Chapter 19: Something’s Off — Secret Experiments? Foreign Spies?

A primeval forest at night was full of unknowns, and no amount of human training could rival an animal’s night vision.

So when they found a relatively flat spot with open sightlines, Xing Lyu checked the sky, glanced at his Tactical Watch, and spoke:

“Little Square, stand by. Everyone else, rest in place. Ten minutes from now, Little Bear and Dazi sweep the vicinity. Anything you find, come back and report first. In an emergency, fire a signal flare immediately. Unless circumstances demand otherwise, no one goes solo.”

“Sir!” Little Bear and Dazi answered in unison. Little Square, upon receiving its orders, settled down in place, its half-circle eyes flattening into two lines as it entered semi-hibernation. Dayu drew several items from inside Little Square and began laying out a few simple traps.

Ten minutes later, Little Bear and Dazi rose at the same moment and slipped into the dense forest, beginning their patrol with the temporary camp as its center.

Meanwhile, no more than three kilometers away, Su Ze’s group of four had found level ground backed by a small slope and were preparing to build a fire and cook.

Su Ze had originally meant to go hunt down a few more animals, but Lin Xiuzhu pinned him on the spot. “Give it a rest! Didn’t you snag a rabbit on the way here? Stop terrorizing the poor animals. Besides, we’ve no idea whether this area is even safe. You stay and keep watch; I’ll go pick some fruit or something, and we’ll make do with a simple meal.”

Su Ze eyed the seasoned, roughly half-meter rabbit arranged over the fire, hesitated a moment, and grudgingly conceded. “…Fine.”

Lin Xiuzhu breathed a sigh of relief and headed straight for the dense forest.

This spot wasn’t far from the cave, but it did lie beyond his usual range. If some fierce beast showed up, he could rely on his Regeneration Ability to get away—but what about Wei Fengtang and Qin Yu?

Abandoning them would sit badly on his conscience, yet he lacked the nobility of spirit to lay down his life for them, so Su Ze staying behind to protect the two while he went foraging was the best solution to the problem.

And so Lin Xiuzhu ambled through the dense forest, making a beeline for any edible fruit he spotted, until half an hour later, he barged straight into Little Bear and Dazi’s patrol route.

Almost the instant Lin Xiuzhu’s figure appeared, Little Bear and Dazi slipped behind two trees, trading tactical hand signs.

Little Bear: Mutant?

Dazi: No. Gene Fusioner.

Little Bear: I’ll tail him. You go alert the Deputy Captain.

Dazi: No going solo unless circumstances demand it!

Little Bear: I’m the scout. Besides, I’ve got a gun.

Dazi glanced at the submachine gun hanging on Little Bear’s chest, recalled the figure they’d glimpsed—who hadn’t seemed to be carrying any weapon at all—and finally nodded, hands signing: Stay hidden. Fire the flare the moment anything happens.

Little Bear: Got it.

Dazi gave him one long look, slung his sniper rifle across his back, dropped low, and hurried back.

Lin Xiuzhu hadn’t the faintest inkling he was being tailed. He was weighing the pocketful of fruits and roots in his shirt, debating whether to gather a few more.

But one look at the darkening sky killed the idea, and he turned back the way he’d come.

Forests were easy to get lost in at the best of times, and by night they became unrecognizable. Better to head back while he could still see. Worst came to worst, Su Ze still had a whole backpack of wild boar meat!

Su Ze, utterly unaware that his precious pork belly was being coveted, was fixed intently on the roasting meat, silently calculating just how much of it he’d get.

No matter how he divided it, there wouldn’t be enough… With this many mouths, why didn’t some oblivious little animal come barreling into camp? Su Ze sighed, low and mournful. Then, all at once, his brow knit and he turned to look.

Catching his movement, Qin Yu looked in the same direction. “What is it?”

Su Ze listened carefully for a while, then returned his eyes to the meat. “Nothing.”

The slightly chaotic rustling would be Lin Xiuzhu. As for the other set of footsteps trailing behind him—Su Ze didn’t know who it belonged to, but he could make a fair guess.

Only two kinds of people would risk entering Changling Mountain at this point: Mutants like Lin Xiuzhu, and soldiers on a mission.

Judging by the cadence, the volume of the footfalls, and the way the follower held a constant distance without once showing an opening, it would be the latter.

As for why they were following Lin Xiuzhu—also easy to guess.

If you spot an anomaly mid-mission, you gather information on it, establish whether it threatens the operation, and then decide whether to eliminate it.

Which suited him fine. Once they were confirmed to be soldiers, he could hand Wei Fengtang and Qin Yu over and go back to happily touring and grazing his way through Changling Mountain!

Decision made, Su Ze glanced up at intervals—so transparently that even Wei Fengtang noticed. So when Lin Xiuzhu came pushing through the trees and arrived, he looked up to find six eyes gleaming at him.

Lin Xiuzhu: “…” Were they really that starving?

Lin Xiuzhu strode to the fire and held out his shirt, fruit and roots piled in its folds, to Wei Fengtang. “Academician Wei, would you check whether anything here shouldn’t be eaten?”

Wei Fengtang nodded and accepted the bundle, stealing one more glance at Su Ze before lowering his head to sort through it.

Su Ze didn’t notice the look. Having confirmed the stalker was lying in wait in the brush a hundred meters out, he reined himself in and stopped checking—if they were soldiers, seeing Wei Fengtang would surely bring them out into the open.

