Chapter 226: welcoming the next grand spring of a new world (End)
“Does human meat count as red meat or white meat?” Wu Heng asked after hearing the rat-like human voices.
“Of course it’s red meat,” Doctor Chen replied, not even bothering to hide his disdain for such a question. “Though eating people is illegal. But what are we doing right now?”
“Carrying out a sentence.”
“Exactly, exactly.”
This was a damp, pitch-black dungeon. The fluorescent lights were so dim that people could only make out each other’s silhouettes, not their actual faces.
Shadows stirred across the ground. The whispers grew louder, every word reaching Wu Heng’s ears. They were discussing escape plans, but every suggestion was rejected one after another. The dungeon itself wasn’t very deep—escaping should have been no challenge at all for people with supernatural abilities. Apparently, over the past three years, humanity had already figured out effective ways to restrain ability users.
A familiar stench of decay reached the cell before the footsteps did.
Instantly, the prisoners lost their composure. Shoving and crowding together like a flock of sheep, they shrank into the corner of the wall—though their eyes held far more malice and hatred than any sheep ever could.
“Oh dear.” Doctor Chen tugged at the sleeves of his white coat as he stepped in front of the iron door. Pressing his face against the small barred window, he said, “Why are you all so afraid? I’ve already been very humanitarian about this. The last time I came here was two months ago.”
“Xie Chongyi won’t let you get away with this.”
“When has he ever let me off?” Doctor Chen pulled a counterfeit key from his pocket and unlocked the door. “Let me introduce you to a new friend.”
The people inside thought it was another zombie. After all, Doctor Chen seemed to be the last zombie left in the world. Or perhaps Doctor Chen hadn’t lost his reproductive ability after all?
But those increasingly absurd guesses vanished the moment the figure beside him stepped forward.
It was a beautiful face—one so stunning it could grind Doctor Chen’s disgusting, rotten face into the dirt and trample it beneath its feet.
Wu Heng said nothing. Vines crept up from behind his shoulders as he had already begun selecting the most appetizing prey.
“Wu Heng,” Doctor Chen said, leaning back slightly, “president of the Dawn Society, the sole lord of Suyou City, Suyou’s greatest king, and the savior of all humanity.”
“…” Wu Heng glanced back over his shoulder. He felt like the class monitor would have enjoyed that kind of introduction—it sounded like someone reading out dishes from a menu.
“Didn’t he die?!”
“No one truly dies. The truly dead are merely those who are forgotten.” For a moment, Doctor Chen completely abandoned his role as a doctor.
“So then? You came to free us? Let us out! We already know we were wrong—we really won’t dare do it again.” Being locked in this sunless place, with meals even richer and more balanced than when they had been free outside, had left them with nothing but deep anxiety and fear. It was utterly inhuman.
Wu Heng shook his head.
Doctor Chen wasn’t worried in the slightest that Wu Heng might soften. Wu Heng’s heart actually was fairly soft—but only before he had already classified someone as food. Just like humans wouldn’t feel sympathy toward freshly baked cake or fried chicken. That would be too anti-human.
“Then you—”
“Wu Heng?” A voice filled with puzzled yet excessive calmness sounded from the deepest part of the cell. “Wang Xingheng? The one who was classmates with Xie Chongyi?”
“They’re a couple,” Doctor Chen corrected.
The speaker exchanged looks with the people around him, already reaching a conclusion. They hurriedly squeezed their way out from the back, faces full of joy despite their miserable appearance. Their looks were ordinary, their expressions unfriendly, and a few were built like hills. Yet they stared at Wu Heng with the expression of someone unexpectedly encountering an old acquaintance far from home.
Before Wu Heng could speak, the disheveled group crowded in front of him.
“It’s me, me! He Siyu—we were in the same class before. I was the class life committee member. One time you couldn’t pay the class fee, and I even covered it for you out of my own pocket. Later, when you saved enough money, you paid me back. Do you remember?”
After introducing himself, He Siyu pulled the person beside him forward.
“And this guy—he was on Class 6’s basketball team, the one who was insanely good at basketball!”
Once he finished speaking, Wu Heng understood. The five or six people before him had all come from the same high school as them.
From behind him, Doctor Chen said quietly, “He’s the one who tortured an elderly person to death.”
In He Siyu’s memory, Wu Heng had been thin and pale, like a bean sprout that could be blown away by a gust of wind. Because of that, he had never connected him to the lord of Suyou City whom everyone praised so fervently. They had assumed it was merely someone with the same name.
He couldn’t figure out what kind of person Wu Heng had become now. But someone willing to sacrifice himself for others couldn’t possibly be that cruel. He just needed to beg desperately, just—
Ugh—
A soft green tendril suddenly pierced straight through his throat without any warning.
