Chapter 150: “Good bird”
Xie Chongyi lived in a single-occupancy dorm. Each room came with its own bathroom and a small kitchenette. He didn’t have much luggage—mostly just a few changes of uniform.
On the balcony, the poppy had been transferred into a slightly more presentable, intact white porcelain pot. Even so, the plant itself still looked pitiful, its stems drooping weakly.
Xie Chongyi had a mild case of cleanliness obsession. He wasn’t on the bed, but leaning back against the cold wall of the bathroom. He wore only a loose T-shirt and cotton trousers; on the surface, at least, he still looked decently dressed.
A quarter of an hour later, he strolled lazily to the sink and scrubbed his hands, then took out a vial of energy stimulant from the cabinet above. Tilting his head to one side, expressionless, he drove the needle straight into his neck.
After that, he picked up a spray bottle to water the plant—life after work was fairly well-rounded, after all.
Outside, it was still raining. Soldiers returning from missions late at night came and went, only to be urgently dispatched again. Squatting in front of the flowerpot, Xie Chongyi wore a gloomy expression. The feeling of missing someone he couldn’t see was like being poisoned with a lethal toxin while being unable to find the antidote anywhere.
The communicator on the bed shrieked sharply.
The young man stood up, walked over, picked it up, and answered the call.
“Already asleep?”
It was Jiang Sheng’s voice.
“Yeah.”
“…Since you’re not asleep, bring Dou Lu. A giant flying ant swarm has appeared at the northern base.”
“I’m about to leave.”
“If you haven’t left yet, then you work.”
Xie Chongyi tossed the communicator aside, grabbed his uniform from the rack, and pulled it on as he walked toward the balcony. He looked at the delicate, helpless underage poppy and said, “Be good. Stay home and wait for me to come back.”
The flying ant swarm appeared in the afternoon, close to dusk. At first there were only a few, relatively small in size. The base guards were used to such things and shot them down directly, without paying much attention or filing a report.
But before long, the number of flying ants kept increasing, and their bodies grew larger and larger. Worse still, they didn’t just occupy the airspace from above—many of them entered the base through various internal pipelines, directly paralyzing the entire Zone Three of the northern base.
Zone Three was the most populous and densely concentrated area of the Northern Base, accounting for two-thirds of its total population.
The helicopter braved the rain and reached the Northern Base two hours later. By then, the entire Zone Three had already been overrun by the flying ant swarm. They burst out from everywhere—from the sky, from underground, from within every building—emerging in waves, the thunderous beating of their wings enough to make one’s skin crawl.
Human corpses lay strewn across the ground. Their chests had been split open, their abdomens dug out by the flying ants, turned into breeding vessels for larvae.
The helicopter did not land—it still had to return to pick up personnel and supplies. Xie Chongyi braced himself against the cabin door as the fierce wind whipped all the loose strands of hair across his forehead into chaos. His red eyes, like something not of this earth, gazed down through the fine rain.
The movement of the air was invisible to the naked eye, but in that instant, the rain suspended itself for a brief moment.
When it fell again, dense blossoms of blood exploded across the flying ant swarm on the ground. In the blink of an eye, tens of thousands of them were wiped out by the reinforcements from Jingzhou.
To other ability users, killing was a form of expenditure. Even to other operatives, it was a drain. To this young man alone, it was a replenishment—a filling up of energy.
Inside the bodies of aberrant species, aside from the energy that all ability users could draw upon, there existed large amounts of energy impurities—harmful and useless to other ability users. Yet those very impurities were Xie Chongyi’s most natural nourishment.
“You’re using space abilities? Then don’t let it eat those,” Jiang Sheng said, then shoved Xie Chongyi out of the cabin from behind.
Xie Chongyi came face to face with a flying ant crawling out of an underground drainage pipe in the base. Its wings buzzed violently. The young man narrowed his eyes slightly, and with a bang, its head smashed onto the ground.
—
Only when the insect finally went still, once again transforming into a ring snug around Wu Heng’s finger, did Wu Heng shake off that lingering sense of discomfort.
From the bushes behind them, Shukui leapt out, panting heavily. Clamped in its mouth was a rabbit covered in blood. Its eyes shone as it ran up to Wu Heng, its tail wagging so hard it was practically a blur.
Seeing no reaction from Wu Heng, Shukui bounced around even more.
Wu Heng had no idea what it wanted and simply watched quietly.
Shukui dropped the rabbit onto Wu Heng’s leg, then lay down, creeping forward along the ground. It nudged Wu Heng’s palm onto its own head with its nose, looking up at him with eyes full of expectation.
Only then did Wu Heng realize what Shukui had been doing. He sat up and, staying in that position, rubbed its head. “Good job. You’re amazing.”
“Woof!”
