In the dim red light, the six round and pitch-black holes looked at him as if they were the compound eyes of insects.

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An Zhe unconsciously took a step back and bumped into the metal table. In that instant, he lost his balance, and his hand landed on the epitaph with its engraved words that were uneven to the touch. For some reason, this ice-cold metal table that stood alone in the empty hall and held the ashes of the deceased made him feel safe instead.

He let out a soft sigh, then tentatively walked forward until he reached the row of holes.

He climbed into each one of the six pipes in succession, but he still could not find the slightest trace of his hypha. It was too thin and would have contracted after snapping, and lastly, after it was blown up by the wind, he didn't know what corner it would have gotten stuck in. It was also too dark in this place.

An Zhe blankly looked around. In this cylindrical space, all sides—in front of him, behind him, to his left, and to his right—had six pipe mouths each for a total of twenty-four that led in different directions. This was the source of the entire city's ventilation system.

He knew he had two choices: hurry to find his way back to his living quarters before sunrise and then continue searching tomorrow evening or... or simply just not go back.

He could give up his human identity from this moment onward, allowing the person named An Zhe to disappear from the city. As a mushroom, An Zhe could wander in the underground pipes for a long time, without regard to day or night. So long as he roamed long enough before he withered, he would be able to sneak into the Lighthouse.

The wind grew stronger, and he gently shivered. He knew that the decision he was about to make would affect his entire destiny hereafter.

But even if he decided to go back, could he really do it?

An Zhe didn't know.

As he looked at the six holes in the direction he came from, he clenched his teeth and crawled into the middle right one—he was unsure whether this was the original path.

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He could only let fate decide.

It actually would have been more convenient to crawl into the hole in his hyphae form, but three of humankind's predecessors were here, and he did not wish for them to see a xenogenic come in. Thus, it wasn't until An Zhe had completely entered the pipe that he once again changed into a ball of hyphae.

The hyphae sped up, moving along the direction of the wind, and the wind was also pushing him from behind. An Zhe made a few turns and passed many intersections. Now, he only wanted to wander to a pipe mouth that was connected to a human's room as quickly as possible—it would be even better if the room had a window, because he could sneak out of the window, find the nearest shuttle stop under cover of night, and surreptitiously stick to the bottom of the shuttle. The nighttime shuttle would take him to the final stop near Building 24, and then he could slip back to his own corridor. So long as the night was dark enough, nobody would discover him.

He traveled in this haphazard manner for a long time. When the pipe became narrower and narrower, a dim light finally appeared in front of him. He had arrived at a pipe mouth.

This was a ventilation pipe located on a ceiling.

An Zhe looked down from the pipe mouth. What appeared in the center of his field of vision was a transparent cylindrical container containing a slightly cloudy liquid, and inside the liquid, a flesh-colored object was floating. It was very small, about the size of two human fists. One end of a transparent tube was connected to this flesh-colored thing, and the other end was connected to a complicated-looking device.

A peculiar feeling arose in this device. An Zhe couldn't describe exactly what he was feeling; he only knew that the container held a living thing.

Suddenly, he was stunned.

He knew.

This was a youngling.

No. It was an embryo, the embryo of a human youngling.

Further to the side, there was an identical device. Not only that, the entire spacious room was densely packed with such things. His field of vision was limited, so he couldn't tell exactly how big of a room it was, but he knew that the base could produce five to ten thousand younglings per year.

This was no other place—to his surprise, he had accidentally come to the Garden of Eden.

An Zhe let out a sigh of relief. The Garden of Eden was a place he was familiar with, but at the same time, he felt even more troubled, for he knew how much humans cherished their younglings. Practically all areas in the Garden of Eden were covered by video cameras as well as constantly guarded by staff. Nobody could harm the younglings.

At this thought, he became angry again.

If the world of mushrooms had video cameras, how could his youngling have been dug out by Lu Feng?

But merely three seconds later, he discovered the mistake in his logic. Even if there were video cameras, they would not be able to stop Lu Feng from digging out his spore. The crux of this matter rested not in the video cameras, but rather the existence of this bastard Lu Feng.

... Wrong.

The crux of the matter was how he was to get out now.