"You Two Have a Great Relationship"

An Zhe had a dream.

The pitter-pattering sound of rain.

Water droplets struck wide leaves, flowed down along crisscrossing leaf veins, and fell from the edges to land in the shrubbery, then trickled down the roots of old trees and seeped into the damp soil. It was a wet rainy season, a sight he seemed to have experienced many times before. His memories started from there, when the entire world was composed of rain.

He floated down from a mushroom's cap and, before the rain began to fall, was borne to the soil by the wind. He seemed to have been sleeping all the way up until he smelled the damp water vapor after the rain.

Everything was out of his control. In the moist soil, the hyphae stretched out, grew long, split, extended outward, and aggregated. He grew from a spore smaller than a speck of sand into a mass of hyphae, then drew out a stem and grew a cap.

Everything followed a clear and orderly pattern. Unlike humans, mushrooms did not need to pass down teachings from generation to generation. He did not have the slightest recollection of the mushroom that had produced him, but he clearly knew what he needed to obtain from the soil, as though this was his own experience. He also knew in what season he ought to be born, what he ought to do, and in what season he ought to die. His life's mission was to produce a spore.

Then he once again grew and died, while his spore continued to grow. Amidst the timeless sound of rain, countless spores drifted down in turn. In that manner, the soft rainfall sounded in his ears. All around him, and within his body, mind, and memories, it was omnipresent, as though hastening the occurrence of something that was about to happen. In its wake came the waves that came from distant skies. Infinite emptiness, infinite terror—until his eyes flew open.

The quartz clock hanging on the wall had ticked to nine o'clock. There was nobody next to him, and he was securely wrapped in the quilt. But the feeling of being held in Lu Feng's arms seemed to still remain. The heat lingered on his skin, burning him bit by bit. Lu Feng had originally been holding him around the upper body, somewhere below his shoulders. In the middle of the night, though, An Zhe had started feeling discomfort in his arms from the weight and pulled them out. The man's arm had thus shifted downward a bit and settled on his waist, his palm just happening to lie flat against An Zhe's abdomen.

When he was being held in Lu Feng's arms, it was like he could isolate himself from all the dangers outside. He felt very safe, but this man himself was also the greatest danger. An Zhe could no longer remember what kind of mood he was in before he fell back asleep.

An Zhe looked at everything in front of him, his mind utterly blank. He wiggled his fingers. Softness permeated even the nooks and crannies of his bones. As though he had taken too long of an afternoon nap, he had no strength all over.

The surrounding air was so damp, just like right after a bout of rain.

He thought back to that strange yet seemingly prophetic dream, then sat up from the bed and held out his hand. Taking the spore from his stomach was too cruel of an act. Only a certain officer named Lu would do so. He controlled the movement of the spore within his body. Three minutes later, a mass of white hyphae stretched out, appearing upon his right palm while clustered around his spore.

When he had placed it in his body, it was a little spore only the size of half of a palm, but now it was the same size as his fist.

He carefully scrutinized it by the glow of the gas lamp. At the ends of the spore's hyphae were minute antler-like bifurcations, and with its white and transparent luster, it was like a snowflake. Its shape had begun to change.

He touched it with his left hand, and it reached out with its hyphae to affectionately wrap around his fingers. He could feel its fresh and flourishing life; it was close to maturity.

He did not know precisely when the spore would reach maturity, but it would not be long.

Their hyphae would no longer be intertwined. It would become a mushroom capable of surviving independently. The moment it matured, it would automatically leave him, just like when he had been blown down by the wind.

Planting its spores was a mushroom's instinct. Where did he want to plant it? Would it grow up in the distant future? An Zhe did not know. He only felt the faint wistfulness that came before a parting. It seemed that all tangible things in the world would eventually be separated.

Just then, there was the sound of movement in the passageway. His spore first pricked up its hyphae,seemingly listening to the sound, then spiritedly rolled toward the sound's source like the pole of one piece of magnetite leaping toward another pole. An Zhe brought his hands together, clasping it tightly, and just barely managed to recall the traitorous little thing back to his own body before Lu Feng entered.

Standing at the doorway, Lu Feng raised his eyebrows at An Zhe.

"Get up," he said.

An Zhe obediently got out of bed and went to eat. They spent the following few days in the same manner, with An Zhe helping Xi Bei cook and tidy up the mine. Lu Feng frequently went outside. Each time, An Zhe worried he wouldn't be able to come back, but each time, the Colonel was unexpectedly safe and sound. Sometimes, he would even bring back a small bird and toss it to them for roasting.

More often, they stayed in the cave with nothing to do. An Zhe had finished reading all of the books, and at the Colonel's request, he read out loud to him a romance novel and an entire weapons handbook—the man could not be bothered to flip through them himself.

