Vance’s blood spread out in An Zhe's peripheral vision, forming a pool of crimson. When the people in line heard the sound, they turned around one after another to look, but after glimpsing this scene, they indifferently turned back again, as if nothing had happened at all.
But Vance was dead. A human had been killed at the human base’s gates, and nobody raised any objection.
Thus, An Zhe suddenly realized that this person was the Arbiter, the person Vance had mentioned to him a day earlier.
He was the master of the Trial Court, determining whether each person entering the city was human or xenogenic. He could decide anyone's fate no matter who they were, needing no justification.
Now it was his own turn to stand trial.
An Zhe's heart thumped wildly at first. The instant that the barrel of the gun pointed at him, he realized that he was really going to die.
But as he looked at the Arbiter's icy green eyes, he gradually calmed down again.
Coming to the Northern Base was his unavoidable decision, so being judged was his fate, no matter the outcome.
He silently counted the seconds in his mind.
One, two, three.
A long time passed with no gunshot ringing out. The Arbiter, keeping the gun trained on him, slowly walked over.
The people in line, seeming to tacitly agree to speed up, spontaneously compressed forward. A moment later, this tiny area was deserted save for An Zhe alone.
Eleven, twelve, thirteen.
After An Zhe counted to the fourteenth second, the Arbiter stopped in front of him, ring finger resting on the gunstock, and lowered the muzzle. Then he put the weapon away.
"Come with me," An Zhe heard him say.
His voice was ice-cold and flat, just like his eyes.
An Zhe stood in place, waiting for him to go, but he didn’t move even after three seconds had gone by.
He lifted his head up uncertainly, then heard the Arbiter's voice turn even colder. "Hold out your hand."
An Zhe obediently held out his hand.
Click.
An ice-cold chill made him shiver.
One end of a silver handcuff was fastened around his wrist, while the other end was in the officer’s hand.
It was in this manner in which An Zhe was led away.
The strange thing was, when Vance got shot, the people in line didn't react at all. Now that he was being taken away by the Arbiter, though, they put their heads together and whispered amongst themselves.
An Zhe only had time to look back at Vance's body lying flat on the ground before he was pulled through the city gate.
Once inside, he discovered that the interior space wasn't a cramped passageway, but rather a vast area divided into several spaces. Bright white lights shone everywhere, the bounce of their glow off the steel walls looking like winter snowfall’s reflected shine cast upon light gray shale.
There were no fewer armed soldiers or heavy weapons compared to the outside. Within the tight encirclement of the heavy weapons and soldiers was a long snow-white table. Three officers in black uniforms just like the Arbiter's—An Zhe guessed they were the Judges—sat behind it, and a human sat across from them. One of the Judges was asking him, "How is the relationship between you and your wife? When you left the city this time, was she not with you?"
From An Ze's memories, An Zhe learned that besides changes to appearance, bearing, and habits, the intelligence and memories of infected humans would be affected as well, so interrogation was also a method of identifying xenogenics.
The person who brought him inside glanced in that direction and said, "Hurry up."
After the Judge in the middle replied with a "yes sir", he looked at the person being tried. "You may go now."
As if he had survived a calamity, the man broke out into a smile, then got up and swiftly walked through the city gate's passageway.
Thus, An Zhe knew that this man who brought him here was indeed none other than the Arbiter, and his "hurry up" was not to hasten the Judges to speed up their interrogation, but rather to show that he had already determined in the span of a moment that the person being tried was human.
The next person to be tried walked from the line towards the long table. The distance between the line and the table was very long, with several door-shaped machines between them and a section that included turns as well as uphill and downhill slopes. An Zhe realized that this was to show the movement characteristics of the person being tried to the Judges to the fullest possible extent.
But he had no more time to see more because in the following second, he was led around a corner and into a long corridor.
That person took out a black communication device and said, "Trial Court, Lu Feng. Requesting genetic examination."
An Zhe guessed that the two words in the middle were his name.
A mechanical door promptly slid open in front of them and Lu Feng walked straight in, the force of his pull making An Zhe stumble before he caught up.
The room was silvery-white. Mysterious mechanical devices were arrayed from floor to ceiling, and six soldiers standing guard were scattered all about. Behind the workbench at one end of the room sat a young male human with short blonde hair and blue eyes clad in a white lab coat.
"What a surprise it is for Colonel Lu to come here." He pushed up the glasses on his nose, the tone of his voice lifting up at the end in provocation. "Don't you always solve all your problems with bullets?"
Lu Feng said coldly, "Please cooperate, Doctor."
The doctor glanced at Lu Feng, a shadow of a smile on his face. Then he got up and said to An Zhe, "Come with me."
