Chapter 178: Shen Miao’s Death
Wu Heng stared blankly at the two people lying on the ground. Letting Shen Miao end his own life like that felt somehow off to him—as if something was missing, like a sense of accomplishment.
But he wasn’t someone who relished killing. It was just that, had he known earlier that Shen Miao was the mother parasite, there would’ve been no need for all this trouble—he could have simply killed Shen Miao alone.
Wu Heng crouched down, gripping the knife handle and pulling outward. But as he exerted force, he encountered resistance.
He increased his strength a little.
This time, he successfully pulled the knife out. However, a mass of bright red flesh came out with the blade, leaving a large hole in Shen Miao’s chest.
Wu Heng lowered his gaze to the blood-red tip of the knife, shaking off the excess blood. A multi-legged parasitic insect clung tightly to the blade tip, its eyes shut—it was already dead.
“Cough, cough!” Beside him, Shen Ruyi coughed up a dead parasite into his hand. Looking at the red mass in his palm, an indescribable nausea surged within him. He raised his hand and hurled the parasite fiercely onto Shen Miao’s face.
“Shen Miao…” Shen Ruyi said through gritted teeth, enduring the metallic taste in his mouth, “was both pitiful and hateful.”
“Why do you say that?” Lin Mengzhi suddenly poked his head out from behind Wu Heng’s shoulder.
“He was human, and also the mother parasite—helping humans on one hand, while working for the offspring parasites on the other,” Shen Ruyi’s face was pale. “He died for humanity, but he never told you that the walls of Hanzhou were built by the offspring parasites.”
Lin Mengzhi hadn’t yet processed what he meant.
“Now that he’s dead, the walls built by those offspring parasites…” Shen Ruyi slowly raised his head, his eyes filled with fear, “are about to collapse.”
Everyone knew exactly what it meant for the base to lose its walls. Not to mention, within Hanzhou Base, the layout placed ordinary, defenseless civilians closest to the walls—the most densely populated area in the entire base.
Shen Ruyi seemed as if he could already hear the roars of monsters rushing into the base. He roared as well, “This is Ning Bizhen! When he dies, the mother parasite dies with him, and Mr. Shen dies for him too. Everyone in Hanzhou will be buried with him!”
His whole body trembled as he glared fiercely at Wu Heng. “It’s all your fault—you forced Mr. Shen to his death! It’s you people who’ve plunged the entire city into danger!”
As his words fell, the echo lingered in the air—then a heavy slap struck Shen Ruyi across the face.
With his head turned to the side, Shen Ruyi let out a low, mocking laugh. “Hah. So you’ve got the nerve to take it out on me, but not the guts to fix it?” He stood up and pointed at Wu Heng behind Shen Ping’an. “He killed my mother! He’s the one who doomed Hanzhou—and you’re still helping him!”
Supported by Dou Lu, Ruan Silian walked up onto the ruins and came to stand beside the expressionless Wu Heng. “Perhaps this was Ning Bizhen’s real final move all along—if he wanted to save Hanzhou from disaster, he first had to throw it back into disaster.”
“Not our problem,” Lin Mengzhi said bluntly.
Ruan Silian turned her head to look at him. “Between death and barely surviving, most people will choose the latter. If we can’t resolve the crisis Ning Bizhen created, it’ll be even harder for Jingzhou to smoothly take over Hanzhou.”
“Then in those people’s eyes, we’ll be the culprits who caused this disaster.” Even Ruan Silian hadn’t expected that a seemingly weak parasite like Ning Bizhen could dig such a massive pit for them.
At least he got to die together with his idol.
“A’Heng, let’s go regroup with the class monitor and the others first,” Ruan Silian suggested.
Wu Heng ignored her. He truly didn’t care whether the people of Hanzhou lived or died—but if their deaths were blamed on him, that was something he wouldn’t accept.
He stepped forward and crushed Ning Bizhen’s head under his foot. Countless insect eggs oozed out from beneath his shoe.
In the distance, flickers of firelight shimmered faintly. Shouts surged like waves, rising and falling. Wu Heng could even make out curses mixed within them, the pounding of hurried footsteps, and the clash of flesh against weapons. Just as Shen Ruyi had said—without the city walls, the slum district had become a feast in the eyes of the monsters.
Wu Heng would rather face a thousand savage monsters and endure ten thousand bouts of brutal, killing weather than be caught in even a single one of these disgusting schemes—let alone be the one being schemed against.
