Chapter 54

Chapter 54

An Zhe hadn't slept for twenty hours. If one were to count from when the accident happened to Madam, it would be roughly five or six hours past that point, and now it was midnight.

He hadn't divulged anything to the doctor. After the deadline passed, the colonel lost all patience and ordered an interrogation by force.

The interrogation room was well-equipped. The human methods of torture didn't result in bloody messes; they were quite civilized, employing electrical torture.

—The sensation of electric current coursing through one's body felt like hundreds of venomous ants simultaneously gnawing at every nerve throughout the body.

Pain.

A pain he had never experienced before.

An Zhe closed his eyes, panting incessantly with his entire body trembling. Fine beads of cold sweat trickled down his forehead as every inch of his skin convulsed.

Had the spore been treated this way in the laboratory? Perhaps it had.

In the boundless agony, he almost lost all coherent thoughts. His mind was a jumbled mess, as if he had thought about many things but couldn't recall what exactly he had pondered upon. He vaguely sensed that it was something significant.

He had no idea how long it had been; the agony stretched every second, making it feel like an eternity.

In his dazed state, he suddenly heard a voice from outside the corridor!

"Doctor – the magnetic field frequency is rising!"

This cry was like a bolt of lightning, jolting him awake. The atmosphere in the interrogation room shifted abruptly too.

An Zhe's heart pounded. The magnetic field frequency was rising, rising...

This meant that the underground city base was saved. It also implied that Lu Fen might return, if he were still alive.

He heard the doctor's anxious voice: "Rising? Is it significant? Can it return to normal frequency?"

"I'm not sure," someone replied, "But auroras are appearing, and the frequency fluctuations indicate that the underground city base is manually adjusting their frequency. They're safe."

"My God..." The doctor's voice trembled. "It... It actually worked. Communications? Have they been restored? Contact the military immediately, open the emergency channel. What has happened here is huge, we have to tell Lu –"

"Doctor," Selan's voice interrupted suddenly, speaking softly, "I just received an urgent message from the military. We're not allowed to contact the colonel in any way."

After a brief silence, the Doctor asked, "Why?"

"I... I don't know," Selan replied. "Maybe it's because of Mrs. Lu and An Zhe."

In that instant, An Zhe suddenly recalled what he had been pondering.

He was the culprit who had stolen the crucial samples.

Mrs. Lu was the alien species that had infected the entire Eden.

And both he and Mrs. Lu were directly connected to Lu Fen.

Though still not fully conscious, a sudden surge of strength gave him an eerie calmness. He coughed softly and weakly said, "...I'll speak."

As the electric current faded, his mind cleared slightly. Now, he regretted telling the Doctor about Eden, Mrs. Lu, and the Queen Bee earlier, but he trusted that the Doctor would understand his intentions.

However, the aftereffects of the electrocution were too severe. He couldn't utter a single word, his head spinning, and his body convulsing as he dry-heaved. Eventually, the Doctor opened the door to the interrogation room and handed him a glass of glucose water.

An Zhe finally felt a bit better.

"I was lying before. I'm an Aberrant," he said. "There's a kind of oscillation that induces non-contact infection. Aberrants can sense it. Five days ago, I came into contact with Si Nan at the Lighthouse and got infected. I destroyed that inert sample because you said... it was crucial to humanity. Then, to avoid capture, I went to Eden, where Mrs. Lu treated me kindly. Influenced by the mating season, I infected the women there, centering around her."

The doctor looked at him with a frown. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm an Aberrant who has gained human intelligence, and I was infected five days ago," An Zhe said softly but firmly. He knew his lie was clumsy, but with the doctor's intelligence, he believed he would understand.

The doctor froze for a moment, his voice trembling. "You—"

Suddenly, white mycelium swirled in the air. The doctor's eyes widened, but in the next moment, the mycelium forced its way over his mouth and nose. In a reflexive attempt to breathe, the man opened his mouth, allowing the mycelium to enter.

After a violent fit of coughing, the doctor's gaze grew unfocused. He then stumbled forward and collapsed unconscious.

Selan swiftly drew his gun!

"Tell them what I said earlier if Lu Fen returns or the military asks," An Zhe said to Selan, his tone tinged with pleading. "Then, just say I lost my mind, was going to attack the doctor, and you had no choice but to shoot me, evaporating my body. In this world, I'll cease to exist."

Selan's gun pointed at him. "Why are you doing this? What are you, exactly?"

"I..." An Zhe slowly clenched the badge of the Judicatory in his hand.

He was a mushroom, but he couldn't express it, couldn't be one in truth.

Yet, he was about to leave – a decision he made from the start. After his departure, how others perceived him would no longer hold any significance.

He understood how vital the human base was to Lu Fen, and the reason he could enter was due to the Judge's trust in him, a choice made on an intuition that something was amiss. He knew how precious this trust was.

