Little Mushroom

An Zhe hadn't slept for 20 hours. It had been around five or six hours since the incident with Madam Lu and it was now midnight. He didn't reveal anything to the doctor so once the time limit passed, the senior colonel lost all patience and ordered he must be tortured to extract a confession.

The interrogation room was well-equipped and the method of human torture didn't cause blood and flesh to fly. It was very civilized and in the form of electrocution. The current passing through his body felt like thousands of highly venomous ants gnawing at the nerves in his entire body at the same time.

It hurt. He had never experienced such pain before.

An Zhe closed his eyes and gasped, trembling all over as sweat flowed down his body, every skin cell twitching. Had his spore ever been treated like this in the laboratory? Perhaps.

An Zhe lost almost all sober consciousness in the midst of the boundless pain. He mind was chaotic and he seemed to think a lot, but he didn't know what he was thinking. He just felt it was very important.

He didn't know how long it had been. This painful ordeal stretched out every second and was as long as a lifetime. Suddenly, he heard a noise coming from the corridor outside.

"Doctor—the frequency of the magnetic field is increasing!"

This shout that was like thunder sobered up An Zhe's mind. The atmosphere of the interrogation room also changed. An Zhe's heart jumped a few times. The magnetic field frequency was increasing, meaning the magnetic field was recovering. This meant the Underground City Base had been saved. It also meant that Lu Feng was coming back, if he was still alive.

The doctor's eager voice could be heard. "Increasing? Isn't this a big deal? Can it be restored to the normal frequency?"

"I don't know." Someone unknown replied. "However, the aurora has already appeared and the frequency fluctuations show that the Underground City Base is performing a manual frequency modulation, indicating that they are safe."

"My god…" The doctor's voice trembled. "It… it was really saved. Communication? Is communication restored? Quickly contact the military and have them open an emergency channel. What happened here was too big. We have to tell Lu—"

"Doctor." Seraing suddenly interrupted. He whispered, "I just received an urgent message from the military, telling us that we're not to contact the colonel in any form."

There was a brief silence before the doctor asked, "Why?"

"I…I don't know." Seraing stuttered. "Perhaps it is because of Madam Lu and An Zhe."

In a flash, An Zhe suddenly remembered what he had been thinking about. He was the one who stole the important sample. Madam Lu was a heterogeneous who infected the Garden of Eden. Both he and Madam Lu had a direct connection to Lu Feng.

He still wasn't fully awake. He didn't know where the strength came from but at this moment, he gained an amazing calmness. He coughed a few times before speaking weakly, "…I will speak."

The current disappeared and his mind became somewhat clear. Now he regretted what he just said to the doctor about Eden, Madam Lu and the queen bee. Still, he believed that the doctor would be able to understand his intentions.

However, the side effects brought about by the electrocution were too great. He couldn't speak at all and his mind was drowsy. His entire body kept shaking and cramping. Finally, the doctor opened the door of the interrogation room and gave him a glass of glucose water.

An Zhe was finally better.

"My words before are false. I am a heterogeneous species." An Zhe stated. "There is a type of fluctuation that can induce contactless infection and heterogeneous species can sense that fluctuation. Five days ago, I was in contact with Sinan at the Lighthouse and became infected. I destroyed the inert sample because you said it was very important to humans. Then I went to Eden to avoid pursuit and Madam Lu was very friendly to me. I was affected by the breeding season and infected the women there, with Madam Lu as the centre."

The doctor looked at him and frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying that I'm a heterogeneous species who has acquired human intellect. I was infected five days ago." An Zhe's voice was very light and certain. He knew his lies were clumsy but the doctor's ingenuity meant he would certainly understand.

The doctor suddenly twitched and his voice trembled. "You—"

Suddenly, snow-white mycelium appeared in the air. The doctor's eyes widened but the next moment, the mycelium forcibly covered his mouth and nose. Once a person was suffocated, they would instinctively open their mouth to try to brief. The mycelium took this opportunity to enter the doctor's mouth.

After a violent cough, the doctor's eyes suddenly became dazed. The next moment, he fell forward, completely unconscious.

Seraing pulled out his gun.

"If Lu Feng comes back or the military asks then tell them what I said earlier…" Looking at Seraing, An Zhe's tone filled with a slight sense of appeal. "Then when I lost my mind and wanted to attack the doctor, you killed my and my body evaporated. There is no such person as me in the world anymore."

Seraing pointed the gun at him. "…Why would you do that? What the hell are you?"

"I…" An Zhe slowly gripped the badge of the Trial Court in his hand. He was a mushroom but he couldn't say that he was a mushroom. He was about to leave, which was something he had decided from the beginning. After he left, it was meaningless how others saw him.