The smell of blood spread through the air. The people around He Siyu scattered like startled animals. After furious shouting erupted, they charged forward as if ready to fight to the death.
The ground beneath their feet suddenly collapsed. Their bodies dropped sharply downward as something cool and soft slithered around them, like accidentally falling into a gigantic nest of snakes.
Wu Heng kept both hands in the pockets of his coat. His soft black hair stirred lightly beside his ears as he walked to the edge of the sunken ground and lowered his gaze toward the spreading pool of blood below. The vines had been dyed red, and one of them even casually tossed half a corpse toward the man in the white coat behind him.
Their roars gradually weakened, like a herd of cattle with their necks twisted apart. Before long, they stopped struggling entirely.
A strange, seductive flush slowly appeared on the young man’s otherwise indifferent face, making him seem almost ghostlike. Yet within the curve of his brows and eyes, there was not the slightest trace of humanity left.
The remaining prisoners whom Wu Heng had spared were trembling so badly their legs shook uncontrollably. Warm liquid ran down their calves into their shoes.
Wasn’t this just cannibalism?
And his appetite was even bigger than Doctor Chen’s.
The vines all withdrew back into Wu Heng’s body. As a man-eating flower, its menu had in truth always contained only humans. After going so long without feeding, even Wu Heng couldn’t help sharing in its sense of delight.
“Aren’t you the lord? How can you—”
Wu Heng lifted his eyes slightly.
The other person immediately fell silent, suddenly forgetting what he had even wanted to say.
“‘Lord’ is just a title. The greatest value any of you can offer is existing as my food.”
The young man turned and left. Besides the smell of blood, there was also a faint floral fragrance lingering in the air—one that sent chills through people’s hearts.
Compared to a utopia, this place resembled a slaughterhouse far more.
And compared to a lord, he seemed more like the owner of a farm.
—
Wu Heng looked slightly disheveled after leaving. Out on the road, X and Shukui—whom he had left at home—had somehow chased after him.
“If you stayed at home, the class monitor wouldn’t know I went out.”
“Tell him! Tell him!”
“I don’t like people watching me… eat.” Half human and half something else, he preferred feeding like a wild animal, tearing into prey alone off to the side. “Besides, he raised them for three years, and I just ate five or six of them.”
“Big eater! Big eater!”
After returning home, Wu Heng took a shower and deliberately chose a light apricot-colored set of pajamas that made him look especially innocent. Sitting cross-legged on the sofa, he waited for Xie Chongyi to come back.
Before Xie Chongyi had even returned, Wu Heng was already snacking on the giant assortment platter Jiang Lian had prepared.
Late at night, X and Shukui had already eaten their fill and fallen asleep in a heap at the other end of the sofa when footsteps finally sounded from the doorway.
Wu Heng pulled his hand out from beneath Shukui’s belly and padded barefoot toward the entrance.
The door swung open. Cold wind rushed inside, making Wu Heng instinctively step back half a pace.
Moonlight still rested upon Xie Chongyi’s shoulder. Standing against the light, his smile couldn’t be seen, and his presence felt dim and unreadable. He set the list in his hand onto the cabinet, changed his shoes, and casually asked:
“Did you eat?”
“D-Did I eat dinner? I-I did.” Wu Heng started stammering.
The class monitor replied, “My question is whether you ate them.”
Tension and unease appeared on Wu Heng’s radiant face. “I only ate a little.”
Xie Chongyi picked up the list and suddenly stepped closer to Wu Heng, stopping with barely a finger’s width between their noses. His pitch-black eyes stared unblinkingly at him as he asked:
“Why didn’t you tell me before you went out?”
“I made it back before you got home,” Wu Heng said calmly as he spun around once in place. “And I already took a shower.”
“Why did you need to shower first?”
Watching the clear look in Xie Chongyi’s eyes change, Wu Heng suddenly felt his throat tighten slightly. He really hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“You saw those people. Did they say anything to you?” Xie Chongyi straightened up and pulled Wu Heng toward the living room.
“A few of them were our old classmates. That’s basically what they talked about.”
“And then you just ate them?”
“I feel safer eating people I know.”
“…” Xie Chongyi laughed twice in succession. “You were worried they might have some contagious disease?”
Wu Heng’s delicate brows furrowed slightly. “That old plant is buried deep underground now. The one I’m using currently is different—it probably still needs more time to grow back to its original state. I don’t want to take risks.”
“I give them regular physical examinations. Their health won’t be a problem.”
Xie Chongyi sat cross-legged on the sofa and had Wu Heng mirror him by sitting opposite. X, who had been watching from far away atop the table, quietly crept over and forcibly squeezed itself between the two of them.
