Anzhe fell into a dream.
He had had such a dream a long time ago - the day he left Lu Xun.
Sometimes, when he was awake in the daytime, he fell into a dream again in a trance, probably because of the feeling of a dying person. He didn't mention it to Polly. The inexplicable coughing up blood, high fever and pain in various parts of the body had already consumed too much of Polly's energy.
In the dream, his body was divided into two halves, one half in the Highland Research Institute, and the other half in an unknown place. There was no pain, and there was no heavy human body.
In the dream, he had no eyes, no ears, no sense of smell, and no human perception. It was like the feeling of being buried in the rain-soaked soil when he was born. Mushrooms have their own senses, which cannot be described in human language.
He knew that he was not far from Lu Xun. This must be due to his delusion after leaving Lu Xun, but it did not prevent him from getting closer to Lu Xun in his dream.
This dream was not always happy. Sometimes he was put into a sealed container and kept company with cold liquid. At the beginning, he was next to Dr. Ji, and later it was always Polly, as well as many people who came and went.
He had nothing to do. If Lu Xun was around, he would cling to him. If Lu Xun was not around, he would soak in the liquid and recall his life.
Those distant memories floated to the surface, in the soil, in the rainy season, in winter, and in the base.
When he thought of something, he would get closer to Lu Xun. Lu Xun's fingers touched his hyphae. He seemed to be finally staying with this person quietly. He was always on the edge of being half awake, but he didn't want to wake up. In the real world, he and Lu Xun could never be like this.
But when he recalled his memories for the hundredth time, he still had no dreams to dream, so he chose to wake up.
He found that he was still alive.
Now recalling that moment, he no longer remembers it, and the fluctuation of emotions makes many other places become blank.
He only remembers that he was standing at the door, and Lu Xun turned out from the lush spring scenery - he stared at him blankly like that, unable and dared not to move forward. He had too many dreams, and the full moon that broke at the touch of a finger had broken too many times.
Until Lu Xun walked in front of him.
When this person was not around, he cried many times, and sometimes he thought of him and trembled violently, but at this moment, when he really saw Lu Xun, he couldn't help but curl up the corners of his lips.
He reached out to touch Lu Xun's outline. He couldn't tell if he was thin or haggard. It was too far away. He had never seen this person before.
Only then did a line of tears fall from the corner of his eyes. He withdrew his hand and stared at Lu Xun blankly. Then he was hugged from the front. He wiped the tears from his cheeks with his fingers. He leaned on Lu Xun's shoulder and whispered his name in a hoarse voice.
"It's me," Lu Xun said.
The people in the lab congratulated him. Polly had brought a person who had been completely wiped out back to life. He couldn't imagine how this worked. The people in the lab told him a lot of terms, like genes, frequencies, and samples. He was confused, but human technology has always been amazing, so he accepted it.
It had been three years since he jumped into the Simpson cage.
The outside world had calmed down.
The era of genetic chaos ended with the ringing of a bell. Its frequency was sent to the whole world. It was impossible to judge whether it was good or bad, because at that moment, all tangible things were infected by the frequency and had stability. A person would always be a person, and a monster would always be that monster. They could undergo polymorphic mutations, but the one who ruled consciousness would always be the ruler at the moment when the bell rang.
As for why this was the case, Polly explained that after many experiments and comparisons, the frequency analyzed by the Simpson cage was closer to a definition of matter itself.
For example, when facing an apple and an orange, humans know that this is an apple and this is an orange, but the apple itself does not know that it is an apple, and the orange itself does not know that it is an orange - they will never know, only humans know.
Morning fungi do not know the new moon and full moon, and cicadas do not know spring and autumn. Human biology is just a superficial analysis of the surface with many errors and omissions. They also cannot know what makes them up and what determines that they are human - that is a system that four-dimensional creatures cannot understand.
However, through the Simpson cage's analysis of elementary particles, they briefly glimpsed a tiny reflection of the truth, glimpsed the clues of the true definition, and grasped a few frequencies worth mentioning. In this symphony of the universe, humans are the notes that are most easily disturbed by other creatures. This mushroom that inexplicably has its own consciousness is the stable frequency that can accommodate everything. When this stability is given to the world, a brief peace will come.
"This is probability," said Polly Jones, "Probability is fate, and being alive is accidental."
When he heard this, An Zhe had just been fed a peeled apple by Lu Xun.
The newly picked apple only needed one bite, and it was full of sweet and slightly sour juice. He forgot what he wanted to say just now, and Lu Xun stuffed another piece into him.
"What about oranges?" he said, "What do oranges taste like?"
Lu Xun said, wait until autumn.
