Chapter 2

An Zhe walked for a long time.

After many days and nights passed, the distance he moved on the map was only the size of a human’s little fingernail. He was an entire finger’s length away from the Northern Base. He didn’t have the human means of transportation and didn’t know how long it would take him to get there.

Finally, he smelt the damp and dark air fading away and felt the soil under his feet becoming harder.

In the evening, the sun sank like a deep red eye. The distant black hills accepted it and the sun gradually disappeared. The twilight and aurora floated together. An Zhe unfolded the map and tried to identify the characters and symbols.

He had just walked past a dried up river that was the boundary of the Abyss. After the boundary was a place called the ‘Second Plains.’ It had three stars in danger level and two stars in pollution level.

Indeed, the undulating terrain of the Abyss, the rifts in the ground that could be seen everywhere and the tangled shadows of tall trees in the middle of the night were all gone. This place was unobscured and had a panoramic scene of a flat and endless twilight.

Still, An Zhe was uneasy. The dry air of the Second Plains wasn’t suitable for a mushroom. He couldn’t find any soil to absorb nutrients so he could only recover his physical strength using human means, such as sleeping.

He had walked for so long and finally found a small depression with scattered green and yellow grass. He sat down with his arms holding his knee and found a suitable position to curl up in.

A mushroom spent most of its life sleeping but this was the first time he had fallen asleep in a human pose. A sleeping mushroom quietly stayed in one place, waiting for the passage of time. However, a human’s sleep seemed different. Soon after closing his eyes, endless darkness rose up like a tide. His body became lighter like he was gradually losing his body.

He didn’t know what moment it was but there was a whining wind in his ear. It was the sound of the wind in the wilderness, his favourite thing previously.

However, this wind now had no meaningless. He lost his spore while rolling around in the wilderness. There had been human voices on the wind. He couldn’t remember the syllables clearly and could only think of a few parts. In human language, there were some fragments that couldn’t be put together.

“It is… strange, very…”

“…What to do?”

“Take… over here… sample.”

The next moment, an unspeakable pain radiated throughout his body. The feeling was light but deep. A void appeared in his consciousness that could never be filled. He knew that he had lost the most important thing ever since.

Fear spread all over his body and from then on, he started to fear the wind and lived in the cave. His heart beat faster and fear suddenly struck. It was the fear of losing his spore.

He opened his eyes and realized he was dreaming. Only humans could dream. Then the next moment, this breathing completely stopped.

He knew the source of the fear. A black creature was standing in front of him. Two blood-red eyes glowed brightly. An Zhe’s entire body was tense and his eyes moved down. It was as tall as a human with three pairs of thin and sharp sickle-like forelimbs flashing as coldly as moonlight.

After realizing what this was, his body trembled. It was a distant sensation from the first ancestor a thousand years ago. A mushroom would die from the bite of a group of termites. The beasts in the Abyss might be dismissive of mushrooms but they might be a rare delicacy on the Second Plains.

The moment this idea appeared, An Zhe subconsciously rolled to the side! There was a dull thudding sound against the ground. The sharp forelimbs of the arthropod monster plunged into the ground beside An Zhe. It was the place where he had just been lying.

An Zhe quickly grabbed his backpack and climbed up. He ran to the bushes nearby while the arthropod monster’s dense footsteps rang in his ears. Once the sound became a bit smaller, he turned around and looked back. Under the aurora, he could finally see the entire picture of this thing. it was a huge black monster, like an ant magnified by thousands of times.

Fortunately, its body looked too heavy and a human’s running speed was faster than it. An Zhe ran into the bushes ahead of it. Then he fell. In the blink of an eye, he was shrouded in the shadow cast by the monster. There was a sharp wind and the forelimbs of this monster descended towards his arm.

An Zhe’s sleeves were suddenly empty. The soft cloth hung down and nothing was cut. This seemed to surprise the monster and it paused. At the same time, the mycelium spread and regrew in the folded sleeves, once again forming a complete human arm.

He rolled down on the spot to avoid the monster’s next blow. He used his arm as support to get off the ground and fell into the low bushes. Two thick bushes blocked his body. This wasn’t enough for him to escape the monster’s eyes. He took a few short breaths and at this moment, his body started to change. The outline of his arms, fingers and other limbs were blurred. Something was surging underneath, turning into mycelium in order to escape in a more flexible manner.

At this point—

Bang!

A white glow crossed through the air and the meteor hit the joints between the monster’s head and abdomen. There was the sound of a dull impact and the white light exploded silently mixed with a red glow.

An Zhe was in the bushes and watched the huge thing break into two pieces from the middle, crashing to the ground. The shrub leaves rustled from the shock and fell. The monster’s head was less than half a metre away from An Zhe. The blood-red eyes were still looking in his direction.

