Chapter 168.2: Absolute Control
In the place unseen by the people on the cart, the doors and windows of the surrounding houses were tightly shut. The house where the boy and his sister lived had already been completely covered by a mass of red gu insects, leaving not a single gap.
The twisted-bodied insects glistened with an oily sheen under the dim daylight. As they crawled along the walls of the house, it looked as if fresh blood were flowing out from inside the building.
A portion of the gu insects split off and began crawling and leaping toward Yang Ao.
Yang Ao could only squeeze his eyes shut. But just as he was waiting for death, he suddenly felt his body grow light. It was as if someone had yanked him straight out of the ground like a radish. The sharp, nauseating stench rising from below surged up intensely for an instant—and then vanished just as quickly.
He opened his eyes in terror and discovered that something had lifted him high into the air—higher than all the surrounding apartment buildings.
Beneath his feet were mutant plants that had appeared out of nowhere. Behind him was the same sight. Dark-green vines twisted across the surfaces of nearby buildings like a mass of serpents, blotting out the sky. Those insects were turned into their nutrients in the blink of an eye.
Xie Chongyi rushed toward Yang Ao’s home. As he approached, the gu insects covering the house inside and out began trembling violently. Their shells clattered with sharp crackling sounds, and the teeth inside their mouthparts ground together with harsh clicks.
The swarm was completely immobilized by his ability, unable to move at all. When the tall figure of the young man stepped near the entrance, they melted away entirely, pouring down from the eaves like streams of liquefied blood.
In the corner by the wall, he found Yang Yu, clutching her child tightly in her arms.
—
After returning to the “school,” Wu Heng went to the restroom first to wash his hands. He hadn’t touched those insects, but he still felt as if an inescapable stench clung to them—an odor even worse than cockroaches.
In the room behind him, the group that had been playing cards together fell silent for a moment. Dou Lu was the first to scream.
“Holy crap—Yang Ao!!!”
They had all been in the same class before, so they naturally knew each other. Yang Ao didn’t react as dramatically as she did—because he still hadn’t recovered from the shock of suddenly finding himself in Area S.
Ruan Silian set down the cards in her hand, her expression complicated.
“You’ve gotten so thin.”
Yang Ao’s eyes stung. “Is everyone here?”
“How could that be? Back then the class monitor used the excuse of having everyone gather at school, but only about half the class showed up. Later, quite a few more people left.” Dou Lu sat down again and took the opportunity to sneak a glance at Ruan Silian’s cards.
“Here it’s just me, Ruan Silian, and the class rep,” Dou Lu said, glancing back toward the room. Her body paused for a moment before she continued, “And Teacher Ying. That’s the class rep’s twin brother—do you think the two of them look alike?”
Dou Lu’s sudden change of topic caught Yang Ao completely off guard. He didn’t even clearly see the face of the boy who suddenly smiled at him—he just nodded a few times at random.
“The one with purple hair is Lin Mengzhi—he’s Wu Heng’s childhood friend. The fish in the tank is Qiu Li; Qiu Li has an animal symbiosis ability. And this—”
Dou Lu lay down on the floor and scooped up X, who had flopped down among them, into her arms.
“—is Wu Heng’s little bird. It’s called X. Its temper is huge and its appetite is even bigger. We also have a dog named Shukui, but it went to take a nap with Teacher Ying.”
Dou Lu looked as if the apocalypse had never really beaten her down. Watching them, Yang Ao couldn’t help showing a look of envy.
After a long moment, he stiffly turned around and pointed to the woman sitting on the chair by the window.
“This is my sister, Yang Yu.”
Ruan Silian’s gaze met Yang Yu’s. She thought for a moment, then looked at Yang Ao.
“I remember—your sister once came to school to attend a parent-teacher meeting for you.”
“Yeah.”
“Would you like to go rest first? You look very tired,” Ruan Silian said. Everyone else could also see that the Yang siblings had been living in terrible conditions, so they silently agreed not to ask anything.