Xue Qi also heard the screams coming from near the city walls. He turned back. “It’s zombies. We need to go help.”
Wu Heng’s voice was hoarse. “You go first.”
“Alright!” Xue Qi cast a worried glance into the distance, then spun around and leapt onto the top of a distant tree. After a few bounds, he vanished from sight.
Area S was far from the city walls. Only someone like Xue Qi—a high-level animal symbiote—could hear what was happening over there. Others couldn’t necessarily do the same. Dou Lu, for instance, couldn’t distinguish the sounds; she could only sense the increasingly chaotic fluctuations in the magnetic field. Ying Liuquan relied on mental perception. Together with the other ability users scattered around the courtyard, they quickly rushed toward the direction outside the city walls.
“I’ll wait for you,” Lin Mengzhi said, looking at Wu Heng.
Just as the words left his mouth, Lin Mengzhi suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet shake for no reason. Tree roots from nowhere burst up, lifting the rubble beneath them. He quickly turned and grabbed onto the tip of X’s wing, while Shen Ruyi reluctantly grabbed onto Shen Ping’an’s clothing.
Energy condensed into a visible deep green, spreading outward in ripples from beneath Wu Heng’s feet—expanding, expanding—until it enveloped the entire base. A web of green energy soon covered all of Hanzhou.
Seeds and roots buried deep within the soil silently came to life, spreading rapidly toward the outside of the city walls.
The earth let out a deep, muffled rumble.
Lin Mengzhi and Shen Ping’an both turned to look at Wu Heng. The former’s face changed drastically.
“A’Heng!”
The young man still had both hands tucked casually in his pockets, yet his eyes had already turned into a thick, pure green. The patterns in his pupils were blurred and indistinct—it was obvious that the power shaking the entire city was erupting from his body.
“Dying without becoming my food doesn’t count as dying properly,” his voice was ethereal, like something drifting in the air. “If Ning Bizhen intends for everyone to be buried with him, then I’ll make sure everyone lives.”
The rumbling spread all the way beneath the collapsed ruins of the city wall. Countless zombies were crawling upward along piles of parasite corpses, but suddenly, a tender green sprout burst through the heap. Within seconds, it shot up into a towering tree, its vibrant crape myrtle blossoms bursting into full bloom.
Then more and more sprouts emerged, forcing their way upward without restraint. Whether parasite corpses or zombies, nothing was avoided—they were pierced through, filthy blood spilling everywhere. Some zombies, unable to break free, were even lifted upward by the rapidly growing plants, hanging from the branches.
Stretching for miles, the city walls were rebuilt at a speed visible to the naked eye. Lush canopies pressed together, resembling clouds reflected from the sky, forming the structure above. Beneath that flourishing greenery were massive, darkened trunks—so thick and sturdy they were harder to shake than steel and concrete.
Their rough, hardened surfaces were further overtaken by thorny vines coiling diagonally upward. Each thorn was nearly half a meter long, pinning every zombie that leapt at them onto the branches, draining and consuming them completely.
“Ptoo, ptoo!” Two guards squeezed out from between the gaps in the trunks, spitting leaves from their mouths.
One of them looked up at these suddenly grown giants, exclaiming in awe, “Damn… I thought we were finished once the city walls were gone. Looks like heaven is really protecting Hanzhou!”
—
Lin Mengzhi and Shen Ping’an hurried toward the city wall.
The poppy devoured all the corpses in the courtyard. It had been a long time since it had eaten so many people at once, and it happily coiled around Wu Heng’s wrist in a spoiled, affectionate manner—but Wu Heng wasn’t in the mood for it right now.
“Wu Heng!” From beneath the ground, a boy suddenly burst out, covered in dirt. He looked at Wu Heng. “You’re Wu Heng?”
“Yes!” X answered.
The boy glanced at the giant bird in surprise, but he was clearly in a hurry and had no time for anything else. He went straight to the point.
“Area C—your friend told me to come and tell you: your boyfriend’s in trouble.”
—
Bang!
The massive water shield in front of Xue Shen shattered. Amid the spray of water, Xie Chongyi’s figure appeared, and he drove a heavy punch straight into Xue Shen’s abdomen. Half the street collapsed from the force of Xue Shen’s body slamming into it. Then came several more consecutive blows, causing large sections of the ground to cave in.
Xue Shen hadn’t even recovered from the pain when the other man planted a foot on his chest and pressed down hard. The metallic sweetness of blood filled his mouth.
Lifting his gaze, Xue Shen looked at Xie Chongyi, who was completely different from before, and felt a headache coming on.
