Chapter 170.2: “…kissing expresses love better”
Daylight had fully broken, but the rain had not stopped. The entire Hanzhou remained shrouded in gloom.
Since Shen Miao’s birthday had arrived, many bases, after receiving Ning Bizhen’s invitation, had been arriving in Hanzhou one after another to celebrate for him. Most of those who came were ability users and the family members they brought along. By presenting their invitations at the base gate, they didn’t need to “perform” special talents in public like Wu Heng’s group had done. They could simply enter, undergo a physical check, and have their information recorded.
Neither Ning Bizhen nor Shen Miao appeared in person. They merely instructed their subordinates to arrange proper food and lodging for the guests. As a result, more and more ability users gradually filled the several teaching buildings in Area S. However, everyone was unfamiliar with one another. Even when they passed by, they only nodded politely, not exchanging a single extra word.
On the afternoon before the birthday, a strange disturbance appeared in a spot on the mountain behind their former school.
A tall crape myrtle tree, covered in pink blossoms and almost completely lacking leaves, was not particularly noticeable among the lush greenery of the back mountain. But if one looked closely, its thick, twisted branches trembled slightly from time to time. Looking even closer, one could see that several people were crouching or lying along the forks of its branches.
A thin, transparent spider thread was pulled taut. Xue Qi hung from the treetop, straining to haul someone up from below.
“Who’s this heavy?!!!” Xue Qi, sweating all over, pulled Lin Mengzhi up.
“Hehe.”
A tree branch that held three people at once remained perfectly steady, not even shaking loose a single petal.
Dou Lu brushed aside the cluster of flowers blocking her view and looked downward, then raised her head suspiciously. “Will Shen Ping’an even respond to us? What if he just lets Ning Bizhen shoot all of us down?”
The tree bark was slippery from the rain, and Lin Mengzhi nearly slipped. After steadying himself in a crouch, he said, “As a badass ability user, I think we should have a more badass way of contacting someone.”
“Shen Ping’an has been planted with a gu. If we contact him directly, he might sell us out,” Xue Qi said, also glancing down below. “Right now the best thing we can do is nothing—keep a low profile and avoid drawing Ning Bizhen’s attention.”
“Then what exactly are we doing right now?” Dou Lu asked.
Lin Mengzhi gripped a nearby branch tightly and looked up. “A’Heng, what do you think we’re doing here?”
“The scenery here is very nice.” The boy crouched higher than the others. Several flower petals had fallen onto his black raincoat. He casually plucked a cluster of blossoms and stuffed them into his mouth, thinking they would be sweet, but they turned out to be somewhat bitter, so he spat them out.
“You spat it on my head!” Xue Qi shouted in a hushed voice.
“Sorry.”
The crape myrtle tree stood halfway up the mountain behind the school. From there, one could overlook the entire campus, and it was also the most prominent point jutting out from the mountainside. Looking down, the castle’s rooftop lay directly below.
Wu Heng had been observing the movement of figures behind several windows, memorizing almost every room’s purpose and location. He also noticed the poppies near the front gate of the courtyard, which had already grown as tall as the roses.
Shen Ping’an appeared in a room on the first floor close to the back mountain, with Shen Miao following behind him.
“They’re here, they’re here!” Dou Lu quickly flattened herself against the branch in nervousness.
X, who was perched at the highest spot, also folded its wings and buried itself within the tree’s canopy.
From Wu Heng’s angle, Shen Miao stood with his back to Shen Ping’an.
He said, “You’ll have to work hard during the upcoming birthday banquet. Many guests will be arriving.”
Shen Ping’an replied that it was only right.
Shen Miao added, “If you miss your friends, you can go see them.”
Shen Ping’an actually frowned and said there was no need.
“Xiao Ning can be rather impulsive. Don’t take to heart the things he says or does.”
“I won’t.”
“What are they saying?” Dou Lu whispered anxiously to the people beside her. “Why can’t I hear anything even when I use my ability?”
“Same here,” Xue Qi said. As a spider-type ability user, at such a close distance he should have been able to hear something. “Did Ning Bizhen block the sound?”
“Maybe they weren’t talking to begin with,” Lin Mengzhi guessed.
The two people in the room quickly finished their conversation. After it ended, Shen Ping’an—who was slightly taller than Shen Miao—lowered his head when he saw Shen Miao raise his arm.
Shen Miao reached out and gently patted his head.
“Holy shit, holy shit! They’re totally a thing!” Lin Mengzhi nearly tumbled off the tree in excitement.
Inside the room, Shen Ping’an’s sharp gaze suddenly shot toward the direction of the crape myrtle tree. The three people on the tree froze instantly.
Fortunately, it seemed he hadn’t discovered anything. Following behind Shen Miao, he left the room.
Only after they were gone did Dou Lu dare to speak again. “Captain, I feel a little hurt.”
Xue Qi deeply agreed. “Brother Ping’an actually looked at us with that kind of expression.”
“A’Heng, what should we do? Shen Ping’an really seems to have been affected.”
Lin Mengzhi looked up.
