Chapter 145: “It’s family”
“Your hair’s come loose,” Shen Ping’an said.
Wu Heng gave a vague hum, casually raked his fingers through it a couple of times, and kept eating.
Having gone without sleep all night, everyone took a short rest where they were after the meal.
Shukui lay sprawled out like a textbook fan quan pang shape. Wu Heng leaned against its stiff—but at least clean and warm—belly. X curled up in his arms, its round, gleaming eyes fixed the whole time on Shen Ping’an a few meters away.
Wu Heng slept fitfully and felt someone pat his shoulder.
He thought he was dreaming and ignored it.
“Wu Heng, there’s a call from Jingzhou.”
At the words a call from Jingzhou, Wu Heng finally opened his eyes slowly. He saw Jiang Xun’s face above him; in her hand she held the cochlear device that could connect to the Jingzhou Information Center.
“Xie Chongyi?” Wu Heng asked hoarsely.
Jiang Xun nodded, supported his head, helped him put on the earpiece, then sat down beside him.
Once the earpiece was on, a very soft but clear female voice sounded.
“Connection established. You can speak now—he can hear you.”
Wu Heng had thought she was speaking to him. Just as he was about to open his mouth, another voice came through the earpiece first.
“Wu Heng, this is Xie Chongyi,” the young man said unhurriedly. “I listened to the message you left me. Did you miss me?”
Wu Heng answered with a question instead. “When will your handover be finished?”
“Soon. Once the plague control work at the northern base is wrapped up, I’ll be able to leave.” Xie Chongyi twirled the pen on his desk as he listened to Wu Heng’s voice. Before long, he tossed the pen aside, rolled the thick stack of documents on the desk into a tube and let it spring open—rolled it, released it, rolled it again.
A1’s brows knit tighter and tighter, until he stopped rolling and started tearing, shredding it bit by bit.
She snatched the stack of documents away. Xie Chongyi didn’t even twitch an eyebrow and went back to spinning the pen.
“Is the plague very serious?” Wu Heng asked.
“Somewhat. The entire northern base is at risk of falling. They’re already discussing whether to coordinate a southward evacuation, but there are nearly a million people at the northern base—moving south would be extraordinarily difficult.”
Wu Heng had assumed it was just a plague like the seasonal flu—boil a couple of doses of detoxifying herbal medicine, force it down, and that would be that. He hadn’t expected it to be this serious.
“Even ability users can get infected?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t affect me,” Xie Chongyi said, the pen spinning more slowly between his fingers. “You’re worried about me.”
Wu Heng said he was, a little.
“Me too. But I’m worried about more than just your personal safety,” Xie Chongyi lifted his eyes. From behind the constantly rising and falling soundwave lines on the screen, he caught sight of the smile on his own face. It wasn’t like most of his smiles—right now he looked far too easygoing, and far too disgusting. “I’m also worried some weird creature out in the wilderness might bite you.”
“Shenjian have always been like that,” Wu Heng replied.
“Then be extra careful~”
Only then did Wu Heng frown.
Realizing that the other side had caught the subtext in his words, Xie Chongyi laughed, pressing his forehead to the desk.
Wu Heng listened to the laughter with a blank expression. When Xie Chongyi finally stopped, he said softly, “Little rascal.”
“What does that mean?” Xie Chongyi tossed the pen aside and propped his face on his hand. “What little rascal?”
“I heard it by chance at the Liuying Base,” Wu Heng said, lightly grinding his back teeth. “I’ll tell you when you get here… Xiao Xie?”
Xie Chongyi’s mind hadn’t even processed the Xiao Xie yet, but his body reacted first. It felt like someone had pressed hard on his heart with their thumb—no blood, no pain, just a sour, itchy sensation. The pressure mark vanished, the heart muscle rebounded, and the feeling only intensified in waves.
He fully came back to himself, stopped playing with the pen, and leaned forward with a smile. “Say it again.”
Wu Heng didn’t indulge him. “I’m going to sleep.”
“Hey—”
Wu Heng handed the earpiece back to Jiang Xun. She wanted to gossip but held herself back, said, “I’m off then,” and actually left.
Xie Chongyi took off the signal receiver from his head. He didn’t leave his chair right away, instead spinning it around. Behind him was a group of staff inside the signal tower—some sitting, some standing, all of them with eyes practically glowing with gossip.
“Xie Chongyi, I feel like I watched you grow up.”
“Same here, same here.”
“I watched your mom grow up.”
“Does your mom know?”
“At a time like this, you still have the mood for romance? Come here—show me a photo of the one on the other end.”
“So that’s why Jingzhou couldn’t keep you. Turns out there’s someone out there.”
“Poor choice of words.” Xie Chongyi stood up, straightened his clothes, and hooked his lips into a smile. “It’s family.”
“Oho!”
