An Zhe opened his eyes wide.
He asked shakily, "… Who?"
Lu Feng said, "Her."
An Zhe only heard a single syllable. He didn’t know if that was him, her, or it. When this syllable was spoken from Lu Feng's mouth, there could only be one possibility.
Madam Lu.
He personally killed Madam Lu.
An Zhe could hardly breathe. His chest heaved violently.
Lu Feng looked at him and put his fingers to the side of An Zhe's neck. Together, his index and middle fingers pressed down on An Zhe's fragile and warm carotid artery. There wasn't the slightest hint of emotional fluctuation in his voice. "The final mission is to kill you. Did you not hear the command from the communicator?"
An Zhe did.
The pressure made his neck hurt a little, and he reached up to move Lu Feng's hand aside, but he could not push him away. With a sour lump in his throat, he said, "But the world… the world is so big. You didn't know at all that I was there."
Lu Feng looked at An Zhe.
In his arms, An Zhe was so small. The doctor had said that he could instantly escape the base and may be an unusually powerful xenogenic, but Lu Feng knew him. As such a frail and little thing, it seemed that anyone could harm him, whether physically or mentally.
Lu Feng did not clearly hear what he was saying. He only saw that the rims of An Zhe's eyes had reddened, as though he was desperately trying to prove that it was an accident, a coincidence. He seemed to be striving to deceive himself into believing something, so as to excuse Lu Feng.
He took something out from his uniform pocket.
It was a thin glass bottle as long as a thumb and filled with light green liquid. There was a label on the middle of it, and on the label, a bar code and string of numbers had been printed.
As An Zhe looked at it, he asked, "What is this?"
Lu Feng said flatly, "Tracking agent."
An Zhe had heard that name before. He remembered that Lily had once said she'd been injected with a tracking agent. Humankind's nomenclatures were always brief and to the point. One would know this drug's usage as soon as they heard its name.
"The Lighthouse said that by irradiating the tracking solution with a special-frequency pulse, it can acquire a characteristic frequency. After being irradiated, the tracking agent is split into two parts. One part is injected into the body, and the other part is preserved. By injecting the preserved tracking agent into the analyzer, the direction of the tracking fluid with the same frequency can be indicated," Lu Feng said. "No matter how far."
An Zhe curled his fingers around the ice-cold little tube and held it in his hand.
"Did you inject me with a tracking agent?" His voice trembled slightly. "When did you do it? I… I didn't know."
As he spoke, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.
His voice lowered, and there was a sour lump in his throat that made him almost unable to speak. "Did you suspect that I was a xenogenic since long ago?"
"You were able to pass all the judgment criteria, so I didn't kill you." Lu Feng's voice grew more icy. He pried An Zhe's fingers off, took the tracking agent, and put it back into his pocket. "But I must be responsible for the safety of the base."
An Zhe stared dumbly at him, and a single tear slid from the corner of his eye. He thought Lu Feng would wipe it away, but he did not. The wet trail quietly cooled on his cheek. Just now, Lu Feng had said very little, but it was enough to show his character. He had already mercilessly killed Madam Lu, the queen bee.
He knew what kind of person the Colonel was from the very first day. Perhaps it was the Lu Feng of these past few days, the Lu Feng who was good to him, who was the fleeting facade.
After he had resumed communication with the base, where did An Zhe get the self-confidence to believe that Lu Feng had been giving him special treatment and that he would spare him?
In that manner, Lu Feng looked at An Zhe, who was still in his arms, as his eyelashes slowly drooped. In the end, he leaned against Lu Feng's chest and closed his eyes. Thus the soft wet glimmer in the little xenogenic's eyes was covered up as well. He seemed to have become heartbroken after that honest explanation of all his actions, Lu Feng thought.
Just like all the people who died by his hand.
But An Zhe opened his eyes again, and he tilted his head back to look at Lu Feng. His voice was very small, so Lu Feng had to lean in closer before he could hear it.
"When Madam Lu became a queen bee, she had completely lost her human mind," he said. "She said to me… She didn't hate the base, she just wanted to experience new forms of life. She didn't hate you."
