Eaten Ch.75

Chapter 75: Nansu and Beisu

The food had spoiled.

That was Wu Heng’s first thought after receiving the visual feed from the room.

He quickly walked downstairs, planning to drag Dr. Chen out of the luggage compartment and bring him upstairs for Xie Chongyi to take a look.

But just then, a low murmur floated up from the floor beneath his feet.

They had also heard the footsteps coming from above. When they looked up, Wu Heng happened to appear at the turn of the stairs between the third and second floor. A tiny lamp on the wall beside him—dim, even duller than a firefly—illuminated a small patch of skin below his ear. Beneath the snow-white complexion, the veins stood out a vivid green, unusual for any ordinary person.

A young man standing on the inner side of the corridor had his hair tied into a loose bun. He looked at the gloomy-eyed teenager above him.

“Those plants—are they parasitized or symbiotic?”

Seeing that the other didn’t respond, the young man looked completely indifferent and simply said, “Kid, could you all stop stomping around upstairs, okay?”

Wu Heng silently watched as the bun-haired youth and the medium-length mushroom-cut youth came downstairs. From below came the shop owner’s loud greeting:

“Aiyo, you two heading out… Leaving the base, huh? Aiyo, you’d better be careful—outside’s real dangerous… Make sure you come back on time! Once it’s past midnight, the base won’t let anyone back in!”

Wu Heng then entered Liu Wenhai’s field of vision.

His expression changed incredibly fast as he slumped down in his seat.

“Be careful out there. If anything happens, this shop isn’t responsible.”

Wu Heng stopped in front of him.

“Those two just now—are they ability users?”

“If they weren’t, how would they dare go out after dark?” Liu Wenhai pushed his abacus aside, pulled out a stack of comic books, and prepared to start his 108th reread. “What exactly do you want to know?”

“Nothing.” Wu Heng had merely smelled something on them—faint, but very familiar. It was the scent he had caught on Xie Chongyi at the very beginning of the apocalypse.

But it wasn’t exactly the same—just similar.

Stepping out of the inn, Lin Mengzhi stood under a streetlamp and waved at him.

He pointed overhead. “Streetlights!!!”

A gentle breeze drifted by. The sky was bright with stars and moonlight. The wide roads stretching out in all four directions were all lit by streetlamps. Their lodging sat at a crossroads, with the inn and several clustered shops—probably the equivalent of a pre-apocalypse CBD. Beyond that circle of light, everything turned pitch-black. Bamboo, taller than buildings, grew in dense swaths. When the wind swept through, they swayed like ghostly shadows.

Wu Heng ignored Lin Mengzhi. Instead, he walked to the luggage compartment of the bus. After confirming no one was around, he opened the hatch—nearly bumping face-first into Chen Meng’s foul, reeking face.

“I—”

“I’m hungry.” Chen Meng didn’t give him a chance to speak. He sniffed at the air twice, a muffled growl vibrating in his throat.

Wu Heng crouched down. “The class monitor isn’t feeling well.”

“Pay first, use later,” Chen Meng said, staring fixedly at the boy’s throat.

Wu Heng looked at him expressionlessly for a moment. Then he raised his arm and said, “We’ll talk about that later.” After that, he shut the compartment and locked it.

Dou Lu, who had sensed someone tinkering with the vehicle lock, had already stuck her head out the window. Seeing it was Wu Heng, she withdrew again.

Not far away, the three others finally saw Wu Heng approaching.

“Hurry up, I’m starving to death,” Lin Mengzhi groaned, clutching his stomach as he pulled Wu Heng along.

Hungry as they were—anxious as they were—on their way forward, the four of them still couldn’t stop scanning their surroundings.

Xue Shen walked at the back.

He called out, “Wu Heng, did Old Xie tell you what’s wrong with him?”

Wu Heng said he hadn’t.

“Figures. That’s just how Old Xie is. Never talks about personal stuff with anyone. Even if he were dying, he wouldn’t say it.” Xue Shen sighed. “But he’s nowhere near dying. It’s most likely a side effect from his ability evolving.”

