Little Mushroom 小蘑菇-Chapter 50 - 1 - "Let me See you Give Birth to Another One."

An Zhe sank into a dream.

He had dreamed this kind of dream a very long time ago —on the day he left Lu Feng.

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Sometimes, although it was clearly daytime and he was awake, he would suddenly sink into dreamland again. They were probably the hallucinations of a dying man, but he didn't mention them to Pauli. The inexplicable bloody coughs, high fevers, and various aches and pains had already consumed too much of Pauli's mental energy.

In the dream, his body was divided into two, much like the leech in the past. One half was at the Highland Research Institute, while the other half was at some unknown place, free from pain and free from the cumbersome human body.

In the dream, he had neither eyes nor ears, no nose or any human perceptivity. It was the same kind of feeling as when he was just born, buried in the rain-soaked soil— mushrooms had their own senses, which could not be described in human language.

He knew that he wasn't far from Lu Feng. This must have been a delusion caused by him leaving Lu Feng, but it did not hinder him from getting closer to Lu Feng in his dream.

This dream wasn't always happy, either. Sometimes, he was put into a sealed container, accompanied by an ice-cold liquid. At the very beginning, it was Dr. Ji at his side, and then later it was always Pauli, along with... many others who came and went.

He had nothing to do. If Lu Feng was nearby, An Zhe would wrap around him, but if not, he would soak in the liquid, thinking back on his own life.

Those distant memories floated to the surface—in the soil, in the rainy season, in the winter, and in the base.

He would get a little closer to Lu Feng when he recalled certain things, and Lu Feng's fingers would touch his hyphae. It seemed as though he had managed to stay together peacefully with this man at last. He was on the edge of wakefulness the entire time, but he didn't wish to wake up. In the real world, he and Lu Feng could never be like this.

But after he thought back on his own memories for the hundredth time, there was no dream he could dream, so he chose to wake up.

He discovered that he was still alive.

When he thought back to that day now, he no longer remembered it. The fluctuation of emotions had made many other places go blank.

He only remembered that he was standing at the door and that Lu Feng had turned around amidst a patch of lush spring greenery—he locked eyes with him in that manner, not able and not daring to step forward. He had dreamed too many

dreams, and he had tried scooping up the fragile full moon in the water too many times.

Until Lu Feng walked up to him.

When this man wasn't around, he had cried many times. Sometimes his heart would violently tremble when thinking of him, but now, when he truly met with Lu Feng, the corners of his lips curled up in spite of himself.

He reached out to touch Lu Feng's shape. He couldn't tell anymore if he had gotten thinner or if he had become haggard—it had been too long. He hadn't met with this man in far too long.

It wasn't until then that tears slid down from the corners of his eyes. He withdrew his hand and looked blankly at Lu Feng before being wrapped up in a frontal hug and having the tears wiped from his cheeks. He rested against Lu Feng's shoulder, voice hoarse as he softly called out his name.

"It's me." Lu Feng said.

The people in the laboratory had congratulated him. Unexpectedly, Pauli had brought a man back from the dead —he couldn't imagine the involved principles at all. The people in the laboratory told him lots of words like genes, frequencies, samples, and such. It was all incomprehensible to him, but human technology had always been very miraculous, so he simply accepted it.

Three years had already passed since he jumped into the Simpson cage.

The outside world had calmed as well.

The age of genetic disorder ended with the single toll of a bell. His frequency was transmitted all over the world, but whether it was for good or ill could not be determined, for all tangible things were infected by the frequency at that moment and stabilized. People were always people,and a monster was always that type of monster.Polymorphic mutations could occur, but the dominant consciousness was always that one that had been in control when the bell tolled.

As for why this was the case, Pauli's explanation was that after many experiments and comparisons, the frequency obtained by the Simpson cage approached a definition of matter itself.

For example, when facing an apple and an orange, humans knew that this was an apple and that was an orange, but the apple itself did not know it was an apple, and the orange itself did not know that it was an orange either—they themselves would never know. Only humans knew.