After following him, An Zhe was made to lie on a silvery-white platform, and rings around his hands and feet fixed his limbs in place. The doctor said, "Don't move."
Immediately afterwards, An Zhe felt a pain in his arm. He turned his head in that direction and saw the doctor slowly drawing a tube of bright red blood from his body.
The doctor said, "The color of your blood is very healthy."
"Thank you for the compliment," An Zhe replied.
The doctor was amused by his response.
"The blood will be sent for a genetic examination, which will take an hour. The full body enhanced scan is expected to take forty minutes. Don't move."
He finished speaking, and the silver platform began to glow with a blue light. The surroundings emitted a directionless low hum—the source of the sound was every single particle of air. The omnipresent noise made An Zhe recall those distant nights in the Abyss. The faraway ocean gave off the dull lapping sounds of waves, and in the darkest time of the night, the howls of unknown creatures came from that direction. Fluctuations that human language could not possibly describe swept away the entirety of the rain-drenched land.
The electric current was like countless ants crawling over and biting his body. To a mushroom, forty minutes was by no means a long time. But An Zhe thought that these may be the last forty minutes of his life. Cherishing them, he studied the mechanical lines on the ceiling.
He was unsure how much time had passed when he heard Lu Feng say outside, "Seraing told me that your examination methods have been upgraded."
"You're very well-informed," the doctor said. "We've discovered that when the human body undergoes mutation, some special fragments of their DNA will be activated, and we've named them 'biological targets'. The biological targets of animal-type mutations and plant-type mutations are the two major categories. The improved gene detection has two processes that occur simultaneously. One is animal-type target detection while the other is plant-type target detection. The total time needed for both is an hour."
"Congratulations," Lu Feng said.
The doctor let out a laugh. "Colonel, if the time needed for genetic examinations is greatly shortened and the cost is reduced, won’t your Trial Court be put out of work?"
"I look forward to it with relish."
"You're seriously boring."
Their conversation ceased.
Meanwhile, An Zhe looked up at the silvery-white ceiling and began to ponder what his own species was.
He was a mushroom.
The doctor had said that mutations were divided into animal-type mutations and plant-type mutations.
He thought that firstly, mushrooms weren't a kind of animal.
Secondly, mushrooms didn't seem to be plants either. He didn't have leaves.
An Zhe fell into a state of confusion. He strove to categorize himself as a plant, yet didn't find sufficient proof.
He spent too much time contemplating this question. Before he arrived at a conclusion, the blue light disappeared from his side like an ebbing tide.
"All right." The doctor's voice rang out, and the mechanical rings automatically released.
Then he heard the doctor continue talking. "Colonel, may I ask why you brought him here for a genetic examination?"
"No."
The doctor was clearly rendered speechless.
He helped An Zhe up and had him sit down in a swivel chair on one side, then patted his head. "Good boy. Rest here for a bit while I go look at the results of the blood test."
An Zhe sat in place.
That Colonel, the Arbiter, sat on the other side, still watching him with icy green eyes. His was a young face with clear contours, and at the brim of his hat, a few locks of black hair hung down over his forehead to rest against the ends of his sloped eyebrows. His expression, which the room painted with a thin layer of cold light, serrated An Zhe’s eyes like a knife.
The stare from this pair of eyes made An Zhe feel very cold. Mushrooms were afraid of the cold. As a result, he rotated the swivel chair, turning his back to the Colonel.
He felt even colder.
A very long time later, the doctor’s footsteps finally came, thawing the room. "There are no abnormalities in the genetic report. You two can go."
After a few seconds of silence, Lu Feng said, "You're one hundred percent sure he's human?"
The doctor replied, "Although it may disappoint you otherwise, we truly haven't found any biological targets. Other infected ones and xenogenics have at least ten or more."
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
After that, he said, "Look, this little friend of ours doesn't even want to acknowledge you."
Then An Zhe heard the Colonel say, "Turn back around."
An Zhe silently turned back around.
Facing Lu Feng's gaze, he was a bit avoidant because he truly wasn't human.
But even this tiny avoidance of his somehow irritated the Colonel; his voice was like ice water when he spoke again. "What are you afraid of?"
An Zhe didn't say a word. He knew that in front of this man, the more he spoke, the more mistakes he'd make, and perhaps his weakness would be discovered.
At last, Lu Feng raised his eyebrows. "You still aren't leaving?"
So An Zhe obediently jumped down from the chair and left with him again—but this time he was free, without being led in handcuffs.
In the deserted corridor, they reached the halfway point when Lu Feng suddenly spoke up. "At first glance, I instinctively felt that you weren't human."