Polly invited them and their apples and future oranges to go.
On the way back to the room, An Zhe ate half of the apple and left the other half for Lu Xun. He had intended to peel the apple for the colonel, but Lu Xun would not let him touch the knife.
An Zhe did not argue with the colonel on this matter. If it were not for Lu Xun, he would not really want to eat the apple. He was sleepy and it was time for a nap.
But he could not sleep. He took a tablet and flipped through it.
The tablet contained the information he had collected from various places in the past ten days since he woke up.
The electronic version of the United Daily News, the research records copied from Dr. Ji's computer, the experimental manual copied from Polly's computer, and many other similar things.
Lu Feng came to sit next to him, and he quickly turned around to avoid the man.
Lu Feng chuckled softly and stuffed the remaining half of the apple into Anzhe's stomach.
Although the apple was delicious and the colonel was good-looking, Anzhe didn't want Lu Feng to be by his side when he was looking at the data. He was always suspicious and felt that Lu Feng was looking at his screen.
But the hateful thing was that when he woke up, he found that Lu Feng had occupied his room in the research institute before - every furnishing in this room was exactly the same as before he died, but the owner had changed.
He tried to get Lu Xun to move next door, but Lu Xun told him expressionlessly that if he didn't want to share a room with me, he could continue to sleep in the nutrient solution cabin.
An Zhe: "
Three years, three years of time did not make this man's character even a little bit kinder.
So he could only share a room, a desk and a bed with the colonel.
In the end, he was so suspicious that he could no longer continue to read the materials, and he was so sleepy that he had to sleep.
"So boring."
On the bed, Lu Xun hugged him from behind, and he looked at the white wall and shivered.
The colonel's voice was like a stream of ice and snow that had just thawed: "Where do you want to go?"
"I want..." An Zhe looked at the wall, his eyes slightly confused.
He had a place he wanted to go.
Besides him, it was a place that only Lu Xun knew about. He had never even mentioned it to Polly.
"I want to find Anze." He said softly.
In the cave where the whole thing started, Anze's skeleton was still waiting for him. He had a lot to say to Anze.
He remembered every word Anze said to him. Anze said that he was a person whose life was meaningless - he wanted to tell Anze the origin of several dramatic changes in the North Base, and wanted to tell him the source of the last bell.
If he hadn't met Lu Xun and Anze, nothing would have happened. Destiny was twisting and turning in countless coincidences.
But the abyss was so big that he couldn't find it, and no one would be willing to accompany him to find it. This was always an unattainable wish.
"But I can't find it." He murmured, "I don't know how to do anything, and I don't remember it."
"I can." Lu Xun whispered in his ear, "Go find it." An
Zhe widened his eyes.
It was like a dream. On the second day, after saying goodbye to Polly, their armored vehicle was airdropped by a transport plane to the center of the abyss. The captain was the pilot of PL1109. Before saying goodbye, he told them to remember to look for the traces of Hubbard and Tang Lan. They had not confirmed their whereabouts since the monster siege of the research institute. Now the only thing they could be sure of was that although Tang Lan was seriously injured, he was still alive - there were no bodies of the two of them within a ten-mile radius.
"I seriously suspect that they went to recuperate, then got lost, and then laid eggs." The captain combined the news and facts, made the final inference, and drove the transport plane away.
Lu Xun opened the armored car door and took An Zhe in. The ground was covered with velvety green grass that reached his ankles. An Zhe looked into the distance. It was late spring, and the deep green color spread out into the abyss, stretching as far as the eye could see. The leaves and branches tumbled in the slender wind, and the sound of birds flapping their wings could be heard in the distance. He had come to this place again.
He looked at Lu Xun. Lu Xun had accompanied him here, which was even more unexpected for him.
He asked, "Why are you here?"
Lu Feng raised his eyebrows slightly, "Don't you want to come?"
"For good," An Zhe said, "Don't you work for humanity?"
"The Tribunal is disbanded." Lu Feng looked at him and said, "If there is still a war, or when I am needed, come back to the base."
There was no pain or hatred, or anything else in those cold green eyes - he seemed to be leaving something, and also seemed to be relieved.
An Zhe reached out and plucked a fallen soft leaf from Lu Feng's shoulder, and he was held in Lu Feng's arms.
"I want to be with you now." In the silence, he heard the colonel say lightly.
"...Why?" He hugged Lu Feng's shoulders, put his lower body on this man's shoulders, and whispered.
He didn't say what he was asking, but he knew Lu Xun knew. It seemed like the two of them never had to talk too much.
He knew he liked Lu Xun, but he didn't know why Lu Xun liked him.