Chapter 30: Let’s eat!
Lin Mengzhi hadn’t thought that much about it—besides, he also didn’t want to lie down next to Xie Chongyi.
Once they had each lain down, Wu Heng closed his eyes.
“A’Heng, what’s it like inside the reptile house right now?” Just the thought of those countless swarming bugs from yesterday made Lin Mengzhi’s skin crawl with goosebumps.
“No idea. We haven’t gone in to check,” Wu Heng replied.
“Then how are we going to handle things later?”
Wu Heng opened his eyes, his gaze sliding toward Xie Chongyi, who seemed to have already fallen asleep.
“There are two entrances on Basement Level One. I’ll guard one with the class monitor, and you’ll follow… who?”
“Of course I’m sticking with you! I don’t even know him,” Lin Mengzhi said without hesitation.
Wu Heng: “Then Xue Shen goes with the class monitor.”
“Obviously. Xue Shen said the two of them are bros—tight bros!” Lin Mengzhi declared again, full of certainty.
At three in the afternoon, sunlight slanted across the shopping mall, and the air was heavy with an unknown stench of rotting flesh.
Xue Shen woke up early and rummaged in the corner of the department store, finding a few smoke-resistant masks. He first handed one each to Wu Heng and Lin Mengzhi, then passed another to Xie Chongyi, speaking as he did: “Since Lin Mengzhi is with Wu Heng, then the things that need to be set on fire will be up to you two. Oh right—Wu Heng, do you have an ability?”
Lin Mengzhi had just opened his mouth to reply when Wu Heng gave him a glance. Xie Chongyi, meanwhile, let out a soft laugh but said nothing.
“Not anything impressive.”
Xue Shen was even more tactful than Xie Chongyi. He didn’t pry further, simply nodded and said, “Alright, then you two be careful.”
Wu Heng unwrapped the mask. It was a simple model, but it had all the necessary parts. He lowered his head, pulled it over his face, and tightened the straps. Instantly, the sound of his own steady breathing filled his ears.
When he lifted his head again, Xie Chongyi was standing right in front of him. Through the goggles, Wu Heng met his gaze. For the first time, behind those peach blossom eyes that should have brimmed with charm and tenderness, he saw only ferocity.
Xie Chongyi reached a hand toward him, but Wu Heng stayed still.
The boy covered the intake valve of Wu Heng’s mask with his palm and told him, “Breathe in.”
Wu Heng lowered his eyes and drew in a breath.
Xie Chongyi dropped his hand and looked at Lin Mengzhi. “You should check if your mask is leaking too.”
“Oh, so that’s what this is for—I thought it was something else.” Lin Mengzhi clamped both hands over the intake valves and sucked in hard, nearly choking himself.
“Once you’re ready, we move out.” With one arm around Wu Heng, Xie Chongyi led the way. He lowered his head, his voice muffled and indistinct: “I’m looking forward to your performance.”
…
Perhaps thanks to Xie Qi’s undercover work downstairs, the commotion they made was considerable, yet not a single bug was stirred.
Wu Heng crouched on the steps of the fire escape, his gaze calmly fixed on the entrance to Basement Level One. The doorway was clear—no mutant lizards standing guard—but the place was a mess, and a constant stench wafted out.
A tendril of vine slid from his hand, soft and boneless, pressing against his face.
“Once Mengzhi sets those things on fire and throws them in, we’ll seal the door,” he said evenly. “Can you manage that?”
The vine itself didn’t know if it could. It turned away, slithering down the stairs, slipping into the gap between the double doors.
Then it began to spread, surging outward. Its nutrients and energy came from Wu Heng’s own body, and its strength was tied to his mental power.
In less than half a minute, the vine had silently driven its roots deep underground, then snaked along the walls, clinging tight to the ceiling—leaving only a single dark opening, just enough for Lin Mengzhi to toss things inside.
Though it wasn’t the first time he’d seen it, this was the first time Lin Mengzhi had come face-to-face with it like this. The thought that his childhood friend carried such a massive plant inside his body felt even more fantastical than his own ability to spit fire.
The tip of a bud hanging at the doorway pointed insistently inward, urging Lin Mengzhi to hurry up.
