Chapter 11: Octopus. All Su Ze Wants Is Meat.

Ask any biologist to name the most dangerous field research sites in the world, and Changling Mountain would certainly make the list.

First, because the mountain was vast—not particularly high in elevation, but complex in terrain, like a giant maze filled with every kind of trap. Second, because it abounded in species: venomous snakes and fierce beasts everywhere, and one careless step could land you in the tiger’s jaws.

So what had this Changling Mountain become after the apocalypse?

The first thing Su Ze felt was eeriness. One hour into the mountains, he had already encountered three Mutated Plants.

One hunted with vines, able to weave branches buried under fallen leaves into nets. One had grown flowers that gave off the scent of berries, and stabbed its branches into any prey that came near to drain its nutrients. The third had all but lost its plant characteristics entirely, slithering slowly across the ground like a snake—an eerie green blanket on the move.

The second thing was the quiet. Not that birdsong and insect chirps were absent, but that the chaos one would expect never materialized.

No monster free-for-all, no rampaging plants. Of the three Mutated Plants Su Ze had met, only the flowering one had actively attacked him; the other two had seemed full, ignoring him completely even at close range.

Su Ze bit into the Peeled Branch in his hand, still unsure how to classify it. Call it a root—it was really a branch; call it a branch—it had the traits of a root. But whatever it was, it was as tasty and nutritious as the Mutated Wutong Tree Root.

Still, all Su Ze wanted was meat.

So why no monster free-for-all? Wasn’t this the perfect time to seize new ecological niches? Or was it simply too soon, and everyone had yet to adjust to their new identities and roles?

In any case, Su Ze wandered for a full hour without seeing a single animal.

“It won’t even give me the chance to eat something raw and bloody…” Su Ze grumbled, turning his mind to where he might rest for the night.

He finished gnawing down the last of his remaining branches, got his bearings, and pressed on toward the deep mountains, keeping an eye out for a cave or some other place to shelter.

After another two-plus hours of walking, with the sky growing darker by the minute, Su Ze finally caught a flash of gray among the deep tree shadows.

His eyes lit up at once and he bolted toward it. As the distance closed, he saw what it was—

A Mutated Creature that looked like a wild rabbit but had a body the size of a small wild boar. Four sharp fangs protruded from its mouth; it stood upright on its hind legs, the claws on its two front paws tipped with jet-black, hook-like nails, roaring at something.

It noticed Su Ze’s approach almost immediately, threw a threatening roar in his direction, glanced back at what stood opposite it, then whirled around to flee.

How could Su Ze let meat already in his mouth fly away? He drew the Kitchen Cleaver and hurled it—and in the same instant saw something else fly straight through the air from behind the trees on the rabbit’s other side.

That something struck the Mutated Wild Rabbit with pinpoint accuracy, sending it staggering into a tumble across the ground. But precisely because of that, the cleaver Su Ze threw missed its target, grazing past the rabbit to bury itself upright in the soft earth. Seizing the opening, the Mutated Wild Rabbit vanished into the depths of the forest within a few leaps.

“…!”

Su Ze burned with fury. He yanked the cleaver out of the ground, turned, and made to execute whatever had ruined his hunt on the spot—only to hear a startled shriek:

“Su… Su Ze?!”

Su Ze looked over sharply. Between the layers of tree shadows stood a man roughly two meters tall. His face was filthy, but his good looks were still plain to see—especially a pair of peach-blossom eyes, amorous and flirtatious, unmistakably a heartbreaker at a glance.

Su Ze’s memory held only one person who matched that playboy face. His high school classmate, the school-famous rich kid, Xing Lyu’s childhood friend and lackey—

“Lin Xiuzhu?”

Having precisely located the name in his memory, Su Ze’s gaze drifted down of its own accord—to Lin Xiuzhu’s lower half.

There were no human legs there. Instead there were Tentacles, a vermilion-brown color, a full eight of them, each lined with white suckers. One look said… delicious.

