A feathered youth delivered a quilt to the room.
"It was dried in the sun just yesterday." He helped make the bed of his own volition. "It's cold at night, so remember to close the window."
"Thank you," An Zhe said. Just like the uncle who served him food today, this young boy's kindness made him feel both grateful and a little bewildered.
After making the bed, the boy took out a bright red fruit from his clothes and smiled. "For you to eat."
After saying that, he also took out a portion of dried meat that had been wrapped up. "This is from everyone to you."
An Zhe accepted it. The dried meat was very heavy. He didn't know what the living standards at the research institute were like, but in this age, no matter where, so much dried meat was very precious.
"Thank you," he said. "It's too much, I can't finish it."
"Take your time eating." Tang Lan, who was standing behind him, seemed to smile as he reached out to straighten An Zhe's shirt collar.
"We give gifts to all newcomers. I found this place a year ago, and everyone was very good to me too," the young boy said. "Being a xenogenic in the wilderness is too hard. You have to avoid monsters and find things to eat on your own. You remember that you're human, and you miss home but don't dare to return to the base. Once you come to the research institute, everything's fine."
As he spoke, he smiled at An Zhe.
An Zhe returned the smile.
The room had no wind and was very warm, and the tube light on the ceiling shone with a penetrating glow. As An Zhe held the dried meat, he recalled the month he had spent trudging through the Abyss's jungles and bogs. Unexpectedly, it was like a dream.
"Don't cry," the boy said. "In the future you'll have a home."
His tone was so certain and warm, it was like he had a boundless attachment to this research institute.
This was something An Zhe had never seen in the human base before.
He asked, "Has this place always been like this?"
"Huh?" The boy was stunned at first, but then he understood. With a smile, he said, "You'll get used to it soon."
But the moment he said that, he abruptly froze.
A keen howl suddenly came from the corridor.
Then came the sound of objects shattering.
Tang Lan furrowed his brows and strode out.
The keen howl continued, and sounds of fighting traveled over.
The boy abruptly cowered. He grabbed An Zhe's arm, seemingly seeking protection, but he said, "Don't be scared. Someone changed into a monster, but Mr. Tang can beat them."
Through the open door, they saw a human figure writhing on the central open space, densely packed feelers and lumps bulging out of his back. His facial features were distorted, turning into a gray-colored swollen mass, and his limbs attacked wildly. Part of someone else's body turned into vines as they fought. Tang Lan threw himself into the fray as well, and before long, the figure was subdued.
"Lock him up," Tang Lan said.
The thing was taken downstairs, and Tang Lan returned to the room.
"We have human consciousness now, but we don't know when it will disappear," the boy said in a small voice. "That's why I deeply treasure my time as a human."
A sound came from outside the window. An Zhe looked down and saw that on the open space in front of the main building, a large instrument was lighting up.
"Mr. Pauli seems to have been working on that these past few days," the boy said. "It looks different from his previous research."
As An Zhe looked in that direction, a glaring red light shone from between the machinery. He asked, "What is it?"
Saying nothing, Tang Lan looked out the window. At the top of the mountain, the aurora and the starry sky had become so low and so clear that it was like one could touch them if they just reached out.
Inside the room, all was silent.
After a long while, Tang Lan suddenly spoke.
"Mr. Pauli is a scientist of the Fusion Faction," Tang Lan murmured. "The Fusion Faction believes that there will be a day when they can find a way for human and monster genes to peacefully fuse. People won't change into monsters that only rely on instinct, and they'll have powerful bodies and be able to adapt to the current harsh climate."
"Just like this." He showed An Zhe his arm, which had faint impressions of black scales. "Human bodies really are too fragile."
"Later, before success was achieved, the Fusion Faction's experiment ran off. The giant leech infected the base's water supply, and half of the base died because of this—from that point on the base prohibited any similar experiments from taking place, and the Fusion Faction scientists became sinners to the base," he said slowly. "However, other research has also yielded no fruit. It's only with fusion that it sounds like there's still a glimmer of hope. So the Fusion Faction scientists defected. They left the base, wishing to find a place where they could continue experimenting."
"They wanted to research fusion, so they had to do live experiments, and once they performed the experiments, they would have created those intelligent monsters that have obtained human thought yet are not human. The base would not allow this to happen, so they constantly dispatched soldiers to intercept and hunt them down. In the end, they finally found this place." Tang Lan tilted his head back and looked at the vast starry sky. "The Highland Research Institute is a set of ruins. Originally, it was a place where the artificial magnetic poles were studied many years ago. This place lies behind the Abyss, and the terrain's elevation is high, so armored vehicles can't drive over here. There're also many existing devices, some of which can cause magnetic interference in the surrounding area and cripple the military's aircraft and radar. Only with this did the research institute settle down. They've been taking in xenogenics while doing research all the way until now."
An Zhe asked, "Have they found a way to fuse?"
Tang Lan shook his head.
"They can't find any patterns," he said. "At first, they thought it had to do with will, and then they thought it had to do with the type of foreign gene, but it was neither. People with weak wills could wake up in confusion, or plants with weak pollution capabilities could devour people's wills. One would not necessarily lose consciousness after being infected by a very powerful monster either. The reason for retaining will is just luck. And after that, the failure of the magnetic poles and the overall pollution proved that this may have nothing at all to do with genes. Gold and iron can also pollute each other. Beneath the microscope, an iron atom inexplicably changes into something we can't understand. Mr. Pauli said that all previous research was wrong and that we must search for new ways of analyzing."
An Zhe had heard the doctor mention the exact same view. He said, "The base thinks so too."
Tang Lan didn't speak for a long time.
"An Zhe." Tang Lan suddenly called his name. "Can you feel a sort of wave?"
An Zhe nodded. He'd always been able to feel it.
"After turning into xenogenics, many people can feel it," Tang Lan said softly. "And it's getting stronger."
Early in the morning, An Zhe opened his eyes as he lay on the bed. He had a splitting headache. His dreams were all about the wilderness, with howls that shook his eardrums, the sounds of animal paws stepping in sludge, and crying—crying from a source unknown to him. From the jungle came the faintly reflected glow of animal eyes. As though he'd gone mad, he was fleeing from something, searching for something, but he could never escape, could never find it. That massive and formless wave was still winding around him with the closeness of a man and his shadow. It seemed to be present in every nook and cranny of this world, with even the dewdrops on the tips of leaves its embodiment.
An Zhe strove to prop himself up with his arms. He sat up, but it was very arduous. It was like his bones had rusted. Not only were they unable to nimbly move, they had also become thin and brittle. Every time he moved, he wondered if he was about to stop forever, so he knew that he was another step closer to his inevitable death.
An Zhe sat on the bed for a very long time with the quilt in his arms before he felt that he'd recovered a little. He stared blankly at the warm room—what happened yesterday still felt like a dream, and only today did it have a sense of realism. In a sense, he had come to another human world. The people here were very good to him—but his original intent in leaving Lu Feng was so that Lu Feng would not personally witness his death.