An Zhe nearly had a heart attack.
A full three seconds passed before he asked, "Then... what about the second glance?"
"This is the first time I've requested a genetic examination." The Colonel held out the genetic examination report to him. "You'd best be one."
An Zhe could only silently accept the report stating that everything about him was normal. For a short while, there were only the monotonous sounds of their footsteps in the silvery-white corridor.
Near the exit, there was a corner where they ran into a party of people. In the lead was a Judge clad in a black uniform, and behind the Judge were two heavily-armed soldiers restraining a man as they walked over. Next to them, there was also a tall woman with short hair and a distressed expression.
Spotting Lu Feng, the Judge said, "Colonel."
Lu Feng looked at the restrained man and received a look back. The man's throat spasmed a few times before exclaiming, "I haven't been infected!"
The Judge snapped to attention on the spot and said to Lu Feng, "Infection is strongly suspected, but there is no conclusive evidence. The next of kin are demanding a genetic examination."
Lu Feng made a soft sound of acknowledgement, and the soldiers continued forward with the man in their custody. Just as they passed Lu Feng—
"Bang!"
Lu Feng put away his gun and walked off without looking back. "There's no need."
The man's body instantly pitched forward, held up only by the soldiers. The woman following them shrieked and collapsed to the floor.
An Zhe turned to look at Lu Feng's expression. His gaze was so cold— the mushroom had never seen such a look before. He knew An Ze was always gentle, Vance was easygoing and generous, Hosen was filled with greed, and Anthony was completely on guard. But Lu Feng was different. There was nothing in his eyes at all.
An Zhe thought that to the Arbiter, killing others may have been more normal than breathing. He wouldn't experience any change in emotion because he had already gotten accustomed to the sight long ago.
They soon came to the exit.
Near the exit, two soldiers in simple attire were waiting for him with a body covered by white cloth.
An Zhe knew it was Vance.
His eyesight went blurry. He took a step forward, wishing to lift away the white cloth and look at Vance's face once more, but one of the soldiers stopped him.
The soldier held out a blue chip to him and said in a steady voice, "Mercenary team AR1147 has been confirmed to have no survivors, and the equipment and materials have been reclaimed by the base. The loot has been converted into currency and combined with the consolation payment for disbursement to the next of kin. Please claim the remains."
"Where are you taking him?" An Zhe asked.
The soldier replied, "The incinerator."
His body trembled slightly, and for a long time, he didn't accept the ID card.
Lu Feng's voice rang out. "Do you not want it?"
An Zhe said nothing. After a long while, he lifted his head to look at Lu Feng. "He really... wasn't wounded."
Within that pair of icy green eyes, he saw his own reflection—eyes slightly widened and a quiet grief.
Lu Feng was still expressionless, as if none of this had anything to do with him. However, just as An Zhe thought he would turn and leave, he took a step forward instead.
The black gunstock lifted up the edge of the white fabric, and the part revealed was Vance's right hand.
An Zhe got down on one knee and saw that on the tip of his ring finger was a tiny red dot. It seemed like the most trivial puncture, but at the edges of that red dot, a drop of ominous dark gray liquid was slowly oozing out.
He was stunned. In an instant, those images came to mind.
There was human blood on the ant armor—on that very day, Vance told him that some people would hide the fact that they'd been wounded because in places with a low degree of pollution, there was still a chance that they wouldn't be infected after getting wounded, and that person wanted to go home.
Therefore, therefore—the person pricked by the piece of ant armor wasn't Anthony, but Vance.
An Zhe found it difficult to breathe. With trembling fingers, he accepted Vance's ID card and put it into the bag at his side. Then he turned to look at Lu Feng, but the space next to him was empty.
He stood up and looked out to see a sharp black figure beneath the gray skies at the city gate traveling further away little by little.
A moment later, there was a commotion behind him, and he turned back to see the woman, whose companion had just been killed, stumbling forward before the soldiers restrained her.
"Lu Feng! Arbiter—!" She desperately struggled, throwing herself forward and flailing her arms in the air as she screeched, "I hope you die a miserable death—!"
The hoarse, shrill voice burst from her chest and echoed in the building, but she didn't even get so much as a backwards glance from the Arbiter.
The surroundings gradually quietened, and the two corpses were taken away one at a time. In the spacious corridor, there were only the woman's broken sobs.
----------------------------------------
A long time passed before the woman by the wall stopped crying. With reddened eyes and disheveled hair, she leaned against the wall and looked at the distant sky, not saying a word. She was like a drop of water on a leaf, breaking with just a touch.
An Zhe carefully asked, "You aren't leaving?"