Having gotten exactly what it wanted, Shukui was completely satisfied. It turned around, picked up the rabbit in its mouth again, and bounded happily toward where the team was gathering.
Jiang Xun and the others were all there. The moment they saw it, exclamations burst out one after another, and Shukui grew so excited it couldn’t slow down at all.
“Shukui, did you catch that rabbit yourself? You’re incredible!”
“Rabbits run that fast and you still caught it? What a good dog!”
“This rabbit’s got to weigh a hundred pounds—those dog teeth are insane!”
Watching Shukui joyfully circle the crowd, Wu Heng finally understood: it had been asking for emotional validation.
Shukui handed the rabbit over to the cook, then trotted back to Wu Heng and flopped down, panting. Wu Heng lay back as well, leaning against it, and the two of them took a short rest together until it was time to eat.
Aside from Lin Jie, most of the people under Wen Yuan knew how to cook. Tonight’s dinner was handled by Yang Xiaoyun.
Yang Xiaoyun was from Luzhou, and what he was best at was seafood—especially all kinds of fish.
Unfortunately, even the cleverest cook can’t make a meal without ingredients. Fish alone was hard to work with, so he tried to ask Wu Heng for as few seasonings and staples as possible.
Wu Heng didn’t tell them about the plant space, but when he took things out, he didn’t bother hiding it either.
No matter how much they racked their brains, they never imagined the existence of a spatial ability. They could only keep marveling at how they’d heard mountaineering backpacks could hold a lot—but never this much.
…
Wu Heng woke up from his nap, stirred by the smell of food.
Yang Xiaoyun took a small leftover piece of wood from when they’d cut planks for the boat a couple of days earlier and used it as a chopping board. He set it across two stones, made sure it was steady and wouldn’t wobble, then tossed a large, cleaned grass carp onto it.
The fish was so big its tail drooped all the way to the ground. Yang Xiaoyun chopped off the head, then turned his dagger sideways and split the fish lengthwise down the spine. One half, together with the head, went straight into the large pot nearby; the other half stayed on the board.
Then, just like chopping up a radish, Yang Xiaoyun went ka-ka-cha-cha, swiftly hacking the half carp into chunks.
“Fish is best eaten fresh. Fresh fish tastes good even with just salt.”
“How are you going to make it?” Wu Heng asked.
“With soy sauce.”
“What else are you planning to make?” Wu Heng continued.
“Two more pots of mixed fish soup,” Yang Xiaoyun said, rolling up his sleeves. “Will that be enough for you?”
Wu Heng: “No.”
“Do you eat glass noodles?”
“No.”
Yang Xiaoyun nodded. “Xie Chongyi mentioned it, so I was just confirming.”
Wu Heng’s expression paused. “Does not eating staples need to be reported too?”
“Xie Chongyi probably thinks your not eating staples has some very important connection to Deathlands.”
“…”
Wu Heng casually picked up a piece of raw fish and chewed it down in two or three bites. The altitude of Shenjia was quite a bit higher than the plains, and the river water was cool; the fish raised in it had delicate, sweet flesh. Wu Heng couldn’t help himself and ate another piece.
Seeing how much he liked it, Yang Xiaoyun went to the small fish pond they had dug out by the riverbank, caught two more fish, killed and cleaned them, and chopped up two more basins’ worth just for him.
“Thanks.” Yang Xiaoyun was pretty great, Wu Heng thought.
“If this were before, you could’ve gone to our Luzhou and eaten wild large yellow croaker, small and large silver pomfret, even horsehead hairtail—those are all delicious. But now they’ve mutated. Getting even one bite of them is harder than reaching the heavens. It’d be good enough if they didn’t eat people instead,” Yang Xiaoyun complained.
Wu Heng swallowed, mouth watering. Sitting on the ground with fish chunks still in his hands, he was unusually interested in the topic Yang Xiaoyun had brought up.
“The south of Deathlands is the sea,” he said.
Yang Xiaoyun sighed. “The coastline is indeed pretty long. Cleaning it up would definitely be nothing but trouble.”
Cleaning it up would mean nothing but food, Wu Heng thought, picking up a piece of belly meat.
“If, when the time comes, Deathlands is mine—does that mean that everything within my territorial waters can be eaten?”
Yang Xiaoyun stiffened. He looked up in shock. “You really intend to become the master of Deathlands?”
Wu Heng calmly chewed the raw fish in his mouth and said nothing.
But that was answer enough.
“Get ready,” Yang Xiaoyun said with a toothy grin. “Deathlands is unclaimed territory right now. If you want to take it, the enemies you’ll face will be ability-user organizations from all over the world. Your team is still nowhere near enough.”
“Of course, Jingzhou will definitely support you unconditionally. And in my personal opinion, Deathlands ought to be ours.”