Finally, they began to play board games with small stones. They were all very simple games such as five-in-arow or airplane chess. Lu Feng first taught him, and then they played together. An Zhe lost more often than he won, and he secretly suspected that those few wins were from the Colonel secretly throwing the game because every time he won, a hint of a smile would appear in Lu Feng's eyes.

When they were eating, Xi Bei said, "You two have a great relationship. There used to be people who would fall in love in the caves as well, and Grandfather would be the witness for their marriages," he sighed softly, putting down his chopsticks. "I also want to fall in love, but there are no other people left here."

Lu Feng said nothing. An Zhe comforted Xi Bei, saying, "There are people at the base."

Although there were only eight thousand of them.

Seemingly comforted, Xi Bei spiritedly picked his chopsticks back up.

Seven days later, communications had still not been restored, and Xi Bei told them the unfortunate news that their stores of food were no longer enough for two days' worth. They had to go to the city ruins that were thousands of meters away to search for supplies.

So they left some dried food for Grandfather and put the remaining mushrooms and dried meat in their backpacks along with several bottles of water. Xi Bei brought out a small alcohol burner from the kitchen. Before the people of the mine died out, they often went to the city to search for supplies, so they were well equipped.

"We made a dirt road, so we could get there by bicycle." Xi Bei's tone of voice was slightly despondent. "Now it's turned into sand, so bicycling is impossible." Thus, before An Zhe left, he longingly looked at the bicycles piled in a corner. He had never seen bicycles before.

Lu Feng rested his elbow on An Zhe's shoulder and said languidly, "I'll take you to ride them after we get back."

Just as they had prepared everything, when they were getting ready to open the lid at the top of the cave, heavy and sluggish footsteps came from the depths of the mine.

An Zhe turned back. In the dim lighting, a withered old man approached from around the corner while using the wall for support. His hair was grizzled and unkempt, and the corners of his mouth trembled constantly like the flame of a pale candle flickering in the wind.

Xi Bei walked forward. "… Grandfather?"

The old man stared at him with cloudy eyes, devoid of expression and not seeming to recognize him. He opened his mouth, saying, "I'll go too."

Xi Bei hugged the old man by the shoulders. "You can just stay here. We'll be back in a day or two, and we'll bring food back with us."

In the same hoarse voice, the old man said, "I'll go too."

No matter how Xi Bei tried to dissuade him, he only hadthat sentence to say. Because of this persistence, his dull face unexpectedly showed an unusual lucidity.

Left with no other choice, Xi Bei turned to Lu Feng with a pleading gaze.

Lu Feng examined the old man for a long time before saying, "Let's bring him."

Xi Bei gave his assent and helped the old man out—his tottering gait was unsteady, and anyone who looked at him would know that this elderly life was drawing near to its end.

At the cave mouth, Lu Feng said, "I'll take him."

Xi Bei shook his head. After picking up his grandfather on his back, he said, "Grandfather is very light."

An Zhe looked at the old man's withered body. Illness had already consumed his body to the point where only a loose skeleton remained.

They arrived aboveground where it was daylight, the sun shining down on them. An Zhe squinted, getting accustomed to it only after some time had passed.

He looked at Grandfather being propped up on Xi Bei's back, eyes closed. His face was covered with the kind of brown spots that would appear in a human's old age, but in the sunlight, his expression was very peaceful.

His mouth moved as he spoke a single sentence.

"People live on the ground."

This was the only thing An Zhe heard from Grandfather over the past few days that didn't sound like gibberish.

He looked up at the pale gray sky. At the moment, faint ribbons of pale green were drifting across the sky. Even though it was not nighttime, it was possible to see the aurora, unlike before.

Lu Feng said, "The magnetic field's frequency has beenadjusted."

An Zhe nodded. He did not know the meaning of that sentence, but so long as the magnetic field was still fine, then everything was fine.

Upon the sand, their footsteps were sometimes deep and sometimes shallow. As they crossed the vast wasteland, it was like they were the only living things. The wind blewfrom an unknown distance. Whether it was over ten thousand years or a hundred million years, it blew in this manner. The creatures walking on the ground would be renewed and replaced, with some dying and some being newly born, but the wind would not change. When it blew into the crevices in the rock, a strange and drawn-out noise that resembled wailing would sound in the wasteland.

Amidst this distant wailing, An Zhe spontaneously latched onto the hem of Lu Feng's sleeve and walked with him.

Lu Feng gave him a flat look. "Shall I carry you on my back?"

An Zhe shook his head. He could walk on his own.

Saying nothing, Lu Feng once again looked forward.

