Eaten Ch.129.1

Chapter 129.1: “I have a boyfriend”

“I’ve bought it before. It was okay—just expensive. They said it was all wild honey,” Luo Lei said. Seeing everyone look at him, he added, “I don’t like it myself. My mom does, so I’ve bought it.”

Wu Heng flipped down from Shukui’s back. “Let’s catch some bees.”

No one else had the nerve to grab him. Lin Mengzhi slid in front of him in one swift step. “What if the mutant bees are about the same size as us? Are you planning to stash a whole bee army in your space?”

That was a fair point.

Wu Heng thought about it and said, “Let’s take a look first.”

Shen Ping’an said, “We have to go in through the visitor center anyway. We can just swing by the beehives when we pass them.”

As for Wu Heng, a vine slipped out from his hand. After touching the ground, it split into four, winding around the legs of Wang Meixia’s group of three and Ruan Silian. The vine tips, shaped like snake heads, stopped at knee height, their roots planted beneath the soles of their shoes.

The three were so frightened they didn’t dare move, trembling as they looked toward Shen Ping’an.

“When necessary, it can provide you with protection, but only against light attacks,” Wu Heng said coolly. “It’s limited to the lower body because once separated from the main plant, it can’t survive for long—it needs the ground to stay active. Also, don’t touch it. It only obeys me, and there’s a high chance it’ll attack others.”

For some reason, everyone subconsciously looked at Lin Mengzhi.

Lin Mengzhi let out a dry laugh. “What are you looking at? Your mom or what—am I ‘others’?”

“Let’s go.” Wu Heng produced a trench coat from who knows where and slipped it on, then had Shukui squat and climbed back onto its back.

X hopped onto Shukui’s head. But even after shrinking back to the size of a normal gray parrot, it was still a hefty presence. Shukui’s head dipped under the weight, and it shook X off in annoyance.

“Lapdog! Lapdog!” X flapped its wings, found Mengzhi again, and settled back into its purple old nest.

The visitor center looked much the same on the surface, but after more than half a year without anyone coming by, it had grown old and dilapidated. Not only were there fallen leaves everywhere—trees had even sprouted inside the main hall.

The traces left behind by humanity were being eroded, overtaken, and erased.

So when they stood in the open space before the main hall, everyone felt a jumble of emotions. Nature made no distinctions—fundamentally, they were no different from the monkeys leaping through the mountains. But as humans, facing such a brutal kind of devouring, it would be a lie to say it didn’t hurt.

Several tour vans and buses that used to ferry visitors into the mountains were still parked in the lot. As they walked toward it, a few of the buses suddenly began to make noises, their bodies rocking and shaking.

“No one said buses could mutate too,” Luo Lei blurted out, instantly ducking behind Lin Mengzhi. “That’s really not scientific.”

Wu Heng, seated higher up with a broader view, saw more clearly. “They’re zombies.”

Deep in the mountains, they hadn’t encountered zombies for a long time. Mutated plants and animals, along with natural disasters, had become their new threats. Now, seeing zombies again—those hideous, rotting faces suddenly plastered against the bus windows—gave everyone a sharp fright.

Wang Meixia and the others, who had never seen real, flesh-eating zombies before, froze in place.

But the poppy, who had been following Wu Heng from start to finish, dragged them forward by their legs regardless.

“They’re all zombies,” Lin Mengzhi said, standing outside one of the windows. The glass was smeared with streaks of darkened, filthy blood. Inside, the zombies were emaciated—some of them even missing half their bodies.

“Either tourists or staff.”

“Yeah, some of them still have staff badges on their clothes.”

“Who locked them inside the buses? Is there someone nearby? Or did someone pass through here like we did?”

The others slowly moved closer to inspect the scene, then looked toward the remaining vehicles, trying to find one that was still usable and free of zombies.

At that moment, Luo Lei—who had been sticking close to Lin Mengzhi the whole time—suddenly widened his eyes.

“Mom!” Without a second thought, he sprinted toward a bus nearby.

Wu Heng watched his retreating figure, his eyes narrowing.

Luo Lei reached out and grabbed the door handle. With a loud bang, he yanked the bus door outward with all his strength—but it didn’t budge. The vine beneath his feet sprouted branches and leaves, crawling over the door and pinning it firmly to the bus body. No matter how hard Luo Lei strained, it wouldn’t move an inch.

In just that short moment, Luo Lei was already drenched in sweat, his face streaked with tears. When he realized the door wouldn’t open, his reason gradually returned amid the howling from inside.

He let go of the handle and moved around to the rear section of the bus, staring at the middle-aged female zombie pressed against the window. Her hair was completely disheveled, her orange sweater smeared with filthy blood. Half her neck was missing, her eye sockets were rotting. She opened her mouth dully, letting out a low, rasping snarl.

“Mom!” Luo Lei slapped the window. “Mom! Mom, how did you end up here? Why weren’t you at home? Mom, look at me, I’m here…”

He shouted until his voice was hoarse, but that zombie was no different from the others—except that it snarled more viciously, even more frantically hungry to feed.

