Little Pink Starfish

An Zhe just watched with wide eyes as his spore extended a hypha to touch Lu Feng through a layer of glass. Even when Lu Feng moved his hand away, the hypha drooped down, the posture even faintly carried a trace of disappointment.

Seeing the spore behave like this, An Zhe unexpectedly felt a little sad, as if he had just personally experienced it. When Lu Feng raised his hand, he didn’t want him near the spore, but when he let go, he wanted him to stay a little longer.

In this brief second, the screen switched to a researcher in a white coat, who said that this sample was showing an unprecedented dormancy in infection mutation.

“After four months of analysis and research, the extract of this sample does not cause infection to any organisms. At the same time, when we used extracts from mutated organisms to infect the sample, no structural change was observed,” the researcher said. “The Lighthouse believes this could be the breakthrough for overcoming mutation.”

An Zhe tightened his grip on the thermos handle. Humans saying his spore was the breakthrough to overcome mutation—this meant the spore would be very strictly protected.

Finally, the anchor summarized the news in an upbeat tone, saying the future of the base was bright and thanked the scientific personnel for their contribution.

The news time ended. Then came the weather forecast. According to the Lighthouse’s observation, the area where the base was located would experience a significant temperature increase in the next three days, reminding all areas—especially the Lighthouse laboratories and Eden’s crop cultivation base—to prepare accordingly.

An Zhe had no heart to keep listening. He left home and got on the shuttle. All along the way, he was thinking about how he could get close to his spore—first, he needed to know the exact location of that lab, then observe the researchers’ working patterns. Generally, researchers wouldn’t stay in the lab 24 hours a day. If he could enter the lab through the ventilation ducts when no one was there, and then find a way to retrieve the spore into his body—

Then he could figure out how to leave the human base and return to the Abyss.

If the experimental sample was stolen, humans would definitely investigate thoroughly. Other than escaping, it seemed he had no other choice.

Thinking of this, An Zhe turned his head blankly and looked through the shuttle’s window at the city bright with lights in the night. The aurora had risen, the green light rolling and rapidly changing in the night sky, just like the passing of time.

The broadcast sounded: Twin Towers arrived.

An Zhe, holding the thermos, got off the car, used Lu Feng’s ID card to swipe in, entered the lobby, and went upstairs. In the silver corridor, every lab was brightly lit, different instruments making different frequency sounds, coming and going in waves. He found the doctor’s lab, but only Dr. Ji and his assistant were inside.

“You’re here,” the doctor looked up at him, said, “Lu Feng will be back soon.”

“Okay.” An Zhe placed the thermos on the workbench, unscrewed it, and served the doctor a bowl. The thermos worked well—the soup was piping hot, its rich fragrance rising with the steam, filling the whole lab.

“Oh my god,” the doctor picked up the utensils he handed over, “you’re so nice.”

An Zhe smiled faintly.

Doctor: “Aren’t you eating?”

An Zhe: “I’ll wait for him to come back.”

Doctor: “Tsk.”

“I’m not waiting for him.” The doctor said, then looked at his assistant: “Keep playing.”

Assistant: “Okay.”

An Zhe looked toward the computer screen in front of the doctor. The central window was playing Sinan’s surveillance footage. Below that was another window, partially covered, where you could see a mail sending list. The doctor had sent separate emails to “Underground City” and “Institute.”

His gaze returned to the video of Sinan—the gray bee. Lily was chatting aimlessly with it. One moment she was saying, “Will you have honey?” and the next, “Is being a person more fun or being a bee more fun?”

He said: “It got bigger.”

And it was a noticeably bigger change.

The doctor ate a piece of chicken, squinted at the screen: “Indeed.”

The assistant promptly said: “Gained 10 kilograms.”

Doctor: “Did it eat anything?”

Assistant: “No intake.”

Doctor: “That’s it.”

“It’s not a good time to think about this during dinner,” he said, “originally I was in a good mood.”

An Zhe asked him: “What’s wrong?”

“The changes and growth of aberrants not only defy existing definitions in biology but also constantly challenge the law of conservation of energy,” the doctor looked at Sinan and said, “Living things take in energy from the outside world to convert for themselves. But when humans become aberrants, their body size might increase tenfold, muscle mass much higher than humans—where does all that energy come from? Human flesh as an incubator can’t provide that much. It’s practically creating something out of nothing.”

An Zhe said nothing. He didn’t have this kind of knowledge, but the creatures in the Abyss were indeed massive.

“Forget it,” the doctor sighed, “our knowledge system has completely failed, that’s all.”

He continued to immerse himself in the delicious mushroom soup, but his gaze still didn’t leave the screen.

When he was about to finish,
the doctor didn’t answer. An Zhe looked at his eyes and screen.

“Replay,” he said.

The assistant rewound the video to one minute earlier.