Little Bear did indeed see Wei Fengtang—but held his position. He studied the four people gathered around the campfire, and the longer he looked, the less right it felt.

A Gene Fusioner with octopus legs, a university student pale as a ghost, plus Academician Wei Fengtang and Dr. Qin Yu—the combination was bizarre from every angle.

How had two Mutants ended up in Changling Mountain? How had they ended up traveling with Academician Wei? With a full kit of camping equipment, no less?

Connecting it to Academician Wei’s stated purpose for entering Changling Mountain, Little Bear’s train of thought careened straight off the rails. The longer he looked, the more certain he became: something was wrong!

Secret experiments? Foreign spies? Treason of the biochemical-weapons variety?!

Entirely unaware that his party of four had just been convicted of a stack of fabricated crimes, Su Ze waited left and then right for someone to jump out. When nobody did, he couldn’t help glancing at the brush again.

What were they waiting for? Weren’t they coming out?

Little Bear nearly jumped out of his skin.

Shit! I’ve been made?

Then he hid himself even better.

Su Ze: “…”

Another hour crawled by before Little Bear—who had by then fallen back beyond two hundred meters—was finally joined by Xing Lyu’s trio following his markers, Little Square included.

The moment he laid eyes on Xing Lyu, Little Bear reported in a rapid, hushed voice: “Four people total. Two Mutants, Academician Wei Fengtang, and Dr. Qin Yu. No signs of coercion, no hot weapons.”

At the name Wei Fengtang, astonishment broke across all three faces.

A full two days had passed since the last member of the special squad’s signal had gone dark—and Academician Wei Fengtang wasn’t merely alive, he’d happened to cross paths with them just like that?

Xing Lyu smothered his questions and asked, “Your assessment?”

Little Bear said, with great gravity, “My deduction: they’re all in it together. Objective: the meteorite—and deploying biochemical weapons.”

To put it kindly, Little Bear was a chatterbox with a rambling imagination; to put it bluntly, he was the squad gossip who loved letting his thoughts run wild. Xing Lyu’s brow didn’t so much as twitch. He asked directly, “What are they doing right now?”

Little Bear choked, an odd look sliding onto his face. “They’re… barbecuing.”

“Barbecuing?” Dazi couldn’t help echoing.

“Yep. Barbecue. BBQ. Smells pretty great, actually.” Little Bear swallowed hard around the words.

Xing Lyu: “…We’re going over for a look. Little Square, stand by.”

Little Square sank back into semi-hibernation, and the other three trailed Xing Lyu as they closed in on the target.

By now, Su Ze’s group had finished dinner and were chatting idly.

“Hold on—Academician Wei, you were unconscious nearly that entire stretch?” Lin Xiuzhu asked, more than a little startled.

“I was. If my students and the soldiers hadn’t carried me in turns, I’d have died out there.” Wei Fengtang’s voice stayed fairly level, but grief bled through his eyes, a sheen of moisture welling beneath the surface.

Qin Yu, who had already wept herself out twice, rushed to redirect the conversation. “Not unconscious exactly. ‘Dead asleep’ describes Teacher’s condition more accurately, I’d say.”

The ploy worked instantly. Wei Fengtang’s attention swiveled right around. “That’s true. I’d wake on my own whenever I grew hungry or thirsty—I simply couldn’t stay awake. Extreme fatigue, constant drowsiness. The 10th and 11th were the worst, and the symptoms eased off gradually after that…”

As he spoke he drifted into thought, murmuring fragments like “protective mechanism” and “supply and demand” under his breath.

Qin Yu knew this state of his all too well—once her teacher went under into a problem, hauling him back out was a lost cause—so she switched topics without ceremony. “And what brought the two of you to Changling Mountain? Sightseeing?”

Lin Xiuzhu jabbed back on pure reflex. “Who goes sightseeing on Changling Mountain? People tired of living?”

Qin Yu ignored him, eyes bright as she turned to Su Ze. But Su Ze hadn’t registered a word of the exchange—every scrap of his attention was fixed on the people closing in.

Three more… why was there a mechanical whir among them? Heading this way… one hundred fifty… one hundred… fifty… hm? Why’d they stop? You’re joking. More observing? There are only four people here, half of them old, weak, or invalid. Is this much caution actually necessary?

More baffled than Su Ze were Little Bear’s trio.

They had assumed a straight rush on the target at minimum, a tactical envelopment at best—instead, halfway in, Xing Lyu simply stopped dead. The other three, sensing trouble, scattered instantly behind trees, trading hand signs.

Little Bear: What’s wrong?

Dayu: No idea.

Dazi: Deputy Captain… holy shit!

Only then did the three notice: Xing Lyu was still standing out in the open like a fence post!

Xing Lyu was staring hard at the campfire several dozen meters away, and the longer he looked… the more damn familiar all four of them seemed!

Especially the one angled away from him—skin pale enough to throw back light, a profile so flawless it hurt… He had stared at that profile for three entire years of high school. There was no mistaking it!

Had the Deputy Captain’s brain short-circuited? Little Bear darted forward and grabbed Xing Lyu’s arm, only to have it shaken off. He could only watch, stricken, as the man strode toward the target in great unhurried strides.

Shit! Where were the tactics? The caution? His duty as the squad’s Deputy Captain? Should they tackle him? Forget it—just knock him out!

While the three stood there slack-jawed, Xing Lyu covered the distance to the campfire in a few strides, his face caught between shock and fury—

“Su Ze! What are you doing here?!”