Little Pink Starfish

The warning from the Northern Base was concise.

Polly said, “They’ve noticed it too.”

An Zhe looked outside.

The Highlands Institute was situated on the highest peak. From there, the Abyss was fully visible below. The massive fault line looked like a gruesome wound on the pale skin of the earth, layered forests and swamps pulsing like blood and pus within the gash. In the distance—the far eastern coast was either sea or an immense lake; in any case, it stretched endlessly. In the dead silence, whispers mingled with the wind, and a grand murmur echoed faintly from the mist.

It resembled a monster lying dormant on the land.

This was not the Abyss An Zhe was familiar with—he had never experienced it like this before. The Abyss used to be a place full of blood and carnage. He had never seen it this calm.

A shadow appeared on the distant horizon, growing larger and nearer, until it hovered above the white building.

With a swoosh, Tang Lan folded his wings and landed directly on the corridor outside, pushing open the lab door.

“I’m back, sir,” he said. Then turning to Rum, asked, “Any attacks recently?”

Rum replied, “No.”

Polly Jones looked him up and down, as if checking whether he was alright. If it had been Lu Feng doing this, An Zhe might have thought it was a judgment to determine whether to kill or spare. But Polly’s gentle grey-blue eyes merely conveyed the concern of a kind elder checking if Tang Lan had been hurt.

Sure enough, Polly asked, “Did you encounter danger out there?”

“No danger, but I wasn’t injured,” Tang Lan said. “I’m relatively experienced out there.”

Polly said, “You’ve always reassured me.”

Tang Lan smiled. His sharp, handsome features carried a faint, cold killing aura. An Zhe remembered that Hubbard had been the best mercenary captain—so his deputy must be far from ordinary.

Polly Jones asked, “How are things outside?”

“Just as you predicted,” Tang Lan replied. “They’ve balanced out.”

As he spoke, he pulled a data cable from a drawer, connecting his micro-camera to the computer. Hundreds of images loaded and were projected onto a large screen.

At first glance, the photos looked empty—just the strange, indescribable landscapes of the Abyss, like scenic photos taken by curious tourists. But upon closer look, one couldn’t help holding their breath.

The most striking image was an aerial shot of a massive frozen lake. The frosty white ice trapped brown algae, floating limbs, and fallen leaves. But beneath the empty surface was an irregular black shadow—the back of an aquatic creature resting quietly underwater, its shape like an abstract painting.

On the shore of the lake, withered branches were entangled with large grey-red vines. A close-up showed smooth, worm-like surfaces with radiating star-shaped patterns beneath, and black veins pulsating visibly. An Zhe instantly realized this wasn’t a normal plant—these vines throughout the forest were tentacle-like monsters.

“There’s only one picture—it noticed me,” Tang Lan said.

Polly flipped through the photos with the remote.

“They went through three months of slaughter. Only large monsters remain—smaller creatures have completely disappeared,” Tang Lan said. “I fought a few times. Sir, I’m sure I’m the only one in the Institute who could escape them now. But I can’t fight them head-on. And most of the monsters in the Abyss are polymorphic—I don’t even know how terrifying they are anymore.”

“I understand,” Polly nodded slowly. His grey-blue eyes grew solemn. “If genes are a kind of resource, they’ve now completed integration within the Abyss. The monsters have reached a balance of power, and their intelligence has improved drastically. They understand that fighting would lead to mutual destruction. If I’m right, some have already started leaving the Abyss to hunt—and humans are certainly one of their targets. We must be on guard for coordinated attacks.”

“That’s correct,” Tang Lan said. “But there’s one difference from your hypothesis.”

Polly asked, “What did you find?”

Tang Lan pulled up another image—an indescribably grotesque one. Even without refined aesthetics, An Zhe could only describe it as “ugly,” violently assaulting the senses. Two densely tentacled soft-bodied creatures grew indescribable organs, and touched their slimy antennae. In the next image, they separated; in the third, one moved away.

“I observed six similar instances. They’re not holding separate territories as predicted. They move around in the Abyss, testing each other, then parting,” Tang Lan’s voice grew heavy. “I suspect the worst-case scenario. They seem to be communicating—I don’t know what. But each contact increases the fluctuations on their bodies.”

He continued, “I suspect they’re sensing… each other’s genes.”

“Very likely,” Polly said. “You’re the most sensitive to these fluctuations in the Institute.”

Tang Lan’s face turned pale. “They’re everywhere—in the air, on every creature. Sometimes I can’t even think clearly. I wasn’t supposed to return so soon. Sir, I… I think my mind is not quite right.”

Polly held his hand.

“A hundred years ago, when genetic sequences were most stable, integration was…” he began.

“But it’s not a magnetic field. I can feel that. Magnetic fields are a different kind of fluctuation,” Tang Lan closed his eyes, then knelt, pressing his forehead to Polly’s hand. His voice was hoarse: “Sir, do you already know something? You’re not surprised at all.”

“You won’t tell us—because the truth is something we can’t bear,” he said. “But I really…”

His voice grew hoarser, trailing off.

