Eaten Ch.138

Chapter 138: A Perfect HE

“There are deer here?”

“Of course there are deer in Shenjian. Weren’t they calling out earlier? You didn’t hear them?”

“I thought it was sheep!”

Shen Ping’an had already carried his knife over to the deer. He bent down and lifted the collapsed belly and the missing front leg—there was almost no need to guess: Doctor Chen had gotten to it first.

He frowned, brushed aside the discomfort in his chest, and began skinning it. But before long, seven or eight people crowded up behind him, knives flashing as several short blades were drawn. “We’ll do it, we’ll do it. You’re just a kid, move aside.”

Their movements were indeed cleaner and more efficient, and they seemed far more familiar with anatomy. The deer hide came off without a single tear, and when they broke down the meat it was like disassembling machine parts—tendons and bones separating smoothly, with no wasted motion.

“You all live this lavishly on a regular basis?” someone couldn’t help asking Shen Ping’an as they worked, apparently taking him to be the most steady-looking one nearby.

“Food is the people’s heaven,” Shen Ping’an said.

“That’s true. You really don’t feel it until times like these,” Wang Ruixiang couldn’t help reciting a verse:

“Take one life with nothing else to do—

hungry, eat; sleepy, sleep~”

No one paid him any attention, so he shot Shen Ping’an a look. “Hey, classmate—are you a liberal arts student or a science student?”

“Science.”

“Then we don’t have a common language,” Wang Ruixiang said. “What’s your name, then?”

“Shen Ping’an.”

“Good name!” Yang Xiaoyun gave a thumbs-up. “It pairs really well with Wang Xiangrui.”

“Correction—it’s Wang Ruixiang.”

“Got it, Wang Xiangrui.”

Shen Ping’an didn’t join in their banter. He stayed on the sidelines. After a while, he asked with some puzzlement, “Did Jingzhou give you my information?”

“Not much,” Yang Xiaoyun said. “Just headcount and your backgrounds. They didn’t even give us names. But we know quite a bit about Wu Heng—his position with us is different from yours.”

“How much do you know about him?”

“Name, age, height, ability type, personality, hobbies, family background… we know a bit of everything that can be known,” Wang Ruixiang replied politely.

“Know yourself and know your enemy, and you’ll never be defeated?”

“No, no, no, that’s not what I mean. We’re friends. Friends, not enemies.”

Shen Ping’an looked around, then turned back. “Your captain is Wen Yuan?”

Yang Xiaoyun said, “Only Jiang Xun and I were originally on Captain Wen’s team. Our whole team actually had thirty people—twenty-seven died. Do you remember when we ran into you in that town last time? The others there were also our teammates, but they all sacrificed themselves. This current unit was temporarily put together by Colonel Xie. We’re not all from the same system. For example, we used to only carry out the most dangerous special missions. Wang Xiangrui used to fly fighter jets on ships.”

“Holy shit, you can just say that?” Wang Ruixiang lowered his voice, eyes wide.

“What’s wrong with saying it?” Yang Xiaoyun snorted. “Captain Wen is still Captain Wen, but now we’ve been split into four squads. Each squad has the highest-level ability user as squad leader. I’m the squad leader of our group, Wang Xiangrui is the leader of their squad, and the other two squad leaders are Captain Wen and Jiang Yi.”

“Jiang Yi is a plant symbiote,” Shen Ping’an said, spotting the young man speaking quietly with Wen Yuan. “He’s an S-rank symbiotic host. Has Jingzhou found a way for hosts and plants to coexist peacefully?”

Yang Xiaoyun coughed twice and waved his hand. “Nope. Even energy inhibitors don’t work, especially now that it’s spring. The Earth’s geomagnetic activity is intense, energy is surging. This time, the number of plant symbiotes we’ve detected has increased explosively, and their levels are rising extremely fast.”

Wang Ruixiang’s expression also grew grave. “That’s not a good thing. It’s like forcing seedlings to grow—an explosive surge like this is followed by a cliff-like collapse.”

“These aren’t ability users at all,” someone said quietly. “This is mutated plants harvesting humanity.”

“Yeah. At the beginning we turned everything upside down and could barely find a few plant symbiotes. But recently they’ve been popping up batch after batch; cactus, fiddle-leaf fig, snow willow, lilies, dancing orchids. And a lot of these plants only look pretty. Their sap is usually toxic. It’s a huge pain.”

