Eaten Ch.221.1

Chapter 221.1: Beginning of Spring

“Where’s my brother?! Where’s Liu Shen?! And Xie Chongyi too?!”

Covered head to toe in blood and grime, Wu Zhi came rushing out of the military headquarters. From the miserable state she was in, it was obvious she had probably fought herself into a frenzy. She hadn’t found anyone else. After searching through the city—which had inexplicably fallen silent—for quite a while, she finally found Wen Yuan.

“Where’s my brother?”

Blood on Wen Yuan’s forehead seeped down along the roots of his eyelashes, obscuring his expression. He looked at Wu Zhi quietly.

He didn’t know either.

But Wu Zhi knew something was wrong, because she felt terrible—more upset than ever before. A thousand, ten thousand times worse than when she argued with Lin Mengzhi, worse than when she had to part from her brother for a while.

But with the brain she had, she couldn’t figure out why. Ying Liuquan had already signed her up for preschool, and she hadn’t even had the chance to attend yet.

At the far end of the street, more than a dozen long shadows slowly approached from the distance.

Jiang Xun still walked at the very front, with the others spread out to her sides and behind her. Wen Yuan subtly let out a slight breath of relief, but before he could fully relax, his heart tightened again—

Wang Ruixiang was carrying Pu Fei in his arms, cradled horizontally, dead or alive unknown.

Wu Zhi had never seen such a terrifying expression on Wen Yuan’s face before. Confused, she turned around.

She still didn’t understand.

Wen Yuan gently pushed Wu Zhi aside. In less than half a second, he flashed to Wang Ruixiang’s side. Taking Pu Fei into his own arms, he carefully knelt halfway down.

The aurora above them had vanished. Gray-white morning mist drifted through the city, and their tears shone like diamonds within the fog. Wu Zhi could see it clearly.

Wen Yuan knelt with his back facing her while everyone else lowered their heads in silence. She could see Pu Fei’s face resting against Wen Yuan’s arm. Pu Fei wasn’t as beautiful as her brother, but compared to everyone else, he was still far better-looking. Even now, with all life gone from his features and black cracks spread across the side of his face, he still looked beautiful.

Wen Yuan was crying.

Wu Zhi realized it.

At first, he only hugged Pu Fei tightly and lowered his head. Then his shoulders began to tremble slightly. When the uncontrollable sound of sobbing escaped through his clenched teeth, Wu Zhi’s whole body suddenly turned ice-cold. She staggered back two steps, her legs going weak, and collapsed onto the ground.

The young girl had never regarded anyone outside her own people as truly human. But at this moment, she suddenly realized that everyone was the same as Mengzhi—mere flesh and blood. Death would descend equally upon every person.

In the distance, the dozen or so figures stood rigidly upright. Through Wu Zhi’s tear-blurred vision, the constantly falling tears and the elongated shadows distorted by her sight made them look like a congregation of death’s devotees, softly chanting in mourning.

Suddenly, Wu Zhi reached down and pulled up her pant leg.

The white poplar-tree markings were still there.

She climbed back to her feet and continued searching for people.

The vines had vanished without a trace. She could feel it—her brother was probably no longer in Suyou anymore.

She quickly arrived at the border and collided head-on with a group emerging from the white poplar forest.

She saw several people in uniforms identical to the ones Wen Yuan and the others used to wear, so she spared them barely a glance. Tilting her head upward, she stared instead at the towering white poplar forest behind them, its leaves rustling high in the clouds.

Xie Yi wasn’t quite sure where this white-haired girl had appeared from, but the uniform she wore had been designed by Xie Yi personally. That meant she was most likely one of Suyou City’s higher-ups. Yet at this moment, her attention was not on them, the intruders. Instead, she stared blankly at the forest behind them.

It truly was an unusual poplar forest—straight and orderly, like giant soldiers lined up by human hands.

“You…”

Sheng Jiang recognized her—Wu Heng’s younger sister. He was about to step forward to speak, but she acted as though she hadn’t seen them at all, walking straight through the middle of the group.