Lin Mengzhi kicked more than twenty bags of Sichuan pepper through the doorway, along with onions and garlic—all excellent for repelling and killing insects.
He straightened his collar. “Watch this!”
Wu Heng rested his chin on his hand, watching.
Lin Mengzhi raised both hands high above his head. A fist-sized fireball appeared in his palms, swelling rapidly. In an instant, a wave of heat swept down the corridor.
“…” Wu Heng was silent for a moment before saying, “That’s probably enough. I’m afraid of fire too.”
“Oh, right, I almost forgot.” Receiving the hint, Lin Mengzhi was about to hurl the fireball inside when the sound of hurried footsteps echoed from within—something was running out.
Wu Heng’s lazy expression vanished as he stood. A vine dropped from the doorway, straightening like a spear toward the source of the sound.
A flash of dazzling blue appeared. A massive blue spider approached the entrance, then swiftly transformed into human form. “It’s me.” Xue Xi jogged out.
Lin Mengzhi stared wide-eyed as the spider—big enough to cover a whole door panel—turned in the blink of an eye into a boy about his own age. The shock hit him hard. After all, even when Wu Heng shifted between man and vine, he had never outright turned into a single stalk.
“Mengzhi, this is Xue Shen’s younger brother,” Wu Heng explained. “You can burn it now.”
Lin Mengzhi tore his gaze from the boy, sending the fireball rolling into the room. It ignited the flammable materials they had prepared in advance—boom! Flames and thick smoke surged out together.
The vines bound the double doors and slowly drew them shut, then spread across the wall in an instant, layering over themselves again and again to reinforce it.
Until—bang! Something inside slammed against the door, trying to break through!
Wu Heng rose to his feet, faint bluish veins surfacing beneath his pale skin.
The vines burst outward from the wall, growing in all directions.
Xue Xi stared at the plants that had already grown to his feet and swallowed hard. “Has the outside world developed to this point already?”
Then he looked past Wu Heng at Lin Mengzhi. “You can use fire? That’s insane.”
Lin Mengzhi wanted to say, ‘Not as insane as you—you can turn into a spider,’ but right now he had neither the time nor the mood.
From behind the door, the crashes grew harsher and harsher, each one more violent than the last. The shrill screeches of the crawlers made one’s stomach twist.
Crack.
Wu Heng’s eyes narrowed slightly. “The door’s been smashed.”
Lin Mengzhi and the others didn’t know the situation inside, only stared unblinkingly.
Several vines whipped forward, launching a frenzied counterattack against the crawlers gnawing at them.
The bugs, half-dazed from the choking smoke, had lost much of their strength. The vines struck precisely, stabbing only their heads and hearts.
Self-sustaining, the vines outside were lush and verdant, teeming with life. But inside, they were already soaked through with the hot scarlet blood of the mutant crawlers.
They grew at a terrifying speed—each cracking sound of their swelling made them more frenzied, thicker, hungrier, and more bloodthirsty than a moment before. They lashed with nimble bodies, like incarnations of a killing god. The crawlers that had tried to break out shrank back in terror and fled deeper inside. The vines paused only for an instant before lunging after them.
A giant pillbug was hurled into the air and then slammed down by a massive vine like a falling stone pillar, pounded into a mess of flesh. Finer tendrils swept across the ground immediately after, clearing it bare, then twisted themselves into new blades.
Inside was a world of flying flesh and blood, the air thick with misted gore—like a slaughterer’s revel.
Wu Heng’s fingers, hanging loosely at his side, trembled slightly. A silent sigh escaped him, and his usually brooding face, in this moment, seemed radiant.
Ah… so full.
“How’s it going?” Lin Mengzhi only heard the insect cries fading away, but had no idea what was happening inside.
Wu Heng’s voice was a little hoarse. “Not bad.”
The vine wall clinging to the entrance slowly loosened, blood seeping out through its cracks. When the tendrils drew back, they were all stained a deep red.
Inside the doors, silence had fallen.
The very last vine that returned looked sluggish, as if stuffed to the point of fainting, and at its tip hung two tender, pale-yellow leaves.
It coiled lazily onto Wu Heng’s shoulder, even using X’s feathers to wipe away the blood still clinging to it.