If Lu Fen returned and discovered the truth – how much his mother despised and was disillusioned with the base's system, how she had semi-willingly transformed into an Other, and ultimately destroyed the entire Eden – and then realized that the person he had trusted by his side all along was an Other with malicious intentions towards the samples...

How would Lu Fen react? Could he accept it?

An Zhe didn't know, but he didn't wish for Lu Fen to confront such a situation.

It wasn't because he was worried about how the base would view Lu Fen; their relationship wasn't particularly deep, and he had even been bullied by this man.

He just...

He simply believed that Lu Fen was a remarkable human being.

Madam had said that Lu Fen wouldn't have a peaceful end, and not witnessing the day he went mad was her greatest regret. So... for Lu Fen to remain unshaken forever was the only noteworthy wish An Zhe held in this human base.

Madam was gone, leaving no one to dispute the truth. Let tonight's events be deemed a common case of accidental infection.

"I mean," he whispered softly, "I'm not human anymore."

With a bang, Selan's bullet struck An Zhe's right shoulder. The gunshot echoed as the bullet embedded itself into the opposite wall. Yet, An Zhe swayed emptily, his clothes falling to the ground while his body vanished without a trace. A white shadow suddenly appeared before Selan, only to vanish just as abruptly, like an illusion.

An Zhe swiftly slithered into the ventilation shaft in the corner behind him. He couldn't care less about Selan's thoughts. With utmost speed, he navigated through the labyrinthine ducts, barging through one room after another until he emerged into an unmanned office with a window – he pushed open the window in human form, and the aurora borealis greeted him. Supporting himself on the windowsill, he leaped down, transforming into fungal filaments that glided down the exterior wall before landing on the ground.

As the aurora appeared, power had yet to fully return. There were no people or surveillance cameras outside. He reemerged in human form, draped in a cloak made of fungal threads, and dashed outwards.

At any moment, someone might chase after him. This was the most nerve-wracking journey An Zhe had ever experienced. He crossed the main city and returned to the outer city. At the abandoned supply station there, he grabbed a backpack containing basic clothing, compressed biscuits, and a map – the map was the most crucial item. With the pack in hand, he followed the rail tracks, walking for a long time in the darkness, but it didn't matter.

As the aurora gradually faded, and a hint of red began to glow on the eastern horizon, An Zhe reached the gates of the outer city.

The inspection area, the court... the buildings at the gate were identical to when he arrived, except that everything was locked up due to the emptiness of the outer city. An Zhe turned to the foot of the wall and climbed onto the roof of an armored vehicle. Extending his hand, his fingers transformed into fungal threads that scaled the wall – perhaps due to the solar wind over the past few days, a strange sight appeared: the wall was evenly coated in a layer of sand, with tiny grains seemingly merging with the steel, interlocking seamlessly. When the fungal threads touched the surface, fine grains of sand cascaded down, but the layer beneath remained sandy.

After a slow climb, An Zhe stood atop the wall. Something beside him rustled. Looking over, he noticed a giant black bee, twice the size of a person, next to the mounted machine gun on the wall. There were a few more in the vicinity, undoubtedly having recently flown out from Eden and temporarily resting here.

Startled by An Zhe's movement, the gray bee fluttered its wings, preparing to take flight. An Zhe pressed his lips together. In that instant, he made a decision –

In the next instant, part of his body transformed into more agile, softer, and weightless mycelium. He lunged forward, wrapping himself entirely around the black bee, sinking into its spines.

Startled, the bee's wings buzzed, propelling it swiftly into the sky, darting away into the distance.

An Zhe clung steadfastly to its back. The cool morning breeze brushed against his face, causing him to squint as he gazed back at the human base. The sun was rising, pouring a magnificent golden glow over the dreary city, enveloping it in its splendor. Suddenly, he heard a distant rumble growing closer.

His eyes widened slightly as he saw a small black dot in the distance grow larger – it was the familiar shape of a fighter jet, the PL1109. Its black form shimmered with a golden hue in the dawn's clouds, escorted by two squadrons on either side. Gradually slowing down, the entire fleet descended, preparing to land.

—Lu Fen had returned safely. Although the rescue mission to the underground city seemed almost impossible, the colonel always seemed to be a man of boundless capabilities.

The sound stimulus caused the black bee to fly even faster, the wind whistling through An Zhe's sleeves.

Looking that way, for some reason, despite the morning breeze stinging his eyes, An Zhe smiled.

He recalled the first time he met Lu Fen beneath this gate – that day when the colonel, the judge of humanity, looked up from afar, his icy green eyes peering out from under the brim of his black hat.

Madam's rose may have wilted, but he hoped the colonel would remain the same colonel.

—Farewell.

Author's Note: A little trickster.

Volume II concludes here.

This story isn't lengthy, consisting of three volumes in total. I'm considering naming the third volume "Symphony" or "Revelation."