Chapter 21: New Mission — Who? Su Ze?

Having heard Wei Fengtang’s and Qin Yu’s account of these past few days, the first thing Xing Lyu’s four felt was the weight of it.

The deaths of the survey team members and their comrades, the Mutated Giant Bear’s aberrations—it all let them feel, skin and bone, the weight of duty and of truth, and let them understand why Wei Fengtang would gamble his life for a gene sample from that bear.

His heart had already given its answer, but Xing Lyu did not agree rashly.

If it were only himself, he would have stepped forward without a second’s hesitation. But Su Ze was here, and his teammates, and his childhood friend Lin Xiuzhu—while the importance of Wei Fengtang and Qin Yu, two of the field’s foremost biologists, went without saying.

With that in mind, Xing Lyu voiced the question in his heart. “Academician Wei—how did you escape?”

Wei Fengtang gave a bitter smile. “Shameful to admit, but for reasons unknown I spent most of these days in a dead sleep, and I couldn’t tell you what actually happened. But according to Qin Yu, it was Su Ze who saved us.”

“…Who? Su Ze?” Xing Lyu’s mind went blank. He glanced at his first love beside him, who was sitting there with the serene composure of a monk meditating on his own navel, then looked to Qin Yu as if to verify. “Su Ze saved you? How?”

Qin Yu pressed her lips together. “Honestly, I’m not entirely sure myself… At the time, Captain Zhou volunteered to stay behind and hold the line to buy us time. Little Lu carried Teacher while I ran with them. But the Giant Bear caught up almost immediately—it had even fused Captain Zhou’s vocal cords… And then Little Lu…

“I didn’t make it far with Teacher before my strength gave out. All I could do was use my post-mutation ability to raise a cage of branches, hoping to stall for time until rescue came… By the time I woke, the Giant Bear was already dead. Aside from Teacher and me, the only person at the scene was Su Ze. So…”

Three people at the scene. Two unconscious, one bright-eyed and bouncing—and a Mutated Giant Bear that had slaughtered ten special forces soldiers, dead for no discernible reason. Short of divine punishment falling from the sky, it rather had to be the one still standing. Right?

Xing Lyu studied Su Ze for a long, unsettled moment. However he looked at him, the man was exactly as he remembered. The boy who used to faint just doing morning exercises had killed a bear? A Mutated Giant Bear that had killed ten special forces soldiers?

“…You… how?”

If I said I got lucky, would you believe me? Su Ze let his gaze travel once around the circle, landing at last on Xing Lyu, face placid and pulse even. “I mutated.”

“You mutated?” Xing Lyu startled and grabbed him by the shoulders, scanning him up, down, left, right, as if wishing his eyes had X-ray. “You mutated? Where? Did it hurt? Any effects?”

Letting himself be inspected at will, Su Ze answered with perfect calm. “Stronger. Faster. Didn’t hurt. No effects.”

“Huh, that sounds awful familiar?” Before Xing Lyu could react, Little Bear cut in, stroking his chin.

Then, all at once, he slapped his thigh. “Holy shit! Isn’t that the Mutants? The gene-mutation ones! You… you’re one of those Mutants? Then how come you look so… so normal?”

Su Ze answered serenely. “I don’t know either.”

Little Bear gaped. “That’s a thing?… So did your nails grow out? Scratch my wife and see? Are there others like you? How high can you jump…”

Xing Lyu’s patience finally snapped. “Yu Junxiong. Done eating?”

Little Bear startled, crammed the compressed biscuit in his hand into his mouth, and got up and went. Dazi followed on his heels, and the two, weapons up, walked into the dense forest and began their patrol.

Xing Lyu checked his watch and called after them. “Back in two hours for shift change!”

Little Bear and Dazi threw up matching OK signs and vanished into the trees.

Xing Lyu withdrew his gaze, gave Su Ze one more look, then turned back to Wei Fengtang. “One more question. Where is the bear’s body?”

Wei Fengtang looked to Qin Yu, who answered quickly, “Not far. At most a day’s travel from here.” Half a day, in truth—the problem was having her and Teacher as two dead weights dragging the pace…

Xing Lyu nodded. “I understand the situation. I’ll report it to Command Headquarters, lay out the facts, and push for your request as hard as I can. But I want your word: whatever Command Headquarters ultimately decides, you will cooperate with us and see the mission through.”

The meaning was plain: if Command Headquarters rejected the request and ordered them back at once, Wei Fengtang would have no standing to object. He would go with them.

Wei Fengtang was silent a long while. At last, he nodded. “All right. I will cooperate.”

With that promise secured, Xing Lyu turned to Dayu. “Contact Command Headquarters.”

“Sir.” Dayu acknowledged, produced the Satellite Phone from his pack, punched in a long string of numbers, and handed it over once the line connected.

Satellite Phone in hand, Xing Lyu rose and walked to the rim of the firelight, standing on the seam between light and dark as he began his report.

Watching his childhood friend like this, Lin Xiuzhu was visibly off balance, muttering, “Almost looks presentable.” Then he turned to Su Ze, curious. “That bear—did you really kill it?”