After saying that, Xie Chongyi turned and left the tower top, which was enclosed by several massive panes of glass.
Unlike the bright, spotless office area, the other activity zones were dim and old. The floors and walls relied on ability energy to maintain their stability.
He stopped in front of the elevator. Behind it was a hollow space so deep it looked like an abyss at a glance. A locust tree pierced straight through the tower, reaching from bottom to top; its branches spread out on every floor. It was the primary energy source that kept the entire signal tower running.
With a clang, the elevator in operation came to a stop, its doors sliding open to either side.
The man standing in the center of the car withdrew his gaze from the ceiling. Just as he was about to walk out, leaning on his cane, he saw Xie Chongyi standing outside the doors.
Xie Chongyi slowly slipped his right hand into his pocket and greeted him with a smile. “Good morning.”
Wu Mo was long used to the other man’s smile that never quite reached his eyes. He replied sincerely, “Have you eaten?”
Xie Chongyi kept smiling. “Good morning.”
“The colonel said you’ll be heading to Siwangzhidi before long? That place isn’t safe.”
“Good morning.”
“Xiao Xie, can you talk like a normal person?”
“Good morning.”
“…” Wu Mo sighed. The two people behind him followed him out of the elevator. Seeing this, Xie Chongyi took two steps back, turned aside—and stepped into the elevator instead.
After turning around inside the elevator, before the doors had even closed, Wu Mo—his back to Xie Chongyi—said, “I was too impulsive back then…”
Another clang sounded as the elevator was already descending.
In the dim corridor, the sound of breathing gradually steadied. The back Wu Mo had bent when facing Xie Chongyi slowly straightened again. He walked forward with calm, steady steps; the cane was nothing more than an ornament.
As they were about to reach the top of the tower, his attendants quickened their pace, went ahead, and pushed open the door.
The Wu Mo who appeared in the full view of everyone at the information center was completely different from the Wu Mo—the “little man”—in Xie Chongyi’s eyes.
He was not yet thirty, yet his temples were already snow-white. His overly sharp bone structure and a pair of narrow, shrewd eyes made him look like a lizard. He wore a long white lab coat issued by the institute, yellowed from repeated washing, with many stains of ink and blood that could no longer be scrubbed clean.
Standing there, he looked as though he could see straight through the secrets in everyone’s heart.
Those who had been chattering and gossiping a moment earlier fell completely silent the instant Wu Mo appeared. One by one, they stood up, solemn and respectful.
“Hello, Director Wu.”
—
The rain was still falling, and Shenjian looked even more vast and imposing than before.
“I can feel it,” Chen Qiong spoke up. “The energy around us is more than twice as strong as when we first came in.”
“When was the last time it rained?” Jiang Xun asked.
“That would take us back to four years ago—”
“Shut up.” Jiang Xun shot him a look. “The last rain caused an explosive surge in Earth’s energy wells.”
“Then this rain—”
The sentence wasn’t finished, but everyone already had an answer in their hearts.
“Let’s move first. We’ll talk after meeting up with Captain Wen,” Jiang Xun said. Her long leg crushed a shrub that had crept silently to her feet. She bent down, yanked the still-growing bush up by the roots, and flung it down the mountainside.
X squatted on Xue Qi’s head and shouted, “Go go go!”
…
The next day, after crossing several more steep ridges and perilous peaks in succession, a water source finally appeared before them—but it looked neither quite like a lake nor quite like a river. It was choked with vegetation; even shrubs were growing directly out of the water, making it look so dark green it was almost black.
The water’s surface was carpeted with duckweed. Between the mats, plankton crawled and swam, constantly splashing up ripples.
“This water, it’s dirty,” Lin Jie said, squatting by the pond. He lifted a handful of something like nasal mucus, even gave it a sniff. “Fishy.”
“Detour?” Yang Xiaoyun suggested.
“First confirm the… size of this thing,” Jiang Xun said.
“I’ll do it.” Wu Heng was riding the dog. From his higher vantage point he looked down—not in a way that invited disdain, just simply because he was sitting high and could only look down. His eyes were still devoid of emotion.
Beneath the ground, dense networks of plant roots spread everywhere. Using the plant network as a guide, it took less than a minute to determine the pond’s size.
But this was not a pond one could bypass in a single minute.
“Based on our coordinates, it stretches over eighty kilometers long, about fifty kilometers wide. The deepest points exceed two hundred meters; the shallowest point is right where we’re standing. The average depth is under one and a half meters,” Wu Heng said, withdrawing his ability.
He quietly watched the water’s surface and the vegetation rising above it. Compared with detouring, crossing directly would obviously be more efficient—but the danger was also much higher.
Xue Qi hopped up in front of Shukui’s dog head and gestured. “Do you mean only this small patch in front of us is just over a meter deep, or that from our feet all the way to the opposite shore it’s all just over a meter?”
