Chapter 108: Wu Heng had never met anyone as selfish as himself
When Xie Chongyi appeared, the mass of black matter became even more agitated than before. Clearly, its target had always been Xie Chongyi.
Wu Dian’s expression changed. He shoved the three of them aside at once, the wind blade in his hand spinning at high speed. A bright flash of fire burst forth, sparks flying, and in the blink of an eye the black creature was burned into a handful of ash.
But he still couldn’t relax. The black, powdery remains that had been burned to ash drifted up from the ground into the air, finer than dust itself.
An arm reached out past Wu Dian. Xie Chongyi drew all of it into his palm and said indifferently, “It’s nothing serious.”
Wu Heng moved from behind Xie Chongyi to his side, sweeping his gaze over the expressions of Wu Dian and Sheng Jiang. In the end, he lifted his eyes slightly and looked at Xie Chongyi. A glimmer flickered in his eyes, and he had already reached a conclusion in his heart—they had secrets.
After the black powdery matter entered Xie Chongyi’s body, the gash on his face began to heal at a visible speed. In less than two minutes, his brows and eyes returned to their former handsome lines.
“Class Monitor, your injury is healed,” the boy reminded him in a low voice.
Wu Dian and Sheng Jiang didn’t look… happy for Xie Chongyi at all. After a moment of silence, Wu Dian even turned around and left.
Sheng Jiang was even more decisive—he spun around and vanished from the two of their sight.
“Ugly people always make trouble,” Xie Chongyi said arrogantly in appraisal of their behavior, then lowered his gaze. “Right?”
“They’re not ugly, though,” Wu Heng replied honestly.
“Compared to me?”
“Just a bit worse.” Wu Heng didn’t think he was saying anything flattering—he was stating a fact. Yet Xie Chongyi broke into a cheerful smile, and the sickly pallor on his face, pale from just having recovered from a serious injury, faded considerably.
After laughing, Xie Chongyi said, “If they’re a bit worse than me, then they’re ugly.”
Wu Heng took two steps back, keeping a socially appropriate conversational distance from Xie Chongyi. “That black thing just now—was it the same kind as what’s inside your body?”
The one being questioned didn’t hide it. “More or less.”
“Where did it come from?”
Wu Heng’s brows knitted tightly together. If it were possible, the skin on his entire face could twist itself into a xiaolongbao with hundreds of folds because of this inexplicable phenomenon.
Just like the poppy—once a part of it separated from the main body, it had to find a new host, and its energy would continue to diminish the longer it remained adrift. If Xie Chongyi and the organism inside his body were also in the same kind of companion–symbiotic relationship, then that thing just now couldn’t have been wandering outside on its own. It had to have a host, and that host was nearby. He thought of the infection that had occurred in the city, that woman—
Class monitor, the black organism, and that woman—what was the relationship among the three?
Wu Heng couldn’t figure it out. If Xie Chongyi didn’t explain, he would keep thinking about it.
Because Xie Chongyi had already been kicked out of the category of “food” by him, he would no longer concern himself with Xie Chongyi’s affairs.
“Under our feet, above our heads. I don’t know.”
“Are those three options, or three answers?”
“Options.”
A shadow gradually crept into Wu Heng’s eyes. “You’re asking me to choose?”
Xie Chongyi shook his head. “We choose.”
Wu Heng said nothing more. Xie Chongyi left from in front of him. After being gone for a while, he returned, carrying a pair of black boots—very dirty, very foul-smelling.
“Put the shoes on.” He tossed the boots to Wu Heng’s feet.
Wu Heng bent down to put them on. “Where’d they come from?”
Xie Chongyi simply watched quietly. Only after Wu Heng finished and looked up at him did he answer, “Stripped off a corpse’s feet.”
“…”
Wu Heng was speechless for only a few seconds. He spread his palm between the two of them, and the poppy poked out a budding tip. After a moment, he asked, “Even though it was injured just now while with you, I feel like the energy inside it is much more abundant than before. Why is that?”
Xie Chongyi reached out with a finger to poke the worm-like bud tip.
The vine shot back instantly, lashed hard across the back of his hand, then shrank away again.
