Chapter 151.2: Worship
“There’s a cluster of mushrooms under the trees over there. I’ll go see if they’re edible.”
The mushrooms were easily pulled out of the soil. Mo Zhaohong shook the dirt off their roots, took a look, gave them a sniff, and called out to the people by the shore, “These are edible!”
“Really edible?” Xue Qi stepped off the boat and glanced back at Wu Heng, who was still sitting inside.
Jiang Xun said, “Mushrooms are basically one of the specialties back in Xiao Hong’s hometown. He’s been eating them since he was little—there’s no problem.”
“Who are you calling Xiao Hong? Or is Xiao Hong’s hometown actually a place name?” Xue Qi didn’t react right away.
“Xiao Hong—Mo Zhaohong,” Yang Xiaoyun said as he jumped off the boat.
Mo Zhaohong was the biggest person in the group—tall and powerfully built, with a shaved head. His bulging muscles stretched his clothes tight, making him look like a strong, swift stallion.
As for the nickname “Xiao Hong,” Mo Zhaohong had opposed it at first—and continued to oppose it later—but after getting used to it, he would just snort lightly when he heard it.
He came back with his jacket pocket bulging, full of yellow mushrooms.
“Matsutake. Ever had them?” He dumped the whole pocketful onto the ground.
“I’ve eaten matsutake, but they don’t look like this,” Yang Xiaoyun squatted down and picked one up. “This looks way too… not wild. Like something out of a painting. Isn’t it poisonous?”
“They really are matsutake. It’s just that the old ones weren’t this bright yellow or this neat—they grew all crooked and messy. But after being affected by the apocalypse’s magnetic energy, they’re bound to change. If you’re scared, you don’t have to eat them.” After saying that, Mo Zhaohong looked at the others. “What about you guys—are you eating them or not?”
Everyone shook their heads.
“No taste, no appreciation,” Mo Zhaohong snorted.
“I can try it,” Wu Heng said at that moment, getting off the boat with the bird in his arms.
“Aren’t you a carnivore?” Shen Ping’an asked.
Before Wu Heng could reply, Mo Zhaohong rolled his eyes. “What vegetarian? This is mountain delicacy.”
“I’ll try it.” Wu Heng walked over to the pile of matsutake, bent down, and picked up a smaller one. Holding the slippery stem, he twisted it halfway around, then—right in front of everyone—snapped off a piece and, with lightning speed, stuffed it into X’s mouth.
As the crowd went from not having reacted at all to finally reacting, their expressions turning into a mix of shock and disbelief, Wu Heng smiled and pinched X’s beak. “Let the little bird eat first.”
X struggled with its whole body, but in the end had no choice but to swallow it—there was even an audible gulp when it went down.
Wu Heng slowly released it, watching until it opened its beak, as if waiting for a verdict on whether it was poisonous or not.
“Good! Tasty!” X wriggled upward, opened its beak wide, and motioned for Mo Zhaohong to toss it another one.
Only then did Wu Heng lower his head and take a bite of the matsutake in his hand.
He froze mid-chew as the flavor spread across his tongue. The matsutake smelled wonderful, but eating it felt like chewing slightly hard paper scraps.
“Ga-ga, goo-goo, cheep-cheep.” X’s cries were unprecedentedly gleeful.
Wu Heng fell silent.
So did everyone else.
Xue Qi rushed up in one step, snatched X away, and lifted it up. “Old Fork, you’ve gained sentience now?! So will you turn into a little boy or a little girl?” He flipped the parrot over, provoking fierce resistance.
Wu Heng wasn’t willing to waste the food already in his mouth. He chewed for a long time before finally teasing out a very faint sweetness. After swallowing, there was a lingering aftertaste. It wasn’t bad—but he didn’t want to eat it.
Seeing that the boy’s expression didn’t change at all, not even a flicker in his eyes, Mo Zhaohong tried hard to sell it. “It’s good once it’s cooked!”
Wu Heng wanted to live a few more days. He nodded immediately. “Alright.”
