Chapter 139: Good Food
“Is this your code?” Jiang Qian chuckled, taking the cochlear implant, clicked her tongue twice toward the other side, deactivated her ability, and ended the call.
“No.”
“I thought it was a code! ‘Hole one, hole one, I am Hole-turner!’”
Wu Heng pulled out a pack of jerky from somewhere and quietly stared at Jiang Qian.
“…I’ll go check if the food’s ready.” Jiang Qian felt a shiver run across her scalp under his gaze, quickly got up from the ground, and jogged into the crowd.
“A’Heng! Quick, quick, come help set up the tent!” Lin Mengzhi shouted from a flat clearing they had made not far away.
Wu Heng turned back and replied, “Okay,” then slowed his chewing. He passed the jerky to Xue Qi, who was unable to move much, and asked, “Do you want some?”
“No, I’ll eat later,” Xue Qi shook his head.
“….” Wu Heng was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly shoved the jerky directly into Xue Qi’s mouth. “Eat.”
A warm green light flowed from Wu Heng’s wrist into his palm like water. The jerky was quickly consumed and absorbed, transforming into a vine, the tip of which connected to the root of Xue Qi’s tongue. The faintly warm energy coursed from his tongue through Xue Qi’s entire body.
Xue Qi tilted his head back, his pupils reflecting Wu Heng’s expressionless face. His hands clenched the wheelchair’s armrests as the painful-tingling sensation surged through his internal organs, spread across his lower abdomen, and awakened the sensory nerves in his thighs. Then, a sharp stabbing pain appeared in his knees.
Xue Qi’s expression shifted from confusion to disbelief.
His knees and everything below had long been numb.
Unaware of the situation, Xue Shen was running over in large strides.
Lin Mengzhi reacted quickly, grabbing the man in a tight embrace. “My brother can’t hurt your brother! What’s with the rush?! I have to tell you this.”
“Let go!” Xue Shen didn’t distrust Wu Heng; he just didn’t trust mutant plants.
Xue Qi’s situation was different from Lin Mengzhi’s. Lin Mengzhi’s bodily tissues had been preserved in time, and Doctor Chen had continuously supplied vitality. But Xue Qi’s lower legs were like dead wood, completely lifeless.
It was no different from giving life to a dead object.
Wu Heng placed his palm over the lower half of Xue Qi’s face. The blue-green veins of the plant spilled from his mouth, snaking along his jaw and extending down to his neck, like a spiderweb woven across the surface of his skin.
The ends of the veins were almost invisible, embedding themselves deep into the blood vessels of his neck.
The intense pain made sweat pour down Xue Qi’s body. It wasn’t the sharp sting of a needle—it was the pain of bone being chiselled apart. He felt as if his body was being torn open alive, as if skin, flesh, and sinew were ripped from his bones in sheets, blood gushing.
The whole world blurred in Xue Qi’s eyes.
He didn’t realize it, but to those around him, his body seemed to dissolve. His form was merely a humanoid mass on the wheelchair, the shell beneath the clothes heaving and trembling continuously.
Xue Shen lowered his gaze to the hands of Lin Mengzhi wrapped around his waist. A glint appeared in his eyes behind his glasses. He turned and struck Lin Mengzhi on the shoulder with a palm.
Lin Mengzhi flew dozens of meters through the air, already wearing a “WTF you hit me, you’re dead” expression mid-flight.
Xue Shen didn’t bother with him. He took a few steps toward where Wu Heng and Xue Qi were, but before he could get far, a wave of heat swept over him. Before the flames could block his path, he already smelled the singed scent of his bangs burning on his forehead.
“Hahaha, I told you not to go bother A’Heng—he’s definitely handling something important!”
Whoosh—Xue Shen took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. He still couldn’t resist. Without turning around, a water shield appeared behind him. Suddenly, countless water jets shot out from the shield toward Lin Mengzhi.
“Whoa! Can’t hit me!”
“Aaah!”
“Eh!”
Lin Mengzhi dodged half of the whipping strikes, but still got hit by the rest.