“Don’t be afraid… child,” Polly gently held Tang Lan’s shoulder, his voice like a vast, calm sea. “I will protect you until my last breath.”

Tang Lan looked up at Polly Jones, as if making a solemn vow: “We will also protect you and the Institute to the very end.”

“I’ve never asked this of you, but if the Institute falls,” Polly said slowly, “I ask that you don’t throw yourselves into the tide of monsters. Instead, go north—protect the human base.”

Tang Lan: “But the Judges execute all hybrids. The base will never accept us.”

Polly looked into the fading twilight.

“But in the end, I still want to believe in humanity’s mercy,” he said.

Tang Lan pulled a smile. “That’s because you’re noble and upright.”

Polly shook his head with a smile.

After Tang Lan left, the Simpson cage’s energy storage reached a critical level. A glaring scarlet light lit up the wide platform beneath the white building, and waves of heat surged upward. If one didn’t know it was a machine designed to capture the frequency and interaction trajectories of fundamental particles, An Zhe might have thought the area below was engulfed in flames.

The large screen in the lab was the terminal and control platform for the Simpson cage. However, due to design flaws, certain precise components had to be manually adjusted downstairs.

On the screen, the lines remained chaotic. They weren’t static—each time Polly tweaked a parameter, the tangled lines would morph from one kind of mess into another.

But Polly continued analyzing the lines, calculating functions, adjusting parameters, changing frequencies. The fluctuating lines kept leaping across the screen.

The music interrupted An Zhe’s thoughts. From the hallway, an old-fashioned cassette recorder played the tumultuous Symphony of Fate. Rum stood by the window, a sheet of staff paper set up before him. He played the harmonica along with the score, mimicking the symphony’s melody. Time passed. Eventually, he stopped.

“Do you understand music?” he asked.

An Zhe shook his head.

Rum pointed to the tape recorder. “After hearing a piece, could you reproduce it?”

An Zhe shook his head harder. Such a complex symphony—he could barely sense a fraction of its dynamics, let alone reproduce it.

“You need sheet music,” Rum murmured, flipping the page of his score.

But as he said “sheet music,” his eyes were fixed on the lab’s central screen.

As if a string in the void had been gently plucked, the tangled thoughts in An Zhe’s mind suddenly cleared. His eyes widened slightly.

“Fluctuation is a symphony,” he said. “Sir is trying to decode its score. Then… then he can do many things.”

Rum looked deeply at him. “You’re smarter than I am.”

An Zhe also looked at the screen. Could these lines reveal the secret of the distortion disaster? His eyes were lost in thought.

Or perhaps, this endless chaos was already another form of truth.

A difficult silence blanketed the lab. An Zhe lowered his head. Humanity’s fate was as obscure as those tangled lines. Perhaps this had nothing to do with mushrooms, yet he often felt unable to breathe.

He couldn’t explain why. Facing the Northern Base’s comm channel, he placed his fingers on the keyboard.

His fingers no longer moved smoothly—like his mycelium could no longer extend. When typing, his fingertips trembled uncontrollably.

With no fiber optics or towers, communication was costly—like oceanic telegrams from the early 20th century. Words had to be used sparingly.

He sent:
“How is the base?”

By an odd coincidence, almost simultaneously, a message came from the Northern Base:
“How is the institute?”

The Northern Base was willing to sacrifice anything to preserve human genetic purity. They hated monsters, and the Tribunal never tolerated hybrids. It seemed only Dr. Ji, that kind-hearted scientist, tolerated the integrationists and cared about their status.

An Zhe replied:
“All is well.”
Glossing over reality was a uniquely human skill—he had learned it.

A moment later, the reply came:
“The base is well too.”

Gazing at the comm screen, An Zhe hesitated, then slowly typed:
“Are the Judges well?”
But he backspaced, deleting it several times.

While he hesitated, a message from the Northern Base arrived:
“Any recent sightings of new mutated individuals?”
An Zhe thought briefly and replied:
“Not yet.”

Then he sent the revised message:
“Is the Tribunal well?”

Reply:
“The Tribunal is functioning normally.”

An Zhe relaxed a little.

“Best regards. Good night,” he typed politely.

Reply:
“Good night.”

Seeing those two words, An Zhe lifted his fingers from the keyboard. He took out a silver badge. His body was weakening quickly—it was the end. His joints were stiff, but he held the badge tightly.

Footsteps echoed on the stairs. Polly had come up. But he didn’t return to his room—he silently stood at the corridor railing, back turned.

An Zhe opened the door and joined Polly. The music had stopped. Below, the Simpson cage burned brightly. Night wind howled, and from the distant dark sky came a long wail.

Polly said, “Not staying inside?”

An Zhe shook his head, thinking of what Tang Lan had said.

“Sir,” he asked, “do you already know something?”

Polly looked at him.

“Sometimes, I think you understand more than anyone,” Polly said. “You’re special. You seem more fragile than everyone, and yet… you fear nothing.”

An Zhe lowered his eyes.

“Yes,” he said.

