Chapter 13: Mutation
Wu Heng held his phone. After a few seconds, he finally replied, “I’m fine.”
“You’re not dead. You mutated.” Xie Chongyi narrowed his eyes.
This time, Wu Heng didn’t hide it from Xie Chongyi—he just said it directly.
“I don’t know.” Wu Heng truly had no idea why, after being torn apart by mutated plants, he was still perfectly fine. But aside from mutation, there didn’t seem to be any other explanation.
Still, if it was mutation, why wasn’t there any sign of it on his body? Aside from… looking a bit healthier, and his hair seeming a little less dry. But was that really a mutation? In a post-apocalyptic world, that just made him seem more appetizing.
In the midst of such chaos and disorder, Xie Chongyi suddenly called Wu Heng.
In the classroom of Class 1, Grade 12, at Hanzhou No.1 High School, Xie Chongyi sat on the balcony. He looked down at the zombies snarling and hurling themselves at the iron gate below, then asked the boy on the other end of the phone, “Wu Heng, who am I?”
“You’re Xie Chongyi.”
“I’ll tell you two things. First, there are two kinds of zombies. One kind transforms immediately after being bitten, losing all sense of self—no different from beasts. The other mutates more slowly and retains normal human cognitive abilities. Until their mutation is complete, they look no different from normal people. But from the moment the mutation begins, they are no longer human. And they only eat living creatures.”
Xie Chongyi spoke unhurriedly, like teasing a dog. He tossed a plastic water bottle down below, and the group of zombies instantly roared and lunged for it. He laughed, his smile almost radiant.
Wu Heng thought of Chen Shuang and Zhao Qiansun back at school. They seemed to be the kind Xie Chongyi was talking about.
“The second kind… is more dangerous,” Wu Heng said quietly.
“You can distinguish them by smell,” Xie Chongyi said. “Anyone who has begun to mutate—their body is already decaying or in the process of decay. They give off a kind of putrid stench that normal humans don’t have.”
Wu Heng instinctively nodded, then belatedly said, “Got it,” and asked again, “What’s the second thing you wanted to tell me?”
Xie Chongyi replied, “God is fair. He didn’t let humanity become complete helpless prey. So he randomly selected a portion of lucky people and gave them special abilities to resist this disaster. Wu Heng, are you one of those lucky ones?”
“…I’m not.” Wu Heng was certain of that. From childhood to now, the word “luck” had never existed in his vocabulary. He was just so ordinary, so utterly unremarkable.
“That’s unfortunate, because I am.” Xie Chongyi’s tone was calm and without any emotional weight—certainly not boastful. But that was exactly what made it so irritating.
Some people are simply born favored by the heavens. Even in an apocalypse where death should level all people, fate still chose to smile on him.
“What ability do you have?” Wu Heng thought of everything he’d gone through these past few days—surreal and bloody. He had already done everything an ordinary person could possibly do.
“Want to know?” Xie Chongyi’s words had a hook to them. “Come to the school and find me.”
Wu Heng looked out the window at the reemerging sunlight and asked, “Can I still call you after this?”
But Xie Chongyi was silent for a long time before speaking again. “What identity are you planning to call me with?”
“…Classmate.”
“Are we close?”
Truthfully, before this, the total number of words Wu Heng had exchanged with Xie Chongyi probably didn’t exceed ten sentences. Even in the past couple of days, he had been the one initiating most of the contact. Xie Chongyi was too smart—there’s no way he didn’t know Wu Heng was only reaching out for the sake of exchanging information.
“We’re not,” Wu Heng admitted, racking his brain and borrowing a phrase Lin Mengzhi often used in social situations. “But if we talk more, we’ll get close.”
“…”
After a while, Xie Chongyi let out a light laugh. “Alright. Then make sure you talk to me more from now on.”
This time, it was Wu Heng who ended the call.
Because Wu Shiming had come out of his room, rubbing his head. “Why is it so noisy outside?”
Behind him was Zeng Like, yawning as she walked out. She glanced at the bright light streaming in through the window. “Oh? The sun’s out?”
“Good morning, Dad, Mom.” Wu Heng didn’t know how to explain what was happening. He paused for a moment, then said quietly, “The apocalypse has begun.”