Hearing the footsteps outside fade away, Wu Heng took off his sweater and tossed it aside.
“You’ve been in the bathroom for so—” Xie Chongyi pushed the door open, only to be greeted immediately by the flawless pale curve of the boy’s slender waist.
He closed the door behind him and locked it.
Wu Heng lowered his head, fiddling with a clean hoodie in his hands. He pushed his head through the hem of the shirt, his voice muffled.
“The gu insects smell awful. I’m changing clothes.”
Leaning against the door, Xie Chongyi watched without blinking as Wu Heng’s waist was gradually covered inch by inch.
Once he finished dressing, Wu Heng turned around. The sky had already grown somewhat dark, and the person in front of him was only a vague silhouette in the dim light. He walked closer so he could see more clearly.
As Wu Heng came up to him, Xie Chongyi reached out and pulled the strands of hair that had been tucked under the hood of the hoodie.
His fingers slid down along the ends of the hair and came to rest at Wu Heng’s waist, not leaving.
“How are you planning to arrange things for those siblings? Ning Bizhen has already developed the intent to kill.”
Wu Heng stood still.
“Get rid of Ning Bizhen. After that, the siblings can do whatever they want.”
“How will you deal with Ning Bizhen?” Xie Chongyi asked.
“On the night of the birthday celebration. We’ll just make our move directly,” Wu Heng said, stepping half a step forward. “What do you think?”
“Anything works,” Xie Chongyi said, lowering his eyes. “But we can’t give him the chance to threaten us.”
Wu Heng stared at Xie Chongyi’s cheek thoughtfully.
“What are you thinking about?” Xie Chongyi asked.
“Nothing.” Wu Heng reached out and grabbed the hem of his clothes. He didn’t stand on tiptoe—he only lifted his head, pretending he was about to kiss him.
But he was still quite a bit shorter; he simply couldn’t outgrow Xie Chongyi.
So he gave up.
Seeing that Wu Heng couldn’t even be bothered to stand on tiptoe, Xie Chongyi exerted a slight force with his wrist, pulling him back. At the same time, he tilted his head and kissed him.
They had been kissing for a while when a knock came from behind them.
It was hard to make out who was speaking outside. Wu Heng turned his head, wanting to pull away, but Xie Chongyi pinched his cheek and turned his face back.
“I haven’t even stuck my tongue in yet. How annoying.”
The one knocking was Xue Qi. As if he had realized something, after knocking he pressed his ear against the door.
The door was suddenly yanked open, and Xue Qi nearly fell straight into the arms of the person who opened it.
He looked up and showed a smile.
“Ning Bizhen’s people came to pick up Shen Ping’an.”
Wu Heng poked his head out from behind Xie Chongyi. In the corridor outside stood several tall, unmoving shadows whose faces couldn’t be seen.
Shen Ping’an had already slung his tools onto his back.
“Shen Ping’an, I’ll go too,” Wu Heng said as he walked out of the bathroom.
But Shen Ping’an noticed that Wu Heng had changed clothes—it wasn’t the same one from before. A complicated feeling he couldn’t quite explain rose in his chest. He simply nodded.
“I want to go too! I want to go!” Xue Qi grabbed Wu Heng’s arm. “Take me with you—please take me!”
“Are you useful?” Wu Heng asked.
“Not really. I just want to go have some fun. Don’t tell my brother—he’s sleeping anyway.”
Lin Mengzhi said, “Then I’m going too.”
Wu Heng slowly shook his head. “It’s enough if X comes with me.”
The one who least wanted to go—X—was lying in Dou Lu’s arms, pretending to be dead.
“…If you don’t want to go, then forget it.”
“All right.” Xue Qi stepped aside to let Wu Heng pass. But as he went by, Xue Qi’s eyes flicked mischievously. Suddenly, he called out, “Wait—so Old Xie is just letting you go? He’s not worried about you? Never mind about Brother Ping’an, but he’s not even your boyfriend—why isn’t he worried about you? Feels like—”
Wu Heng, having zero experience with romance and no model to copy from, froze mid-step. He turned back, frowning suspiciously at Xie Chongyi.
