Chapter 37

Chapter 37

Even a mushroom would know that those three words weren't meant as a compliment.

Yet An Zhe found himself unable to refute it.

He walked past the gate, where the guard at the post had witnessed the scene, appearing angry but too afraid to speak up.

An Zhe understood their position.

Although the role of a Judicator didn't hold the highest military rank, they possessed the greatest authority when it came to taking lives. Nobody wanted to offend Lu Fen.

—Not even him.

So he said, "Thank you, Colonel."

"Think nothing of it," Lu Fen replied. "Take the afternoon off."

An Zhe: "Huh?"

Lu Fen nonchalantly lifted an eyelid and said coolly, "Come with me to the lighthouse."

An Zhe asked, "What for?"

Lu Fen replied, "Doctor Ji wants to see you."

An Zhe was somewhat skeptical about this claim. Why would Doctor Ji want to see him?

For a moment, he suspected that this might be Lu Fen's excuse to arrest him and take him to the lighthouse. However, he felt that his performance earlier in the day had been flawless, even earning him Selan's support.

An Zhe remained silent, realizing suddenly that he didn't seem very clever in Selan's eyes.

But even if he wasn't a smart human, he was a rational mushroom. Going to the lighthouse was actually something he desired.

He said, "Alright."

Lu Fen simply hummed in acknowledgment before turning and leaving.

*

While the children were undergoing training under military instructors, An Zhe sat on a bench nearby, accompanying them. Whenever the instructor needed assistance – such as scoring or timing – he would be summoned.

With nothing else to do and no reading material in the office that piqued his interest, he resorted to picking up an operational guidebook for various weapons.

Colin didn't sit with him but chose a neighboring bench instead, engaging in conversation with a new friend – a language and literature teacher from the adjacent class, a young man in his twenties.

The open page in An Zhe's hands detailed a large fighter jet named "PL1109," a masterpiece of human technology during the chaotic magnetic phase, boasting top-notch radiation shielding, superior engines, and an unparalleled independent cruise system unique to the base, capable of precise navigation in a magnet-free environment.

Impressive as it sounded, An Zhe had no genuine interest in it. Sleep deprivation from the previous night began to catch up with him, and he started to doze off slightly.

To his right, Colin's small talk with the language teacher had concluded, and they had exchanged names, delving into a deeper conversation. Their words drifted over to An Zhe's ears.

"Did you like the Capital City?" Colin asked.

An Zhe keenly sensed that Colin was about to proselytize again.

"Why wouldn't I?" the boy responded. "The Capital City provided us with a stable life."

He seemed to be quite the talkative one, promptly following up with another question. "We've been in the Capital City for about a month now, what do you think of it?"

"I wouldn't say I like it," Colin replied.

"Why?" the boy asked. "Not having to be a mercenary and risk my life was unimaginable before. Every day, I thank my mother for forcing me to complete three courses, though her main goal was for me to finish language and economics so I could pass the exams and work at a supply station, avoiding the wilderness."

Colin fell silent for a moment before asking, "What about your mother?"

"She died in the wilderness," he said. "They adopted me not long before my father didn't come back. She never returned either."

"Sorry to hear that," Colin said.

"No worries," the boy smiled. "I'm used to it. How about you?"

"My mother was killed by a Judge, and my father... he stayed in Sector 6 when we went to the Capital City," Colin shared.

"I'm sorry," the boy echoed.

Their exchange of experiences seemed to swiftly draw them closer. After a brief silence, the boy gazed at the children training in the field, propping his head on his folded arms as he sighed. "After spending so much time in the Outskirts, I've forgotten that we all once came from the Capital City when we were young."

"I remember it quite clearly," Colin said. "When I was five or six, I wanted to become a biologist. My grades were decent, but I still couldn't stay in the Capital City."

"I once dreamed of becoming an officer," the boy said. "But I stumbled during the final assessment, and the military didn't take me."

Colin commented, "Fate can be fickle."

"Look on the bright side. If we lacked the qualifications, we wouldn't have been happy even if we stayed." The boy sighed. "Staying in the main city might not bring joy either. I heard someone wanted to organize human records but ended up calculating ballistics in a lighthouse for life due to their exceptional math skills. Imagine being a biologist at heart but being deemed more suitable as a linguist, translating documents. It would be unbearable. I'd probably drop dead from frustration."

"That's why I don't like the base," Colin said. "It's like a cold, unfeeling machine."

"You have to see yourself as a small part, your genes determining your function in the system," Colin chuckled, a rare occurrence. "You're quite amusing."

The boy replied, "We language folks are good with metaphors."

"But humans aren't mere parts. The base claims to serve humanity's interests, yet it keeps losing touch with human qualities."

"What else can we do? We can't just freeload off the base; we need to contribute our value." The boy stood up, gazing at the children ahead.

"I genuinely love kids," he suddenly beamed. "I adore this job so much. Who knows, maybe one day, I'll teach a child who turns out to be a genius capable of saving the world."

He turned to himself and murmured, "Then I'd better prepare well for my lessons."

An Zhe watched him with a curious hand on his cheek, then looked back at Colin.

Colin didn't say anything else. An Zhe thought that he hadn't succeeded in finding a comrade this time.

Back in the outer city, Colin had held up a sign reading "Against the Judges." If he were in the main city, what would he hold up? An Zhe imagined it might be something like "Against Human Categorization" or "We Want Freedom."

His thoughts grew muddled, and he felt increasingly drowsy. Struggling to concentrate, he leafed through the military encyclopedia, hastily flipping past the fighter jets section to the weapons section. Bombs of different yields—uranium, hydrogen—could easily turn a mushroom cloud into fragments. But he wasn't afraid. Humans were different from the creatures in the Abyss; they were organisms that followed rules. As long as he abided by them, he could survive.

—And so he spent the morning that way. At noon, when the children had finished their training, a few of the younger ones collided, while others found the training too difficult and skipped lunch, clustering around him on the benches, whining.

As An Zhe gently applied a bandage to one youngling, he comforted a short-haired girl who found the training too challenging: "Keep going, you'll become an officer once you pass the training."

The girl asked, "Can't I just quit?"

An Zhe replied, "No, you can't."

He thought that even if they couldn't stay in the main city, they should still train diligently. Otherwise, when they grew up—if the outer city ever resumed its operations—the physically weak children, without adoptive parents or mercenary teams wanting them, and unable to pass exams for administrative positions in the City Affairs Office or Supply Station, would have no choice but to go down to the third basement level, regardless of gender.

He stayed there for a month and learned that the people there were not living well.

So he said, "All of you must train diligently."

The girl wrapped her arms around his arm and said, "But even after becoming an officer, we still have to train every day."

An Zhe stroked her hair and pondered, "But there are nice uniforms."

A boy glanced at the soldiers on the training ground and said, "They're so ugly."

An Zhe seriously replied to him, "Their ranks aren't high enough yet. When you get promoted to... a colonel's rank, they look really good."

"Really?" the cub asked.

"Will they look as good as that person?" another cub asked.

An Zhe responded, "Which one?"

The cub pointed behind him.

An Zhe turned his head.

- A few meters behind him, leaning against a utility pole, stood a colonel in a black uniform. Surprisingly, the cubs weren't afraid of him despite being so close.

Perhaps it was because the colonel was looking at An Zhe with a subtle hint of pleasure in his slightly raised eyebrows.

An Zhe: "."

It seemed that everything he had just said had been overheard.