Chapter 223.2: A Tiny Fish
Relying on some vague bodily memory, Wu Heng washed the mud and plant pulp off himself. The clothes were a little short on him—both the sleeves and pant legs were too short—but they were still far more comfortable than tree bark.
The sea slug was placed on a chair and, after he came out, was picked up again.
“You look really beautiful,” it said.
Wu Heng stepped out of the room, and a look of surprise flashed across the woman’s eyes. He really was good-looking—someone like him would stand out even in Suyou City.
But how had he ended up in such a remote place? And he didn’t seem to be an ability user either.
Before he left, the woman gave him a handmade crossbody cloth bag, stuffing it full of dried food and water. “You can go to Suyou City. It’s our main city—our most developed and best place. Since you’re an ordinary human, you can make a living there.”
“Is it far?” Wu Heng looked at her with clear black-and-white eyes.
“Yes, very far.”
“Oh.”
Watching the boy’s figure disappear into the distance, the woman slapped her thigh in sudden realization. She hurried to turn on the surrounding lights, then ran back into the house to prepare dinner.
As soon as the lights came on, silhouettes of a group of people gradually appeared by the surging sea.
Dou Lu washed the mud off her rubber boots with seawater and led her team back home. The woman who had been cooking rushed out and said, “Lulu, that set of clothes you said you didn’t want this morning—I just gave it to a little beggar. The kid looked really pitiful…”
Du Lu paused for a moment, then said lightly, “I understand.”
The room fell silent. They had all chosen to follow Dou Lu when she left Suyou City. They had also heard bits and pieces about her conflict with the chairman of the Human Council—the cunning, scheming woman who, two years ago, entered marriage and even had a child. And that child, from birth, was an ability user. Her life was so fortunate that it only made their captain’s situation seem even more tragic by comparison.
“Captain… that thing is, in a while…” someone said hesitantly, stumbling over their words. “In a while it’ll be the third anniversary memorial. Don’t forget, we still have to go back for the memorial day.”
“I know.”
—
When the poppy flower sprouted new shoots, Xie Chongyi knew his persistence was correct.
Even though, apart from him, no one else believed so.
What does it matter if it sprouted? What does that even prove? Is it going to grow into a living person or something? All it shows is that this pot of flowers is rotten at the root—it only reacts if you water it with two years of fresh blood.
The dead are irreplaceable, but the living matter more. Everyone’s attention had gradually shifted toward Xie Chongyi. His physical condition, his mental state—they had already lost Wu Heng, lost Shen Ping’an; they could not afford to lose Xie Chongyi as well.
Xie Chongyi had become noticeably thinner. The vigor of youth flowed through him at an accelerated pace, and he was calm—so calm he resembled a dead sea in a place without life.
His memory was also getting worse. Though it didn’t show obviously, there were several times the house nearly caught fire because he forgot to turn off the stove. During missions, he would suddenly zone out. In meetings, he would inexplicably lean back in his chair and fall asleep.
There were many explanations for this: some said it was because of overwhelming stress; some said it was because he kept draining his blood so much that he had practically “lost part of his brain”; others said it was because anyone who lost a wife would eventually go insane—end up wandering hand in hand with Wu Zhi digging through trash.
He also repeatedly forgot to feed X and Shukui, so pet care and tending the garden were now handled by Jiang Lian, while everyone else had their own tasks to attend to.
Lin Mengzhi and Xue Shen came to visit him regularly, like checking on a patient, reminding him to eat properly and sleep well.
But Xie Chongyi himself didn’t think there was anything wrong. He scoffed casually, “A widower’s doorstep is full of gossip.”
“?”
The traces Wu Heng had left in the house were almost gone. Three years is neither long nor short, but it had been enough to break a person.
And his remaining belongings—whether the dog and the bird, or his childhood friend and his sister—did nothing to comfort Xie Chongyi. Perhaps even a single strand of Wu Heng’s hair would have mattered more.
And this kind of collapse—not crying, not screaming, not going mad, but slowly crumbling from the inside—was what made everyone around Xie Chongyi even more anxious.
A person is often most afraid of an illness that shows no outward symptoms—a terminal condition where the body still looks intact on the outside, but inside has already rotted away.
But fortunately, after several examinations, Xie Chongyi was only found to have anemia, nothing more serious.
And yet it had only been three years. He was only twenty-one—barely a quarter into his life. There was still a long stretch of years ahead of him with no Wu Heng. Just thinking about it made them feel suffocated.
They would rather Xie Chongyi had simply fallen out of love. After all, they would remember Wu Heng forever anyway—memory alone was enough. There was no need to drag a living person down with it.
But no one dared say such things out loud. Once, someone under Liu Shen tried to flatter Xie Chongyi by laughingly saying they would introduce him to someone. Xie Chongyi, smiling faintly, kicked the man so hard he ended up in the hospital for three months.
If not for Lin Mengzhi holding him back at the time, even as an ability user, that man would likely have been kicked to death—or at least another kick would have finished the job.
Meanwhile, Xie Yi and those who had always followed her recently informed Xie Chongyi that after the memorial day, they would leave Suyou City to rebuild their former homeland.
Xie Chongyi spent his days wandering the city, holding the sprouting pot of flowers, taking it everywhere he went. The flowerpot left a lingering scent of blood all over him; at night, encountering him felt like seeing a ghost.
After the sprout developed roots and stems, its growth noticeably accelerated, and Xie Chongyi began to feed it even more of his blood.