“At the shallowest, the water might not even reach your knees. At the deepest, it can be four or five meters. But averaged out, it really is just over a meter.”
“And there’s something under the water.”
“What kind of something?” Yang Xiaoyun asked.
“Go down and take a look,” Wu Heng said bluntly.
“How are we moving—detour or cross?” Lin Jie asked. His cooking was bad, but his temper wasn’t any better, and he was already growing impatient.
“Cross directly,” Wu Heng said. “But you’re the ones crossing. I’m not.”
…?
As everyone was still baffled, the mud beneath their feet shifted. The poppy sent out several thick vines along the shoreline, spreading into a wide row. Once its body was filled with energy, with a series of whoosh sounds, it swept toward the crowns, leaves, and branches of the plants floating on the water’s surface.
At the same time, the plants growing in the water began to change as well. Those not tall enough actively stretched their branches, while those outside the vines’ planned aerial pathway leaned in from both sides, forming natural handrails, and from below lifted and supported the structure.
Wu Heng jumped down to the ground and patted Shukui’s leg. Shukui obediently shrank back to the size of a normal greyhound.
“You’re building a bridge?! Is that even reliable?” Yang Xiaoyun rushed over to him. “If someone falls into the water, that’s no joke.”
“If we fall, we fall. Detouring would add more than double the distance.”
“But if it costs lives, it’s not worth it,” Lin Jie said, thinking Wu Heng was still too young.
“How is it not worth it?” Wu Heng shot back.
“…”
“Anyone who wants to detour can detour. Anyone who wants to take the water route can take the water route. And if you want to swim straight across, feel free.” After saying that, Wu Heng fastened a rope onto Shukui and led it onto the lush green plank bridge, still dotted with flower buds.
The bridge hovered four to five meters above the water. Visually it looked thin and light; when someone stepped onto it, it swayed slightly, yet it was exceptionally solid, without sinking in the slightest.
Shen Ping’an and Xue Qi followed Wu Heng right away. Xue Qi wanted Shen Ping’an to carry him; Shen Ping’an pushed him away, and he stuck close again.
“I’m afraid of water,” Xue Qi said.
“Xue Shen once said you have a diving certificate.”
“Spiders are afraid of water.”
Xue Qi got his wish and hopped onto Shen Ping’an’s back, craning his head around. “Are there fish in the water?”
“If it’s stagnant water, there won’t be.”
“But A’Heng said there’s something in there.”
“Which means the water under our feet isn’t stagnant.”
“So there are fish?”
“Not necessarily fish.”
Jiang Xun watched as the three of them disappeared into the thin layer of mist above the water. Only the occasional voice drifting back proved that they were still safe.
“Captain Jiang, are we going or not? Say the word.”
Jiang Xun didn’t answer. Instead, she extended her reconnaissance to an energy field dozens of kilometers away. The forest was rapidly expanding and growing taller; the distance between the mountain peaks and the sky steadily shrank. Various exotic beasts were astonishingly huge—and at the far end of the pond, there was a waterfall thousands of zhang high.
This wasn’t stagnant water. It had a source—though that source didn’t necessarily lie on the surface.
Retracting her ability, Jiang Xun shoved Yang Xiaoyun onto the bridge first. “The end isn’t passable. Move, catch up to them.”
Wu Heng looked down at his feet. In the center of every duckweed leaf sat a tiny pool of water, and inside each little pool small insects hopped about. Beneath the duckweed, clusters of black shadows slid past—each trailing a long tail that forked at the tip. Their bodies were worm-long, yet their front halves looked like turtles.
There were snails too, only they were too lazy to move, densely plastered across the bottom or clinging to thick plant roots.
The water was shallow, yet dark. Beside the shallow strip—only one or two meters wide—lay a deep-water zone whose depth was impossible to gauge.
Wu Heng was afraid of water.
He remembered back in middle school, when he’d gone to the swimming pool with Wu Shiming and the others. Wu Zhi had been tricked by a few boys into going into the deep end. He hadn’t noticed. Afterward, the pool’s lifeguard brought Wu Zhi back and scolded Wu Shiming and Zeng Like—her guardians—harshly.
Wu Shiming had thanked the lifeguard profusely on the surface, never letting that refined, gentle expression crack.
But once they got home, Wu Shiming filled the bathtub with water and shoved him in. Gripping the back of his neck, he pressed him down to the bottom of the tub. Wu Shiming counted the time, hauled him out just as he was about to suffocate, then shoved him back under again.
For a week afterward, he coughed up blood; even his breathing reeked of iron. Later he came down with pneumonia.
It was his grandmother who, half-blind, took him to see a doctor.
He was no longer afraid of Wu Shiming. But his fear of water seemed to have been carved into his very bones.