Xie Chongyi: “…”
Under the gaze of everyone in the room, Xie Chongyi smiled faintly. “I trust you.”
Wu Heng’s eyes flickered slightly. He gave a small nod.
“No, no,” Xue Qi interrupted again, “trusting you isn’t the same as worrying about you.”
Wu Heng stared directly at Xie Chongyi again.
“….” Xie Chongyi gave a faint smile. “Then I’ll go with you.”
“No need.” Wu Heng refused quickly. “You don’t worry about me—but I would worry about you.”
“?”
For the first time, everyone saw Xie Chongyi’s expression blank in confusion. They couldn’t stop laughing, and Xue Qi—the instigator—took off running down the hallway.
The shadows in the corridor began to shift. One of them stepped forward, probably trying to hurry them along.
“Let’s go,” Shen Ping’an said, stepping out of the room first. The laughter in the room vanished instantly, replaced by serious, worried expressions.
“Don’t chop your own head off,” Dou Lu said, leaning on the window. Her spine stiffened at the sight of the red eyes of the guards watching them.
Wu Heng walked side by side with Shen Ping’an, trailing behind the three guards. These guards were noticeably different from the ones they had seen in the other parts of the base.
They were almost twice as tall as the two of them. Their thin black uniforms barely covered them, yet every step they took produced the metallic scrape and clatter of shells rubbing together. Shadows fell beneath their feet, and their faces were dominated by elongated yet blunt mandibles.
“Don’t take what Xue Qi said to heart. He’s just messing around,” Shen Ping’an said suddenly as they walked halfway down the corridor.
“I know,” Wu Heng replied.
“Then just now—”
Wu Heng gave Shen Ping’an a small smile. “I was just playing around too.”
On the rare occasions the boy smiled and showed his teeth, the gloom on his face seemed to melt away. The somewhat cold, detached lower half of his face finally synced with the soft warmth of his upper half. Ice and shadow melted; his eyes shone bright, and his teeth gleamed.
Shen Ping’an’s mouth went dry. His fists clenched instinctively.
At that moment, he felt it clearly: the blood vessels in his body twisting into the shape of vines. He felt it originate from Wu Heng.
—
The guards led them in winding paths, twisting back and forth. The dense, interlaced tree canopies formed a pitch-black dome, blocking out even the rain. The winding paths were deep and secluded. After walking for quite a while, they finally saw the body of water in the school that was called a lake—but now it truly was the shimmering lake that the grade director had always dreamed of.
As they got closer to the main building and the faculty office building, Wu Heng felt increasingly that those two buildings were unfamiliar.
Because their current appearance had nothing to do with what they had been before—they were now two gray-black castles connected by a corridor. Yet the courtyard was full of white roses, and several balconies on the walls were also crowded with blooming branches. The hill behind the castles was several times higher and wider than before, giving the environment a heavy, mysterious atmosphere.
They were led into the courtyard, following a small path winding through the flowerbeds, and finally arrived at the castle’s main door.
The guard at the front silently removed his gloves, revealing his dark, twisted fingers, which he slid into the square keyhole by the door. With a light twist of his arm, there was a click, and the intricately patterned iron gate opened.
Inside, the bright lights made Wu Heng squint, but he quickly opened his eyes again.
The guards placed two pairs of slippers in front of him and Shen Ping’an, then pointed to the slippers, indicating that they should put them on.
“You don’t speak?” Wu Heng asked, putting on the slippers, his gaze fixed straight on the faces of the guards, which had little relation to human faces.
The guards’ two pairs of eyes on each temple blinked.
“They were humans before.”
They blinked again.
Wu Heng said nothing more. He raised his eyes to survey the interior décor. It was almost identical to the mansion’s decoration before the apocalypse. On his right was a staircase, and hurried footsteps could be heard from above.
