"Come With me To the Lighthouse."

Even a mushroom like him knew that these were not good words.

But An Zhe had no way to refute them.

He walked through that door, and the doormen at the sentry box observed the proceedings, looking angry but afraid to speak up.

He understood them.

This position of Arbiter, although it was not the greatest military rank, had the highest authority when it came to killing people. Nobody was willing to cross Lu Feng.

An Zhe himself wasn't, either.

He said, "Thank you, Colonel."

"No problem," Lu Feng said. "In the afternoon, request time off."

"... Huh?"

Lu Feng seemed to nonchalantly lift his eyelids as he said, "Come with me to the Lighthouse."

"What for?" An Zhe asked.

"Dr. Ji wants you for something," Lu Feng said.

An Zhe was a little suspicious of this sentence's authenticity. Why would the doctor want him?

For a moment, he suspected that this was Lu Feng's excuse to arrest him and bring him into the Lighthouse, but he felt that his own performance this morning was flawless. Even Seraing took the initiative to speak for him.

Then he suddenly realized that in Seraing's eyes as well, he didn't seem very smart.

But even if he wasn't a smart human, he was a rational mushroom, and going to the Lighthouse was actually just what he desired.

He said, "Okay."

Lu Feng gave a vague hum in reply, then turned and left.

———

While the children were being trained by the drillmaster, An Zhe sat on a bench nearby. When the instructor needed assistance—such as for scoring and timing and such—he would be called over.

There was nothing else to do, nor were there any reading materials in the office he was interested in, so he could only take an introductory manual on the operation of various weapons.

Colin didn't sit with him, but rather on another bench nearby. He had made a new friend, the language and literature teacher of the class next door, a boy around twenty years old.

The book page he was reading had described in detail a large fighter plane with the model name "PL1109". A masterpiece of human science and technology from the period when the magnetic field was in disorder, it had a top-tier exterior that shielded against radiation, top-tier engine and motors, and an independent cruise system that was unmatched throughout the entire base, capable of accurately determining its course in the absence of a magnetic field.

It sounded very amazing, but An Zhe really had no interest in it whatsoever, and because he hadn't slept all night, he even began to doze off slightly.

To his right, Colin and the language teacher's greetings to each other had ended. They exchanged names, then began to converse, and the wind blew the contents of their conversation to An Zhe's ear.

"Do you like the Main City?" Colin asked.

An Zhe was astutely aware that Colin was about to start preaching again.

"Why wouldn't I like it?" the boy said. "The Main City gives us stable lives."

He seemed to also be a talkative person. Just as he finished this sentence, he continued with the next. "It must have been a month since we came to the Main City. How do you feel?"

"Liking it is out of the question," Colin said.

"How come?" the boy said. "You don't need to be a mercenary and go out to throw your life away, something that we previously wouldn't have even dared to think about. Every day I thank my mother for forcing me to finish three educational courses, although she mainly wanted me to finish studying language and economics to test into the supply depot in the future so that I wouldn't need to make a living out in the wilderness."

Colin was silent for a while before asking, "What about your mother?"

"Died in the wilderness," he said. "The two of them hadn't raised me for many years before my father failed to return, and then she failed to return as well."

"My apologies," Colin said.

"It's fine." The boy smiled. "I'm used to it. What about you?"

"My mother was killed by the Arbiter, and my father... When we went to the Main City, he was left behind in District 6."

"My apologies," the boy said as well.

But the exchange of their experiences seemed to swiftly bring the two of them closer together. After a short silence, the boy looked at the children on the training ground, put his arms behind his head, and sighed. "Having been in the Outer City for a long time, I've forgotten that we came from the Main City too when we were little."

"I remember quite clearly," Colin said. "When I was five or six years old, I wanted to be a biologist, and my grades were good as well, yet I still wasn't able to remain in the Main City."

"When I was young, I wanted to be a military officer," the boy said. "In the end, I fell during the final assessment, and the military didn't want me."

Colin said, "Fate is fickle."

"Look on the bright side. Our intelligence was insufficient, so even if we remained, it would be painful for us," the boy said with a sigh. "One might not be able to be happy even if they remain in the Main City. I heard that someone wanted to sort and study humankind's archives, but because of his outstanding talent in mathematics, he could only stay in the Lighthouse for his entire life and calculate ballistics trajectories. Think about it. You wanted to be a biologist, but the base thought you were more suited to be a linguist and made you translate documents. How painful that would be. If it were me, I would suddenly die."

