Little Pink Starfish

Then, they discovered more evidence in the room.

The window was hard to open because the steel frame had already fused with the base.

As for the skeleton on the couch—on closer inspection, its leg bones had already sunk into the sofa. The most grotesque sight was a cluster of lily-of-the-valley-shaped chandeliers hanging upside down from the ceiling in the second bedroom. The lampshades and metal brackets had melted and fused together, drooping downward like wax at the end of a burning candle. The once snow-white lampshades were caked in pitch-black dust. Each speck was a pinpoint-sized black dot, densely clustered together, as if they might start writhing and crawl out at any moment.

All of this—bizarre, unnatural, beyond human understanding and scientific explanation—merged together, giving An Zhe the illusion that the world itself was melting, like wax in fire, slowly fusing into one distorted mass.

Xibei returned to the living room, sat blankly on the floor, and lifted his grandfather’s body. He moved him from the chair, as if the chair were the most terrifying monster—like the corpse might at any moment merge with it. Once away from the chair, he laid Grandpa on the floor, but the muscles in his face immediately trembled again—the floor, too, felt like a monster.

In the next moment, he shuddered violently and suddenly stumbled back several steps—the realization hit him: his own existence was also a source of contamination.

Seeing his panic and helplessness, An Zhe stepped forward—but just as he moved one step, Xibei looked at him in horror and backed away.

If everything in the world could contaminate everything else, then only complete isolation could protect oneself.

An Zhe understood his fear, so he stopped and kept his distance.

“Sorry, I…” Xibei’s teeth chattered. “I need… to be alone.”

Lu Feng led An Zhe into the bedroom.

As they stepped inside, just seeing the drooping chandelier again made him freeze. An Zhe looked at the colonel and saw that his green eyes seemed to have iced over.

The next moment, Lu Feng took out his communicator from his breast pocket, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

An Zhe stood silently beside him. Xibei had already broken down. As a human, Lu Feng couldn’t be feeling much better. In fact, he probably sensed even more. While suppressing the fear caused by this mad world, he still had to think about the distant human base—for their sake, he had to remain calm.

If material contamination could make engines fail, then it could also affect the communicator.

There was a screwdriver in the bedside drawer. Lu Feng picked it up and started unscrewing the communicator’s casing.

The casing, intricate circuit boards, intersecting wiring, countless tiny parts were all laid out on the bed. Lu Feng picked up each one, inspecting them carefully under the light.

There were many parts. After watching for a while, An Zhe also picked up a few of the simpler components, checking whether they still matched the precise, structured standards of human machines.

With the bedroom door closed, it was as if only the two of them existed in the world. Neither spoke. In the sound of the rain, only the faint sounds of sifting through components could be heard. Lu Feng worked quickly, and most parts seemed normal.

But then An Zhe froze.

He stared at a small piece of chip board in his hand. On it were two parallel red copper wires, each made of dozens of fine strands. They were supposed to lie flat, with a few millimeters of space between them. But now, they had all come loose, bent in a strange arc, twisted together, indistinguishable—clearly unnatural.

In that moment, even if just briefly, An Zhe suddenly had a thought:
If even the communicator had been deformed by material mutation and was completely broken,
If Lu Feng could never return to the base—
Then what would happen?

An Zhe wasn’t that bad of a mushroom.

—He stared at the chip in his hand, bit his lip, and with a slight sting, finally tugged gently at Lu Feng’s sleeve.

Inside Lu Feng’s boot was a hidden clasp holding a sharp dagger. Now, the dagger was drawn. An Zhe used the flashlight they’d brought from the mine to light the chip. He watched as Lu Feng used the tip of the knife to carefully separate the tangled copper wires. They were already sticking together, but fortunately, it wasn’t too late—they could still be split apart.

Finally, when everything was cleaned up, An Zhe felt a subtle tension in his nerves. But at the same time, he felt light-headed, as if he were falling ill. Ever since the spore had begun maturing, his body had been getting weaker.

Lu Feng checked the remaining parts again and then reassembled them in order. He pressed the button to turn it on.

What came next was not the usual:
“Sorry, signal interrupted due to solar wind or ionospheric interference…”

But—

Beep—
Beep—
Beep—

The rain grew heavier. Thousands of large raindrops splattered against the window like bullets, creating a constant pounding. This was a torrential downpour that only happened in the height of summer. Outside the window had turned into a gray waterfall.

In a daze, a female voice seemed to come from the communicator—but the dizziness grew worse. The world blurred in his vision—and in the next second, he fell straight forward.

Before losing consciousness, he had only one thought—

He hoped the spore wouldn’t fall out too soon.