Someone came down, and several guards quietly slipped away past them. As the door closed, a middle-aged woman in a white uniform appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Ping’an!”
“Mom?”
This time it was the housekeeper inside—the one named Mao Fengying, that is, Shen Ping’an’s mother—who led the two of them through the castle in a maze of corridors and staircases, almost covering every hallway. The deeper they went, the more convoluted the path became. After more than ten minutes, she finally stopped in front of a curved white wooden door carved with intricate patterns.
“Mr. Shen mentioned you to me,” Mao Fengying said, “though he didn’t say your name. I kept wondering who could be so remarkable as to be personally invited by Ning Huang. I didn’t expect it would be you!”
The door opened, and Mao Fengying’s face brightened with a kindly smile. She spoke softly to Shen Miao, who was sitting with his back to them on the windowsill: “Mr. Shen, the guests have arrived.”
“Sit first,” Shen Miao said, turning around and putting down the book in his hands. “Sister Ying, go get them something to drink. What would you like?”
Wu Heng looked at the man, whose presence seemed colored by the deep richness of night itself. He wore a high-necked white sweater, yet faint traces of blue seemed to extend from the collar. Despite this, his demeanor was calm and gentle, as if he paid no mind to his own circumstances.
Mao Fengying’s steps were quicker than usual. She returned to the room promptly and placed two bottles of milk in front of Wu Heng and Shen Ping’an.
“Why in such a hurry?” Shen Miao asked, noticing her breathlessness, and smiled.
Looking at the boys’ indifferent expressions, Mao Fengying’s voice trembled with uncontrollable emotion. “This is my son—the older one—Shen Ping’an.”
“Oh?” Shen Miao said with interest, leaning back into the armchair.
Seeing that Shen Miao did not recoil, Mao Fengying continued speaking—but not solely for his benefit. Throughout her story, she kept her gaze on Shen Ping’an’s back.
“Before the apocalypse, I was working with my husband in Jingzhou. Ruyi was still very small back then, so I had to take her with me. Ping’an stayed in Hanzhou with the elders at home,” Mao Fengying said, tears welling in her eyes. “Later, when all these strange things started happening, my husband and I immediately tried to find a way back to Hanzhou. But by the time we managed to come back through various connections, Hanzhou had already changed completely. And I had no idea where my child had gone.”
“Ping’an, what about your grandparents?” Mao Fengying asked, her eyes blurred with tears as she looked at the boy, who still showed no sign of emotion.
“They’re dead.”
“Then where have you been all this time? You’ve become an ability user? Why didn’t you come home? Do you know how much I…”
Shen Ping’an suddenly looked up at Mao Fengying, and with nothing but a cold gaze, he cut off her torrent of words.
“Running for my life. I’m an ability user. I don’t have a home.” Then he looked at Shen Miao. “What kind of haircut do you want?”
“Anything’s fine. You can decide,” Shen Miao said easily. He sat down in front of the mirror, and Shen Ping’an stood behind him.
Wu Heng picked up his bottle of milk in silence, twisted open the cap, sniffed it—it wasn’t ordinary milk—and then tilted his head back to take a sip.
Mao Fengying stopped looking at Shen Ping’an and focused on him instead.
He blinked and put down the milk.
“Are you Ping’an’s friend?” Mao Fengying asked cautiously, sitting down next to the boy.
“Yes.”
“You’ve been together all this time after the apocalypse?” Her eyes were red.
“More or less.”
“Ping’an seems to have changed a lot.”
“Maybe.”
“Has he ever mentioned us to you?”
“He said you left him in Hanzhou to take care of the elders.”
“…”
Mao Fengying’s expression flickered in a way that was hard to read. She lowered her head in shame in front of the boy. “We didn’t have a choice either, but as soon as things happened, we tried to find a way back.”
“As soon as we returned to Hanzhou, we searched everywhere for him. Fortunately, his father shamelessly leveraged distant family connections with Mr. Shen, otherwise none of us—his father, his younger brother, or I—would have survived to today.”