“After all, he’s human. It’s normal for the body to experience one thing or another. The world now is unprecedentedly anti-scientific; it has created a new logic that emphasizes survival of the fittest,” Ying Liuquan’s voice was calm and deliberate. “Although a new world has come into being, it never considered whether living beings—including humans—can survive in it. Counting from the era when the first life appeared on Earth, this may be the fairest period yet. It discards wealth, beauty, even morality—everything that only humans value. So even someone as strong as Xie Chongyi must still face risks and trials.”

Lin Mengzhi suddenly turned pale, pointing at a dark corner without any light.

“Why don’t we just corner Teacher Ying here and give him a beating, huh?”

Xue Shen stopped in his tracks. He took off his glasses and began rolling up his sleeves.

“Good idea.”

“A’Heng, what do you think?” Lin Mengzhi asked.

Ying Liuquan looked at Wu Heng with pleading eyes.

Wu Heng looked ahead. “I’ll wait up front for you.”

Under the streetlights, the boy walked forward, while Lin Mengzhi rubbed his wrists and closed in on Ying Liuquan step by step.

“Still not learning your lesson, huh, Teacher Ying? Today I’ll teach you a proper one.”

“Teacher Ying, how many times have I told you not to spout those depressing long-winded speeches?”

Lin Mengzhi and Xue Shen were both taller than Ying Liuquan. The man trembled like a little blade of grass, hugging himself, saying, “No, no!”

Until Lin Mengzhi reached for his armpit.

“Can’t face… hahaha… weakness is human… hahaha… humans’ greatest weakness, physiological flaws… no… that’s not humans’ real flaw. Humans’ real flaw,” Ying Liuquan’s hair was a mess, glasses crooked, cowering in the corner, “is love, sexual desire, and appetite.”

“Hey!” Lin Mengzhi suddenly let go of Ying Liuquan. He looked down in surprise at his feet.

“Something just poked me.”

The three of them bent down together to look at the ground.

Tower-like plants, about the thickness of a thumb, were sparsely protruding from the soil.

“One, two, three, four… nine…”

“Not just that.” Xue Shen suddenly looked up toward the dark alley behind Ying Liuquan.

All three of them flattened to the ground, tilting their heads, eyes scanning along the ground.

Lin Mengzhi felt a chill run down his spine at the sight of the endlessly dense tower-like plants. He scrambled to his feet and shouted,

“A’Heng, come take a look!”

When Wu Heng came over and crouched down, Ying Liuquan said, “These look like bamboo shoots.”

“What bamboo shoots?” Wu Heng pinched the longest one with his fingers and pulled it straight out.

In front of all three of them, he peeled away the layers of outer shell. Just as he was about to put it in his mouth, Lin Mengzhi grabbed him.

“What if it’s poisonous?”

Wu Heng’s gaze was calm. “I’m poisonous too.”

The three of them watched in both fear and awe as Wu Heng ate the whole bamboo shoot in a few bites, waiting for his reaction.

“It’s a taste you’d like,” Wu Heng said, casually wiping the small fibers from the peeled shoot on Lin Mengzhi’s vest without leaving a trace.

“What if we eat it and get poisoned while you’re fine?” Ying Liuquan frowned, though watching Wu Heng eat, it did look pretty tasty.

“True, we shouldn’t just eat it recklessly,” Xue Shen said. Then his eyes suddenly flickered. He flattened to the ground again. “Wait, they seem to have grown taller than before.”

“Growing this fast? No… ah, crap!” Lin Mengzhi yelped as the sharp spines under his feet pricked him. He stumbled backward, hitting the streetlamp pole.

The boy lifted his foot and looked at the sole of his shoe, which now had a hole in it.

“Unbelievable… completely unbelievable,” Lin Mengzhi muttered.

“Bamboo itself is a fast-growing plant. Even in the past, a bamboo stalk could shoot up a significant height in just one night,” Ying Liuquan said, watching the rapidly increasing number of bamboo shoots sprouting from the ground, still unable to hide his astonishment.

Lin Mengzhi pointed at a bamboo shoot next to Wu Heng that had already grown up to his knees.

“Isn’t this way too fast?!”

Wu Heng reached out, snapped it off, peeled away a few layers of sheath in a couple of motions, and crunched on it like a snack. He didn’t dislike the taste.

“A mutated plant,” Wu Heng said after swallowing the slightly sweet bamboo shoot. “One with an energy core.”