This time, Shen Ping’an was genuinely curious. He squatted down. “What do people look like after being ‘harvested’ by plant symbiotes?”

“That’s hard to say. Plants are still just plants. They amplify the host’s desires—or rather, they push mild thoughts into extreme behavior. Take the dancing orchid we captured some time ago. The host was a boy. Before the apocalypse, he was a huge internet celebrity. What he cared about most was his face. We interacted with him, he seemed like a decent person. But a few days later, one of our teammates had his skin peeled off by him. When we found him, he was in a room, trying on his ‘new clothes.’”

When Yang Xiaoyun got to this point, his throat tightened, hatred seeping into his voice. “Do you know how disgusting I felt when I saw him wearing my teammate’s skin, turning around and asking us if it looked good?”

“Then your teammate must’ve been very handsome,” Shen Ping’an said.

Yang Xiaoyun rubbed his nose. Beside him, Wang Ruixiang said, “That’s true. He went viral online in high school because he was good-looking. He applied to a military academy not for any other reason, but to get away from people harassing him. And he was outstanding, every mission he took on, he completed beautifully.”

Wang Ruixiang went on, “So the scariest thing about plant symbiotes is that they can tamper with human will. Because of that, we’ve also noticed how wood-type abilities differ from other powers…” At this point, his eyes lit up and he suddenly looked energized. “Creation.”

Yang Xiaoyun shot Wang Ruixiang a speechless look. “But that’s all still just theory. The wood-type I know just stays home growing succulents every day. I’ve got nothing to say about that.”

After he finished, he suddenly grew serious and looked at Shen Ping’an. “Wu Heng is a plant symbiote, right? The files say there’s also a student surnamed Shen who’s a plant symbiote—that should be you. Wu Heng’s level is already very high. I’m not sure about yours. So what do you think—how are you and him doing right now?”

Shen Ping’an said he was fine. When it came to Wu Heng, he paused for a moment. “Wu Heng is doing very well.”

“That’s good, then. If you feel unwell at any point, say it right away. Maybe after we peel the mutated plant out of your body, we can still find a way to keep you alive,” Yang Xiaoyun said, patting Shen Ping’an on the shoulder. “Brother, let’s survive together!”

Shen Ping’an realized that Yang Xiaoyun was also the type who ignited easily.

—

In front of Wu Heng sat a folding table. It wasn’t something he had brought himself, but since it had been placed there, he didn’t refuse it.

On the table was a slab of bright red venison from the deer’s chest, dozens of pounds heavy. Blood dripped from both ends onto the grass. He sliced off strip after strip with a dagger and fed them into his mouth. The dog on his left and the bird on his right were both drooling.

X pretended not to care and flicked its head, flinging a string of saliva that landed on the back of Wu Heng’s hand.

Lin Mengzhi watched the entire process from start to finish, clicked his tongue in disgust, then led the dog and carried X over to the bustling “back kitchen.”

“Give the kids something to eat,” Lin Mengzhi casually asked a nearby team member.

Yue Shanqing looked blank.

X reluctantly spoke to this fellow member of its species: “Give. Food.”

“Wait a moment,” Yue Shanqing said. He took out his knife and walked over to the small hill of unprocessed raw venison. The leg bone was far too thick and long—bigger than Shukui itself by a full circle—so he found a deer hoof. For X, he chose a strip of tenderloin.

Yue Shanqing was a meticulous and fair-minded person. The hoof had more bone than meat, so he also cut off part of the tenderloin and shared it with Shukui.

X’s beak opened and closed; the long strip of meat went down with a gulp and vanished without a trace.

“Give some. Give some more,” it struggled under Lin Mengzhi’s arm.

Yue Shanqing thought that it was normal for mutated animals to have big appetites, so he went to cut several more pounds of meat.

X still swallowed it in a single bite.

“Give some,” it said again.

Yue Shanqing was about to cut more when Lin Mengzhi stopped him. “That’s enough, that’s enough. It’ll never stop eating. What it’s had just now should at least make it half full.”

Shukui was still sprawled on the grass, huffing and puffing as it gnawed on its piece of bone. The tenderloin beside it had long since been cleaned up as well.

“These two gluttons actually can eat, huh? Thanks.” Lin Mengzhi kicked Shukui lightly and turned to leave. Shukui trotted along behind him, bone still clutched in its mouth.

