Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Perhaps it was three seconds, or maybe four. Lu Fen's fingers left his cheek, and that fleeting warmth vanished in the evening breeze, dissipating swiftly.

When An Zhe opened his eyes again, he saw the same back view as the day they met at the city gate of the base.

At that moment, the square illuminated with a blinding white light.

An Zhe squinted, and Lu Fen's figure blurred before his eyes. By the time his vision cleared, the black silhouette had already disappeared into the sea of people. Soldiers from the City Defense arrived to carry away Du Sai's body. Her long brown hair shimmered like honey under the light, her eyes closed, a serene expression on her face. An Zhe had no idea what she was thinking in her final moments, and perhaps he never would.

Many people looked over, and when the soldiers were out of sight, whispers broke out. An Zhe, with his sharp hearing, caught snippets of their conversations. Many knew of this lady who ruled the third floor of the black market. Some mourned the loss of a beautiful woman, while more were gripped by fear that they too might be infected by the monsters.

Soon, an automated female voice sounded out instructions.

"Please disperse and wait in place. The Court of Judgment will begin individual inspections in 30 minutes."

The voice was soothing, but no one was in the mood to appreciate it. People exchanged brief glances, then immediately realized that at this point, none of them could be sure if the person beside them was truly human. The crowd shifted like ants, each individual attempting to distance themselves from others, whether familiar or not. Eventually, the chaotic crowd formed a sparse grid. An Zhe stood at the edge, next to the bloodstain left by Du Sai. His gaze swept across the terrified faces of the humans around him. There was no fundamental difference between the human base and the abyss.

A piercing voice suddenly echoed from afar, "There's something on his face!"

Next came the sounds of a struggle, as if a fierce altercation was taking place. This was followed by raised voices, and thirty seconds later, a gunshot brought an end to it all.

Silence. A deathly stillness enshrouded the square, muffling even the sound of breathing. If someone were to tell An Zhe at this moment that he was actually standing in a graveyard, with the surrounding people being nothing but towering gravestones, he would not doubt the veracity of such a claim.

He scanned his surroundings, longing to catch a glimpse of Lu Fen, but the multitude of people, layer upon layer, made it impossible to discern any single figure. Ultimately, An Zhe withdrew his gaze and redirected it towards the marble pavement of the square, its surface rendered eerily pale by the harsh glow of the artificial lights.

Suddenly, his gaze came to a halt.

Five meters in front of him, a glint of brass caught the light at the feet of a man.

His first instinct was that the bullet casing hanging around his neck had fallen off. He quickly reached for his collar, feeling through his shirt the cylindrical object poking at his skin—it was still there.

Fixing his gaze on the ground, he took a few steps forward—the man beside him swore and moved away from him.

"Sorry," An Zhe apologized. "I dropped something."

Pushing past a few people, he walked a short distance before crouching down to pick up a bronze-colored, cylindrical bullet casing from the ground.

The moment he held it in his grasp, his hand trembled slightly.

— a weight, pattern, and size he knew intimately. He couldn't distinguish this shell from the one nestled in his neck.

His heart pounded fiercely as he clenched it tightly, rising to his feet.

He recalled five minutes earlier when Du Sai had touched the cyst on his forehead, realizing that her own survival was impossible. She must have been condemned by the Judicator. Despite her fear, she seemed to want to draw closer, taking a few steps in that direction. However, before she could reach Lu Fen, a bullet pierced her body.

Where was Lu Fen then?

An Zhe gazed at the dark stains of blood nearby — back then, Lu Fen had stood where he now stood or somewhere close, pulling the trigger.

What was a cartridge? It was the outer covering of a bullet, he knew, a piece of information he'd also found in An Ze's memory. When a bullet was fired, the cartridge would be pushed backward, landing on the ground.

Without a doubt, the cartridge he now held belonged to Lu Fen, the ruler of the Judicatory. Then what about the identical one he'd found in the wild, near the discarded spores? Was it somehow connected to the Judicatory too?

A nameless sensation welled up within An Zhe, bringing with it a palpable fear. If the spores were linked to the Judicatory, the difficulty of retrieving them was unimaginable. He couldn't simply ask about them; doing so would be tantamount to admitting he was a mushroom. Yet, at the same time, he felt a glimmer of reassurance. At least now, there was a lead to follow.

Lost in these thoughts, the thirty-minute interval ended. The robotic voice announced again, "Buffer time is over. Please form an orderly queue for infection screening. After passing the check, please leave on your own."

The instruction repeated a few times, and a light flickered on in a spot across the square. People began to gravitate towards it, preparing for inspection.

Standing beside An Zhe appeared to be a father-son pair — or so it seemed, as one was older with a well-groomed beard, while the other was a teenage boy around thirteen or fourteen years old.

The boy asked, "Why do we have to wait for thirty minutes?"

"Judges aren't machines," his father whispered. "They can't tell if you've been infected just because a bug bit you. The Court says they can determine it thirty minutes after infection. You've never been to the city gates, have you? There's also a thirty-minute wait there."

The boy replied, "Oh."

But then, he asked, "But how do they tell?"

"Stop asking me," his father said. "How would I know how they do it?"

"I heard they just kill whoever they —"

"Shut up," the father interrupted, his voice tinged with fear. "Do you want to be shot right now?"

As if to substantiate the father's warning, a gunshot rang out from the square.

They immediately fell silent.

The Adjudicators moved swiftly through the crowd, and the intervals between gunshots made one's teeth chatter. At times, there was a steady rhythm, with at least one shot every ten minutes. Occasionally, there would be several consecutive shots, followed by a long stretch of silence. The father standing next to An Zhe said, "They must be almost done."

As soon as he finished speaking, another gunshot rang out, making the boy shiver.

Those deemed infected were immediately executed on the spot, while the cleared individuals exited through the opening. The number of people in the square dwindled, and they formed an informal, slow-moving line. An Zhe stood at the back of the queue, counting each shot. When it was nearly his turn to exit, he had counted up to seventy-three. He noticed a stone pillar near the exit, where Lu Fen leaned against it, casting a long, slender silhouette in the light. Two Adjudicators stood beside him, flanked by heavily armed soldiers from the city defense force. The ground in front of them was stained with blood.

No, it wasn't just blood. Scattered irregularly on the ground were brass bullet casings.

The father and son ahead of him passed safely, and it was now An Zhe's turn. He took a few steps forward, stopping in front of Lu Fen.

Lu Fen was slightly taller, so An Zhe had to crane his neck to meet his gaze. Then, he felt Lu Fen's eyes scanning him from head to toe.

"What's that in your hand?"

An Zhe didn't expect that even such a small object could be detected. Meeting the Adjudicator's cold, detached stare, he could only raise his hand, spreading his fingers to reveal the bullet casing nestled in his palm – a symbol of a human executed by the Adjudicators, just like the casings scattered on the ground.

Silence enveloped them.

After a long moment, An Zhe heard Lu Fen say, "Go on."

The midnight wind was too strong, dispersing sounds as it blew. Lu Fen's voice reached An Zhe's ears, a shade deeper than usual.

Silent, An Zhe turned and disappeared into the depths of the nocturnal shadows.