“Tsk.” Xie Chongyi lowered his hand. “Back in Hanzhou, you felt that the smell on me made you comfortable, that it could temporarily stave off your hunger. In fact, that’s because the organism inside my body itself possesses an amount of energy so vast it can’t even be calculated.”
“It feeds on you. If you manage to survive, what it gives you is actually far more than what it takes.”
Wu Heng looked at Xie Chongyi for a while, then slowly lowered his gaze.
No wonder. Earlier, he had also caught that same alluring scent on Wu Dian and Sheng Jiang. They had all once taken part in that unknown experiment in Jingzhou, all had their physiques completely altered by that stone of unknown origin.
But—
“Class Monitor, I still have a question. If the scent on you and the scent on Wu Dian and the others all come from the same thing, then why does your scent smell a bit better than theirs?”
Wu Heng was used to saving the tastiest, most desirable thing for last. In his original plan, he had intended to start with Wu Dian and the others and leave Xie Chongyi for the end—now it had all gone to waste.
Xie Chongyi said, “No idea.”
Before Wu Heng, no one had ever said that they carried a scent different from ordinary humans, much less that there were differences between those scents.
Wu Heng loosely curled his fingers. “It could be that the scents really are different, or it could be that the problem lies with me.”
Xie Chongyi slowly narrowed his eyes. After thinking for a few seconds, he said in a low voice, “Professor Ye from the Meili Base—do you remember him?”
“…I do. A botanist.”
“We can ask him when the time comes.”
Wu Heng said, “He’s a botanist, not a mutant-plant specialist.”
“In theory, most mutations are based on an original system. Even myths are no exception.”
As long as it had nothing to do with death or food, Wu Heng didn’t take it too seriously. He hummed in acknowledgment. Everything that needed to be said had been said; he was going back to the rest station, not agreeing with Xie Chongyi’s suggestion.
The boots that were two sizes too big made an ill-fitting clatter under his feet. Wu Heng lowered the leg he had just lifted—there was one more thing he needed to ask.
“Earlier, when the poppy appeared, it cleared out a lot of zombies. The zombie tide should be ending soon. You said before that once the zombie tide ended, you had something to tell me. What is it?”
—
A blue-and-white van screeched to a stop behind the base walls. Lin Mengzhi was holding Liu Ning in his arms, with Chen Meng strapped to his back.
“Help!” He was so exhausted he could barely get the words out, but he still screamed with all his strength.
Chen Meng had been sniffing at his neck the whole time.
But now he was clearly caught in a dilemma, because his arm might not be salvageable.
“It’s almost time for amputation.”
Lin Mengzhi dumped the despairing Doctor Chen in front of Wu Dian, then gently set Liu Ning down. “Mo Xie can’t handle it—there’s no choice but to find you guys.”
The boy rattled off a long string of words, of which the key point probably made up only a fifth.
“It’s actually very simple.” Sheng Jiang pulled out a dagger and crouched beside Liu Ning’s leg. The blade tip cut downward from the upper edge of the blackened area, and the black organism inside flowed out.
Under everyone’s gaze, it came alive—like a living creature. It looked left and right, then bolted in one direction.
“If it weren’t for Xiao Xie being here, Assistant Liu, and this…” Sheng Jiang pressed his face close to a rotting, grayish one. Worms dropped off one by one.
“Save me…” Doctor Chen whimpered.
Amid Lin Mengzhi’s torrent of nonsense, Chen Meng’s identity no longer needed to be asked about. Fighting down his nausea, Sheng Jiang cut open the zombie’s arm and the back of its hand. Jelly-like black liquid stretched and tore, spraying out along with a large mass of yellow-white bodily fluids.
Like the one before it, it fled down the road.
“You’re not killing it?”
“It’s a kind of dark energy. There’s no such thing as killing it—at most, it can dry up.” Sheng Jiang wiped his dagger furiously on Chen Meng’s white lab coat. Damn, this was disgusting.
“So it dried up?”
“No. It went to look for its main body.”
The more Lin Mengzhi listened, the more confused he became. But he wasn’t familiar with Sheng Jiang—he didn’t know him at all, really—so he felt too awkward to press further. Still, it was definitely related to Xie Chongyi somehow.