"This is the reason why I don't like the base," Colin said. "It's a cold-blooded and ruthless machine."

"You have to think of yourself as a little part. A cog in a greater wheel. Your genes are your model number, determining which sector you work in."

Colin gave a rare smile. "You're very amusing."

The boy said, "Those of us who studied language are rather good at coming up with analogies."

"But people aren't parts. Under the banner of doing everything for the sake of serving humankind's interests, the base has been constantly losing its human characteristics instead."

"What alternative is there? We can't just mooch off of the base, we have to produce some value." The boy stood up and looked at the children before them.

"I truly like children," he said with a sudden and very happy smile. "I really like this job. Maybe someday, amongst the children I teach, there will be an unmatched genius who can save the whole world."

Then he spoke to himself. "In that case, I should prepare lessons in earnest."

With chin resting in hand, An Zhe looked at him curiously before looking at Colin again.

Colin didn't say anything else. An Zhe thought that this time, he wasn't able to succeed in finding a comrade.

When they were in the Outer City, Colin had held up a poster that read "oppose the Arbiter". If they were in the Main City, what would he hold up? He felt that it may be something like "oppose human classification" or "we want freedom".

His train of thought became more chaotic as he got sleepier. Trying to focus on the military's illustrated handbook, he cursorily flipped through the fighter plane section, then looked at the weapons section. Conventional bombs, nuclear bombs, and hydrogen bombs of varying equivalents could easily blow a mushroom to bits. But he was by no means afraid. Humans were unlike the things inside the Abyss. They were a rule-abiding existence, so as long as he complied with the rules, he would be able to live.

He spent the morning in this manner. At noon, the children finished training.

A few of the younglings had received bumps, and some other younglings thought that the training was too difficult. They didn't go to eat, instead surrounding him at the bench and whimpering.

As An Zhe gently stuck a bandage on a youngling, he comforted a short-haired girl next to him who thought that training was too difficult. "Hang in there. After you pass the training, you can be an officer."

The girl said, "I can't just be eliminated?"

"No, you can't," He said.

He thought that even if she couldn't stay in the Main City, she ought to train hard. Otherwise, once they grew up—if the Outer City resumed operations by then—nobody would adopt children with poor physical fitness, no mercenary team would want them, and they wouldn't be able to pass the test and get into the civilian posts of the City Affairs Office or the supply depot. They'd only be able to go to the third underground floor, regardless of their gender.

Having stayed there for a month, he knew that the people there did not live well.

Thus, he said, "You all have to train hard."

The girl hugged his arm and said, "But even after becoming officers, we need to train every day."

An Zhe patted her hair and thought for a while. "But they have good-looking uniforms."

A boy looked at the soldiers at the training ground and said, "They're super ugly."

"Their military ranks aren't high enough," An Zhe said sincerely to him. "The uniforms get better once you reach… Once you reach Colonel, or so"

"Really?" a youngling asked.

"Will it be as good-looking as the one that person wears?" another youngling asked.

"Which person?" An Zhe asked.

The youngling pointed behind him.

An Zhe turned around.

Against a utility pole two or three meters behind him and to one side leaneda certain Colonel clad in a black uniform. At such a close distance, the younglings were unexpectedly unafraid of him.

Perhaps it was because this Colonel was currently looking straight at An Zhe, his slightly-lifted eyebrows carrying a hint of joy.

An Zhe was at a loss for words.

What he said just now had probably been overheard.

———

In Lu Feng's car, An Zhe had fallen asleep.

The moment he woke up was when he instinctively sensed danger. As soon as he opened his eyes, he discovered that the car had stopped at the entrance to the Lighthouse, and the Colonel had opened the car door on his side and was examining him from above.

"Did you not sleep last night?" The Colonel's voice was cold enough to turn water into ice.

An Zhe's brain was still in a non-functioning state. He rubbed his eyes to wake himself up, then got out of the car.

But because he was sleepy to the point of toppling over, his unsteady footing made him pitch forward into Lu Feng.

A pair of powerful arms held him steady, and An Zhe finally stood firm. He didn't fall, but he did become quite a lot more awake.

The Lighthouse was quiet and bustling with activity as always. When they were walking through the corridor on the first floor, four soldiers carrying two bodies covered in white cloth passed by. Seraing was by their side, his face slightly pale. Upon seeing Lu Feng, he explained succinctly, "Experimental malfunction. They were exposed."

Lu Feng gave a slight nod, then took An Zhe to the elevator to go up to the tenth floor.