Shen Ping’an stood not far off, arms crossed, watching impassively. Ying Liuquan was beside him, whispering, “Aren’t you going to try to stop them?”
Ruan Silian clasped her hands together at her chest. “A proper sparring helps teammates bond and improves coordination.”
Water and fire clashed, scalding steam billowing in all directions.
The steam swept over the grass, instantly wilting entire patches.
On the opposite side, a massive black barrier rose, absorbing all the vapor. On Shen Ping’an’s side, just as he moved to block the steam, it froze in place before them, then, like a receding tide, it withdrew.
Ying Liuquan grinned, “Turns out showing up at 8 a.m. classes in Jingzhou every day did teach me something.”
But before Shen Ping’an and Ruan Silian could look back at him, the thick, scalding steam suddenly changed course, constantly swirling and growing in size. It then formed a colossal hand, larger than a mountain, reaching for Xue Shen and Lin Mengzhi.
Ying Liuquan flailed his arms. “Why won’t it stop? Why won’t it stop?!”
“Wha—!” Fire-types are afraid of heat too. When Lin Mengzhi turned, the wave of heat was already in front of him, leaving no time to defend.
At that moment, a powerful whip of water wrapped around his lower legs, yanking him aside. Xue Shen reformed from a puddle of water and stood before Lin Mengzhi again. “If you don’t have the strength, don’t cause trouble.”
Lin Mengzhi was drenched in sweat. He opened his mouth but couldn’t make a sound.
“Ah—!”
“Shh—”
Two utterly different kinds of screams echoed behind them: one human, one… insect? Like the chirping of night insects in a field, magnified tens of thousands, even millions of times.
The sound waves rattled past everyone’s ears. The Wen Yuan team, experienced in such situations, had already used their abilities to shield Wang Meixia and the others nearby, preventing hearing damage.
Ruan Silian wasn’t so lucky. A wave of heat slid down along her ear; before she could lift a hand to touch it, a sharp pain in her abdomen made her collapse to her knees instantly.
“Ruan Silian!” Lin Mengzhi scrambled to his feet immediately.
He hadn’t even reached her when her body was suddenly engulfed by soft plants bursting from the ground—upright poppy stalks, each topped with a budding flower.
Lin Mengzhi looked toward Wu Heng, meeting his gray-green eyes, which were also fixed on this scene. In the center of his pupils, a golden light flickered.
Ying Liuquan could only stare, stunned.
“It’s only been a short while… how has Wu Heng become this strong?”
Even Wu Heng hadn’t expected it. While he was reinvigorating Xue Qi, he had also sensed the rhythms of all life nearby—not just humans, but the hidden beings in the mist, the grasses covering the ground, the towering trees, and even the restless baby snakes in Ruan Silian’s belly.
This immense and vast power swelled inside Wu Heng’s body. His heart began to ache faintly, struggling to bear such overwhelming force.
“Everything that comes from the earth shall return to the earth.”
Wu Heng recalled the last words Zhou Shan had said.
He glanced at Xue Qi, then slowly closed his eyes. He felt all the life around him—even the microorganisms in the air invisible to the naked eye—and suppressed the poppy’s possessive, invasive urge, just as he had done with Xue Qi.
He channeled the unbearable power through the poppy’s root system, sending it into the earth.
There was nothing the earth could not contain.
The energy flowing into Xue Qi’s body became increasingly calm and gentle, and the sharp pain radiating through his limbs gradually began to ease.
Xue Qi couldn’t lower his head, but he could feel—he could fully feel—that the hard footrests of the wheelchair pressed beneath his feet, the soft fabric of his pants wrapped around his lower legs, and beneath his knees, the slightly hard edge of the seat cushion.
He looked up at Wu Heng. Strands of hair fell from his shoulders, and his face held no expression. To him, this was clearly not such a remarkable feat.
Xue Qi had always thought that gods were like this—cold as iron in the face of life and death, indifferent to joy and sorrow.
Wu Heng slowly withdrew his hand. He swallowed the sweet, metallic taste in his throat. “You should be able to walk now.”