“Mom, look at me, look at me! I’m Luo Lei, I’m Luo Lei! Mom!” Luo Lei cried and screamed without stopping. He couldn’t accept that he had simply gone out for a hiking trip, and the person he depended on for everything had turned into a man-eating monster that would never recognize him again.

Watching this, Wang Meixia and Liu Dongfan shed tears of fear. They exchanged a glance and understood what the other was thinking—their own children were probably in grave danger.

Lin Mengzhi ran over in long strides and pulled the sobbing man away from the window. “Your mom is already dead. What’s here now is a zombie. Try to accept it.”

“How am I supposed to accept it?” Luo Lei cried. “She must have come here looking for me. If she could make it all the way here, that means she was still normal before she arrived—so she became like this because of me. I’m the one who did this to my mom.”

“You’re telling me to accept it—how can I? What right do you have—”

“Pretty much the same,” Lin Mengzhi cut him off irritably. “I indirectly caused my grandma’s death too.”

Luo Lei stopped crying. He shook off Lin Mengzhi’s hand. “That’s different. If I hadn’t gone hiking…”

“If you hadn’t gone hiking, you might already be dead right now.” Lin Mengzhi cut Luo Lei off again.

“Don’t make assumptions sound so good. The best possible outcome is always the present,” Shen Ping’an said, patting Luo Lei on the shoulder from behind. “Your mom might be thinking the exact opposite of you. She’d probably think: thank goodness you weren’t at home.”

“What about these zombies? Leave them locked in the buses?” Lin Mengzhi asked.

“Kill them,” Shen Ping’an said.

Luo Lei: “No—”

The bus door was opened. A zombie clinging to the door tumbled out and crashed to the ground, and the ones behind it surged out after it. In an instant, the zombies poured toward them.

Lin Mengzhi unleashed a wave of fire—there was hardly any need to make a big fuss.

Luo Lei stood off to the side, his face as white as paper, the reflected image of the woman’s screaming, struggling face flickering in his pupils. “Mom… Mom…” he murmured.

Without warning, he spat out a mouthful of blood, clutching his chest as pain overwhelmed him, and collapsed to the ground.

Shen Ping’an went to another vehicle. He used his ability sparingly, partly to avoid letting the offshoots affect the main body. He drew the two long blades he habitually carried on his back. With a twist of his wrist, zombie heads were pierced through like tofu.

Under Ruan Silian’s guidance, Wang Meixia and Liu Dongfan endured their nausea and dug energy cores out of the scattered zombie heads on the ground.

“What can these be used for?”

“They can be used to upgrade abilities, replenish energy, and they can also serve as currency.”

So it was money. The two of them felt their physical discomfort ease a little.

Ninety-nine percent of zombie skulls contained untyped energy cores—crystal-clear, but holding very little energy. Ruan Silian, drenched in sweat, pried them out one by one and stuffed them into her satchel. Then she realized something was off: the number she’d collected didn’t match the weight she was carrying.

She instinctively went to look for Wu Heng, only to make an even more horrifying discovery—the boy was riding a dog larger than a horse, stretching out his hand eagerly beneath the cliff face where the beehives were clustered in the distance.

Wu Heng balanced a fully bloomed poppy in his fingertips and offered it to the nearest beehive. After a moment, he withdrew his hand; sprawled across the center of the flower was a bee about half the size of a fist.

It had indeed mutated, but its basic physiology hadn’t changed much.

Wu Heng lifted his head. The beehives were scattered across the entire cliff face, interspersed at different heights amid dense vegetation and carpets of moss.

Behind him, Ruan Silian came running over.

He pressed his palm against a patch of soft, cool moss. Green light flickered, and in the blink of an eye, vines surged forth like a nest of snakes.

This time, however, Wu Heng’s purpose was neither attack nor plunder. The vines gently enclosed half of the beehives within their territorial range, branches and leaves spreading as if merging seamlessly with the surrounding landscape. The beehives showed no sign of alarm.

Soon, buds began to emerge beneath the vine-covered foliage. One by one, they bloomed—black petals unfurling, still beaded with crystalline dew.

By the time she reached him, Ruan Silian was panting. “Be careful.”

“I’ve tested it. They’ll collect nectar on their own,” Wu Heng said without turning around, his head tilted up as he admired his handiwork.

One by one, the bees cautiously ventured out of their hives. They were far larger than before, so the poppies bloomed bigger and in greater numbers to lure them in. The moment the bees drew close to the vines, their figures vanished in an instant, dragged into his space.

The air gradually filled with the light fragrance of poppies. Even with the entire cliff face covered in blossoms, the scent never grew heavy—barely there, not cloying in the least. It was like the cool juice pressed from mint leaves, tinged with a hint of camphor blossom: more coolness and astringency than sweetness, a scent that matched Wu Heng’s temperament all too well.

Wu Heng took away a third of the bees. In the end, he produced two large glass jars and handed one to Ruan Silian.