Dr. Ji was standing in the middle of the corridor on the tenth floor. "You're here."

Lu Feng said, "What's the matter?"

"I'm going to borrow your little cutie here for something." To An Zhe, the doctor said, "Come with me."

An Zhe didn't think he had become Lu Feng's property, but he still followed.

The doctor took him to the familiar laboratory where Si Nan had been locked up.

Through the transparent airtight glass wall, he spotted Si Nan.

But it also wasn't Si Nan.

He walked up to the glass wall.

Inside was a black—a black insect.

It was bigger than Si Nan's original form, about half the size of an adult.

There were two black compound eyes at the top of his head, glowing with a dark silver luster beneath the lamplight. Between the two compound eyes, on top of its head, a pair of thin, long antennae extended. Long translucent wings hung from its back, its abdomen was slender and long and covered with some dark gray fuzz, and the same fuzz also covered its mouthparts.

It looked like a bee.

Right now, it was wildly flying around and crashing into this transparent cage, its body continuously ramming into the glass wall as though it wanted to escape, but its torso and limbs were trembling non-stop, as if it was suffering extreme pain.

"Its situation is abnormal. There are great discrepancies between its brain waves and previous records in the database. I suspect that it still retains a portion of human consciousness and that it's resisting the xenogenic instincts," the doctor said. "But none of us have any way of effectively communicating with it, so we wanted to invite you here to try."

So An Zhe stood in front of the communicator once again.

"Si Nan," he said.

Si Nan's wing covers opened and closed, making rustling sounds as they rubbed together. He seemed to not hear anything, still flying wildly in the whole space as before.

But An Zhe was convinced that there was a moment in which that head with its compound eyes had looked in his direction.

"Si Nan," he said. "Do you remember Lily?"

The rustling sounds stopped for a moment, but then the gray bee rammed the glass wall even more fiercely.

As he watched Si Nan, he asked softly, "Do you have something you want to say to her?"

Si Nan's wings trembled madly, but he had already lost his human vocal organs, so all he presented to the doctor were irregular peaks and troughs on the EEG.

Dr. Ji said, "There are changes in the electric waves. He understands you. Who is Lily?"

An Zhe's gaze was slightly blank.

The conversation between himself and Lily was a secret nobody knew about, but now there was no other option.

An hour later, someone gently tapped on the laboratory door.

An Zhe turned around.

The first thing that caught his eye was a snow-white skirt.

"Madam Lu?" There was a note of slight surprise in Dr. Ji's voice. "Why are you here?"

An Zhe lifted his head. The woman who entered was a lady with an elegant, gentle bearing.

She had long black hair that was loosely twisted into a bun at the back of her head and was wearing a light blue mask, so An Zhe could only see a pair of kind black eyes. Her body was slightly plump, which served to make her disposition even more kindly.

The girl whose hand she was holding in her own right hand was none other than Lily, and on each side of them was a Garden of Eden staff member.

"In the last three months, the Garden of Eden's aberration rate has risen. I must personally deliver my report to the Lighthouse and request them to decide again," she said. "I just happened to receive an application from the Lighthouse requesting Lily's assistance with a certain task, so I brought her here along the way."

Dr. Ji said, "Sorry to trouble you."

"This outing is an exception." Madam Lu handed Lily over to Dr. Ji. "Please treat her well."

"Please rest assured."

After completing the handover, Madam Lu slowly turned her head.

Lu Feng was in one corner of the room, eyes tracking her since she'd entered the lab.

"You're here too," she said.

Lu Feng dropped his gaze slightly and said, "Mother."

"It appears to be very important research." Madam Lu looked at him.

At that moment, one of them was at the room entrance while the other was at the corner of the room diagonally opposite, their gazes meeting. Madam Lu's expression was soft while Lu Feng's gaze was calm.

When An Zhe witnessed this, a type of intuition told him that there was some unknown undercurrent surging in their eye contact, but he couldn't understand it.

Approximately ten seconds later, Madam Lu said, "I should go."

One of the two staff members helped her turn around, and the two of them protected her completely.

The footsteps receded, and Dr. Ji closed the door.

"This is the thirty-fifth year Madam Lu has worked for the Garden of Eden." His gaze seemed careworn. "She truly is a great woman. Why don't you talk to her a little more?"

Lu Feng looked at the tightly-shut silver door. "We haven't met in a very long time."