By the time she entered the forest, tears were already streaming down her face. Standing among the trees, Wu Zhi shouted, “Liu Shen!”

Her voice echoed outward and then bounced back to her, answered only by the rustling of dense branches overhead.

Whimpering softly, Wu Zhi bent down and rolled up her pant leg again. She hadn’t examined it carefully back in the city, but now, after wiping away her tears and looking closely, she finally realized the markings had long since withered dry.

They could be peeled directly off her skin.

Without hesitation, she tore the parasitic tree off and clenched it tightly in her hand.

‘Damn you, Liu Shen. So you finally died. Tonight I’ll chop you up and burn you as firewood,’ Wu Zhi thought bitterly through streaming tears.

“I’m going to find my brother. Until you pass inspection, none of you are allowed into the city.”

Throwing those words behind her, she vanished into the forest.

At the same time, back inside the base, Lin Mengzhi was wrestling with Shen Ruyi because Shen Ruyi, while imitating him and trying to throw a fireball, had only managed to produce a wisp of black smoke.

Behind them, Shen Ping’an suddenly collapsed to the ground mid-step.

The two people, one dog, and one bird in front all turned around at once.

“Holy shit!” Lin Mengzhi jumped in fright and immediately let go of Shen Ruyi before rushing back.

“Hey, hey, hey, are you okay?” Squatting beside Shen Ping’an, Lin Mengzhi patted his face, only to find his skin burning hot beneath his hand.

“Brother? Brother brother brother?!” Shen Ruyi shouted frantically nearby.

All strength had left Shen Ping’an’s body. His vision was fading, and he could barely hear what the people around him were saying. He believed he hadn’t been infected, and he also believed the symbiote hadn’t mutated, because he still loved everyone around him with complete clarity.

So there was only one possibility.

His fingers, sprawled weakly against the ground, struggled forward until they caught hold of Lin Mengzhi’s sleeve and tugged lightly.

“Something may have happened to Wu Heng,” he whispered faintly.

He phrased it gently because Wu Heng had been injured before, yet it had barely affected him. But this time… Shen Ping’an felt as though he himself were about to disappear.

“What?”

Then Shen Ping’an’s eyes turned into a murky green. The corners of his eyes split open, and countless vine tendrils crawled out from his sockets.

More and more vines emerged—from his ears, from his mouth, from every part of his body—burrowing down into the earth…

Lin Mengzhi reacted faster than Shen Ruyi. He immediately hoisted the stunned Shen Ruyi onto his shoulder, called out to the dog and bird nearby, and fled the area at top speed.

The vines gradually overtook the entire street, climbing the high-rises on both sides until everything became lush and overgrown.

And Shen Ping’an disappeared completely.

Lin Mengzhi didn’t even have time to comfort Shen Ruyi, who had cried himself nearly insane. He ran straight toward the city outskirts, with the gray parrot and the greyhound following closely behind him.

Just like Wu Zhi before him, he ran headfirst into the tens of thousands of people waiting outside the city.

The intentions of both him and Wu Zhi were written all over their faces. Even if they hadn’t been, anyone who knew them—or had met Wu Heng—already understood what they wanted to do.

Wu Dian stepped forward and spoke before Lin Mengzhi could waste effort on something futile.

“Only one of them can come back. Wu Heng and Xiao Xie.”

“There’s nothing you can do to help if you go,” Ginger added. “The situation outside is dangerous. You’d only become a burden.”

“Shut up, mushroom-head, none of your business!” Lin Mengzhi’s eyes were bloodshot red.

“…”Ginger shrugged. “It’s a bob cut.”

Lin Mengzhi looked at them, taking deep breaths over and over again. Of course he knew his own abilities were limited—that he’d be finished after only a few attempts—but he couldn’t just do nothing.

Because of Shen Ping’an, he already knew which of the “only one can return” pair would make it back…

And which one would never return.

