Chapter 90: My name is Wu Heng. I am a poppy.
“It probably got stung.”
Wu Heng poked the swollen bump with his finger. It felt soft, and a flicker of irritation crossed his eyes—an instinctive sense of being offended. When he looked up again, green surged in his gaze.
Xie Chongyi pressed down on his shoulder. “The baby is what matters.”
“?”
A crack split open down the mask on Wu Heng’s face from top to bottom. Revealing his true features, he shoved Xie Chongyi off the rock.
Teasing him—Xie Chongyi enjoyed it. His body drifted as he fell, and the instant his back touched the ground, his figure dissolved into a wisp of dark red mist.
A heartbeat later, the boy appeared ghostlike behind Lan Qingqiu. He stepped on a yellow-leg ant that lunged at him, crushing it, and brought his palms together.
Lan Qingqiu’s body made a sharp crack as her torso suddenly bent backward at a right angle.
“It hurts so much!” Lan Qingqiu screamed, breaking down.
From above, Xie Chongyi looked down at her coldly.
Wu Dian barked, “I need to collect her samples!”
The compound eyes on Lan Qingqiu’s face rotated. In her distorted vision, a multi-legged creature pried open the boy’s right eye from above and peeked out.
She exhaled shallowly. “What, is he a monster like me too?”
As soon as she spoke, her waist twisted in a full circle. Her wings trembled, splitting apart into several new pairs like blades. She hunched down and launched herself toward Xie Chongyi.
From every direction, the yellow-leg ants converged, following Lan Qingqiu’s lead. Like an overwhelming army, they charged at Xie Chongyi.
The swarm gathered into a colossal mass—an enormous giant yellow-leg ant, so huge it hovered in midair like a spaceship. Standing atop its head, Lan Qingqiu cast her gaze downward.
“Why resist? Is becoming an ant queen really so hard to accept?”
Wu Heng had still been squeezing ant eggs off his own vine-body.
Hearing Lan Qingqiu’s roar, he lifted his head in confusion.
The ground was swallowed by the shadow of the yellow-leg ant horde. Except for the few that had strayed, most were now following Lan Qingqiu, their sole target: Xie Chongyi.
His food. Wu Heng’s gaze shifted left. Xie Chongyi’s right eye was pitch-black, the eyeball blood-red, and his naturally narrow phoenix eyes seemed stretched wider than before. On his cheek and jaw, a strange black-armored, long-legged insect clung tightly to him.
How did the class monitor end up in such a messed-up state? Wu Heng thought dazedly.
He pushed himself up and stood. Beneath his feet, the massive boulder was slowly being wrapped by the soft vines drilling up from the ground.
The giant ant lunged at Xie Chongyi. The bamboo forest rippled like green waves, and the droning buzz was so intense that Du Weichen’s ears spurted blood.
Covering his right eye, Xie Chongyi crushed Lan Qingqiu’s wings with a gesture from one hand alone. The ant swarm was already within reach. Something like black “liquid ink” seeped through his fingers, writhing and piercing into the giant ant’s body.
“What is that?” Li Qing saw the black substance and instinctively thought Xie Chongyi was using the same dark-type ability he possessed.
The giant ant froze for an instant. Then, suddenly, one of its limbs fell off—thousands of yellow-leg ants spilled out, each one originally composing that limb.
A second insect tide burst forth from the giant ant’s body, roaring outward. The giant ant disintegrated, licked away into pitch-black scorched earth, collapsing like a skyscraper.
The black creature surged back into Xie Chongyi’s eye.
Lan Qingqiu plummeted from high above, landing right at Wu Heng’s feet.
“Uh…” Wu Heng sat back down again. “I thought you’d beat him. You’re pretty average.”
He had even been ready to go help Xie Chongyi.
At any moment, he would never allow his food to fall into danger.
Lan Qingqiu pushed herself upright. Kneeling on the ground, she gave a soft smile. “It’s not over yet.”