“Thank you,” Xue Qi murmured, lowering his head and wiping his eyes several times with the back of his hand. “Thank you, Wu Heng.”
Under everyone’s gaze, Xue Qi braced himself on the wheelchair’s armrests. His entire body trembled along with the chair; a body that hadn’t walked in a long time was unaccustomed to standing. The young hero, mindful of appearances, gave Wu Heng an awkward smile. “I can do this.”
Wu Heng stepped back a few paces, giving him space.
Xue Qi’s body fully stood, his hands tentatively letting go of the armrests. He took small steps over the footrests.
He held his breath, and everyone around him did the same.
Xue Shen walked slowly toward him.
For as long as he could remember, Xue Qi’s blood had been stagnant. He had only ever felt the faintest, nearly imperceptible energy from the cores, and aside from spitting out a few webs to craft armor for others, he could do nothing.
Now was the time to save the world!
Xue Qi had thousands of times motivated himself in his mind, recalling that “He who is entrusted with great tasks must first endure labor, hunger, and hardship…” Yet his numb legs had reminded him countless times that he had no muscles, no strength, and that his body seemed to have negative value.
True heroes, he thought, would end their lives if they only became a burden to their families. But he had chosen to cling to life. He feared that, in the future, his physical disability might twist him into a psychologically broken villain.
Meanwhile, Wu Heng had already tilted his head again and resumed gnawing on the jerky.
“It’s okay! I can do it… I can walk!” Xue Qi’s eyes shone as he looked at Wu Heng. Then he bent down and squeezed his lower legs hard—the long-missed sensation of pain brought him uncontainable joy.
Wu Heng hummed. “Then go set up the tent, set up mine.”
“…” Xue Qi’s brain momentarily froze at the reason Wu Heng had given for helping him.
But he had no time to question any of Wu Heng’s decisions. He nodded, then turned to see Xue Shen walking toward him. “Brother! My legs are healed!”
Xue Qi practically ran to Xue Shen. Xue Shen instinctively stood still to wait for him. The boy was still unpracticed at walking—he stumbled every few steps—but he got up quickly and finally made it to Xue Shen.
He threw his arms around him, tears surging. “I finally won’t drag everyone down anymore! I can finally fight side by side with you!”
Xue Shen remembered how, as a child, Xue Qi would hold a toy sword and declare he wanted to be a hero, a warrior, a superhero. Swallowing the tears, he glanced gratefully at Wu Heng in the distance.
Once everyone realized that Wu Heng had gone to such lengths just to get Xue Qi to help set up a tent, they were momentarily speechless.
“He’s been lazy and avoiding work for ages, either pretending not to hear or just dumping it on me. Something about that feels… off,” Lin Mengzhi mused, stroking his chin.
“But Xue Qi’s legs are healed, so this is clearly a good thing. Congratulations, Xue Qi.” Ruan Silian, at some point, had tied a bunch of wildflowers and handed them to him.
“But Wu Heng is really incredible now, completely on a different level than before. Even Doctor Chen couldn’t do what he did. When we traveled across Jingzhou seeking treatment, the responses we got weren’t even as good as Doctor Chen’s,” Ying Liuquan said, looking at the boy sitting in the folding chair in the distance. Damp grass and gray-white mountain mist surrounded him; the scenery was bleak and desolate, yet compared to school days, it seemed unchanged.
Lin Mengzhi said, “Everyone’s getting stronger. Teacher Ying, you’ve gotten stronger too.”
A shy smile appeared on Ying Liuquan’s face. “Not really, not really, you flatter me.”
“But your offensive power against teammates has increased too,” Lin Mengzhi continued.
Ying Liuquan’s smile faded.
Lin Mengzhi frowned. “So, Teacher Ying, you can now use other people’s abilities to strike back? But you’re not psychic, right?”
Ying Liuquan didn’t know how to answer. Xue Shen spoke up beside him: “If your mind is even slightly relaxed, Teacher Ying can invade it. If you’re overly tense, it becomes even easier. It works on the same principle he used to make us fight each other.”