Yet whatever one fears does not necessarily allow one to escape it. Sometimes, he would even step forward to meet it head-on—be shattered, then reassembled—into a feeling of rebirth, utterly new.
Behind him, the others had clearly followed onto the bridge as well. Wu Heng glanced back—and was left momentarily speechless.
—Xue Qi was sprawled on Shen Ping’an’s back, with X sprawled on Xue Qi’s back, the three of them stacked into a single pile.
Jiang Xun and the others also came into view.
“Those down there are triops—prehistoric creatures,” Lin Jie reminded everyone. “But there’s definitely more than just that in the water. Other waters will have other things too. Stay alert.”
Chen Qiong, farther back, praised him for being knowledgeable.
“When I play cards, I’ve got a triops card,” Lin Jie said weakly.
Shen Ping’an frowned up ahead. “Prehistoric creatures?”
“I know triops,” Xue Qi said. “They originated two hundred million years ago. Their life cycle is very short—just a few dozen days—but their eggs can survive for decades even without water. As soon as it rains, the eggs come back to life.”
“So maybe this is just a reservoir? A pond formed by collected rainwater. Then triops showing up wouldn’t be that strange.”
“I checked earlier. The end is a waterfall, so this probably isn’t a reservoir.” Jiang Xun looked at the water below, green so dark it was nearly black, unease gnawing at her.
“Groundwater?”
“That’s one possibility. But it could also be river water from the canyon below being forced upward.”
“…River water from below flowing up? Is that even human language?”
Xue Qi twisted around on Shen Ping’an’s back, casually picking someone to ask. “So, were you all military academy grads, or the compulsory-service type?”
Yang Xiaoyun replied, “Some academy, some compulsory service, and some volunteered after the apocalypse.”
“I remember Captain Jiang Xun was a communications soldier.”
“She wasn’t. The person who held that position before was killed, and her ability just happened to cover communications, so she stepped in temporarily.”
“That’s what I thought—communications soldiers usually aren’t team leaders. So what did she do before?”
“Special forces.”
“Wow.” Xue Qi looked back toward Jiang Xun at the rear with admiration, then continued, “Then is Lin Jie from the mess hall?”
“Whose mess hall cooks that badly? I forget which unit he was in before, but it’s true he volunteered for rescue operations. He’s not even twenty yet, the youngest one, playful by nature. Earlier he almost got into trouble fooling around with tabletop games, so his captain kicked him over to kitchen duty.”
“When his captain handed him off to Captain Wen, he even told him: let the kid cook for now. Once he settles down, then give him other responsibilities.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Xue Qi said.
“He’s got all kinds of tricks up his sleeve. I suggest keeping your distance from him.”
Xue Qi nodded. Just as he was about to pass this well-meant warning along to Shen Ping’an and Wu Heng, the vine bridge suddenly swayed.
“Who’s jumping?” Xue Qi stared into the mist filling the forest, the hair on his arms bristling all at once.
“No one’s jumping…”
“Something’s coming,” Wu Heng said calmly from the front, raising a hand. The team halted.
He brushed away most of the fog in their line of sight, and the outline of something as large as a heavy truck grew clearer and clearer.
It was crouched in the middle of the vine bridge. Sharp, hooked claws had already pierced straight through the vines. Its wings were tightly folded; its broad chest and belly were mottled with spots, its back draped in dark, dense feathers. A pair of blood-red eyes stared fixedly at the humans in the distance.
“Looks like an eagle?”
Shukui dropped its forepaws to the ground, saliva dripping from its mouth, back arched, coiled and ready to spring.
The youth pressed a hand on it, then turned to look at X.
X wished it could flip over and faint—it shoved its entire head into the back of Shen Ping’an’s neck.
“If you don’t go, you’ll be eating dirt every day from now on,” Wu Heng reminded it.
They could, of course, deal with this roadblock themselves. But there was no need. For any creature with wings, the grey parrot ought to take responsibility on its own—they each had their roles.
X very reluctantly jumped down from Xue Qi’s head.
“I’ll go instead.” A team member who considered himself fairly fond of small animals stepped forward in a few strides. Lu Yu was extremely worried. “It’s so small—it’s not even as big as the fleas on that mutated eagle.”
“F*ck, you’re small—!” A loud curse burst straight out of X’s throat as it suddenly whipped its head around. Its eyes were already slowly turning red. One curse wasn’t enough; it opened its beak and screamed at Lu Yu, roaring so hard that Lu Yu froze on the spot.
Xue Qi raised a finger and offered a friendly reminder. “Don’t underestimate X. It’s not just good at scheming and stuffing itself silly, you know. And now, please welcome our little parrot’s performance!”
———————————————————————————
Author’s Note:
What X heard: X is scheming and dumbly eats itself full.
X’s response: I think you’re asking to get cursed too, Xue Qi.