If only this were just another damn parasite—but this really was Xie Chongyi. He couldn’t bring himself to strike for real. More importantly, there was already a considerable gap in strength between them. If they truly fought, he wouldn’t win anyway.
Xie Chongyi’s eyes were blood-red. He raised his right arm, now completely covered in black insect armor. His blade-like fingers gleamed with a chilling, lethal light.
Xue Shen coughed up a mouthful of blood. “Honestly, with how often you lose control like this, you’d be better off dying sooner.”
Xie Chongyi didn’t respond. A steel blade appeared in his hand. He raised it overhead, even carefully aligning it—making sure it was centered along Xue Shen’s body, so he could split him evenly into two halves.
“Shut up. When you talk, your mouth tilts a bit—it might mess up the symmetry.”
“…Damn.” One corner of Xue Shen’s glasses was already shattered. He knew Xie Chongyi wasn’t joking this time. Letting out a sigh, he added, “You’d better not be taking this chance to settle personal grudges.”
Annoying.
Xie Chongyi’s blade came down without the slightest hesitation.
A streak of green suddenly appeared, catching the blade. At the same time, vines wrapped around Xue Shen’s waist and lifted him up, hanging him from the highest edge of a nearby building—placing him safely out of harm’s way.
Wu Heng withdrew his blood-soaked hand and looked up at the person before him. He still looked the same as when he had said goodbye that morning—yet his eyes had changed.
Xie Chongyi had always been somewhat proud, but he would never look at people as if they were lifeless objects. Realizing this, Wu Heng felt that everything about him had changed—the lowered brows, the unmoving, mocking curve at the corner of his lips, even the cracked traces of blood on them.
That wasn’t Xie Chongyi. Not his boyfriend.
Something precious was missing, and Wu Heng felt terrible—worse than all the bad feelings he had experienced over the past decades combined.
He never dwelled on or mourned things that had already rotted away. But Xie Chongyi was clearly still intact.
“Where is he?” Wu Heng’s eyelashes trembled from overusing his energy. “Where is he?” he asked again.
Xie Chongyi tilted his head slightly, his gaze shifting from Wu Heng’s face—which, for some reason, matched his aesthetic perfectly—to the earlobe beside his pale cheek. That was where his eye was. Then further down, to the left hand that was still bleeding, where his split-off part remained on the ring finger.
His… female?
So Xie Chongyi stepped forward, lowered his head, and kissed Wu Heng on the forehead.
Wu Heng’s fingers trembled. He had even forgotten to heal the wound on his hand first.
With his bloodied palm, he took out a syringe from his pocket. Silently, he flicked off the needle cap with his fingers. Then, while the “person” before him was fully focused on observing him, he raised his hand and drove the needle into the other’s neck.
The injection was only halfway in when Wu Heng’s throat was seized—but his expression didn’t change. He quickly pushed the rest of the liquid into the other’s body.
The being before him—perhaps an aberration—still looked at Wu Heng with that same unfamiliar gaze.
The dosage wasn’t enough… or something else was wrong.
Fortunately, the other party didn’t realize that choking his neck didn’t actually affect his breathing. So Wu Heng merely pretended he couldn’t breathe, and took the opportunity to inject two more syringes into the other’s body in quick succession. Only then did the medicine seem to take effect—Wu Heng could clearly feel the grip around his throat gradually loosening.
Wu Heng calmly stared at the all-too-familiar face before him, until at last, a trace of familiarity returned to the other’s expression.
The force at his neck suddenly vanished completely. Wu Heng’s body went limp, but Xie Chongyi caught him just in time.
The boy buried his face in Wu Heng’s chest, his breath warm and slow. “Gege… I’m sorry.”
He’s back.
Wu Heng let out a quiet breath of relief. Exhausted, he blinked and said weakly, “Class Monitor, snatching food from a starving beggar may be dramatic—but it’s also cruel.”
The more Wu Heng understood hunger, the more he cherished the food he had finally found. It was only by relying on that “food” that he could live for a very, very long time.
Xie Chongyi tore a strip from his clothing and wrapped it around Wu Heng’s bleeding palm, nodding in agreement. “Let’s hope something that cruel never happens to either of us.”
Beneath the cloth, Wu Heng’s wound slowly healed, but he didn’t remove the bandage. He lifted his gaze—his eyes like a deep green abyss—and his tone turned dark.
“If what you’re protecting ends up destroying you… then I’ll destroy it. I mean it.”