Lily, tired of talking, leaned against the glass wall: “Don’t bang the wall, it hurts.”

Her words were tired, but the Lighthouse was more fun than Eden.

At that moment, Sinan briefly regained consciousness, its furry and spiny limbs lightly tapped the glass.

Lily: “You’re awake.”

The limbs trembled slightly, tapped a few more times.

The doctor furrowed his brow.

“Half speed. Replay again.”

The image was zoomed in, slowed down, focused on its tapping motion.

“The interval between the first and second tap is the same. After a long pause, another tap. Another long pause,” the doctor took a notebook, quickly marking with a pen, “Then three consecutive taps with equal intervals.”

As he spoke, he wrote down the numbers 2, 1, 3.

The video ended. Doctor: “Next segment of conscious activity.”

The assistant started adjusting the progress. He looked like the doctor’s student, and asked: “Are you suspecting it’s using tapping frequency to convey a message?”

Doctor: “This is definitely abnormal… but he’s just a six-year-old kid.”

He looked at An Zhe: “What math and logic classes do you have?”

An Zhe: “Arithmetic, geometry, and reasoning.”

“Do they teach extracurricular stuff?” Doctor asked, “Like Morse code or the like?”

“No,” he then said, “He didn’t get into Class A, wouldn’t have that high of an IQ.”

An Zhe: “He scored full marks. Not being placed in Class A was due to psychological factors.”

The doctor nodded in acknowledgment, started watching the next video. This clip had Sinan conscious for only a brief moment; it tapped twice quickly, with different intervals than before.

The doctor drew two closely spaced dots on paper: “Next one.”

In the next clip, Sinan tapped the wall seven times with identical intervals.

Then the next clip—it was awake for a full five seconds. In the first half of the video, its behavior was strikingly similar to the previous clips: two taps, one tap, three taps. After those three sets, it paused a long time, then tapped twice quickly. This clip looked like a combination of the previous two.

The doctor jotted down notes. The video continued. In the fifth clip, it tapped seven times evenly. In all subsequent conscious segments, it kept repeating this pattern until 5 o’clock, when Lily was taken back by Eden staff.

The doctor wrote down the string of numbers:

2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 7, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 7, 2…

Assistant: “Should we get someone from mathematics or cryptography to decode this?”

“No need,” Doctor said. “The message he wants to convey is short, it won’t be hard… let me think.”

An Zhe frowned at the string of numbers. Humans communicate with language; he didn’t know how numbers could carry a message unless they encoded letters.

“2, 1, 3…” The doctor’s furrowed brows slightly relaxed.

An Zhe hesitated for a moment, then said: “b, a, c?”

“Alphabet,” the doctor quickly wrote down ‘bac’ on the paper. An Zhe looked at his earlier notes—after 2, 1, 3, Sinan had tapped twice, so it should be bacaa. The sixth set was seven taps—7 corresponds to the letter g in the alphabet.

Matching his thoughts, the doctor wrote ‘bacaag’, underlined the two a’s.

Assistant: “Those two taps had short intervals, maybe a different language signal.”

“11,” the doctor suddenly said, “Two quick taps don’t mean two separate 1s, but the two-digit number 11.”

11 corresponds to the letter k, so the sequence becomes ‘backg’.

Doctor: “How’s his English?”

An Zhe: “Also full marks.”

Foreign languages made up nearly 50% of the language and literature classes. If these kids grew up and entered the Lighthouse, they’d need strong language skills to access human civilization’s archives.

“Back,” the doctor said a word, then moved the letter g to the front, narrowed his eyes, “go back. Very concise. If it were in another language, it wouldn’t be this short. And…”

Assistant: “And within Lily’s range of understanding. If she noticed, she’d get it.”

Doctor nodded: “He wants her to go back. What does that mean?”

The video was still playing. Lily weakly said to the erratically flying Sinan: “Doctor said the base is really dangerous now. You have to help us, or else everyone turns into monsters—it’s very scary.”

Assistant: “If they are close friends, it means Eden is safe. And he knows or foresees the outside being dangerous, so he wants her to go back.”

“But the boy was infected and mutated in Eden,” the doctor pondered, “Does this mean there’s now an aberrant in Eden, and the Tribunal’s investigation shifting there is just a diversion?”

Assistant: “Do we need to call a meeting?”

The doctor glanced toward the lab door: “Why isn’t Lu Feng back yet?”

He dialed with his communicator, but got a busy signal. Assistant said: “He might be in a signal-blocked lab.”

An Zhe, sensing a chance, quickly asked: “What’s he doing?”

“Still the project from this afternoon,” the doctor said, “They believe the colonel can promote the sample’s growth, insisted on him bringing the child.”

An Zhe blurted out: “I can go find him.”

Doctor smiled, looked at him: “You two are really close.”