“Well, alright, thanks a lot. I was scared to death just now—you didn’t see it, that auntie was completely insane… f*ck!” Lin Mengzhi crouched down to help Liu Ning put her high heels back on. As he spoke, he caught a glimpse of what lay beneath the skirt that had ridden up. He sprang to his feet at once. Liu Ning frowned weakly and looked at him.
“What’s wrong?” A spear appeared in Liu Ning’s hand as she stood up on her own.
Lin Mengzhi forced down his terror, but his body still retreated uncontrollably. He turned and ran.
Without Lin Mengzhi, Chen Meng didn’t dare stay with anyone else. He bellowed incoherently and staggered after him in pursuit.
Wu Heng was found by Lin Mengzhi on the watchtower. Mimicking Meng Haiqing’s technique, he released hundreds of arrows at once from a massive green bow.
But the poppy was the one drawing the bowstring.
Wu Heng lounged back in a chair. Energy cores were piled at his feet, along with a large barrel of water. A soft green tube was attached to the spout, and he had the other end between his lips—the tube had clearly been fashioned by hollowing out one of the poppy’s vines.
“A’Heng! A’Heng!” Lin Mengzhi scrambled up the ladder, gripping the rungs with both hands and leaning his upper body over the edge. His terror was just as raw as before. “I’m going to die!”
There was no stench of death on him. Wu Heng was exhausted and ignored him.
Lin Mengzhi climbed fully onto the platform and collapsed beside Wu Heng. “No. I still can’t accept it.”
Wu Heng didn’t understand him at all. He watched the zombies fall one by one, calculating how many energy cores he could harvest.
“Do you know? Do you even know?!” Lin Mengzhi clutched Wu Heng’s knees, his eyes reddening.
“Know what?” Wu Heng asked flatly.
Lin Mengzhi’s back trembled. He shut his eyes for a long time, then suddenly flung both hands above his head and opened them again, his voice filled with anguish.
“It was this long! This thick!”
“What was?” Wu Heng grew curious. “Something you found on that woman?”
At last, the most shameful, hardest-to-say truth had been understood by his childhood friend. Lin Mengzhi lowered his arms, overwhelmed with relief and emotion.
“A’Heng, you really do get me. I’ve already been trying so hard to talk myself into accepting it—but you don’t understand. The moment I saw that thing, I was completely defeated. I really can’t do this! Ahhhhhh!”
“You’re a fire-type ability user—by rights, you shouldn’t be afraid…” Wu Heng was about to say that there was basically nothing fire couldn’t deal with, but then he remembered that the middle-aged woman wasn’t so simple, and might even have come from somewhere beyond Earth. He changed his words mid-sentence. “If you can’t handle it, I can’t either. Go find Xie Chongyi—he can deal with it.”
“He’s gay?” Lin Mengzhi asked, tears clinging to his eyelashes.
Wu Heng didn’t know what Xie Chongyi being gay had to do with any of this, but he still nodded. “Yes.”
“Then that won’t work.” Lin Mengzhi rejected it outright.
The conversation finally returned to a track Wu Heng could understand. He frowned. “Other than Xie Chongyi, there should be no one who can deal with her.”
Lin Mengzhi was startled by his childhood friend’s cold, indifferent tone. He stammered, “He—he’s just a man dressed as a woman. Why would you need to deal with—deal with him?”
At last, Wu Heng gave Lin Mengzhi his full attention. “By ‘man dressed as a woman,’ do you mean Liu Ning?”
Seeing Lin Mengzhi fall silent, Wu Heng already knew the answer. He was speechless for a long while, then slumped back fully into the chair. “I’m talking about that middle-aged woman who caused the deaths of two children yesterday. Xie Chongyi can deal with her. What are you talking about?”
Lin Mengzhi: “Liu Ning’s dick. It’s big. Really big. Extremely big!”
Wu Heng looked at him quietly, utterly puzzled.
Thinking Wu Heng didn’t believe him, Lin Mengzhi gestured with his hands. “He’s so pretty, his Adam’s apple isn’t obvious, he’s not even that muscular—but it’s bigger than mine. Can you believe that?”