After walking for another stretch, An Zhe had become tired from latching on, and his arm was a little sore. Overthe past few days, as his spore gradually matured, his physical strength seemed to worsen. He wanted to let go but also did not really want to let go.

Lu Feng flexed his wrist, and An Zhe understood his meaning. He had annoyed the Colonel with his hold, so he obediently let go.

Then his hand was grasped by the Colonel's.

———

On the road, they spotted the wreckage of a plane. The plane's shape was identical to that of Lu Feng's plane. An Zhe roughly estimated the direction. This plane should be the one before Lu Feng's crash. He had witnessed its fall.

After three or four planes crashed in succession, he never again saw the base's planes appear in the sky. Most likely the base had also noticed this strange change and no longer dispatched its fighter planes.

But this plane's condition was better than that of Lu Feng's. It hadn't exploded, so apart from the damage to its appearance, everything else was well preserved.

Lu Feng walked over and detached the plane's black box. After hesitating briefly, he climbed through the cracked plane cabin door. There were bite marks at the edges.

Monsters had eaten the pilot's body. The bloodstained clothes had dried, and the picked-clean bones lay scattered about in the cockpit. The skull had tumbled underneath the console, only half of it remaining and with sharp teeth marks along the edge.

An Zhe climbed in with him. For a moment, Lu Feng wanted him to leave so that he wouldn't be frightened bythis hideous sight, but then he saw An Zhe's calm gaze and realized that he would not feel fear because of human remains.

Below the console was a flight manual lying face down. The flight manual was a pilot's reference book, containing records of basic operation steps, the purposes of instruments and how to use them, and the solutions to various extraordinary circumstances.

Lu Feng pulled the flight manual over to himself. An unknown change had occurred to the manual. The black writing had deeply, deeply seeped into the paper. The color diffused outward as fine black tentacles, making theprinted characters all over the pages warp and twist strangely, resembling some sort of evil symbols.

An Zhe looked at the paper as well and struggled to recognize the words. What this page talked about were the various possible kinds of engine breakdowns.

Thus, he knew that this plane crash had occurred because of an engine breakdown, and until the very moment the plane crashed, the pilot had been searching the manual for possible solutions.

Then—at that moment, the plane crashed, the manual fell, and the people died.

After Lu Feng carried An Zhe down from the plane's accommodation ladder and put him on the ground, An Zhe heard Lu Feng say, "The plane I was in also crashed because of an engine breakdown."

An Zhe frowned.

Lu Feng continued, "But problems occurred with the other parts as well."

"Was it because there were problems when they were made?" An Zhe asked.

"The fleet of PJ fighter planes has already carried out many flight missions, and they had also been serviced prior to takeoff." Lu Feng said.

They continued walking. Xi Bei and Grandfather were waiting up ahead for them.

An Zhe could not understand the reason for the plane breakdowns. He asked, "Then why?"

"I don't know." The Colonel very seldom spoke these three words.

As though he recalled something, he said flatly, "Anengine breakdown occurred when the PL1109 was landing as well, but it still descended safely."

The PL1109 was the base's most advanced fighter plane.What Lu Feng meant was that there was now the risk of

accidents occurring with all planes. Not long ago, when he had left the human base and was looking back at the Main City, he had also seen the PL1109's slowly descending silhouette. It turned out that at that time, Lu Feng had already made a trip along the edge of life and death.

"Then…" An Zhe said in a small voice, "will you not ride planes anymore?"

Saying nothing, Lu Feng simply ruffled his hair.

After meeting back up with Xi Bei, they gave a simple rundown of the situation there and continued walking forward.

Within their lines of sight, everything was wasteland.

Xi Bei looked around. "There really are fewer monsters now. There used to be quite a lot before."

An Zhe knew what these words meant. Whether big or small, many creatures had died and become nothing but parts for and of the hybrid-class monsters. Because the total number of monsters decreased, this place seemed much safer. But each monster by itself was moredangerous.

But all of these changes were completed in less than a couple of weeks, and the small and weak monsters were wiped out. The process was still too fast. An Zhe thought back to the monster that was desperately greedy to consume genes. Its actions truly seemed overly hasty.

In truth, there were similar images within his memories. He remembered the late autumns in the Abyss.

In the winter, the Abyss would become wet and cold. After a snowfall, there would be frost everywhere on the ground and the trees. Many monsters would no longer come out and move about. Instead, they would search for warm caves to hide in. In order to live through an entire winter, they would madly fight each other, desperately consume more flesh and blood to store nutrition for the winter, or drag the carcasses of their enemies into their caves to serve as food reserves. The month before winter arrived was the Abyss's most dangerous and most bloody time.

Now, the same kind of slaughter was happening outside as well.