Wu Heng nodded lightly. “Yeah. I think so too.”
Half an hour later, dinner began in lively fashion around the campfire.
There were two huge pots of steaming boiled mixed fish, one pot of grass carp braised in soy sauce, and a large roasted rabbit. In addition, Mo Zhaohong and the others had brought back plenty of edible wild scallions and bracken— the bracken was stir-fried, and the wild scallions were served cold.
The staple food was a large bundle of dried vermicelli sponsored by Wu Heng, soaked and then tossed straight into the mixed fish pot to cook.
After everyone started eating, Wu Heng calmly took two stainless-steel soup bowls out of his pack, one large and one small, and filled them with generous portions of raw meat Yang Xiaoyun had set aside earlier. X and Shukui crowded over and devoured the food.
Wu Heng patted Shukui’s head as it buried itself in its meal. “Good dog.”
Shukui wagged its tail, clearly pleased.
Then Wu Heng reached out and patted X on the head as well. “Good bird.”
X’s body stiffened. It turned its head and stared at Wu Heng as if he were some kind of monster.
“…” The smile at the corner of Wu Heng’s mouth faded. No sense of gratitude.
Wu Heng returned to his own spot and sat down. In front of him was his “tableware”—a large mulberry leaf, on which rested an enormous rabbit leg, roasted to a golden brown and dripping with fat.
“Eat up while it’s hot,” Jiang Xun reminded him when he saw him come over. “It’ll get cold later.”
Wu Heng thanked him and sat down. All around him were the sounds of people slurping and shoveling food into their mouths.
Once they were about half full and no longer ravenous, the group finally slowed down. The first to speak was, as always, Jiang Xun.
“We set off tomorrow. Yue Shanqing and Lin Jie, switch positions.”
Yue Shanqing’s “Okay” was drowned out by Lin Jie’s “I refuse.”
But Jiang Xun merely glanced at the latter, and Lin Jie immediately changed his tune. “Okay.” Only then did Jiang Xun frown and say, “I suspect the reason mutated creatures keep targeting Wu Heng’s boat is that the energy he carries is simply too abundant. From here on out, it’s mostly water routes. Lin Jie, you’re water-element—more suitable than Yue Shanqing to accompany Wu Heng’s boat.”
Lin Jie nodded again, impatient. “Got it. So annoying.”
Xue Qi glanced at the expressionless Wu Heng, then tightened his grip on his chopsticks and looked across at Lin Jie. “Lin Jie, do you have a problem with us or something? If you do, could you at least spit the fish out? I caught all of it during the day—I’m worried it might disgust you.”
Xue Qi was different from everyone else present. Even without his parents around, he had Xue Shen, who had raised him with care.
On the surface, he looked just as carefree and joking as Lin Mengzhi, but the greatest hardship and grievance he had ever endured in his life was probably only that period when he couldn’t walk properly.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t take being slighted—any hint of offense never even reached his face before he brushed it aside with proud nonchalance.
Lin Jie showed no expression. “No. Not spitting it out.”
Yang Xiaoyun and Wang Ruixiang stepped in together like a practiced duo to smooth things over and ease the atmosphere.
Neither Xue Qi nor Lin Jie spoke again. Wu Heng finished eating ahead of everyone else. “I’ll take a walk nearby.”
X and Shukui both moved to follow, but a single look from Wu Heng made them lie back down again.
Shen Ping’an didn’t allow them to follow either.
Wu Heng’s figure receded step by step, until it completely vanished from everyone’s sight. Then, in a flicker, his form disappeared into the forest—and reappeared inside the space.
The scenery within the space seemed to mirror the outside world. A fine drizzle appeared to be falling there as well, yet it felt far warmer and more comfortable.
The young man stood close to a wall covered in black flowers, looking at the neatly organized supply storage area that Doctor Chen had put in order. All of his current supplies were things he had casually collected back in Hanzhou and along the journey afterward—some were unnecessary, others insufficient.
He had also gathered quite a lot of stationery, including all kinds of sticky notes. Doctor Chen had used them to sort everything into categories and label them clearly. In the farthest corner, he had even marked out a “little sister area”—it held the clothes Wu Heng had previously brought for Wu Zhi, along with various items a girl might normally need.
But Wu Heng’s attention wasn’t on the supplies he had collected.
It was only when he had just gone to fetch bowls for the dog and the bird that it occurred to him: without Doctor Chen, he would now have to take responsibility for feeding the chickens and letting the sheep out himself.
Author’s Note:
Previous Little Ghost Snake: Humans can only be eaten.
Later Little Ghost Snake: Humans can also be used. To work. Everyone, get to work—come help me build my beautiful homeland project.
**TN
Changing Siwangzhidi to Deathlands