Mo Zhaohong looked determined to make Wu Heng admit it was delicious. He spun around and sprinted back to the tree where he’d been picking mushrooms, squatting down to dig some more. The others, meanwhile, got off the boats one after another and efficiently set up the campsite for the night.
Wu Heng didn’t eat mushrooms very often. They were the kind of food he wouldn’t go out of his way to eat if there weren’t any at home; if he had other options, he wouldn’t choose mushrooms. But if there were no alternatives, he could probably force himself to accept them.
As for the matsutake Mo Zhaohong was talking about, he’d picked so many they covered the ground. He kept saying that the rain was perfect right now—that after a good rain, mushrooms popped up batch after batch. He even planned to go gather more after dinner and bring them along to eat on the road.
He washed the matsutake clean, poured out a bag of marsh frog meat he hadn’t finished earlier, and added another dozen or so yellow catfish. He tipped a little of the half-flask of dark rapeseed oil he carried with him into the pot, fried the fish, then added the frog meat. With no seasonings at all, he poured in water, and only at the very end sprinkled in a small pinch of salt.
In everyone else’s eyes, Mo Zhaohong looked like an old witch doctor brewing poison without realizing it.
The fish and frogs were still fresh and tender. Once the water came to a boil, they were cooked through in less than two minutes. Mo Zhaohong then dumped all the washed matsutake in at once. The two large pots were instantly filled to the brim, mushrooms even heaping over the top.
The old witch doctor began chanting his spells.
“You have no idea how amazing this is going to taste.”
“The mushrooms back in my hometown are even better. As for these? Make do.”
“All of you will regret the looks of disgust on your faces right now,” Mo Zhaohong declared with full confidence.
Yang Xiaoyun was the first to give him some face. He walked over and slung an arm around Mo Zhaohong’s shoulder. “Zombies and extreme weather couldn’t kill us—if these two pots of stuff wipe us all out in one go…”
The soup in the pot had turned a milky white. The matsutake were golden-yellow, round and plump—pleasant to look at, sure, but completely different from any matsutake he’d eaten before. Edible mushrooms usually looked pretty rough and ugly.
“You don’t have to eat it,” Mo Zhaohong said, brushing Yang Xiaoyun aside. After that, he looked straight at Wu Heng.
“My mess tin…” Wu Heng tried to refuse, but when he turned his head, Xue Qi had already held out the stainless-steel lunch box from his pack right in front of him.
“……”
Left with no choice, he helplessly lifted the lid and crouched by the pot that was still bubbling vigorously. “Is it done?”
Mo Zhaohong generously ladled him a bowl. “Of course.”
Cradling the lunch box and gripping his chopsticks, Wu Heng picked a not-so-large piece of matsutake from the steaming bowl and brought it to his lips. He blew on it first, then put it into his mouth.
He had already prepared himself for the taste to be just as mediocre as before, planning to swallow it whole once it cooled down enough.
But the matsutake was coated in rich, savory fish-and-frog broth. The broth carried the matsutake’s clean fragrance, and only after all the soup’s flavor had been tasted did the mushroom’s own crisp, fresh sweetness slowly emerge.
Wu Heng looked at Mo Zhaohong with faint surprise in his eyes.
Mo Zhaohong coughed twice. “Not bad, huh?”
The reserved boy only nodded lightly. “It’s fine.”
“Is it really edible?” Yang Xiaoyun wasn’t that close to Wu Heng and couldn’t read what his expression meant. He was still uneasy.
“It’s fine.” Wu Heng gave the same two words.
“What are you dithering for? Heh, bunch of cowards.” Lin Jie’s scornful voice came from behind them. He seemed almost immune to the heat of the pot—after wiping his hands, he reached straight in, grabbed a mushroom, and tossed it into his mouth. After chewing a couple of times, his half-dead expression perked up slightly, but he said in a very forced tone, “It’s alright. Edible.”
“Then that means it’s damn good!” Yang Xiaoyun slapped Mo Zhaohong twice on the back. “Xiao Hong, nicely done.”
While they were talking, Wu Heng helped himself to a second bowl.
After the meal, he was also the first to leave.
