Little Pink Starfish

Lunch turned out to be mushroom soup.

Sibei explained it was grown by himself inside the mine—clean and safe. Oyster mushrooms grew quickly, and there was still enough left for several meals.

Upon hearing this, An Zhe quietly shrank into a corner. Sibei looked so kind and gentle—who would have thought he was also a murderer of mushrooms?

Yet An Zhe had no choice but to become an accomplice in eating mushrooms.

Before the meal began, he noticed Lu Feng glancing at him lightly. An Zhe believed the colonel must be remembering how he didn’t get to have a bowl of mushroom soup before leaving the base. That seemed like a regret—and humans didn’t like regrets. Eating it now, perhaps, was a way to make up for it.

After the meal, Sibei showed them the food storage—not much: some mushrooms, a few strips of dried meat, and a bag of salt.

“The meat is from before,” Sibei explained. “Sometimes the traps catch small monsters. The really strange-looking ones can cause infection if eaten, but the more normal-looking ones—like those that resemble old animals—are safe to eat.”

Lu Feng said, “Low-mutated monsters are edible 24 hours after death.”

“Then my uncles were right,” Sibei said.

Lu Feng asked, “What kinds of monsters are around here?”

“There are birds, lots of lizards, and sometimes big rats,” Sibei said. “Sometimes insects too, like spiders. We mostly eat rats.”

“But after the sandstorm, I saw very few. I saw two especially ugly things,” his face paled a little. “Really huge. I was scared they’d see me. I only looked at them through binoculars. I’ve never seen anything like them before. Do you know what they are?”

“This area should be the Eastern Hills—originally not heavily polluted,” Lu Feng said. “But five days ago, a magnetic field failure caused secondary mutations, and hybrid-type monsters started appearing.”

Sibei: “…Huh?”

Lu Feng’s voice was deep. “Originally small monsters merged through the food chain into large hybrid monsters.”

Sibei turned even paler.

An Zhe listened to Lu Feng’s explanation and thought: monsters devouring one another, reducing in number but greatly increasing in mutation level. What’s more terrifying was this same thing might be happening all over the planet—each day more chaotic than the last.

Lu Feng looked at Sibei. His eye shape and color gave his gaze a cold, sharp edge. Sibei clearly wasn’t used to it yet and peeled another bit of lacquer from the table.

Lu Feng asked, “Has anyone mutated in the mine before?”

“Yes, yes. One uncle got bitten by a monster and then bit others.”

“What did you do?”

“We sent him out.”

Even though communications were still down, Lu Feng continued fulfilling his duties. In the afternoon, he borrowed paper and pen from Sibei and recorded the mine’s situation.

At night, it was time to rest. The entire mine had only one working generator. The wiring was damp and aging. Only one room still had power. The two of them stayed there.

An Zhe finished bathing, dried his hair, and leaned against the bed playing with magnets. In this mine, magnets were everywhere.

He held one in each hand, trying to press two like poles together. There was clearly only air between the black magnets, yet no matter how much force he used, he couldn’t bring them close—as if an invisible force was pushing them apart.

He frowned. He didn’t understand why. There were many things humans knew that he didn’t, just like there were many things about the world that humans didn’t understand. But he was stubbornly determined to press them together. He thought, if one had enough force, anything could be made to touch.

Footsteps sounded—Lu Feng entered the room. His coat had been washed by An Zhe and was now drying in the ventilation area. An Zhe looked up to see the colonel now wearing only a black military undershirt. His shoulders and arms revealed smooth, powerful muscle lines. His pants were tucked into black boots, emphasizing his tall and striking figure. His hair was roughly towel-dried, slightly messy, with sparkling droplets at his bangs.

An Zhe looked at him. Without the judge’s uniform, without the badge, Lu Feng seemed just like a young officer with a bright future and real authority. Even though his brows remained cold and his light green eyes showed no warmth, An Zhe thought he looked more relaxed now. Suddenly, he remembered: by human standards, twenty-something was still a young age—just the beginning of everything.

That young man fiddled with the communicator, but it only repeated: “Sorry, due to solar wind or ionospheric interference…”

He turned it off and placed it on the table. Then sat down beside An Zhe.

An Zhe still couldn’t make the two like poles connect. He looked at Lu Feng.

Lu Feng reached over and took the magnets. “Try the opposite poles.”

An Zhe frowned.

Lu Feng switched them. Opposite poles quickly snapped together, tight and seamless.

