Chapter 5: Emergency Rations — Su Ze Decided to Get a Chainsaw.

Su Ze decided to go get a chainsaw.

A carnivorous wutong squatting right at the complex gate was an enormous hazard. No one knew whether it would keep mutating—getting rid of it served the interests of the majority.

Absolutely not because he wanted to saw it open and have a good, close look at which parts were edible.

Decision made, Su Ze put away the cleaver. He’d just turned to leave when a root at his feet wound around his ankle.

The next second, countless roots erupted, binding Su Ze tight as a cocoon in an instant.

At the same time, one root drew its tip out from the layered stems, its outer skin splitting open like a blossoming flower to reveal a beige core—and something like a mosquito’s proboscis.

This proboscis was about the length of a human forearm, two fingers thick, translucent throughout, with a sharp tip that clearly revealed a hollow structure—like an enlarged hypodermic needle.

Su Ze understood at once why every set of remains had shown no flesh or blood—only skin—and why the clothing had been perfectly preserved.

As the mutated wutong bared its proboscis, the roots binding Su Ze began to move. Some wound around his head, others around his body, forcing his chin up and baring his slender, porcelain-white neck.

Watching the mutated wutong raise its proboscis high and stab straight for his throat, Su Ze’s gaze darkened. Wrenching his right hand free from the layered binding of roots, he seized it.

The mutated wutong visibly stiffened, but recovered quickly and began thrashing violently, the roots around Su Ze constricting ever tighter in an attempt to make him let go—or strangle him outright.

But no matter how it struggled, Su Ze’s grip on its proboscis didn’t budge an inch. He even pulled his left hand free, seized the beige skin below the proboscis, and ripped fiercely downward along the split!

Bark that even the cleaver couldn’t cut now peeled open along the split like corn husk, continuing on its own until Su Ze’s hand stopped—restricted by his limited range of motion—revealing a full meter of exposed core.

To any plant, the root is the most vital organ—mutation changes nothing about that.

Seeing its most vital—and most vulnerable—part exposed, the mutated wutong panicked at once, hastily drawing out several more roots, baring their proboscises and stabbing them straight at Su Ze!

Crack!

At that exact moment, a crisp snap rang out. The mutated wutong’s whole body shuddered, and its menacing roots froze in midair.

After a brief moment of processing, it abruptly began thrashing in a frenzy!

This human had snapped off its proboscis!

Expressionless, Su Ze tossed the proboscis away, pulled the twitching core over with his left hand, brought it to his mouth, and took a bite.

It tasted a bit like sugarcane, but easier to swallow, without the stringy residue. And once he bit through the beige skin, beneath it was a soft, tender inner cortex that melted at a bite—several times more nutritious than the digestive fluid.

This was the perfect emergency ration!

Su Ze’s eyes lit up. His right hand seized the base of the peeled core, and he stripped again.

Working both hands like this, Su Ze peeled out nearly three meters of core in moments. The mutated wutong frantically jabbed its proboscises at him in its desperation, yet couldn’t leave so much as a mark.

Watching the roots dance through the air, regret showed in Su Ze’s eyes.

Why did humans only get two hands?

Realizing it could do nothing to Su Ze—and was in fact in danger of being eaten by him—the mutated wutong wrenched hard, severing its own root, while its remaining roots coordinated to hurl Su Ze away.

Clutching the six-meter root, Su Ze flew more than a dozen meters. Just before landing, he rolled with the momentum, skillfully dissipating the impact.

By the time he steadied himself and looked back, he caught the mutated wutong tearing itself out of the ground, vanishing around the intersection at astonishing speed.

Su Ze: “…” At least let me strip two more!

Oh well. This one root would already feed him for days, and with a target that huge, it shouldn’t be hard to find.

Thinking this, Su Ze lowered his head to examine the root in his hands.

The root was about three fingers wide at its thinnest and over twenty centimeters at its thickest, heavy in his hands. A hollow tube ran through its center—presumably the post-mutation stele, used to transport nutrients.

Seeing the stele, Su Ze thought for a moment, then snapped the root in half to examine the broken cross-section carefully.

This root probably hadn’t pierced any humans or animals before—the tube was clean, without any foreign matter. Judging from the mutated wutong’s earlier attack pattern, it seemed to be in the habit of using only one root at a time.

Su Ze breathed a sigh of relief. He also noticed that the closer to the base, the thicker the stele grew, the thicker the inner cortex, the nutritional value multiplying accordingly. The section in his hands was less than a third of a single root; by his estimate, the thickest part of the mutated wutong’s base should exceed half a meter.

…Why did humans only get two hands?

Su Ze gnawed at the root, seething with envy. After filling his stomach, he cut it into half-meter sections, slotting the thinner pieces into the steles of the thicker ones, one inside another, before packing them all into his backpack.

Backpack on, feeling that heavy weight settle against his back, Su Ze suddenly understood that old saying.

With grain in hand, the heart knows no panic.

Slightly steadied at heart, Su Ze looked up toward the intersection where the mutated wutong had vanished.