Being stared at made Lin Xiuzhu’s scalp prickle. His eight tentacles shifted behind him of their own accord. “W-what the hell are you looking at?! Never seen octopus legs before?”

Su Ze nodded. “Ones growing out of a person—those, I admit, I’ve never seen.”

Lin Xiuzhu: “…”

Su Ze: “If I remember right, octopus can be eaten raw?”

Lin Xiuzhu: “…???”

Joking aside—if he could actually bring himself to take that bite, he wouldn’t have fled all the way from Liyang to Changling Mountain.

Stuffing the Kitchen Cleaver back into his backpack’s inner pocket, Su Ze walked toward Lin Xiuzhu. “What are you doing here?”

“Sh-shouldn’t I be the one asking that?” Lin Xiuzhu’s voice suddenly turned panicky. “S-stop right there! Don’t come any closer! A-aren’t you afraid I’ll eat you?!”

Su Ze blinked, then something clicked. “No need to worry. The monsters outside are scarier than you.”

Lin Xiuzhu: “…Well, thanks a lot!”

“You’re welcome.”

“…” This guy was as insufferable as ever! Lin Xiuzhu ground his teeth inwardly, but he no longer flinched away from Su Ze’s approach.

Standing beside Lin Xiuzhu, Su Ze studied his tentacles carefully and found that they fused with him remarkably naturally. Starting from the waist, his skin faded gradually from white into vermilion-brown, and the tentacles branched off right around the tops of his thighs—well-proportioned, not jarring at all.

It seemed even the texture of his skin had changed… Su Ze mulled it over for a moment and asked again, “What are you doing here?”

Seeing that the other man wasn’t asking any strange questions, Lin Xiuzhu privately relaxed and snapped, “You’re here—why can’t I be?”

Then he looked Su Ze up and down, eyes brimming with confusion. “Last I remember, you were a certified sickly boy who’d be gasping after a few quick steps. So how did you just now…” Lin Xiuzhu had zero doubt that if that cleaver had connected, it could well have finished off that rabbit on the spot.

Su Ze thought for a moment and answered, too lazy to explain much, “Same as you. Mutated.”

“Hah?” Lin Xiuzhu’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. “Who’re you kidding? Where exactly did you mutate?”

Wasn’t this still that vixen face—prettier than a woman, white enough to blind, more delicate than Xi Shi—the face that had hooked his best friend’s soul clean away the moment it appeared?

Su Ze rattled off a fabrication. “Like the Mutants—greater strength, greater speed. I just haven’t lost my mind.”

Lin Xiuzhu stared, dumbfounded. “Mutants? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“…When did you enter Changling Mountain?”

“Five days ago.”

Su Ze’s brow furrowed slightly. “Five days ago? You mutated that early? What caused it?”

As he spoke, a spark flashed through his mind and he blurted out, “Seafood? Green River Manor?”

Lin Xiuzhu nearly jumped clean off the ground in shock. “Fuck! How did you know?!”

“…” So it really was!

“…Halfway through the meal I started feeling off. Since someone was using the villa’s first-floor bathroom, I went up to the second floor, and the moment I stepped in, the pain knocked me out cold. When I opened my eyes again, I was like this. I was afraid of frightening people, and afraid of being caught and sliced up for study, so I climbed out the window and drove straight into the mountains.”

Lin Xiuzhu sighed. “That’s the whole story. What about you? What’s the deal with the Mutants?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. Humans mutated.”

“…Fuck! Like in zombie movies?”

“Mm.” Su Ze glanced around, then shifted the conversation straight to what he cared about most. “Where does that rabbit from earlier roam?”

“Rabbit?” Lin Xiuzhu was still reeling from the news that zombie movies had come true, and it took him a while to catch up. “Those rabbits live in groups. They rarely leave their own turf, and it’s hard to come across a stray. You’re out of luck today…”

“They live in groups? Where?” Su Ze hadn’t taken in a single word past “groups.” His eyes shone as he stared at Lin Xiuzhu.