This stretch of road was not long. The entire way, they were sufficiently cautious, choosing hidden routes to travel over. Perhaps also because of luck, they did not encounter any terrifying hybrid-class monsters.

They had set out at eight o'clock. At half past nine in the morning, a city half-buried by the wind and sand appeared in front of them.

It was very large. When they got closer, they could notsee the end of it at a glance. Amidst the unbroken succession of buildings, they could faintly see the vestiges of the road. Unlike the standardized buildings of the Northern Base, they were scattered about and devoid of any patterns. Tall and short buildings stood together, and round and rectangular buildings had been placed at random. The roads twisted and turned, and a dark red tower stood in the center of the city. Half of the overpass had collapsed, and thick profusions of vines hung from it as it lay across the middle of the road up ahead. There were buildings in every color, but precisely because of the excessive number of colors, they became one in An Zhe's field of vision and gradually blurred into a misty gray.

An Zhe looked into the boundless distance. If he had not seen it with his own eyes, he would not have been able to imagine that the world still had this kind of complicated city within it. If he were one of its residents, getting lost would have been a common occurrence.

Dark clouds covered the sun, the sky was overcast, and a faint mist hung in the air.

"Come with me," Xi Bei said. "Those of us from the mine often came here to look for supplies, so we have a stronghold in the city. Actually, living in the city is fine as well. We're just afraid that there are monsters. Grandfather doesn't know why either. He just insists that the cave is thesafest. In the past, three of the uncles thought that living in the cave was too difficult and came to live in the city. Afterward, there was no more news from them."

After following Xi Bei through the streets with numerous buildings, they arrived at a residential area where big gray buildings were crowded together. There was a public square in the distance, and in the center of the public square, a white sphere was faintly visible. In the silent city, apart from the wind passing through the buildings, there was only the sound of their footsteps.

Lu Feng was responsible for keeping watch over the surroundings. Because Xi Bei was carrying his grandfather, he had his head down the entire time. He said, "It's right past that public square. We'll get there very soon."

At that same moment, a coughing sound came from Grandfather's throat.

His vocal cords vibrated as he continually uttered a regular syllable. There was phlegm in his throat, so his voice was unclear. They could only just hear him say, "Gu…"

"Gu, gu…"

"What?" Xi Bei asked.

Lu Feng's footsteps came to an abrupt stop.

An Zhe looked at him, but saw that he was staring at the public square up ahead.

Then he spat out a curt word. "Run!"

There was no time to think. An Zhe felt a fierce yank on his arm, and he unconsciously followed Lu Feng in turning around and running toward the nearest building. Xi Bei did not know what had happened, but he swiftly followed while carrying his grandfather on his back.

The residential building was an architectural structure that An Zhe was familiar with. Right inside the corridor entrance, they were met by a pale, clothed skeleton. It was leaning against a corner and seemed to have fused into the pale wall. But he was in no position to look more closely. His body already lacked strength in the first place, so he fell a step behind when going up the stairs. Lu Feng simply picked him up and swiftly climbed the stairs. The staircase was very roomy, and each floor had three residences. At around the eighth floor, one door was wide open, and Lu Feng charged straight in with An Zhe. Xi Bei followed close behind, and as soon as he came in, Lu Feng shut the door. All of the furniture inside was covered with dust, and there was a skeleton lying on the living room sofa.

This was a place with three bedrooms and two living rooms, and it had windows on both the south and north sides. A part of the living room extended out from the building; it was a gigantic French window.

Lu Feng put An Zhe down. He was breathing hard from running too fast just now. An Zhe had never seen him in this state before.

But in the following moment—

He saw Xi Bei looking outside the French window, his face pallid and gaze unfocused.

He looked ahead.

White.

A white, spherical, half-a-story-tall monster was moving with some strange gait—almost floating, ghost-like footsteps—as it slowly approached. It was the thing in the distant public square that An Zhe had initially treated as a white decoration. It was a gigantic monster.It came straight towards them. While it was still two streets away, An Zhe got a clear look at it. Beneath an indescribable body grew wriggling feet like those of an octopus or snail. The front half was responsible for walking, and the back half was dragged along. Its body—its nearly circular body—was covered with a translucent membrane that was a color somewhere between white and pale gray. Underneath the membrane, within its body were countless black or flesh-colored shapeless things or in other words organs. Densely concentrated tentacles or limbs, or other things, wriggled constantly.

The closer it came to the residential area, the more clearly visible the details on its body were. It was a hybridized shape completely beyond the scope of humanunderstanding. Wherever its eyes were, they could not be found. Xi Bei stared straight at it, seemingly about to die from terror.

It came closer.

Everyone in the room held their breaths.