Wu Shiming was momentarily stunned, then burst into loud laughter. Zeng Like laughed along with him. Wu Heng watched the couple with a silent expression.
At some point, Wu Zhi had come out too. Clutching her rag doll, she looked panicked. “Daddy, Mommy, I saw Uncle Li from next door eating Auntie Xiaomeng from upstairs!”
Her room had the best view in the house—facing south with a full floor-to-ceiling window on the second floor, close to the ground. She could see far more than anyone else in the house.
“Xiao Zhi, what are you talking about? Did you have a nightmare?” Seeing her daughter’s pale face, Zeng Like’s heart ached as she walked over, full of concern.
Wu Heng ignored the mother-daughter moment and turned back toward the window. The sky had brightened again. The early sunlight was warm, but the ground below was like hell—scarred and devastated.
There were no living people in sight. The earlier chaos had started suddenly and ended just as quickly.
Scattered limbs and clumps of hair were strewn across the ground. Zombies with ashen eyes wandered in every direction, sniffing the air. Their lips and teeth moved unconsciously, their bodies smeared with filthy blood.
One elderly zombie carrying a vegetable basket passed beneath Wu Heng’s window. A few dried leaves floated down from above. In the blink of an eye, sharp branches shot out and impaled the old zombie, draining it until only skin and a few bones were left. Then, the branches quietly retracted—as if nothing had happened, as if the world were at peace.
It was a crabapple tree—Malus halliana—that stood next to their building. Due to excessive rainfall, its roots had rotted. Despite the property management’s careful care, it had barely survived and never bloomed again.
But today was different. Its branches were not only lush with green leaves, but also covered in delicate flower buds.
If Wu Heng hadn’t seen it devour a zombie passing beneath its trunk with his own eyes, he might have found the scene before him rather beautiful.
After Wu Zhi’s warning, Wu Shiming and Zeng Like had already come to stand beside Wu Heng. They hadn’t missed what had just happened.
Zeng Like’s face had lost all color. Staring at the zombies wandering around outside, she cried out, “What is going on?! Are those monsters?”
“Did the property management not call the police?” Wu Shiming strode over to grab his phone. He dialed number after number, but whether he called the building management or the emergency line, all he got was a busy signal.
The living room fell into a heavy silence.
Zeng Like stood by the window for a while, staring helplessly as a middle-aged man from the building across the street walked out wielding a kitchen knife. That group of man-eating creatures caught the scent of a living person and swarmed toward him. The man swung his knife wildly, hacking at them, but those things didn’t seem to feel pain. He couldn’t outrun them and was soon tackled to the ground.
Moments later, his screams echoed through the entire neighborhood as a horde of zombies surrounded him and began their gruesome feast.
Zeng Like’s legs gave out and she collapsed onto the couch, covering her face. “What the hell is going on? Everything was fine just last night!”
Wu Shiming lit one cigarette after another. “This definitely isn’t an isolated incident. I’m guessing the same thing is happening all over, so the police are overwhelmed.”
Zeng Like nodded slowly. “So what do we do now?”
“For now, we wait for rescue,” Wu Shiming said, his legs trembling, though his voice remained steady. “Wu Heng mentioned an apocalypse—what apocalypse? These things—if the military steps in with real weapons, they’ll be wiped out in an instant.”
Wu Zhi hugged her rag doll tightly, looking at Wu Heng, who stood silently by the window. Her brother clearly didn’t believe what their father said—so she wouldn’t believe it either.
“Then before rescue arrives, we’ll all stay indoors for now,” Wu Shiming said.
“Stay indoors?! Then where are we supposed to get food and water?” Zeng Like exclaimed in disbelief.
Without a word, Wu Shiming turned on the TV. It happened to be broadcasting live news.
The female news anchor wore a serious expression, her tone steady and clear:
“…Medical, pharmaceutical, and botanical experts from all over the country are being escorted to the capital to study treatments and protection strategies. It has now been confirmed that the virus is transmitted via bodily fluids. Once bitten, the infection and mortality rate is 100%. Therefore, we urge all citizens to avoid going out and take protective measures.”