Wu Heng lowered his gaze for a moment, then looked to Lin Mengzhi. “We need to go in and check.”
After that, he turned his eyes to Xue Xi. “You’re familiar with this place. Lead the way.”
Snapped out of the daze brought on by the boy’s gentle, handsome face laced with a faint bloodthirst, Xue Xi bobbed his head hastily. “No problem.”
Lin Mengzhi drew a knife from his backpack and, walking along, tilted his head toward Wu Heng. “A’Heng, how can he turn into a spider?”
“Bitten by a spider.”
“…” Lin Mengzhi choked, his expression twisting. “Why does he get Spider-Man’s script?”
“He’s Spider-Man.”
Descending to Basement Level One, the ground was littered with corpses—a field of bodies was no exaggeration. The poppy might be gluttonous, but even it couldn’t finish so much fresh meat in one sitting; it had probably only eaten the choicest parts, leaving remains scattered everywhere.
Overjoyed, Lin Mengzhi immediately began digging around for energy cores.
Wu Heng followed closely behind Xue Xi. “Doesn’t the air smell terrible to you?”
Xue Xi was so shaken by the mass of mutant insect corpses that he nearly lost his soul. When he’d first laid eyes on Wu Heng, he had never once seen such terrifying power in him.
The apocalypse had barely even begun. Most people probably couldn’t even handle the sight of blood yet, let alone understand what abilities really were. And yet this person had, without so much as a flicker in his expression, slaughtered wave after wave of mutant crawlers. What was worse—Xue Xi could tell he had enjoyed it.
This kind of mental fortitude was too terrifying. Absolutely monstrous!
“Not just a little—it’s horrible. There’s even this smell, like insecticide, makes me want to die just breathing it.” Xue Xi was already feeling a bit dizzy.
“Xue Shen used insecticide at the other entrance,” Wu Heng said.
“My brother’s planning to bury me in here with the bugs?” Xue Xi muttered, speechless, his steps faltering.
Before he could steady himself—
Pshhhk.
His whole body went rigid, pain only dawning a moment later.
Lowering his head, he saw a vine spike thrust straight through his torso. He twisted his head with difficulty. “What the f—…”
Shadows fell over Wu Heng’s eyes. He stepped up behind the boy and spoke softly: “You’re not Xue Xi.”
Meeting the other’s look of disbelief, Wu Heng went on: “The first time you ran into us was a coincidence. The second time, also coincidence. But a third time? Plants and animals have the sharpest senses. I may never have been in the reptile house before, but I knew there were two entrances to the basement. The one I chose is more out of the way. So why would you come find me instead of Xie Chongyi?”
Xue Xi’s face turned ashen. “Can’t it just be a coincidence, damn it?!”
Wu Heng’s chin pressed as if against his shoulder. His cold fingers gripped Xue Xi’s face, forcing him to turn.
The boy’s joints creaked under his touch. Xue Xi’s features twisted in pain, tears gathering in his eyes.
“You knew Xue Shen was here. You didn’t dare meet him alone—you were afraid he’d recognize you. After all, Xue Shen and Xue Xi are twins. Xie Chongyi and I might not tell you apart, but he absolutely could. So you figured, if you brought me and another along, someone would back you up. Maybe you could bluff your way through.”
Xue Xi ground his teeth. “What nonsense are you spouting?!”
Wu Heng flung his hand away from Xue Qi’s face, but he didn’t let go of his body. Instead, he bound him tightly with vines and dragged him all the way to the deepest part of the Reptile House.
There stood an enormous specimen cabinet, almost intimidating in its size. Behind the glass hung a watercolor painting of a scorpion, its stinger pointing straight down toward the cabinet. And inside, pinned in place, was a giant blue spider with dazzling, vivid colors—far more beautiful than the blue spider Wu Heng had seen that morning.
At the sight, the boy in Wu Heng’s grip gasped harshly, his face twisting in rage and disbelief. He shook his head violently.
“Impossible… Impossible! How did you find it?!”
Wu Heng said nothing. He simply tapped on the specimen cabinet.
Knock, knock.
The blue spider’s long legs twitched, making its plump, round abdomen shudder twice.
Then it lifted its head, its eyes clouded with confusion and pain.
The real Xue Qi.