liked himself a little less, then he would like Wu Heng a little more—it was all the same.
“See you in Yaozhou.”
Wu Heng couldn’t quite read Xie Chongyi’s attitude. Ever since he had struck Xie Chongyi off the list of edible things, everything had become far more complicated.
If only it were as simple as: like it, eat it; don’t like it, don’t eat it.