—
“I feel like you’ve gotten taller recently,” the sea slug said, living inside a plastic bottle all day and observing the human. “Can humans grow that fast?”
Wu Heng squatted on a tree, picked a handful of wild berries into a cloth bag, then jumped down. “I don’t know.”
He stood on the ground, popped a wild berry into his mouth, and immediately frowned as he bit through the skin. Sour—and a little astringent. Not as sweet as before.
He poured all the berries into the plastic bottle.
“Yummy, I like it,” the sea slug said, wrapping its soft body around all the wild berries so it could eat them slowly.
Wu Heng stopped eating fruit. Instead, he began hunting small wild animals—rabbits, foxes, anything he could catch, he would try.
As a result, he quickly accumulated both old and new injuries. The gray uniform on his body also became tattered and worn, making him look no different from the “little beggar” the woman had mentioned.
But perhaps because he had recently been consuming enough animal protein and engaging in intense physical activity, Wu Heng felt his body becoming lighter. His thoughts were also becoming more active. He began to understand many aspects of human behavior. Now that he had enough food and warmth, he also wanted to find companions to live with. Regarding what counted as a “companion,” vague shadows had begun to form in his mind—unclear silhouettes that were gradually becoming sharper as time passed and he ate more.
But an accident soon came.
On a bright, sunlit day, Wu Heng finally managed to catch a white fox. The moment he lifted the dead fox in his hand, a powerful force struck the ground beneath him, and he was sent rolling down the hillside.
There were human voices above. But they had attacked him—so they were not companions.
Wu Heng grabbed the fox, held onto the sea slug, and ran for his life.
He had lived in the wild for so many days; he knew survival too well. He believed shaking them off would not be difficult.
He moved with astonishing agility, almost like a monkey, and quickly slipped from the endless grassland into a dense coniferous forest.
But footsteps soon followed behind him—on the ground, and above him as well.
How was that possible? Could humans fly?
Wu Heng was struck from behind and knocked down. He crashed heavily onto the ground. His waist-length hair scattered messily across his face. He gasped for breath, struggling desperately, and then someone grabbed his wrist and yanked him up. Cold handcuffs snapped shut behind his back.
The fox was taken away too. He stared at the ground with intense hatred.
When the other side tried to grab the plastic bottle as well, he rammed his head into them. The man who got hit looked confused. “You know you’ve broken the law, right?”
Next to him, a woman strolled over leisurely. She raised a slender finger, originally intending to lift his hair and see where this person got the nerve to violate regulations on a day like this. But seeing the leaves and mud tangled in his hair, she clicked her tongue twice in mild disgust and pulled her hand back.
“Today is the memorial day. Hunting is prohibited. And the fox you killed is a Level-2 protected species in Suyou,” she said with a slight smile. “Come with us.”
“Where to?”
“Suyou City.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t kill you. At most, we’ll send you to jail,” the man beside her said cheerfully.
“Jail food! I know jail food!” the sea slug shouted. But aside from Wu Heng, the people nearby couldn’t understand it at all. “Jail food is when they lock you in a small room and keep you there for your whole life.”
“Is it tasty?”
“What?”
“Is jail food good?”
“Damn fish, can you have a little ambition? That’s jail food!” the sea slug cried in frustration.
Damn fish?
Wu Heng murmured the nickname, still not fully reacting. Suddenly, someone pressed down on his shoulder. The woman’s palm released a warm surge of energy, and in the blink of an eye, his body was moved five kilometers away.
“I have a name. I’m Wu Heng,” he said, lowering his eyes toward the sea slug.
“What kind of fish is that?” the sea slug asked.
Wu Heng said nothing more. But the woman who had been transporting him had just heard his voice. The wind distorted it, and she hadn’t caught clearly. “What did you just say?”
“Nothing.”
Wu Heng’s hair was blown upward by the wind, bits of grass still falling from it. Streaks of dirt clung to his pale cheeks. He lowered his gaze again, looking at the surrounding land—this stretch of green he knew all too well.
In just a few minutes, he arrived home. When he stopped at the city gate, his steps staggered slightly. The group didn’t pay attention to him and went ahead to verify identities.
“Come, you, over here!” After confirming everyone else’s identity one by one, they waved Wu Heng over.
Wu Heng walked over obediently.
The man made a disgusted “tsk” sound, clearly put off by how dirty he was, but still roughly ran his hand through Wu Heng’s hair and shoved him in front of an identity verification device. “Everyone had their information recorded before. You’re no exception. Get closer to the screen—look at the camera.”
Wu Heng lifted his eyes and looked at the camera above the screen. After a few seconds, the display flashed and his identity information and photo appeared.
Name: Wu Heng
Identity ID: 1
Position: King
Wu Heng remained motionless. The surroundings suddenly fell silent.
He didn’t look at the others. He just didn’t understand—why had he woken up in the sea, and why had he turned into a fish? The wood-element energy within him clearly no longer existed, so whatever had awakened him must not have been related to ability powers.
Before he could sort it out, a trembling female voice came from behind him, stuttering:
“Is, is it… really you?”
She hadn’t carefully looked at the information on the screen, nor did she doubt the credibility of the device. The “Ginger” system’s capability in identity verification was unquestionable. So what she was seeing now must be real—she just still had to ask, because she could hardly believe it.
At that moment, a strand of green light seeped up from the ground into Wu Heng’s body. He tilted his head slightly and glanced at the stunned group out of the corner of his eye, speaking in a calm, indifferent tone:
“Have Xie Chongyi come pick me up.”