He knew how important the human base was to Lu Feng. The reason he could enter the base was because the Judge had chosen to believe him under the premise of a different intuition. He knew how valuable such trust was.

If Lu Feng came back, he would know the truth and know how much his mother hated and was disappointed with the base, how she became a semi-active heterogeneous species and finally destroyed all of Eden. In addition, the person he had always been around and trusted was a heterogeneous who always had a scheming attitude toward the sample.

What would happen to Lu Feng? Could he accept it? An Zhe didn't know but he knew he didn't want Lu Feng to face this type of thing. It wasn't because he was worried about how the base would look at Lu Feng. He and Lu Feng couldn't be considered to have a deep friendship and he was even badly bullied by this man. He just…

He just thought that Lu Feng was a very good human.

The madam said that Lu Feng must not have a good end. Her greatest regret was that she couldn't see the day when Lu Feng went crazy. Then… Lu Feng could never be shaken. This was An Zhe's only wish worth mentioning regarding this human base.

The madam had left and there was no evidence of death., Let what happened tonight be a common accident.

"I mean," he whispered, "I'm no longer human."

There was a bang and Seraing's bullet hit An Zhe's right shoulder. After the gunshot, the bullet was embedded into the opposite wall. An Zhe shook and all his clothes fell to the ground. The body inside had disappeared without a trace. Only a white shadow appeared in front of Seraing before suddenly disappearing, like it was an illusion.

An Zhe quickly entered a vent in the corner behind him. He couldn't care what Seraing thought. He used the fastest speed to move through the intricate pipes, rampaging through searching one room after another until he found an empty office with a window. He pushed open the window using his human figure and the aurora rushed toward him. He used the windowsill to support his arm and jumped down, quickly turning into mycelium and sliding down the outer wall to the ground.

The aurora had just appeared and the power supply hadn't fully recovered. There was no one outside and no monitoring. He turned into a human, dressed in a robe made of mycelium, and quickly ran.

Anyone could catch up at any time and this was the most stressful moment of An Zhe's life. He crossed the main city and returned to the outer city. At the abandoned supply station in the outer city, he picked up a backpack full of simple clothes, compressed biscuits and a map. The map was the most important thing. Carrying the backpack, he went out along the rail transit route. It was a long journey and he walked the entire night, but it didn't matter.

By the time the aurora faded and the eastern sky had lit up with a hint of redness, An Zhe had reached the gate of the outer city.

The inspection office, the Trial Court… the buildings at the city gates were exactly the same as when he entered, only the outer city had become empty and everything was locked. An Zhe turned around and came under the wall. He climbed to the top of an armoured car and reached out, his fingers turning to mycelium as he climbed the wall. Perhaps it was due to the solar wind for a few days but a strange scene appeared on the wall. It was evenly covered with a layer of sand and the fine grains of sand seemed to be integrated with the steel wall, embedded in each other. Once the mycelium was placed there, the small white sand fell down but the layer inside was still sand.

After a slow climb, An Zhe stood on top of the wall. Then something trembled around him. An Zhe shifted his gaze and found two black bees as big as humans near the heavy machine guns on top of the wall. There were a few in the distance as well. It could be imagined that they flew out of the Garden of Eden not long ago and temporarily stopped here.

The black bee was awakened by his movements. Its wings quivered and there was a gesture that showed it was about to fly. An Zhe pursed his lips and made a decision within a moment.

The next moment, a part of his body turned into the more flexible, softer and weightless mycelium. He rushed forward and wrapped himself around the black bee. His body fell onto the stinging hairs on the black bee's spine.

The black bee was frightened. Its wings buzzed and vibrated as it flew rapidly into the sky.

An Zhe firmly sat on its back. The cool morning wind blew across his face. He squinted as he looked back at the entire human base. The sun rose and the golden rays of the glorious dawn flooded over the grey city. Suddenly, he heard a roar coming from a distance that was both near and far.

His eyes slightly widened as he saw the distant black point gradually becoming larger. It was the shape of a familiar warplane, the PL1109. Its dark shape was coated with the golden shimmer in the cloud of dawn and there was a team of wingmen guarding either side. The flying speed gradually slowed as the entire flying formation slowly descended with the appearance of preparing to land.

Lu Feng had returned safely. It might've seemed impossible to rescue the Underground City Base but the colonel seemed to be an omnipotent man.

Stimulated by the sound, the black bee flew faster into the distance, the wind blowing up An Zhe's sleeves.

Looking there, it was unknown why but An Zhe smiled despite the early morning wind making his eyes astringent.

He remembered the first time he saw Lu Feng under the city gates. That day, the judge of humanity, the colonel gazed at him from a distance with cold green eyes under the brim of his black hat. The madam's roses had withered but he hoped the colonel would always be the colonel.

—Goodbye.

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