“That’s too dangerous. I should stay away from Teacher Ying.”
“If your level is higher than his, you can defend in advance.”
“Higher than Teacher Ying…” Lin Mengzhi murmured, recalling what had just happened. He looked at Teacher Ying seriously. “Teacher Ying, what’s your level now?”
“S+.”
“…”
“And you?” Lin Mengzhi turned to Xue Shen, who was standing nearby.
“The same as Teacher Ying.”
Lin Mengzhi suddenly felt a bad premonition.
“What about the other ability users?”
“Besides the plant symbiotes being S, the rest are all S+,” Xue Shen generously explained. “Oh, and Dou Lu is too. Also, Old Xie has nearly reached double S+.”
“Double S+? How much is that? Two S+?”
“Two S+ levels are like two hundreds. Double S+ is a hundred to the power of a hundred. After S+, the next step is double S+, but the difficulty is like climbing to the heavens. In Jingzhou, you can count the number of double S+ on two hands, and two-thirds of them are Executors.”
“Wu Heng shouldn’t be far behind either—he might even already be one.”
Lin Mengzhi’s heart burned with jealousy. Could doing… that really make your abilities grow faster than others?
He realized he had become the lowest-ranked one, so he went to Wu Heng and had him fix his legs.
“Looks like you’ve really leveled up again,” Lin Mengzhi said, feeling wounded.
Wu Heng leaned lazily in his chair. Healing Lin Mengzhi’s legs was far easier than Xue Qi’s. He didn’t know whether S+ was followed by S++ or something else—but he could feel that his ability had become far stronger than before.
More precisely, the Light and Wood energy cores themselves contained incalculable power. When Wood entered his body, it absorbed the energy core of the poppy, yet his body had never been able to fully process all the energy they provided.
Until just now, with the perfect timing and environment, springtime and the richly infused energy of the divine realm, he tried to operate, merge, and digest it. Even then, he only absorbed a small fraction—but already the poppies felt more than ten times stronger than before.
“So that’s why I just tested Xue Qi. His legs were the best way to experiment with my ability,” Wu Heng thought.
He gnawed on his jerky, feeling light and airy, warm energy flowing gently through his body. The comfort made him sigh softly.
Lin Mengzhi sat down beside him, fuming, and dumped a pile of energy cores from his bag, absorbing them handful by handful.
The shock Wen Yuan and the others felt wasn’t less than Lin Mengzhi’s—if anything, it was greater.
“Yang Xiaoyun, do you remember how we volunteered to come for support? Do you remember how little faith those people had in us?” After all, Siwangzhidi, in almost everyone’s eyes, was a strange place from which there was no return.
“They say we’re trying to make a big profit with a small investment. Nothing good will come of it.”
“This time, they might actually be right,” Jiang Xun said, hands tucked into his pockets, his gaze sharp. “A small investment yields a big return.”
Wang Ruixiang didn’t agree with the idea, but still nodded. “A bunch of ignorant brats—how would they know whether the newcomers won’t be as good as the old ones? Can Captain Wen even handle it?”
“…”
“The reason those Executors upgraded so fast was because of their unique constitution. Wu Heng’s not in Jingzhou, and everyone else around him was just dead weight. Resources get split to dogs and birds alike—so how could he still level up this fast?” Yang Xiaoyun poked Wen Yuan’s shoulder. “Even faster than Captain Wen.”
Wen Yuan cast a flat look at Yang Xiaoyun. Immediately, he straightened and suppressed his playful expression.
“You’ve got to admit, luck is also part of strength. When we went on missions before, didn’t we meet those wealthy people who could call the winds and rains before the apocalypse? After the apocalypse, they fared worse than even some ability users’ pets. Maybe the injustice of heaven is itself a kind of fairness—rich or poor. If supernatural abilities were distributed by age, gender, culture, or wealth, that would truly be unfair.” Jiang Qian spoke, half in doubt, half in reflection.
“What’s the use of strong abilities? If you don’t use them, they’re useless,” Wen Yuan finally spoke, but it wasn’t in a pleasant tone.