Just like how cicadas did not know of spring or autumn, humankind's field of biology was only a flawed superficial analysis of the surface. They also had no way of knowing what constituted themselves or what defined them as humans—it was a framework that four-dimensional creatures could not understand.

However, by means of the Simpson cage's analysis of elementary particles, they briefly glimpsed a negligible reflection of the truth and glimpsed traces of the true meanings, then grasped some noteworthy frequencies. In this symphony of the universe, humankind was the musical note that was most easily destabilized by other creatures, whereas he, a mushroom that somehow had its own consciousness, was the stable frequency that could contain everything. When this stability was bestowed upon the entire world, a brief peace arrived.

"This is chance," Pauli said. "Chance is destiny, and living is fortuitous."

When An Zhe heard that, he had just been fed a piece of peeled apple by Lu Feng.

With only a single bite, the freshly picked apple gushed with juice that was sweet and slightly tart. He forgot what he was about to say, and Lu Feng fed him another piece.

"Then what about oranges?" he asked. "What do oranges taste like?"

Lu Feng had said, Wait until autumn.

Pauli invited them out along with their apples and future oranges.

On the way back to his room, An Zhe ate half of an apple and left the other half for Lu Feng. He had intended to cut it into pieces for the Colonel, but Lu Feng did not let him touch the knife.

On this matter, An Zhe did not argue with the Colonel. If the other party were not Lu Feng, he actually would not really have wanted to cut the apple. He was drowsy, for it was time for an afternoon nap.

But he could not sleep. As he held a tablet, he scrolled downward. Stored within it were the documents he had scraped together from various places over the ten days since he woke up. The electronic version of Alliance Daily, the research records copied from Dr. Ji's computer, the laboratory manuals copied from Pauli's computer, along with many other similar things.

Lu Feng sat down at his side, and he swiftly turned, not allowing the man to see. Lu Feng let out a soft chuckle, then cut up the remaining half of the apple and fed it to AnZhe.

Although the apple was very tasty and the Colonel very good-looking, An Zhe did not want Lu Feng to be next to him while he was reading the documents. He was always paranoid, thinking that Lu Feng was looking at his screen.

But the hateful thing was, when he woke up, he discovered that Lu Feng had taken over the room he used to have at the research institute. Everything in the room was identical to the way it was before he died, but its owner had changed.

He tried to have Lu Feng move into the room next door, but Lu Feng expressionlessly told him, If you don't want to share a room with me, you can continue sleeping in the tank of nutrient solution.

Leaving An Zhe at a loss for words.

It had been three years. The past three years had not softened this man's character at all, not even the slightest bit.

As a result, he could only share a room, a desk, and a bed with the Colonel.

In the end, he got paranoid to the point where he could no longer continue reading the documents and so drowsy that he had to sleep.

"Boring." On the bed, with Lu Feng holding him from behind, he dazedly stared at the white walls.

The Colonel's voice was like snowpack just beginning to thaw. "Where do you wish to go?"

"I wish..." An Zhe looked at the wall, slight confusion in his gaze.

He had somewhere he wished to go.

And it was a place that, apart from himself, only Lu Feng knew about. He hadn't mentioned it even to Pauli.

"I wish to go find An Ze," he murmured.

In the cave where everything began, An Ze's bones were still waiting for him. He had many things he wished to say to An Ze. He remembered every word that An Ze had saidto him. An Ze had said that he was someone whose life had no meaning. He wished to recount the Northern Base's dramatic changes to An Ze, and he wished to tell him of the source of that last bell toll.

If he hadn't met Lu Feng or An Ze, none of that would have happened. Just like that, destiny tossed and turned within countless coincidences.

But the Abyss was so big, he couldn't find him, and nobody was willing to accompany him in his search, so it would forever be an unattainable wish.

"But I can't find him," he mumbled. "I can't do anything, and I don't remember where I left him."