Lin Xiuzhu: “…I’m advising you not to scheme on them. One on one, fine. A whole warren is pure suicide.”

“Where?”

“…!”

A few minutes later.

“You are genuinely trying to get yourself killed, I swear. Those rabbits have insane hearing, crazy jumping power, and those claws are fucking hooked! Even with skin as slippery as mine, they never miss. When I run into a stray, all I dare do is toss rocks from way back and kite it…” Lin Xiuzhu rattled on as he led Su Ze into the woods.

Over these past few days he had mapped out the whole area—which places to go, which to avoid, the territory of every creature nearby, all crystal clear in his mind. He’d taken his lumps along the way, but nothing serious. Worst case, octopus Regeneration Ability was decent enough—sacrifice a limb, live to crawl another day.

But when danger came, he could run. Su Ze, with those little arms and legs, wouldn’t even fill the gap in a monster’s teeth.

…Whatever. He was Old Xing’s dream lover, after all. He couldn’t exactly stand by and watch him die, could he? Lin Xiuzhu shot Su Ze a sideways glance and huffed twice inside.

But while he’d help, the lecture was non-negotiable—he’d been sitting on that grudge for five years. Besides, he’d said his piece; if the man insisted on delivering himself to his own beating, whose fault was that?

With that thought, Lin Xiuzhu shut his mouth and led the way in sullen silence, while Su Ze, ears open in every direction, also spared some attention to observe the man beside him, his own mind churning.

Not mutating like the Mutants, but fusing with another creature—was that an isolated case, or a whole other direction of mutation? Those tentacles were over three meters long, yet moved at that speed without tangling—had his coordination evolved along with the mutation?

And weren’t octopuses marine mollusks? Their mobility on land was supposed to be terrible—so how was he moving like this? It flatly violated biological common sense. Was it the influence of human genes, or mutation in some other sense?

Right as he was thinking, Su Ze’s ear twitched. With one hand he drew the Kitchen Cleaver from his backpack’s inner pocket, tossed out a “wait here,” and shot off.

“Wait—!” Lin Xiuzhu’s jaw dropped. That rabbit warren fucking lived in the bushes upstream of the stream ahead!

Deathly afraid that Old Xing’s dream lover was about to kick the bucket on the spot, Lin Xiuzhu hurried after him—only to discover, aghast, that he couldn’t keep up with Su Ze at all. All he could do was watch helplessly as the man burst out of the forest and made a beeline for the bushes.

He’s lost it! Lin Xiuzhu nearly popped his eyes out of his skull, but what happened next was even more surreal—so much so that for a moment he wondered if he was dreaming.

Su Ze tore into the bushes at blistering speed. Before the wild rabbits could so much as react, he split open the nearest rabbit’s body with a single chop. Amid the spraying blood, he spun and kicked away another rabbit lunging at his back, snatched up a small bunny mid-stride, and hurled it like a shot put to knock a third one flying.

Immediately after, he ducked under a rabbit’s leaping attack, and the instant it began to drop, he seized the opening and swung the cleaver sideways—one stroke slicing open its belly.

In the span of a few seconds, he had instantly killed two adult wild rabbits. The remaining rabbits sensed the danger and bolted in every direction, vanishing without a trace in the blink of an eye.

Lin Xiuzhu stared at the scene, too shocked to speak for a long while. Only when Su Ze walked back up to him, two wild rabbits in hand, did he finally squeeze out a sentence: “…If you’d shown up in front of Xing Lyu looking like this back then, no way in hell would he have fallen for you.”

Su Ze’s steps stopped short. “Who are you talking about?”

“Xing Lyu! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten him. You two were inseparable back then—practically one person…”

“What about him and me?”

“…He liked you!”

“He liked who?”

“…”

Old Xing, eight years of devotion, and in the end it was all poured down the drain!!!