Just as everyone thought the stoic and impartial Captain Wen might also feel jealousy or resentment, he continued, “When Wu Heng activated his ability, that massive energy was beyond what you and I combined could handle. An ordinary human body probably couldn’t withstand it. I could feel that he channeled part of the energy into the mountains beneath our feet, giving his body room to process the remaining energy and retain stamina. Finally, he drew back the filtered, softened energy into himself. Wood-based abilities make all things grow, and in turn, all things can nourish the Wood ability.”
“Besides, he healed Xue Qi,” Wen Yuan shook his head. “Now, even if Wu Heng wanted Xue Shen to betray Xue Xianrong and humanity, I doubt Xue Shen would even hesitate.”
“He knows how to make use of everything around him, and he understands the importance of choosing wisely. He’s very smart,” Jiang Qian said. “And his relationship with Xie Chongyi is going well—they even call each other on the phone.”
“Good thing we didn’t take him to Jingzhou back then,” Wen Yuan said, his gaze distant. “Otherwise Wu Dian’s older brother would definitely ‘like’ him a lot—there’d be no shaking him off.”
“Not just them,” Yang Xiaoyun said with a wry face. “A few of the slackers in the team like him too!”
“Slackers in our team?”
“Don’t talk with food in your mouth and insult people—we’re warriors!”
…
The leveled grass had been covered with a rubber tablecloth. When a huge bucket of hand-grabbed venison rice was placed in the center, it clanged loudly. Beside it was another big bucket of venison bone soup, and a skewer of roasted venison weighing several pounds—maybe ten.
Seasonings were scarce, so the flavors were mild, but the meat itself was naturally fragrant. The taste was even better than the mystery meats from before the apocalypse.
“You even have rice? Then why didn’t you bring it out earlier?” Lin Mengzhi lifted his own bowl—it was heavy, like lifting a bowl of stones.
“Jingzhou has developed rice strains that can adapt to post-apocalypse soil, producing multiple harvests a year. But cooking takes time, so normally we only prepare enough for two mouths. Missions come first,” Yang Xiaoyun explained. He hadn’t expected to eat this well while on a mission outside—following Captain Wen had always been a struggle; you had to sleep with one eye open.
“Thanks for the effort,” Lin Mengzhi said, giving a thumbs-up.
The sound of bowls and chopsticks clinking and mouths chewing filled the air. For a while, no one spoke.
After several minutes, a loud gulping sound was heard.
Then came a long, involuntary sigh from deep within: “Aaah—what kind of life was I living following Captain Wen all this time~~~~”
Wen Yuan: “…”
Wu Heng carried a plate of hand-grabbed rice. He scooped up a spoonful, sniffed it first to make sure it wasn’t ordinary rice, and only then began shoveling it into his mouth in big bites.
The lamb leg meat was tender and springy without being dry. The fat coated each grain of rice, which itself had a subtle sweetness. The texture was soft and moist. So Wu Heng didn’t even notice the team members watching him or the curious glances being thrown his way.
One plate of rice, one bowl of soup, one skewer of meat.
Following this sequence, Wu Heng went back and forth seven or eight times, leaving Jiang Qian across from him staring in surprise.
Even among post-apocalypse ability users, whose energy consumption often made them eat more, she had never seen a boy with an appetite like this.
Not even the animal symbiotes could eat this much.
Jiang Qian nudged her bowl forward and asked, “Do you usually enjoy good food? I mean… you’re eating so much, and mostly meat. You might get an upset stomach.”
The few who knew him well thought: This is nothing; she hasn’t seen anything yet.
Wu Heng looked calm and obedient, showing no aggression or harshness. He was still focused on chewing juicy radish bites, balancing meat and vegetables carefully.
He ate with such seriousness that when interrupted, he stopped instantly, like an animal frozen mid-action. After a long pause, he lifted his eyes. He made no effort to hide his words, speaking evenly: “I also like people who are delicious.”
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Author’s Note:
Jiang Qian: “Too much talking, right?”
“Everything that comes from the earth shall return to the earth.” —Yu Hua