She shook her head, and her voice was raspy as she said, "The one who died, what relationship did he have with you?"
An Zhe spent a very long time finding the appropriate word from his memories. "My... friend. He saved me."
"My man also saved me before." After saying that, her head hung low, and her shoulders and back trembled as she occasionally let out one or two weepy sounds. She didn't speak again.
An Zhe held Vance's ID card in a tight grip. From his heart—that place belonging to the human heart—came a stifling feeling.
When he had been only and purely a mushroom, he had never experienced this sort of feeling before.
It was only after the feeling had finally dissipated a little that he found his strength. Following the direction of the distant stream of people, he walked towards the corridor exit.
At the end of the city gate passageway was a row of mechanical gates, and An Zhe selected the one the furthest to the left. When he walked over, a gentle robotic female voice said, "Please produce your ID card and look at the camera."
An Zhe put the card that had belonged to An Ze on the area of the platform to the right of the gate that glowed with white light, then lifted his gaze to look at the black camera in front.
"ID 3261170514. Name: An Ze. Home: Outer City, District 6. Time away from the city: twenty-seven days."
The camera made a slight noise, and the white light turned green.
"Facial recognition passed. Welcome home."
With a ding, the gate lifted, and An Zhe walked out.
The blinding morning sunlight made him squint, and he recovered only thirty seconds later. After the blurry world became clear again, a massive gray city appeared before his eyes.
Around him was a large open area, and the words "buffer zone" were written on the ground in blinding green paint. Up ahead, human creations sprung up from the ground. Tall concrete buildings were everywhere, even more massive than the tallest plants An Zhe had ever seen and seeming like they could topple over at any time. They stood upright, crowding together in overlapping arrangements, and blocked his line of sight. He looked up. Half of the orange sun was hidden behind the tallest building while the other half was exposed; it looked like a drop of diluted blood that was about to drip down the wall.
An Zhe turned back. The people who had come out from the city gate with him had been separated by the mechanical gates, but after passing through they spontaneously clustered together and traveled in the same direction. An Zhe moved forward with them, and after a few hundred steps he rounded a corner. On a sign were the words "Rail Transit", and a train was stopped on the rails. The body of the train read: Entrance - District 1 - Supply Depot 3 - District 5 - District 8 - City Affairs Office - Exit.
He followed the stream of people onto the train, then found a corner of the slightly empty coach to sit down in. In the seats before him were two strapping men who were conversing in low voices.
"Back from Basin 3? You guys sure gambled with your lives out there."
"We lost six."
"Not bad. You break even?"
"The military is still conducting their appraisal. I think I won't ever have to go out and risk my life in the wilderness again."
"Wow."
"We entered a school in Ghost City 441. It was full of mutated plants, so nobody dared to go in." The man laughed. "We went in and pried out three hard drives from the library's reference room. They're priceless treasures. We'll just have to see how valuable the things saved on them are."
An Zhe silently listened. Although he didn't quite understand, he knew that this man in front of him was very happy, so he felt a little happier as well.
He knew that happy people often didn't mind helping others, so he called out, "Sir."
Without even turning back, that man said, "What is it?"
"How do I get to District 6?"
"Transfer to Line 2 at the supply depot."
"Thank you."
Five minutes later, the train began to move, and a robotic voice announced the name of each platform. An Zhe was very unfamiliar with everything. After several setbacks and requests for directions, he finally got onto the Line 2 train at the supply depot, then got off correctly to arrive at District 6.
An Ze's ID number was 3261170514. This string of numbers was not only the proof of his human identity, it also represented his address, which was the outer city's District 6, Building 117, doorplate number 0514.
But not long after he got off the train, while he was attempting to find someone who he could ask for directions, a young boy suddenly grabbed him. "Hello, friend. Welcome. Would you mind getting to know us?"
Before An Zhe could say anything, a piece of white paper was stuffed into his hand. In large, blood-red words, it read: OPPOSE THE ARBITER'S TYRANNY.
He didn't understand the reason for it but didn't ask further either. He only said, "Excuse me, do you know how to get to Building 117?"
The boy said, "You don't mind coming along with us, right?"
"... I don't."
"Then we're comrades now." The boy lifted up the white paper in his own hands, which said in large, red words: ABOLISH THE "ARBITER'S CODE".
They weren't the only two carrying papers. Soon, An Zhe was pulled into a crowd. There were around forty-odd people, all of whom had very young faces. Each person was either holding up a similar piece of white paper individually or working in tandem with a partner to hold up a long banner. The sentences on the papers and banners were roughly the same.
"We volunteer to bear the cost of genetic examinations."