The Pingyuan Residential Complex where Su Qiuyu lived wasn’t just old—it was also remote, formerly what you’d call the urban-rural fringe. In recent years, the city’s expansion had raised high-rises all around, but the old street where the complex sat remained largely unchanged.

The street was narrow, one end connecting to the main road out of the city, the other leading to the city’s booming new development zone—and the intersection where the mutated wutong had fled was precisely the end leading to the new zone.

Su Ze hefted his backpack and, without the slightest hesitation, set off in the direction the mutated wutong had fled.

Walking all the way to the intersection, he looked around and found the new zone wasn’t in any better shape—if anything, it was worse.

The broad streets were empty of people, every storefront shuttered, not one business open. Beyond that, several car accidents had occurred—rear-ended vehicles abandoned outright in the street, cars that had plowed into the green belts with no one to deal with them.

More terrifying still: bloodstains everywhere in sight, but not a single corpse to be seen.

Su Ze stood before a car overturned on the sidewalk, staring at the blood-spattered scene, lost in thought.

Judging by the volume of blood, the driver must have died on impact—no seatbelt, slammed into the windshield. The car doors hadn’t opened, and there were dragging marks on the hood.

Dead men don’t move themselves—someone must have moved the body. But for what purpose? Money? Then where was the dragged-out corpse? Where had it gone?

There wasn’t even any clothing left behind…

“Hey… hey! Young man… young man! Don’t stand there! Get away—there are… there are monsters!”

A shrill, staccato female voice came from above. Su Ze looked up to see a young girl poking her head out from behind a second-floor window, face full of urgency.

The moment Su Ze saw her face, he remembered—this girl was the owner of the convenience store downstairs.

Taxis were hard to hail on the old street, so Su Ze always had to walk to the intersection to catch one. Sometimes, when the wait ran long, he’d sit a while on the bench outside her store, and every time, the girl would try to chat with him—though he almost never responded.

This time, Su Ze finally spoke.

“What monsters?”

The girl’s eyes went wide—whether surprised that Su Ze could actually speak, or startled that he knew there were monsters here yet wasn’t leaving immediately.

“They… they look like people but aren’t… that… that man was taken by them… and a flock of birds… with wiggly feelers in their beaks… and a tree just went by too…”

By the end, the girl’s voice was trembling. Seemingly afraid the monsters would slip in through the gaps around the window, she threw out a “hurry up and go,” shut the window with a clatter, and drew the curtains behind it.

People? Birds?

Su Ze was utterly baffled, but from the look of her, the girl clearly wouldn’t be showing herself again. He could only commit the information to memory and continue along the trail of mud the mutated wutong had left on the ground.

As time passed, Su Ze gradually sensed more and more hidden gazes converging on him from all directions. Some were timid and terrified; others were cold and merciless. Their one commonality: they all hid in the darkness.

Beyond that, he heard all kinds of sounds—suppressed weeping, eerie teeth-grinding, whispered conspiracies and inexplicable pants and low growls—like noisemaking toys shut inside little boxes, a hundred strange varieties.

And every now and then, he’d catch the scent of blood drifting from who knew where.

Yet he never once saw the monsters the girl described. Even the stray cats and dogs, the insects, rats, and ants so common in cities had vanished without a trace.

Reaching the crossroads without incident, Su Ze followed the mutated wutong’s trail, crossed the street, and turned left onto the road leading toward the city center.

He hadn’t walked far when he suddenly heard several furious shouts.

“Throw the alcohol first, then the lighter!”

“I tore apart a few chairs! Made torches out of cloth strips!”

“Old Ma, what the hell are you even aiming at!”

Alcohol? Lighters? No way… no way! An ominous premonition flashing through his mind, Su Ze sprinted toward the voices. Barely reaching the end of the street, he smelled burning wood.

Su Ze quickened his pace, crossed the road, turned into the intersection, and saw—

His anointed rations burning furiously in the flames.

Mutated it might be, but at its core it was still a tree. However many people it had eaten before, the mutated wutong’s brain capacity remained no match for a human’s.

Through ambush, it had indeed obtained plenty of food with ease. But once humans grew alert, it could neither get close nor escape—all it could do was thrash its roots in agony amid the flames.

The group who’d run into the mutated wutong moved with great agility, circling it back and forth—dodging proboscis strikes while hurling objects, bottling it firmly in the street. Everything they threw that struck the tree burst into sparks, feeding the flames.

Judging by the smell, Su Ze determined they were throwing accelerants of some kind—alcohol, most likely.

Su Ze stood at the street’s end watching from afar, his heart aching beyond all bearing—yet he didn’t step forward to stop them.

The mutated wutong was far too aggressive, and it could move. Even if he wanted to keep it as emergency rations, the precondition was keeping it away from people.

He’d tracked the mutated wutong all this way precisely to drive it somewhere uninhabited. If that failed, he’d find a way to finish it off, then take as many roots as he could carry.

And now, all he could do was watch his rations turn to ash…