"I can," Lu Feng said into his ear. "Let's go find him."

An Zhe opened his eyes wide.

Everything was like a dream. The next day, after they bid farewell to Pauli, their armored vehicle was airdropped by a transport plane into the exact middle of the Abyss. The crew commander was the PL1109's pilot. Before bidding farewell, he had insisted that they remember to search for traces of Hubbard and Tang Lan as well. Ever since the war in which monsters laid siege to the research institute, they both had been confirmed missing. Now, the only thing they were certain of was that although Tang Lan had suffered heavy wounds, he was still alive—their bodies were nowhere to be found for miles around.

"I strongly suspect that they went off to recuperate, then got lost, and then laid eggs." After putting the facts together and making one last deduction, the crew commander flew the transport plane away.

Lu Feng opened the armored vehicle's door and helped An Zhe down. The ground was covered with velvet-like grass that rose past their ankles. An Zhe looked into the distance. In the late spring, lush greenery stretched through the Abyss as far as the eye could see. Primeval winds shook the branches and leaves, and the sounds of birds flapping their wings traveled from afar. He had come to this place again.

He looked at Lu Feng. Lu Feng had come here with him, which surprised him even more.

He asked, "Why have we come here?"

Lu Feng lifted his eyebrows slightly. "Didn't you want to come?"

"For a very long time," An Zhe said. "Don't you only do things for the sake of humankind?"

"The Trial Court has been dissolved." Lu Feng looked athim. "If there are more wars, or when they need me, I'll return to the base then."

Those cold green eyes contained neither suffering nor resentment, or anything else. It was like he had lost something, yet also as if he had been relieved of a heavy burden.

An Zhe reached out and plucked a soft fallen leaf from Lu Feng's shoulder, then found himself effortlessly wrapped in Lu Feng's embrace.

"Now I wish to be with you," he heard the Colonel say in the silence.

"... Why?" he asked in a small voice as he hugged Lu Feng and rested his chin on Lu Feng's shoulder.

He didn't say plainly what he was asking, but he knew that Lu Feng would know. It seemed that the two of them had never needed to say much but still understood each other.

He knew that he liked Lu Feng, but he didn't know why Lu Feng would like him.

Lu Feng took one step forward, and An Zhe ended up with his back pressed to the car. He looked up at Lu Feng.

Those eyes were still as quiet and clear as when they first met at the base's gates.

Lu Feng looked at him for a long time.

Throughout those three years, he often dreamed of that day.

Back then, Lu Feng's soul was deeply trapped in a thorny mire, at the edge of losing control and unable to do anything about it.

And in that state, he met An Zhe.

An Zhe was a person, a xenogenic, and a monster. Lu Feng should have killed him, yet he also should not have. He was everything that could not be defined, the wildest possibility, and was like all the people in those pools of blood that had come before him.

"Why did you walk into the Simpson cage?" he suddenly

asked.

An Zhe slowly searched his thoughts, then shook his head.

"I don't know," he said.

Then An Zhe asked in a small voice, "So you don't know either?"

"I do know," Lu Feng murmured, putting his forehead to

An Zhe's. "Because you're a little mushroom."

This perfunctory reply made An Zhe lift his gaze in discontentment, but after seeing everything surging in those cold green eyes, his gaze softened in spite of himself.

In the Abyss, all things grew.

In fact, he remembered every word Pauli had said.

The entire universe was a place of constant disturbance, and the consciousness of humans were ephemeral lights and fragmentary shadows produced within a brief period of stability. A story was taking place in a book, but the book was currently being burned to ashes. The frequency of the magnetic field was like cold air, resisting the scorching heat. His frequency turned its pages into asbestos, allowing it to keep intact within the blaze.

But the flames still burned. They were unknown waves, unpredictable disturbances. They would still continue to come, either hotter or change into a completely unfamiliar form entirely.

Perhaps it would be the very next second, perhaps it would be ten thousand years from now.