Inside his mind, that flourishing land full of life had begun collapsing beyond repair. He didn’t know how to describe the feeling.

He only felt like he was dying too.

Fire-type energy was already violent by nature, and the drastic upheaval of his emotions caused the boy to stand frozen in place for a long while before his body suddenly collapsed forward. X reacted swiftly, catching him with its wings.

The bird turned its head around blankly, clearly still unaware that its master would never come back again.

Three days later, the long-missing Chief Xie returned to Suyou.

Tucked beneath his arm was a bundle of withered poppy branches.

Three days was already enough time for the base to be rebuilt once more, though restoring its vitality would still take longer.

During this period, Doctor Chen was the busiest he had ever been. There were simply too many dead and injured. Some family members even carried corpses to him after the person had already died, demanding he save them.

How was he supposed to save them? He was a doctor, not a god.

To prevent situations like “I don’t care, your hospital killed them,” Doctor Chen ordered his assistants to stop the bodies downstairs, allowing only the wounded to be brought inside.

So when Xie Chongyi returned to the city, carrying a bundle of dried branches into the hospital, no one stopped him.

Not until he placed the bundle of dead branches onto a hospital bed.

“…”

Doctor Chen removed the completely unnecessary mask from his face and asked him to leave.

“The one who needs a doctor right now is you,” Doctor Chen said. “A psychiatrist.”

News of Wu Heng’s death spread through the entire city the very day Xie Chongyi returned.

Some people lost their minds over it.

That same night, Wu Zhi slit her wrists. After Lin Mengzhi saved her, she found another chance to stab her own chest into a bloody mess with a knife. But it wasn’t so easy for an ability user to die, so Lin Mengzhi managed to save her again and again.

One day, when Doctor Chen’s assistant came to deliver medicine to the ward, he stood outside the room and heard both of them crying at the same time.

During this period, Xue Shen also had no time to comfort Lin Mengzhi, so most of the time, it was Liu Ning who stayed with him instead.

Because Xue Qi’s leg had been ruined again.

A few days earlier, before the infection could spread through his entire body, Shen She had ignored Xue Qi’s desperate pleading and decisively cut off everything below his knees. From that day onward, Xue Qi never spoke another word, nor would he eat a single bite of food. Occasionally, when Xue Shen personally fed him, he might give him some face and take one mouthful.

The group never had time to gather together again. Everyone had urgent matters of their own to deal with. Even while apart, however, they all shared an unspoken understanding not to mention Wu Heng at all.

As though that person had never existed.

Their hearts entered winter along with the season itself, believing that if they simply never spoke of him, then when the ice and snow melted next spring, the one they had lost would return.

But Suyou’s development did not stop.

If anything, it accelerated even faster than before.

For the time being, Xie Yi took over most affairs. She suppressed quite a few newcomers who had arrived wanting to replace Wu Heng and Xie Chongyi, while at the same time carrying out sweeping, forceful reforms throughout the base’s various departments.

The source of the contamination seemed to have been completely eradicated. The gloom and rotting stench brought by the apocalypse were slowly fading away. Wild grass and flowers sprouted from the soil that had buried countless corpses. The giant mutated creatures roaming through the forests no longer lingered near human territory, nor did they prey upon humans anymore.

Storehouses overflowed with abundant harvests. Once the food problem had been perfectly solved, education, medicine, industry, and countless other fields also began developing rapidly. The constant birth of newborns even left Doctor Chen salivating every day.

Ever since Wu Heng was gone, he hadn’t eaten a human in a very long time.

Sigh. Everyone was simply too busy to pay attention to such a minor matter as whether he had something good to eat. Although his assistants often brought living creatures into his office for him, humans were still far more delicious—far better suited to his tastes…

So whether as a doctor or simply as another person among them, he understood all too well just how deep everyone’s grief over Wu Heng’s departure ran.

Even if unwillingly, Wu Heng had still, little by little, loved every one of them.

And the people loved by Wu Heng the most deeply were often the ones who found it hardest to move on.

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