"Then all the more reason to talk with her some more. Could it be that your work these years at the Trial Court has already made you cold-blooded and indifferent to this point?" Dr. Ji said. "Remember when I was younger, I even helped you mess up the surveillance on the twentieth floor, allowing you to often run out to see her—the candy Madam gave me was very tasty."

"Dr. Ji," Lu Feng said, "there's no harm in speaking less."

Dr. Ji shrugged.

Three seconds later, he suddenly said, "I really did a flawless job back then. Tell me, after all these years, has the surveillance been fixed?"

Lu Feng looked at Lily, then looked at An Zhe who was looking at Lily, and said, "Looks like it hasn't."

Lily had already pressed herself against the glass wall.

She looked at the bee-shaped xenogenic behind the glass, and an unprecedented delight at seeing something new appeared in her soulless eyes. "Is this a bee?"

The gray bee lay prone against the glass wall, locking eyes with her. Its movements finally stopped for a brief spell, but then it fell into painful convulsions again.

"It looks like it's in a lot of pain." Lily looked at An Zhe, obviously recognizing him, and asked, "Was it you who wanted me to come over and look at the bee?"

He murmured, "That's Si Nan."

Lily was stunned. Just as An Zhe thought she was about to show a sorrowful expression, she broke out into a sudden smile instead.

"Si Nan," she said to the gray bee through the glass wall. "You can fly now."

There was neither fear nor unfamiliarity in her eyes. She had never seen monsters kill people, nor had she ever been warned to stay away from xenogenics. In the eyes of children, there weren't many differences between bees and humans.

She wasn't even surprised by the fact that Si Nan had suddenly turned into a bee—probably because, in the eyes of younglings, the world was just this full of unpredictable changes.

"It's jumbled again." The doctor looked at the instrument. "But for three seconds just now, its electric waves were very close to those of humans."

Dr. Ji patted Lily's shoulder. "Lily, come help us with something."

"What thing?" Lily asked.

"Si Nan's consciousness is fighting against the bee's consciousness. Perhaps you can help him wake up. Can you keep talking to him?"

"I can," Lily said. "Can you change me into a bee too?"

"If you also changed into a bee, the Garden of Eden would execute me," Dr. Ji said. "If you can communicate with him, it would be even better. We have to know how exactly he was infected. The source of infection is in the Garden of Eden, but it has not been found so far. Only by finding it as quickly as possible can we ensure the Main City's safety."

"Okay." Lily put her hand on the glass wall. "Then can you give me a reward?"

Dr. Ji said warmly, "What would you like?"

"I don't want to stay on the twentieth floor." Lily pressed her cheek to the glass. "Can you rescue me from there?"

"My apologies," Dr. Ji said. "This exceeds the scope of my capabilities."

"It's okay. I guessed as much." Lily once again looked at the gray bee. "I'll try my best."

She truly did try her best for an entire afternoon, but Si Nan's condition swung between good and bad. There were only a few times in which he gave normal feedback, but according to Dr. Ji, his situation was much improved from before, and so he decided to invite Lily again the next day.

The doctor was busy with other research duties, and Lily didn't like interacting with others, so in the following few days, An Zhe also had to accompany Lily at the Lighthouse and communicate with Si Nan.

By 7 p.m., Lily had exhausted her young strength and energy. She was delivered back to the Garden of Eden, and An Zhe could also get off work.

At noon, he had fallen asleep in the car and received Lu Feng's ire. Having learned his lesson, he stayed awake the entire trip, got out of the car awake, and took the same elevator with Lu Feng up to the thirty-seventh floor while awake.

Similarly, he faced his own room door while awake.

The tightly-shut room door.

One second, two seconds, three seconds.

Lu Feng's voice, carrying an undertone of a smile, rang out behind him.

"How come you aren't going inside?"

An Zhe took a deep breath.

Rashly making his way into the pipes last night was one of the two biggest mistaken decisions he had made in his life. The other one was deciding to go roll around in that windy wilderness on the night of February 14th.

He was deeply regretful.

Of course the Colonel understood the dilemma An Zhe was facing. He said, "The Main City's City Affairs Office can reissue ID cards. For the next three days, find someplace to live."

With those words, he unhurriedly opened his own room door, walked in, and made to close the door.

On the other side, An Zhe turned around to look at him, brows slightly furrowed and gently biting his lower lip, the very image of someone struggling. He seemed to be pondering something.

But Lu Feng said nothing, only looking at him flatly.

Time passed quietly.

Unexpectedly, An Zhe turned around and pressed the elevator's down button.

"Then I'll go find Seraing."