“This house still doesn’t have heating yet, but I had someone build a boiler system, so you shouldn’t feel cold anymore.”
The topic shift came out of nowhere, but Wu Heng still nodded.
“So you don’t need to wear so much.” Xie Chongyi reached out with his fingers and tugged lightly at the tightly fastened collar across from him. Beneath it, faint bite marks could be seen intermittently.
Wu Heng’s eyelashes trembled. During springtime especially, he was extremely sensitive to touch.
His face and ears quickly flushed red.
“Class monitor, I should split off a few more seedlings.”
“Why?”
“In case I die again, you could plant me and bring me back to life.”
“No.” Xie Chongyi’s smile was faint and slightly cold.
“What’s your reason?”
“I can’t accept waiting endlessly for you all over again. And if there’s a next time, I won’t give you the chance to find me.”
“What if I find you again anyway…”
“Impossible,” Xie Chongyi said, gripping the back of Wu Heng’s neck and pulling him closer. He kissed his lips and murmured, “I can perform time reversal. So if there is a next time, either we die together, or you live on. Only those two possibilities.”
“Time reversal?” Wu Heng placed his hands on either side of Xie Chongyi’s body and took the initiative to lean in. “Prove it to me.”
Xie Chongyi didn’t resist at all; in fact, he seemed to like the other’s initiative. He didn’t lean back. Instead, he raised his hand and pressed his palm against Wu Heng’s forehead.
A few seconds later, both of their bodies suddenly vanished from the sofa. X and Shukui immediately began making disruptive, noisy protests again.
Xie Chongyi brought Wu Heng back to their high school campus.
On the playground, laughter rang out; in the classrooms, reading voices echoed. Everything around them was still in its pre-apocalyptic state—no mutations, no ability users.
For a moment, it felt like a lifetime away.
Wu Heng’s fingertips tingled faintly with a numb, trembling sensation. “Have you ever used this ability before?”
“No. If there’s no meaning, I don’t use it.”
“And the apocalypse…?”
“The apocalypse is an inevitable outcome of the era and human development. Time reversal can only slow its pace. And as for so-called time travel changing the past—it only turns a circle into a square. A large number of people will still die. When you save A from a catastrophe, someone else will definitely suffer one instead. That’s conservation.”
“I’ll take you to the classroom to have a look.” Before the apocalypse, the two of them hadn’t even been close enough to be considered nodding acquaintances. Yet now, walking together through the campus, a faint, secret joy grew in both of their hearts—though neither of them showed it, both remaining composed as they avoided crowded areas.
The corridor was filled with mixed smells; the damp scent of rainy weather was the strongest. Wu Heng walked slightly ahead of Xie Chongyi. With his long hair, he looked at first glance like a girl, though his posture wasn’t feminine. Still, it was class time, and students who glanced out from classrooms could only quickly glance at the corridor—linger too long, and they’d be hit on the head with a piece of chalk by the teacher.
Wu Heng’s figure appeared at the back door of their classroom. From there, he immediately saw his past self from years ago.
The hair at the back of that younger version’s head was slightly long, covering the protruding vertebrae at the nape of his neck. Looking further down along the collar, he realized just how thin he had been back then.
The adolescent Wu Heng, already sensitive by nature, noticed someone observing him. He turned his head slightly.
The others couldn’t recognize the young man standing outside the door in that short moment—but he could.
The boy clearly froze. His eyes widened, his lips trembled—but he quickly turned back around.
Wu Heng then found Xie Chongyi. The other was asleep, his right hand resting behind his head, fingers idly tapping the back of his neck. It was obvious he was only pretending.
At that moment, the younger Wu Heng looked over again. This time, he also saw Xie Chongyi. Xie Chongyi lightly pinched Wu Heng’s ear beside him, the gesture intimate.
He then looked toward the person who was still pretending to sleep.
The one being watched by several pairs of eyes finally reacted. He slowly sat up, kicked the desk leg lightly without much force, and lazily turned around—also slightly stunned.
“We should go back now,” Wu Heng said, taking Xie Chongyi’s hand and turning to leave. “Staying too long might cause trouble.”
“I’ll take you somewhere else first,” Xie Chongyi said, tightening his grip on Wu Heng’s fingers.
They arrived at the residential area where Wu Heng lived.
Granny Lin was sitting in the courtyard shelling peanuts. Because she couldn’t see, she didn’t notice Lin Mengzhi crouching in front of her knees. Every time she cracked open a peanut, he would sneakily grab one and pop it into his mouth. After a long while, not a single peanut had actually been added to the bowl.
“Your grandson’s stealing your peanuts!” someone from upstairs shouted.
Granny Lin immediately began flailing her hands wildly. Three or four of the swats landed on Lin Mengzhi’s head.