At this moment, the three creatures’ backs looked like a perfect happy ending in a movie.

It even made Yue Shanqing momentarily dazed—how could anyone live so carefree and joyful in a world full of danger and hunger like this apocalypse?

Wu Heng, still eating in place, was already submerged below the head in the branches of the poppy plant. Its roots dug deep into the damp earth, drawing energy from the ground. The more energy it absorbed, the darker and more vivid the cluster of flowers on Wu Heng’s shoulder became.

Lin Mengzhi and the others had never encountered a symbiote whose will had been consumed by a mutated plant, so they took it in stride.

But over on Wen Yuan’s side, people had dealt with this before, more than once. Seeing this scene made their hearts race uncontrollably.

This seductive yet eerie sight could only make someone who didn’t understand the situation imagine the worst.

Wen Yuan slowly approached Wu Heng.

“Step aside.” Wu Heng’s clear, calm voice rang out.

Wen Yuan froze. Before he could react, the vines that had crawled onto Wu Heng’s head began to slowly retract.

Wen Yuan put away the energy blade in his palm and stood behind Wu Heng. “Never let your guard down around mutated plants. They could rebel at any moment.”

Wu Heng nodded, acknowledging he understood.

From behind, Wen Yuan watched Wu Heng’s slender back disappear into the tangle of plants. He recalled Xie Yi’s instructions before departure: he must help Wu Heng establish a new base, which might become a new home for humanity.

“Do you really place so much expectation on him? He’s just a high school student,” a junior officer murmured. Wen Yuan didn’t look down on the person Xie Yi spoke of—he just thought such overwhelming expectations could also be excessive pressure.

“The more critical the moment, the more you must seize even the smallest chance.”

Even so, Wen Yuan still felt it was too much. He couldn’t help thinking: after all, this is still just a child.

“Captain Wen.” Wu Heng finished the last bite of meat, casually grabbed a leaf to wipe his mouth, didn’t turn around, and said in a low voice, “I want to speak with Xie Chongyi.”

Wen Yuan assumed this was urgent and waved to summon Jiang Xun.

Jiang Xun was clearly a metal—or maybe magnetic—type. She sat cross-legged across from Wu Heng and handed him a device resembling a cochlear implant. “Put this on.”

Wu Heng wore the cochlear device. Instantly, all external sounds vanished. He looked at Jiang Xun. “Ready.”

Jiang Xun placed her palm over the folding table. A golden sphere instantly expanded into a circular disc over ten centimeters in diameter, energy rippling in layered waves.

Then Jiang Xun pulled a card with an embedded chip from her pocket and placed it on the disc. Within seconds, the two energies merged, and a tiny red light the size of a grain of rice flickered above.

“This card was given by Tang Yan. Only a metal-type can activate it. The main card is at the control center, so I can only connect you there. Once it’s connected, you can talk.”

No sooner had Jiang Xun finished speaking than the cochlear device in Wu Heng’s ear crackled with static.

A cold, icy female voice came through: “Get to the point. If it’s nothing, I’ll kill you when you get back, Jiang Xun.”

“Hello, this is Wu Heng.”

Silence on the other end.

Then came two coughs in Wu Heng’s ear. The voice returned, now gentle as if it were a completely different person:

“Hello, I’m Operator 98076234A1. Please go ahead.”

“I’m looking for Xie Chongyi.”

The other side was using Jiang Xun’s authorization. She had accompanied Wen Yuan on an important mission. The person on the other side was an extraordinary young man. Jingzhou couldn’t hide it, and naturally, the control center’s information was widely known.

A1 guessed silently that the one using Jiang Xun’s authorization might indeed be that young man, while simultaneously checking the approximate location of Executor 09.

“Xie Chongyi isn’t in Jingzhou today,” the operator said.

Wu Heng’s eyelashes twitched, his eyelids drooping slightly. “I see.”

Hearing the disappointed tone, A1’s internal alarm bells went off. Could this be something serious?

“If it’s important, I can pass along a message for you,” the operator offered.

“It’s nothing.”

The boy’s expression remained indifferent, revealing no trace of displeasure. He simply pressed his fingers to the cochlear device, about to remove it. But he paused for a moment, then put it back on, and said lightly to the other side: “When he comes back, tell him the venison was delicious. It hasn’t rained in Shenjian anymore.”

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