But—

It did not matter.

They had all already received an outcome beyond their wildest hopes.

Leaning against the car, he smiled at Lu Feng.

Lu Feng leaned down and kissed him on the corner of one eye, then turned to one side and began calibrating the compass and navigator.

While he was fiddling with the compass and navigator,

An Zhe continued flipping through his own documents. He had already gone through nearly all of it earlier, so before five minutes had passed, he completely finished reading everything that was left. With a click, he pressed the lock screen button.

At that point, Lu Feng had also finished what he was doing.

They started from the south. In front were lakes, to the east were jungles, and to the west were bogs.

"Where to?" Lu Feng asked.

"I don't know." An Zhe's attitude was somewhat negative.

"Let's go east," Lu Feng said.

"Why?"

"I don't know where your cave is," Lu Feng said, putting aside the navigator. "But I do know where I met you for the first time."

It was better when he hadn't said that. Once he did, An Zhe's mood completely soured.

He looked up at Lu Feng, his eyebrows slightly furrowed and the rims of his eyes red, about to start crying.

Showing a rare baffled expression, Lu Feng cupped An Zhe's face. "What is it?"

"You don't like me at all," An Zhe said, frowning.

Lu Feng said, "I do like you."

An Zhe raised his voice. "Then what about my spore?"

Lu Feng didn't mention the matter of the spore to him at all. An Zhe was so fierce in the past, he didn't dare to ask of his own accord. He could only search everywhere for news, wishing to know where that inert sample had gone.

But it wasn't anywhere. It wasn't until he searched to the very end that he saw something about "inert extract" from scraps of the news along with a photo showing a snow-white spore the size of only a jujube pit inside a glass bottle.

Now, Lu Feng didn't mention it, and traces of the spore were even scarcer.

There was only one possibility, which was that it had been killed.

Upon hearing those words, a hint of a smile appeared in Lu Feng's eyes instead.

An Zhe was so angered that he could not speak coherently.

"It got smaller and smaller in your care." His vision misted over, and he was on the verge of crying. "You killed it."

Lu Feng said, "I didn't."

"You did!" An Zhe grabbed his arm, a lump in his throat. "You weren't good to it at all... Give it back to me."

"It still exists. Don't cry," Lu Feng said. "What is the spore to you?"

"It's..." An Zhe strove to describe it in human language, but he couldn't. He could only say, "It's just my spore."

"Is it very important?"

"Yes, it is." An Zhe was almost shaking with anger. "I can die, but I must plant my spore. I only gave it to you because I thought you would raise it properly."

"Is it even more important than your own life?"

"... Mm-hm."

"To any creature, its own life is the most important."

"The spore is the most important," An Zhe unrelentingly argued. "It's not like you're a mushroom. You wouldn't understand."

"Okay." Lu Feng's voice still contained a very gentle smile. "So it's your child?"

An Zhe bit his lip. A mushroom's world had no parentsor children, no kinsfolk, not even friends. Every single type of mushroom in the Abyss was different from the other mushrooms. He had no way of using human relationships to describe the relationship between himself and his spore. Unable to say that it was his child, he could only say, "I gave birth to it."

"I raised it."

"You didn't raise it properly at all."

"Hm?" Lu Feng said. "Then why is it that at the Lighthouse, even though it saw you too, it only floated to my side of its own accord?"

An Zhe had just been brooding over Lu Feng killing the spore, but now that the past was brought up again, he instantly recalled how the spore acted so traitorous.

Both of them were no good.

Unsure of what to say, he could only reply, "But I gave birth to it."

Lu Feng smiled again.

The world spun.

An Zhe was pressed firmly against the car.

Lu Feng's fingers skated over his abdomen, and in that weakest and softest place, the cool fingertips sparked a shudder.

An Zhe softly gasped for breath.

Lu Feng lowered his head and gently spoke into his ear.

"Let me see you give birth to another one."