Chapter 57

An Zhe didn’t accept this evaluation from Lu Feng. He felt that Lu Feng was emphasizing his weakness again. It wasn’t the first time this person had said such a thing.

—Although he really couldn’t infect all of Eden. He couldn’t even infect one person.

Still, he couldn’t accept that his lie had been broken because he was weak, not because the lie wasn’t good enough. He could only comfort himself by saying that perhaps it was only Lu Feng who didn’t believe his words. Only Lu Feng was hateful.

An Zhe declared, “You’re not allowed to sleep here.”

“Oh?” Lu Feng wondered.

An Zhe sullenly repeated, “No.”

Lu Feng asked, “Why?”

An Zhe turned his back to this person and buried himself in the coat. He didn’t want to say anything, he just wanted to resolutely expel the colonel from this space. After thinking about it, he carefully explained the reason, “You might be infected by contactless infection.”

“Oh.” Lu Feng’s voice was very low. “The bee is alive.”

An Zhe, “……”

Then he heard Lu Feng question, “It is alive so why is it unconscious?”

This time, An Zhe wouldn’t open his mouth even if he was killed. As long as he revealed a bit of information, Lu Feng would be able to clearly guess the situation. However, tonight the colonel didn’t make things difficult for him. The colonel just said, “I will keep watch.’

An Zhe hummed before asking, “Are you cold?”

Lu Feng replied, “I’m not cold.”

An Zhe closed his eyes while holding the badge tightly to his body. He had overdone it tonight and he fell asleep extra fast. Then halfway through his sleep, he was woken up by the cold.

The magnetic field accident had caused the solar wind to blow for a few days and the atmosphere had become thinner. The temperature difference between day and night had grown to a terrible level.

An Zhe was cold all over. He opened his eyes and sat up, subconsciously looking around for Lu Feng’s shadow. He easily saw the colonel not far away. Lu Feng was leaning against a strangely-shaped stone eroded by the wind with the branches of some shrubs stacked in a cone shape in front of him.

An Zhe rubbed his eyes and held Lu Feng’s coat while walking over there. The colonel had covered An Zhe with the coat and was only wearing the inner uniform shirt. He handed over the coat and asked again, “Are you cold?”

Lu Feng was playing with a lighter in his hand.

“Wear it yourself,” Lu Feng told him. “I thought you would get some more sleep.”

“…Ah?”

Lu Feng threw the lighter to him. “Come with me to collect firewood.”

It seemed the colonel had long known An Zhe might be awakened by the cold and planned to make a fire. Then he said that he thought An Zhe would sleep longer. An Zhe translated the colonel’s rare euphemism and finally came to the conclusion that the colonel really wanted to say, “How can you be more coquettish than I thought?”

An Zhe, “…”

He followed Lu Feng. For a time, there was only the sound of their footsteps, the wind and the faint howling of monsters in the distance. As they walked, they saw shrubs growing sporadically in the wilderness. The plants had died under the attack of the solar wind and were dried up, making them suitable for burning.

“Have you been looking for branches?” An Zhe asked.

“No, there are monsters and I can’t go too far.”

An Zhe said, “Oh.” He wanted to tell Lu Feng that in fact, many monsters had no interest in mushrooms. Then he realized that Lu Feng was protecting him. After thinking about this, he subtly felt a bit happy.

The sandy ground of the desert was very soft and there was only a slight friction when stepping on it. It was still a bit inconvenient for An Zhe to walk so Lu Feng didn’t let him follow closely. Instead, Lu Feng ensured that he stayed in sight while collecting branches around then and placing them in An Zhe’s arms.

Once the branches in An Zhe’s arms increased and he couldn’t hold anymore, Lu Feng stated, “This is enough.”

They walked back side by side. In the moonlight, the dunes undulated like snow piles and the wreckage of the plane in the distance was like an ugly tumour. Suddenly, Lu Feng’s footsteps paused. An Zhe immediately stopped. His intuition caused his back to become cold and then he heard a sound. In the silent wilderness, a sound that couldn’t be accurately described was heard. He knew that Lu Feng had heard it was well.

“Rustle.”

“Rustle.”

“Rustle.”

The creepy sound echoed irregularly in the wilderness, very low but very clear. It was like it was ringing in their ears. The first two intervals were very long while the last interval was extremely short.

“Rustle.”

Once the sound was heard again, Lu Feng pressed An Zhe’s shoulder down and the two people lay in the sand, hiding behind a layer of bushes.

“Rustle.”

Under the aurora, a huge dark shadow appeared at the border of the rolling sand dunes. It had a rough oval shape and the structure of the body was ambiguous. The epidermis was rugged like a mass of decaying rotten flesh joined together roughly. A smooth sarcoma swelled in the middle of the body and the surface was covered with large and small eyeballs. This was the head. Countless legs grew under this black body, thick and thin. Some were like the hind legs of reptiles, some were the limbs of insects and some were like human arms.

These feet surged and supported the creature moving heavily on the rugged ground, leaving wavy traces more than five metres wide on the sandy ground. It came parallel to the writing of the plane crash. Every time it moved, a rustling sound was emitted from its body and spread out evenly. This might be the vocal organ.

An Zhe held his breath and watched the indescribable monster’s middle crack open a gap, exposing the dense thorns and fans inside.

“Snap.”

There was a harsh metal friction sound, followed by chaotic metal collisions as the metal was broken, chewed and swallowed.

The creature was eating the pile of wreckage. Despite living in the Abyss for so long, An Zhe never knew there were monsters that could feed on metal. In the Abyss, there wasn’t a shortage of armoured vehicles that had lost their owners or broken gun parts but no monster would care about them. Perhaps this monster’s purpose wasn’t the metal but the bodies of the two pilots inside. It was conceivable that for a strange creature to bite and swallow metal, the human flesh and bones would be as eaten as easily as mud.

It also didn’t immerse itself in enjoying this huge burning wreckage. It ate it in less than five bites.

“Rustle.”

The mouth closed and the rustling sound was heard again. Then it turned in one direction. 100 metres ahead was the still sleeping bee.

Click.

The entire head of the black bee disappeared into the creature’s body. An Zhe’s eyes widened as he watched the monster’s body stretch and a pair of translucent, metal wings appeared, shaking a few times. It made the sound of leaves shaking in the autumn breeze. This was how the wings that once belonged to the black bee appeared.

“Rustle.”

The next second, all eyes on the head turned in Lu Feng and An Zhe’s direction.