From his angle, he could only see Wu Heng’s slender, pale fingers resting on the branch, and strands of hair curved across his chest and legs. Light filtering through the leaves cast mottled shadows across his face. His expression was as gloomy as ever—but it was somewhat different from before. In the past, the gloom had come from sadness. Now, it only carried an unfathomable sense of danger.
“What should we do?” Dou Lu also looked up for help.
Wu Heng didn’t speak for a long time. After another pause, he finally lowered his head.
“Isn’t there a patch of wild scallions on the back mountain?”
“Wild scallions can save Shen Ping’an?” Xue Qi’s eyes lit up.
“I want to eat wild scallion omelet and stir-fried chicken with wild scallions.”
“….”
The others almost couldn’t keep up with how abruptly Wu Heng changed the subject. But once they did, they swallowed.
“We want to eat that too.”
A noticeable commotion came from above their heads. X hopped down along the branches, clearly wanting some food as well. But a lump of white, mushy substance came down with it.
Plop.
Hearing the sound, Lin Mengzhi turned his head to look at his shoulder.
“Brother Fork, could you not spit everywhere?”
Xue Qi, whose sense of smell was sharper, reminded him, “Captain, don’t worry. That’s not spit. That’s bird poop.”
“…Bird poop is even worse than spit!” Lin Mengzhi squinted from the stench. His foot slipped, and he tumbled noisily down from the tree, landing on the ground in furious embarrassment.
“Old Fork, you did that on purpose! It’s not like you don’t have a brain—you know you’re not supposed to shit everywhere! If you’ve got the guts, try taking a dump on A’Heng!”
Dou Lu jumped down onto the grass.
“The poop was dropped one second ago, and the blame got passed the next second.”
“I think A’Heng spoils Brother Fork way too much. If Brother Fork fell into someone else’s hands, he’d have been cooked into a dish long ago.”
“Brother Fork eats enough food for three people every day.”
After discussing it for a while, the three of them unanimously agreed that Wu Heng spoiled X far too much. As a result, X did nothing but eat and drink all day and even treated everyone else like toys. Still, despite arguing and bickering the whole way, the three of them didn’t forget to gather plenty of wild scallions.
Mutated wild scallions had practically taken over that entire patch of land. The half-person-tall stalks were fresh and tender; even grabbing a little resulted in a huge bundle. Working together, the three of them tied seven or eight bundles onto X’s back.
Wu Heng didn’t pay them much attention. He stored quite a lot of wild scallions—and anything else that caught his interest—into his spatial storage. And after noticing that a few more lambs and a flock of small wild chickens had appeared inside the space, he allowed Dr. Chen to eat one of the wild chickens.
They returned fully loaded.
In the corridor, the green wild scallions were piled up into a small hill that nearly reached the ceiling. Fortunately, their room was at the very end of the hallway, so it didn’t block anyone’s path. Otherwise, passersby might have tried to snag a bite, and they really wouldn’t know how to refuse.
“For dinner tonight we’ll have wild scallion omelet and stir-fried chicken with wild scallions. There’s also toon sprouts here—how should we cook them?” Lin Mengzhi asked, panting.
Xue Qi went to find Ruan Silian. “Sister Ruan, I want steamed buns—wild scallion pork ones.”
Ruan Silian was already tying up her hair. “Then you’ll need to ask Wu Heng for meat and flour.”
“There’s no kitchen!” Lin Mengzhi suddenly realized.
“We can just set one up right in the corridor,” Dou Lu said, her eyes already searching for Wu Heng.
Wu Heng had taken off his raincoat and hung it on a rack. Then he grabbed a dry towel to wipe the rain-soaked feathers on X’s body.
Three people surrounded him at once, asking for this and that—some wanted ingredients, others wanted cooking utensils.
Since there was no one else in the room, Wu Heng simply handed everything over in one go.
Once everyone had left, X stood between Wu Heng’s legs. It shook its head, signaling him to continue brushing its feathers.
Wu Heng brushed X’s feathers while glancing out the window across the room.
Xie Chongyi and Xue Shen had taken Shukui and left Area S earlier that morning. Their goal was to gather as much information as possible about the current Hanzhou base—how many ability users were present, and most importantly, their locations—without wasting resources. Any delay could lead to errors that would affect the results.
In the corridor outside, a few ability users invited to the birthday celebration had been drawn over by the commotion.
They stood behind the group still processing the wild scallions, looking on with curiosity.
“Is this chives? Where did you get so much? It already smells amazing just looking at it!”
“Why ask so many questions? We’re not giving you any,” Lin Mengzhi jumped in, cutting the conversation short with her usual bluntness.
The man with the bushy beard froze for a moment, then burst into loud laughter that echoed down the entire corridor.
The young man beside him looked far more embarrassed. “Just asking… it’s been a while since we’ve had fresh vegetables. The desertification up north is terrible.”
Though their desire for the food was clearly written across their faces, the group bent over the vegetables remained unmoved.
“Ugh, I haven’t been able to poop all week,” the bearded man groaned, patting his backside.
That was a serious problem.
Just as Lin Mengzhi and Xue Qi exchanged troubled glances, Wu Heng carried the tiniest X and stepped into the doorway. Standing there with a cool, detached tone, he said:
“Even so… you’re still not getting any.”