“Sure, bring him back, and eat dinner too,” doctor said. “That lab is high-level, joint military and Lighthouse. Take the elevator to floor 13, cross the corridor bridge, look for room D1344.”

An Zhe: “Okay.”

He turned and left the lab—clearly Lu Feng was now with his spore. Maybe that person was right next to the glass tank, or even playing a game of mutual touch with the spore. He didn’t know why this would happen, but he definitely didn’t believe the nonsense about “Lu Feng promoting spore growth.” The spore wasn’t mature enough to grow on its own when taken away. It would only grow inside or near him.

The elevator arrived. Inside were two researchers discussing the recent weather.

“Temperature surge after the wind, the weather’s been extremely erratic.”

“Summer’s here, so it’s kind of normal. The base fears temperature drops more than rises.”

“True.”

“But I heard it’s due to fluctuations in magnetic field strength.”

“Problems with the artificial magnetic poles?”

“The lab next door detected several abnormal pulses. Our eastern pole is fine. Everyone agrees it’s the west pole being manually adjusted.”

“Wow,” the researcher smiled, “Tech progress in the Underground City base?”

“I guess. Otherwise no one dares to mess with the poles. They’ve contacted the united front center, applied to open high-frequency shortwave communication with the Underground City.”

“Everything’s improving.”

Everything was indeed improving. He was about to see his spore again—the elevator door opened, An Zhe walked out.

The bridge between the Lighthouse and the United Front Center was wide, its sides made of transparent glass or some other material.

Lab D1344 was easy to find. He knocked on the door.

A voice: “Please come in.”

As soon as An Zhe entered, he saw the glass tank in the center—exactly the same as the one in the news, and that small white clump—

Next to it was Lu Feng in a black uniform, finger on the tank. The spore was wobbling toward him—then this person moved his finger away, placing it at a far-off spot.

Then the spore slowly changed direction and headed toward the new spot.

Just as it was about to reach it, Lu Feng moved again, deliberately not letting it touch him.

An Zhe watched this scene, so angry he almost forgot to breathe—and Lu Feng’s expression looked calm, but was actually pleased. He seemed to have found fun in bullying the spore.

Just then, Lu Feng looked up at him, raised an eyebrow.

An Zhe looked around—complex instruments and monitoring equipment, over a dozen researchers. This meant he could only watch the spore from afar.

No, he could do one other thing—take away the one bullying the spore.

He walked to the tank. Annoyingly, the spore didn’t float toward him, but still hovered near Lu Feng.

Lu Feng spoke lightly: “What’s wrong?”

An Zhe’s tone was not friendly: “You should go back and eat.”

In Lu Feng’s eyes seemed to be a hint of amusement—bullying the spore had actually brought this person so much joy.

Just then, Lu Feng walked to his side, then said to a researcher: “I’m leaving.”

Researcher: “Please be sure to come back tomorrow.”

An Zhe gritted his teeth, took one last look at the helplessly drifting little spore in the nutrient solution, as the lab door quietly closed before him.

He and Lu Feng walked along the corridor.

He said: “You’re really going back there tomorrow?”

Lu Feng: “Mm.”

An Zhe: “Are you playing with the sample?”

Lu Feng: “Cooperating with research.”

An Zhe didn’t believe a word. He stayed silent. They turned a corner, reaching the corridor bridge back to the Lighthouse. On both sides were the city night and aurora in the sky.

Lu Feng seemed to sense his mood: “You’re not happy?”

An Zhe didn’t answer.

Lu Feng stopped, looked at him.

An Zhe turned to look at the aurora outside. The whole world seemed to quiet for a second.

Then—

An Zhe’s pupils shrank!

In that moment his whole body felt a sharp pain. The light was too strong. He instinctively closed his eyes. The aurora exploded in a flash as bright as daylight, like a bolt of green lightning across the sky.

Next moment, Lu Feng grabbed his shoulders, pulled him down hard. His whole body was pressed to the ground. They rolled once on the floor—this all happened in a split second.

An Zhe wasn’t hurt. Lu Feng’s arm had shielded him. He opened his eyes and found himself pulled back into the corridor.

Lu Feng helped him up.

An Zhe’s head buzzed. He looked toward the corridor bridge—and froze.

The aurora was fading—all of it.

After that brief burst, it dispersed in the night sky like receding tides. The color faded in ten seconds, then vanished.

A brilliant galaxy stretched across the blue-purple night sky.

He had never seen such a scene. Then he looked down—the lights of the human city flickered chaotically, reflecting with the Milky Way.

Corridor lights flickered wildly. From the labs came the sound of chaos. Several researchers ran over.

Lu Feng pulled An Zhe back to a place where they couldn’t see outside. Facing the rushing researchers, he spoke in a deep voice: “—The magnetic field?”