If it were just a plant mutated by the apocalypse, first, its growth rate wouldn’t be shockingly fast, and second, it would taste awful.

Xue Shen said, “That means it has self-awareness.”

Lin Mengzhi: “Awesome.”

Ying Liuquan smoothed his clothes.

“At this growth rate, this base will likely be overrun and destroyed soon. I think we need to warn the base commander.”

“Yeah, the teacher’s right,” Wu Heng replied, unconcerned about whether the base would be destroyed. “You go ahead, teacher.”

“Can we eat first?” Lin Mengzhi said, then immediately threw a handful of fire into the alley, burning all the bamboo shoots standing tall. After the fire went out, the walls and ground were blackened with soot, and the mutated bamboo stopped sprouting.

Xue Shen couldn’t help but sigh.

“As expected of a plant with self-awareness.”

“Picking on the weak?”

“No, it’s clinging to life.”

The humans in the base were too few. Along the way, they only saw a single couple. By the time they reached the barbecue shop, the number of humans increased slightly—but still no more than a dozen or so.

The shop front was small. All the dishes were prepared inside, while the grill was outdoors. A few folding tables for customers were set up along the roadside. When they arrived, no empty tables were left. The bearded, muscular owner quickly added a few more, wiped them down, and pulled out a handwritten menu from his apron.

“These are the only dishes we have. Please bear with us.”

“Let me see, let me see!”

“Grilled fish? There’s grilled fish too?!” Lin Mengzhi was practically swooning with happiness.

The bearded man chuckled. “Meili Town has the Meili River. Of course, there are fish in it! But now these fish have turned into ghostly spirits—hard to catch.”

Ying Liuquan was sensitive to such phrasing and asked cautiously, “Pretty expensive, right?”

“Not too bad, not too bad. Ten low-level energy cores for half a catty.”

“Not expensive?”

“How’s that expensive? Things are different now. Back then, you had to pay for seasonings, ingredients, service, tea, labor, tableware, utilities, rent, staff salaries… not to mention now. Our costs are high, kid.”

Lin Mengzhi snorted. “Why don’t you add in your marriage, having kids, and baby formula expenses too?”

The bearded man’s expression immediately darkened. “I lost both my kids.”

“…Sorry.” Lin Mengzhi realized he was either saying the wrong thing or on the verge of it.

After that, Lin Mengzhi and Xue Shen focused on seriously ordering food.

“Also fried noodles? A’Heng, you really not getting any?”

Wu Heng shook his head while drinking water poured by the bearded man.

“Wait… ice cream too?” Lin Mengzhi’s eyes went wide.

“My wife is an ability user. Today it got warm, right? She figured this out herself during the day. Not gonna lie, even old people and kids say it’s good.”

The group proceeded to make a massive order:

“This, this, this, this, this, and this, this, this—two portions each of smoothies, ice cream, and iced glutinous rice balls.”

“Eh, eh, ordering this much?” The bearded man frowned. “You won’t finish it all. Wasting food in our base can get you detained.”

“Detained?” Ying Liuquan looked up, incredulous.

“Exactly. Food is hard to come by now. Don’t be fooled by the few tables I have here—many people in the base haven’t had a full meal in days. Everything you just ordered could feed a family of three for half a month. So the base has a rule: wasting even a single gram of food is forbidden. Even ability users must follow this rule. Anyone who breaks it more than three times gets kicked out of the base.”

Ying Liuquan pondered for a moment before saying, “That’s actually a good rule.”

“Then… I’ll order one more fried noodle dish,” Lin Mengzhi hesitated.

Wu Heng, leaning back in his chair drinking water, unsurprisingly saw the “choked” expression flash across the bearded man’s face.

After a moment, the bearded man stormed into the kitchen with a look that basically said, “You’re all just waiting to get detained.”

In the kitchen, a woman was busy at work. Despite the hot, stifling air, there wasn’t a drop of sweat on her face.

“Customers!” the bearded man announced, slapping the written menu onto the table.

The woman peeked at it and was taken aback.

“That’s a lot. You should have them order less. How many times have I told you—don’t just care about making money. Times are tough for everyone now.”