“Bigger than yours is normal,” Wu Heng said, utterly uninterested in fame or comparisons. “Xie Chongyi’s is bigger than yours too.”
“Xie Chongyi? You’ve seen it? How big is his?” Lin Mengzhi asked suspiciously.
The poppy climbed up along the boy’s shoulder and rose into midair. Several tendrils twisted together into one. Lin Mengzhi’s eyes slowly widened, then he said firmly, “I don’t believe it.”
The poppy spread apart again and slapped Lin Mengzhi across the face at the same time. Wu Heng’s expression was indifferent. “Now is not the time to be discussing dick size.”
“I—”
“Mengzhi, I’m not going to Jingzhou anymore,” Wu Heng interrupted him.
He had gone to Jingzhou before purely to follow Xie Chongyi. No matter where Xie Chongyi’s destination was—some other city, a strait, a volcano, even the North or South Pole—he would have followed. But now there was no longer any need. He could only look at Xie Chongyi, not eat; if he kept following him, it would be nothing but a waste of time.
“Wait—what do you mean?” Lin Mengzhi stared blankly for a long moment before finally getting serious. “Why aren’t we going anymore?”
But even once he sobered up, he still couldn’t understand or accept Wu Heng’s decision. The announcement had hit him so hard he felt dazed.
“There’s no need to go anymore,” Wu Heng said casually.
“H-how did you come to that conclusion?” Lin Mengzhi scratched his head. “Is there really any base with better prospects than Jingzhou?”
Starting from the beginning would take too long; saying it outright would be too hard to understand. Wu Heng looked into Lin Mengzhi’s completely confused, uncomprehending eyes, and for a brief moment, he felt that the other person was a little pitiful—so slow, knowing nothing at all. Wherever Wu Heng said they were going, he would go. Even if Wu Heng changed his mind halfway, he would neither complain nor get angry.
Wu Heng had never met anyone as selfish as himself.
Even so, he wasn’t moved, nor did he change his decision.
When Wu Heng stayed silent, Lin Mengzhi squatted down. “Did someone f*cking b*lly you? Wu Dian? Sheng Jiang? Or some guard? Tell me—I’ll go burn him to ashes right now.”
Seeing that Wu Heng still didn’t respond, he kept talking. “Aren’t things pretty good for us right now? Wu Dian and Sheng Jiang are from Jingzhou, the class monitor is too. If we go there, we’ll definitely have people backing us up. And later, when we’re back on the road, we can even slack off a bit—there are so many powerful people. I really think what’s laid out in front of us is a smooth, open road!”
“If we don’t go now, where are we supposed to go? We don’t have a home anymore…”
Wu Heng rested his fingers on Lin Mengzhi’s head. At this moment, the fire-type ability user’s body temperature didn’t feel nearly as scorching as usual—it was comfortably warm. He lowered his voice and said, “We’ll find a fertile place, settle down, and make a life there. What we say goes.”
“What about everyone else?” Lin Mengzhi had never imagined there could be another option like this.
“Who?” Wu Heng withdrew his hand, deliberately not thinking about it.
Lin Mengzhi never questioned Wu Heng. He began listing the names one by one.
“Xue Shen. Xue Qi.”
Wu Heng blinked. “Their father is still in Jingzhou.”
“Dou Lu. Ruan Silian.”
“Honestly, back when we were in class, I was never that close to people like them.”
“Shen Ping’an has to follow you, right?”
Wu Heng nodded. “That’s true. There’s no way he wouldn’t follow me.”
“And Teacher Ying…?”
Wu Heng frowned. “Teacher Ying should stay in Jingzhou.”
Lin Mengzhi nodded vigorously. “Doctor Chen?”
“I want Doctor Chen.” Chen Meng was a doctor—if he insisted on going with the main group to Jingzhou, Wu Heng would knock him out and stuff him into his storage space anyway.
“Then what about Xie Chongyi?” Lin Mengzhi asked hesitantly. He felt that aside from himself and Wu Zhi, Wu Heng was closest to Xie Chongyi, always sticking together no matter what.
Wu Heng let out a sigh. “He won’t come with me.”