“Hey! Hey! Old lady, I’m sending you to a nursing home tomorrow!” Lin Mengzhi yelled, hopping around the courtyard like a monkey. The old woman didn’t manage to chase him, but the sharp smacking sounds didn’t stop.
It was coming from the building above—their home.
Wu Heng lowered his eyes, unmoved.
Xie Chongyi stepped in front of him. “Wait here.”
The man was still wearing his winter coat—work uniform style—as if he had just come from some government office. He looked completely out of place here.
He strode straight into the building, taking the stairs two steps at a time. Reaching the apartment where the noise was coming from, he knocked on the door and cleared his throat.
“Hello, gas inspection.”
After a moment, the door opened.
Before the irritated man inside—Wu Shiming—could even speak while waving his hand impatiently, he was hit squarely in the face by a punch from outside. He staggered back several steps, clutching his nose as blood seeped out between his fingers.
The shirtless teenage Wu Heng walked out from the bathroom. His body was covered in bruises—purple and blue marks layered across his skin. Fists, slaps, belts—things like these were enough to beat a student still in development until he could barely stand upright.
Xie Chongyi curled his lips slightly.
He entered the apartment without hesitation and delivered another heavy kick to Wu Shiming’s stomach. The man collapsed to the floor, screaming, demanding who he was.
“You don’t need to know my name,” Xie Chongyi said.
He smiled faintly as he placed his shoe on the man’s wrist. For an ability user who had long stood above others, crushing an ordinary person was easier than crushing an ant. Under his foot, Wu Shiming’s wrist shattered into powder, and he quickly lost consciousness from the pain.
“AAAAAAAH!!!”
Lin Mengzhi, who had rushed up holding a stick, collided head-on with Wu Heng. The moment he saw the face, he froze completely.
“Holy shit… you… you are—”
A gust of wind swept past as Xie Chongyi grabbed Wu Heng and ran downstairs.
“Don’t run! Wu Heng! Why are you running?! Which hair salon did you get your hair from?!” Lin Mengzhi, still just an ordinary person at the time, couldn’t possibly catch up to an ability user. He was shaken off before even leaving the neighborhood and could only convince himself he had seen a ghost.
On the street, rain poured heavily.
Both Xie Chongyi and Wu Heng were soaked through. Wu Heng thought his eyelashes were likely wet too, making his vision so blurred that he couldn’t even see the back of Xie Chongyi’s head clearly.
“Class monitor,” he asked softly, “didn’t you say… there was no meaning?”
The rain slowed to a stop.
Xie Chongyi halted.
“Making you take less of a beating, making him bleed and break his hand—that’s meaning,” he said.
“I won’t be spared by my father,” Wu Heng said, referring to the one still at school.
When it came to himself, Xie Chongyi was far more indifferent. His damp fringe couldn’t hide the warmth in his gaze as he teased, “If he’s sensible, he should realize this is me giving him a chance.”
Rainwater that had gathered on Wu Heng’s eyelashes dripped down one by one, tickling his face.
Wu Heng stared at him for a long time. Finally, after thinking it over, he said, “Mm. I think ‘I’ would fall in love with ‘you.’”
The Earth was still in its rainy season at this time. The rain grew heavier, the streets veiled in mist. A young couple walked through the downpour.
Aside from them, there was no one else.
No one yet knew that immense energy was beginning to surge along with the rainy season. Monsters would soon arrive in waves, humans would turn into walking corpses, and a terrifying apocalypse was about to unfold.
Rainwater splashed up with each step as Wu Heng and Xie Chongyi returned to their home. The warm, dry air inside instantly drove away the chill from their bodies.
Inside the house, no one spoke. But there was the sound of X and Shukui pattering across the floor, the rustle of breathing and changing clothes, the noise of things being picked up and set down. It was a small household warm from the inside out.
When the “male owner” was pressed down onto the sofa, he took a breath. The eyes above him watched him for a long time.
“Same-sex marriage laws will be fully finalized soon. They’re expected to be added to the system in two months,” Xie Chongyi said. “Wu Heng, what do you think?”
After a moment of confusion, the person underneath him came back to himself.
Soft, smooth vines coiled around the ring finger of his left hand—an answer more direct than words.
So Xie Chongyi leaned down and bit and kissed his lips. Without restraint, he quickly drew blood between them both.
Wu Heng swallowed and let out a muffled sound. He had become more afraid of pain than before—and more attached to his own life than before.
Wu Heng heard the crisp, crackling sound of flower buds blooming. He thought to himself—this year, could he also bear many seeds?
If so, then they would be scattered across the earth, welcoming the next grand spring of a new world.
(The End)
**TN
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