“Collect some honey to take with us.” He then took out two spoons.

“Do they sting?” Ruan Silian edged over cautiously, rising onto her tiptoes.

She turned her head—and saw that Wu Heng had already broken off a large slab of honey straight from the hive.

“…”

Golden honey dripped down drop by drop. The two of them held their cups underneath, watching as the honey slowly filled them.

“Want to try some?”

“…So sweet! Sweeter than before!”

“Probably because most of the flowers in the mountains have absorbed post-apocalypse energy. The honey they produce ends up sweeter too.”

“Hey?! What are you doing?” A coarse male voice suddenly rang out, making the forest shudder. Wu Heng turned his head.

A burly, thickset man stood not far away, gripping a rake in his hand and glaring at them. When he saw the cups brimming with honey, his face darkened at once.

“Ah—!” He let out a roar, then threw down the rake and charged toward them.

Wu Heng and Ruan Silian were about to react when, halfway through his sprint, the man’s clothes suddenly split apart. Black, needle-like fur burst out from beneath the fabric. He dropped to all fours, his body swelling to twice its size. Each slap of his limbs against the ground left a huge crater, and his head gradually warped, a dog-like muzzle pushing out—

“It’s a black bear,” Wu Heng said, pulling Ruan Silian behind him. He stood up, originally intending to skewer the bear straight through. But considering that the creature’s fury was, after all, caused by him, he instead made the shrubs on the ground surge up, binding the black bear tightly in place.

The bear roared skyward for a while. When it realized it was useless, it shifted back into human form, still bristling with rage.

“Thieves!”

“Robbers!”

“No morals!”

“Putting on a decent human front…”

“What’s the use of being good-looking?”

“Tch—two little girls, stealing things.”

Only after he’d finished cursing did Ruan Silian step forward. “I’m sorry. We thought these bees didn’t have an owner.”

“I’m their owner!!!” the man shouted. “I raised every one of these bees! I went through hell and high water—shoveling shit and pissing myself to bring them up! Was it easy for me? And then you people just come along and pick the fruit right off the tree! I don’t care—either way, you have to compensate me!”

“Go catch me two fish to eat!!! I want fish! I won’t eat anything under ten jin—I want big fish!”

At that moment, Lin Mengzhi and the others arrived, bringing along a dazed Luo Lei. Wu Heng spotted Luo Lei at once and pulled him to his side. “Is this the beekeeper?”

Luo Lei stared for a long while before finally nodding under Wu Heng’s expectant gaze. “It’s him.”

Half an hour later, the beekeeper led them to a nearby river where the current roared violently. Water splashed so hard it had snapped many of the branches along both banks—just looking at it made people afraid to get close.

“Something’s off,” Liu Dongfan said skeptically. “What kind of river like this would have the kind of big fish you’re talking about?”

“I’m saying there are fish because I tried catching them and failed,” Zhou Shan replied stiffly, urging them on. “Do you think I’d lie to you? Hurry up. I want to eat fish.”

“Aren’t you a bear?” Lin Mengzhi said, watching as the river tore away another chunk of the bank. “Why don’t you just eat honey? Bears on TV all eat honey.”

The next second, Lin Mengzhi was lifted straight off the ground by Zhou Shan. The man bared his fangs. “If you don’t go, I’ll eat you instead.”

Wu Heng ignored them. He walked downstream, the water rising to cover his calves. In an instant, the branches along both sides of the river surged with growth, thrusting into the water, growing ever denser and stronger—until the raging current gradually softened and calmed.

Vines drifted gently across a stretch of flattened water, looking utterly harmless. But when gray shadows swept past beneath the surface, they pierced down into the river with lightning speed.

Soon, a pile of big fish lay stacked in front of Zhou Shan, higher than his belly.

Wu Heng let his pant legs fall back down and walked out of the water. Upstream, the plants withdrew as well, and the river returned to its former turbulence.

“Is that enough?” He bent down, grabbed a fish, and tore into it with a bite. No wonder the bear-man had been shouting about wanting fish—it really was delicious. No fishy taste at all, the flesh tender and sweet.

Zhou Shan looked at the fish, then at the one who had caught them. “E-Enough… enough.”

Before Wu Heng could speak, Shukui had already read his expression. It stepped forward, squatted down in front of Zhou Shan, and—without drawing any attention—swallowed two of the fish.

“We should go,” Wu Heng said as he mounted the dog.

The group turned and followed him.

“…Hey…” Zhou Shan hugged a fish to his chest, took a few frantic bites, then chased after them from behind. “Hey, hey, where are you going?”

He had finally run into other people, and now they were leaving again. The honey was instantly forgotten. He wanted them to stay a little longer.

“With the wind and rain like this, it’s really not safe out there. This place isn’t exactly safe either, but do you really have to rush off like that?”

“Stay and hang around for a bit. Have you eaten? I’ve marinated a lot of meat with honey—why not stay and have a meal?”

The group, who had been walking with their heads down, all stopped at the same time.

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