In Wei Fengtang’s telling, the Mutated Giant Bear had been impervious to blade and bullet alike—rounds simply sank into that pelt, unable to reach anything vital.

It had appeared without warning and exacted a terrible toll on the survey team and the special squad alike. Only when the sniper shot out both its eyes did the rest gain a day’s head start. Yet when the bear caught up again, its eyes were somehow whole and unscarred—and its bulk had swelled another ring larger.

From its later fusion of human vocal cords, Academician Wei Fengtang had deduced that this Mutated Giant Bear possessed both Gene Mutation and Gene Fusion—and could steer the direction of its fusions.

And a bear like that, uncanny and unpredictable, had been killed by a freshly mutated Su Ze? If there had truly been no one else at the scene, Lin Xiuzhu would have suspected Wei Fengtang and Qin Yu of sharing one hallucination between them.

Su Ze would have loved to deny it, but there was simply no one else to pin it on. He could only answer, vaguely, “It was wounded. And slow.”

“Really?” Lin Xiuzhu and the others turned to Qin Yu—the sole person present who had kept any wits about her—as if to verify.

The bear, slow? For one instant, Qin Yu doubted it—but she quickly talked herself around. She had been half-conscious at the time, terror-stricken and running on fumes; her senses misfiring wasn’t impossible.

“It’s possible… It chased us for three days. Fatigue would be natural,” Qin Yu said, her expression wavering at first but firming with every word. “And we fought back the whole way. The damage was small, but it adds up—it must have counted for something…”

Lin Xiuzhu and Dayu nodded, apparently satisfied—but Wei Fengtang and Xing Lyu, who had just finished his call and come back over, both wore the look of men turning something over.

A Mutated Giant Bear capable of regrowing blinded eyes, slowed down by the accumulated damage of pinprick attacks?

However deep his doubts ran, none of it touched Xing Lyu’s face. He handed the Satellite Phone back to Dayu, came around, and sat down beside Su Ze, addressing Wei Fengtang. “I’ve reported everything to Command Headquarters. They need time to weigh it—their decision will come by tomorrow morning at the latest.”

Wei Fengtang let out a slow breath. Deliberation was better than summary refusal.

With everything that needed saying said, and fatigue written plainly on Wei Fengtang’s face, Lin Xiuzhu opened the camping chest, drew out the single bed and sleeping bags, and had a reasonably comfortable bed together in a few efficient motions.

Xing Lyu watched the whole production with a strange look on his face before the question finally burst out of him. “Why are you hauling all this around with you? And why are you in Changling Mountain at all? With Su Ze, no less?”

At the first questions Lin Xiuzhu looked distinctly smug—but the last one landed, and he went speechless. “That last bit’s the one you actually wanted to ask, huh? Relax. Su Ze and I ran into each other by pure chance. I was not secretly staying in touch behind your back!”

He rolled his eyes. Then, seeing Wei Fengtang and Qin Yu push the bed back and forth over who should take it, he simply laid out a second bedding from the tent fabric and let the two of them sort it out themselves.

Satisfied with the answer, Xing Lyu let it go. Once Wei Fengtang lay down on the bed and Qin Yu settled onto the simple bedding, he glanced at Su Ze, rose to clear a patch of ground, and spread over it a sheet of fabric pulled from his pack—thin as anything.

When it was done, he looked at Su Ze. “The fabric looks thin, but it’s waterproof and insulated. If you’re tired, sleep here.”

Su Ze looked at the patch of camouflage on the ground and said nothing. Xing Lyu didn’t push it. Having said his piece, he rose and walked over to Lin Xiuzhu, bending to study the eight tentacles closely.

“So how did this happen?”

Lin Xiuzhu folded his arms and sneered. “What’s this? Finally have a moment to care about me?”

Xing Lyu folded his arms too, brow arched. “You’re a grown man standing right here. Six extra legs—did you expect me to fuss over you like a wet nurse?”

Lin Xiuzhu rolled his eyes. “Who the hell wants that!”

“Then say you don’t, and quit yapping.”

“What, do I owe you or something?”

Lin Xiuzhu was still glaring when Xing Lyu’s arm hooked around his neck and hauled him toward the trees.

“Not talking, huh? Fine. Let’s spar.”

“Spar this, you animal!”

Cursing up a storm, Lin Xiuzhu nevertheless didn’t resist, walking off arm-in-shoulder with Xing Lyu into the dense forest. In the end the two of them stood in the darkness within sight of the campfire, leaning against a tree, talking.

“…Alive is what matters.” Having heard the whole account of Lin Xiuzhu’s days, Xing Lyu let a long breath go. “When the mission’s over, come back to base with me.”

“Base? What would I do there? Line up to be turned into teppanyaki squid?” Lin Xiuzhu smiled bitterly.

Xing Lyu held it in. Held it in. Failed. “You fused octopus genes. If they cook you, it’d be takoyaki.”

Lin Xiuzhu: “…”