“You’re not ability users, right?” Wu Heng asked.
“I’m not. His father is an animal symbiont, his younger brother has ability replication—but their powers aren’t particularly strong.” Mao Fengying wiped the tears from her eyes, and when she looked up again, her expression showed relief. “I heard from Mr. Shen that Ping’an is a very powerful ability user.”
Wu Heng took another sip of his milk. “Not bad.”
“What type of ability user is Ping’an? Is his level high?” Mao Fengying asked, concerned.
“Plants. Not high.”
“Plants? A plant symbiont!” Mao Fengying gasped in surprise. Then, quickly, disappointment and worry crept into her voice. “How can he be a plant symbiont? Don’t they usually die quickly?”
Wu Heng nodded. “That’s right.”
He, too, was a plant symbiont. Even the poppy had tried to betray him multiple times. People often thought that plant symbionts rebelled because it was their nature. But from Wu Heng’s perspective, plants repeatedly test their hosts and engage in a subtle struggle before deciding to rebel. When the plant’s consciousness overpowers the host’s, it resolutely ends cooperation—basically, it refuses to ally with the weak. Yet overcoming a plant’s consciousness is almost impossible.
The boy thought of the wood- and light-type abilities within himself—three against one, an easy win.
From the mirror, Shen Ping’an could see Wu Heng and Mao Fengying not far behind. Ever since seeing Mao Fengying, his emotions had never calmed—not joy, but anger. His entire abdomen felt set ablaze—those who had abandoned him had no right to stand before him with tear-filled eyes.
Yet when he glimpsed Wu Heng, a strange calm slowly settled over him.
“You don’t seem very happy to be reunited with your mother,” Shen Miao said, looking at the boy’s sullen face in the mirror.
Shen Ping’an spoke little, keeping his head down and snipping away.
“I think this side might be a bit too short,” Shen Miao said, pointing to his temple, where a gap had formed that no styling could hide.
“…Sorry.”
Shen Miao smiled wryly. “Do you know how bad this looks? But it’s okay. I’ll help you explain it to Ning Bizhen.”
“You two really love each other,” Shen Ping’an said, lowering his eyelids and slowing his trimming.
“Love each other?” Shen Miao gave a small, helpless laugh. “We don’t love each other. Everyone in the base knows that.”
“No one told us, but on the way here we ran into the cat and roses he sent you.”
“Because I like cats, and I like roses—but I don’t like him,” Shen Miao said, the smile on his face all but gone, his tone casual and open.
“He forced you.”
“Shh.” Shen Miao raised a finger to hush Shen Ping’an. “Don’t get upset for me. I don’t want to see anyone die because of me again.”
Shen Ping’an fell silent.
At that moment, Wu Heng quietly appeared behind them.
The boy’s features had grown even more exquisite, more striking in the mirror than the professional actor Shen Miao.
Shen Miao glanced at him, then couldn’t help stealing a second look—and immediately understood why Shen Ping’an kept looking back repeatedly while cutting his hair.
If there’s no love, then it can be used.
Wu Heng looked at Shen Miao, suddenly speaking in a solemn tone: “You’re really beautiful.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than his left ring finger was painfully pricked by something sharp.
Shen Miao couldn’t help laughing. “You’re very bold.”
Seeing the puzzled look on Wu Heng’s face, he added, “Ning Bizhen might have killed you.”
Unfazed, Wu Heng sat down at the foot of the bed beside Shen Miao. His skin was like fresh snow, flawless, while his gray-green eyes, devoid of any personal emotion, conveyed a kind of absolute, impartial sincerity.
He looked at Shen Miao, whose appearance was almost skeletal. “Then ask him not to kill me—I’m afraid.”
Slowly, Wu Heng extended a hand and whispered, “Mr. Shen, first time meeting you… happy birthday.”
His palm faced upward. The curled fingers unfolded, revealing a tiny, delicate plant seedling, not yet an inch tall.