An Zhe took them back and kept fiddling. No matter how he tried, like poles repelled each other with an unstoppable force. But opposites—once close—snapped together as if destined.

He was a mushroom. An Ze had never taken physics. Even together, their knowledge couldn’t explain this.

Lu Feng said, “Magnetic field.”

An Zhe asked, “Same as the artificial magnetic field?”

“Mm,” Lu Feng replied.

An Zhe: “Can’t be seen?”

“No.”

“Why can’t it be seen?”

Lu Feng tucked him into the blanket. “A lot of things are invisible.”

An Zhe murmured “oh.” It was a bit hot under the covers, so he stuck his arms and shoulders out.

Lu Feng noticed the collar of An Zhe’s soft white shirt and tugged it down.

Beneath the collar, originally smooth milky-white skin was covered in bluish and purplish marks—uniformly distributed, so evenly that it was hard to tell where the first injury had been.

An Zhe said nothing. He pulled Lu Feng’s hand away and quietly adjusted his collar back up.

Lu Feng’s gaze lingered. He recognized those marks. When the base used high-voltage torture on serious criminals, no one could endure it without confessing. The aftereffects were diverse—physical and psychological. The skin marks were only one; many never escaped the nightmares.

But after wrapping himself tightly in the blanket, An Zhe just lowered his lashes and calmly said, “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Lu Feng looked at his peaceful expression. Sometimes he wanted to bully him, other times he wanted to treat him well.

An Zhe shifted inward, making room on the bed for Lu Feng.

It was small. When Lu Feng lay down on his side, they were very close. An Zhe noticed a bruise on his arm from what looked like a blunt force. He also saw dark marks or scratches on his shoulder.

He reached out to touch the longest scar—but halfway there, worried about hurting the colonel, he pulled back and curled up obediently.

The colonel’s voice seemed gentler. “Sleep.”

An Zhe softly replied, “Mm,” and closed his eyes.

His lashes cast light shadows under the lamp, making him look even softer, even more peaceful. His entire body was relaxed. Lu Feng could easily tell. This little mutant seemed certain Lu Feng wouldn’t harm him—even after enduring electric torture.

It wasn’t the first time Lu Feng couldn’t understand his behavior. When they first met—on that chaotic night when An Zhe had nowhere to go—he had invited him in without hesitation.

At the time, Lu Feng had thought the boy had ulterior motives. Or maybe he was just absurdly naive, like his expression—completely unaware that people didn’t usually invite strangers to stay over.

He’d thought that then. He asked now.

“…Aren’t you afraid of me?”

An Zhe slowly opened his eyes under the dim lamplight. A soft haze seemed to cloud them—almost beautiful.

He seemed half-asleep already. His voice was muffled. “Afraid of what?”

Lu Feng didn’t answer. He propped himself up, looking down at An Zhe. His gaze was heavy. Then he picked up the gun on the pillow. The cold barrel tapped An Zhe’s cheek.

An Zhe’s clear gaze met his. He frowned, seeming annoyed. He pushed the gun away and turned over—accidentally pulling the blanket with him.

Lu Feng looked at his slender neck and his thin, gently rising back. He looked like someone easy to hurt—or easy to protect.

After a long moment, he turned off the light and lay back down.

The weight of a body pressed lightly on him. An Zhe had pulled the blanket back over him.

Like a dragonfly lightly touching the surface of a summer night lake.

The ripples stirred more than just the water’s calm surface.

In the silence, moved by some unknown emotion—or maybe just instinct—Lu Feng reached out and hugged An Zhe from behind. His arm pressed against An Zhe’s. An Zhe shifted slightly. At first, he tried to move his arm down. Then, finding no place to rest it, he moved it up—his fingers resting on Lu Feng’s forearm, like how he used to curl his mycelium around nearby rocks or tree trunks.

Lu Feng felt the movement.

Then An Zhe’s soft voice rose. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll infect you?”

Lu Feng didn’t answer. Just as An Zhe hadn’t answered him earlier.

A judge trusting a mutant. Or a mutant trusting a judge. Who could say which was more absurd—whatever the reason. Perhaps their first meeting had already been the start of the most absurd story in the world.

But in the dark, no one could see each other’s face. In this isolated place, in this unknown hour, it seemed like nothing mattered. Everything could be forgotten. Everything could be allowed.

Listening to An Zhe’s soft, steady breathing, Lu Feng closed his eyes.