“Online sources refer to the infected as zombies. If you encounter one, a heavy blow to the head may allow you to escape. If you see abnormally large plants, stay away or take a detour.”
“While waiting for rescue, please prepare sufficient food and water. With unity and determination across the nation, we are confident we will win this tough battle!”
The anchor’s voice rose with passion and resolve—but just as she was about to begin the next segment, a loud snarl came from beside her.
The broadcast abruptly cut off.
Wu Heng wasn’t watching the news. He was in the kitchen, holding a tray of eggs, cracking one open and pouring it directly into his mouth.
Seeing Wu Shiming and Zeng Like in the living room, stunned and terrified, caused the faintest shift in Wu Heng’s otherwise indifferent gaze.
So… they were scared too?
—
Hanzhou No.1 High School
After the call ended, the relaxed, casual expression on Xie Chongyi’s face faded—not because of Wu Heng.
He raised a hand and gestured toward the Chinese fir trees by the school’s track. Their foliage was thick and lush, the canopy like a massive umbrella.
By rough estimate, they had grown five meters taller overnight.
“Old Xie, who were you on the phone with?”
Xue Shen had silently walked up behind Xie Chongyi. From where he stood, he could clearly see the expression on Xie Chongyi’s face during the call—it looked like he was flirting with someone. At a time like this?
“Wu Heng,” the boy answered without trying to hide anything.
“Wu Heng? How are you even talking to him?”
Xue Shen leaned on the balcony, looking down with a heavy heart. Among the zombies below were familiar faces—security guards and teachers they used to see every day.
Xie Chongyi turned his head to glance at Xue Shen, his gaze full of disapproval. “He’s interesting.”
Xue Shen only knew that Wu Heng was in the same class as them, but he couldn’t even recall what the guy looked like. So he wasn’t interested in Wu Heng at all—especially not now. He asked, “What do we do next?”
“Take it one step at a time.”
There wasn’t a trace of tension on Xie Chongyi’s face. He looked just as calm as he did when life was still normal—so calm it felt indifferent, even cold.
“Um… I want to go home,” a girl in the classroom stood up with a small backpack and said softly, “I thought all that stuff online was fake, but now that it’s all been proven true, I just want to go home. I want to be with my parents.”
“Me too.”
“Same here.”
“I’m so worried about them.”
There were just over twenty students in the classroom. Besides Xie Chongyi and Xue Shen, the others were all students who had stayed behind to prepare for the college entrance exam, arriving as early as four or five in the morning every day to study. Today, they had done what they always did—but the world wasn’t the same anymore.
“Class monitor, can we go home?”
They looked toward Xie Chongyi from the back of the room.
He was their class monitor. Cold, distant, with a bit of a “mere mortals, back off” kind of noble air. But in truth, his “nobility” was defiance, and his “coolness” was more like thorny, difficult arrogance.
As a class monitor, he didn’t rely on kindness or attentiveness to keep things in order. He managed the class through pure intimidation and ruthless tactics.
“If you want to leave, then go. Why are you asking me?”
Xie Chongyi casually tossed a pen into the air and caught it again with his slender, well-shaped fingers.
His nonchalant tone made it sound like this whole “incident” wasn’t a big deal at all, which made quite a few students in the back breathe a sigh of relief. It seemed like things weren’t that serious after all.
Xue Shen leaned against the balcony, arms crossed, eyes cold as he watched the students begin packing up their books, getting ready to leave. “Have you really thought this through? The streets are full of flesh-eating zombies. You might even run into mutated plants or animals. And this is only the beginning—no one knows how far the mutations have gone. If you rush outside now, are you trying to get yourselves killed?”
His words were persuasive. Of the students who had been preparing to leave, half of them paused.
“But we can’t just never go home! My mom is going to be so worried! She just called me and was crying nonstop,” a girl said anxiously.
“I can’t just leave my parents alone. I have to go back no matter what.”
Another boy swiftly packed up his books and headed for the door without hesitation.
The moment he left, three or four others looked at each other and quickly followed after him.
“Xue Shen?”
Hearing the footsteps fade, Xie Chongyi turned his head and called out to his friend. “Go down with them. Make sure they don’t forget to shut the door.”