“Young people eat a lot to grow. What can I do?” The bearded man grabbed the skewers listed on the menu from the refrigerated cabinet. “You start on these first.”

The woman muttered, “Still got money,” then took out a stack of soup bowls. She arranged them in order and poured more than half a bowl of water into each. Using her ability, she began to generate a thin, curling mist over the bowls…

Before the food even arrived, more people took the extra tables the bearded man had set up. And they were the same people they had recently seen—the two guards at the base entrance. One still had faint fingerprints on the side of his face.

Instinctively, Lin Mengzhi positioned himself between the guards and his friends, trying to prevent another conflict.

Lin Mengzhi only needed to block the guard’s line of sight. Because Wu Heng was face-blind, he could confidently guarantee that even if Wu Heng had beaten that guard half to death, he certainly wouldn’t remember what the man looked like.

In reality, the two guards had already seen the four of them as they came around the street corner.

Most of the people in the base lived hard lives; genuine smiles were rare. Energy cores only appeared inside zombies or mutated plants and animals. Even if the base didn’t charge for them, simply getting enough to eat remained a difficult problem.

Even passing ability users rarely looked as relaxed and carefree as these four did.

Sensing that these people were not to be underestimated, the two guards pretended not to notice them from the moment they saw them until they sat down.

The tables weren’t far apart, and Wu Heng could hear the conversation from the table beside him.

“Old Ye said the temperature would rise again in less than a week. Can that be trusted?”

“Old Ye also said today’s temperature wouldn’t exceed thirty, and what happened?”

“…True enough.”

“It’d be great if we could go to Nansu or Beisu. Those used to be provincial capitals; development there is faster than in our towns, and treatment is better.”

“I heard the relationship between Nansu and Beisu bases is terrible. If you’ve been to Nansu, you end up on Beisu’s blacklist, and vice versa?”

“Times now… worse than a few hundred years ago.”

“Didn’t they say the higher-ups are preparing to reestablish unified management?”

“They say they don’t care, then they don’t; say they will, then they do. Don’t be naive. Many bases were just built—would the administrators really let go and give up power? Just wait. They still have a lot of scheming to do.”

“Boss, give us two grilled cakes and two bird legs! And two bowls of ice water.”

They were obviously regulars. When the bearded man came over, their conversation became livelier, and Wu Heng overheard even more of their idle chatter.

“I heard from Xiao Jin the other day that the Hanzhou base has been built, and it’s not small.”

“Don’t even mention it. Because the Hanzhou base was built, after Teacher Zheng found out, he had that long face for a couple of days.”

“Could he not? If he hadn’t left Hanzhou, he’d be managing a proper medium-to-large base by now. How could he be satisfied with just a few hundred people here? He probably feels like he’s playing house here.”

“What do you mean?”

“From what I heard—this came from a woman who came over from Meizhou,” their voices dropped noticeably. “She said that just before the mayor of Hanzhou died, he had already handed over Hanzhou and its management rights to Teacher Zheng. But Teacher Zheng ran off directly with a few ability users from Hanzhou!”

“Deserter?”

“…And you dare say this? Are you two crazy?”

They fell silent. In the kitchen, a woman began serving bowls of iced drinks one by one.

Wu Heng naturally took a portion of matcha ice cream.

“Smells delicious.”

Lin Mengzhi gripped his spoon. “I hate it when someone says they won’t eat something beforehand, but once it arrives, they eat more enthusiastically than anyone else—”

The woman hadn’t seen such lively, spirited children in a long time. Her eyes involuntarily began to feel warm.

“This matcha is our specialty. Before the apocalypse, we made it specifically for export. Can you smell a hint of orchid fragrance?”

The ice cream was smooth on the tongue, the matcha a fresh, vibrant green. Its fragrance was clear and subtle, and it wasn’t overly sweet—perfectly refreshing for cooling down.

The group’s expressions changed as they ate. They glanced at each other, and in their eyes was the same unspoken thought: “Anyone who doesn’t get to taste this in their lifetime is missing out on life itself.”

After a few bites, Wu Heng lifted his eyelids and looked at the woman, softly asking, “Can we take some to go? I want my friend to try it too.”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Author’s note:

Lin Mengzhi: I’m right here!

Xie Chongyi: ?

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