"Judges are sinners against humanity."
"Dissolve the Trial Court and bring justice for the innocent."
At the same time, the crowd was slowly moving forward, so An Zhe too could only move with it.
The city's roads were very narrow. Sunlight shone down upon the buildings, and the buildings cast irregular shadows upon the ground. On the road, apart from them, there were also quite a few adults walking with their heads down. They occasionally lifted their heads and glanced in the crowd’s direction, but then they very quickly looked away.
An Zhe asked, "What are we doing?"
"A silent demonstration," the boy said. "We'll march until the day that the Trial Court is dissolved."
"... Oh."
After walking for approximately half an hour, he once again asked the boy next to him, "Where's Building 117?"
"Up ahead, we're almost there."
Another half an hour passed, and An Zhe asked again, "Where's Building 117?"
"Sorry!" The boy scratched his head. "I forgot about you. We've walked past it, it's back there."
As he spoke, he turned and pointed. "Over there, it's not far away. The building number is written on the side. You can see it right there.”
"Thank you," An Zhe said.
"You're welcome."
An Zhe handed the piece of paper to the boy. "I'll return this to you."
"No need!" The boy stuffed the paper back into his arms. "Remember to come back next week! We'll be gathering at Building 1!"
Thus, An Zhe could only put the bloody "OPPOSE THE ARBITER'S TYRANNY" paper together with the gene report the Arbiter himself had shoved at An Zhe. Holding them in his arms, he left this group of strange young humans and walked in the direction that had been pointed out to him.
While walking, he felt that the surrounding environment was gradually becoming familiar as the memories in his mind that had originally belonged to An Ze were awakened. He intuitively made a few turns and arrived at the building labeled "117" without any issues. It was a rectangular building, ten stories high but very wide. He entered Unit 0, and after climbing the quiet and steep stairs to the fifth floor, he entered a dim corridor and found No. 14.
A white seal was stuck to the door. An Zhe gently tore it off, revealing a sensor area underneath. When he put the ID card up to it, the lock sprung open, and he walked in.
It was a very small room. It was even smaller than the cave he used to live in, but it was much brighter and more spacious than the rest area in the armored car. Near the wall was a wooden desk, more than ten old books piled up on it, and sheets of loose-leaf paper and notebooks were stacked together on the other side. The desk faced a single-person bed. There was a nightstand at the head of the bed upon which a water cup, a mirror, and some odds and ends were placed, and a wardrobe slightly taller than the height of a human was shoved up against the foot of the bed.
The window was on the other side of the bed. Its gray curtains were half-open, sunlight shining in and lighting up the quilt that was the same color, and there was a dry fragrance that reminded him of An Ze's scent.
He walked over to the bed, then reached out and removed the palm-sized mirror. The mirror reflected his face.
He looked like An Ze, with soft black hair and eyes that were the same color. They were alike in many places, but there were also some details that weren't the same. In addition, he didn't have An Ze's gentle and calm expression.
Back then, An Ze had said to him, "It's like I've gained a younger brother. How about I give you a name, little mushroom?
"Is there anything you have a very deep recollection of, little mushroom?"
Only two things were deeply etched into his limited memory: one was the loss of his spore, and the other was something that happened when he was very small—around when he was only about as long as a human's pinky finger.
In the rainy season when the mushrooms were growing, a raindrop falling at an angle had struck his slender stem, snapping him at the waist.
Then, just like any other injured creature, he strove to grow back, to live.
Then after that, he gradually gained some vague consciousness. He had healed.
From then on, he seemed to have become different from his own kind. He could control his own hyphae, move between the jungle and open fields, and perceive the sounds and movements outside. He was a free mushroom.
"Poor little thing." At that time, An Ze had ruffled his hair. "Did it hurt a lot when you snapped in half?"
"I've forgotten."
An Ze had said, "Then I'll call you An Zhe, written with the Chinese character for 'snap'."
He had said, "Okay."
At this point in his recollection, An Zhe smiled at the mirror.
When the person in the mirror smiled, he seemed to see a shadow of An Ze again.
"Thank you," he said to the mirror.
After putting down the mirror, An Zhe sat down at the desk.
What should he do next?
After some thinking, An Zhe held out his left hand and stared at his own fingertips beneath the light.
Snow-white hyphae quietly extended from his fingertips, then consolidated. He picked up the dagger and cut off a small, thin piece of it.
Then he picked it up with his right hand, put it up to his mouth, gently pushed it in, and bit down, for he had decided to investigate the matter of his toxicity.
A soft, sweet, and very tasty flavor—that was his first impression.
In the following second, the entire world began to sway before his eyes.