“But I don’t yet have the final answer.” Polly reached out and buttoned An Zhe’s coat. “Would you like to hear a simple story?”

An Zhe said, “Yes.”

“It’s a scientist’s hypothesis, from long ago,” Polly’s voice was gentle in the cold wind.

“Suppose today, you travel through time—arrive a year from now. Then you travel back, and return to now.” Polly said. “Then, standing before me would be two identical yous.”

An Zhe thought and nodded. “Yes.”

“You know, matter is composed of atoms, atoms contain electrons. There are no two identical leaves in the world, but all electrons are the same. So how can you distinguish one electron from another?”

An Zhe thought. “They’re in different places.”

“But space doesn’t define position, and neither does time. These are coordinates meaningful to four-dimensional humans only. In higher dimensions, time and space are just horizontal and vertical lines on paper.” Polly drew a dot on the railing. “An electron moves through time and space. Now it moves forward one second.”

He drew a slanted line to the right and marked it.

“Then it moves back one second, to here.” A leftward line, another dot.

Three dots, two lines—a sharp angle opening to the left. Polly drew a vertical line through the two left dots.

“Our time is here. What do we see?” he asked.

An Zhe thought for a long time.

“Two electrons,” he said.

“Yes. We see two identical electrons. But they’re actually one—just appearing in two places at once.” Polly dotted countless stars nearby. “An estimate: Earth has 10^51 identical electrons forming all matter. How can we prove they aren’t the same one oscillating billions of times across the timeline?”

“Likewise, how can we prove the entire universe isn’t the result of one or several fundamental particles dancing through spacetime?”

An Zhe frowned. He couldn’t.

With limited cognition, he struggled to absorb it.

“So… am I the same electron as you, sir?”

Polly smiled gently. He wrapped his arm around An Zhe’s thin shoulder like an elder comforting a child.

“This is just one of countless human theories about the universe—not the truth, maybe even far from it. We can’t verify it. I’m just saying: our bodies, thoughts, will—our Earth—all are smaller than an electron in grand scale.”

An Zhe gazed into the distance. He was just a simple-structured mushroom, without a scientist’s mind or far-reaching vision. He didn’t understand such theories. But he softly said, “But we’re real.”

As the words fell, his face suddenly went blank. His brow furrowed—pain pierced through his chest.

He grabbed the railing, trembling violently, vomiting blood, and fell forward.

Polly’s arm shook. He caught An Zhe’s limp body, holding him close.

“Rum!” he shouted urgently toward the lab.

An Zhe knew Polly wanted to save him again—with warmth, antibiotics, defibrillators… all of it.

He coughed more blood. Polly wiped it away with his sleeve.

The white fabric was stained red. An Zhe looked at Polly and forced a smile.

“No need,” he said weakly, gripping Polly’s arm. “Really, no need.”

Polly held him tightly. “Just hold on.”

“I…” An Zhe looked into his eyes. He seemed to see the endless sea and sky.

He still had clarity—he wasn’t at his weakest yet. But soon… tomorrow or today… he could go. Polly was the kindest elder in the world, treating him with love. He could die with that love. In this era, it was more than most could dream of.

But if he died now, Polly would be left with no explanation. No cause. Just a mystery he couldn’t solve—something that haunted scientists most.

He could die as a monster. He wasn’t afraid Polly would hate him—he’d received enough already.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry.” An Zhe looked at Polly, and after deciding, felt lighter. The pain was bearable. “I’m sorry, Polly.”

Polly gazed at him.

“I…” An Zhe smiled, coughed, and tears mixed with blood rolled down. He gasped and said, “I lied to you. I wasn’t infected by a monster. I am a monster. I’m not human. I only… consumed a human’s genes. I just… look like one.”

Polly paused for a second. Then, his grey-blue eyes showed even deeper sorrow.

“No matter what you are, just hold on a little longer, okay?”

An Zhe shook his head.

“I’m not sick,” he said. “My lifespan… it’s just this long. It can’t be changed. Don’t try to save me.”

Polly held him tightly. They stared at each other, wrapped in shared sorrow.

Compared to illness, a set lifespan was even more unchangeable. From the moment of birth, it destined an end—a threshold no one could cross. A threshold set by God, if God existed.

In the silence, the wind howled. In it, An Zhe heard Polly say something.

—And when he heard it, his heart jolted. That phrase… it was so familiar. He felt as if he’d returned to a night three months ago, standing before Lu Feng in a similarly strong wind.

Polly Jones said, “What’s in your hand?”

There was nothing An Zhe could hide anymore. He slowly opened his fingers.

Lying quietly in his palm was a silver badge—a symbol of a Judge.

Polly looked at it. An Zhe swore he saw profound sorrow in those grey-blue eyes.

Then Polly Jones reached into the inner pocket of his coat and took out something, holding it in his palm.

An Zhe’s eyes widened.

It was another silver badge—nearly identical.

“You…” An Zhe was stunned. “You’re… a Judge?”

“I used to be,” Polly said softly. “I’m a deserter.”