In the death-like silence, Lu Feng said nothing. The time passed minute by minute and second by second. When An Zhe reached up to touch Lu Feng's cheek to confirm that he was still alive, he saw the corners of Lu Feng's thin, cold lips curl up.
His voice was very soft yet certain.
"She hated me."
An Zhe looked into his eyes.
Madam Lu had said that Lu Feng would never get what he wanted, that he would die a miserable death, and that he would eventually go mad.
He asked, "Why?"
"After I was born, her relationship with my father was discovered by the base, and she was never able to freely meet him again. I killed my father and killed many of her children. When her little daughter escaped from the Garden of Eden with her help, she ran into me. In fact, the day you and I ran into Lily, her friend who had come to assist was standing on the other side of the road."
Lu Feng seldom spoke at such length, and An Zhe had long ago gotten accustomed to hanging on his every word. When Lu Feng finally finished speaking, he was nearly out of breath.
The silence lasted three seconds.
"The happy things in her life were very few, but I destroyed all of them," Lu Feng said. "Just like everyone else in the base, she hated me."
While looking at him, An Zhe opened his mouth.
In the end, he finally knew what he wished to say.
"I don't hate you," he said.
A long silence.
"Why?" Lu Feng's slightly raspy voice suddenly sounded in his ear.
"What… do you mean, why?" he asked.
"Why can you…"—Lu Feng looked at him—"always forgive me?"
An Zhe looked up at him, but what he saw this time was not that frosty Lu Feng.
The Colonel's voice trembled imperceptibly as he asked again, "Why?"
An Zhe wanted to say it, but he couldn't. He didn't have as high of an intellect as humans, nor did he know that many of their words. He thought for a very long time.
"I understand you," he said.
"You aren't even human." Lu Feng's fingers clamped down on his shoulder. The look in his eyes was still as cold as before, but in his voice, something seemed to fall apart, and he asked almost shakily, "What do you understand about me?"
He still wanted to ask.
But An Zhe could say nothing more. He desperately shook his head.
An Zhe could only be driven into a corner one step at a time by Lu Feng. He wanted to cry again. He did not know why this man would be so evil. Today, this man did not hesitate to cut open all of him. He himself was like a court justice who wished to acquit the criminal, but the criminal below the bench kept making declarations aggravating his own misconduct. This person insisted on being tried, insisted on being sentenced to death.
That was how much he wanted An Zhe to hate him.
An Zhe did not know why things had reached this point. Clearly, at the very beginning they had only been talking about whether the base could survive or not, about how this world was so big, and about how Lu Feng landing in front of him really was a miracle or not.
Lu Feng had said that it was not, that all of this was premeditated, inevitable.
But it wasn't, it really wasn't.
"But…" As he faced Lu Feng, he lifted his own arm, and those distinct human fingers gradually changed.
Snow-white hyphae climbed up Lu Feng's black uniform and crawled over the Arbiter's epaulets and silver tassels.
Tears kept flowing from his eyes, and he could not clearly see Lu Feng's expression. He only knew that the hand Lu Feng was holding him with was trembling, and he held him even more tightly.
He knew that Lu Feng would be able to recognize him as the mushroom that had been rolling around in the Abyss. He tearfully choked out, "But I met you…"
The world was so vast, and Lu Feng had insisted on going to the Abyss. The Abyss was so big, and he had insisted on going to those open plains to roll around.
They were originally not meant to meet.
He had never hurt any person or any creature. He only wished to quietly raise his own spore. Had he been able to do so, he thought, he might've been spared so much heartache and pain.
But why would there be a human like Lu Feng in this world?
This human held him with such great strength, it was like he wanted to kill him. With his back pressed against the bedpost, he desperately struggled. The struggle was utterly fruitless, but he was unwilling to turn into hyphae form to escape, reluctant to admit that he was outmatched.
He recklessly bit down on Lu Feng's neck with all his might.
It was only at the moment the taste of blood rushed into his mouth that An Zhe was dazed.
What am I doing? he thought
But his chance was gone, for the brief daze was enough for Lu Feng to regain the upper hand.
His shoulder was pressed down, his back hit the bedpost, and a hand forcibly lifted his jaw.
Lu Feng forcefully kissed him.