Transparent new wings sprouted from her back. Except for her head and abdomen, the rest of her body had already transformed into the shape of a yellow-leg ant. She flickered—and vanished from Wu Heng’s sight.
The buzzing poured into their ears from every direction.
Wu Heng flexed his fingers. He swept his gaze around, and in the distance, the roaring surge of another insect tide approached.
But he felt like he couldn’t eat anymore.
“Where did she go?” Du Weichen clawed around in the darkness, trying to stick his head out.
“Don’t talk!” Li Qing snapped. Her whole body was drenched in sweat, her mouth dry from tension. The yellow-leg ants’ buzzing kept a steady, deliberate rhythm—sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes light, sometimes heavy—like they were toying with them on purpose.
“Bzz—” A sudden spike in the sound.
Li Qing spun around instantly. Lan Qingqiu’s horrifying deep-red compound eyes were pressed right against her face. Her tail stinger had skewered both Li Qing and Du Weichen together. Several pairs of sharp, long legs wrapped Li Qing tightly into Lan Qingqiu’s embrace. Li Qing’s facial muscles twitched, and her abdomen visibly bulged.
Lan Qingqiu’s expression turned mocking. She shoved Li Qing away with one palm and wiped the corner of her mouth. “This is an honor. Smile.”
In the rapidly thinning shadow, Du Weichen’s eyes tore wide. “A’Qing!!!”
The protective barrier dissolved halfway. Lan Qingqiu lunged toward him. Wu Heng leapt from the boulder at the same instant, sprinting at full speed toward her—then vanished mid-stride.
Vines shot up from the ground like rising bamboo shoots, blocking Lan Qingqiu’s path. The boy, dual blades in hand, dropped from the sky, his blade stabbing straight down toward her skull.
Lan Qingqiu rolled, appearing above Wu Heng’s head, tail lifted to strike.
Countless branches burst from the vine-body, forcing Lan Qingqiu to dodge wildly, sending her stumbling to the side.
Seizing the moment, Wu Heng grabbed the vine, spun, and swept his blade across. Just as the edge reached Lan Qingqiu’s face, a stream of bright yellow, foul-smelling liquid sprayed from her mouth.
The vine-forged blade, once touched by the liquid, softened rapidly, blackened, and began to deteriorate.
A dull pain ran through the back of Wu Heng’s hand.
“You didn’t know we’re poisonous?” Lan Qingqiu moved gracefully through the onslaught of vines.
Her gaze caught on the leaves along his vine-body. For a moment, she was distracted. “A poppy? My mother’s favorite flower.”
Xie Chongyi appeared behind her. Her gaze instantly sharpened into ferocity, and she spat a stream of venom straight at his face.
The black liquid flowing from Xie Chongyi’s palm coiled like a serpent, wrapping around the venom—and devouring it clean.
“You…” For the first time, Lan Qingqiu’s expression shifted.
Xie Chongyi didn’t bother listening to more pointless words. He simply tore out her entire spine.
Her wings were still attached to her back, but she could no longer keep herself aloft.
“Xiao Xie, go check on the people who were just attacked,” Wu Dian ordered. Then he walked over to the dying Lan Qingqiu, crouching with a blood-drawing needle and a test tube in hand.
The needle pierced the artery in her neck. She groaned twice and looked at Wu Dian. “I could be your ant queen…”
Wu Dian said nothing. When the dark-red blood filled two-thirds of the tube, he withdrew the needle. “Your task is complete.”
As he spoke, an invisible blade stabbed into Lan Qingqiu’s heart, leaving a bloody hole through it.
Lan Qingqiu froze for a moment. Her expression shifted from disbelief to a faint, gentle smile.
“All living creatures on Earth want a happier life. Go on—keep slaughtering every other species.”
Strangely, once Wu Dian rose with his blade, all of Lan Qingqiu’s ant-like features vanished completely. She was just a girl again: white blouse, plaid skirt, chestnut hair spread across the ground, and a LinaBell mini-backpack on her shoulder.