In the Abyss, An Zhe had seen things cut into three and were still able to move. He was thinking of being a little bit further away from this thing when he suddenly heard a voice that wasn’t far away.

“That is the last uranium bomb. After picking up the body, return to the base.” It was a man’s voice and it was very thick.

“Arthropod shells aren’t cheap. I didn’t expect to finally catch one.” There was the voice of another man, this one a bit sharper than the last.

After a brief conversation, they no longer talked. Footsteps came over. It was the sound of thick leather boots stepping on the sand, mixed with the sound of sand friction.

They were humans. After An Ze’s death, An Zhe hadn’t seen a human for a long time. He quietly raised his head from the bushes. The bushes rustled and the first man called out, “Be cautious!”

The next moment, the black holes of three muzzles were pointed at him.

An Zhe just looked at them. He inevitably remembered the chaotic memory of the night he lost his spore. However, An Ze’s existence had showed him the kindness and friendliness of humans. He thought about his current situation and said, “H… Hello.”

Under the glow of the aurora, the scene in front of him was clear. There were three people in dark clothes and they were all men. They had wide brown belts around their waists with magazines tied to them. The man standing in the middle was tall while the other two were slightly shorter.

The man in the middle was the one who had spoken first about the ‘last uranium bomb’. His voice was very calm. “A human?”

There was a moment of hesitation. Then he thought of the weapon that had stopped the monster and he replied, “Yes.”

“What’s your name? What’s your ID number? Where is your teammate?”

“An Zhe, 3261170514, lost.”

The man frowned and looked down at him. This person’s eyebrows were thick and black, his nose was high and his lips were thick. The combination of facial features didn’t give An Zhe a dangerous feeling like the beasts of the Abyss. An Zhe pursed his lips and looked back.

Three seconds later, another man appeared next to the first. He was a small, dark-skinned ma who aimed his gun, full of threats. He looked at An Zhe and ordered in a low voice. “Take off your clothes.”

An Zhe got up from the bushes. He unbuttoned the first button of the grey shirt, then the second. The skin of his neckline was exposed. His skin was a smooth milky white and was a bit like the colour of his mycelium.

The next moment, he heard the third man whistle. It was a pale-rosy skinned, yellow haired man with many wrinkles on his face, which meant human aging. His eyes were grey-blue and he stared at An Zhe.

An Zhe lowered his head, undid the remaining buttons and took off his shirt. The grey-blue eyed man approached him and made a second whistle, looking him up and down. The man’s eyes were very sticky, like the drooling beasts in the Abyss. After looking at An Zhe again, he went around to An Zhe’s side. The next second, An Zhe’s wrist was grabbed by him. He rubbed his fingers against the skin of An Zhe’s wrist, thumb against the wrist bone. Then he asked in a slightly sharp voice, “What is this?”

An Zhe looked down at the back of his hand and wrist. There were some red marks where he had been scratched by the bushes while escaping from the monster’s attack. He turned his head and motioned to the bushes behind him. “The leaves.”

There was a brief silence. After a moment, the man smacked his lips together. “Do you want to take the rest off on your own or shall I take them off for you?”

An Zhe didn’t move. He probably knew what they were doing. There were similar scenes in An Ze’s memory. Genetic contamination occurred between monsters and monsters and between people and monsters. The first way to confirm if a stranger was contaminated was to check if they had any wounds.

However, this man made him feel uncomfortable. It was the same way he felt when he was a mushroom and a snake crawled over his cap. Thus, he looked up at the man in the centre. An Zhe had seen many ferocious beasts in the Abyss and could judge their danger. Now he had the feeling that this man was the least aggressive among the three.

“Horsen.” After a brief look, the man in the middle spoke in a heavy voice. “Don’t act sick in the wild.”

Horsen sneered and looked at An Zhe in an even more unbridled manner.

Three seconds later, the man spoke to An Zhe, “Follow behind me.”

An Zhe obediently followed the man to the rear of the monster head. There were no wounds on his body apart from being scratched by the bushes.

The man asked, “How long have you been separated from your teammates?”

An Zhe thought about it and replied, “One day.”

“You have a great life.”

“There doesn’t seem to be many monsters here.”

“However, there are many bugs.” This man spoke in a very brief manner but he seemed reliable.

An Zhe did up the buttons of his clothes and whispered, “Are you going back to the Northern Base.”

The man replied, “En.”

“That…” An Zhe asked. “Can you take me with you? I have my own food and water.”

“I say no.” It was the short, dark-skinned human.

Just as he spoke, the man An Zhe was following stepped out and looked at the other two. “He isn’t injured. Take him?”

Horsen smiled as he watched An Zhe and whistled a third time. “Why not take him? There isn’t much to him.”

Then he looked at the remaining human. “Don’t you think so?”

An Zhe looked over into the dark-skinned man’s gloomy eyes.