Chapter 22: Picnic — This Is Called Hopeful Expectation

Having roasted his childhood friend without mercy, Xing Lyu pivoted to reassurance. “Stop making things up in that head of yours. Gene Fusioners like you aren’t common in the military, but they’re not rare either. They do cooperate with the Research Institute on some studies—but it’s blood draws and physicals, at most a scraping of skin, a few hairs, nail clippings. Nothing like dissection. Nobody’s running those crimes-against-humanity experiments.”

Lin Xiuzhu was half convinced. “…Really?”

Xing Lyu crossed his arms. “You don’t trust me?”

Lin Xiuzhu was quiet a long time. “…I trust you, obviously. But can the state really treat us all the same? What about ordinary people? Sure, nothing’s happening now—but what if things keep getting worse?”

Xing Lyu opened his mouth, then closed it. He genuinely couldn’t guarantee the future. “Then what? You plan to hide out in Changling Mountain forever?”

Lin Xiuzhu opened his mouth, and it took a long moment before he said, low, “…Let me think on it.”

“Fine.” Xing Lyu sighed and glanced back toward the campfire.

At some point Su Ze had lain down on the ground cloth he’d spread. The ground was too hard, so he could only sleep on his back—and his profile, washed in the leaping firelight, had a hazy, unreal beauty to it.

The person he had worried over for a month lay right there in front of him, and even as relief washed through him, Xing Lyu felt, with aching clarity, everything he had kept pressed down for so long—and suddenly understood that old line.

Love, born from none knows where, deepens beyond all measure.

“Hey? Hey! You’re staring yourself stupid?” Lin Xiuzhu waved a hand in front of Xing Lyu’s face, caught between laughing and crying. “It’s been how many years and you’re still carrying a torch? He’s not that pitiful little thing anymore. A man who can beat a Mutated Giant Bear to death could squish you by accident.”

“Speaking of which—” Xing Lyu was about to press for details when a familiar voice sailed in from behind him.

“Deputy Captain! Can we add to the menu tonight?!”

Xing Lyu turned to find Little Bear and Dazi each toting an enormous Golden Pheasant, standing a short way off and grinning at him ear to ear—beside them stood Su Ze, upright again at some point without anyone noticing.

Xing Lyu: “…”

They were here to execute a mission. Why did it feel like they were on an outing?

A few minutes later, six people sat around the campfire, Lin Xiuzhu processing the pheasants while Little Bear boiled water and delivered his patrol report.

“Academician Wei had it right. The forest is far safer than we imagined. The biggest threat isn’t the mutated creatures—it’s the terrain. And those creatures generally don’t attack people unprovoked, and there are no large predators in the area. The safety margin beats facing Mutants in the city by a country mile.”

“So you two caught a couple of chickens to prove it?” Xing Lyu looked, expressionless, at the Golden Pheasants—both of whom had already shuffled off this mortal coil.

“W-well, we happened to run into them… a-and! Maybe somebody didn’t get enough to eat earlier! Right?” Little Bear trembled under Xing Lyu’s stare and shot desperate, pleading looks at Su Ze and Lin Xiuzhu.

Su Ze supplied a very cooperative “mm.” Lin Xiuzhu offered an indifferent nod.

Xing Lyu: “…Fine. Keep it down. Academician Wei and Dr. Qin are asleep. Don’t wake them.”

Little Bear snapped up an OK sign and zipped his lips shut for good measure.

After a bustle of activity, with the aroma of roasting chicken starting to curl through the air, Little Bear’s dam finally burst.

“Smells amazing~ If every mission could be this easy—and come with a hot meal—that’d be the life.”

“Dream on. Coming home without holes in you would already be lucky.” Dazi punctured the fantasy without expression.

“It’s called hopeful expectation, you ignorant—!”

Catching the exchange, Lin Xiuzhu frowned. “Is it that bad out there?”

Little Bear was quiet a moment. “…Bad. It’s mainly the Mutants. Their mutation never stopped progressing, and there are more of them all the time, and they’re violent. They’re hard to put down.”

“Violent? Don’t tell me it’s really like the zombie films—biting anyone they set eyes on?”

Having stayed holed up in Changling Mountain, Lin Xiuzhu had carried a persistent illusion that the whole world was more or less the same as his mountain. Dangerous, sure—but keep your head down, don’t go asking for trouble, and you’d stay safe.

Who could have guessed that Changling Mountain held a Mutated Giant Bear willing to run prey down for three days and nights straight—and that the cities held Mutants that ate people? Was this world ever going to be all right?

“Pretty much.” Little Bear clapped the arm of Dayu beside him. “His arm nearly got torn off by a Mutant’s claw. They’re vicious. If it weren’t for the sunlight—if hot weapons didn’t work on them—the cities would’ve been theirs long ago.”

At that, Su Ze looked at Dayu—whose face wore its usual good-humored grin, without a shadow of an injury—and blinked. “You were hurt?”

Dayu scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “Already healed.”

Healed? The apocalypse had begun five days ago—counting the incubation period before it, one month. An arm nearly torn off, healed this fast?

A guess formed, vague, in Su Ze’s mind—then his attention slid right back to the chicken.

The Mutated Golden Pheasant lived up to the “mutated” in its name, grown tall and stout. Little Bear’s trio ate one alongside their rations until their bellies swelled and the burps came in volleys.

Su Ze split the other with Xing Lyu and Lin Xiuzhu, finally filling the gap dinner had left behind.

As they cleared up after the meal, Lin Xiuzhu couldn’t help asking Xing Lyu, “Why are Mutants so aggressive, anyway?”

Xing Lyu passed Su Ze a stick of gum, mentioning in passing that it was a dental product the Academy of Military Science had developed, then answered, “No definitive conclusion yet. But the Research Institute’s guess is a hunting instinct gone into overdrive, driven by a runaway metabolism.”

The explanation went in one of Lin Xiuzhu’s ears and out the other, his face none the wiser—but Su Ze, chewing his gum, felt a spark go off behind his eyes, as if a piece had clicked into place.

Xing Lyu checked his watch. “It’s late. Get some rest. Patrol found nothing, so I’ll take first watch. Dayu relieves me at three.”

“Sir.” The three soldiers acknowledged and quickly laid out their bedding.

Lin Xiuzhu looked around the circle, lost. “Where do I sleep?”

Xing Lyu flicked a finger at his teammates. “Squeeze in with them.” Anyone at all, so long as it wasn’t next to Su Ze.

Little Bear, seeing this, patted his own spot—already spread with the high-tech fabric. “Take mine, then. I’ll bunk with Dazi. Neither of us is big; we’ll fit.”

“Thanks, brother.” Lin Xiuzhu didn’t stand on ceremony, walking over and flopping down.

Quiet soon settled around the fire again. Xing Lyu took up his post on the slope behind them, standing straight as a blade, watching the black wall of forest—like an evil dragon guarding its secret hoard.

At three in the morning, Dayu rose punctually to take the watch. Xing Lyu nodded to him and came down the slope. Passing Su Ze, his step caught—a single second’s pause—before he went on to Dayu’s bedding and lay down.

In the darkness, Su Ze’s violet eyes flickered once, bright as starlight—and were gone, as if they had never been.