The mutated mushrooms hadn’t grown especially large—just rounder and more numerous. They were everywhere in the woods, and Wu Heng gathered quite a lot in one go and stored them in his space.
The others stayed behind, still sitting around the campsite by the bonfire, marveling at the deliciousness of the mutated mushrooms.
“I can die without regrets.”
“Do you guys know how long it’s been since I last ate proper vegetables? Three months! A full three months! The food they make in the cafeteria isn’t even fit for humans—everything’s force-grown with abilities. Vegetables rushed out like that can’t compare to ones that grow inch by inch on their own. No flavor, no flavor at all.”
“It’d be perfect if there were some after-meal fruit.”
“What kind of sweet dream are you having?”
Several bonfires were lit around the campsite to keep wild animals from approaching at night. As usual, three people were assigned to take turns standing watch. Once all the preparations were finished, Wu Heng unrolled his sleeping bag and lay down between Xue Qi and Shen Ping’an, each of them in their own bag.
“Wu Heng.” The moment Wu Heng lay down, Xue Qi clung to him, wrapping both arms and legs around him. “I feel like you’ve changed.”
Wu Heng was already getting sleepy. The overly abundant energy circulating in his body all day supported him, but also caused greater physical drain. He heard Xue Qi talking, but didn’t really catch what he was saying.
“Mm.”
“Talk to me. Don’t fall asleep yet—I want to chat with you about life.”
Wu Heng didn’t listen, but he did say a few more words. “About what?”
“I think your life must be really interesting—full of challenges.”
Only then did Wu Heng slowly open his eyes. The blanket in his hands covered the lower half of his face, hiding the sharpest, most defined parts of his features, leaving only a pair of gray-green eyes that looked as though a thin layer of mist drifted within them.
“Did you think your life was interesting too, before your leg healed?”
Xue Qi seemed not to catch the implication in Wu Heng’s words. He hugged him even tighter. “It was okay. But I’m not that capable—I have to rely on my brother, rely on you guys, to get through tough times.”
At that moment, a hand reached over from Wu Heng’s other side and pried Xue Qi’s arm away from Wu Heng’s waist. Shen Ping’an’s voice sounded calm and flat.
“You’re holding him too tightly.”
Xue Qi was pushed back, leaving a fist’s distance between him and Wu Heng. He stared blankly for a while, then suddenly tilted his head up and looked at Shen Ping’an.
“What’s that about? You like him or something?”
That question used to be something he could toss out casually, but now it was different—now it was sensitive.
Because Wu Heng had a boyfriend.
So when Shen Ping’an heard it, every muscle in his face twitched at once. The breath he hadn’t yet exhaled was sucked back down his throat like a whirlwind, straight into his stomach. For a moment he felt so uncomfortable the world spun around him, and in the end he could only force out a stiff, painfully awkward, “No.”
Xue Qi just snorted twice and kept shifting closer, sleeping pressed up against Wu Heng as before.
Shen Ping’an stayed half propped up on his upper body. After a long while, he finally dared to lower his head and look at Wu Heng, who hadn’t moved at all. His breathing was steady, his eyes already closed—he looked fast asleep.
Time passed on. Shen Ping’an slowly and carefully lay back down. The closer he was to Wu Heng, the harder it was to suppress the reverence rising from deep inside him. It wasn’t liking him, as Xue Qi had guessed, but something closer to worship—toward this peer who was both cold and gentle.
The river murmured as it flowed through the night. Moonlight was almost completely hidden. Outside the tent formed by elephant-ear leaves, light rain pattered softly.
Wu Heng, who should have been fast asleep, suddenly crawled out of his sleeping bag. He tossed aside the blanket and put on his shoes.
“Wu Heng, where are you going?” Shen Ping’an jolted awake and called after him, his voice hoarse.
“Jiang Xun isn’t asleep yet.” Wu Heng had his back to him as he put on his jacket. A trace of confusion and hesitation surfaced on his pale profile, but it vanished in an instant, leaving only calm detachment. “I want to make a call to the class monitor.”
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Author’s Note:
Jiang Xun: Wu Heng’s exclusive hotline.