Wu Dian removed the backpack and dumped out its contents. As expected, he found an ID card among the small items.
Lan Qingqiu. Twenty-three years old. From Zhi Prefecture.
Silently, Wu Heng appeared next to Wu Dian. He crouched down, examining the scattered belongings.
Lipstick. Tissues. Keys. A small comb. A compact mirror. Several candy-shaped hair clips.
At the bottom lay the largest item. Wu Heng picked it up—it was a diary. He opened it directly to the first page.
[March 15: I don’t think I can make it back. Li Di and the others are all dead.]
[March 17]: So many insects—ants, longhorn beetles, beetles, and many rare species. If I can get back to school, I guess this will count as an unexpected gain. ^^
[March 20]: I have a fever, Mom.
[March 21]: My bones hurt so much, and my head too. There are ants all around me, so big, so huge. One of them is especially large—it must be the queen. It’s watching me. They climbed all over me.
[March 25]: Another day of being a beast of burden for the ants.
[April 2]: It’s time to overthrow the queen’s rule.
[April 10]: Here there is only one yellow-leg ant colony. All the insects on the ground have been driven away. I plan to build an ant kingdom of my own. I need more ants, more food, and a wider territory. I will make ants like humans. We will have a complete social system, roles, and a mature occupational structure. Humans will be driven away like other insects or become pets of the ants. I will inevitably become the first queen of the Ant Kingdom, the most outstanding and unsurpassable queen in ant history. My name is Lan Qingqiu. I am an ant.
Wu Heng closed the diary. The changes in Lan Qingqiu’s mindset were easy to infer; her psychological development mirrored her physiological transformation.
By extension, Wu Heng couldn’t help but ponder himself. Would he one day think the same way? My name is Wu Heng. I am a poppy.
The diary was tossed back to the ground, but Wu Dian carefully picked it up again, along with the other items, placing everything—including Lan Qingqiu’s ashes—into the same sealed bag.
“Why do this?” Wu Heng asked.
Wu Dian’s tone was calm. “This is what one does for their own. She didn’t choose to mutate. In this disaster, everyone is a victim.”
Next door, Li Qing’s rough shouts reached their ears. Wu Heng looked over—Li Qing had already become half-human, half-ant.
Above everyone, the insect tide attacked for the third time.
This time, however, their assault was far more ferocious than the previous two.
They divided into several golden waves and dove down. While the others struggled to fend them off, one squad carried away Li Qing—their final queen.
Du Weichen, his eyes swollen from crying, saw this and lost focus for a moment. Two yellow-leg ants immediately pounced on him. He screamed hoarsely, “Let go! Damn it, let go!!!”
Wu Dian was about to give chase, but Wu Heng, intent on extermination, pulled him aside.
The vines slipped from his hands, wrapping around the bamboo and winding upward. The vine body suddenly tore apart. Wu Heng stepped onto a fresh green leaf and appeared in midair, blocking the insect tide’s path.
Li Qing was protected in the center of the swarm. Her human features had almost completely vanished. When her compound eyes and antennae emerged, she struggled with her unfamiliar, cumbersome body. Her entire frame was covered in golden armor, her swollen tail trembled, and the ant eggs inside writhed freely.
“I…” she opened her mandibles wide. Below them, a pair of large jaws snapped against each other.
Wu Heng stared at her flickering red compound eyes, his heart sinking.
“My name is Li Qing, my name is Li Qing, my name is Li Qing, I am a human, my name is Li Qing, my name is Li Qing…” She could still produce human speech from her mandibles, like self-hypnosis.
But within seconds, the newly born queen lifted her massive head. Her compound eyes now gazed greedily at the nearby boy, no longer in pain or struggling. She exhaled, her tone both indulgent and commanding: “My name is Li Qing. I am an ant.”